Batman: Night Cries

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No Man's Land" has the death of Commissioner Gordon's wife, Sarah, at the hands of the Joker. Joker has a large number of infants held hostage; Sarah rushes in with a gun, and Joker tosses one of the babies at her, forcing her to drop her gun to save it. No points for guessing what he does once she's unarmed. Gordon gets the news outside - he rants tearfully about how the Joker has gone too far and seriously considers killing him, but after shooting him in the knee, chooses law over anarchy and walks away. And if him weeping on the steps as Batman holds him steady doesn't get to you, then the scene of him spending the new year alone, singing Auld Lang Syne dry-eyed over Sarah's grave definitely will. What's even worse is that the Joker isn't laughing as he walks away. Even HE doesn't find it funny, which just makes it depressing. 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. ◊

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth follows Batman as he fights his most dangerous supervillains inside Arkham Asylum. After the Joker dares him to escape in an hour, the vigilante's attempts end up with him deepening into a supernatural mystery linked to the Asylum's origins. Fridge Horror sets in when you realize that somewhere, buried deep within layers upon layers of insanity and psychological damage, lies a conscience, a small, sane, unchanging fragment of Joker's personality that not only realizes what he's done/doing, but so desperately wants Batman to stop him. There are also dark mirrors of Bruce Wayne as well to add more to the fuel. Thomas Elliot a.k.a Hush is the perfect closest to a doppelganger to Bruce. The irony that these two share when they were once childhood friends to one another's families and to each other. At the same time, both suffered the losses of their mothers and fathers. The only slight difference? Bruce lost his family through heart-wrenching tragedy. Thomas on the other hand lost him through his means. He sought personal independence due to the many years of abuse from his father and frail mother and wanted to obtain his inheritance sooner. He cut his parent's tire breaks on their car and manages to kill his father, yet his mother was saved by the exceptional operational skill of Dr. Thomas Wayne fueling his hate for the Waynes. Years later he finished what he started by suffocating his mother in cold blood with a pillow, all as the world thought that it was just a simple household accident. He murdered them just to obtain the family fortune. And he resents Bruce because he obtained his true loss BEFORE his own family's demise. Hush's sole purpose in life is to destroy both the Batman and Bruce Wayne and will stop at nothing to accomplish his goals.In 'Under The Hood', Jason has a gun to The Joker's head, telling Batman that if he were to stop him from killing the clown, he'd have to shoot Jason in the face, complete with tears. See here.

TheBatmanFilm is a celebration of Matt Reeves’s vision. Join our sub if you’re tired of discussing Deadshot and exclusively how hot female characters areDamian's death and the resulting fallout in the Bat-Family. Batman & Robin in particular has an arc with Bruce going through the five stages of grief, where he further alienates and hurts his allies, still bearing wounds from Death of the Family. Artist Scott Hampton also brings into play a unique layer of abstraction and morbidness with his artistic vision, consisting of a style entirely painted with detailed and expressive strokes. Focused mostly on drowning the story in darkness, expertly utilizing shadows to plunge the narrative into an appropriate and sinister atmosphere, it conveys a certain sense of urgency and tragedy that is difficult to achieve otherwise. He also does an impressive job in capturing emotion in his characters, rarely missing the mark despite the awkwardness of doing so with paint, while also utilizing brighter colours to express gentler moments, kinder faces, and pure innocence. All in all, his artwork is impressive and remained complimentary to the haunting narrative in this graphic novel. Sure, there's the classic Alex Ross stuff with Marvels and Kingdom Come. No, I was more referring to John Muth, Duncan Fegredo, John Bolton, Charles Vess, Bill Sienkevitch, Kent Williams, Simon Bisley, etc. Mostly 2000ad, Vertigo or art house Marvel projects. The ending result felt a little predictable but the emotion ran high whenever Batman or James had to talk to the victims of the sexual abuse. Seeing some still confused of why their parent was killed while others couldn't even talk anymore.

One particularly creepy, but rather unknown, adversary of Batman is Jane Doe. She is, as quoted by one of her personas, "a cipher, she's incomplete, her life is empty, so she covets the lives of others. She takes their lives so she can have their lives." In short, she learns people's traits, kills them, then wears their skin and acts like them. If that, and what's really under her skin doesn't unnerve, it's also worth noting she's primarily responsible for turning Warren White into The Great White Shark, who would go onto be one of Gotham's most feared mob bosses. 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. While investigating a series of seemingly unrelated murders, Batman discovers one of the darkest corners of Gotham City. Created by Archie Goodwin and Scott Hampton, Batman: Night Cries leaves superpowered villains out of the equation and pits Batman against something more realistic and far more dangerous: child sexual abuse.I don’t really want to spoil anything else, as this a story that you will just have to read for yourself to decide whether or not it works for you. I personally think it does a great job highlighting real-world issues, but that will be a mileage-will-vary kind of thing. The ending is a hell of gut-punch though, and I thought the Gordon subplot was unbelievably effective storytelling. The painted art by Scott Hampton is unreal as well, looking even better in this magazine sized hardcover. It adds a grimey layer to the story, and elevates the script beyond what it would have been if it had just been pencilled normally. Bruce discovering that Kathy Kane was killed by a brainwashed Bronze Tiger during the "War of the Assassins" storyline. She died in 1979 and was the first member of the Batfamily to die. While investigating drug pushers, Batman and Commissioner James Gordon notice a common trend in a series of murders involving child abuse, and the death of the children's parents. 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. Killer Croc. A terrifying semi-human monster. He's completely ruthless, has the strength of a crocodile, and can regenerate. As time has gone on, his mind has regressed more and more into that of a deranged animal. He now resides in the sewers beneath Gotham and preys on anyone unfortunate enough to get lost down there.