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. 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. 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. Scott Hampton’s meticulously painted artwork was the major selling point of Night Cries when originally released in 1992. This was in an era when not every Batman comic was subsequently reprinted in a collection, meaning an all-new story was even more of an event, and that feeling was accentuated by child abuse being a significant plot aspect.

If that isn't enough to lose sleep over, there's also always high wonderful levels of Body Horror involved. Shapeshifting abilities aside for infiltration purposes. He can morph various parts of his body into deadly solid matter or weapons. Even capable of smothering his victims within his very body... shudders* In the night, he listens. ‘Two million cases. Two thousand deaths. Too many cries. Someone else has to hear them.’ In the night, he listens. And only the sound of his own voice comes to him, screaming in frustration. The cry of a lone bat. Unable to find its way.” The comic brings up the possibility that the Joker is an Eldritch Abomination terrorizing Gotham for centuries. Now, take this insane thought process, and combine it with an impressive set of powers: pheromonic Mind Control, body-generated poison, scientific super-genius, and command over the plant kingdom. Ivy is one of the few metahumans in Batman's rogues gallery, and thus one of the strongest baddies he regularly faces. The idea of anyone with the power to hold a knife at all mankind's throat is scary enough; the fact that Ivy has actually managed to do just that more than once is even scarier. On top of that, she has a habit of using particularly gruesome methods in killing people like parasitic fungi or having plants grow inside them. 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.There's a reason Victor Zsasz hasn't been featured or alluded to in any family-friendly animated adaptations. The man carves a mark on himself for every victim he kills... and he has a lot of marks. Zsasz stands out among Batman's rogue's gallery in being a simple, straight-up serial-killing psychopath. He has no supervillain origin, no sympathetic motives, he just likes to kill people. Or "free the zombies" as he calls it. Especially women. He doesn't wear a suit or rule an empire. He's just some guy. He could literally be anyone. 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. 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. 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". 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?"

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 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. The Flamingo. He's a sadistic assassin with a penchant for eating the faces of his victims. While wearing hot pink clothing and driving a flamboyant pink motorcycle would make most villains much less intimidating, the way Flamingo does it creates a disturbing contrast with his depravity, making it even worse.

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! ◊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.

How about the fact that, in recent years at least, the publishers have stopped presenting him as anything other than a delusional madman enraptured with his immortality and status as a "living god" who clings to his goals so he doesn't have to admit he's just a monster?Yes, I loved the artwork. I'm always looking for some "unique" comic artists. To again confront some critics, the watercolor style isn't "sloppy"; it's haunting. It's haunting just like the subject matter is haunting. Some wish they could just wash away their trauma and suffering, but they can't. His New 52 incarnation is nothing to laugh at either. Taking place in Batman: Year Zero, Doctor Death creates a serum that would strengthen bones to eradicate 'human weakness'. Later it's revealed he was one of three doctors studying regenerative drugs. His area of study was hard tissue, and his experiments caused his skeleton to grow uncontrollably without regard for his organs or muscles. The others, Hugo Strange and Paul Dekker, studied brain and soft tissue regeneration, respectively. To put it in perspective, the treatments they designed somehow went even worse than Hellfern's. Batman Night Cries is more of a social revelation of the secret horrors happening in families than a Batman story. Often a core element in a Batman story, the detective work here merely serves as a plot advancing mechanism rather than a core frontrunner. The story builds up to a truth that hits you hard at the homestrech and ends on a sad note. 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.