Gavok posted:

From Planetary/Batman: Night on Earth. A man named John Black was tortured and experimented on by the main villains of Planetary (an evil version of the Fantastic Four) along with his parents. His parents were murdered, he escaped and is now mentally messed up. He keeps freaking out, which has caused him to murder a couple people and each time it sets off a power where reality shifts around him.

The Planetary guys track him down to their world's Gotham City, which has no Batman whatsoever. Black's powers cause them to end up in various other Gothams of the multiverse and they end up contending against Batman, who keeps changing incarnations (ie. Frank Miller Batman, Adam West Batman, Neal Adams Batman, etc). Batman wants Black to pay for his crimes while the Planetary guys feel that Black isn't responsible for his actions. The first half of the book is Ellis taking the piss out of Batman. Elijah and the rest believe Batman to be some kind of weirdo cop with a fetish and treat him like a joke.

Elijah Snow tries to get through to Batman and even brings up that Black's parents were killed for sympathy, but it doesn't do much to stop him. He turns into the original Bob Kane Purple Kitchen Gloves Batman and puts a gun to Black's head, claiming that crime must never, ever pay. Then Drummer, whose powers involve understanding information, says that there's information surrounding them that's connected to Batman. Something major happened in this alley involving him. He makes everyone see.





I always saw this as the Batman counterpart to Superman and the suicide jumper.