BATMAN AND THE ART OF CONTINUITY MAINTENANCE
_______________________________
The Batman Chronology Project is a study of serialized storytelling in superhero comics. More specifically, it tracks the continuity of DC Comics via the lens of Batman by plotting his appearances into detailed timelines. To most folks, simple questions arise: “Doesn’t one just read the comics in the order they are published? Why does there need to be a project dedicated to ordering comics? If it is so difficult to figure out a reading order, surely there must be a lot of similar projects online, right?” Ultimately, we get to the bigger question: “Why is this site necessary?”
These questions (which I will answer, don’t worry!) speak to something broader than just Batman (we’ll get to Batman in a minute, don’t worry!)—they speak to the complexity of superhero comics in general. Beyond the already layered intricacy of writing and reading sequential art, the very nature of superhero comics is unique compared to other forms of media. When you read (or create) serialized superhero comic book narratives, you are engaging in a perceptive (or artistic) process that is unlike any other. This site, using Batman as a primary case study, serves to analyze and catalogue this phenomenon.
A typical comic shop rack.
The complexity of mainstream comics consists primarily of a few key things. First, as Douglas Wolk says in his book All of the Marvels (2021), superhero universes exist in comics as “a cluster of overlapping serials” that have “a different relationship with time and sequence than most kinds of narrative art.” This “cluster” is comprised of vast collections of interconnected serialized fiction—authored by hundreds of different people, including writers, pencilers, colorists, inkers, letterers, editors, publishers, and more—over the span of decades. Beyond this (and because of this), much of the superhero genre is hermeneutic—open to both reader interoperation and authorial interpretation of previous authorship. Every week, dozens of new titles come out continuing the story from the previous week’s batch of titles. And all of these titles—week to week, month to month, and so on—tell an ongoing über-story in which the events and characters of said titles all exist in the same shared world, directly influencing each other. Media scholars have also referred to the über-story as a mega-text or aggregate narrative (Jim Collins), macro-structure (Marie-Laure Ryan), or fiction network (Jason Craft). The Big Two are DC and Marvel, having combined to regularly garner over 70% of the annual market share since the 1990s. Image, Dark Horse, and IDW, along with small indie publishers, account for the rest of the share. (It’s worth noting that we are talking specifically about the superhero genre, and mostly as it pertains to single issue comic sales. In terms of graphic novel and trade paperback sales, from the mid 2010s onward, various manga publishers have controlled around 50% of the market share with Scholastic coming behind at a close 40%. In this respect, the Big Two are really the Little Two, only accounting for a measly 4% of the market share—a disturbing number for DC and Marvel’s financial profiles.) Either way, the Big Two seem content on letting trade paperbacks slide while focusing on dominance over the weekly single issue category, continuously releasing dozens of new “floppy” comics per week. In 2017, according to The Atlantic, “Marvel [was publishing] around 75 ongoing [monthly] series, along with miniseries and single-issue specials. DC [was publishing] around 50 [monthly] ongoing series.” According to Comichron, in 2019, Marvel released 1,191 single issues while DC released 890. That’s a lot of material, and the Big Two don’t tell you in what order to read them or how to organize them. To be clear, Marvel and DC do publish trade paperbacks and their issues are all numbered and can be read in some sort of an order. But when it comes to stitching every title together to make the über-story that tells the whole tale, that is not a task that either company really gets bogged down in. If we look solely at DC, for example, we are talking about literally hundreds of creators working together to create a “shared universe”—essentially one single unified story. How can all these titles (and creators) possibly exist and function cohesively? How can there be a coherent story, both visually and narratively? Holistically, the comics form a puzzle and it’s how the pieces fit together that really interests me.
Spongebob Drops a Pipe Bomb
But before moving on, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the commercial effect upon story. Most purely narrative-based approaches to comics studies don’t address the industrial processes that determine how comics texts get made. Because the Batman Chronology Project is a narrative-based study, and specifically not a media industry study, it won’t often touch upon the commerce/merchandising side of things. However, one of the failings of any narratological study is to stray too far from identifying indelible industrial factors that contribute to story. As such, the Batman Chronology Project will touch upon these connections when appropriate. When I say “DC” in this proem, I’m referring to the beast that is “DC the company.” Same goes for “Marvel.” (DC is owned by Warner Bros Discovery. Marvel is owned by the Walt Disney Company.) Without Warner Bros Discovery, Disney, and other conglomerates, our favorite characters and stories would not exist in the forms they do today. Is this good? Is this bad? It’s an issue that increases in complexity as you peel back the layers. We cannot deny that Big Business has a long-documented tradition of screwing over some writers, and artists. (Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster spent most of their lives in the poorhouse, fighting for a share of their character’s riches. Bill Finger went decades without acknowledgement that he co-invented Batman.) Most creators still don’t own their own creations, although a balance of creator-owned, co-owned, and work-for-hire models has led to better financial compensation for creators within the contemporary comics ecosystem. Nevertheless, when it comes to precious intellectual property, corporations have a long history of throwing their weight around to extend copyright, and this still goes on today with intense lobbying and litigation. Big Business also played its dirty hand in the form of the gross Diamond Comics print distribution monopoly, which existed from the mid 1990s through the early 2020s before being broken up by a combination of an augmented digital market, DC’s move to creating its own distributor (Lunar), and both Marvel and IDW switching to publishing giant Penguin Random House. Ethics in the comic book industry isn’t something that I will