So, Batman. He's the second oldest character still in publication in mainstream American Superhero comics, having been published non-stop since his debut in May of 1939. He also has unarguably the greatest gallery of villains of any superhero, ranging from the stone cold classics (such as The Joker, Penguin, Two-Face and Catwoman) to the underappraciated gems (Calender Man, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee) to the down right ridiculous (Ten-Eyed Man). And it is also fair to say that he has the best supporting cast of any character in comics, be it his Bat-Family (the various Robins, Bat-Girls and Bat-Women) or his allies and confidents (Alfred Pennyworth and Jim Gordon being the standouts here). So with such scope and range in what to look for, it should be fairly easy to find Batman stories that can be classified as classics of the comic book medium. But which is the best?
As per usual I have given you ten options to start with and you can add your own. You can add specific comic issues if you so please, but try to refer to any multi-issue storylines by name (e.g. Batman #492-511 would be refered to as Knightfall). Elseworlds stories do count, as do any World's Finest or team-up stories provided Batman is a title character (so no The Brave and The Bold stories). We are not including any Bat-family storylines that do not include Batman, nor Justice League or Outsiders, Batman-centric stories only.
You know, I have a great idea for a batman story I call it…
Middle Class Batman
Basically the plot is that one of Batman’s villains forges Martha’s and Thomas will and passes it off as the real one. This will says that Thomas and Martha’s money doesn’t go to Bruce but to someone else. This causes Bruce to lose all his money and people to think he created a fake will. This makes him lose his position and get him evicted. Though he seals of the batcave before this happens. He moves to a run down apartment with Alfred. Without his money he can’t maintain his equipment or the batsuit, but he still needs to be Batman and solve this mystery. So with the small amount money he has he creates a low-tech Batsuit and makes some cheap gadgets. He has a rough fight with one of his villains I’m thinking Killer Croc, but using his smarts he defeats the villains and learns the identity of the person behind this.
The person behind will be Lincoln March and after Batman finds evidence that the Will is fake everything goes back to normal except that the Board of his parents company isn’t willing to hire him back and now Bruce must find a new job to fund his night life.
Rekulhs…. Sorry, but that is a TERRIBLE idea! We already have DC characters like “El Diablo” that do the 2-fisted Hero thing on the cheap. Bruce, without his fortune, would never become Batman, and thus wouldn’t have to ‘seal off the Batcave’, just leave it to whoever bought Stately Wayne Manor…
They’ve done a LOT of “Batman loses all his money” stories over the years, and it never lasts more than an issue or two, because Batman without the resource base just ISN’T interesting! {I’m not going to get into how he could beat Killer Croc with no Martial Arts training, and minimal gadgetry, much less into why Killer Croc would even KNOW who stole the Wayne fortune from him…} Thank you for sharing, keep on working, you might be a writer someday…
Yeah thanks or your criticism. I ain’t no writer I just had an idea and wanted to share it. You know the whole reason the internet exist in the first place.
@William A. Peterson- You know dude, you need to chill a bit sometimes. Your comments come off really aggressive half the time, even if you might not mean for them to. Take your comment here for example. You absolutely lay into Rekulhs Nathe’s idea, straight up calling it terrible (capitalised it does suggest aggression) and that then makes the final sentance seem really sarcastic and condescending, again, even if you didn’t mean for it to be.
Sorry. It was not personal, but it IS an idea that I truly dislike.
Not getting on him for sharing it, which is why I put that last line in there.
On the other hand, I am trying to explain, not just that I don’t like it, but WHY I
don’t like it. Kind of “Let’s do an alternate version of Star Trek, following the same characters,
but assuming that Star travel is impossible, and everyone stays on their home planets!”
It’s different, certainly, but it defeats the entire purpose behind the character(s), without
really offering anything useful to work with.
Sarcasm IS difficult for me to avoid…. More of a defense mechanism than an attack mode.
Mostly, just trying to help, and probably failing at it… 😉
William Peterson
A terrible idea? Oh, i don’t know. The first entry on the list, Batman: Year one, is essentially a “low tech, no gadgets” batman, and it works just fine IMO.
So maybe this could work, as a more “down to earth” batman.