"NIGHT OF THE STALKER"
Script: Steve Englehart
Plot/Pencils: Vin and Sal Amendola
Inks: Dick Giordano
Editor: Archie Goodwin
Special Acknowledgement: Neal Adams
This is a blog about Batman stories that I like-- there's nothing more to it than that. Batman has been the showcase title for the best talent in DC's stable for decades now, and there are, quite frankly, so many great Batman stories that they tend to fall through the cracks of time and memory. This is a place for me to shine a spotlight on those classics and talk about why they worked so well. This blog will mostly focus on Batman stories from 1970 to about 1995-- in other words, the time when Batman was blue and grey and not quite as depressing as he is written nowadays.
So let's start with the best Batman story of all time.
NIGHT OF THE STALKER began life as a story pitch Neal Adams spent a whole day in the artist's lounge at DC relaying to anyone who would listen with such incredible manic energy that lodged its way into the brain of Sal Amendola, who is its primary author. It was the subject of much editorial concern and censorship on the part of two different editors with DC, was published as the top-billed story for the March '74 issue of DETECTIVE COMICS, and was instantly recognized as one of the greatest Batman stories of all time and has been oft-anthologized ever since.
The plot is simple and brilliant: During a heist of bank robbery, two members of the gang of robbers kill a young couple that happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and leave their young son alive and shell-shocked at the scene. The act so strongly evokes Batman's own primal tragedy so strongly that the Dark Knight is momentarily stunned by it, reliving the death of his parents on the spot.
Batman pursues the gang relentlessly as they make their getaway into the suburbs, confronts each member one by one, and then when the final member (ironically the same member who first fired the fatal shot) breaks down in guilt and fear, he regains control of himself. Upon returning to his penthouse, Batman unmasks and Steve Englehart provides us with this master-stroke of a caption to accompany the shocking sight of Bruce Wayne breaking down into tears:
"Time heals all wounds they say-- and, in truth, Bruce Wayne long ago learned to live with the agonizing fact of his parents' demise. But when he thinks of the boy crime left sobbing on the street at dusk-- and the other boy crime left sobbing before The Batman's vengeance hours later-- he remembers a third boy crime left sobbing many years ago, and in this gray-lit, lonely, tower for this single moment in infinity... he is that boy again."
There's so much to love here: the grim pursuit of the robbers is the most satisfying, primal, Batman stuff you could possibly read. This is as close to Batman as a kind of slasher movie villain for crooks that I've ever seen. The actual fight sequences are really well done for 70's DC Comics-- the fight in the creek bed is particularly wonderful for the moment where an ordinary thug thinks he's killed The Batman and bursts into triumphant yelling before being pulled down into the water, face to face with an ungodly pissed Batman.
The shocking vulnerability of our hero is also notable. Amendola had to fight like hell for his final image-- a Bruce Wayne unmasked and in a vicious crying jag in front of the portrait of his parents. Batman is a creature born of tragedy and while this is mostly expressed in dread vengeance-- either his or his villains'-- it feels bracing to see him overcome by these emotions. He's psychologically stunned, and then the ending provides the release to the overwhelming tragedy of the moment. DC editorial was very nervous about showing one of their heroes overcome by emotion. Hearing it now, it feels very old-fashioned, John Wayne-style, "boys don't cry" shit.
But here's the rub, readers: that tension that animates the stupid criticism editorial had above is what elevates the whole story from just a good Batman story to the very best one. That's because the tragedy that created The Batman doesn't own The Batman-- he spares the final criminal when he sees that, he too, has been overtaken by circumstance. This is such an import character point that's been completely lost by Batman writers since Frank Miller looking to ground the billionaire ninja detective they're writing about in psychological realism by making him ever more depressed, obsessed, and militant until we're left with a character that can kill gods, but can't have a human emotion. He has gained closure on that primal tragedy and while it inspired him to become a one man SWAT team, it isn't why he still does it. There wouldn't be anything heroic about a man who was just running around inflicting his trauma on the world-- the heroism of Batman is a direct result of having overcome that trauma and continuing on because it's the right thing to do.
For while none of us may be billionaires or ninja or detectives, we've all suffered the human condition, and what defines us as people for good or for ill is how our own suffering informs our actions towards others-- whether we allow it to define us, or fuel the better angels of our nature. Without that clear understanding, The Batman loses all relevance as a piece of pop mythology-- a being that imparts some kind of moral knowledge on young people-- and becomes a piece of intellectual junk food. That's the beam between being a hero and a guy who just punches people good.