Question for Batman fans

Running Bing

Just wondering is there any Batman comic that deals with the character before he actually became Batman?


What Im thinking of in particular is the stuff from "Batman Begins" when he's training in ninjitsu. Im interested in how the character Bruce Wayne basically went from being a bitter kid to Batman.


I've had a look at year one but that deals more with the early days of him becoming Batman....Im looking for something that deals with the earlier Bruce Wayne character.

Thanks.

bombidol

Year one and The man who fell are probably about as close as you can get to Bruce Wayne stories I think.

Running Bing

bombidol wrote: »

Year one and The man who fell are probably about as close as you can get to Bruce Wayne stories I think.

Wow quick reply;)


Really? So the stuff in the Batman Begins movie (the training and the Liam Neeson character) was all original? I thought maybe it was based on something in one of the comics.


Shame, I find that aspect of the character very interesting....although I can understand people wanting to leave a bit of the mystique as well.


thanks bombidol.

Mr. K

Blind Justice is based mostly around Bruce Wayne. It introduces Henri Ducard, who was quite different to the way he was in the film. In that

he wasn't secretly Ra's Al Ghul

!

eoghand

Another batman question, what have been the best stories ignoring frank miller, jeph loeb runs? Was bruce wayne fugitive any good.

ztoical

Babybing wrote: »

Really? So the stuff in the Batman Begins movie (the training and the Liam Neeson character) was all original? I thought maybe it was based on something in one of the comics.

It is based on the comic books but you have to remember that the Batman is a pretty old comic book character and his origin has changed somewhat so its not so easy to just point to a storyline and say read that. Also comic book companies have a habit of doing the old etch a sketch end of the world and restarting their universes alot so it can get a bit confusing.

You can split the Batman origin up into three sections - theres Golden age Batman which is the classic origin - parents dead, messes with head, trains like crazy so he can seek revenge dressed in big rubber suit - but its was actually about 40 odd issues into the first run of Batman before they told his origin story, the first Batman story started with him as Batman and you slowly learned what his motivation for doing this was. You have to put it in context to of the 1930's were people didn't really care so much for super detailed back stories. It is explained thou that Bruce spent years training with various different martial arts masters around the world as well as escape artists and other people who had skills that might be of use. The movie condensed it all down and implied he trained all in one place. Also not shown in the movie is that he also focused on his brain just as much as his body and went to study with some the smartest people.

You then have Silver age Batman which is in the 1960s and this is super camp Batman [just recall the Adam West tv series if you can] Everything is much lighter in tone. Liam Neeson's character is not original, he plays Ra's al Ghul who first appeared in the Bat books in the 1970's where he does pick Batman to be his heir and tests him but not in the way shown in the film as the Batman origin was well established by the time Ra's al Ghul was introduced. Theres alot of elements in Batman begins that are taken from actual batman storylines but it took bits from here and bits from there. Ra's al Ghul did in one storyline set all the nuts in Arkahm out and tried to cleanse the city but it back fired thou in the comics he uses something called the Lazarus Pit to extend his life and tried to use that to destroy Gotham but it was a bit murky to try and explain this in a film.

Then you have Modern Batman or the Frank Miller Batman where Batman was brought back to being much darker. DC rebooted most of their major characters around that time to bring them up to date. His origin is still pretty much the same but just made darker and grittier.

Through out the comics [and also in the animated batman series] there are flash backs to Bruce Wayne training to be Batman but Batman: The Man Who Falls is prob the nearest storyline to focus mainly on it and that book along with Year one and long halloween were the main comics that influenced the first Nolan film.

GenghisCon

Modern Batman allways seems to teeter between millar's milltant anarchist (try saying that 3 times fast) and the more cerebreal version depicted by loeb. Must recommend Loeb's Long Halloween and Dark Victory. Also the classic Knightfall Trilogy (expénsive unfortunately) is worth a look. The current run of batman by Grant Morrison isnt bad. See if you can get your hands on Batman 655-675. This run, figurtively entitled "3 batmen" leads up to the current Big event "Batman RIP." It even tries to explain the crazieness of the silver batman that beat up martains and commies alike!

