Look, if ever there was a time to get into a dauntingly huge pop culture for which you never had the time before, I’d suggest that you’re never going to get a better opportunity. In this occasional series*, I’ll pick out some of the beasts of pop culture with which I am more than passingly familiar and give you some handy ways to ease yourself into them. This chap’s been around for over 80 years so it can be difficult to know where to even start. Do you right back to 1939 and start from the beginning (Detective Comics 27, nerdy fact fans)? Do you pick up the latest issue? Well, let me give you some options to work with.
The Key Graphic Novels
If you’re wanting to get into the modern interpretation of Batman, Frank Miller’s Year One is still a great starting point and has been the influence for most modern televisual interpretations of Bruce Wayne’s origins. That shot you always get of young Bruce kneeling in an alleyway with his dead parents? Starts right here. It’s very much played as a crime drama, largely because Batman is a superhero without any actual superpowers. The bookend follow up to that is Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns which shows an ageing retired Bruce Wayne coming out retirement one last time**. For other standalone stories, The Killing Joke is probably the definitive Joker origin story (possibly) and the double whammy of The Long Halloween and Dark Victory follow on from Year One in showing how the freaks begin to take over Gotham.
The Crossovers
Alternatively, you could leap in with some of the chunky crossover storylines to get a flavour of what collecting Batman comics is truly like. There will be some references to other stories but, for the most part, these major storylines can be read on their own. The first one that got me into Batman comics was Knightfall - the story that introduced Bane and influenced The Dark Knight Rises. Another enjoyable one is No Man’s Land, in which an earthquake decimates Gotham (in the prior storyline Cataclysm) and the government cuts off from the mainland, leaving it be run by various gangs headed up by many of the main Batman villains.
Individual Creator Runs
Over the last decade, the main Batman title has tended to have defined runs by individual creators that can be read from start to finish. Grant Morrison’s run introduced Damian Wayne, son of Bruce and current version Robin, while Scott Snyder and Tom King have both completed intriguing runs on the character, taking him on longer runs with an endgame in sight.
The Very Beginning
It's always an option - go right from the start and work your way up - but even I haven’t really done that. The comics from the 30s and 40s are from a culturally different time and aren't the easiest of reads in my opinion. There are some surprising elements too - Batman carries a gun in some of the early issues!
So there you go - a few tips to get you started on the time-devouring habit of reading comics.
* As, lets face it, they’re all occasional once I get bored of them and start doing something else
** Don’t bother with any of the sequels - they’re really bad.
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