The flashy Batmobile is something that really bugs me and I'm astonished that Nolan gave Batman a tank instead of a low-key high performance vehicle.

Theres just something great about the idea of Batman sneaking around in a normal car. The only time the flashier Batmobile made sense was when he was deputized, since it functioned similar to an emergency vehicle (which is the only way the Batmobile is practical in city streets) but the Golden Age Batmobile was really just an ordinary car with a giant fin, which is great for making its presence known from a distance and giving other motorists a chance to pull over to let it pass.

Looking through the car's history it seems like Norm Breyfogle is to blame. His Batmobiles were pure sci-fi and since then that has been the norm.

Even though I've come to dislike Batman as a character the last few years because of how he's has become this ridiculous fantasy of the guy that everyone's a-sceer'd of, who's always ten steps ahead of everyone else, etc, etc, I still don't dislike the basic concept the way I do that of Superman.

I remember being a fan of the Batman tv show when I was a kid, and even though I never followed the comics regularly, I do recall enjoying at least one issue of the Neal Adams run that I wish I still had*. And I was as impressed as most comics readers were at the time when Frank Miller came out with Dark Knight, and then Year One with Mazzuchelli.

But I probably shouldn't vote, because there's a lot of famous stuff I have yet to read: the two biggest gaps, considering only stuff I actually would like to try sometime, would be the early period - Kane, Finger, Sprang, etc, some of which I think looks like it at least has nice artwork - and the Englehart/Rogers run, which I remember wanting to read at the time, as I was a big fan of Englehart and liked the look of Rogers's art. I think I only ever read a single issue - can't recall now why I never bought them all.

But I voted anyway - for "other", in this case meaning Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy, which team produced two or three Batman miniseries in the 80s and/or 90s that I read years later and thought were very well done. Fantastically good art from Gulacy - so good I'm a little sad it was wasted on Batman, to be honest - and I think Moench's Batman took something from most of the versions that had come before - the detective, the creature of the night, Miller's "dark knight" - without taking any of that to the monotonous extremes seen in later versions.


*although, now I think of it, the character I liked best in that issue wasn't Batman but supporting character that for all I know was never heard of again. IIRC, he was a Mongolian secret agent or something like that; I think it was a Ras al Guhl story, and Batman was travelling in the Far East.

I've read some golden and silver age Batman, but I haven't read enough to know for certain on them. Obviously they must have been doing something right to create and cultivate the popularity of a character for over 30 years when Neal Adams/O'Neil started doing new things back in the late 60s. I've read a real good portion of the Batman comics since the early 70s, so who I think is the best is based on that period. There has been a lot of good Batman comics in that period.


I think with the 70s/early 80s it's hard to pick a creative team, as it's a pretty big bench of guys that are doing the work. Often times the artists would only be doing some chapters of the story and would jump in writer and title quite a bit. This is especially so when you get into Doug Moench's run on Batman/Detective where the story line alternated on the title and with different artist on each chapter.

Well, the results are in. First off, while a lot of people spoke highly of Batman: The Animated Series in this thread, closer inspection reveals only three people actually stating they were voting for it. The remaining 8 "other" votes are made up of people who voted for other creative runs and people who never said what exactly they were voting for.

So, the final tally:






...Third place, with 3 votes, is a 3-way tie: Bruce Timm and Paul Dini (write-in), Miller and Mazzucchelli, and Wein, Conway, Moench, Colan, and Newton







...Second place, with 5 votes: Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams





AND





...First place, with 7 votes: Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers




Thanks to all who participated! I'm not surprised by our first and second placers, but I definitely found the third place tie to be unexpected. I figured Miller and Mazzucchelli would easily win out. It's a testament to the taste of this community that we saw so many different teams get written-in, and that nearly every team in the original poll received at least one vote as well.

We're one well-read group. Thanks for a fascinating experiment

So wheres our Spider-Man, Superman, and Avengers poles ?

Does the Wein/Conway/Moench/Colan/Newton stretch include Moench's first or second run? Also, where does his Detective Run fit?