The Batman Movie: 10 Comics Matt Reeves NEEDS To Adapt
7. Ego
DC Comics/Darwyn Cooke
Darwyn Cooke's Batman: Ego is a Batman story not nearly enough people have read and revered. The writer/artist was a legend of the medium, helming numerous stories before his tragic passing in 2016, and Ego is absolutely one of his best works.
Centred around a Batman slightly later in his vigilante career, Ego is an intricate, complex study of the psychology behind Bruce Wayne's character and it's for that reason why it should inform elements of the new film.
All too often, big screen productions and even video games centred around Batman have depicted Bruce Wayne as a mask that hides Batman, relegating the character to only the most cursory of moments and instead electing to spotlight Batman as the 'true' version of the character. What Ego intimated was that both elements were vital to the Caped Crusader, and that by taking away one, the character just wouldn't be the same.
Stunningly illustrated, character-driven and essential, Batman: Ego remains the most comprehensive exploration of Bruce Wayne's psychology, and provides the perfect blueprint to launch into it on film.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
