5 Totally Non-Essential Batman Stories You Should Check Out Anyway
4. Batman: Year 100
Aside from some tenuous continuity with Frank Millers Dark Knight Returns, this awesome effort by Paul Pope throws canon out the window in the name of making a great Batman story, and is all the better for it. Set in a standard-issue dystopian future of 2039 (the 100th anniversary of Batmans first appearance in print), the plot is a murky mystery in which the Batman, long dismissed as an urban legend, returns to battle the forces of corruption in Gotham with trademark furious aplomb (the true identity of this masked hard-case, too youthful to be Bruce Wayne, is never revealed). The artwork is gorgeous, depicting Batman as a brawny titan and Gotham as a crazed and smoky hell-scape. Whats more, Batmans use of arcane gadgetry and athletic prowess to humiliate his enemies has rarely been sweeter.