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Oct 02, 2023

Best Batman Multiverse DC Comics

Batman's adventures through the multiverse have seen him face Spawn and Judge Dredd as well as a nearly infinite supply of DC Comics heroes. Batman, along with many of his fellow DC heroes, has

Batman's adventures through the multiverse have seen him face Spawn and Judge Dredd as well as a nearly infinite supply of DC Comics heroes.

Batman, along with many of his fellow DC heroes, has experienced his share of multiversal adventures and team-ups. From crossovers with Spawn to meet-and-greets with other versions of himself, the hero is one of the multiverse's most prolific explorers. In fact, Batman's attempt to understand the concept of alternate realities has even landed the hero face-to-face with dark counterparts like Owlman and The Batman Who Laughs.

Batman's adventures through the multiverse are among the most epic in comics and the hero has saved not just his own world but entire other dimensions. He has experienced everything from unlikely team-ups with alternate heroes to showdowns with the villains of other universes. Wherever he travels, Batman is always one of the multiverse's most entertaining champions.

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One of the best crossovers of the '90s was Frank Miller and Todd McFarlane's Spawn/Batman, along with the sequel in War Devil and the 2022 follow-up. The stories covered everything from the duo preventing a corporation from creating an army of cyborgs to stopping the return of a powerful demon.

The 2022 crossover between Batman and Spawn established that their crossovers were indeed multiversal adventures and not simple Elseworlds tales. War Devil is the best of the trilogy, as it presents readers with an answer to the famous Croatoan disappearance at Roanoke and plays into the Gothic horror underlying both heroes.

Dark Nights Metal remains one of DC's most epic events, both in scale and in terms of its implications for the DCU. The story was marked by the arrival of Nightmare Batmen, led by the Batman Who Laughs, on a mission to bring the bat-god Barbatos to the world and unleash his Dark Multiverse on the DCU.

Dark Nights Metal followed a series of multiversal adventures, from Batman being trapped in a living nightmare to Flash retrieving a punk rock version of a Flashmobile. However, the most memorable aspect of the series was the deep exploration of the numerous Dark Multiverse realities, and how each evil Batman came into being.

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Set in the aftermath of Rebirth and the end of the New 52, "The Button" was a crossover between Batman and Flash that explored the events of Flashpoint. After an encounter with Doctor Manhattan left Eobard Thawne dead, Batman and Flash teamed up to investigate.

Their investigation led Batman and Flash to the Flashpoint timeline, where they met with Thomas Wayne in what appeared to be his last stand against Atlanteans and Amazons. "The Button" was the story that established Watchmen as a genuine part of the DC multiverse, and paved the way for the events of Doomsday Clock.

Justice League Infinity was as much a Justice League adventure as it was a Batman one. The series was a sequel to the Justice League animated series, and reunited the DCAU's line-up of the JLA. It took the team on an adventure through the multiverse to save reality itself.

Justice League Infinity followed the Justice League as they went up against some of their classic DCAU enemies, as well as the new Overman. It came to a head when the heroes had to face off against an evil version of the Amazo android, who had taken control of the Anti-Life Equation, threatening all existence.

"The Archive of Worlds" arc of 2019's Batman/Superman was a genuine adventure story that pitted the two titular heroes against Auteur.io, an ancient god of stories. The villain set the duo on paths through different alternate realities, trapped on the film reels that contained these stories.

"The Archive of Worlds" story wasn't a traditional multiverse story, rather one that created new stories for its two heroes to live out for Auteur.io's entertainment. The supervillain sought to use these stories and his powers to create his own perfect reality, using Batman and Superman as guinea pigs. However, the framing device was less important than the clever variations on the heroes that resulted from the tale.

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The Flashpoint event was DC's first step towards the hard reset of the New 52, and introduced Thomas Wayne's Flashpoint Batman to DC's canon. The story mainly followed Barry Allen Flash after he traveled through time and caused a crisis of the timeline, landing him in an alternate, grimdark version of the DCU.

Flashpoint united Barry Allen and Thomas Wayne as they tried to fix the timeline, amidst the backdrop of all out war between the Amazons and Atlanteans. The series didn't just establish a new timeline, it paved the way for Thomas Wayne to become a major player in the DCU down the line.

One of the more underrated comic book creations of the 2010s, Jeff Lemire and Dean Ormston's Black Hammer was simultaneously a soft deconstruction of the superhero genre while also being a callback to classic Golden Age superheroics. Another Justice League tale featuring Batman, it trapped the heroes on a mysterious farm.

The Justice League's crossover with the Black Hammer team came in 2020, when Mr Mxyzptlk trapped the League on the farm with Lemire's team. Batman, along with his friends, relive their battle with Starro the Conqueror, while also fighting to get back to the DCU.

The Infinite Frontier saga, which began in Infinite Frontier and concluded in Dark Crisis On Infinite Earths, followed the multiversal team of superheroes, the Justice League Incarnate. Along with Captain Carrot, Doctor Multiverse and Calvin Ellis Superman, Thomas Wayne / Flashpoint Batman set out to save the world from Darkseid.

The Justice League Incarnate's inclusion of Flashpoint Batman was one of the best changes made to it from their Convergence appearance. There, the antihero partially redeemed himself after what he did to Bruce during "City of Bane." It was Thomas Wayne's best appearance as the team tried to save the multiverse itself.

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Alan Grant, John Wagner, Chuck Dixon & Carl Critchlow

Batman has had many multiversal crossovers over the years, but the ones he shared with Judge Dredd are among his most memorable. Their crossovers began when Batman was transported to Mega City One just as Judge Death made his way over to Gotham, where he teamed up with Scarecrow.

Batman and Judge Dredd's team-ups continued as Dredd used technology from his world to return to Gotham to save Batman from an assassination plot. This was followed by the duo being transported to another world in a Battle Royale, probably their best story together, since it got to highlight their strengths while also introducing a slew of strange extra-dimensional villains.

The Generations Shattered and Forged graphic novel miniseries united an eclectic band of DC characters, both heroes and villains, for an adventure to save the universe. The likes of Golden Age Batman, Steel, Starfire, Bane and Sinestro joined forces to prevent a cataclysmic event.

The Generations miniseries saw the unlikely team racing through time and space to right the timeline and save their respective worlds. The series was full of great callbacks to the various eras of DC Comics, shining a spotlight on some heroes seldom seen in current comics.