tackle with regularity on this site, but it should be kept in our minds as consumers and fans. All superhero comics, including Batman books, are the products of many different creative minds, but it is the conservative or neoliberal committee of corporate bigwigs, marketing execs, publishers, and editors that control the characters and the worlds in which they live—even if most of the time the committee has contributed little or nothing towards either. Thus, from a narratological perspective, strong (i.e. accessible and unbroken) continuity or innovative story development are tough things to achieve in a capitalist money-focused market. The hierarchical dynamics of the industry directly affect how story, character, and continuity are shaped. For example, as eloquently extrapolated by Alisa Perren and Gregory Steirer in The American Comic Book Industry and Hollywood, throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, comics would primarily be purchased at newsstands—and because you couldn’t guarantee that a given title would appear each month at the same retailer, issues couldn’t be too serialized or contain impenetrable continuity-driven narrative. After all, readers had to be able to follow the story even if they missed a few issues. “By circumventing newsstand distribution entirely,” as Proctor explains in Reboot Culture (2023), “publishers would ensure comics reached a certain audience made up of super-readers, collectors, and speculators, rather than the childhood [and mainstream] audiences that had been their primary consumer market for decades.” As the direct market model of distribution, speculation, collection, overproduction, boutique shop inclusivity, IP farming, and mismanaged crossover event-style cash grabs all became more commonplace, superhero comics began to see more tropes of serialization, including more detailed world-building and cumbersome continuity tailored to the niche fan. There’s obviously way more to say about this topic, but it’s likely better served in a different forum. In the end, no matter what, I love superhero comics and hope they will continue to evolve for the better.
Batman Cover to Cover: The Greatest Comic Book Covers of the Dark Knight (2005)
But why Batman? Why is he so important? Well, he’s not just an awesome character. He’s quite popular, in case you didn’t know—he shows up in almost every DC title at some point or another. Batman—along with Superman, and to a lesser extent Wonder Woman—is a primary lens through which DC Comics has been able to tell a consistent narrative for the past 80 years-plus. In the DC Universe, everything kind of revolves around the Holy Trinity of Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. Therefore, sticking with the appearances of one of the Trinity—in our case, Batman—allows for the easiest determination of character age, passage of time, event placement, where things need to be rearranged, how things come together, or how things fail to come together for the entire DC Universe. Of course, a ton of variables have to be considered and the process gets complicated. This is the reason why there are so few attempts at what I’ve done. The few that exist—in dedicated areas of the Internet and in a few rare books—have either been quickly abandoned or left incomplete. Because Batman’s past is so rich, most evaluations or analyses from the narratological perspective of serialization have been less than successful. I’m sort of a masochist for continuing such a Sisyphean project with such rigorous diligence! But I do so because of a desire to prove certain theses: one, continuity equals congruity (meaning that, contrary to what a lot of folks think, continuity isn’t supposed to over-complicate or make texts feel exclusive—it actually helps us understand narrative more easily); two, serialized multi-authored narratives utilize truly unique forms of storytelling; and, three, a cohesive superhero universe is the result of a collaborative interpretive process undertaken by both creators and readers alike. By focusing on the media archeology of fictional canon and reboots, the Batman Chronology Project has been able to verify this list and remain the preeminent source of comic book continuity information on the web.
_______________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________
Please click on the following link to continue reading the next part: Fictional Canon: What Counts?
_______________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________
ABOUT THE SITE CREATOR/PROJECT MANAGER:
Collin Colsher, creator of the Batman Chronology Project, is a writer and comic book historian that currently lives in Philadelphia. He has lectured at various universities, libraries, and book fairs. Collin has also served on the jury for the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, which is sponsored by the US Library of Congress.
_______________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________
I just wanted to take a second to thank you for what you are doing here. I’ve been attempting to read Batman chronologically, and your site(s) have proven invaluable in my collector hunts. Cheers!
Collin, thanks so much for all the hard work you’ve put into your site. I’ve been a big Batman fan for years and am finally getting a good collection of comics together. Great to be able to reference this chronology to see where those comics fit in the scheme of things.
I just discovered this site, and I love it. I chronicle Booster Gold appearances, and those alone can be daunting. Ordering Batman appearance is a Sisyphean task, indeed, but you are making it look effortless. Thanks for making the effort.
Longtime fan here, and when I first heard about the New 52 my thoughts turned to you and what it was going to mean for the BCP! Good to see you’ve been able to survive this DC-inflicted madness 🙂
I’m running a Catwoman scripted fiction project, and the BCP has been an invaluable resource as we develop plots and storylines for that, so just wanted to say thanks and see you when the new site is up and running.
I love this site, and it’s a great resource, even for people developing their own chronology of Batman that may not fully match up to yours. As I alluded to in another post, I’m creating my own Batman collection/chronology without using Long Halloween and Dark Victory. They are fine stories, and I like them, but they do prevent a lot of other stories from fitting in, or cause some awkward placement. (Look at the Unofficial DCU Chronology site…he has both stories compressed down to a couple of months and moving scenes all around.)
So, I might post a comment from time to time asking why an issue might not fit exactly. If you say issue x can’t fit because it contradicts issue y, but I don’t include issue y in my Batman collection, then maybe I could work issue x into it.
