aspro said:

I'm hoping there is someone who knows a bit about the Batman comics - graphic novels - whatever.

After playing Arkham I was pretty interested in the subject to went to my -- graphic novel -- section of my collection and found Year One and The Long Halloween (the wife buys comics/ manga).  Year One was exceptional, The Long Halloween was good, not great.

Where do I go from here?  Have I already read the best?

Also once you read Hush check out the Dark Knight Returns. The art is rough by today's standards but I do consider it the best Batman story of all time. But because it's sort of "the final Batman story" it might help if you were a little more familiar with other characters in the Batman universe.

Whatever you do just stay away from any of stories written by Grant Morrison. He writes nothing but strange and bizarre stories that some people think are brilliant, and others (like myself) absolutely loathe.  He shakes things up and some people like that, but you won't get any kind of traditional story out of him. Best to leave his stuff for when you're tired of Batman and think he needs to be revitalized.

There are plenty of great graphic novels to read still. Other popular ones I didn't see mentioned yet:

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

The Killing Joke

The Man Who Laughs

Joker (Brian Azzarello)

To those that have given titles thank you -- I'll be getting all of those mentioned so far.

EDIT: Unless I find that they are ungodly expensive!

"Could you ever see yourself sympathizing with the Joker? That’s exactly what this story makes you, and Batman, do."


He's always been a sympathetic character to me! Hell, he's almost always the best prat of anything Batman related.

ASK_Story said:

I recommend reading The Long Haloween from Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale.

Really a great Batman graphic novel.

I read that one at the time of the post.  It is pretty good.  I thought that they tried a little too hard to cram most of the iconic baddies into the game, but the Harvey Dent story was cool.  From what I have read Arkham City is going to lean heavily on the long halloween characters like Cat Woman and two Face.

Foolz said:

"Could you ever see yourself sympathizing with the Joker? That’s exactly what this story makes you, and Batman, do."




                    He's always been a sympathetic character to me! Hell, he's almost always the best prat of anything Batman related.

Yeah I dig Joker.  I loved in Arkham how he was pointing out how f'd up Batman is constantly. "There's a nut walking around dressed like a *bat*" kind of thing.

ASK_Story said:

aspro said:

ASK_Story said:

I recommend reading The Long Haloween from Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale.

Really a great Batman graphic novel.

I read that one at the time of the post.  It is pretty good.  I thought that they tried a little to hard to cram most of the iconic baddies into the game, but the Harvey Dent story was cool.  From what I have read Arkham City is going to lean heavily on the long halloween characters like Cat Woman and two Face.

Have you read the second one they worked on, Dark Victory? I haven't read that one but I think it's also good.

Also, the one where Loeb worked with Jim Lee was pretty cool.

Nah, I've ordered the ones above, but still have only read Long Halloween and Year one (besides the 70's garbage I read in the 80's).

I've read the Dark Knight returns and the sequel to that the Dark Knight Strikes again.

Arkham Asylum was short, but very good, the artwork is very dark.

Batman Year One

I have the Long Halloween.

You might want to check out the batman animated series and the batman animated films like Under the Red Hood, Mask of the Phantasm, Sub Zero and Mystery of the Batwoman.

Oh yeah did you see the arkam city comic that is coming out?

I had to scroll back 9 pages for this.

http://thevgpress.com/ggweekly/ggweekly__12.html&perPage=20&perPage=20#comment106413