The Comic Book Longbox: My Childhood Batman Collection (1993-1998)

 Hey everyone! Happy New Comic Book Day! As I try to do every Wednesday, today I'm going to be diving into my comic book longbox and taking a look at my original childhood Batman comic book collection that I had in the '90s. Since I've already talked about my collection of The Batman Adventures and Batman & Robin Adventures this post will be about my Batman comics that are set in the main DC Comics universe only. So let's get into it on this edition of The Comic Book Longbox!

The very first Batman comic I ever got that wasn't an issue of The Batman Adventures was Batman #493. This was pretty early in the "Knightfall" storyline so it was in 1993 that I got it. Like basically all of my Batman comics from this period I got this issue from the gift shop at CHEO. I actually thought that Batman looked weird on this cover because while I actually had never seen Batman as drawn by Kelley Jones before. So the ears on his cowl were longer than I'd seen them before, as they were longer than they were in the artwork for The Batman Adventures and much MUCH longer than they were in the 1966 TV series. But I thought it was cool seeing Batman in a comic book other than The Batman Adventures. Oh and this was my introduction to Tim Drake as Robin, even though Batman never referred to him as Tim, just as Robin. I wouldn't learn his full name until a little bit later with a comic I'll be talking about later on in this post.

Next up was Batman #495, which was my first introduction to the characters of Poison Ivy, Lucius Fox, Shondra Kinsolving, and Jean Paul Valley. Even though Poison Ivy dates back to 1966 and Lucius Fox dates back to 1979, this issue was my first encounter with them because neither of them were in the 1966 TV series, I hadn't seen any episodes of Batman: The Animated Series that they're in, they weren't in The Batman Adventures, and Poison Ivy wouldn't show up in the movies until Batman & Robin (1997) and Lucius Fox wouldn't appear in the movies until Batman Begins in 2005 so I didn't actually know who they were. I also got this issue at the CHEO gift shop, except I wasn't there for an appointment or anything like that. My family and I were there for the grand opening of CHEO's then new Cardiology department, including the clinic and the cardiac operating rooms that were built separately from the rest of the OR. I ended up meeting then Prime Minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney. I actually had to ask my mom which event it would've been because we went to a few of them between 1992 and 1995. But not only did I get this issue but I got another Batman book at the same time.

The second Batman comic that I got that day was a copy of Batman and Dracula: Red Rain which is an Elseworlds story that was originally published in 1992 where Batman fights Dracula and gets turned into a Vampire. Even though this graphic novel was published the year before, CHEO had a copy in the gift shop in 1993. I didn't complain because it was another Batman comic.

Batman #496 was the first Batman comic I ever got that featured the Joker and the Scarecrow as the bad guys that Batman has to face off against. And actually it was my introduction to the Scarecrow in general since, again he didn't appear in any issues of The Batman Adventures, in the few episodes of Batman: The Animated Series I'd seen up to that point, the movies, or the 1966 TV series. Don't forget that at this point that's all I'd seen about Batman so I was experiencing alot of new things with these comics.

 While Batman isn't in the title, Robin #5 was the first time I was reading a Robin solo story. It was my first full introduction to Tim Drake and my first introduction to Stephanie Brown a.k.a. the Spoiler. My mom bought this comic for me because I was having day surgery for what remained of my esophagus, as they hadn't removed the whole thing at this point. But wait, there's more.

Being that I was having day surgery, my mom bought me Batman #506 at the same time. While the cover said Batman on it, and it looked like Batman on the front cover, the character in the book was NOT Batman. Except, I later found out, by reading the issue, that yes he WAS Batman, he just wasn't the Batman that I was used to seeing. I mean he wore a suit of armour AND had high tech gadgets built into his suit. I was REALLY confused. But I enjoyed it anyway.

The next issue I would get was Batman #514. I saw Batman, the way I was used to seeing him in the comics, but it still wasn't Bruce Wayne in the costume. It was Dick Grayson. That's right, the guy I'd known as Robin on TV had a ponytail AND had replaced Bruce as Batman for awhile. One of the problems of not getting comics every week is that you miss alot of story. I mean between when I got Batman #506 and when I got this issue, Armored Batman was gone and Dick replaced him as Batman, with Bruce and Alfred nowhere to be found. Oh and this was the year for change because on Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Tommy was the White Ranger, not the Green Ranger, Rocky, Adam, and Aisha had replaced Jason, Zack, and Trini as the Red Ranger, Black Ranger, and Yellow Ranger, and the Rangers now used Thunderzords and fought Lord Zedd instead of Rita. So yeah that was a whole thing, which I'll get into at another time.

The next Batman comic I got was Batman: Shadow of the Bat #36, where I was introduced to a brand new character, who wasn't part of Batman's usual crew, and definitely wasn't a Superman character either. Yes folks, this issue was my introduction to Dinah Lance/Black Canary. And my first time seeing Green Arrow as he appears in a flashback of Black Canary's history in the post-Zero Hour DC Universe. This was another gift shop purchase but I was only at the hospital for some sort of test. At this point all the tests and minor procedures from this period have become all blurred together because my esophagus was now out of the picture and my heart condition was actually pretty stable as well. It's just other things kept cropping up. What stuck out to me about this particular issue is that Batman is hardly in it since Black Canary has taken center stage, AND Batman's cape looked torn up constantly because that's how the artist of the issue, Barry Kitson, drew the cape in all of his Batman work. 