It is definitely possible–see Chris Miller’s amazing and profoundly seminal work over at the Unauthorized Chronology of the DC Universe (http://dcu.smartmemes.com/). However, I really am just focusing on Batman here. I even omit Bat Family titles if the Caped Crusader fails to appear. It’s not a knock to the other characters; but to add a handful of “major story-arcs” into this chronology would be hard because I feel you either need to pick one character (as I have done) or do a comprehensive all-encompassing list of the whole DCU. Who am I to say what story-arcs are the most important? If I were to begin adding other stories, then it would be wrong of me to leave others out. I do try, though, to add important event items that affect the whole DCU. Maybe I will add a series of footnotes including pertinent info about the goings-on during the “Death and Return of Superman,” “Green Arrow: Year One,” and “Superman For All Seasons.”
Thanks for your input and comment!
Hi Collin,
Would there be any way to put a note in your chronology listings as to what collected edition (if any) a comic book in question belongs? As I’m not hugely knowledgable about comics, it’d be great to know what graphic novel/book that, say, Batman 536 belongs to when I’m following the chronology.
Thanks so much for establishing and maintaining this site and blog – I’d long been looking for something that could give me direction as to where to start with Batman comics when I stumbled across TRBCP. It’s been very informing and helpful, keep up the great work!
-Allie
Dear Allie,
Thanks so much for the kind words and your continued support of the site! I’ve had a lot of requests lately, among them: adding a downloadable version of the quick lists and making the whole site more navigable in general. Your suggestion is a good one as well, and one that I will add to the list. It’s tough maintaining everything solo, but hopefully in the months to come I can start to take care of some of this business.
Trade Reading Order.com is a faaaantastic site that lists just about every single trade/collected edition that has ever been published and also gives the info regarding which issues are in which books. In the meantime (before and changes are likely to be seen on my site) I’d suggest perusing over there for some info regarding this specific topic. If and when I do add trade/collected edition information to TRBCP it will likely come straight from that source.
Take care, Allie. And again, thank you!
–CC
I’m curious, do you own all of the bat titles, if not how do you go about taking care of all the placement and so on and so fourth?
Having been a collector for quite a while now (and having had family members that collected for years) I own nearly 100% of the Batman corpus from the Modern Age, which allowed me to complete the Modern Age section mostly from reading actual physical comic book issues and trades. Of course, I don’t have much of the Golden or Silver/Bronze Age stuff—if I did I’d be a millionaire. Thus, torrent downloads of cbr and cbz files are my outlet there. I hope I’m not exposing myself as an illegal downloader, but really the only way to get your hands on some of the older stuff is via digital downloads. (Also, I’m not against downloading stuff purely for research purposes). That being said, I do try my best to purchase (or borrow) some of the Sunday/Dailies trades and Golden Age Batman trades that have been released when I can. Currently, economic times are rough (as we all know) and it’s hard to make ends meet, but I haul my ass over to the comic shop and am able to gather the issues I need for the New 52 stuff.
I usually advise the reader to ignore an incorrectly-drawn costume if it is drawn in a flashback sequence because it most often means the error was simply made by the artist or writer (as opposed to a non-flashback story deliberately written in “current time” narrative style that gets it definitively wrong)—if that makes any sense. It is a bit confusing, I know. Let me try to explain it in another way. Here is a specific random example: Gotham Knights #43 occurs in Year 18—it absolutely has to for various reasons including publication date, in-story factors, numbering, etc… In this issue there is a flashback, which must be canon since it effetcs a canon issue and is shown in a canon issue. This flashback shows a retired Batgirl take a new Jason Todd Robin out on patrol at the behest of Batman to psychoanalyze him and test his physical capabilities. It also tells us that Joker breaks out of Arkham and foreshadows that he will soon do terrible things to both Babs and Jason. Therefore, this flashback has to take place in Year Eleven, relatively close to the events of Killing Joke and “Death in the Family.” However, by this point, Batman is wearing his yellow-oval costume, and yet in this flashback he has his black bat insignia! Thus, this becomes a prime instance of a canonical flashback where we must ignore the incorrect costume.
As far as how the significance of Batman’s costume can make an otherwise “fine” story into a non-canonical story, it all depends. Usually, there is something more going on than simply the costume to make it non-canon. If you have specific questions about specific tales in mind, I’d be happy to answer questions regarding them. Shoot me an e-mail at therealbatmanchronologyproject.com if you do have any queries.
And for the Modern Age there is definitely a chronology/canonicity for the Dark Knight’s suit designs. Batman’s costume definitively goes through many changes, in this order: The black insignia costume with gray tights, the yellow-oval with gray tights, the yellow-oval with black tights, back to the black insignia with gray tights, then the raised-yellow oval with gray tights. Of course, the switch from the original costume to the yellow insignia has had many different time placements and been retconned a bunch, but it always signaled the transition from the Golden Age to the Silver Age. So for the Modern Age, the yellow-oval is kinda-sorta linked to the inception of the Teen Titans. For the intents and purposes of my chronology, everything pre-Titans era is original costume. Following that (in Year Seven) is the yellow-oval period. After “Knight’s End” and returning from the Bane affair, Batman dons an all black (with yellow-oval) ensemble at the end of the “Prodigal” story-arc (in Year Fourteen). He will rock this look until the end of “No Man’s Land,” at which point he returns to his original costume design (in Year Sixteen). When Batman returns from his jaunt through time and starts Batman Inc (in Year Twenty-Two), he will switch to a raised yellow-oval symbol on gray set of togs.
