What Is The Iconic Batman Storyline PreDKR?

[Megotastrophe]

What in your opinion is the single best Batman story or storyline that appeared in a comic book before Frank Miller released The Dark Knight Returns ?
I think we can all agree that after TDKR, Batman comics were different.
The Five Way Revenge, The Laughing Fish, the Brave and the Bold team up with the Joker, I guess I’m really looking for the 70s Batman.

[Jorge Galvan]

The Untold Legend of the Batman

By Len Wein it came out in 1980 and it is a really good story?! This is where LESLIE THOMPKINS was introduced. It really had an effect on me and to be honest, with the exception of silver age/ Moldoff books, I didn't collect and read Batman and Detective comics in the 80's, 90's and double naughts.


There is a line by Commissioner Gordon that I can't completely remember,but it was damn good!!!

[Jorge Galvan]

I also liked the Bronze tiger Batman family story where they selfishly killed off Kathy Kane (Batwoman) That really shook up Bruce.

[Earth 2 Chris]

The Greatest (single) Batman Story Ever Told (and that includes DKR, Year One, etc) is "To Kill A Legend" by Alan Brennert and Dick Giordano, from Detective Comics 500 Batman is given the opportunity to stop the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne of an alternate world...but should he? And if he does, will a world be denied a Batman?

detective-500-01.jpg?w=697.jpg

Of course you can't go wrong with any of the stories in the original "Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told" volume from 1988, and the companion "Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told". Also the entirety of The Englehart/Rogers run in Detective Comics is still the continuous run by a creative team to beat.

[PNGwynne]

Well, the E/R run did include "The Malay Penguin."

I really can't choose THE iconic Bat-story. But '80s were my prime Bat-years and I think I recall Don Newton's art run most fondly. He died so young, and I think he's very underrated. I loved his rendition of Killer Croc, and I still recall bits of the Nocturna storyline.

There was that period when continuity ran between Batman & Detective Comics and I was just thrillingly swept along.

[PNGwynne]

The Untold Legend of the Batman

Jeez, I loved that, too.

[Werewolf]

Unpopular opinion: I intensely dislike TDKR. Ruined both Batman and Superman and really superhero comics in general. The birth of grimdark. Took the joy right out of comics.

[Megotastrophe]

I can understand the dislike. To me it is iconic since it is THE dividing line in Batman storytelling. It feels like it has affected every Batman storyline since its publication in either a good way or a bad way. Maybe the only Batman storyline unaffected was the Batman 66 comic book series and animated movies. And I think that even in that line there is some influence even if it’s a metaphorical Frank Miller shaped hole.
I liked the Frank Miller stories. I’m not sure I like all the things it has done to comic books. I know that his early attempts to intentionally ground Batman, to make him make sense in a real world way might be the best thing to ever happen to comic books.

[Dannyc]

I consider the jokers five way revenge to be the iconic batman pre-dkr story. A lot of well known iconic images from that story and i guess it's the storyline where the material took a turn after the campy years (according to what people say).

Also love that sequence where the thug is trying to lose batman lol.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Unpopular opinion: I intensely dislike TDKR. Ruined both Batman and Superman and really superhero comics in general. The birth of grimdark. Took the joy right out of comics.

I don't think it's that unpopular, honestly. I think a lot of people lament that other creators took MIller's work as gospel, and tried to apply it to every character, and double-down on it, creating the "grimdark" era. I think MIller and Mazzuchelli's Batman: Year One is superior in story and art, and it still fits in pretty well with Batman stories that have to follow it chronologically (well, aside from Catwoman being a prostitute).

Another thing that annoys me is Miller getting credit for "saving" Batman from the campy presentation of the TV series. That change began almost immediately after the show's cancellation, and really kicked into gear with Neal Adams art on Brave and the Bold and other titles, and then Denny O'Neil's stories of the 70s, like "The Joker's Five Way Revenge" mentioned earlier. Batman was dark enough before Miller put pen to paper for DKR.

I don't hate DKR, and I still find it to be a great, singular work, but I wish it and Watchmen weren't taken to heart by comic creators so seriously. Sucked the fun right out of comics. And to my mind, if you go TOO serious with super hero stories, well, it makes them even sillier, because its all so fantastical. Even Batman.

[warlock664]

For me, personally, it’s BATMAN #237, “Night of the Reaper”, by Neal Adams (art) and Denny O’Neil(script), with plot contributions from noted SF author Harlan Ellison.
This was the very first issue of BATMAN that I ever owned, purchased for me by my mother at a yard sale a couple of years after it was originally published, and it was a revelation.
Here was a Batman that I was unfamiliar with, having only previously seen the character in reruns of the 60s TV show. He was coolly calculating, serious, even grim.
The story itself had several elements that appealed to me. It took place in Rutland, VT, at the annual Rutland Halloween Parade. It featured a more mature, college attending Robin. And many of the parade goers were even clad in the costumes of the competition’s superheroes.
It also featured several comics pros as characters, like Gerry Conway, Alan Weiss, and Bernie Wrightson (college classmates of Dick Grayson/Robin), though at the time that went right over my head.
For several years, beginning in 1970 with AVENGERS #83, both DC and Marvel would center an issue or two of an ongoing series around the Rutland Halloween parade. In 1972, there was even an unofficial cross-company crossover orchestrated by the writers of JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA from DC and Marvel’s THOR and AMAZING ADVENTURES (THE BEAST).
i still pull that issue out to read every October 31,.