11 Essential Comics To Read If You Love Batman

6. Batman: Heart Of Hush

No, not Hush. Heart of Hush. As in the sequel.

Jeph Loeb's OG 2003 Hush saga may look good, but it's heavy on spectacle and light on mystery. It also broaches many of the same beats that previous books - like Knightfall and The Long Halloween - had already tackled, so it's not really the best book for burgeoning Bat-readers to investigate.

Heart of Hush, on the other hand, most certainly is. Written by BTAS scribe Paul Dini and drawn by Dustin Nguyen - an artist that may just produce the best Bat-covers ever, really - it formed the epoch of Dini's short-lived but much beloved stint on Detective Comics, and is just as much a Batman story as it is a Catwoman one.

Published in 2009 at the height of Grant Morrison's R.I.P storyline, the book goes to great lengths to detail what's so great about Bruce Wayne's relationship with Selina Kyle, and does it all while offering a fundamentally sinister look at the character of Thomas Elliot, who, having just returned to Gotham, is keen on getting his revenge on Bruce and his allies.

The book does a great job of further developing the character off the back of his original (mediocre) appearance, and laid the foundations for Dini's later work on Streets of Gotham. A great book for Arkham fanatics and BTAS lovers alike.