Batman: Night Cries

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The sadness of Batman's origin is taken up to eleven in the 2016 "I Am Suicide" arc of the Batman comics in the new Rebirth continuity. A letter Bruce sends to Selina Kyle/Catwoman as she is on her way to be detained in Arkham Asylum for committing 237 counts of murder explains the emotions that came out of witnessing his parent's murder in-depth. Bruce explains that after his parent's deaths, he felt nothing but pain, and attempted to slit his wrists with his father's razor. However, remembering all of the people in Gotham that were going through similar pain kept him from ultimately doing the deed... at least physically. Spiritually, he already felt dead, and crafted the Batman persona in the hopes that he would one day die defending Gotham from criminals. The events of this particular comic arc seem to be building up to just that. It's extremely harrowing to find out that, at least in this new interpretation, suicidal despair was the ultimate emotion behind the creation of Batman.

The comic brings up the possibility that the Joker is an Eldritch Abomination terrorizing Gotham for centuries. Oh, about Joker's plan to kidnap babies? It's because he wants to kill them all off on New Year's, just to destroy the fragile spirit of the people of Gotham City. And let's not get started on what he does to Commissioner Gordon's wife. Wow. Read this on a whim, and it turned out to be excellent. Probably one of the darkest Batman stories out there. It's gruesome and unflinching, but never exploitative. There's a fine line between grim and edgy, and many writers, especially in the 90's, failed to walk it. No such failure here. I've usually liked what I've read from Archie Goodwin, but I've never seen him turn in something quite this personal and upsetting. He's one of the few "old guard" comics writers that successfully transitioned his writing style from the campy yesteryears to the more complex modern age, and this is certainly prime evidence of that fact. I'm surprised this isn't a more well-known comic, because it's definitely in the upper echelon of Batman stuff for me. My guess is that it didn't jive well with the particular kind of darkness readers were looking for in 1992. It's raw, unflinching, mostly actionless, and not at all "cool" or "badass". It's just solid writing. Batman Incorporated #8. The entirety of Damian's death scene. Despite it arguably being a Dying Moment of Awesome, it was also a Rasputinian Death as Damian went through a lot of torture trying to appeal to his Mother's better nature before finally getting stabbed through the chest. An interesting thing to take note of on Doctor Death, is he was the very first recurring villain to tangle with Batman in the same year as the Cape Crusader made his first appearance in 1939! As the years continued, so did his vile hatred of Batman and his ungodly experiments and private war against "do-gooders" alike.

Animation

Something that sets Croc apart from a lot of Batman's other villains is the fact he wasn't exposed to toxins, caught in a freak lab accident, given special drugs, nor did he perform experiments on himself. He was born like this.

Batman #23.2 does a good job showing how terrifying Riddler can be. Breaking into Wayne Enterprises, killing anyone who stands in his way, all so he can play a game of solitaire in peace. The Riddler. Yeah, go on, laugh. A nerdy guy who can't even throw a punch, right? Just leaves stupid clues and makes it easy for Batman to catch him, right? Go read "Dark Knight, Dark City" ( Batman #452-#454), which has, among other things, Riddler forcing Batman into slitting a baby's throat note to perform a tracheotomy. Then there's his ultimate plan. Taking a drug designed to curb sociopathic tendencies and induce some empathy and reverse the effects, to drug every infant in Gotham to turn them into sociopathic killers like him. Even worse, he may have succeeded.Hush is full of these, but there's a rather subtle and unexpected one at the very end. The Riddler has successfully pulled off one of the most amazing crime waves in Gotham's history, involving nearly every one of Batman's Rogues Gallery and even managing to manipulate the heroes as well; it helps that Riddler is viewed as something of a washed-up, joke villain at this point in the series. He even manages to deduce Batman's secret identity, and thinks that he's finally at the top of the heap... only for Batman, with a single question, to completely destroy those plans: "Who is Batman?" is one of the greatest riddles out there, and if the Riddler gives away the answer, that riddle will become worthless— and the Riddler is so obsessed with puzzles that he physically can't allow that to happen. This could be viewed as a Moment of Awesome for Batman, but on the other hand, it shows that Riddler, like the Caped Crusader's other villains, is legitimately insane, unable to even enjoy victory because of his psychosis. It's a moment that makes Batman comics more realistic, and a lot more heartbreaking. A brief Supergirl-Robin team-up reveals that on the one hand, Gotham's supervillains are completely out of Supergirl's league... on the other hand, Gotham's supervillains tend towards way more depraved than she's used to. What is Batman: Night Cries about? As Batman and Commissioner James Gordon investigate cases regarding drug pushers, gathered clues lead them to establish a common denominator that revolves around a series of murders implicating instances of child abuse with the death of the children’s parents. When they both set their minds to unraveling this mystery, Batman finds himself accused of being the disturbed and unhinged vigilante behind these murders with only a little girl out there to clear his name, while Commissioner Gordon relives his own troubled past as he desperately tries to come to terms with his own abuse as a child. Despite everything, it is up to these two to elucidate this mystery and break a vicious cycle of unforgivable crimes.

