As one of DC’s oldest and most popular characters, Batman has a wealth of stories and comics for fans to read. Of the character’s more than 80 years of stories, some of them are not just great Batman stories but also are just some of the best comics ever written, stories that have helped define contemporary comics in big ways. And then there are stories that simply aren’t good.
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Every era of Batman has its bad comics, but the 21st century has seen some really bad ones, stories so terrible that they’ve tarnished creator reputations and left fans wondering how the stories got told in the first place. Here are seven of the worst Batman comics of the 21st century so far — including one that defies explanation and just has to be read to understand why it’s so awful.
7) “Hush 2”
When it was first announced that Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee’s Batman: Hush was getting a sequel, fans were thrilled. “Hush” is easily one of Batman’s most iconic and acclaimed books so the idea of a sequel from the same creative team felt like an easy win. Unfortunately, when “Hush 2” actually arrived, the sequel turned out to be not even close to the original, landing it a spot as one of the worst Batman books in years.
There’s a two-part reason why “Hush 2” falls flat. The first is a reexamination of “Hush” itself. In the two decades since that story was first published, readers are starting to see the story as maybe not being quite as good as it was once hyped up to be, particularly its ending. That means that some of the weaknesses of the original color the sequel for readers. The second part is that “Hush 2” is an outdated story that didn’t really fit with what had been going on in Batman generally. It felt less like a story and more like a cash grab and some filler until the line could reset for Matt Fraction’s run and it simply didn’t work for fans.
6) All-Star Batman and Robin
Given how frequently All-Star Batman and Robin ends up on a “worst of” list, it almost feels like punching down to include it here. But you can’t have a worst of the century thus far list without calling out what is truly possibly the worst Batman story ever written so, here we are.
Everything about All-Star Batman and Robin is bad. The book is needlessly edgy, violent, and features a Batman who is abusive, ruthlessly violent, and disturbing at every turn — he uses slurs against Dick Grayson and lights criminals on fire before having sex with Black Canary right in front of them. Nothing about this story makes sense. It’s just an atrocity.
5) Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again
Given how awful All-Star Batman and Robin is, it should be no surprise that another Frank Miller Batman book would land on this list. Or maybe it is a surprise since Miller is the man responsible for one of the greatest Batman stories, one that helped usher in a darker take on the character, The Dark Knight Returns. In either case, The Dark Knight Strikes Again basically trashes everything good The Dark Knight Returns did and delivers a bunch of nonsense disguised as a Batman comic.
How much nonsense? The book characterizes Batman as being ruthless and cynical, letting people be killed because he is convinced it’s a trap, makes him obsessed with taking down Lex Luthor’s government, sees Batman torment and taunt Dick Grayson to the point that he loses his mind and becomes a monster himself — and that’s only scratching the surface. It’s just bad.
4) Batman: White Knight
Batman: White Knight is a book that had real promise. The story is, essentially, an examination of the idea of what if the Joker was actually right and sees the Joker get medicated for his madness and turns into a productive member of society and immediately goes about trying to save Gotham, though not by fighting crime vigilante style, but by actually solving the city’s problems instead. This in turn leads Jack Napier (Joker goes back to using his real name) to come to the conclusion that Batman is the problem, actually.
It’s that last part that derails the whole thing. Once can argue that the actual quality of the individual comics declines a great deal after the first couple of issues, but the bigger issue is that it gives into the overdone and overwrought notion that Batman is the real villain of Gotham. It’s edgy in the worst possible way.
3) Batman: Gotham War
One of the newer comics on this list, “Gotham War” is one of the major arcs for Chip Zdarsky’s run on Batman and Tini Howard’s run on Catwoman (the storyline is a crossover between the two titles.) The story largely sees Batman and his allies clashing with Catwoman and her plan to deal with crime in Gotham, a plan that sets the former lovers on opposite sides of one another. What that actually entails is somehow Catwoman trains all the bad guys in Gotham to only steal from the rich and everyone just decides that’s okay because it’s just the rich being harmed.
The story is full of bad characterizations across the board, but especially with Batman who is poorly and inconsistently written and none of the story even makes any sense. The story is just one bad idea and one problem after another, and most Batman fans would just like to forget it exists.
2) Batman: The Widening Gyre
Another Batman story that ends up on “worst of” lists so often it feels mean to add it here, Batman: The Widening Gyre is a mess of a book. The book is full of immature and crude humor — there’s even a bit about Batman and Silver St. Cloud having sex so loud that the dolphins around their private island told Aquaman. The book also features the infamous bit about Batman peeing himself.
But even removing the immature elements of the story, The Widening Gyre just has a bad plot and portrays Batman as being kind of stupid. Baphomet, the villain of the story, way too easily gains Batman’s trust, so much so that Batman just lets him into the Batcave. It’s honestly shocking for someone who is supposed to be the world’s greatest detective. The book was such a mess that while it was supposed to get a sequel, that never happened.
1) Batman: Odyssey
Batman: Odyssey may be the weirdest Batman story ever written. It’s so weird that you can’t even really explain the plot. This is, unfortunately, a comic so bad that it really needs to be experienced to be believed. It rambles, it’s weird, it doesn’t seem to have any real focus or point and we get a lot of weird Batman moments throughout.
What might make the story super weird, however, is how each issue starts. We get a naked (or near-naked) Bruce Wayne being creepily personal with the reader as he recounts his story. It’s like being hit on by some creepy person who won’t take no for an answer, which is honestly made worse by the ending reveal that the actual audience for Batman’s weird naked story time is Superman. Really, it’s bad. You should read it, but it’s very bad.
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