Always remember, this is a suggested chronology. There can never really be the exact dead-on version. Everyone is free to mold their own timeline and pick and choose as they see fit. But hopefully, this is as close as anyone has ever gotten (and ever will)! And hopefully this is the numero uno reference point for any other lists out there!
I was intrigued to read about your take on the costume/insignia and its effect on chronology and canonicity (probably not a real word but you know what I mean). I agree that it’s undoubtedly a useful indicator for story placement, especially where other evidence is lacking. However, my take is that any individual book (and by extension any individual panel) is just a representation of the “reality” of the DC Universe (whichever one it happens to be). For instance, I’ve been reading “Wargames” in order, and the change in art styles between, say, “Detective” and “Batgirl” is dramatic – in one, Batgirl (Cassandra) looks like the perviest thing you’ve ever seen, and in the other she looks cute as a button. Both issues are clearly canonical (at least within the overall arc) despite one or both clearly not representing “reality”. The characters obviously don’t live their “real” lives as a series of static images with bubbles coming out of their mouths. I think of it like Julius Schwartz channelling the original Flash and turning his adventures into a comic which was read by Barry Allen (which was a stroke of storytelling genius in my opinion, decades before everyone was dropping the word “postmodern” into every conversation). We’re not seeing a reality, but a retelling/reinterpretation of that reality.
Factual/timeline inconsistencies are a different issue, and I appreciate your point that the costume alone isn’t usually enough to discount a story. However, I don’t think an inconsistency (or a downright error) should necessarily discount a story from canon either. For instance, I’m a fan of Doctor Who, mainly the original 26-year run (I’m going to assume you’re not familiar with it; if you are then you probably know where this is going…) Clearly every story that was shown on TV during that run is canon; removing almost any given story would have a house of cards effect on the rest (arguments will rage for eternity over whether to include the hundreds of books, comics, audio plays etc). However, there are massive inconsistencies within just the TV show which make it impossible for events to all have happened as shown. For instance, in a mid-seventies story a certain character is clearly established as being a high-ranking officer in a UN military organisation in 1980, but in a mid-eighties story is seen retired from the military and visibly older in 1977. Theoretically you could pretend that the later story doesn’t count and never happened because a different production team made a mistake (or wilfully ignored continuity for the sake of telling their story) , but the fact remains that at the time of production both the stories were meant to be part of the ongoing tale (and it can be argued that it was in fact the earlier of the two stories that got it wrong). There are whole books dedicated to trying to resolve this and many other problems, and they all fail (or at least cheat outrageously). The only truly workable explanation is that we are seeing an interpretation of a different reality, not that reality itself. There are endless other examples; Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes has a handful of timeline problems, but it all still counts; the New Testament has two very contradictory accounts of the birth of Jesus, but are both considered canonical (which is I think is where the term originates); any TV or film series that has recast a character has a problem akin to that of a change in art style; Dr No and Skyfall can’t both be about the “real” James Bond, but both are unquestionably canon.
So I suppose my argument is that unless a story is clearly meant or stated to be outside of continuity, then why not include it? Point out any issues with continuity, and if it can’t be explained or retconned away, then it can be put down to an error on the part of the creatives who reinterpreted the events of the DC Universe(s) for those of us unfortunate enough to live in the real one. My final point is that whatever your intentions people will use your work as a reading guide (I know I do); to that end it makes sense to me to throw out as little as possible.
Anyway, feel free to completely ignore my little essay and keep up the great work. Been getting into comics and Batman specifically after a long break (I used to rely on http://dcu.smartmemes.com/index.html to help me make sense of it all but he’s stopped unfortunately).
Dear Andy,
Thanks for your support and kind words! I would never ignore such a well-thought out and insightful comment. And as far as “The Unauthorized Chronology of the DCU” goes, it was originally my primary source when I started this mess five years ago. (I’ve corresponded with site author Chris Miller before as well—I believe he stopped because he is in the process of getting his PhD).
As I always say, continuity is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak. We all create our own personal continuities and the beautiful thing is that we can never really be wrong. I’ve tried to include as many stories as possible—I agree with you when you say that all stories that aren’t explicitly meant to be out-of-continuity should therefore be IN-continuity. I’ve tried to stick to that concept while building my timelines, although my natural stubbornness probably has a significant effect in what gets left in and left out. I’m sure others are more willing to accept stories as canon—ones which I haven’t, while others still are upset with the stories I have chosen to include.
It’s funny you mention Skyfall too. Skyfall is the perfect example of everything I love about comics—seamlessly folding in bits of old continuity into new continuity, meshing an older version of a character’s history with the new. Except in this case, the problem (for me) with Skyfall is that it isn’t a comic book, it’s a movie, and one which I had always regarded the same way Alan Moore playfully does—as a chain of decidedly different British agents “filling the Bond role” over time. The Broccoli family seemed to quietly share that same view for decades, until the Craig films, of course. That’s precisely why Skyfall was so amazing yet baffling and frustrating for me. You are absolutely right, the very smarmy Scottish Bond seen in Dr. No who drives the trick-gun-equipped Aston Martin could never in a billion years be the ice cold decidedly not-Scottish badass from Casino Royale. And yet they are one and the same thanks to Skyfall! I’m digressing a bit (or a lot) here, but the Skyfall example is something so intrinsically linked to narratological issues stemming from comic book type continuity, I’m surprised there aren’t more write-ups about it.
