Batman (series comics)

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The following article - Batman (Comics Series) - provides an overview of the various comic series and stories that the US publisher DC Comics has published or still published about the fictional character of the crime fighter Batman since 1939 .

A brief synopsis is offered which, in addition to the formal publication dates (period of publication, number of issues achieved) of the series recorded, also notes information about the participating artists and outstanding, publication-historical features. If there is a main article on one of the comic series, reference is made to it.

In the case of Batman series, it should be noted that other heroes from Gotham City such as Robin , Catwoman or Batgirl often appear in the comics, and Batman often meets his colleagues from the Justice League such as Superman . This meeting of the superheroes is therefore also mentioned in some series titles.

Batman series

Batman

First series

Batman is a comics series that has been published by the US publisher DC Comics since the spring of 1940. After Detective Comics , the series in which Batman was first introduced, Batman is the second oldest series to publish stories about the dark knight from the fictional city of Gotham City, and Batman was the first comic book publication before all other Batman series . which had this character's name on the cover as part of their title.

After Four Colors , Detective Comics , Action Comics and Superman , Batman is also the US comic series with the longest publication history and the highest number of issues or the highest number of issues: In the almost sixty-eight years of its publication, the series has so far reached almost seven hundred issues. In addition, there are twenty-six so-called annual editions with double size, which came on the market as the Batman Annual , as well as the two special issues # 0 (October 1994; between # 511 and # 512) and # 1,000,000 (November 1998; between # 560 and # 561).

The series started in the spring of 1940, a few months after its title character was featured in issue # 27 of the Detective Comics series . After the publication rhythm was initially geared towards a quarterly publication mode, the series was initially changed to a bimonthly publication mode, before it finally became a monthly series in the 1950s.

Authors who have written for Batman over the decades include Ed Brubaker , Max Allan Collins , Gerry Conway , Bill Finger , Alan Grant , Larry Hama , Frank Miller , Doug Moench , Dennis O'Neil , Frank Robbins , Jim Starlin , Len Wein and Marv Wolfman . The list of guest authors who contributed individual issues or story arcs includes Chuck Dixon and James Owsley , while the illustrators who worked on the series include names such as Neal Adams , Jim Aparo , Norm Breyfogle , Paul Gulacy , Bob Kane , Kelley Jones , Mike Manley , Scott McDaniel , Don Newton , Irv Novick , and Jerry Robinson . Inkers who worked on the series include Alfredo Alcala , Mike DeCarlo , Scott Beatty, and Dick Giordano .

Second series

In August 2011 there was a series restart of Batman as part of The New 52 . In the new series, although most of the characters have retained their background and past, it no longer makes any reference to the original series.

Batman and Robin

First series

In the first series of Batman and Robin (German Batman and Robin ) was the first Robin and later Nightwing Dick Grayson as Batman and was supported by Bruce Wayne's son Damian .

Second series

The Batman and Robin series, which now sheds light on the relationship between Bruce Wayne and his son Damian, was relaunched in the summer of 2011 .

Batman and the Outsiders

Batman and the Outsiders (Eng. About Batman and the Outsiders ) was a comic series that DC Comics published from August 1983 to April 1986. The series placed Batman at the head of a "superhero team," made up of mostly relatively unknown characters owned by DC. In addition to the anti-hero Metamorpho and Black Lightning , an Afro-American minority superhero , who had become fairly well known as the title heroes of their own series in the 1960s and 1970s, the ensemble of the main characters in the series also included the young Halo, the Japanese swordsman Katana, the Eastern European prince Geo-Force, which can control geological processes (earthquakes, etc.), and the hypnotically gifted attractive looker.

Batman as by far the best known and most popular character was built into the series primarily as a sales train horse. In addition, the sales potential of the name Batman was used to the readership by incorporating it into the name of the series as an additional purchase incentive. In total, the series ran for almost three years and reached thirty-two issues. After the Outsiders characters were considered well established, Batman was removed from the series and the title changed to Adventures of the Outsiders . After the title change, six more issues appeared, which were identified as issues # 33 to # 38. In addition, there were two special editions marked Batman and the Outsiders Annual in 1984 and 1985.

The series was written by the American Mike W. Barr for the entire duration of its appearance . Most of the drawing work was done by Alan Davis .

Batman Chronicles

The Batman Chronicles (dt. About The Chronicles Batman ) had issued a series that DC Comics between 1995 and 2001. Unlike most Batman series, the Batman Chronicles were not released on a monthly basis, but appeared quarterly, so that four new editions were added every year. The series reached a total of twenty-three issues, most of which had a seasonal indication next to the issue number on the title page instead of the usual publication month in American comics - for example "Winter 1999" or "Spring 2001". The booklets of the series had a page number of thirty-four drawn pages, a volume ten pages greater than that of the American standard comic book, which has a sample volume of twenty-two pages.

The leitmotif of the series was to focus on individual people from Batman's environment - his allies, such as the Gotham police officers, his butler Alfred or his sidekick Robin, or his enemies - in order to make facets of the character in question visible, or for which there was no space in the regular Batman comics due to the limited number of pages. Occasionally, however, the title hero himself was also the focus.

