10 Essential Batman Stories For New Readers

6. Tower Of Babel

So we've established most of what makes Batman great - his friends, his enemies, his city, his wonderful toys - but, for the most part, he's still been confined to his home in Gotham City.

In DC Comics, there are two main depictions of Batman. There's the Batman of Gotham, who solves mysteries and fights street-level crime in his city. Then there's the superheroic Batman, who's friends with Superman, The Flash, Wonder Woman, and frequently teams up with them to fight world (and sometimes universe) threatening menaces as part of the Justice League. Who have a headquarters on the moon.

That poses two big questions, especially considering the character we've built up in the previous four stories. For one, where does the Dark Knight find the time to help out when he's supposed to be governing Gotham? And for another, what good is a normal bloke with a bunch of gadgets on a team of near gods? There's no good answer to the former, but the latter is explored by the JLA storyline Tower of Babel, where a villain discovers the secret files Batman has been keeping on the weaknesses of his team mates, just in case any of them turned bad.

He is part of the team because he's so smart, and this brilliant Mark Waid and Howard Porter joint shows how that intelligence is just as powerful as Superman's rippling muscles. It also starkly illustrates how he things of his fellow heroes, and what they think of him.