Batman: Night Cries

Product Information

Earlier on in "No Man's Land," there's the story where Renee Montoya first really meets Two-Face, "Two Down". At first, Renee is understandably suspicious of Two-Face who is a prominent member of Batman's own Rogues Gallery... but as they work together, even though she never forgets what he now is, she starts bonding with him and seeing what he could have been—- to the point where she's willing to stand up to the Batman himself in his defense. 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. Batman himself is this to criminals. Even those who don't fear Superman are generally terrified of Batman. 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.

Damian'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.

Comics

Battle For The Cowl has some moments, despite Batman's actual death happening earlier. Notable points include the idea of supervillains doing good to honor Batman, Batman's holographic will attempting to set right what couldn't be fixed in a lifetime, and Jason Todd finally snapping completely. His actions are hard to sympathize with, but imagine that your Last Words from the most important person in your life are "You're broken, and I couldn't fix you. Maybe someone else can." The following issues explored Bruce going through the stages of grief, hurting his loved ones as he tries to (at the time) vainly attempt to resurrect Damian. Batman and Nightwing has Bruce gaining some cold closure that, in an ideal world, there could have been a way for Damian to live. Alfred then uses the same computer program to relive the moment that he allowed Damian to leave the Cave to help his father, and prevent it; apologizing in tears to his son for allowing the boy who was basically his grandson go off to die, the book ending with a painful step forward. 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.

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. In Arkham Manor, a disguised Batman recruits Mr. Freeze to help contain a maddened Clayface. The two manage to contain the shifter inside Freeze's cell, and begin to leave the Manor. Batman begins to tell Freeze how to best escape without harming anyone, but Victor gently stops him and assures him he's going nowhere. When asked why, Freeze closes his eyes and starts making snow angels, before morosely answering he has, quite literally, nowhere to go. 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. 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.

Live-Action Films

Batman has been in the cultural zeitgeist for well over half a century. Numerous generations have grown up with the character in one form or another, from the baby boomers who sat down to watch the 1966 TV series all the way to the kids that went to theaters to see The Batman this March. Everyone has a mental image of who Batman is, and some people’s interpretations of the character are wildly different from others’. With this article, I want to shine a light on one of the Caped Crusader’s lesser known, yet absolutely excellent stories that has had a significant impact on me and explain why the character remains relevant 81 years since his inception. The writer is Archie Goodwin. Even his name sounds milquetoast. However, he was the editor for some comics like Creepy and the Epic line, where innovation flourished. He's one of the best editors in the industry, but really only know for writing Star War comics.