Batman: Night Cries

Product Information

Batman is able to bring down even the gods of fiction. He can easily take down mafias and regular crimes on the streets of Gotham. But in Night Cries, Batman painfully recognizes the sad fact that eradicating child abuse, a silent and real villain, is an insurmountable task. It is the monster that even him and Commissioner Gordon cannot escape from. 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. 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. Batman and the GCPD investigate a string of gruesome murders occurring across Gotham. The link connecting the victims is soon exposed, revealing the dead were all violent child abusers that had escaped justice for years. Hunting down the murderer, Batman and Gordon struggle with their inability to keep the most vulnerable of society safe while they uncover increasing levels of barbarism perpetrated both by the murderer and their victims.

Brian Azzarello's Joker is full of nightmare-inducing sequences including skinning a man alive, rape, torture, the Joker crying on a hooker-like Harley Quinn, and much, much more. The comic's narrator becomes so horrified by the Joker's worldview that he ends up committing suicide to escape.

Live-Action Series

Batman follows and gets into a confrontation with Josh Adams, the who explained how Doctor McLean would help keep U.S. soldiers in South America sane, even while they saw atrocities like children dying. However, these deaths would have a profound effect on McLean, who tries to help save children from being abused through the program he shares with his sister…but it simply isn’t enough. The Dark Knight is the perfect comicbook hero to craft the story with. He works in the street at night, he's human and grounded. The dark and and horrifying truth flawlessly blends with his tragic past. Thus the result is an effective delivery of message which does not feel contrived. 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. 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".

In Batman Beyond, he has seemingly died, and his daughter Talia has taken over the League of Assassins, returning to a now elderly Bruce and trying to persuade him to undergo rejuvenation in the Lazarus Pit. It eventually revealed that Ra’s had switched his mind with Talia to avoid death when his body finally broke down and is now trying to get Bruce's as well. 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." 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.

Often times the writers on these works were a little more flamboyant or experimental. Which is why I found this work relatively disappointing. This is the book to complete my reading challenge of the year. 450 books/graphic novels/comics/manga down! Surprised did this being my first year with my daughter but here we are.

The countless expies that Batman (and his allies) had to deal with throughout his years as a vigilante crimefighter is no laughing matter either! They're virtually literal dark mirrors on the Dark Knight himself and what he would have done had he not been so vigilant in his struggles for justice and the sanctity of Gotham City and the Gothamites residing. There are a few that deserve well-given mentions here since in their encounters they become something to dread whenever they show up. The infamous few that are just as much as our beloved Cape Crusader himself: 1. Owlman 2. The Wrath (I & II) 3. Hellhound 4. Catman 5. Killer Moth and finally the best for last. 6. Prometheus. Why him? Because he single-handedly out bested the entire JLA! And of course, to add more to this already hellish mentioning of true evils that mirror the Batman to a T. We have Joker, Two-Face, Riddler, Scarecrow to name the few that mirror him just as well. Albeit, not as close as the aforementioned doppelgangers before them but just as bad.

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. The Penguin. Yes, laugh at the fat ugly man with the pointy nose. He will use his virtually unlimited connections in the Wretched Hive that is Gotham to systematically ruin your life until you succumb to despair and kill yourself. A chef found that out the hard way . Even worse, the chef may not even have been laughing at Penguin, but that didn't matter to the Penguin. Someone laughed in his general direction, and so that person needed to not just die, but be broken entirely in the process. The crossover one-shot with Batman and Elmer Fudd. Batman survives an assassination attempt by Elmer and confronts the man over it. Learning Elmer had been set up by "Bugs", the two proceed to hunt him down. They ultimately learn that the true mastermind was Silver St. Cloud. She had fallen in love with Elmer after she couldn't take being with Bruce's "dangerous" life, but when she learned Elmer had just a dangerous life as Bruce, she opted to turn the two against each other through "Bugs". After the revelation, the three men could only approach the counter of the bar they're in and ask for "carrot juice" to drown their sorrows.

The Joker. Pre-Crisis, Post-Crisis, it doesn't matter - he is the Trope Codifier for Monster Clown for a reason. In his very first appearance, he utilizes his horrible Joker Venom without a second thought, laughing off any inevitable deaths he causes. Chronologically speaking, even when you read a goofy Silver Age story where he's pulling some harmless heist, you're still looking at a Monster Clown with completely apathetic spree-killings on his criminal record. note (Which, not counting unearthly forces, contains the single biggest kill count in the DC universe at over 2,000 murders.) Another part of what makes him so scary is how random he is — he can be a harmless jester pulling elaborate pranks one minute and without warning try to poison the whole of Gotham. The worst part is that the Joker doesn't seem to notice any difference; pin-balling from Harmless Villain to crossing the Moral Event Horizon is as easy as breathing for him. Lastly, he instills fear into many in-and-out-of universes, especially if you happen to be coulrophobic (scared of clowns). All of this is manageable by someone who has no powers apart from an utterly unhinged mindset. Night Cries focused on the inescapable and devastating world of child abuse. I don't think there's any way to 100% adequately cover this topic. Let's also remember that this was published in '92... the same decade of MANY highly publicized sexual abuse and murder cases where the victims were demonized instead of believed. Abuse is one of those "taboo" subjects that many people don't want to confront. It's 2021 and we're still fighting for victims' rights.Riddler: "You look around here these days, it's all different. It's all changed. The Joker's killing people, for God's sake! Did I miss something? Was I away when they changed the rules?" Batman's disturbing portrayal of drug dependency in "Venom" which has a good dose of Nightmare Fuel and Truth in Television thrown in full spades. Part of the Legends of the Dark Knight anthology series (issues 16-20), Batman's reason for turning towards the fictional synthetic drug is because he failed to save one little girl from drowning to death in a cavernous section of the sewer. He ends up working unwillingly with the creator of the very drug and the father of the said aforementioned girl, Randolph Porter, and begins developing sensational use of the drug. Batman starts undergoing many changes (physically, psychologically, and through motor functions). It's hard to read the whole story from beginning to end since we get to see firsthand that Batman's reliance and dependency on Venom end up showing an almost rarely seen human side of him. Begging and pleading for more of the stuff and wallowing in himself inside. And besides being weak, he becomes more highly deranged with occasional roid rages and enjoys causing pain and suffering on his foes (surprisingly without nearly killing them!). It's both disturbing and sad to see the beloved Dark Knight turn into a big shambling drug user. And not only does it affect him, but it also nearly destroys the kindled friendships of Commissioner James Gordon and Alfred, with him beginning to question Bruce's health and well-being. For Bruce to overcome the addiction, he needed to isolate himself for a straight 30 days in his cave! As you might expect, during his detoxing period, he undergoes various craves and also suffers horrific hallucinations. This very arc from beginning to end is just Nightmare Fuel, to begin with. Oh! And if you think just the description itself is bad... Wait till you get a ◊ load of ◊ This! ◊ There has been a couple of brutal and gruesome murders all over Gotham, and Jim Gordon is connecting the dots, all leading to a potential involvement from Batman, who’s also on the investigation, after finding out most of the witnesses are children, and worse of all, they all seem to be connected in a twisted “sexual abuse” kind of way, unraveling a certain pattern in the killer’s motives towards the victims. Batman: ...And I swear that if you harm that woman at all, I'll make you pay! I will break and twist things within you. You can't conceive of the pain I can cause. It's pain that will go on forever. You won't escape it... BECAUSE I WON'T LET YOU DIE.