Batman The 10 Best Comic Book Arcs From The 2000s

Batman: The 10 Best Comic Book Arcs From The 2000s

In over 80 years, Batman has built a legacy in comics, and these are some best story arcs to come out during the 2000s.



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Batman The 10 Best Comic Book Arcs From The 2000s

Over the course of the 80-plus years of history, Batman has made his way across pop culture leaving a legacy of memorable stories in the comics. The character has gone through different tonal and stylistic shifts going from the Golden to Bronze Age and beyond, namely from over-the-top camp to gritty crime-noir.

This shift mostly started in the early ’70s Batman comics, with a crescendo happening in the ’80s with the likes of Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke, Arkham Asylum, etc. At the turn of the 21st century, the Dark Knight had marked his mythos with several other noteworthy storylines with his newfound narrative reputation.

10 Hush

Batman The 10 Best Comic Book Arcs From The 2000s

It’s nearly impossible for fans of the superhero to not cite Hush when discussing landmark Batman comics of the 2000s. Jeph Loeb returned from his praised stint–with artist Tim Sale–on Haunted Knight, The Long Halloween, and Dark Victory to write the arc. This time, he was paired with another star artist in Jim Lee, whose art has become rather synonymous with Batman comic artwork.

It was also the debut for the supervillain namesake, and both he and the story quickly become a fan-favorite. While not as gripping of a detective thriller like Long Halloween and Dark Victory, it worked well as an exciting all-star action-thriller story. Though the trope’s been played out now, bringing Thomas Elliot in as a parallel to Bruce’s upbringing was compelling to see play out here.

9 No Man’s Land

Batman The 10 Best Comic Book Arcs From The 2000s

In the late ’90s, Cataclysm served as the precursor story arc to No Man’s Land, with an earthquake devastating Gotham City. The event was so catastrophic that the U.S. government declared it a “no man’s land,” destroying all bridges and setting up military blockades to quarantine the city after an initial evacuation.

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While initially started in 1999, No Man’s Land was a sprawling arc that spanned across different lines of Batman comics and had ramifications for years to come. The plot, by Greg Rucka and Chuck Dixon among others, involved ensuing gang wars between standard criminals as well as supervillains vying for control in this desolate city. It introduced the character Cassandra Cain, and the premise also served as partial inspiration for Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises.



8 Ego

Batman The 10 Best Comic Book Arcs From The 2000s

It’s a bit of a deep-cut Batman comic book story, but thanks to Matt Reeves’ upcoming The Batman, it seems Darwyn Cooke’s Ego is getting more appreciation and recognition. Ego isn’t a long-running event or crossover, but tells a great intimate, more personal story. It serves as a character study into the psyche of Bruce Wayne that does so by exploring the two personas trying to gain more control.

Bruce’s mind divides into two parts; the vengeful id manifested as a monstrous Batman, and the more composed and levelheaded superego represented as Bruce Wayne. The conflict centers around a fascinating debate between the two, highlighting the complexity of the overall character psychologically–and why he refuses to kill even villains like the Joker.

7 Batman And Son

Batman The 10 Best Comic Book Arcs From The 2000s

Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert’s Batman and Son proved to be a story that had longstanding effects on the Caped Crusader’s mythos and Bat-Family specifically. As the name suggests, it brought in Damian Wayne–biological son of Bruce and Talia al Ghul–into the cast as the next Robin.

Morrison is a writer that’s simultaneously written celebrated Batman comics and also used some controversial plot points, including some that go wildly into the supernatural and the uncomfortably sadistic Talia. Batman and Son are one of them, and Damian had been notoriously disliked by fans for some time, but this arc overall did well in giving a suitably life-changing story with impact for the titular hero.

6 Gotham Central

Batman The 10 Best Comic Book Arcs From The 2000s

Another well-received Batman comic to come out of the 2000s is one that doesn’t actually use Batman as a main character. Greg Rucka, Ed Brubaker, and Michael Lark–the latter two having been a duo on Daredevil–created Gotham Central as a series that shifts the perspective over to the police offers of the GCPD.

