Batman by Chip Zdarsky Omnibus Vol. 2

Patrick Gleason wrote and drew Robin: Son of Batman after years drawing Damian Wayne in Batman and Robin, giving him a solo book about atonement. The premise is the Year of Blood: Damian retracing the atrocities the League of Assassins made him commit as a child and undoing each one. Gleason knows the character better than anyone, and having him on script and art gives the book a coherence solo Robin series rarely achieve.

The Man Who Laughs is Ed Brubaker and Doug Mahnke's account of Batman's first encounter with the Joker, written as a direct continuation of Frank Miller's Year One. Brubaker writes the Joker as a public health emergency rather than a nemesis — poisoned reservoirs, televised threats, a city that does not yet know what it is dealing with — and Mahnke draws the victims' faces, which is the detail everyone remembers. Made of Wood is the other draw: a genuine detective story with the Golden Age Green Lantern.

Batman and Spawn crossed over twice in 1994, once from each publisher, with Frank Miller and Doug Moench writing and Todd McFarlane and Klaus Janson drawing. The 1994 books are a document of the moment Image was outselling DC and the two companies had to negotiate as equals. The 2022 one-shot is the reason to buy it now: McFarlane and Capullo, the two definitive Spawn and Batman artists, on the same book for the first time.

The Killing Joke was published in 1988 as a one-shot in which the Joker sets out to prove that one bad day is all it takes to break anyone. Bolland finishes his own art and the control is the point: the Joker is terrifying because the drawing never flinches. The recolouring is genuinely different from the 1988 version — flatter, colder, with the flashbacks in near-monochrome — and it is the reason this edition exists. It remains the most cited Joker story ever published.

Before The Long Halloween, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale produced three Halloween specials for Legends of the Dark Knight between 1993 and 1995. They are where the pair worked out the seasonal structure and noir framing that would define their later work together. Haunted Knight is short, and that is its strength: three complete stories that show Loeb and Sale finding their voice in real time. Read before The Long Halloween it supplies context; read after it works as a set of character studies about fear and obligation. For collectors of the Loeb/Sale run, it is the missing first volume.

The Black Mirror was Scott Snyder’s first major DC work, published while Bruce Wayne was absent and Dick Grayson was wearing the cowl. It established Snyder as a Batman writer and led directly to his New 52 run with Greg Capullo. This is Gotham written as horror rather than crime: the threat is a quiet, articulate young man who explains himself calmly, and the tension comes from a father who already knows what his son is. It also makes the strongest case ever published for Dick Grayson as Batman, which is why it stands alone even for readers who skip the surrounding continuity.

Sean Gordon Murphy pitched a Batman story set outside continuity and was given something rare: full control of script and art, and a Gotham of his own that DC has since expanded into a whole line. White Knight is the strongest recent entry point for a reader with no Batman background: no crossovers, no prior reading, one authorial voice on script and art. It also commits to its argument instead of walking it back in the last chapter, which is rare for a Batman story that questions Batman.

Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale followed their Halloween specials with a thirteen-issue murder mystery set during Batman’s early years, when Gotham still belonged to the Falcone family and the costumed criminals were only beginning to appear. It was conceived as a direct sequel to Frank Miller’s Year One and became the template for a generation of Batman crime stories. The Long Halloween is one of the few Batman stories that works equally as detective fiction and as tragedy: the mystery holds up, but the real subject is a good man being destroyed in slow motion. Tim Sale’s silhouettes and Gregory Wright’s seasonal colour make each chapter feel like a different month. It is the book Christopher Nolan drew on most heavily for The Dark Knight, and it remains the standard recommendation for a reader’s second Batman purchase after Year One.

Batman: Urban Legends was an anthology series giving Gotham's supporting cast the space the monthly titles never had. The Red Hood serial is the reason this got attention: Zdarsky spends six chapters on Jason Todd finally processing his own death, and it is better than most of what the main titles were doing that year. The anthology format also means each story is complete, which makes it an easy book to dip into.

Chip Zdarsky's Spider-Man work is spread across Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Life Story, and it is built on the relationships rather than the villains. Zdarsky writes Spider-Man as a person with friends, which sounds obvious and almost nobody does. The Jameson issue in particular is one of the best single Spider-Man comics of the last decade, and the Osborn world arc lets him show what the character actually prevents.

The second Chip Zdarsky omnibus covers the end of his Daredevil run and Devil's Reign, the event in which Wilson Fisk uses the mayor's office to outlaw superheroes. Zdarsky's long game pays off here: Elektra takes over as Daredevil and is better at it, Matt runs a criminal fraternity from inside prison, and Devil's Reign turns a personal grudge into city-wide policy. Woman Without Fear is the best Elektra material in decades, and it is essential to the main run rather than a spin-off.

Daredevil by Chip Zdarsky Omnibus Vol. 1 begins with Matt Murdock shattered after a violent mistake in Hell's Kitchen. Zdarsky and Marco Checchetto rebuild Daredevil through guilt, faith, law and Wilson Fisk's New York, while Elektra moves closer to the centre of the mythos.

Chip Zdarsky took over Batman in 2022 with Jorge Jiménez, and opened by attacking the one thing the character depends on: his own preparation. Failsafe is the premise at its sharpest: a contingency Batman built against himself, working exactly as designed. The Gotham War then turns Bruce and Selina into opponents over whether Gotham's criminals can be rehabilitated. Zdarsky writes Batman as a man whose intelligence is the threat, which is a genuinely different angle after King's emotional register.