Gotham villains seem to spend so much time fighting each other, it's a wonder they have any time to fight Batman. Friend of the show and Patreon backer John Wickham returns for three instances of villain on villain violence, with Blackgate Vs. Arkham during the Forever Evil crossover, Hush Vs. Talia in the run up to Infinite Crisis and The War of J…

Friend of the show and Patreon backer Josh Weil is a busy guy these days. Josh is running in a special election as the Democratic nominee to be the new Representative for Florida's 6th District. But Josh is such a dedicated fan that he took some time off from his busy schedule to join us and talk about three Batman stories from the Golden Age of Co…

I have a soft spot for Wildcat, the Golden Age hero, member of the JSA, and trainer of heroes. And he has a connection to the Bat family, having trained more than one member. So this week we're reading a perfectly whacky issue of Brave and the Bold as only Bob Haney could write it, and two mini-series by Chuck Dixon that feature Bat characters team…

I sit and write this introduction on a February morning where it is in the mid 40s and going up to the low 50s today, but it's still winter, and so we were thinking about the snow and cold when coming up with episodes, and when you think of cold and Gotham, who else do you think about but Mr. Freeze? We feature his first appearance this week, when …

I usually try to put something witty or informative here. But this week, Patreon backer Matt McThorn is back, and he asked us to read Neal Adams's mad dream, Batman: Odyssey. He didn't know what he was getting himself or us into, so we have forgiven him, but this one feels like an all-timer. We also read two Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams stories from the…

Lightning can strike twice. But not often. The original Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight series was a collection of classic creators doing amazing stories. DC has tried to recapture that magic multiple times, and that lightning has never quite hit again. Legends of the DC Universe was another attempt to get that magic, but this time for the entir…

Will wanted to talk about Paul Dini and Alex Ross's graphic album, Batman: War On Crime, so the logical episode theme was more Paul Dini stories, so this is not Matt 100% forcing more Dini on Will. And while Matt didn't do it intentionally, well, he did wind up picking a story with Zatanna, because there are so many of them. But he also picked a st…

It's always a good time for us to return to the runs that we're following in order. This time, things go from bad to worse in No Man's Land, Dick Grayson investigates Wayne Manor for clues to Bruce Wayne's whereabouts while Damian has a strange encounter with Oberon Sexton, and the magical war in the Injustice world reaches its epic conclusion.Clai…

Over the past 169 episodes, we have covered work from a lot of creators. And I can't think of one that we have unanimously and consistently lauded than the late Darwyn Cooke. A writer artist like few others, Cooke passed away at a tragically young age, leaving a body of work that would have only grown. This week, we are covering the last comic Cook…

While nearly all of Gotham's vigilantes are affiliated in some way with Batman and his family, there are a few who stand on their own. One of those few is Ragman, one of the few canonically Jewish heroes in the DC Universe. Rory Reagan wears the suit of souls, a collection of patches that are made up of the souls of criminals. And even though he is…

Batman has teamed up with pretty much every hero in the DC Universe because he's, well, Batman. He's also teamed up with many a villain. We've read stories where he worked with Lex Luthor, Ra's al Ghul and Bane. But Patreon backer Ross Holmes very specifically wanted us to read a story where he teams up with the most unlikely of villains: The Joker…

It's the New Year's week, and if you've been listening to the podcast, you know what that means: New Year, New Batman. That's right, it's three more Elseworlds. We have Nosferatu (which is strangely more an adaptation of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari than Nosferatu), The Nail (which is more a Marvel-style What If? than most Elseworlds) and I, Joker, …

Happy holidays, BatChat listeners. It's the week of Christmas and Chanukah this year, so we're celebrating the holiday in the BatChat style. Patreon backer and friend of the show John Wickham is joining us to discuss three of Dc's modern holiday anthologies. Have yourself a merry everyone!DC Infinite Holiday Special # 1DC Rebirth Holiday Special # …

There was a time in the pre-Crisis days when Batman and Superman were the best of friends. But then the Crisis, and Frank Miller, came along, and things changed. For most of a decade, Batman and Superman's relationship ranged from confrontational to cordial. Patreon backer Josh Weil returns this week to trace the evolution of that relationship back…

Last week was three random books from Will's collection. This week is three stories that Matt has wanted to cover that don't easily fit in with any themes he has come up with yet. We read some more black and white stories, the sequel to a highly ranked sorry by a late, great writer and an annual from some legendary creators.Batman: Black and White-…

We're back picking through random volumes of mostly weird stuff from Will's bookshelf that he hasn't read before. We return to the wonder that is the Batman '66 follow up series, a sequel to a classic Batman story that may not be as classic and some more Kevin Smith Batman that is something else.Trigger Warning: This episode was recorded on Novembe…

Our annual all ages Thanksgiving episode is back, with a new volume of Wayne Family Adventures. the sequel to the charming Batman & Robin & Howard and a one off crime story from the animated universe.Wayne Family Adventures Vol. 2 (Wayne Family Adventures #26-51)Batman & Robin & Howard: Summer Breakdown OGNHow This World Goes? (Batman: Gotham Adven…

