Batman is the engine of DC Comics and has been for years now. He’s the most popular character the publisher puts out and they put out a lot about him. A lot of people complain about Batman, saying he takes spots from other characters, but that’s not the case. His success pays for those B and C-list titles you love so much. You’d have none of them without Batman, and the only reason Batman has reached this level is because of the quality of his stories. There’s something about the Dark Knight that has impacted fans over the last 86 years, and he’s become a legend.
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There have been some fantastic Batman stories, and creators have built numerous eras of Gotham’s greatest hero. Each of these eras has brought something special to the character, and the best of them have molded him into the beloved (and don’t lie; you complain about him but you all buy so many of his books every month) hero he is today. These are the five best eras of Batman, each of them pushing what the character could be.
5) Tom King Era
A lot of Batman fans don’t like Tom King’s run on the character and I want to say something I’ve been saying in articles like this for years: you are all wrong. Tom King wrote Batman (Vol. 4) #1-85 and gave readers a dive into the psyche of the hero. He revolutionized the relationship with Catwoman (which became a problem because DC wouldn’t let him pull the trigger on marrying them; many fans got mad about this and never stopped), made the best argument for Bane as a Joker-level villain, and told great stories with numerous villains that dug into every character in the book. King was able to capture the depression, the anxiety, the sheer manic panic that is being Batman, and it was the most interesting the character had been in ages.
4) Miller/Post-Crisis Era
Crisis on Infinite Earths “fixed” the DC Universe, doing away with the multiverse and rebooting the whole shebang. Batman got the classic “Year One” from Frank Miller and artist David Mazzuchelli, which was something of a follow-up to The Dark Knight Returns, the beginning to that story’s ending. “Year One” became canon, and Miller’s more hard-edged Batman became the rule. This led to several years of great Batman stories. This era lasted from 1986 to about 1992, with creators like Jim Starlin, Jim Aparo, Marv Wolfman, Alan Davis, Todd McFarlane, Grant Morrison, Dave McKean, Klaus Janson, Alan Moore, Brian Bolland and many more supplying tremendous Batman stories. This era birthed stories like Batman: The Killing Joke, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, “Year Two”, “Year Three”, “Death in the Family”, “Gothic”, and many more. It’s an era that was better than it gets credit for and played a big role in the future of Batman.
3) New 52 Era
Usually, when we talk about the New 52, we talk about how its early popularity fizzled out and that many of the books weren’t great. However, when we talk about Batman and the New 52, we’re talking about one of the best eras of Batman. We got the Scott Synder/Greg Capullo run on Batman, Pete Tomasi and Patrick Gleason on Batman and Robin, the end of the Morrison run, and much more. Not everything was perfect, but there were so many amazing Batman stories to read in the New 52 that it became one of the most beloved eras of the character.
2) The Morrison Era
Grant Morrison is one of DC’s greats, and they have something of a history with the Dark Knight. They wrote Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, which was their biggest paycheck ever at the time, and “Gothic”, as well as writing the character in numerous other books. They would take over as writer of Batman in 2007, and would begin a three-act Batman epic. The first one, which spanned Batman (Vol. 1) #655-683, saw Batman trying to solve the mysteries of his past while battling a fearsome new enemy before “dying” at the hands of Darkseid. The next act spanned Batman and Robin (Vol. 1) #1-16 and Batman: The Resurrection of Bruce Wayne, and was about Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne as Batman and Robin and the return of Bruce Wayne. The final part, which encompassed the first two volumes of Batman Incorporated, saw him take Batman worldwide and deal with Leviathan, a new enemy with an old foe at its head. Morrison took Batman to another level, creating a framework to canonize everything in the character’s history. It was brilliant, and it remains one of the greatest eras of any hero in comics (we also got the stellar Detective Comics run of Paul Dini during this era, so read that too).
1) The Bronze Age Era
Batman was quite popular in the ’50s and ’60s, but he was nothing like he is now. The ’50s brought in the weird sci-fi and the obsession with marrying the character off, and the ’60s were weird and wild, partly because of 1966’s Batman TV series. The comics copied that feel and it wore out its welcome. Then the Bronze Age happened. The Bronze Age of Comics lasted from 1970 to 1985 and it would change Batman forever. Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams had their run with the character, creating some amazing stories and bringing the darkness back to the Dark Knight. Later, Steve Englehart and Marshall Rodgers would give readers more of the same. Earth-Two Batman got some spotlight, and the Caped Crusader was the star of The Brave and the Bold, teaming up with numerous heroes over the run of the series. Batman and the Outsiders came out, and we got Nightwing and Jason Todd out of these years. It built Batman up to what he’d become in the present, and is an amazing era for the character.
What’s your favorite era of Batman? Leave a comment in the comment section below and join the conversation on the ComicBook Forums!
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