Running Bing

ztoical wrote: »

It is based on the comic books but you have to remember that the Batman is a pretty old comic book character and his origin has changed somewhat so its not so easy to just point to a storyline and say read that. Also comic book companies have a habit of doing the old etch a sketch end of the world and restarting their universes alot so it can get a bit confusing.

You can split the Batman origin up into three sections - theres Golden age Batman which is the classic origin - parents dead, messes with head, trains like crazy so he can seek revenge dressed in big rubber suit - but its was actually about 40 odd issues into the first run of Batman before they told his origin story, the first Batman story started with him as Batman and you slowly learned what his motivation for doing this was. You have to put it in context to of the 1930's were people didn't really care so much for super detailed back stories. It is explained thou that Bruce spent years training with various different martial arts masters around the world as well as escape artists and other people who had skills that might be of use. The movie condensed it all down and implied he trained all in one place. Also not shown in the movie is that he also focused on his brain just as much as his body and went to study with some the smartest people.

You then have Silver age Batman which is in the 1960s and this is super camp Batman [just recall the Adam West tv series if you can] Everything is much lighter in tone. Liam Neeson's character is not original, he plays Ra's al Ghul who first appeared in the Bat books in the 1970's where he does pick Batman to be his heir and tests him but not in the way shown in the film as the Batman origin was well established by the time Ra's al Ghul was introduced. Theres alot of elements in Batman begins that are taken from actual batman storylines but it took bits from here and bits from there. Ra's al Ghul did in one storyline set all the nuts in Arkahm out and tried to cleanse the city but it back fired thou in the comics he uses something called the Lazarus Pit to extend his life and tried to use that to destroy Gotham but it was a bit murky to try and explain this in a film.

Then you have Modern Batman or the Frank Miller Batman where Batman was brought back to being much darker. DC rebooted most of their major characters around that time to bring them up to date. His origin is still pretty much the same but just made darker and grittier.

Through out the comics [and also in the animated batman series] there are flash backs to Bruce Wayne training to be Batman but Batman: The Man Who Falls is prob the nearest storyline to focus mainly on it and that book along with Year one and long halloween were the main comics that influenced the first Nolan film.

Ahh cheers for that. So is that stuff just spread out in small bits over loads of different comics or is it dealt with specifically in a few comic books?

LegacyUser

Batman year one is the definitive Batman origin story. And probobly one of the best ones out there too.
Some great Batbooks at the moment are the detective ones Dini is doing.

D Shalvey

Batman: Year One is my favourite comic story. Ever.

Dec.

livingtargets

Have to agree with Will and Dec on this one.
Year One and the new Detective Comics with Dini and Nguyen(I think I spelt his name right...)are great and Detective Comics is running a story about the origins of Hush right now so it`s a good series to pick up to get a little background on a few things.

shenanigans1982

Can anyone tell me how many Batman comics come out monthly?....I am thinking of picking them up after Morrison leaves the book and was just wondering how many there are...thanks.

ztoical

shenanigans1982 wrote: »

Can anyone tell me how many Batman comics come out monthly?....I am thinking of picking them up after Morrison leaves the book and was just wondering how many there are...thanks.

Are you looking at just Batman staring books or the whole Bat universe [books like Robin, Nightwing, JLA, Catwoman, Birds of Prey etc]?

Just Bat books would be Batman of course, Detective Comics Superman/Batman, All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder [thou I wouldn't count this one at the moment as its had some awful delay issues], Batman Strikes [based on the animated series], Batman Confidential [kind of early adventures of Batman series]....I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. You've also got all the other Bat books like the ones listed above as well as the Outsiders, Teen Titans etc that Bats can show up in.

