careful. this one is full of links. and they're about comics, no less

warning: this post is long, geeky, and if you click the links, you might be lost in the sea of information that will be present. 

I'll be the first to admit, i am not the most studious student. i am also not the most typical when it comes to what i do in my free time. lots of kids my age play video games (which i do, just not extensively at the moment). i have been filling my free minutes with comics. and much much more than just the new monthly comics that DC is publishing now under their "New 52" brand. but slightly older stuff.

as anyone who knows me knows, i am a fan of the character of batman. always have been ever since i was little, i think because my mom liked him as a superhero too. well it was probably around november (when i first started reading the new 52 stuff) that i finally had a jumping in point for comics. i had absorbed batman in all forms of media you can imagine, except the source material. i did not do comics, because it is a daunting task. i mean, the monthly batman title that was running was at #713 and detective comics was at #870. that is a lot of ground to cover! but with DC's renumbering system it became much easier for me to start reading, and for that i am grateful for this new thing they did. however, although i started just reading a large handful of their new comics they were producing, i found myself wanting to read more about certain characters. luckily, i had the whole internet at my disposal for obtaining such things! this is what i have found and read, or am planning on reading.

So, i figured i would start with the earliest (in terms of continuity) stuff. at the time, i had recently watched the new DC Animated Universe film adaptation for Batman: Year One, so i chose not to read that, since reviews say it is almost panel-for-panel a direct adaptation. and it was kinda boring. so i went with Robin: Year One, Batgirl: Year One, and Nightwing: Year One, so that i would have a firm basis for my favorite characters. the Robin and Batgirl titles were really really good. the batgirl one, in particular, was really fun to read, and was a great first story showing Barbara Gordon becoming Batgirl. the Robin one was very good as well, but the Nightwing year one was just bad. it felt like it was forced to happen, like the company wanted to bank in on their Year One ideas, and it just didn't hold up. also, i really disliked the artist's style on it, which is a huge selling point for me; if i don't like the way it looks, i am going to probably stop reading something. There are a whole lot in DC's "Year One" thing and i hope to read more of them soon, but i have no direct plans for that right now.

Now that i had a firm background, i had to figure out where in this behemoth of a catalog, i was going to start. However, there was a relatively easy jumping in point for me, that suited my wants, and gave me already more than i can handle. That was August 2009 when Dick Grayson became Batman. This happened because of Batman being "killed off" (actually sent back in time) by the Justice League villain Darkseid. During May, June, and July, all the bat-based books were canceled and a limited series called "battle for the cowl" took place, where it showed gotham and the various heroes associated with it, try to decide what would happen without batman. it was, arguably, pointless, because Dick Grayson, the first Robin, and later Nightwing, was the logical successor to become batman. and he did. then we got new monthly titles, like the ones above. there were 5 new monthly titles, called Batman: Streets of Gotham, Gotham City Sirens, Red Robin, Batgirl, & Batman and Robin. don't have a picture from the Batgirl title, although it is possibly the most fun out of the bunch, because it was one of the first ones i read. they are listed there in my order of enjoyment, from least to most enjoyed (so batman & robin was probably the best). if anyone is interested, you can take that into consideration, because i could write a whole post about just those 5 titles, and this current post is already getting long. :)

These were some of the batman-centric books i read. all of them star dick grayson as batman, and these represent my favorite things i have read. Gates of Gotham is about batman trying to solve a murder mystery that goes back to the founders of gotham, and really goes into how the city was built, and the different families that had influence and power at the time, and how they have changed. Batman & Robin is the one that was mentioned above, and it was just a masterpiece of writing by Grant Morrison. the Black Mirror was recommended to me by a tumblr user, and it was fantastic. it is a self-contained story arc within the long running Detective Comics. if i could only read one things on this entire blog post, it would be that. by far my favorite thing i've read. it ran from Detective Comics 871-881, the last before the reboot for the new 52. i cannot speak too highly of the work that Scott Snyder did on it.

this is a panel from the Black Mirror. it is Dick Grayson as batman talking, and it is perfect.

this is my stickie note that lets me keep track of everything i have read, and things i am going to read. i'll run through it very briefly. teen titans is the 2003-2011 series. there are 100 issues, so i have my work cut out for me. it is the second oldest thing i am reading. batman is the monthly title, and i am starting where dick grayson starts. same thing goes for detective comics, although there is a big chunk in there of Batwoman, which i am not that interested in ( plus i've already read the last 11 issues of detective comics in the black mirror). batman: hush is about the first time batman meets hush. then there is hush returns a few years later, and at the very bottom is the heart of hush. he's a neat character i plan on reading about. superman: earth one is a graphic novel that is set in a completely different continuity and is an origin of superman story. it is suppose to be really good. the next few are all ones that have had animated movie adaptations, so i wanted to try them. tower of babel is the basis for a new movie called Justice League: Doom. JLA earth 2 is the basis for Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. also was the topic for a few episodes of the justice league animated series from a few years back. all star superman was adapted to the same name. both JLA Earth 2, and all star superman were written by Grant Morrison, who as mentioned above, is brilliant. No Man's Land is a very very long, and extensive collection of all sorts of batman-related titles from around 2000. basically a giant earthquake hits gotham, and chaos ensues. american vampire is published by Vertigo Comics, and it is written and created by Scott Snyder, so i will give it a try.

bold ones i have done, so these are quick. i'll just mention ones that i haven't yet. bruce wayne the road home is a mini-series about bruce wayne traveling through time to get back (it's comic logic). batman incorporated was a monthly title that grant morrison did after bruce wayne's return (morrison basically wrote everything that has to do with bruce's death, and then after he returns) Morrison also did a run on just the standard batman title, which was neat, and trippy. he likes to write in mind games, which can be fun. the long halloween is a classic batman story, that documents the origins of two-face.

whew. i think that is about everything. here are a few more covers that i like. :)

this is the teen titans i am reading. astute fans might even be able to name some of these characters. :)

this was the most recent Batman Inc title. it's a really fun and well written piece, and it is getting a regular monthly again this summer, since it was canceled for the start of the new 52.