Batman rogues have some seriously strange evolutions. Some, like the Joker, have a path you can easily follow. Others, like Mr. Freeze, have just become completely different over the years. Another like that is Catman, created in the mid-Silver Age as yet another anti-Bat before becoming a joke character, and then evolving into a morally grey anti-…

It's been a while, but we're returning to the three runs that we're following in order. In No Man's Land, we take a break from big story revelations for an anthology month of four of shots. In Grant Morrison's run, Dick Grayson brings Batman's corpse to England to a Lazarus Pit and learns something unexpected (by everyone but Tim Drake, because he'…

A fixture in the Bat titles from 1999-2011, and again since Rebirth, Cassandra Cain was the second full time Batgirl. Trained from birth to be a living weapon, Cassandra had to learn not just how to fit in with the Bat family, but how to fit in among normal people. This week, just in time for her new mini-series, we discuss two early stories of Cas…

And we have reached the end of October, the spookiest of months, and this the end of villains month. And to wrap it up, we're getting one of the spookiest of Batman villains: Man-Bat. Dr. Kirk Langstrom has an origin really out of the pages of Spider-Man, but someone has wound up a fixture in the Batman titles. Also, he has had more mini-series tha…

Black Mask was Hush before Hush: a villains obsessed not with Batman but with Bruce Wayne, seeking to bring down Bruce for childhood grudges. But over the years he has evolved into a more sadistic figure. As villains month nears its end, we read three stories featuring Roman Sionis: his first appearance, his return in the run up to Knightfall and t…

Killer Croc is a character who has evolved a great deal over his time, and that pun is only half unintended. He has been a mobster, a monster and an anti-hero. This week, for Villains Month, we look at three different interpretations of Croc. In one, he's a barely human monster running from humanity. In another, he's a supervillain on a killing spr…

The second week of villains month, and we love a theme, so why not use this week to have our second Two-Face episode? We've covered a lot of Two-Face stories both for the podcast and the column, and we're swinging back to some classics. We have the first appearance of Two-Face (a two-parter, of course), the annual that redefined Two-Face in the pos…

It's October, the spookiest month of the year. So, what better time to focus on the villains of the Batman universe? There are five Thursdays and we'll be focusing on five villains, all but one we haven't had a spotlight on before. The first villain is a favorite of Matt's, one who has appeared in some of the higher ranked stories on the big board:…

It's strange to think that Jason Todd has been back from the dead longer than he was actually dead now. For those of us who read Batman comics in the 90s, the death of Jason was possibly the most important moment in Batman's life after the death of his parents. But he is back, and is now a member on good standing of the Bat family. That was not alw…

Our very first Dick Grayson backer, Josh Weil, makes his return to the podcast this week, but he's not picking the stories. Instead, he has gifted his picks this month to our youngest backers, his sons, David and Alexander. They give us stories that show they love sidekicks, young butlers, and giant monsters.Robin War (Robin War # 1-2, Grayson # 15…

Batman is a loner. Except for Alfred, the Robins, the Batgirls, Signal, Batwoman and the Justice League. But before many of those characters, there was Ace the Bathound, the first of numerous Bat pets, mostly brought into the cave by Damian, another noted loner , and that club now includes Titus, Alfred the tuxedo cat and Batcow. Another noted dog …

We've talked about it for a while, and here it is. This week, Matt and Will each picked three stories that they felt were too low on the Big Board, and they discussed them again and moved them to spots they felt more appropriate. It's a lot of the creators we talk about regularly, and a lot of the stories that have served as benchmarks for lower on…

It's a celebration over here as we hit episode 150! We started out with a theme of anniversary issues, ones that were numbers leading up to 150, so a 50, a 100 and a 150. And we did do that. But somehow, we wound up with a second theme: stories where Batman trips balls. Sometimes you find the theme. Sometimes the theme finds you. We have a Shadow o…

Welcome to the world of tomorrow! Like, way tomorrow. Matt McThorn is back, and we are talking about the 853rd century and Grant Morrison's first DC crossover, DC One Million. It's a wild, sci-fi epic, which we all know if completely Will's jam. But you might be surprised as we talk about the core mini-series, as well as the arc of Bruce Wayne in t…

I have heard it said that every writer has a Batman story they want to tell. Only a few get to tell them. And sadly not all of them are great. This week we're reading three stories from writers not usually associated with Batman, Harlan Ellison, Eddie Campbell and David Lapham. And, well, none of these really are going down as central to the canon.…

For the first time in a very long time, this week was supposed to see the publication of a collection of Marvel and DC collaborations, so Will and I decided that this would be a good time to read some of that. But these are big omnibuses, so as is often the case, they have been delayed. But we here at BatChat aren't following suit. We planned this …

