Batman: Night Cries Review (Archie Goodwin, Scott Hampton)

Someone is killing child molesters in Gotham - and, according to one of the child victims, it’s Batman! Has everything the Dark Knight’s seen finally tipped him over the edge into becoming a murdering vigilante?

Batman: Night Cries is a very muddled comic. Jim Gordon isn’t being a good dad now that he’s the new commissioner; there’s a new drug on the streets of Gotham; there’s a new child protection charity set up by the Wayne Foundation; and there’s the murderous vigilante - and none of these elements really gel into a coherent or compelling story. I’m not even sure if certain subplots - like the deadly new drug - are even relevant, and even Gordon’s domestic travails felt trivial.

I think what Archie Goodwin was trying to explore was how the darkness of the world affects people’s minds, in particular Batman and Gordon’s, but he doesn’t really achieve this. Gordon’s snippy with his family while Batman silently screams into the void when he’s alone - that doesn’t give you any insight into why they don’t become what the killer becomes.

And then there’s the question of whether child abuse is something that should even feature in a Batman comic - is it too real a subject? I feel like it is, for a comic about a billionaire who dresses as a bat vigilante at night - that’s why most of Batman’s stories involve him fighting performance artist villains. It’s not a subject a comic like Batman could ever really handle successfully, especially as it’s only dealt with on a surface level here.

Scott Hampton’s painted art was skilful at times but not at all appealing to look at. Like the story, it was murky and added to the difficulty in following what was going on in the book.

The premise of Batman as the real killer behind the crimes was a feeble, half-baked and predictable ruse, but the story as a whole failed to do anything for me on any level. What little I was able to follow, didn’t entertain or make me thoughtful. I was consistently bored from start to finish. Night Cries is an unpleasant, confusing and dull Batman comic.