Anyway, thanks for taking the time to say hi and to give a wonderful piece of your mind. Not sure if this has been an adequate response, but I hope it is!
Best,
Collin C
PS. Canonicity is indeed a REAL word and one I use far, far too often!
Hello, I want to say I am looking forward to reading these timelines and remember we must all be vegetarians because of the dark beef (Batcow)
Hi Collin – pretty awesome that this has been going on now near 6 years and thank you for all the hard work. Just a couple quick questions:
1. Where did the updates section go? I used to be able to tell when and which updates you made and now i can’t seem to find it.
2. Are you still updating the site? Understandably TRBCP/’disContinuity’ Blog is being continuously updated and has great stuff but haven’t seen much movement on the Silver Age and cant tell if you have made any new discoveries/changed anything around in the Modern Age in the last couple months.
As always, great work and hope that that ‘updates’ section can be re-introduced (or you can provide a link as i simply cannot find it) and that if, understandably, you are stepping away from updating TRBCP that hopefully somone will don the cape, cowl, and keyboard that you have been wearing/wielding these last 6 years.
Hey Rebel,
I got rid of the updates page because it wasn’t giving much specific information and it wasn’t being kept up to date (which is terrible for an “updates” page). I am definitely updating the site still. There hasn’t been much to add or correct on the Modern Age section. And the Silver Age has been going slow. We had a terrible site crash and lost some info in the Silver Age section (even despite having had everything backed up multiple ways). Hopefully, the Silver Age will get rolling again—it is frustrating to have to re-write chunks of it, though.
I will look into better means of keeping my readers and patrons up to date on the latest site changes. Like I said, I think what was up before was simply inadequate.
Thanks for your continued support.
Keep up the great work man. Still my go to site for chronology!
Hey man. First off, tremendous job on this site! Quite possibly my favorite comics-related web site of all time. Second, with DC launching their Rebirth Series soon, will you be starting to make a new time line to accommodate that (The Rebirth Age?)? Thank you and keep up the great work.
Thanks for your very kind words, Zak. Comments like these keep me going strong after all these years.
If Rebirth functions similarly to the way Zero Hour or Infinite Crisis did—as line-wide SOFT reboots, then I will simply continue the New Age timeline. I’m not sure that any major retcons are happening that would constitute a new timeline, although the Justice Society being folded back into Earth-0 history seems pretty major. Things may be “returning to their roots” (aka lining up with the cinematic universe a bit more and giving us a more Geoff Johns Modern Age feel), but so far as I have heard, this soft reboot will not jettison the continuity that has been built up since 2011, meaning that Rebirth shouldn’t be a massive total relaunch. That being said, we shall see…
Hey there. Just wanted to thank you for putting all this together. It’s been really helpful to me. Is there anyway to tell if any updates have been made to any of the sections? Again, thanks so much. All the best and best of luck.
Hi Joseph,
Thanks for the kind words. There used to be an updates page, but updates are made so frequently it didn’t make sense to keep it active. The Modern Age section is completely finished. The New 52 is completely finished. The New Age is current comics, ongoing but completely up to date week to week. The Golden Age is about 90% done. And the Silver Age is about 50% done, and it gets updated basically every other week.
Hope that helps a little bit. Feel free to email me directly (ccolsher@gmail.com) if you have any questions.
Best!
I really appreciate the response. And I also want to reiterate how great a job you’re doing with the site. The wealth of knowledge you have about the comics, as well as the ability to put them in a proper order, is absolutely staggering. Getting all of my issues/books together and putting them in the right order is almost as fun for me as reading them. So thank you for your tireless and continued effort. I’m currently on Part 2 of Year 15 of the Modern Age, so that’s good to know it’s 100%. If I have any further questions I’ll be sure to reach out. Thank you again, and all the best.
Hi Colin, I just wanted to say this is insanely amazing , and thanks so much for having put this together. As a newbie I am pretty daunted at the scope of all the narratives, even when you’ve broken it down into different eras.
I was wondering if you could add a curated recommended essential reading list (across eras) for newbies? A kind of chronologically condensed ‘best of’, but not too cursory.
There are plenty of lists like this on the internet, but I definitely feel you are best qualified to build the ultimate go to!! 🙂
Thanks again in any case and keep up the great work.
Nicholas
Hi Nicholas,
There’s a footnote in the “Year One Era” intro to the Modern Age section of the site that includes an “essential reading list.” However, it’s for the Modern Age only. I’ll e-mail it to you in case you can’t locate it. As for the Golden Age and Silver Age, it’s a bit tougher to compile an essential list for them since they both have shorter (or single-issue) arcs and generally less collected trades in comparison to later eras.
I’ll see what I can manage for the Golden and Silver Ages, and I’ll try my best to compile a list for both the New 52 and New Age.
Thanks for the kind words, they are much appreciated. 🙂
Hey Collin, thanks for taking the time to reply and to do that!
It is really difficult to know where to start as a newbie….
