BatChat With Matt & Will: A Batman Ranking Podcast

These milestone episode numbers are getting surreal. 250 episodes. Yikes. For this anniversary, we're looking at stories where Bruce Wayne was suspected of murder. Now, if this was the real world, a lazy billionaire would be prime suspect #1 and I wouldn't be surprised. But we are looking at a fictional world that actually has good billionaires, so guess what? Bruce Wayne is innocent of each of these crimes. There's an issue of the animated series tie-in that riffs on Hitchcock, the wrap up of a running subplot that seems to just sort of quickly end and the first of two linked Bat family crossovers. Also, we have a surprise guest at the beginning of the episode who humbly blessed our show with his appearance.

The Third Door (Batman Adventures V.1 #6)

Standard Operating Procedure (Batman: Shadow of the Bat V.1 #55

Bruce Wayne, Murderer? (Batman: The Ten Cent Adventure #1, Detective Comics V.1 #766-767, Batgirl V.1 #24, Nightwing V.2 #65-66, Batman: Gotham Knights #25-26, Birds of Prey V.1 #39-40, Robin V.2 #98-99, Batman V.1 #599)

Check out our current ranking list at www.comicsxf.com/batchat-rankings/

Thanks to Geri Nonnewitz for our podcast logo

Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/batchatwithmattandwill

If you've listened to this show for any amount of time, you have probably heard Matt talk about his least favorite major DC characters: Deathstroke and Lobo. Deathstroke has a lot of cross over with Batman over the years, being he is one of Nightwing's most significant rogues, and various creators have drawn parallels between them. But how many times can Batman have met Lobo? He's a space bounty hunter, where's the crossover? Well, Patreon backer John Wickham found enough to pull together this episode. It's... something.

Universe's Finest (Batman/Superman V.1 #28-30)

Daddy Issues (Teen Titans V. 6 #31-38)

The Batman Who Frags (Dark Nights: Death Metal- Infinite Hour Exxxtreme #1)

Check out our current ranking list at www.comicsxf.com/batchat-rankings/

Thanks to Geri Nonnewitz for our podcast logo

Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/batchatwithmattandwill

Some writers just get a lot of work. Joshua Williamson is one of those guys who has written in a lot of corners of the DC Universe. He had a long run on Flash, wrote the Dark Crisis event, is the current writer on Superman, and is soon taking over Legion of Super-Heroes. He also has spent quite a bit of time in the Batman corner of the DC Universe, with a caretaker run on the main book in between James Tynion IV and Chip Zdarsky, and run on the most recent volume of Batman/Superman, and (salient for this episode) a long run furthering Damian Wayne's arc in the Robin ongoing and Batman & Robin. Patreon backer and avowed Damian Wayne fan Josh Weil is here to talk about two of those important Damian Wayne stories by WIlliamson, as well as his Batman/Flash combo, The Red Death, from Dark Nights: Metal.

The Lazarus Tournament (Batman V.3 # 106, Detective Comics V.3 # 1034, Robin V.3 # 1-6)

Welcome to Dinosaur Island (Batman & Robin V.3 # 11-13)

Ride the Lightning (Batman: The Red Death # 1)

Check out our current ranking list at www.comicsxf.com/batchat-rankings/

Thanks to Geri Nonnewitz for our podcast logo

Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/batchatwithmattandwill

Ra's al Ghul and the members of his family are important figures in the Bat mythos, whether they are related just to Ra's or to Batman himself. This week, Matt McThorn is back to talk about some stories involving the House of al Ghul. We start with Greg Rucka's tale of a post No Man's Land Gotham where Ra's makes a play to (once again) bring the city down, follow it up with a story of a Dark Multiverse world ruled by the Empire of Shadows and the al Ghuls and end with a quirky, and beautifully drawn, one off story of Damian's birthday with his grandpa.

Evolution (Detective Comics V.1 # 743-746, 750)

Empire of Shadows (Batman/Superman: The Authority Special # 1)

Happy Birthday, Damian (Truth & Justice # 6)

Check out our current ranking list at www.comicsxf.com/batchat-rankings/

Thanks to Geri Nonnewitz for our podcast logo

Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/batchatwithmattandwill

Welcome to the streets of Gotham. While Batman is a "street level" character, he still is usually fighting with killer clowns, obnoxious geniuses and crocodile men. So who handles all the day to day crime? Well, the Gotham City Police Department of course. And while it is a legendarily corrupt force, there are still cops who do their best (yes, we understand the copaganda of it all, but it's fiction and we can hope, right?). We've covered GCPD stories before, so we're heading back for another go. This week, we read two stories from the 90s from before the No Man's Land focused on our usual squad of good cops and then wrap up with an issue of Gotham Central that digs deep into the seedy underbelly of the cops who aren't so good.