Almost every issue of the Batman Chronicles contained three stories: The structure usually provided for a longer main story (around 18 pages) to be placed at the beginning of each issue, which was then followed by two shorter, eight- to ten-page stories in the back.

The authors who wrote for the Batman Chronicles include Chuck Dixon , Garth Ennis , Bob Gale , Alan Grant , Devin Grayson , Doug Moench , Dennis O'Neil and Greg Rucka . Artists who illustrated stories for the series include John McCrea , Graham Nolan, and Jerry Ordway .

Batman Confidential

Batman Confidential (dt. About Batman Confidential ) is a series that DC Comics published from December 2006 to March 2011. The series appeared monthly. The stories of the series, unlike most Batman series - which have stories from Batman's "present" (the twelfth to thirteenth year of his career as a crime fighter) - play in the first years of his career as a "dark knight" and should tend to have "personal key moments" from the history of the character as their content. For example, the first encounters with close allies and enemies, the first use of characteristic equipment such as the Batmobile or the Bat-Wing, and personality-shaping experiences such as moments of success or failure on his nocturnal "mission".

The series is supervised by constantly changing authors and draftsmen who only work on the series for five to six months to complete a longer story cycle and then leave the series to make room for a new five to six month team do.

Batman Eternal

Batman Eternal (dt. About Batman forever ) is a in 2014 as part of The New 52 series launched, which is published weekly.

Batman Family

Batman Family (dt. About Batman family ) was a series DC Comics published from 1975 to 1978. The series appeared bimonthly and contained stories about the characters Batgirl , Robin , Man-Bat , as well as about changing villain characters like the Joker .

Batman: Gotham Knights

Batman: Gotham Knights (German about Batman: Gothamer Ritter , more freely translated Batman: Gotham Knights ) was a series that DC Comics published between March 2000 and April 2006. The series appeared on a monthly basis and had seventy-four issues.

The guiding principle of the series was to put Batman's role as a “team player” in the focus of the action with his allies from the so-called “Batman Family”, which includes characters like Robin, Batgirl, Nightwing or Catwoman. Accordingly, most of the booklets in the series described collaborative adventures between Batman and one or more characters from this group. The later issues of the series, however, increasingly focused on Batman's opponents and, among them, in particular on the mysterious Hush.

For a few years Gotham Knights also contained a number of second stories under the title Batman: Black and White : This series brought about an eight-page short story each month, which was in black and white.

The main authors of the Gotham Knights were Devin Grayson and Scott Beatty . Roger Robinson , among others, was entrusted with the series as the main artist. Artists who worked on the black and white stories in the back of the booklet include Jim Lee , Dave Gibbons , Gene Ha , Harlan Ellison and Jill Thompson , among others .

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight

First series

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (German about Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight ) was a series that DC Comics brought to market between November 1989 and March 2007 on a monthly basis. Legends of the Dark Knight reached 214 issues and was artistically and content-wise tended to target an older, more mature, adult audience.

A special issue # 0 was added to the regular 214 issues of the series (October 1994), as well as several special issues, namely three double-volume issues called "Halloween Special", the prestige format special "Mitefall" and several as Batman : Legends of the Dark Knight Annual titled annual issues with also double scope. While the official title of the series between November 1989 and August 1992 was only Legends of the Dark Knight , was changed in late August 1992 by the addition of "Batman" in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight .

In contrast to all other monthly Batman series, Legends of the Dark Knight has two peculiarities: On the one hand, the series never had a permanent "creative team" made up of a regular author and a regular draftsman who accompanied the series over long periods of time, but was constantly changing Artists who came on board to tell a single story that ran through one to a maximum of five issues, and then left the series to make way for the story ideas of another artistic pairing. According to this "rotation process", no single artist has ever worked on Legends of the Dark Knight for more than five months.

The second peculiarity of the series was that it played at different times than the regular, ongoing Batman series: While the Batman trunk series illuminate the presence of the superhero (in which he is around the twelfth to thirteenth year of his tenure as a dark knight ), Legends of the Dark Knight focuses almost exclusively on the first three years of Batman's tenure as a dark knight. In terms of content and aesthetics, these stories from Batman's early years very often tie in with Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's classic Batman: Year One . The Legends of the Dark Knight were used very rarely in order to be able to tell particularly extensive, epic stories of the three "real-time Batman series" in a relatively short time in the course of so-called crossovers: To have enough space (ie pages) to tell To have an extensive saga within a few weeks / months, the “Year One to Three” premise of the Legends was abandoned and this was adapted to the present narrative principle used by the other series. This happened for the stories Destroyer (# 27), Knightquest , Knightsend , No Man's Land (# 116–126), War Games and War Crimes .

The writers who have written for the series include Chuck Dixon , Garth Ennis , Dan Curtis Johnson , Mike Mignola , Doug Moench , Grant Morrison , Dennis O'Neil , Matt Wagner and Bill Willingham . Bret Blevins , Paul Gulacy , Scott Hampton , Ed Hannigan , Klaus Janson and JH Williams III worked as draftsmen . The three Halloween specials come from the pen of the screenwriter Jeph Loeb and the illustrator Tim Sale .

