Comic: Killing Joke
Movie: Suicide Squad: Assault on Arkham
Game: Arkham Knight
Book/Novel: Arkham Knight: Riddler’s Gambit
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The Killing Joke (graphic novel NOT the animated movie, which was butchered)
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Comic: Death in the Family/ dark knight returns
Movie: TDK, Batman 1989
Animated: Under the Redhood or mask of the phantasm
Show: Batman Animated Series
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Comic: haven’t read enough to decide yet
Movie: Batman Returns
Game: Arkham City
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Comic :
Batman : Hush
Game :
Arkham City
Animated T.V. Show :
Batman TAS
Live Action T.V. Show :
Batman '66
Animated Film :
Batman : Mask of the Phantasm
Live Action Film :
Batman '89
Honorary Mentions :
Batman Vengeance (PS2)
Batman Mr Freeze : Subzero
The Long Halloween
Batman Brave & the Bold
Gotham
Batman Begins
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I enjoy a lot of Batman stories & shows lol
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So… I have not watched EVERYTHING on DC Universe yet so I’m asking… Has anyone mentioned the four part series in Batman (issues 417-420) called “Ten Nights of the Beast” as one of the best Batman stories?
If not, why not? It is tight story telling, timely (for the period it was written in), and introduces the KGBeast Anatoli Knayezev. This is one of my favorite stories and one I’d like to see mentioned more. Especially since Anatoli shows up in “Batman v Superman” and “Batman: Assault on Arkham”. He may not be one of the best known villains, but he certainly is intriguing ad an excellent test for the Batman.
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They were the first issues of Batman I ever bought and is what started my love of Batman. Great story and art.
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I have ALWAYS thought this was an underrated gem in Batman comics!
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KGbeast is great in All Star Batman my own worst enemy. When Batman attempts to deliver Two-Face to the orphanage they were temporarily placed in. More like a temporary house for troubled kids, where their treated good & everyone keeps their identity’s private. Anyways, KGbeast is hired by Penguin & others to stop Batman from delivering Two-Face there. Bats & Duke Thomas come across tons of villains, & regular folks, who want the millions offered by Two-Face himself to stop them. Great read. Also the one u mentioned “is” underrated. KGbeast on Arrow in Arrowverse is so weak it drives me crazy. I love the show, but I figured he’d evolve into the one we know from the comics, & it doesn’t look like that’s ever going to happen.
For anyone who wants to read and discuss Ten Nights of the Beast, be sure to check out this week’s Renegade Robins Club session:
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@AlexanderKnox, do you think it’s one of the best Batman stories? What made your club decide to cover it?
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I’ll admit that it’s a pretty good story overall, but the ending isn’t very satisfying. From the way I see it, Batman’s got the Beast in a room underground, then proceeds to barricade the door and keep him trapped down there. You know who I would expect to pull that kind of stunt? Scooby Doo. You know who wouldn’t? The g*****n Batman!
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I certainly think it’s one of the better illustrations of the “morally gray” tendencies of the 1980s Batman, and it reflects certain notable trends of early post-Crisis DC storytelling: active engagement with real-world politics and clearly-labeled multi-part stories that act as their own miniseries within a long-running series. That second point made such stories well-suited for DC’s super-thin trade paperbacks of the time.
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Well, the easy answer is that my club is reading through Jason Todd’s appearances in chronological order, and we have made it to the Jim Starlin run.
- The more complicated answer is that we have been examining the evolution of the Batman comics and Robin’s role in them from 1983 onward, so the story gives us an opportunity to look at how Starlin was characterizing not only Jason but also Bruce in the issues leading up to A Death in the Family.
- Considering how some fans label Jason as nothing more than a “murderer” thanks to one of Starlin’s other stories, the ending of Ten Nights of the Beast raises some real potential for discussion. Is Batman a hypocrite for disapproving of Robin’s methods? Did Jason “learn it from watching you,” as an infamous drug PSA once put it?
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I can see how that would make TNofB a real turning point in both storytelling and Jason Todd’s characterization, and I can also why @dgschulte.62898 would consider it up there with some of the best Batman stories. Not knowing a lot about KGBeast I hope I’m not speaking out of turn, but it would be fun to one day compile all the “Red Scare” style villains from the 80’s into one read-through.
It also sounds like a nice bite-sized read for anyone looking for something to kill an hour or two.
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I love the story. It was the first Batman comics I bought off the newsstands as a kid. The KGBeast was one of my favorite villains. I have seven pages from the story actually. After reading it, my uncle got me a box of Batman comics from an estate sale and since that time, I’ve loved Batman.
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Why is Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight is the best Batman comic ever made?
I get the feeling that this topic is going to get a LOT of push-back about this topic and disagreements.
For me, while I would hesitate on whether it’s the BEST, it’s at the very least on my top 3. I think regardless of what you personally think of it, I think it’s without a doubt one of, if not the most influential Batman story ever made, that not only shaped a lot of what Batman would be from then on, but comics as a whole. Not many other books were drawn like that, written with as much depth, or used political and social allegories to say something about the world around the creator and what he wants to express to the audience.
Love it or hate it, you can’t deny the impact it’s made on the character and the medium as a whole.
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It’s just exceedingly tryhardy. I think Miller’s over-the-top, grimdark style was shocking at the time, and it may have vaguely inspired a heavier degree of edgelordiness in Batman stories, but I don’t know that DKR actually precipitated those changes on its own. In itself, at best it’s a somewhat heavy-handed attempt at social commentary, with hideous art and Miller’s (good for the medium at the time, but honestly nothing special compared to film or literature, or more recent comics for that matter) dialogue is weird and terse as it’s ever been.
I think it was far more surprising than genuinely good or influential.
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“Dark Knight Returns” was the very first comic I ever read, in that respect it will always hold a special place in my heart (though THE best Batman comic is “Hush,” imo).
As for the story itself, I agree it hasn’t aged well, but it still holds up. Miller’s writing may be over-the-top, but so is the art and the plot is so quintessentially 80s dystopia it all kind of just “works” when blended together like this. And while we DEFINITELY see signs of Miller’s later excesses, they’re all so toned down here as to not be much of a problem. Likewise, unlike the later sequels, the story itself is fairly straightforward. Batman retires, Gotham gets worse, older Batman un-retires, insert “darker/newer” version of classic Batman and DC iconography. A legit great ending doesn’t hurt, either.
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