Batman: GCPD # 1-4

Batman: Bullock's Law # 1

Nature (Gotham Central # 32)

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Thanks to Geri Nonnewitz for our podcast logo

Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/batchatwithmattandwill

We're back to the runs that we're covering in order, with a twist. We've reached the next chapter of Knightquest: The Crusade, where AzBats fights a super assassin with psychological conditioning, and No Man's Land, where we see what the Justice League is doing to help Gotham. But with the Morrison run done, we're filling in some of the side No Man's Land stories we skipped. This time out, we're hitting an issue of Batman Chronicles, featuring the story of how Renee Montoya met Two-Face, what happened to Harold and a story of what happens when two people trying to to find a safe place in the No Man's Land stumble into a clown themed hacienda. It goes about as well as you'd expect.

Inside Job (JLA # 32-33)

Codename: Mekros (Batman V.1 # 501-502)

Batman Chronicles # 16

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Thanks to Geri Nonnewitz for our podcast logo

Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/batchatwithmattandwill

So, as I (Matt) work my way through my 365 movies in 365 days project, last week I watched the Supergirl movie from the 80s. What a weird, wild movie. I bet some of you didn't even know that this week's Supergirl movie isn't even the first one. Well, it's not, and as good as this may be, it won't have Faye Dunaway as a witch chewing the scenery. What does this have to do with this week's podcast? Not much, I just felt like talking about it here. The stories we are reading all see Supergirl team-up with members of the Bat family. We start with Kara's return to post-Crisis continuity in Superman/Batman, follow that up with her and Stephanie Brown as Batgirl teaming up to fight Draculas and end with an Elseworlds where there is no Batman or Superman, just Supergirl and Batgirl.

The Supergirl from Krypton (Superman/Batman V.1 #8-13)

Terror in the Third Dimension (Batgirl V.3 #14)

Elseworld's Finest: Supergirl & Batgirl

Check out our current ranking list at www.comicsxf.com/batchat-rankings/

Thanks to Geri Nonnewitz for our podcast logo

Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/batchatwithmattandwill

A few weeks ago, comics lost one of the legends of the late Silver and Bronze Age. While Gerry Conway is probably best known for his work on Spider-Man at Marvel, where he killed Gwen Stacy and creating the Punisher, and to a somewhat lesser extent creating Firestorm at DC, Conway had a solid run on both Batman and Detective Comics, as well as writing other Batman stories. In memory of Conway, this week we're reading three stories he wrote. We have a one-off featuring the return of the Silver Age Mystery Analysts of Gotham City, a two parter featuring Two-Face and a story from Brave and the Bold where Batman solves a space mystery with Green Lantern and the Guardians of the Universe

The Adventure of the Houdini Whodunit (Batman V.1 # 295)

Half a Hero is Better than None (Batman V.1 # 346, Detective Comics V.1 # 513)

One of Us is Not One of Us (The Brave and the Bold V.1 # 173-174)

Check out our current ranking list at www.comicsxf.com/batchat-rankings/

Thanks to Geri Nonnewitz for our podcast logo

Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/batchatwithmattandwill

It amazes me sometimes that, 242 episodes into this whole thing. how many stories we still haven't read. When Jason Todd tier backer Kyle Still came to me with his options for this week's episode, and one of them included the Batman and Robin tie-in to the Joker-centric event "Death of the Family" I realized that we had never actually done the main arc from Scott Snyder's run on Batman. So, well, that sort of settled things. This week we read a story that features, as Will calls him, "the gayest Joker ever," as Joker, who at this point has no face, does everything he can to show how much he loves Batman in stories from the New 52 volumes of Batman, Batman and Robin and (sort of anyway) Detective Comics.

Death of the Family (Batman V.2 # 13-17)

Little Big Man (Batman and Robin V.2 # 15-16)

Nothin' But Smiles (Detective Comics V.2 # 16-17)

Check out our current ranking list at www.comicsxf.com/batchat-rankings/

Thanks to Geri Nonnewitz for our podcast logo

Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/batchatwithmattandwill

It's our annual Pride episode of BatChat. It's nice to see that we have plenty of stories we can cover about queer, out Bat characters, you know? We're covering the first of DC's big Pride anthologies, which features stories including Batwoman, The Question (Renee Montoya), Harley and Ivy and Alan Scott Green Lantern, who might not be a Bat character but is certainly connected to Gotham. Then we read a fun Batwoman/Montoya adventure, and dip into the very lady forward, and queer lady forward, DC Comics Bombshells universe.

DC Pride 2021

The Time of Your Life (Batwoman V.3 # 17-18)

Enlisted (DC Comics Bombshells # 1-6)

Check out our current ranking list at www.comicsxf.com/batchat-rankings/

Thanks to Geri Nonnewitz for our podcast logo

Support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/batchatwithmattandwill