Second series

The second series, Legends of the Dark Knight , has been running since 2014 and also contains individual and independent stories from Batman.

Batman: Shadow of the Bat

Batman: Shadow of the Bat (dt about. Batman: Shadow of the Bat ) was a series that DC published between June 1992 and February 2000. The series was released on a monthly basis and totaled ninety-four issues (# 1-94), as well as two issues numbered # 0 and # 1,000,000. The early editions of the series have a slightly above average number of twenty-four pages instead of the usual twenty-two pages.

Shadow of the Bat was finally discontinued in early 2000 to make way for the start of the new Batman series Gotham Knights .

Long-time lead writer of Shadow of the Bat was the Scot Alan Grant who wrote issues # 1-82 of the series. The last twelve editions were written by authors such as Greg Rucka , Devin Grayson and Larry Hama . The ranks of the cartoonists who worked on the series include the regular artists Norm Breyfogle , Bret Blevins , Barry Kitson and Mark Buckingham , as well as various guest artists such as Dan Jurgens , Tim Sale and Joe Staton . The cover pictures for the series were designed by the comic artist Brian Stelfreeze .

Batman: The Dark Knight

Miniseries

In early 2011 ran the five-part miniseries Batman: The Dark Knight (dt. Batman: The Dark Knight ), in which Batman on a search for his childhood friend Dawn Golden goes.

Monthly series

As part of New 52 , the new monthly Batman series Batman: The Dark Knight started in the summer of 2011 . The series ended with number 29 in May 2014. Instead, DC started the weekly series Batman Eternal .

Detective Comics

First series

The first series of Detective Comics (dt about. Detective Comics , and Detective Comics featuring Batman ) was a series that DC Comics published since March of 1937. The series, which reached 883 regular issues (including issues # 0 and # 1,000,000) as well as 12 annuals , was the US comic series running to the present with the longest publication time and, after Four Colors and Action Comics, the comic series with the highest number of published issues.

The series was originally an anthology series, which in each issue brought several crime stories about different detective characters such as the private investigator Slam Bradley , Speed ​​Saunders or the Asian Ching Lung . After the character of the superhero and Dark Knight Batman (originally The Batman ), created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger , was introduced into the series in issue # 27 (May 1939) , the series gradually turned into a Batman solo series Elimination of the remaining comic stories, which gradually switched to other series or were discontinued.

In later years, Detective Comics was de facto a pure Batman series, with smaller parts of the booklet being filled with other series such as Martian Manhunter or Manhunter from time to time . In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Detective Comics always included a few shorter stories in the back of the issue after the main Batman stories, which focused on various secondary Batman characters who naturally only had a limited space in the main stories could be: These back-up features were Robin: The Teen Wonder , Batgirl , The Human Target and Tales of Gotham City , which are the characters Robin , Batgirl , Human Target and - in the case of the latter - the “ordinary citizens “Shot from Gotham City.

The two most famous covers of the series - # 1 with a portrait of Fu Manchu -like Ching Lung and # 27, with Batman swinging past a rope and attacking a gang of thieves on a roof - come from the pens of Vin Sullivan , who is also the first editor of the series was, and Bob Kane .

Authors who have written for the series over the last 74 years have included a. Mike W. Barr , Chuck Dixon , Bill Finger , Alan Grant , Peter Milligan , Doug Moench , Dennis O'Neil , Frank Robbins, and Greg Rucka . As a regular draftsman worked on the series u. a. Neal Adams , Norm Breyfogle , Alan Davis , Bob Kane , Shawn Martinbrough , Graham Nolan , Irv Novick, and Jerry Robinson .

Second series

Like the Batman series, the Detective Comics got a restart in September 2011 . The second series also has special editions such as B. a # 0 and annuals.

Superman / Batman

Superman / Batman is a series released by DC Comics beginning in August 2003. It was published on a monthly basis and by the end of autumn 2011 had reached 87 issues.

The Brave and the Bold

The Brave and the Bold (dt. About the brave and audacious ) was a series that DC Comics published from 1955 to 1983. In the last fifteen years of its running, the series functioned de facto as a "Batman team-up series", since the plot of each issue was from now on Batman as a constant and regular protagonist of The Brave and the Bold in each new one Issue with a different character from the DC inventory of characters, changing from magazine to magazine, for the duration of a story, both characters to endure their adventure together and then - at the end of the adventure together - to let them go their separate ways again.

World's Finest Comics

World's Finest Comics (German about The World's Best Comics or, based on the acting characters, The World's Best Comics ) was a team-up series that DC published between 1941 and 1986. The comic series featured stories in which Batman and his “superhero colleague” Superman - who played the World's Finest as a team - routinely experience shared adventures as a well-rehearsed duo.

Batman stories and miniseries

Over the years, complete stories by and with Batman have appeared again and again, some of which stretched over several series (list not complete):

See also

Web links