I’m gonna dig into the modern era titles you suggested and will keep checking back.
Keep in touch and thanks again for your work!
N
Hi Collin! I love this site, and have had so much fun reading it and diving deep. I’m curious, do you record this information in a spreadsheet or any form beyond the blog list format? For my own exploration and reference I’ve been putting together an issue-by-issue spreadsheet of every batman-related publication since the Modern Age and populating it with information from online comic databases, but I’d love to be able to also try and map on the notes and ordering that you’ve built up in your project. So, I thought I’d ask whether you have anything like that! Best wishes.
Hi! Thanks for such kind words, Harrison. I used to keep things organized with Google Docs and spreadsheets galore, but I found that I was basically organizing those IN ADDITION to the main site—and then THOSE weren’t even matching up, which only added confusion to my workflow. Basically, I abandoned the extraneous work and simply juggle things around directly in my WordPress browser as I edit in real time. Sounds crazy, right? But it’s actually made things a lot easier in recent years.
So, as a result, I don’t have anything like what you are asking for. The best I could do is simply copy paste the “Quick List” into a spreadsheet, but I’m sure you can do that just as easily. However, If there’s anything I can do to help with your project, please shoot me an e-mail and let me know. Happy to be of any assistance.
Thank you for your hard work, please keep up the good work! 🙂
Hello!
First of all, THANK YOU FOR YOUR SITE!!! I REALLY REALLY REALLY LOVE IT & APPRECIATE YOUR HARD WORK!!!
I’m new to the worlds of DC Comics (although I’ve read plenty of comics – but those were very random). I have been a longtime DC fan, but I’ve never really had the time for comics – I mostly just watched the animated shows (Justice League, Batman Animated Series, Superman Animated Series Teen Titans, Young Justice) and live-action shows (Arrowverse – Flash, Arrow, Supergirl, Legends, Batwoman – and DC Universe shows Titans, Doom Patrol and Stargirl). So I’m familiar with most of the characters, but I really wanted to get down to reading the comics – because the comics are what started it all!
So I downloaded most of the Batman comics from GetComics, referencing the “List of DC Comic Publications” Wikipedia page for the titles. By now, I’ve collected most of the Golden, Silver and Modern comics – especially the New 52 and Rebirth ones, but here’s the problem I faced.
SO MANY of the Batman comics are, well, strictly speaking, not from the major continuities. Titles like Batman’66 or Batman and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – those don’t strictly fall into the main DC timeline, do they?
Also, I’m so unclear about which issues take place on Earth-1 and whicvh on Earth-2 and so on.
I hope your site really helps me in streamlining the continuities so that I can fully enjoy reading these epics!
Please keep this site updated! Love your effort. I can’t fathom what it must have taken you to compile such an exhaustive list, but I really appreciate it!
Hi Dreamstar! Believe it or not, long before I started this website, my only connection with the DC characters was primarily through television. Dipping your toes into the comic book world can be daunting and overwhelming, but it’s certainly a lot of fun, especially if you only know the TV versions of your favorites. Glad to help in the process. If you ever have questions, shoot me a line!
Hello Collin,
I have been facinated by the written, aural, and visual mediums of comic books, since the late 1980’s. Shortly after I started reading comics, Warner Bros. released the 1989 Batman movie. As a young boy, I was fascinated by Michael Keaton’s Batman, but more by Jack Nicholson’s Joker. This was mostly because in school, I was the outcast, flying under the radar. I felt that the Joker was an outcast and product of his environment. On the other hand, Batman made me think of the cool rich kid that everyone wanted to be. For Halloween, I dressed as The Joker while everyone else went as Batman.
This quickly changed in the early 90’s. I was introduced to the Tim Drake version of Robin. He is the Robin I think of when I think of Batman and Robin. Of the Robin’s I am very familiar with, Dick Grayson grew to become Nightwing, Jason Todd “died” and became The Red Hood, Tim Drake stayed the same and became Red Robin, and Damian Wayne is literally Batman’s son. Batman stayed Batman, mostly the same father-like figure to Robin. For this reason, I drifted more towards Robin, than Batman.
In my early teens, I did not think too much about continuity, chronological order, or canonicity of the mediums. I was just so enthralled by the amazing stories. I mostly read Batman, Detective Comics, Robin, and Shadow of the Bat. Knightfall was the first major arc that required me to dive deeper and go from a mere hobby, to an investment. I started buying two of each comic. One to read, one to collect. This became expensive and soon I was spending more time collecting Batman stories, and less time reading them.
Around my early 20’s my daughter was born and I had to be a father to her and I drifted away from the comics completely. I was still able to watch the various shows, but I spent most of my time working and being a father.
Right around my late 20’s/ early 30’s, I tried yet again to start up reading comics. This time, I had to start researching the New 52. I found that I started to care more about the story that brought the characters to the New 52 world than the New 52. This led to my introduction of following the chronology of Batman, not the issue numbers.
During my journey, I amassed a collection of roughly 3,000 physical comic books, mostly related to Batman. I realize that this is really nothing compared to what was released, but it quickly became an obsession. I spent thousands of dollars on comics, just so I could read the original stories. I was able to find the digital versions of the comics, but I enjoyed physically holding them in my hands. It got to the point that I needed to create a “comic book” room to hold them in. I even invested in special drawer type boxes to prevent having to constantly move the boxes around to get to the issues I needed. With all this being said, eventually, I did accept the digital versions of comics.
