Top 10: Batman Stories

The seed for this article was planted during a conversation I was having during which I made an off-hand comment about the best Batman stories. It began life as the “Top Ten Batman Stories of All Time”, but after Dark Knight Returns and “Year One” I had trouble ranking my other picks in any kind of order. It stuck in my head until I had to write it.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized my best of isn’t going to be someone else’s best (and some of my choices are a bit wonky and even wonkier is what DIDN’T make the list). So, I settled for the Batman stories (single issues or multi-issue storylines) that I personally find the most memorable.

With sixty plus years of Batman stories to choose from here is what I whittled it down to:

1. Batman: Dark Knight Returns
Writer: Frank Miller
Art: Frank Miller & Klaus Janson
Date of Publication: June 1986

Best. Batman. Story. Ever.

While I don’t like Frank Miller’s take on Bats in general, this story is my all time favourite. Inside you’ll find warped humour, iconic imagery, and apocalyptic battles. There has been forests of appreciation dedicated to Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, and I don’t think I can add anything to the mountains of words already written.

Top 10: Daredevil Stories

This time around, the Man Without Fear: Daredevil. DD has always been one of my favourite characters, and his stories have always been among my favourite reads. Having said that, I never got into the Ann Nocenti / John Romita Jr. run or that wacky Daredevil in armour period, where he tried to pretend that Matt Murdock was dead and he was someone else. I just didn’t care for Nocenti’s take on the character and dropped it quickly. I DID pick up quite a bit of the “armour” run but STILL found it unreadable. Those two eras spanned roughly #250 to #380– almost thirteen solid years where one of my favourite books was ransacked.

A note on the Frank Miller run. No doubt this was the best era for the character, and while it is represented here with a few issues, the strength of the Miller run is in the totality and not the individual parts. While to me, not a lot of individual issues were good enough to make the list, you put all those issues together and it comprises one of the greatest runs by a creator on a character ever.

And now, this Blind Man Shall Lead…

1. Fantastic Four #39-40 & Daredevil #37-38
This is what I call the “Doctor Doom Saga”. The story began in Fantastic Four #39-40, where Daredevil assists the Fantastic Four in defeating Doom, who had taken over the Baxter Building and turned Reed’s inventions against them.

For his part in the latest defeat, Daredevil was marked by Doom for special attention, and when the right moment came, Daredevil would be used as a weapon to destroy the Fantastic Four. The right moment came in Daredevil #37-38 when, following a taxing battle with the Trapster, DD is handily beaten by Doom and gets to trade bodies with him as a boobie prize. DD turns the tables, gets his body back and has the Fantastic Four on his tail as a reward. With the help of Spider-Man and Thor, the Fantastic Four is held to a standstill. One of my favourite story sequences of all-time.

Great work by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Gene Colan.