Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Batman: Dead White | 2006 | Andrew Vachss | Buy |
Batman: Dead White is Andrew Vachss’s 2006 prose novel set in the Batman universe. In it, Batman goes after a white supremacist militia leader who is smuggling heavy weapons into Gotham City. The story is darker and more grounded than typical Batman fare, which makes sense given Vachss’s background in gritty crime fiction. He treated Gotham less like a comic book city and more like a real place with real predators.
Vachss was a natural fit for Batman. His career defending abused children and his decades writing about crime gave him an understanding of the kind of evil Batman fights. Dead White reads more like a Vachss crime novel with Batman in it than a standard superhero story. Fans of Vachss’s other work will recognize his voice immediately, and Batman readers looking for something that skips the camp in favor of hard realism will find this worth their time.