Earlier this month, Ian McKellen officiated at Patrick Stewart‘s wedding; a few days later, the X-Men co-stars took to the streets of New York City posing at Times Square with Elmo, as well as together at the Empire State Building and also with a pile of good ol’ fashion street trash.

This weekend, the duo met up with Star Trek actor Leonard Nimoy for a photo op in Coney Island in Brooklyn, NY, which is pretty much right in my backyard. And PatStew is wearing a Coney Island – Brooklyn shirt!

Last week, Ian McKellen officiated at the wedding of his X-Men co-star, Patrick Stewart.

This weekend, the duo were out on the streets of New York City at the theater mecca of the world, Times Square, where they’re soon to begin their Broadway stint together in two plays, Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

On Friday, The Dark Knight Rises, the latest and last Batman film in Christopher Nolan’s epic trilogy, will finally be upon us. So, it’s natural for loads of sites to provide you with “5 Batman Comics To Get You Pumped For The Dark Knight Rises!” But where we differ is, we’re taking a more scholarly approach to these Batman comics. We’ve already talked about The Evolution Of Batman In Popular Culture and given you Batman 101: A Beginner’s Guide To The Dark Knight, which gave you several great places to start reading Batman comics that aren’t heavily drenched in continuity and are some of the more simple stories that The Dark Knight has to offer.

With Batman 202: Intermediate Reading For The Caped Crusader, however, we’re taking a look at some more books that offer a little bit more than just a basic starting point. These books are all great, but they’re also a little more complicated than I would suggest just starting off. This list is here to provide you with the next step into becoming a Batman scholar, and requires a little more of the reader.

Batman: No Man’s Land
Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3
Vol. 4, Vol. 5
by Greg Rucka (and others)
DC Comics

One of the biggest comic crossover events that was not Universe wide is the Batman: No Man’s Land event that took place during 1999. Preceded by Batman: Cataclysm, the crossover took place in all the Bat-universe books, including the four monthly Batman titles — Detective Comics, Batman, Batman: Shadow of the Bat, and Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight — as well as the larger Batman family like Robin, Catwoman, and Nightwing.