People talk a lot about how Batman is supposed to be one of the greatest detectives in fiction, and how they wish he would do less superhero action stuff and more sleuthing
Now I haven't read every Batman comic, because a lot of stuff prior to Year One isn't in print, Frankly, but I don't get where this idea is supposed to be represented in
The most prominent Batman "mysteries" I can think of are the Jeph Loeb ones, which are... not very good. Mysteries are hard enough to pull off when you've got hundreds of pages of text to work on; are there really a lot of good 24 page whodunits? Or is the "world's greatest detective" thing just flimsily justified marketing hype meant to put him on even footing with literal demigods?
Batman is a detective in-universe, that doesn't mean most of his stories are mysteries and whodunits. Batman at his roots is a pulp fiction hero.
Brody Price
In the seventies it was quite common to see Batman solving a case in a three act structure, it's where BTAS drew a lot of its one and done episodes from
Also it's important to note that that tag is always external, Batman will never call himself that, he would probably say it's Holmes (who he's met) or Tim (who he recognized it in at a young age) or Bobo (who actually would and does call himself the world's greatest detective because he's got a chip on his shoulder from being a chimp)
Matthew Torres
I fail to see how Batman holds this title when Detective Chimp and The Question exist
Isaac Ross
What are some good issues for that stuff? Been thinking of diving into my LCS's back issues to pick up some of those one-off stories.
Hunter Phillips
I'd say any random issue in the mid 300s to mid 400s has a good chance of being what you're looking for
Ethan Flores
I don't like it when someone calls Batman this in-universe. It's a good marketing tagline but it's a weird thing to call him in the actual comics, like calling Superman "the man of tomorrow" They sound like odd, unnatural references when used in-universe
Christian Bailey
>are there really a lot of good 24 page whodunits Damn near every Sherlock Holmes short story for one.
Dominic Scott
Nowadays it is just used as an hack to move the plot forward. Batman doesn't show any detective skills whatsoever, although he manages to solve the biggest mysteries in the world because he is the "greatest detective", basically just more super genius bullshit. See the series Sherlock but with even less effort.
Brandon Butler
The World's Greatest Detective is a tag-line that makes sense in-universe, because the person is basically overestimating Batman. It's like calling Superman the world's greatest hero or something.
The Dark Knight or Caped Crusader are the ones that don't make any sense in-universe.
David Hall
Like everything in the early Golden Age and in the 70's was definitely solving crimes, even if it wasn't always presented as a traditional mystery story, it was still Batman trying to figure things out and follow trails.
And in the Silver Age, probably half of issues revolved around some sort of gimmick mystery.
I mean all you have to do is look at the 60's show to see it. Every episode involves him following some sort of trail.
Robert Moore
I was recently reading the era of Batman stories after Jason Todd's death and before Tim Drake's introduction, and it struck me how there actually was quite a bit of legitimate detective work, deciphering clues, making logical assumptions, finding the villain through intelligent means, etc. and I think this is the last era where that was a big part of the comics.
Basically all of the pre-Crisis stories up until the late 70s had this too. It's fallen completely by the wayside in recent years. And yes, Long Halloween and Dark Victory are fucking awful detective stories even though I love them. Modern writers are just not smart or clever enough to depict Batman's detective work properly.
Luis Reyes
I think in general the mystery thriller is a lost art, everybody wants fantasy and explosions
Lincoln Scott
Read the 70s-80s comics + DCAU tie-ins like Gotham Adventures
Asher Phillips
Half of the difficulty in writing a detective story for a comic book character is dropping enough hints that the audience might come up to the right answer at about the same time as the character. Fair-play mysteries or Columbo-style "howcatchum" stories are the only ones worth getting into, anyway.
Many writers these days have no respect for the reader's intelligence. And, given how their readers sometimes act, who can blame them?
Andrew Lewis
The user that mentioned Sherlock earlier actually stumbled on a decent point
There used to be the expectation that the audience was supposed to be figuring it out with the detective
But now the expectation is that the detective has to be a once in a lifetime intelligence so the process of figuring out the case has to be so ludicrous that it resembles sorcery
Which of course saves the writer the trouble of figuring out logical conclusions as well
Jack Robinson
I think detective comics just called him that because he's part of their line
Oliver Taylor
Batman as a detective concept is super dated just like Clark being a "Superman reporter" unfortunately that could only fly before the new millenium. It's why in the BTAS universe he could still pass as a detctive and do some super-hardcore mid-90s hacking as well but beyond that? You're kidding yourself.
It's a problem wih a lot of heroes actually, it'd be like putting Prince Valiant in the Shakespearean time with a constantly shifting origin story while trying to keep him as a knight of Camelot. It doesn't fit. Not every character can fit all timelines and countries. Batman / Bruce as a detective doesn't work anymore unlike Captain America and Wodner Woman being strangers from a different time trying to adapt to a new world where they have to relearn everything and work everytime.
Connor Fisher
I think it's the other way around.
How would it even be common knowledge in-universe that Batman is the world's greatest detective, or that he even is a detective? All the crime-solving is done behind the scenes. All anybody would really know is that Batman fights bad guys, and that he may have been involved in apprehending certain criminals that are now on trial or incarcerated. The specifics would rarely be public knowledge.
