Few runs in comics are as aggressively ambitious as Grant Morrison’s Batman. An attempt at reconciling every aspect of Batman’s past into a unified canon– both through sly references and genuinely inspired leaps of logic– Grant Morrison’s Batman is a love letter to the Dark Knight’s ever expansive mythos. It’s also a complex run that demands to be read in order and few diversions in order to fully appreciate.
Although Grant Morrison worked on more than just Batman while penning his run– more notably Final Crisis– reading through his run loses its luster when adding in side stories like The Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul. Demanding the reader’s full attention, Grant Morrison’s Batman is an engrossing dive into the Dark Knight’s mythology.
10 Batman & Son
Grant Morrison’s main conceit with his Batman run centers on Bruce Wayne near the end of his career. Most of his Rogues have been locked up, the Bat Family is at its fullest, and it seems there’s little left to challenge the Caped Crusader: enter fatherhood. Loosely canonizing the events of Son of the Demon, Batman & Son introduces Damian Wayne into the picture– the love child of Bruce Wayne and Talia Al Ghul.
Along with laying the groundwork for the rest of Morrison’s saga, Batman and Son is a careful examination of Bruce’s relationship with fatherhood, family, and how being Batman prevents him from indulging in something he genuinely wants. Beyond that, Damian’s role is antithetical to every son figure Bruce has had, introducing complications that flow through the entire run.
9 The Black Glove
Although Batman & Son is chronologically followed by The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul, Morrison’s run doesn’t account for it pacing-wise. Readers should go straight from Batman & Son into The Black Glove, an arc which reintroduces the International Club of Heroes while establishing the run’s chief antagonist.
The Black Glove is a darker look at Silver Age characters and concepts, with the Three Ghosts of Batman twisting what were otherwise lighthearted adventures (featured in The Black Casebook, which was not written by Morrison but infers much of his saga,) into a dark examination of Bruce’s psyche.
8 Batman R.I.P.
Batman R.I.P. is the first major climax of Grant Morrison’s run and an extremely important turning point in the context of Bruce Wayne’s career as Batman. R.I.P. pushes Bruce to his absolute lowest point, stripping him of everything that makes him Batman and forcing him to rebuild himself in a tense, bombastic story that fundamentally alters the status quo.
Both Batman & Son and The Black Glove intimately link into Batman R.I.P., with seemingly innocuous details ultimately recontextualizing the entire narrative. Along with reintroducing the Batman of Zur-en-arrh into the canon, Batman R.I.P. marks a passing of the cowl between Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson.
7 Batman Reborn
Chronologically, Batman R.I.P is followed by Battle for the Cowl– an event which sees Dick Grayson and Jason Todd competition for the role of Gotham’s Batman– but it’s a fairly inconsequential story that Grant Morrison barely even alludes to. Batman Reborn perfectly sets the stage for Dick Grayson’s Batman, even transitioning Damian into the role of Robin.
Batman Reborn is one of the most inspired takes on the Dark Knight in a very long time. Dick Grayson effectively goes through his own version of Year One– albeit more experienced than Bruce was– dealing with the fact almost everyone can tell he’s not the original Batman while juggling a surprisingly violent Robin desperate to prove himself.
6 Batman Vs Robin
Although Batman Vs Robin directly acknowledges the events of Final Crisis, enough context is provided within Grant Morrison’s Batman run where readers won’t need to jump over to the crossover event to understand the circumstances surrounding Bruce’s “death.” More importantly, Batman Vs Robin rearranges the playing field for Bruce’s eventual return.
Damian & Dick finally find common ground as partners, Oberon Sexton is a fascinating supporting character who ties into the book’s main twist in an extremely satisfying manner, and quite a few new mysteries are set up to be solved.
5 Time And The Batman
Unlike other entries in Grant Morrison's Batman, Time and the Batman takes something of a side-step away from the main narrative. Rather than picking up from where Batman Vs Robin left off, Time and the Batman is an anthology of sorts detailing one case in every Batman’s career: From Bruce to Dick to Damian, and even Terry McGinnis in a brief cameo.
Time and the Batman is narratively relevant to Grant Morrison run’s– especially in regards to Damian’s fate– but the book itself is primarily a meditation on four generations of Batman and their inherent differences: from Bruce’s hardboiled detective approach to Damian’s hyper-violence.
4 The Return Of Bruce Wayne
The Return of Bruce Wayne is a genuine Batman epic that details everything that happened to Bruce after the events of Batman R.I.P. Although The Return of Bruce Wayne does tie into Final Crisis rather intimately– to the point where having read the event does improve this book– it’s nowhere near necessary to understanding the plot.
At the heart of The Return of Bruce Wayne is an examination of Bruce independent of Batman. Even lost in time, with no real means to be who he’s always meant to be, Bruce Wayne never stops embodying the ethos of the Dark Knight while also masterminding himself towards one of the finest comebacks in comic book history.
3 Batman & Robin Must Die
Running somewhat concurrently with The Return of Bruce Wayne, Batman & Robin Must Die picks up immediately after Batman Vs Robin and closes out the Dr. Hurt story arc in Grant Morrison’s run. Batman & Robin Must Die reads like the true finale to the run in many respects, closing out threads that were established in Batman & Son.
Bruce, Dick, Damian, and even The Joker come together in a book that can only be described as classically epic. Batman & Robin Must Die is the book Grant Morrison’s run had always been building up to, but it would be far from the last. Even with Bruce back, the world’s changed too much for just one Batman.
2 Incorporated: The Leviathan Strikes
The goal behind Batman Incorporated was to establish a way for Dick to remain Batman alongside Bruce while expanding Batman’s mythos in a way that honored the International Club of Heroes. That said, Morrison’s work on Incorporated was interrupted by the New 52. The only arc he was able to complete before the transition was The Leviathan Strikes.
Focusing on oft-forgotten Stephanie Brown, The Leviathan Strikes set up the next major arc in Grant Morrison’s run. While the New 52 would dictate that Dick couldn’t be Gotham’s Batman– along with characters like Stephanie Brown losing all relevance– the events of The Leviathan Strikes are nonetheless canon.
1 Incorporated: Demon Star/Gotham’s Most Wanted
In the wake of the New 52, it was clear that Grant Morrison’s grand plan for Batman had been more or less shattered. There’s a distinct lack of passion in Incorporated’s final volume, detailing the events of Demon Star and Gotham’s Most Wanted. For what it’s worth, Morrison ends his run on a powerfully emotional note.
Damian Wayne’s fate, and the fallout of everything Bruce Wayne had built since his return, close out the sub-series on a rather solemn note. At the end of the day, are there any real victories for Batman? At the end of his career, can he undergo real change? After a run that saw Bruce Wayne defy death time and time again, Grant Morrison’s Batman ends up a defeated man.