I wrote, yesterday, that “Buying books that link back to Superman has been from the start my main reason for buying new comics.” From the beginning of my collection,  my entire comic book strategy was not become sucked into every series that came along. So I focussed my attention on one character, Superman. My idea was that I would learn enough about comics simply by watching the best and by who he interacts with. Recently, I have added Batman to be another primary link, though not as strong of a link as Superman. How did this happen? I asked myself yesterday after the post. Then, I remembered.
At first, I feared Batman titles because they had so many different variations: Lengends of the Dark Knight, Shadow of the Bat, Robin, etc. I fear that I would be over whelmed to quickly, even though I liked the character.
When I was in Iraq, a friend had a friend back home that ask if we wanted anything. He said “we may have a need for comic books.” Before the end of the summer, I had–since I was really the only one who cared–8 long boxes of comics in my office. I took home about 3 and left the others with the next group to come along. One of the long boxes included about 100 issues of Batman.Â
When I returned home, suddenly the biggest title in my collection was not Superman, but Batman. I had to change my strategy. I decided then, that I would collect the issues from the One Year Later and forward. I also added Batman to my pull list. That is how my Batman and Detective Comics collection began. Lately, I have been filling in the gaps through 50 cent copies and an occasional 3-5 dollar purchase.
I have been happy with the addtion of Batman to my strategy. This has opened doors to new characters and plots that give contrast to the typical Superman story. I appreciate that difference, it is a great change of pace.