Two months ago, I did a couple of posts about the 1999 Batman crossover No Man’s Land, in which Gotham City, after being partially destroyed by an earthquake, became isolated from the United States for a year. This was a massive event that has been partially collected in different volumes and different editions.
Geek that I am, it annoys to me to no end that none of the collections has the story in an approximately coherent reading order. To be sure, the narrative doesn’t have to be strictly chronological to make sense (some flashbacks do work better in the middle) and it’s hard to escape inconsistencies in the art anyway (the weather keeps changing drastically), but at least the book editors could have come up with a reading order that flowed relatively smoothly and preserved the tension by avoiding too many spoilers about what happens to the characters. (For instance, Nightwing’s trials at Blackgate prison lose some of their pathos if you already know how things turn out for him in the end.) I find it a damn shame, especially for those approaching this crossover for the first time, since the whole anything-can-happen vibe is certainly part of the fun!
Fortunately, I have a blog and enough time on my hands, so I put down my suggested reading order for completists and newcomers… Next week, I’ll lay out the order for the crossover itself, but today I’ll leave you with my guide for the lead-up to No Man’s Land, starting with the earthquake storyline:
Prelude
Detective Comics #719: ‘Sound and Fury’
Earthquake
Shadow of the Bat #73: ‘Castles Built on Sand’
Nightwing #19: ‘Shudder’
Batman #553: ‘Lifelines’
Azrael #40: ‘Hour of the Quake’
Detective Comics #720: ‘The First and The Last’
Catwoman #56: ‘Claustrophobia’
Arkham Asylum: ‘Tales of Madness’
Batman Chronicles #12: ‘The Contract,’ ‘House of Cards,’ ‘Trapped,’ ‘A Bird With A Hand,’ ‘Love Me 2 Times,’ ‘Little Orphan Andy’
Blackgate: ‘Isle of Men’
Immediate aftermath
Shadow of the Bat #74: ‘The Naked City’
Nightwing #20: ‘The Day After Judgment’
Batman #554: ‘Master of Destruction’
Huntress/Spoiler: ‘Blunt Trauma’
Detective Comics #721: ‘Shifting Ground’
Robin #53: ‘Flattened’
Catwoman #57: ‘Reap What You Sow’
Dealing with short-term consequences
Shadow of the Bat #75: ‘By Fire or by Ice?,’ ‘A Long Slow Death’
Batman #555: ‘Trapped Like Rats’
Batman #556: ‘Help, Trapped, Money, Rescue, Ruins’
Nightwing #21: ‘False Starts’
Nightwing #22: ‘Hospital Perilous’
Shadow of the Bat #76: ‘The Gauntlet’
Detective Comics #722: ‘Statistics’
Robin #54: ‘Repercussions’
Azrael #41: ‘The Angel and the Buccaneer’
Azrael #42: ‘Welcome to Eden’
Shadow of the Bat #77: ‘Arwin’s Theory of Devolution’
Batman Chronicles #14: ‘Master of the House,’ ‘The Lunatic Fringe,’ ‘Random Encounters’ [I skipped Batman Chronicles #13, which features three tales about the GCPD, because they don’t seem to take place in this era of Gotham.]
Partially destroyed Gotham as the new status quo
Azrael #43: ‘Homecoming’
Azrael #44: ‘Angel and the Beast: The Crash’
Azrael #45: ‘Angel and the Beast: Deathstroke’
Azrael #46: ‘Guardian Angel’
Green Arrow #134: ‘Brotherhood of the Fist: The Stalkers’
Detective Comics #723: ‘Brotherhood of the Fist: Fight Back to Gotham’
Robin #55: ‘Brotherhood of the Fist: Monkey Fist’
Nightwing #23: ‘Brotherhood of the Fist: Paper Revelations’
Green Arrow #135: ‘Brotherhood of the Fist: The Borrowed Life’
Detective Comics #724: ‘The Grieving City’
Catwoman #58: ‘Only Happy When It Rains: Mad Money’
Catwoman #59: ‘Only Happy When It Rains: Fight or Flight’
Catwoman #60: ‘Only Happy When It Rains: Kittens and Trees’
Batman #557: ‘Ballistic’s Evidence’
Nightwing #24: ‘The Forgotten Dead’ [Unrelated to the events in Gotham, but a cool mystery that helps shape Dick Grayson’s character arc at the time.]
