On the streets of Gotham City, Batman is famous for his never-ending war on crime. While most of the battles in that endless war take place over a few issues, the Dark Knight has also been part of some of the biggest, most sprawling sagas the DC Universe has to offer.
Now, CBR is taking a look back at some of Batman's most epic stories and series that will take some serious time to read. Spanning anywhere between 52 to over 200 issues, these classic stories are all currently available to read digitally on DC Universe or Comixology.
Batman: No Man's Land
After an unexpected earthquake hits Gotham City, Batman's hometown crumbles, both physically and culturally. The police fail to reign in the resulting chaos, Wayne Manor falls, businesses crumble, and hundreds of thousands are left homeless on the streets. As Batman and his allies struggle to rebuild, many of the Dark Knight's worst criminals emerge to exploit chaos the chaos to take command of the post-apocalyptic, Mad Max-esque Gotham City in Batman: No Man's Land.
The main crossover ran throughout most of DC's Batman titles throughout 1999, but the story was preceded by Batman: Cataclysm, which depicted the actual earthquake and Batman: Aftershocks -- also been collected as Batman: Road to No Man's Land -- which shows the immediate fallout from the quake. To truly understand the whole of No Man's Land, you need to read well over 100 issues of Batman comics. While that makes this one of the longest Batman sagas ever, it's also widely considered one of the best, thanks to all-star creators like Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka. This event also introduced Harley Quinn and Cassandra Cain to the DC Universe and set up the building blocks for Lex Luthor's rise as President of the United States.
Batman: Knightfall
Bane has only one objective: to break the Batman. To do so, he launched a verifiable army of Arkham inmates upon Batman. But while Batman attempts to restore order, Bane makes calculated strikes to destroy Batman -- and Bruce Wayne's -- life, spurring a dark new Batman to watch over Gotham City in the infamous Batman saga, "Knightfall."
This sprawling saga takes place over three sub-events: Batman: Knightfall, Batman: KnightsQuest, and Batman: KnightsEnd. Knightfall features Bane's assault on Batman -- and ultimately, Batman's spine being snapped. KnightsQuest features Azrael taking up the mantle of Batman, demonstrating that he might not be the best man for the job, and, KnightsEnd features Bruce Wayne's return to reclaim his mantle. As one of the biggest comic storylines of the '90s and one of Batman's most famous tales ever, it established Bane as one of Batman's mightiest adversaries, providing inspiration for the later blockbuster The Dark Knight Rises.
Scott Snyder & Greg Capullo's Batman
Batman has confronted a lot of challenges over the years, but Gotham City, the one place in the world he thought he knew inside and out, is not as it seems. An underground cabal of owl-masked aristocrats -- the Court of Owls -- run Gotham from between its walls. The Joker, now without a face, seeks to "cure" Batman of his family, and the Riddler has the means to bring Gotham down to his knees. Over the years, Batman has encountered several impossible odds, but Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's epic New 52 epic run scales from Batman's earliest days to his greatest triumphs, and covers almost all of the Dark Knight's New 52 era.
As the clear standout of the New 52 era, Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's Batman included instant classic events like "The Court of Owls," "Night of Owls," "Death of the Family," "Year Zero" and "Endgame." This run also set the stage for Dark Nights: Metal and the upcoming Dark Nights: Death Metal crossover.
Batman: Eternal
In Batman Eternal, An enigmatic presence is orchestrating a grand plan to completely obliterate Bruce Wayne and Batman's life. Everyone he holds dear -- from his allies to personal friends to even his enemies -- are pawns in a great scheme to ruin Batman and destroy Gotham City. But as events start to unfold, Batman rushes to keep his life together and determine who is behind everything in this weekly miniseries by an all-star team including Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV and Jason Fabok.
This 52-issue series was a celebration of Batman's 75th Anniversary, but it ultimately focuses more on Batman's supporting cast than Batman himself. As a result, it shines a spotlight on several major players in the DC Universe -- including the long-awaited reintroduction of Stephanie Brown into the New 52.
Batman Adventures
Undeniably, Batman: The Animated Series is one of the greatest adaptations of Batman ever. While that iconic cartoon was on the air and long after it finished, Batman Adventures comics and continued the show's tradition of telling timeless, truly all-ages tales in that cartoon continuity.
The books might not be one cohesive story, but they have a cohesive feel as part of the wider DC Animated Universe. For over a decade, the stories that began with Batman Adventures continued through Batman & Robin Adventures, Batman Adventures: The Lost Years, Batman: Gotham Adventures and finally with Batman Adventures Vol. 2. And after all of that, Batman: The Adventures Continue is set to be digitally released starting next month.
Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight
From 1989 to 2007, Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight offered tons of creators the chance to write and reinterpret Batman's world through their own eyes. With the exception of it's No Man's Land tie-ins, this series told stand-alone stories that took place throughout Batman's career.
Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, Mike Mignola, Tim Sale, Garth Ennis, Matt Wagner, Chris Bachalo and several other comics icons wrote for Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight. Some of these stories include "Shaman" -- a story about Bruce Wayne before becoming Batmamann -- "Going Sane" -- a story where Joker believes he killed Batman -- and "Gothic" -- an unsettling story written by Grant Morrison.