If you just want to follow just the main Batman storyline then you should pick up Batman and Detective Comics. Superman/Batman and All Star work independently from the main storyline [or at least so far they have] I've quite enjoyed most of the Superman/Batman storylines - really like Turner's supergirl. All Star started with a big bang but for me it got a little repetitive after a couple of issues. Lee's art is fab but I feel its wasted on the book and Millars writing feels like its being overly dark and gritty just for the sake of being overly dark and gritty.

Fysh

ztoical wrote: »

All Star started with a big bang but for me it got a little repetitive after a couple of issues. Lee's art is fab but I feel its wasted on the book and Millers writing feels like its being overly dark and gritty just for the sake of being overly dark and gritty.

But...but...but he's the Goddamned Batman! (link for those who haven't already seen it)

Must admit I haven't much been taken by ASBAR myself, although it does seem to have quite a following who enjoy its over-the-top antics. (I did like the entirely nutty version of Plastic-Man that it featured, and the borderline-retarded-with-the-powers-of-a-demigod version of Hal Jordan too for that matter). I think the first collection is due to land sometime soon, probably worth leafing through it before deciding whether to follow it or not.

shenanigans1982

Thanks for the help, I mainly just want to follow the main story. I prefer the grounded stuff of the Batman comics to the universe spanning JLA stuff. Although might pick up some Robin/Nightwing.

I got the ASBAR hardback recently and thought it was ok. Batman just seemed to come across as actually being crazy rather than cold and calculated. Although I did get some laughs from the GL issue but if they are planning on fleshing out this universe Miller's writing is probably doing a lot of damage to the other characters.

ztoical

shenanigans1982 wrote: »

Although might pick up some Robin/Nightwing.

I'm a big Nightwing fan so will push that over Robin. The book went through a bit of a down spell but it the past year its started to come back on forum, I've really enjoyed Peter Tomasi's writing. From a Batman point of view I think Nightwing has one of the more interesting relationships with him.

shenanigans1982 wrote: »

I got the ASBAR hardback recently and thought it was ok. Batman just seemed to come across as actually being crazy rather than cold and calculated. Although I did get some laughs from the GL issue but if they are planning on fleshing out this universe Miller's writing is probably doing a lot of damage to the other characters.

If they are planning to flesh out the universe they should start with getting the book out on time. I don't actually mind long waits between issues as long as I know I'll be waiting, there's nothing worse then having a publisher tell you it will be out this month eh no wait actually next month or maybe the month after that - ASBAR started in 2005 and we're only up to issue 10. I remember when Battle Chasers started with so much fan fare and then we were left waiting years to get another issue made worse by the fact that Wildstorm [and then DC when they bought the imprint] kept saying it was coming soon. NYX did the same thing.

shenanigans1982

I seen a new series of NYX being advertised recently...didn't Josh Middleton leaving the original series mess up the schedule?

As for Battle Chasers the less said the better.

ztoical

shenanigans1982 wrote: »

I seen a new series of NYX being advertised recently...didn't Josh Middleton leaving the original series mess up the schedule?

He left after issue 4 due Joe Q always being late with the script which in turn caused the comic to be late and then the artist that replaced Middleton broke a finger or his wrist shortly after starting. Middleton was fired from CrossGen over issues with editors and headups before he went to work for Marvel - someone commented on it over at the Drawn blog once and Middleton himself replied to the comment.


NYX no way home is the new series that is meant to run for 6 issues.

shenanigans1982

Seems to be a regular thing with Quesada, my OH got pissed off waiting for issue 2 of Daredevil: Father. That link just reminded me how good Middleton's covers were.

ztoical

His run doing the covers for New Mutants were what go me reading that title and I really liked his cover for American Virgin. I would love to see Middleton actually produce his creator owned title Sky Between Branches - he did a preview for it in 2002 and I was blown away and was so looking forward to seeing the actual comic but it never happened. There are whispers and hints that he is going to do it with DC but so far nothings come of that.

ztoical

on the topic of All Star Batman.... it looks like people will be waiting that little bit longer for issue 10