Robin #56: ‘Love Stinks’
Robin #57: ‘Date Night’
Robin #58: ‘The Stranger’
Robin #59: ‘Brutality 101’
Robin #60: ‘The Ugly Truth’
Robin #61: ‘The Killer’
Chase #7: ‘Shadowing the Bat: Covers’
Chase #8: ‘Shadowing the Bat: Truths’
Catwoman #61: ‘Bank on It’
Bullock’s Law
Nightwing #25: ‘The Boys’
Shadow of the Bat #78: ‘The Blank Generation: Corporate Nightmares’
Shadow of the Bat #79: ‘The Blank Generation: A Favorable Wind’
Batman #558: ‘Dying City’
Batman #559: ‘Dead City’
Detective Comics #725: ‘At the End of the Day’ [I’ll skip Detective Comics #726, which is clearly an inventory story used as a fill-in – it’s a neat standalone tale, but it doesn’t seem to take place in this era of Gotham.]
Catwoman #62: ‘Dog New Tricks’
DC One Million crossover
DC One Million #1: ‘Riders on the Storm’
DC One Million #2: ‘The Day After Tomorrow’
Shadow of the Bat #1,000,000: ‘A Never-Ending Story’
Nightwing #1,000,000: ‘The Anachronism’
Detective Comics #1,000,000: ‘The Bug That Ate Tomorrow’
JLA #1,000,000: ‘Prisoners of the Twentieth Century’
DC One Million #3: ‘Solaris Rising’
Batman #1,000,000: ‘Peril Within the Prison Planet’
Catwoman #1,000,000: ‘Nine Million Lives’
Robin #1,000,000: ‘Dark Planet’
Young Justice #1,000,000: ‘Just Ice, Cubed’
Azrael #1,000,000: ‘Angel Wings’
DC One Million #4: ‘Death Star’
Hitman #1,000,000: ‘To Hell With the Future’
Side stories that take place shortly before things completely fall apart
Nightwing #26: ‘Angle of Attack’
Nightwing #27-28: ‘Live Not on Evil’
Nightwing #29: ‘Back to Back to Back’
Catwoman #63: ‘Hints and Allegations: Belling the Cat’
Catwoman #64: ‘Hints and Allegations: No Laughing Matter’
Catwoman #65: ‘Hints and Allegations: Menage a Trois’
Birds of Prey #8: ‘On Wings’
Batman Chronicles #15: ‘Will to Power,’ ‘Between Stars Above & Below,’ ‘An Answer in the Rubble’
Nightwing #30: ‘Just Passing Through’
Nightwing #31: ‘Bad Night in Bludhaven’
Anarky #1: ‘Aberration!: Power Play’ [Features a 7-page flashback set in the aftermath of the earthquake, six months ago.]
Anarky #2: ‘Aberration!: Green for Danger’
Anarky #3: ‘Aberration!: Wishing Well’
Road to No Man’s Land
Azrael, Agent of the Bat #47: ‘…a Man of Wealth and Taste…’
Azrael, Agent of the Bat #48: ‘Scratching the Surface’
Shadow of the Bat #80: ‘Wax Man and the Clown – part 1’
Batman #560: ‘The Jackals’
Detective Comics #727: ‘Nest of Vipers’
Batman #561: ‘The Witness’
Detective Comics #728: ‘Chaos Squared’
Shadow of the Bat #81: ‘Wax Man and the Clown – part 2’
Shadow of the Bat #82: ‘Wax Man and the Clown – part 3’
Azrael, Agent of the Bat #49: ‘Gotham City Must Die’
Batman #562: ‘The Devil His Due’
Detective Comics #729: ‘30 Seconds to Midnight’
Robin #62: ‘Faster Than Anything’ [This storyline starts before the events of the issues listed above, but it goes on to run smoothly alongside them, so I think it makes sense to read it here.]
Robin #63: ‘The Blink of an Eye’
Robin #64: ‘Stop me if you’ve heard this one’
Robin #65: ‘A Blessed Event’
Robin #66: ‘Gomers’
No Man’s Land Secret Files: ‘The Message’ [The main story takes place here, but I suggest skipping the extras, as they are full of spoilers about what lies ahead.]
When does Robin #52 take place? It is part of the Cataclysm storyline, but is not listed here.
Robin #52 is actually the wrap-up for a previous, unrelated storyline. The only connection to Cataclysm is that in the final two pages Tim Drake sees a recently collapsed Gotham City from the sky. If I had to place it somewhere, it would be at the beginning of the ‘Immediate Aftermath’ section, just before Shadow of the Bat #74.
Thank you for that clarification!