DC Comics - The Legend of Batman

After seeing his parents gunned down in Crime Alley, Bruce Wayne dons a cape and cowl to bring justice to Gotham City. Foes, such as the Joker, arise to test his mettle, while a young Dick Grayson joins the fight as Robin the Boy Wonder.

THE DEATH AND REPLACEMENT OF ROBIN: The Dark Knight forms an alliance with the daughter of the demon, Talia al Ghul, and gains new allies – Batgirl and a new Robin, Jason Todd. The Joker re-emerges more lethal than ever and Batman faces his darkest hour.

KNIGHTFALL TO NO MAN'S LAND: Exhausted by a wave of villainous attacks, the Dark Knight is incapacitated by the ruthless Bane, and a new vicious Batman briefly takes on the mantle. Gotham City is turned to ruin and isolated following a massive earthquake.

THE BAT GOES GLOBAL: Batman discovers he is the father of Damian, a child trained to be an assassin. When Bruce Wayne is lost in time, Dick Grayson becomes the Dark Knight before a renewed original Batman returns and launches an international network.

A NEW DAWN BRINGS NEW DANGERS: Following the Flashpoint event, a secret cabal, the Court of Owls, is revealed, ruling Gotham City from the shadows. The Joker returns with a ghoulish new look, intent on dividing Batman from his allies.

Since 2011 Scott Snyder has been writing some of the most acclaimed Batman stories ever published. He and artist Greg Capullo have reinvented Batman, updating him and expanding his story. Our collection begins with Zero Year, in which they take Batman back to his beginnings when Bruce Wayne returned to Gotham City. Later volumes see Batman uncover some dark secrets about Gotham City and his own family.

Writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale produced an acclaimed version of Batman that made full use of Sale’s unique style of art. Together they explored Batman’s early years in a series of tales that retold Robin’s origin, as the dynamic duo battled against Two-Face in Dark Victory. 

The stories The Killing Joke and Batman: Year One deal with the origins of Batman and the Joker and are widely regarded as two of the most significant comic book stories ever published. In Batman: Year One, writer Frank Miller and artist David Mazzuchelli revisited Batman’s origin giving it a realistic and noirish spin that reinvented Batman for a new generation.

Writer Grant Morrison created some of the most extraordinary Batman stories ever by drawing on elements from the 1940s to the modern day. The stories he wrote saw the introduction of Batman’s son Damian, forced Batman to come back from the dead and saw him expand his operations by setting up bases and recruiting an army of Batmen all around the world.

In the early 1970s writer Denny O’Neil and revolutionary artist Neal Adams enjoyed one of the greatest runs in Batman’s history, bringing him firmly into the modern age and introducing the character of Ra’s al Ghul, who would become an essential part of the Batman legend. All of that original run is collected here in three extraordinary volumes.

Around the turn of the century DC created a series of epic tales that spanned dozens of comics. In Knightfall Batman is defeated by Bane, who breaks his back. With Bruce Wayne out of commission, the increasingly violent Azrael takes his place, revealing that Bruce’s Batman is much more than a brutal vigilante.