What I learned about comics is this. The stories are meant to be read from an outside perspective. If the continuity changes, think of it as a parallel dimension, or an alternate history. If new stories get added to the older original, think of it as an addendum to the original. I imagine I am traveling through the comic worlds in a time machine. I can jump forward or backward at any time. If I find a change in the past, I can then jump into the newly created future with the changes present. The visual representation has little to do with the stories and more with the artist’s style for the comics.
In closing, I would just like to tell you how incredibly easy and satisfying your site makes it to “time travel” throughout the World’s of DC.
Thank you for your time,
Jason
Hi there,
Love your site! Especially the pictures you’ve added. Congrats on reaching your milestone this year. Keep up the great work!!
Thank You, I’ll be donating to you tomorrow or this weekend. Is there a list to what certain abbreviations means? such i know fb is flashback but what is r? Thanks
Thanks, James. I really appreciate that! “r” simply means reference.
Hi Collin
I don’t know how I’ve managed to miss your site, but was just informed of it and had to check it out as I’ve been doing DC Character chronologies for my Unofficial Guide to the DC Universe for over 25 years, and have been actively seeking out chronologies to see differences of opinion and how others have tackled some of the problems I’ve faced in my own investigations.
I have only gotten to take a quick look so far but have to say I’m really impressed. There are naturally things where I’ve handled stuff differently and disagree with your placements, but this is not an exact science. I really like the way you explain your reasoning for the placements, something I’ve not been very good at myself, so sometimes I have to go through a bunch of issues again to understand why I put something where I put it, as my notes are not good enough.
My work on the DCU Guide takes up a lot of my spare time, but I will be digging into your chronology and if I find something where I think you might have overlooked some clues or have some comments I will post them for you to do with as you like.
Anyway, just wanted to say hi and as a fellow “chronologizer” I really admire the work you’re putting into this.
Hi Tenzel! Thanks for the kind words. Hope you are staying safe and healthy through these trying times. I couldn’t have done my site without the Unofficial DCU Guide, so I am truly indebted to you! Twenty-five years is a long time! I’ve been doing my site for ten—and every time I think I’ve found a place to jump off or close the book, the comics seem to pull me back in. Happy to hear from and to be in touch with you. Shoot me an email at ccolsher@gmail.com if you ever want to chat about anything!
I’ve just tried doing a comparison between your and my Modern Age Years 11-15 and I can see that at least for that era we are pretty close. You have a lot of flashbacks that I’ve not yet fitted into the chronology, but for the most part we are pretty much on point.
I see that some issues have been moved quite a bit from their publication date which I find a bit puzzling. Personally I always go by internal inter-title references first, which might very well mean that some things have to be moved slightly, but unless there’s some specific reason not to do so I generally put the books as close to their publication date as possible in the order (naturally keeping storylines together).
Also I try to place books using topical references being published around the same together, but if a specific date is mentioned and it just doesn’t fit the overall DCU timeline I’d rather disregard it than moving an issue a year back or forward just to make it fit the date (unless it is clearly a flashback issue)
I’ll make a couple of notes on the page dedicated to the one I’ve been looking at, but will send you a mail as well as some of what I’m working on might be of help to you as well, or we might be able to get something even better done by collaborating.
I definitely use the same methodology, although since I started my chronology-building with the Modern Age (over ten years ago now), the shakiest (and loosest use of those rules) has occurred around the titles ranging from 1986 through 1994. This has led to a lot of fixes around that era. Happy to have your eyes on this! Thanks, again.
Hey, thx, what if I want to start reading Batman comics from the newest timeline right now. With what shoulld I beign?
Hi Julian, you should start with Frank Miller’s Batman Year One!
Hi Collin. I sent you a message on Patreon.
Hi Milo! Yes, I saw it the other day. I’ll take a moment to respond as soon as I can!
Hi, Collin! I can’t help but notice it’s been about a year since someone commented on this section. I wanted to thank you for making this wonderful guide. It’s truly been an incredible help in reading comics in a chronological order. I’ve been reading comics for some time now, but I still consider myself to be new in the comics area. So stumbling through your guide after several unfruitful searches was very exciting. I love how detailed everything is and the fact that you add summaries and your thoughts and reasons along with the issues. I’m currently on Year 3 of the Modern Age and I can’t begin to tell you how awesome it’s been to read everything in order. Like the moment I saw the fist tease of the Flying Graysons coming to Gotham on a billboard as Batman grappeled away. I smiled so wide you wouldn’t believe it, and I know part of it was thanks to this blog and your tremendous efforts in putting it together and sharing it with us. So, deeply, truly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for doing what you’re doing. I hope I keep seeing you in years to come.I believe —correct me if I’m wrong— it’s been about 13 years since you’ve started this. And, wow… what you’ve achieved is remarkable.
Sincerely,
Alex.
Ps. I usually comment this on fanfictions but I think they fit here as well, extra kudos to you ♡♡♡. You deserve them.
Thanks so much for the kind words, Alex. Glad I can help guide you — that’s half the reason I do what I do. And yes, it has been 13 years since I first started this project… sheeesh, time flies! I’d be lying if I said there weren’t a few moments where I wanted to stop, but it’s comments like these that keep me going, even after a decade-plus. Again, thanks from the bottom of my heart. I appreciate you!
