Home > Comics > Batman Family of Comics > Bronze-Age Batman Comics: 1969-1986

This is a selection of Batman Comics from the Bronze Age (with GEMs highlighted).  The list includes links for the following: (a) Wiki page (from the Grand Comics Database, or GCD), (b) e-book (available upon request), and (c) More info on each comic (via optional posts by various contributors).

Please note that the list is sortable by each column. (Multiple levels of sorting are possible by sorting more than one column in succession, from lowest to highest.)  You can also do an instant filtering of the table by entering a character string in the ‘Search’ field.

The Silver Age ended in November 1969, with the breakup of the Dynamic Duo when Robin left for college and Batman became a lone wolf again (Detective #393).  In Batman #217, marking the beginning of the Bronze Age, Batman decides to leave Wayne Manor and the Batcave and go to live in a high-rise apartment in the city of Gotham.  After 30 years of working as a team, Batman and Robin had gone their separate ways, and Batman was ready for a revolutionary change in how he worked.

Julius Schwartz recruited Neal Adams to work on Batman and to help change his look yet again, in order to revive the character’s flagging fortunes after the steep drop in Batman’s popularity, partly due to the cancellation of the Batman TV show.  Schwartz also roped in another whiz kid at DC to work with Adams: writer Denny O’Neil.  The first Adams-O’Neil collaboration, Detective #395, forever changed the tone of Batman stories and also gave Batman the modern version of the dark, brooding look with which he had started his career.  Together, Adams and O’Neil produced some of the most striking Batman stories ever written and they set the stage for Batman’s permanent return to being a creature of the night and his transformation into the Dark Knight.

The Bronze Age also ushered in one of the most memorable and enduring Batman villains: Ra’s Al Ghul (and his daughter Talia).  Most of the Silver-Age villains other than the Joker, Penguin, Catwoman and Two-Face were sidelined.  Robin and Batgirl got solo stories as the backup feature in Detective Comics.  Other notable milestones of Batman’s Bronze Age include: the three-issue storyline Untold Legend of the Batman, the introduction of the Huntress (daughter of the Earth-Two Batman and Catwoman), the appearance of the second Robin Jason Todd, the alternative-reality story The Player on the Other Side, and the breakup of the Batman-Superman team in the final issue (#232) of World’s Finest Comics.

The Bronze Age came to a close in 1986, with the revamp of the entire universe of DC Comics superheroes with the 1985-1986 crossover series Crisis on Infinite Earths.  For more details on the Bronze Age of Batman Comics, please see this link.

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