"Caped Crusader" makes sense in-universe, because he wears a cape, and people can see that he's on some sort of crusade against crime. "Dark Knight" makes sense, because he's on the side of good and protecting the city (like a valiant knight), but he's also dark and spooky (dresses like a bat).
Jaxson Cruz
How is being a detective "dated?" You know that detectives still exist, right?
Dominic Garcia
It was more well-known back in the Golden and Silver Ages, when he had honorary badges from every nation in the world and sometimes gave classes on detection and forensic techniques.
Once they started to pull him away from the cops and the public, driving him more into the shadowy protector rather than a guy who'd walk down the streets with schoolkids, that changed. And it just plain died when they turned him into an urban legend after the Crisis.
Dominic Perez
Apparently user has somehow missed out that unsolved crime still happens
As well as news for that matter
Joseph Richardson
Unless you believe that police detectives, police officers, forensics people and hackers with expensive toys have anywhere near the same allure as Batman being a costumed Sherlock holmes / Hercule Poirot /Nero Wolfe, you're fucking delusional both of you. We've seen how Batman is a "detective" in the new millenium both in the comics and worse, in the Arkham games. Sure, I get it, gameplay and all that and making complex detective puzzles with chemistry and what not would be hard but making it Assassin Creed levels of braindead and spoonfeeding is indicative of the "detective" tone all these machines give these stories. They are crutches and make a detective story into an episode of CIS Miami / NCIS with capes instead of federal agents.
Nathan Nguyen
Why doesn't Batman just break bones so criminals would be quiet for a few months or even cripple them? For a smart guy he's pretty stupid
Carson Hughes
He actually does, even in the games, a lot of the criminals just go an say :
>Oh man, Batman just broke 39876547 of my bones 7654567 in one night, I thought I'd never walk again" >Nigger, if Batman brutalized you so bad what the fuck made you think this time will be different? Why don't you fucking stay quiet so that the freak will let you off the hook >You're here too aren't you? It's not like the Bat sparred you last time we were together so, I guess I'm here for the same reason you're here.
Gotham's goons have always been an amazing bunch of dense yet immensely greedy and scuzzy sleazeballs, to a comical degree. At this point, Batman could kill them, drag them to Hell, have fucking Mephisto cross over from Marvel to torture them while Etrigon used whatever demon magic he could on them and the moment these fucks got a moment of respite, they'd try to rob Satan blind.
Sebastian Young
What are you even trying to argue? You mention that police detectives and forensic scientists are different from Sherlock Holmes, but the point you use to support this is an unrelated non-sequiter, and is just the observation that the gameplay in the Arkham video games and television crime dramas like CSI don't show realistic forensics or detective work. This is somehow supposed to be evidence of your claim that Batman being a detective wouldn't work in the 21st century.
Chase Lopez
Why doesn't Bruce Wayne just build a virtual reality machine and hook up every criminal to it and let them do what they want in the fake world?
Wyatt Jones
>Now I haven't read every Batman comic, because a lot of stuff prior to Year One isn't in print readcomiconline.to/ not an issue
Nicholas Miller
has there actually ever been an arrogant know-it-all detective version of batman
Luis Cook
> I don't get where this idea is supposed to be represented in >Jim: Batman there's some sort of strange gas making people all over Gotham laugh >Batman: It must be the Joker >Jim: Wow Batman you truly are the world's greatest detective It's just Batwank.
Tyler Peterson
You've never read comics, have you? Batman in the old comics(somewhat in the Adam West show) used to do detective work in the same way old school detectives and mystery novel protagonists did, that became part of his appeal. Sure, at times writters made it seem like he operated at a magical quasi-genius level of Sherlock Holmes IQ but like the anons above said, in the 70s and 80s in the comics and later in the TAS to a lesser degree, Batman did proper detective work that not only incorporated elements from those old mystery novels but added a modern(for the 70s and 80s standards) spin to the detective work and it became the defining run as "The World's Greatest Detective".
Fast forawrd to the new millenium, where Batman not only has all the spytech we have, which is already ridiculous, he has better versions, is able to do everything better, has a mini computer in his cowl, gloves and Oracle as back-up, until she became Batgirl again, to basically solve the mysteries in miliseconds and spoonfeed the "mystery" to the reader just so the writters can pretend Batman is a detective. You can easily say >just hire better writers but that won't help because the technology of our world and the better comicbook technology render such old fashioned mysteries and "detectives" completely obsolete. That's why I compared to CSI Miami and NCIS, because they do the same fucking thing :
>Gordon / some random fucker finds a body >Batman / Gibbs arrives at the scene with Nightwing / DiNozzo and Batgirl / Ziva and observe for a moment to give the viewer the details of the mystery >They take the body back and feed the info to Tim Drake / McGee, Alfred / Ducky and Oracle / Abby >Pointless bickering and semi drama ensues >The time has passed so it's time to solve the mystery by having the rest of the cast announce what happened and where the per is going next >Cue action scenes >Wrap-up and episode / comic end
That's it. There's no more overarching mystery, clues or thrill.
Jose Anderson
That's just Batman.
Carson Lopez
>sitting in criminology class >substitute teacher walks in with a stack of books and drops them on the desk >it's literally batman >he's wearing a sweater vest and slacks and low-sitting glasses over his costume >still has on the cape and cowl >writes name on chalkboard >"MR. BATMAN"