Hey there, my name is Steve and I am a remote recruitment agent for AISocial, I checked out your website and I am impressed. I am currently looking for a couple more social media specialists to join our team. The position is flexible so you can work it a couple hours a day on the side of your main business, it pays a minimum of $200 per day and would involve completing various tasks on social media platforms.
We currently are hiring 4 more people from your location, if you are interested you can view the details of the job by clicking my hiring link below, it isn’t the hardest job but we are looking for the most qualified candidates to proceed.
https://www.theaisocial.com/socialmediajobs
Thank you for your time, we hope to see you on our team!
Looking out for you,
Steve from AISocial
Collin! This is such a wonderful resource. Im actually so amazed by your dedication and research to this beloved character. Keep up the good work friend, you are an inspiration to me!
Thank you so much for your kind words! 🙂
I found this site a few years back and I’m glad to see it’s still around. I’m not a Batman fan much anymore but I still think it’s a great thing you’re doing here. I want to read the DC comics from Crisis on Infinite Earths up to New 52 (beyond just Batman) and want to know if there are any good resources out there with a comprehensive reading order or that list and organise the publications dates of the comics they were making back then?
Hi Aria, thank you for the kind words! There’s not much out there, but Chris Miller’s Unauthorized Chronology of the DCU is a good one (albeit left unfinished long ago, a couple years prior to the inception of the New 52). It’s been scrubbed from the internet, but you can still find it via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20170606025601/http://dcu.smartmemes.com/.
Also of note, the brilliant Tenzel Kim still owns and operates the DCU Guide, a valuable (and always up to date) resource: https://dcuguide.com/w/Main_Page
Is the mobile version of the site down or do I need to check my phone?
I use a wordpress plugin for the mobile site. It appears to be broken. Sorry I don’t have more info, but hopefully the plugin updates/patches/fixes soon.
lmk if it’s still down in a week’s time and i will see what can be done! Thanks!
This is an interesting project, though I have to say that I tend to view ‘chronology’ and ‘canon’ more through the meta of serial superhero comics, ie think of every book as only really being connected with the events, from any era of comics, whichever the writer invokes, and damn corporate editorial fiat. There is no rational, credible, non-self parodying version of any major superhero’s life so it’s best (in my view) to read every story as ‘in the theme of this character, tied to these implicit circumstances, and especially taking into account the current status quo and author preferences’ as this is literally how these stories are written. I tend to have zero respect for corporate intellectual property, considering it a disgraceful scam and attack on both culture and commerce, so I could not possibly care less what Jim Lee put anyone else in an editorial position thinks unless I happen to like it. Headcanon of any random child is more valid and actually relevant than every memo, advertising coordination and marketing event in all of DC history combined. Batman is whoever you need him to be, not shaw they want you to buy.
Hey Cheimison, thanks for the comment! As a staunch anticapitalist, I’m with ya. It’s unfortunate that all our beloved comic book characters of yesteryear function as content cows that get milked dry at the conglomerate IP farm. Nevertheless, for the academic and comprehensive nature of this project, there has to be a structure/rule set that is intrinsically linked to the whims of the corporate overlords. However, I’m always quick to say that headcanon is headcanon—and no one’s headcanon can ever be wrong… whereas, too often, in-house editorial is wrong. As Roland Barthes said, text is not determined by an writer’s intention, instead only by reader interpretation. And this couldn’t be more true than in multi-authored serialized superhero fiction.
Hello Collin, I want to congratulate you for the talent and dedication with which you have done such an excellent job. Without a doubt it is helpful for thousands of comic readers!!! I would like you to guide me to know where I can see the reading order (with the numbers of each comic) of all the Batman comics. It’s difficult for me to know which Batman number comes before Detective, Catwoman, Robin, etc. A guide to organize the reading would be very helpful. I wish you the best for you and your family!
Hello Dr. Molinari! Thanks so much for the kind words, it’s very much appreciated. If you’ll explore the site a bit further, you’ll see that in each section there is the chronological order in the form of “quick lists.” These lists are just the issues (flashback items and reference items included) in order, sans summaries or synopses. Most folks using my site as a pure reading order tend to go by those. Thanks, again!
Hello There. Have you thought about creating a Chronology for entire DC Multiverse or at least the New Earth Continuity
Hi Kal! Thanks so much for the comment. I consider what I’ve accomplished here to be the next best/closest thing to what you’re talking about. Just doing Batman’s chronology alone has been an ongoing process that has taken me over 15 years (and there’s still many years of work to be done, from what I can tell). Doing everything (all of the DCU) together would be quite a task, one that I fear would be impossible for even a small dedicated team to finish in a reasonable amount of time. Chris J Miller’s Unauthorized Chronology of the DC Universe (one of my biggest inspirations) is probably the only project that comes close to telling the unabridged story of the Modern Age, but even it was left unfinished long ago. I think that following a universe’s main character—and besides Superman or Wonder Woman, Batman is definitely DC’s main character—is the best way to tell the complete story of said universe. That’s the primary reason I’ve chosen to hone-in on Batman. Ultimately, I hope this site does tell the full story of the DCU in all its forms and facets (through the lens of it’s arguably most important person).
That all being said, if someone wants to start something, I’m always happy to consult!