Gotham is a city of shadows. A city where good and evil blend together. It's a city made for Noir storytelling. And while some Batman stories have some elements of a Noir, most are very much superhero stories. But to tie-in with the 40s themed animated series, Batman: The Caped Crusader, debuting this week, and because Will has wanted to do this ep…

Over his thirty plus year career in comics, Archie Goodwin racked up a lot of accomplishments. He wrote horror stories for lots of Warren Publishing's anthologies. At DC, he wrote Detective Comics, Manhunter (more on both of those later), and was the editor behind Batman: Black and White, the early issues of Legends of the Dark Knight and James Rob…

Generally speaking, the episodes we do here are carefully curated. We try to take a theme, a character, and thoroughly dig through the 85 years of Batman stories to find the ones that best fit that theme. But then there are the weeks where Will just picks three random books off his bookshelf and wants to cover them, and Matt just says sure.Batman '…

We've all seen the memes and the jokes: Batman's real super power is his wallet. Batman has, historically, been from the moneyed class, and that's how he gets all those wonderful toys. But what happens when Batman doesn't have all that cash? That's what friend of the show, Patreon backer, and financial adviser Abigale Heartbalm wanted to look into …

Batman works outside the law pretty much all the time. And while he often runs afoul of civic authorities in Gotham City, it's surprising how rarely he winds up in the crosshairs of the feds (well, we're just starting Absolute Power in the main line, but again, exception that proves the rule). But it has happened a few times, and since this episode…

There are some stories that read a very different ways after certain events. Who would have thought that these innocent little stories about Batman involved with plagues would read so differently after a global pandemic. Patreon backer and friend of the show John Wickham joins us to talk about the 90s crossover "Contagion," a fun little 80s one off…

Friend of the show and Patreon backer Josh Weil decided to take up a challenge: come up with three stories that he thought could make the top 50 of the Big Board. And gotta, say, with no spoilers, he did a pretty good job. We see Bruce Wayne mourning the loss of his son, Batman and Catwoman taking a post-engagement trip and Nightwing taking fight.U…

We’re in the heart of June, which is Pride Month, so BatChat is joined by the hosts of the Gotham Outsiders podcast to talk about three stories featuring the queer residents of Gotham. Kate Kane’s origin is revealed, Tim Drake comes out, and animated Harley and Ivy go on a road trip. Oh, and towards the end, Will does his Matt impression, something…

We're joined this week by our newest Dick Grayson tier backer, Matt McThorn, who wanted to talk about series released under DC's mature readers (mostly) super-hero imprint, Black Label. We have the infamous debit book of the line, where Batman goes full frontal, a story of the Joker driving his therapist insane (not that therapist, another one), an…

I was going to try to come up with something funny and misleading to make it seem like we were talking about the Marvel character Venom for this intro, but my brain isn't coming up with anything. This week's episode is about Bane, the man who broke the Bat, and does indeed spend a lot of time interrogating his relationship with the drug that powere…

The Joker has wreaked unspeakable trauma on Batman over the years of their rivalry. But there is one man who he has possibly hurt as much, if not more: Jim Gordon. The Joker and Gordon's relationship goes back as far and Joker and Batman's, and Joker has often focused on Gordon. This week, we look at three of the encounters between Gotham's top cop…

For those of you out there who back the BatChat Patreon, you have heard Matt & will talk about all manner of Batman media: movies, episodes of animated series and live action TV, narrative podcasts. And this week, we're taking that energy, but swapping it around so we can talk about the comic adaptations of three of the highest ranked stories on th…

Matt here, and I am going to be writing in the first person for this one. When I started this podcast, I don't know what I was expecting. Will and I had been writing the BatChat column for a while. Dan Grote and I had been recording the ComicsXF Interview Podcast (then WMQ&A) for quite a bit longer. I just wanted to talk Batman some more. I didn't …

Having multiple heroic identities is not something unique in the Bat family. Pretty much everyone has had more than one except for, well, Bruce Wayne. But Stephanie Brown has had three very distinct identities that all very much signify different things about the character. And as we have covered some of the worst stories about her, we only thought…

It's time to celebrate! Matt's other show, The ComicsXF Interview Podcast, reached episode 300 this week. And so for that celebration, that show's co-host, the first ever BatChat guest, Matt's best friend of over 30 years, ComicsXF editor-in-chief Dan Grote is joining BatChat again. We are talking stories from three creators who have been interview…

This week, one of the defining writers of DC Comics in the 80s and early 90s will turn 75 years old. John Ostrander has a storied career over more than 40 years. He created an indy hit with his creator owned mercenary, Grimjack, and wrote some of the best received Star Wars comics ever. His work at DC includes The Suicide Squad, the Spectre, Martia…

It's been a while, but we're back reading the three series/runs that we have been following (mostly) in order. In No Man's Land, both Batman and Jim Gordon make some choices that definitely won't come back to bite them on the butt. In the Morrison run, they investigate ethics in vigilantism and Jason Todd's hair color. And in Injustice, well, thing…