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The plot takes the Batman world and scales it down further in a sense, grounding it to the point where it’s a superhero-themed police procedural in a similar vein to HBO’s The Wire. It’s served as an influence for Fox’s Gotham, and will also be a basis for HBO’s upcoming GCPD prequel set in Reeves’ The Batman universe.

5 The Man Who Laughs

Batman The 10 Best Comic Book Arcs From The 2000s

Though a brief one-shot comic, The Man Who Laughs is an iconic Joker story chronicling Batman’s first encounter with the Clown Prince of Crime. The comic is a direct reference to the novel of the same name, whose main character was a major influence for the DC supervillain. Brubaker also writes this tale, which is essentially a remake of Joker’s original debut in comics in Batman #1 that was released in 1940.

It also touches on one of the interpretations of the Joker’s possible origins, here using his first alias as the Red Hood gang leader. While other acclaimed stories like The Killing Joke proved essential to the character’s own history, The Man Who Laughs is a worthy retelling of the issue that started it all, now in a modern setting.

4 Whatever Happened To The Caped Crusader?

Batman The 10 Best Comic Book Arcs From The 2000s

Legendary writer of The Sandman, Neil Gaiman, took on writing Batman during a transition period with Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?. This concise story was a twist on Alan Moore’s classic Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? for Superman. The plot focuses on Batman having a sort of out-of-body experience, seeing himself in a coffin at his own wake.

Various members of his rogues gallery are gathered all claiming how they killed him, but there are plenty of discrepancies in their alleged accounts. Batman then has to be as a detective on his own death, trying to deduce how he ended up there. This comic came after Morrison’s massive run on the character in R.I.P. and his fate in Final Crisis, with it being a great way to both close and open a new chapter in the Caped Crusader in the DC Universe.

3 R.I.P.

Batman The 10 Best Comic Book Arcs From The 2000s

Morrison’s R.I.P. turned out to be one of Batman’s greatest comeback stories. It’s another interesting exploration of Bruce’s traumatized mind, as this version is a much more raw Batman due to ridding himself of the Bruce identity altogether. R.I.P. has been praised for its thrilling complexity and accumulation of so much of the hero’s history, but to a degree was also criticized for it demanding too much outside knowledge. Nonetheless, this arc has managed to mark its status as one of the character’s best modern stories.

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2 Under The Hood

Batman The 10 Best Comic Book Arcs From The 2000s

Back in the ’90s, A Death in the Family shockingly made the decision to have Robin killed, and Under the Hood brought the troubled Jason Todd back from the grave. While it’s become a tired trend for comics shying away from writing in real, impactful consequences, Under the Hood–and what it inspired–gave the Bat-Family another noteworthy “new” member.

Jason returns from the dead and dons a former persona of the Joker to spite him and Batman, and a gripping and tragic new dynamic is created between the former Robin and his adopted father. Even still, the Under the Red Hood animated movie adaptation it received gave one of the best Batman movies in general. Red Hood continues to be an influential and dominant figure in modern Batman comics, fighting alongside other former Robins Dick Grayson and Tim Drake to fight crime in Gotham City.

1 Batman & Robin Reborn

In the aftermath of Bruce Wayne’s disappearance following the Final Crisis arc, the Bat-Family has to regroup and establish the status quo. Once the dust settled, the original Robin–Dick Grayson–takes up the mantle of Batman in Bruce’s absence with Damian continuing as Robin, while also introducing new foes like Professor Pyg.

It’s another piece in Morrison’s vast catalog and makes for an engaging new story. The story shows Grayson struggling to grow into the role as Bruce’s successor and a still immature Damian that now has to grow without his father guiding him. What’s remarkable about this iteration about the Dark Knight is how amiable and fun he is. In a surprisingly effective role reversal, it’s Robin who’s haunted by the past, while Batman is carefree and funny while fighting crime.

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