Batman is one of DC’s most enduring and popular characters, and as such, it’s only natural that he’s been a part of some of the company’s best comics. From “Year One” to The Long Halloween, there are dozens, if not hundreds of amazing, must-read Batman stories that are some of the best comics ever put to pages. However, for all the amazing comics the Dark Knight has been a part of over the years, there naturally must be ones that are less respectable. And then there are some that are far, far worse. Batman has starred in some of DC’s best comics, and some of its worst, and these ten comic books are some of the most atrocious, least redeemable comics ever produced by anyone.
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Some did horrible damage to the character, others were so out of character that it spawned a thousand YouTube shorts about how “Batman is the real villain,” and others were just plain poorly written. Okay, I’ve stalled long enough, let’s get into it.
10) Three Jokers
Batman: Three Jokers is an absolute mess, but on some level that was inevitable. Way back during the events of “The Darkseid War” it was revealed that there were three Jokers, and this revelation hyped up fans as theories started to circulate. Then, in no small part due to lots of behind the scenes issues, the promised answer didn’t come for five years. By that point, the answer to the three Jokers mystery had become a thing of cosmic proportions, and fans’ expectations were so high that anything short of a universally beloved revelation could have been anything but a little disappointing. The Three Jokers we got was far from great, and at times downright horrible. Not only was this revelation both convoluted and way too simple, the story was just insulting at times.
The worst part about this story is that every time it introduces an interesting concept it goes out of its way to give the most boring resolution possible. The Jokers kidnap Red Hood to transform him into one of them, then arbitrarily decide not to. Red Hood kills one of the Jokers, then it’s immediately forgotten about to focus on Jason’s forced romance with Barbara. Joker orchestrated everything to force Batman to forgive Joe Chill so he could be the person who hurt Batman the most, and as awesome as that revelation could be, the story around it is so nothing that it falls flat. This story lacks any staying power, and is frankly just the embodiment of disappointment. Fans would never have been one hundred percent satisfied with the answer, but this comic was so bad that all it did was sour the concept beyond repair.
9) White Knight
This is a Batman story written by someone who seems to hate Batman and doesn’t understand him at all. The entire premise of this story is basically “What if the Joker is right?” which is a wild idea to entertain about a mass murderer. This comic and its sequels portrays Batman as a man so consumed by vengeance that he can’t realize he’s actually doing more harm to Gotham, and that most of his villains are assisted by the elites of the city who use the destruction caused by Batman’s fights to buy property on the cheap. Joker, upon taking a new medicine that temporarily makes him sane, becomes a Gary Stu that immediately solves all of Gotham’s problems by proving with facts and logic that Batman would be way better if he gave all of his supplies to the GCPD, like that isn’t known for its corruption or anything.
The writer, Sean Murphy, calls Jason Todd the first Robin and Dick the second not to change the timeline to better fit the story, but because he legitimately thought that was the normal lore. If that doesn’t show that Murphy doesn’t know anything about Batman or how he works, then I don’t know what does. This entire thing just seems mean-spirited towards the Bat, and I honestly don’t see the appeal of Joker being the good guy all along. It reads like Murphy is talking down to Batman fans, which is a really weird thing to do with a Batman comic.
8) Reptilian
Why do people keep letting Garth Ennis write superhero comics? He is very open about how he doesn’t like superheroes or even the concept of them, and his overly edgy style is obviously best suited for villains or antiheroes like the Punisher, and yet he keeps writing about superhero characters he’s admitted to hating and not understanding. Batman: Reptilian is an edge-fest, cynical approach to Batman that is clearly written by someone who doesn’t like Batman’s character. The main mystery is that a mysterious reptilian monster has been brutally attacking Gotham’s underworld, and the Dark Knight tries to uncover what’s going down. Along the way he takes every possible opportunity to throw crass jokes and be as overly violent as possible, while of course having the “stupid” parts of Batman’s character pointed out.
In the end, Batman chooses to use the goon Konstantine as bait to lure out this monster, then after the man tries to attack Batman and is subsequently mauled by the creature because of it, Batman simply lets him die, saying that this doesn’t break his no kill rule because Bats didn’t murder him personally like this is some kind of gotcha moment. This is a classic Garth Ennis comic, so if you like his style you’ll probably enjoy this comic, but I can’t recommend it if you’re a Batman fan, considering the story and writer very clearly don’t like him. This character doesn’t act a thing like Batman.
