The Ultimate Guide To Reading Batman Comics?

[dhunter333]

now i have probobly about 5,000 batman & related titles

i am talking all justice league, teen titans, batman oen shots mini series graphic novels appearneces in other people's titles

all batman & related series, complete, from about '55 up


i have read under 10% of this
i just dont know where to start
i want to start around batman 200, detective 350 or so is around the same area i think

now from there where do i keep going?
is there a good guide to telling me what order stuff happens?
where robin fits in while reading batman, lodt, sotb, gotham central, many other stories, how can i read my collection properly?

thanks

[jlavaia]

i'd say best way is to go in order. every month has a batman and detective, just read detective comics and then the batman issue the same month and then back to detective and keep going. when you get to LOTDK and Shadow of the Bat do the same thing. alot of earlier stuff was mixed together story-wise. there will be the main story and then the long term story that slowly gets explored with each issue. basically its up to you though and how you'd like to read and what you'd like to read. thee are pleny of issues that you can skip and not miss a thing. whatever you choose, enjoy all the great reading you have ahead you.

[dhunter333]

but like when do i read crisis on infinite earths?
during what issues of batman does that take place?
or like when does the killing joke happen? i remember then referencing it during a lonely place of dying
i mean i know that reading worlds finest, really wont matter, if i read it before or after some batman issues, i know it wont go back and fourth between them

there there's the 2 issues of justice league task force knightquest
i would probobly have skipped over them if i didn't know, (what else will i skip over later?) does one issue say "to be continued in justice league task force #whatver" ?

i just want to do this the right way, i hate thinking you are doing it in the right order just to have them referencing stuff that you read later
i dont think going by date is a sure thing, like month/year

but that is the best i can come up with now

i'm having trouble getting my question out properly, or at least my reasons for making it so difficult

i know a lot of graphic novels/one shots dont really happen during a set time in the batman comics, but some definately

i know at one thing and i'm thinking it was crisis on infinite earths they retcon and reboot a ton of stuff in dc universe, i dont really want to read crisis and then read comics that are pre reboot

and frankly i dont know where to start, i dont want to start super early in batman because a: lot of those books in the 50's/60's sucked, going to space vs martians and monster cause the comic code
also my comics that old are in pretty poor shape
i figured i'd start somewhere in the middle of the silverage and work my way upward

but i just worry about mixing stuff up later down the line, when there are tons of different titles at once (and we all know there have been 10+ at a time)

[jlavaia]

okay, if you dont want to read anything that's been retconned dont read much before 1986. and then some stuff between 1986 and 1994 was retconned, but not all, and some of that stuff was very good so i wouldnt skip all of it. the JL: Task Force stuff was just a tie-in to Knightquest, and Knightquest itself was just JVP's time as Az-Bat.

[dhunter333]

no i do want to read it just want to read it all together



i dont want to be reading retconned stuff after the retcon etc

[jlavaia]

oh okay. well read all the stuff printed before 1986 before stuff printed after 1986 then. COIE was in 1986. that changed things. and then read everything from after 1986 before everything after 1994. Zero Hour was in 1994. then all the stuff until 2005. as Infinite Crisis changed some things too.