Un)Surprisingly, Batman himself in one chapter. After locating Joe Chill, the man who killed his parents, Batman stalks him for several nights. Then Batman, the man who swore never to commit murder, drove Chill to suicide! No wonder so many Batman villains are nuts. Sane people don't last long enough. To add more fuel to the fire. Here's the legendary image that might be a good way (in the victim's perspective) to show how horrifying he is. Definitely a hideous sight before one's demise. Here's the link. ◊ What I really enjoyed here was getting the mindset of both Bruce and James. Both feel defeated on their pursuit but you only see that when they're alone or in their mind. Outside you would never expect it as they both put on brave faces in their own way. I loved the family dynamic and watching Gordon deal with both his child and his wife was perfect.

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Batman's experience follows a similar arc. During one part of the investigation, a traumatized young girl, who may have witnessed one of the murders, spots Batman through a window, and is terrified. As Batman says: "The trouble with an appearance that can strike fear in the minds of criminals--is that it sometimes strikes fear in the innocent as well." The girl may have important information, and Batman regrets frightening her, so he visits her in the hospital, to make amends: "I'm sorry. I don't want to frighten you. I did that once when you saw me through the window at your home. I know I look scary and there have been too many scary things in your life. So I want you to see--" here, he removes his mask, "--I'm just a man, a man who's trying to help." The scene is really touching. Sometimes, Batman seems far from being concerned with the people around him--those he's fighting, or those he's saving--but Goodwin's Batman shows a kind of empathy that Batman must have, if he's more than just a reflection of the violent psychopaths he fights. Goodwin makes this a fairly personal story for Jim Gordon, getting inside Gordon's brain with a condescending voice of narration that I'm led to believe is his interpretation of his father. That added element of Gordon dealing with the cycle of domestic abuse, and the ramifications on his marriage and young James Jr., really get to the heart of the damage that child abuse can cause and continue to cause without dealing with the root issues. As the sample spread shows, Hampton has a great eye for a spectacular image, here toying with Batman’s gothic sensibilities, but his art isn’t entirely successful. He works in dark tones to accentuate the topic, but in the early scenes that works against clarity when illustrating conversation scenes, which can disappear into the murk. In these scenes the painting often also works as a finely composed individual image, but doesn’t always hang together as part of a story sequence. This isn’t helped by a stylistic device of large gaps between some panels, which may be intended to emphasise a point, but slow the story down. Going Sane". This little four-part story arc humanizes The Joker far better than The Killing Joke ever did. The finale is especially sad: it features the Joker's inevitable return to madness and Rebecca hoping in vain for the return of her "missing" fiance, "Joseph Kerr". This is Batman musing on the nature of depravity that plagues Gotham City and the abyss that he's devoted his life to cleaning up in Batman: Night Cries by Archie Goodwin, Scott Hampton, and Tracy Hampton-Munsey. I'm a firm believer that you can tell just about any kind of story with Batman. Horror. Crime. Fantasy. Comedy. Light or dark. Off-the-wall bizarre or real to life, even if the idea of a millionaire playboy dressing up as a bat might be patently absurd. I find, though, that Batman and Gotham City make themselves a very good vehicle for some of the darker aspects of society, examining the horrors that we cause to one another with the relative comfort of a protector in the darkness.