Lists telling you about the definitive Batman stories you absolutely have to buy are ten-a-penny. By now, anyone in the world with even a vague interest in Batman knows that they should probably check out Year One, The Dark Knight Returns and The Long Halloween. So as an antidote to the endless carping about the greats, here is an eclectic selection of Batman media that you don’t really need to have in your life, but at least you’ll have a great time if you do.
5. Batman Versus Predator
This is how you do a crossover. It reads like above-average fan-fiction, but it’s such a wild ride of nerd-tastic badassery that you won’t mind. Everyone’s favourite extra-terrestrial big-game hunter arrives in Gotham City in search of worthy prey, and starts picking off the power-players of Gotham’s underworld on both sides of a gangland feud.
Of course, Batman is soon on the case of the mysterious slasher, only to discover that he’s crossed paths with a brutal alien warrior of a far higher calibre than his usual quarry. Naturally, he’s forced to up his game, as the Predator’s reign of terror threatens to plunge all of Gotham into lethal chaos. Everything builds to a knock-down drag-out finale in which the Predator finally meets a human worthy of his skills. Best moment: Alfred going after the Predator with a Wayne family heirloom…the trusty blunderbuss.
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It should also be noted that The Joker Blogs is in the midst of film Series 2 that will bridge the movies further and up the stakes.
Premiering later this year…
Batman: Gothic is one of my all time favorite Batman stories, and while it will never come to pass, I wish DC would do one of their direct-to-DVD animated movie adaptations of it. Mr. Whisper (what a great villain name) is one of the most twisted and personal rogues in Batman’s gallery, and the art by Klaus Jansen is some of my favorite of all time, even rivaling Miller’s work on The Dark Knight Returns.
I would have thrown in “Batman: Holy Terror” (not to be confused with Frank Miller’s proposed “Holy Terror, Batman!”) It’s an Elseworlds Tale where Bruce Wayne’s a priest in a universe where Oliver Cromwell and his followers took over England and the Americas. Of course, the resultant theocratic government is corrupt as Hell, and Wayne learns that his beloved parents, long thought to have been the victims of a random mugging, were in fact leaders of an underground resistance. He thus swears vengeance and becomes the Batman. The writing and art are both really good quality, and the writers managed to create an alternate reality that’s pretty damned appalling in the details (Aquaman’s been lobotomized, Zatanna cynically serves the state, and Superman… well, it ain’t pretty.)