#in my mind Tim is doing that at his family a solid 85% of the time.

[fowlblue]

Fowl Senior is like… a skittish horse to me.

[zahri-melitor]

Brucepoll. Okay, I am going to handicap myself in this one and make me keep it to actual work in the Batman title, I think, and only post-Crisis. So my first move is to define what periods each writer had on Batman and what's famous/I like from each:

James Tynion IV: v2 8-28, v3 85-117. And immediately I have no opinion as I haven't read any of his post Flashpoint Batman. Quickly scanning through I see he wrote The Joker War and Fear State.

My feelings on him: honestly I don't have any yet, this one it's going to be too hard for me to dip in and out of.

Tom King: v3 1-85. Same. I know he built up to Bruce and Selina marrying and then editorial required him to destroy that, but haven't touched any of this yet.

My feelings on him: I suspect I am actually going to enjoy this run from what other people have said and then I will feel betrayed (as other people were). The allure of lots of Bruce/Selina may pull me in though.

Scott Snyder: v2 1-51. Court of the Owls. How do you feel about the Court of the Owls. Because Snyder is gonna keep writing about them.

Oh Snyder. I think you write interesting Bruce, I just don't particularly like the Court.

Grant Morrison: 655-685, 701-702 (skipping the Dick!Bats stuff). Highlights of Morrison's run include Batman and Son (aka Heeeeere's Damian!), Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul, the return of the Club of Heroes, Batman RIP, and the resurrection of the concept of Batman of Zurr-En-Arrh.

I am politely going to not swear in public, but uh I don't think Morrison writes particularly good Bruce. Also he's the architect of all the 'actually Bruce has been dividing his personality up into separate mind palaces that come out when he activates them for various reasons' and while that is indeed incredibly Brucelike I'm not too fond of what it's done to Batman storytelling.

Judd Winick: 626-650 (also skipping Dick!Bats). Obviously, Under the Red Hood. Other stuff in his run includes War Games and the storyline where Tim's undercover as Caroline Hill.

Winick really likes conflicted, judgmental, my-way-or-the-highway Bruce a lot. And there aren't any real soft edges to his Bruce. Not my favourite.

Jeph Loeb: 608-619. This means the only Loeb in play for my rating is Hush. Fascinating Loeb never wrote another Batman or 'Tec run (he does have The Long Halloween of course).

Putting aside my feelings about Thomas Elliot, I actually like the way Loeb wrote Bruce in Hush? It spends a lot of time reflecting on his analysis skills and his connections and his detective work.

Ed Brubaker: 582-586, 591-607. The lead into Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive and the title itself. The complementary half to Rucka's overlapping 'Tec run.

Oooh. Brubaker gets Bruce during a period where he's trying to isolate himself, but he also writes how Bruce has trouble with that. He's got some great character piece work in this, and solid detective problem-solving storytelling. He wrote the 'I am Bruce Wayne' revelation.

Doug Moench: 481-559. The most famous highlights of this period are writing the Batman issues for the entirety of Knightfall/Knightquest/Knightsend, Prodigal, Contagion, Legacy, Cataclysm and Aftershock. (Moench also wrote basically all of pre-Crisis Jason Todd period)

How do you even encapsulate what Moench did over this period? He broke Bruce all the way down and built him back up. He wrote Bruce building back to having a family and connections. He wrote Alfred's return. He's never hugely stood out for me as a writer during this period though - he's just there. I often have to check covers to see who was writing for his stories.

Alan Grant: 448-449, 455-480. This basically covers Tim's novice period. It's bookended by Batman: Identity Crisis at one end and To the Father I Never Knew at the other.

So flipping through these my first memory is "there is a LOT of Harold in this" and there's a bunch of Batman-'Tec crossovers to tell 4 issue stories. I really enjoy Grant's character work. A lot of the great stuff in his run is about his relationships with others - particularly Tim, Alfred and Harold. I have to say, though, a lot of my preferred Bruce writing from Grant is actually in Shadow of the Bat.

Frank Miller: 404-407 Okay, restricting this LITERALLY only gives Batman Year One. This is fascinating because I think every single comics person seeing the words 'Frank Miller' and 'Batman' either thinks of ASBAR or Dark Knight Returns.

If you're going to read a Batman Miller story, this is the one to read, no question. It's the origin of so much gritty Batman and it gets referenced a lot, but it's nowhere near as grimdark as other Miller pieces.