7) Batman Odyssey
Neal Adams was an absolutely legendary artist that defined Batman’s look not just for a generation, but set a standard for every iteration that came after. I cannot give Neal Adams enough praise as an artist. His writing, however, left a lot to be desired. I would love to describe the plot of Batman Odyssey to you, but I don’t think there’s anyone who can. Each issue starts with a naked Bruce recounting the story directly to the reader, each scene getting progressively more uncomfortably sensual. The listener is revealed to be Superman in the last issue, because only the Man of Steel could be able to listen to this entire thing in one sitting. This is a rambly, convoluted, nonsensical mess that seems more like a stream of consciousness explanation of a food coma dream than a Batman story. Some highlights include Batman attempting to teach Robin why guns are bad by handing him a gun and Robin immediately going gun crazy, Aquaman appearing to stop a villain then disappearing like he was never there, and Batman rigging Robin’s costume to explode. Don’t worry, Robin was fine. Somehow. This story is actually insane in ways that cannot be explained, and this might be the only story here I can actually advise you to read, just so you can understand what it’s like.
6) “War Games” / “War Crimes”
This is kind of cheating, considering that this is two separate storylines, but they are inherently tied and equally deserve to be hated. The plot is actually nonsensical and has one of the worst cases of fridging since Alex DeWitt. Stephanie Brown had just recently become Robin, but is fired at the start of the story because Batman never trusted her. In an effort to prove herself, she implements a plan she saw on the Batcomputer that could end all gang crime in Gotham, and relied upon a criminal named Matches Malone to facilitate. Unfortunately, Stephanie didn’t know that Matches was one of Batman’s undercover identities, so when she starts the plan in secret, Matches never shows up and a war between all of Gotham’s gangs breaks out. In the end, Stephanie winds up dying after she is tortured by Black Mask. “War Crimes,” the immediate followup, reveals that Leslie Thompkins allowed Stephanie to die to teach Batman a lesson that endangering kids is wrong, which might just be the worst character assassination I’ve ever seen.
This story can only happen if every character makes every wrong choice at every worst moment, and even then, it takes them being out of character and stupid for it to happen. People wanted to forget this story so much that when “Under The Red Hood,” a story all about a Robin who died coming back, occurred almost immediately after, they didn’t even mention this story once. It was an unceremonious end to Stephanie’s criminally short career as Robin, and deserves to be forgotten.
5) “Gotham War”
Speaking of character assassination, this story has a little bit for everyone. A lot of character assination, actually. This is the newest entry on our list, but it certainly deserves to be here given how much damage it did to the Bat Family and my brain. The concept is that Catwoman decided that the best way to end crime in Gotham was to train all of the henchmen to be thieves on par with her, and then lead them to only steal from the rich. Yes, Catwoman tells them not to kill anyone and forces them to give part of their take to charity, but, and I cannot stress this enough, they’re still committing crimes! And for whatever reason, the entire Bat Family is on board with this except for Bruce and Damian. Even then, Bruce being against it is portrayed as a bad thing, and Damian only stands with his dad because he’s written like he’s still the world’s most annoying ten year old contrarian.
All of the superheroes of Gotham just decide that crime is okay because it’s only against rich people, and even after people die because they are forcibly breaking into people’s houses and stealing their things, the Bat Family just acts like that’s okay and doesn’t go against literally everything they stand for. Not only that, but it includes the infamously horrible scene of Batman brainwashing, effectively kind of lobotomizing Red Hood to keep him from being a vigilante. At least Batman’s insanity is explained as Zur-En-Arrh influencing him, but even that this is way too far, and nobody else has this excuse for their idiotic actions at every point. Not only does this story make the Bat Family become the defenders of a criminal network, it has the audacity to somehow become a bottom of the barrel tale of Vandal Savage trying to become immortal again by absorbing a meteor as the climax. And then it slaps the readers on the way out by having a random thug Catwoman trained somehow break into Batman’s house and discover his identity at the end. There are actually too many problems to focus on here, so let’s move on.
4) The Dark Knight Strikes Again
Somehow, the direct sequel to one of Batman’s greatest stories is also one of his worst. The Dark Knight Strikes Again takes everything great about The Dark Knight Returns and throws it out a window. Instead, we are left with a nonsensical plot that jumps over itself to be as gorey-and-over the top as possible. For one, instead of the dark hero that was willing to sacrifice everything to remind Gotham how to fight for hope like in The Dark Knight Returns, this Batman is a cynical monster obsessed with taking down Lex Luthor’s corrupt government by any means necessary. Batman routinely breaks his vow against killing, letting Hawkman and Hawkgirl’s kid throw Lex out of a window and refusing to help fight a giant monster that was murdering civilians because he thought it was a trap. Worse is what this comic did to the other characters, like how Superman and Wonder Woman bumped uglies so hard it caused earthquakes and tsunamis across the globe, killing thousands of people at the very least.
And then we have Dick Grayson, who was fired by Batman for apparently being incompetent in the field. His response was to lose his mind and undergo horrific experiments to gain a healing factor, then become a serial killer targeting other superheroes. Batman not only taunted his former sidekick for being weak the entire time they fought, but he straight up decapitated him, and when that didn’t work, he dropped him into a lava pool. This story is downright insane and only sullies the great comic that preceded it, which is a darn shame.
