BATMAN: THE CULT (Starlin / Wrightson, Wray; DC, 1988)

Another one of those series whose last issue has been in the long and/or shortboxes since my collecting phase (90-96) and joined by the first three issues only over the last couple of weeks of this one. Patience – if that's the right word for it – is rewarded, however, as this brutal, stunning work – Wrightson's art, especially with Bill Wray’s colors, is insane here: this Gotham breathes exhaust fumes and decay – is now one of my favorite Batman stories, a prescient and searing breaking of the Bat and the placing Gotham under martial law long before Bane and an earthquake got around to it – didn't realize how much Nolan and co based DARK KNIGHT RISES around this, swapping Deacon Blackfire with Bane and mixing in DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, KNIGHTFALL, and NO MAN'S LAND, to set it all aflame.

It's been an experience to read THE CULT as I've been listening to the audiobook of Steven Hassan's excellent COMBATTING CULT MIND CONTROL – I have a deep-rooted and long-standing fascination with cults, their destructive effects, and the methods by which good actors can help those who have fallen victim to undue influence (something I'll write about soonish) back to their authentic selves – (whilst mowing various lawns) and witnessing Blackfire's mental breaking and Patti-Hearsting of Batman in the first issues through starvation, sleep deprivation, drugs, and other forms of mental (and physical) torture and manipulation (while the love-bombing is missing, Hassan's BITE model is on full display here), demonstrating, in particularly vivid form, that the stigma faced by ex-cult members is unfounded at best and as destructive as the cult itself at worst: a weak mind has nothing to do with falling victim to a cult as even one of the most disciplined and developed minds in all of literature is susceptible to dirty tricks and mental rape by con men, authoritarian demagogues, and power-hungry zealots. Particularly moved by how, even after all is said and done and Gotham saved (or as saved as Gotham can get), the effects of the experience still weigh heavily on the Bat. Wish those had been explored further and maintained as part of continuity.

THE CULT is also notable, from a comics perspective, for featuring one of my favorite stories with Jason Todd as Robin – made even more so that it's written by the writer who killed him not long after: this Jason has the potential to be as great as Batman, which makes his death and subsequent revival and transformation into the Red Hood that much more tragic.

So good and so vastly underrated; my complete reading list, from 2013 to the present, lives here.