Batman Reading Order

General Discussion
1

Can someone tell me Batman comics release order or send a link to a website? I dont want chronological order.

2

I would just start with Batman New 52 or Batman Rebirth and then go from there. The problem with release order is many of them aren’t digitally scanned yet and golden age comics are cringy.

3

Reading every single Batman comic in order would take a lifetime, and be kind of a slog in terms of the first thirty years or so since everything was very formulaic and didn’t change much back then. Here’s a rough (and almost certainly incomplete - this is largely off the top of my head with some fact-checking for dates and sequence, so I’ve probably missed something) sequence of major story arcs from the Post-Crisis timeline if you’re interested in more and better content than the New 52 can offer (prequel comics have a dash before them) :

-Batman: Year One
-Batman: Year Two
Batman: Second Chances (published concurrently with Year Two)
The Killing Joke
A Death in the Family
-Batman: Year Three
A Lonely Place of Dying
The three Robin miniseries
Batman: Sword of Azrael
Batman: Vengeance of Bane
Knightfall
Knightquest
Knightsend
Batman: Prodigal
Batman: Contagion
-Batman: The Long Halloween
Batman: Cataclysm
Batman: Aftershock
Batman: No Man’s Land
-Batman: Dark Victory (published roughly concurrently with No Man’s Land)
-Robin: Year One
Officer Down
Bruce Wayne: Murderer?
Bruce Wayne: Fugitive
Batman: Hush
-Batgirl: Year One
-Catwoman: When in Rome
-Nightwing: Year One
Batman: Under the Hood
Son of Batman
Batman R.I.P.
Battle for the Cowl
Batman: The Black Mirror
The Return of Bruce Wayne
Batman Incorporated

1 Like
4

Here’s what I consider the best starting point. To me, it’s best to hit all big good smstuff and then go about pursuing characters and stories that interest you to fill in the gaps.

  1. Year One
  2. Dark Moon Rising
  3. The Man Who Laughs
  4. The Long Halloween
  5. Dark Victory
  6. The Killing Joke
  7. Hush
  8. Court of Owls vol. 1&2
  9. The Dark Knight Returns

1-5 make for a really good reading order, as they all follow the Year One continuity.