A two volume set that has the complete Murderer?/Fugitive storyline, along with key follow up issues. The main goal of this map and all variations is to have a complete chronical of Batman’s adventures during this time, and only add in the necessary tie-ins from the secondary series.
Bruce Wayne: Murderer?
Batman: The Ten Cent Adventure #1
Detective #766
Batgirl #24
Nightwing #65 (pg 1-8, 12-14, 18-21)
Gotham Knights #25
Birds of Prey #39 (pg 8-9, 11-16, 18-22)
Batman #599
Detective #767
Nightwing #66 (pg 1-6, 10-18)
Gotham Knights #26
Birds of Prey #40 (pg 1-4, 9-10, 19-22)
Batman #600
Pages that need to be copied:
Nightwing #65 pg 14
Birds of Prey #39 pg 11
Chuck Dixon was the main culpret of extraneous subplots. He continued all of his running subplots, which did not dovetail with the main Batman plots. As a Batman-only reader, I did not find those pages interesting, and it also detracts from the Batman story attempting to unfold.
As for Fugitive itself, I ignored the part numbers that were labelled on the issues. If you read the Detective Comics tie-ins, you understand why. For about four or five months, the story in Detective Comics was continous from one issue to the next with no space for anything else to take place. But, if you look at the covers, you have one issue not labelled, and then the rest are labelled as parts 4, 8, and 12, or some nonsense. The writers did not intend for Fugitive to be a full blown crossover, but more of a running subplot/status quo. (Pretty much like KnightQuest.) DC marketing did not see it that way. All three of the core Batman series have individual arcs during this time where at least one issue ties into Fugitive, and continues either from or into an issue not labelled as such. There are also a couple of one-part stories that should have been part of the crossover because of some character moments, but weren’t because they didn’t exactly contain an actual clue to the murder (GK #27 and Batman #604).
I ended up making a few different versions of the Fugitive map because of several issues only needing to be excerpted.
Bruce Wayne: Fugitive
Gotham Knights #27
Birds of Prey #41 (pg 1-3, 6-7, 9-10, 12-17, 21-22)
Batman #601-602
Batgirl #27
Detective #768-771
Nightwing #68 (pg 1-5, 7, 9, 11-12, 14-16, 20-22)
Gotham Knights #28-29
Nightwing #69 (pg 1-7, 10-11, 13-14, 16-17, 19, 21-22)
Birds of Prey #43 (pg 1-3, 7, 17)
Batman #603
Batgirl #29
Gotham Knights #30
Azrael #91
Azrael #92 (pg 1-9)
Batman #604
Detective #772
Gotham Knights #31
Batman #605
Detective #773-774
Gotham Knights #32
Batman #606-607
Detective #775
Copied pages:
Birds of Prey #41 pg 3, 6, 9, 21
Nightwing #68 pg 5, 7, 9, 20
Nightwing #69 pg 11, 14, 17
Birds of Prey #43 pg 1-3, 7, 17
Gotham Knights #31 pg 22
Surprisingly, in this era of backup stories in two of the three main Batman titles, GK #31 is the only issue during this 6 month stretch that shares a page with the backup.
In this map, I opted to just copy all of the needed pages out of BoP #43 since it was so few, and three of those five pages would have needed to be copied anyway.
But then I decided to find a way to minimize the amount of copy and print needed. Fortunately, when DC reprinted Fugitive in trades, they only reprinted the necessary pages. Asterisks below indicate pages used from the original trade (published in the mid-2000s).
Certain issues or pages were moved around due to the way they were printed in the trade. For instance, the excerpt from Batman #601, BoP #41, Batgirl #27, and Nightwing #68 were all printed back to back, so those issues couldn’t be separated without copying.
Gotham Knights #27*
Batman #601 (pg 5-7)*
Birds of Prey #41 (pg 1-3, 6-7, 9-10, 12-17, 21-22)*
Batgirl #27 (pg 1-20)*
Nightwing #68 (pg 1-5, 7, 9, 11-12, 14-16, 20-22)*
Batman #601 (pg 1-4, 8-22)
Batman #602
Detective #768-771
Gotham Knights #28-29
Nightwing #69 (pg 1-7, 10-11, 13-14, 16-17, 19, 21-22)*
Birds of Prey #43 (pg 1-3, 7)*
Batman #603*
Batgirl #29
Gotham Knights #30
Azrael #91
Azrael #92 (pg 1-9)
Batman #604
Detective #772
Gotham Knights #31
Batman #605
Detective #773-774
Gotham Knights #32
Batman #606-607
Detective #775
The TPB pages from Batman #601 were moved around because they were back to back with BoP #41. Those pages could be easily extracted from the main part of #601, and it doesn’t affect the main plot of the story.
In this version, I dropped page 17 of Birds of Prey #43. It was printed back to back with the beginning of Batgirl #29, and was a jarring transition since the trade didn’t reprint that cover to act as a chapter break. Since the cover of Batgirl #29 wasn’t reprinted, I just used the original issue. If you don’t care about those two concerns, then Batgirl #29 slides up above Batman #603.
For those interested, the Fugitive volume 1 trade contains the following:
Gotham Knights #27
Batman #601 (pg 5-7)
Birds of Prey #41 (pg 1-3, 6-7, 9-10, 12-17, 21-22)
Batgirl #27 (pg 1-20)
Nightwing #68 (pg 1-5, 7, 9, 11-12, 14-16, 20-22)
Gotham Knights #28 (four pages where Robin is discussing the security videos)
Nightwing #69 (pg 1-7, 10-11, 13-14, 16-17, 19, 21-22)
Birds of Prey #43 (pg 1-3, 7, 17)
Batgirl #29
Batman #603
Cover gallery: Full page covers of GK #27, Batman #601, BoP #41, Batgirl #27, Nightwing #68, GK #28, Nightwing #69, BoP #43, Batman #603.
For BoP #41, those may not be the exact pages, since they did a little more creative editing to completely cut out the other subplots.
Volume 2 contains Detective #768-772, GK #31, and Batman #605. I don’t have that trade, but as far as I can tell, those issues are complete.
Notes for all versions of Fugitive:
-The first 9 pages of Azrael #92 are included to give the cliffhanger from #91 some closure from Batman’s point of view, so it doesn’t look awkward when Batman appears next in Batman #604.
-There’s no way around it…the final page of GK #31 is back to back with the B&W backup. That page will have to be copied if you don’t want a random unconnected story in the middle of the book.
-All of the issues listed after Batman #605 are included because they wrap up loose ends from Fugitive, and also conclude the runs of each respective writer. I split up the Detective arc because of the internal chronology. Tec 773 starts within hours of Batman 605 ending, and goes through the next couple of days as it continues into 774. The end of 774 shifts to a few months later, as does all of 775. Meanwhile, Batman 606 is just two and a half weeks after 605, and GK 32 has to be shortly after Bruce Wayne is cleared.
I squeezed all the Fugitive books in a single 20 issue volume (excluding the backup stories from ‘Tec and GK).
I forget — does the “Atonement” story in Detective Comics (773-775) really connect to Fugitive? Or was it to wrap up Rucka’s run?
It finishes up Sasha’s storyline, and explains what happened to her after Fugitive.