Batman: The Cult #1 (of 4)

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I love this style of coloring and I hope they never recolor this stuff as some publishers are apt to do. Then when he's shaken the drugs and is fighting back, he allows an innocent woman to be raped and killed - because he's got to deal with Blackfire quickly. When the gun jams at a crucial moment, Batman laments, “This is another reason I hate using firearms… they’re undependable.

It was written by Jim Starlin who not only wrote A Death in the Family, a very important story in the Batman continuity, but he was also the creator of Thanos. He takes over a television station and announces that he will be taking over the current government of Gotham, because it is the only way to ensure that criminal elements do not seize control of Gotham. But peel back the layers on this dark tale and you have one of the finest tales of the Dark Knight ever told, just in a different way than what is considered the norm by today's standards. More than anything this is an ensemble story about Deacon Blackfire recruiting and gaslighting the homeless community to carry out his deeds. People point to this story is an early example of the joyless and cynical style of storytelling that would plague comics in the 90s and though I can see their point, it’s one I don’t agree with.Finally, this Batman seems to have no problem with blowing up bad guys with missiles mounted on the Batmobile/monster truck. Michael : This was my first time reading it and unlike our previous selection, I was not at all familiar with it. It’s often on the list of Greatest Batman stories and it stands up well alongside the other comics that were released during that era. Honestly, it feels quite derivative of that story; not only due to the over-reliance on news reports as a crutch, but also because of the imagery of the final battle. As dark and nightmarish as the story is, it’s wonderful to look at it and the dream-like atmosphere of the story reigns in some of the more excessive aspects of the tale.

I read this book over a year ago and I remember not liking it the first time I read it and I'm not really sure what I didn't like about it. Perhaps I just don’t like how many people die in the book, but it’s also a consequence of Starlin’s script ramping up to, in my opinion, an unsustainable scale.

While the results of this story don't glaringly point to a single instance in the Bat's canon, junkies of these stories (such as myself) can see the foundation that is laid with these words. I enjoyed what it did with Batman at the start, but I’m definitely not a fan of how brutal it gets towards the end. For historical context, it's one year after Year One, one year before Jason Todd gets voted to death, and the same year as The Killing Joke.

This causes problems when The Cult goes a little off the rails – there’s a sense that The Cult never things about anything beyond what exists in the panel.But you have to keep in mind, when we first see Batman, he’s already endured a week of torture (we know he’s been beaten and stabbed), starvation, and been drugged semi-regularly.

The majority of Batman’s adversaries are somewhat based in reality (outside of Ra’s Al Ghul) and the character of Deacon Blackfire is seemingly immortal, achieving so by bathing in human blood.

Blackfire somehow manages to not only subdue Batman but also the Gotham Police Force, the National Guard, the United States Army - all through brainwashed homeless people! He’s been deprived of food—aside from small, rancid portions to keep him alive—and he’s been drugged. At least with No Man's Land, Batman's rogues gallery was addressed with Joker, Penguin, Two Face and Black Mask each controlling parts of the city - where are they while Deacon Blackfire and his army of homeless nutters are running loose? Although he was drugged, Batman broke his no-killing rule in this series under the influence of Deacon Blackfire.