Batman Legends facts for kids
Batman Legends was a monthly comic book series published in the UK. It was part of Titan Magazines' special 'Collector's Edition' range for DC Comics. This series reprinted popular Batman stories that were first published in the United States. Each issue usually contained three stories.
The comic was first published by Panini Comics from October 2003 to November 2006, with 41 issues. Then, Titan Magazines took over, starting with the second volume. Batman Legends was the very first DC Collector's Edition comic released in the UK. Titan Magazines also published other DC titles like Superman Legends and Justice League Legends. They even released a Batman Annual in August 2013.
Titan Magazines stopped publishing all their DC Comics titles in December 2018. This brought an end to the 15-year run of the Batman series.
Contents
Volume One: The Beginning
The first volume of Batman Legends reprinted many popular and classic Batman story arcs. A story arc is a series of comic issues that tell one complete story.
Some of the key stories included:
- Hush (issues 1-12)
- Broken City (issues 13-18)
- Batman: Year One (issues 22-25)
- War Games (issues 24-38)
- Death In The Family (issues 26-31)
This volume also featured information about the comic creators, fun competitions, and a review of the Batman Begins movie.
Volume Two: New Features
Titan Magazines published Volume Two. It was edited by Rona Simpson, and later by Ned Hartley. Besides the usual three comic stories, Batman Legends Volume Two added a fan letters page. It also had a section called 'Inside the Batcave', which showed off cool Batman merchandise.
Like other DC titles from Titan at the time, each issue also had a 'Roll Call' feature. This part highlighted different DC graphic novels and included a 'Hero of the Month' panel.
Volume Two reprinted stories such as:
- All Star Batman and Robin (issues 1-4, 15+)
- Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (issues 1-4)
- Batman and Son (issues 1-4)
- Stories from Paul Dini's run on Detective Comics starting from issue #821.
- Batman:R.I.P (issues 26+)
- Batman Inc. (issues 52-57)
Volume Three: A New Name
Volume Two finished after 57 issues in June 2012. For Volume Three, the comic was simply renamed Batman. Andrew James became the new editor. The first issue of this new format came out on July 5, 2012. On the same day, Titan also launched another Batman comic called Batman: The Dark Knight.
This volume started reprinting stories from the New 52 series, like Batman and Robin. It also continued to reprint older Batman storylines. Later, it included stories from Nightwing and Batman Eternal, plus other Batman spin-off series. Sometimes, longer US comic issues, like annuals, were split across several UK issues because of page limits. Titan celebrated 50 issues of Volume 3 in April 2016.
Volume Four: The Final Chapter
In October 2016, Titan relaunched the Batman comic again, starting from issue #1. This time, it printed stories from the DC Rebirth publishing event. This fourth volume ran for 14 issues. It was the last volume for the series, as Titan stopped publishing all their DC Comics titles in December 2018.
Other Batman Comics from Titan
After the success of Batman Legends, Titan also published other DC Comics titles. These included Superman Legends (starting March 2007) and Justice League Legends (later in 2007).
Titan also launched a second Batman comic in July 2012. It was first called Batman: The Dark Knight. This comic reprinted stories from the US New 52 titles Batman: The Dark Knight and Detective Comics. This second Batman title changed its name a few times before it was also cancelled in 2018. It was rebranded as Batman: Arkham in January 2014, then Gotham Central, and finally All-Star Batman in February 2017.
- You can listen to a podcast about Batman comics here: Liveline Podcast - Batman Comic Explicit Content