The next issue of Shadow of the Bat that I got was issue #38, which was part two of a two part Joker story. And because it's also the first appearance of the Joker since Zero Hour, it tells a modified version of the origin of the character that had been in Batman: The Killing Joke in 1988, including him being the Red Hood, which went back to the 1950s. I remember I got this issue because I was once again at CHEO for an appointment or for bloodwork or something like that. 

Now, this last issue of Shadow of the Bat that I got, which was issue #40, was a comic I got because I was in the hospital with the chicken pox. Because my immune system is compromised things like chicken pox, measles, and other illnesses that can land someone in bed for a few days can kill me, so when I get sick with such illnesses, I end up in the hospital so I can get proper treatment. So my mom got this issue for me along with The Adventures of Superman #525 and Spider-Man #60. This issue was the first time that I saw the entrance to the Batcave being behind the grandfather clock in Bruce's study, because, again, I was used to seeing the Batpoles behind the bookcase in the study as the entrance to the Batcave. It was also my only exposure to the character, Anarky. It was part one of a two-parter, of which I wouldn't read part 2 until many years later. 

Up next was the comic book adaptation of Batman Forever. Now this one was a little weird. As with every other Batman comic up to this point I got this comic at the CHEO gift shop, only it was my dad who got it for me. So one night my dad took me to the emergency room at CHEO because I had a fever or I looked sick or something was going on with me that made me not feel great. While we were there and I was waiting for test results, it was still early enough in the evening that the gift shop was still open but the hospital's main floor was practically empty since it was later in the evening and all the clinics were closed for the day. Anyway we went into the gift shop and this was the only Batman comic on the shelf, so my dad got it for me and we took it back to the room where we'd been waiting. Anyway, tests came back negative and I was feeling better, so they sent me home without admitting me. This was actually the last non-Batman Adventures Batman comic that I'd get for quite sometime as I actually managed to not have quite as many appointments where I needed to have bloodwork or x-rays done. Even MRIs were becoming less of a thing for me by this point.

Detective Comics #700 is actually a comic that I got from one of my classmates at school when I was in grade 5. We ended up having an entire unit on comic books for some reason, and my teacher asked us to bring in some comic books for the classroom for us to read for our quiet, personal, reading time. We did and I gravitated to this issue immediately, because it was Batman. At the end of the unit, the teacher told us to take our comics back or they'd be thrown out. My classmate who brought this issue didn't want it anymore, so he said I could have it. I thought that was super cool of him to do so. This was my introduction to four characters. Ra's al Ghul, his daughter Talia, Bane, and Dick Grayson as Nightwing, because the only time I saw Dick in the comics was when he was Batman back in Batman #514. 

The next to last Batman comic I got when I was a kid was The Batman Chronicles #8 which contains three stories. The first is an encounter with Talia that goes horribly wrong both for Batman and for Talia, though Batman wears a black costume, the second is a Commissioner Gordon and Two-Face story where Two-Face is asked by Gordon to help track down Boss Moroni, the man who created Two-Face by scarring half of Harvey Dent's face with acid, and the third is a fun adventure story where Bruce fights robotic dinosaurs, and wears his classic blue and gray Batsuit without the yellow oval behind the bat symbol. My grandparents actually got this issue for me as an Easter present since I couldn't eat candy or chocolate being that I had no esophagus at the time. 

Finally, the last Batman comic I got in the '90s was Batman #559, and again alot has happened that I missed out on because I wasn't getting Batman comics regularly. Or even semi-regularly at this point. In fact this was the last comic book that I ever got from the CHEO gift shop because by this point I wasn't at CHEO except for yearly appointments for Cardiology, Respirology and the dentist. I wasn't even needing blood transfusions anymore by this point in 1998. Which, by the way, is still incredible to me that I was THAT healthy by the time I started grade 6 and my 12th birthday was coming around. Little did I know that I still had many struggles yet to come but that's a story for another time. In this issue Batman and Robin are helping to fight thieves following an earthquake that happened in Gotham City, bringing the city to it's knees. In this issue, Batman and Robin assist Bullock and Montoya with protecting a hospital from raiders wanting drugs. It's a pretty good issue. 

That my friends was my childhood Batman comic book collection. I decided to only cover the single issues that I got between 1993 and 1998 because I got a ton more when I was a teenager in the 2000s, including trade paperbacks and that post in and of itself would have to be split up into multiple parts or it would be really REALLY long. So I hope you enjoyed it.

That's going to be it for me for tonight but I will be back on Friday with my review of this week's episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and on Saturday I'll be doing my full season 1 review of the series, so stay tuned for that. Until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.