5. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
What Frank Miller began, he also ended. The Dark Knight Returns remains one of very few comic books to make the New York Times best-seller list. It tells the "last" Batman tale, that of an aged Bruce Wayne who, decades after hanging up the cape and cowl, realizes that his city has become the worst possible version of itself and that he must fix it before he dies. There is an animated adaptation of this book in the works from DC Animation and if Nolan and company do choose to take one more crack at Batman after the trilogy concludes, there is little doubt that this would be the story they would adapt. In any case, it is the definitive Batman tale, and one that has made audiences question their beliefs about the Dark Knight and his place in the world for almost twenty years. Read it.