Next is a story where Batman and Robin team up with Batwoman and Batgirl. Batman is not happy with this so he and Robin try a series of somewhat complicated plans to get him off it. There's this kid called Batman (like his actual name is Batman, for reasons) and he gets all obsessed with becoming Batman's sidekick or something. The next one was incredibly silly, but that was kind of the idea. I guess they hadn't decided on the whole 'Batman literally never kills people if he can help it' thing. Like one of them he could have easily just knocked the guy out but instead he just kills him. Also Batman actually killed a couple of people, which was weird. Then there's a story from apparently the first ever issue of Batman from 1940. He makes a fair few stupid mistakes at first, which was interesting I guess? Also some random dude fell in acid at the end (totally not a villain origin story there.) And Batman had a girlfriend? Like an actual healthy relationship with a nice woman? So that was kinda unexpected. Mostly explaining how and why Bruce Wayne became Batman in the first place, most of which I already knew. (there will be minor spoilers)įirst up was an origin story of sorts. So I guess I'll just review the stories one at a time. This was my first time reading any Batman at all, and knowing a fair bit from old cartoons and stuff picked up from Batman fans I know on the internet was pretty helpful. Well this was a tricky one to rate since it's a collection of short Batman stories, from 1940 to 2003, which ranged from really good to kinda dumb.

Batman by Roy Thomas