3) The Widening Gyre
This comic doesn’t feel like a Batman story at all. The basic premise is that Bruce reconnects with his old lover Silver St. Cloud and starts their relationship back up, while at the same time a new vigilante named Baphomet shows up to help Batman in Gotham. There are two major problems with this comic. One is that it is obsessed with crude humor that doesn’t feel at home in Batman comics. Like saying that during the scene where Batman intimidated all of Gotham’s elites in “Year One,” one of Batman’s coldest scenes to date, Batman peed himself. Or how Batman and Silver had sex so loud and often on their private island that the dolphins told Aquaman because they thought someone was dying.
The second problem is that everyone in the comic is an idiot. Baphomet almost immediately gains Batman and Robin’s trust despite being a total stranger, and he feeds Batman a sob story about his origin which is a complete lie, which would be incredibly simple to prove, but Batman, the World’s Greatest Detective, doesn’t fact check anything and takes it at face value that this random stranger deserves to know his secret identity. Batman brings him to the Batcave, where Baphomet reveals that he’s actually the villain Onomatopia and kills Silver, ending the series on a cliffhanger an unpublished sequel was meant to resolve. The plot of this one is just plain stupid, and Batman stopping to think for even a single second would solve this, but he never does. It somehow drags on for way too many issues while also having its plot feel like it’s going way too fast. It’s the worst of both worlds, featuring great moments like Batman assaulting his fiance after he runs her off the road because he thinks she’s a fake when there were so many easier, less traumatizing ways to get some of her hair.
2) Fortunate Son
This story has Batman believe that rock and roll is the root of all evil. That sentence pretty much sums it up, but I’ll keep going anyway. A popular musician loses his mind after he feels that he’s lost his touch, and starts hallucinating an evil, blonde Elvis who instructs him to start doing things like blowing up buildings because they were going to broadcast a video he didn’t want out. All the while, Batman and Robin are legitimately almost torn apart because of their differing opinions on rock and roll and other similar music genres. Batman believes they are inherently evil because he associates it with the death of his parents, with his dad having told him that he’s not allowed to listen to it the day they died. He tries to further justify this hate by bringing up the real life example of Sex Pistols’ bassist killing his girlfriend. Robin, for his part, is equally unhinged as he is willing to forgive the musician-turned-terrorist because his songs are catchy.
Every character in this story straight up acts loony and the ridiculousness is always played straight. Batman legitimately takes Robin to Arkham Asylum and says that this is where listening to punk music will get you. The weirdest part about this story is that it’s very unclear who we’re supposed to agree with. The main villain is occasionally portrayed sympathetically, but he’s cartoonishly evil other times, and Batman is never proven wrong or changes his opinion. The story just sort of ends after the villain is killed, with no real emotional resolution. This story is just plain stupid, and not even in the fun way because it takes itself way too seriously.
1) All-Star Batman and Robin
There could only be one Batman comic that is worse than every other one out there, and it could only ever be All-Star Batman and Robin. Everything about this comic is atrocious, taking cues from every other entry on this list and then some. It is supposed to be about Batman taking Dick Grayson in and training him to be Robin, but what it ends up being is an ever escalating cacophony of brutality and cringey dialogue. Batman acts like a psychopathic toddler the entire time, repeatedly getting into heated arguments with the child Dick and slinging the r-slur at him, and let’s not forget how he lit several criminals on fire and then had sex with Black Canary literally next to them. This is also the series where Batman locked Dick Grayson in the Batcave and forced him to eat rats for a month as “training,” threatening Alfred after the butler bought the boy a burger.
This entire comic book is a train crashing into a fireworks factory, with scenes so needlessly edgy the average Preacher fan would cringe. Batman unironically refers to himself as the “goddamn Batman” every other page, and drops more curse words than a middle schooler in a Call of Duty lobby. This comic is peak late-era Frank Miller, in the sense that it’s baffling and horrendous in a way only his work could be. This man not only wrote one of the best Batman stories ever in The Dark Knight Returns, but some of and the definitive worst Batman comic of all time. It’d be impressive if it didn’t make me want to bleach my eyeballs. This is the worst goddamn Batman comic I’ve ever read, period.
So there we have ten of the absolute worst Batman comics ever put to the page, and I desperately hope we won’t be seeing any other comics on this level of terrible anytime soon. There are unfortunately plenty more honorable mentions that also deserve to be up here, from “Hush Returns,” to Batman Beyond 2.0’s horrendous decision to have Barbara cheat on Dick with Bruce, to “H2SH,” a story which represents everything wrong with modern Batman comics. The only reason “H2SH” isn’t on the list is because it’s unfinished at the time of writing this article, but oh boy do I get the feeling that it’ll earn its place before it’s done. Which Batman story do you think is the absolute worst of the worst? One of the ones up here, or another that we didn’t mention? Let us know in the comments below, so we know what to stay away from!
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Image courtesy of Focus Features.
