The Comic Cave is a regular feature where we spin the Wheel of Comics and see what graphic novel story it brings up for us to deep dive into! This week we take a look at Batman: Prey, a story set in the early days of Batman's career that reintroduced Hugo Strange following the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths.
People loved this take on the character, and wanted more stories like that. But, DC wasn't prepared to regress Batman back in time, erasing characters like Nightwing and Robin, and removing his relationships with other heroes. Instead, they launched Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, a series that would explore Batman's early career, stripping him down to basics and showing new origin stories for some of his rogues. The series, with its rotating writers and artists, would become a showcase for talent, and would become so popular that it would run for more than two hundred issues.
The third story to be released was Batman: Prey, and was the best of the series at that point. Batman: Shaman had kicked things off, and was an interesting if flawed dive into a story set in part around the same time as Batman: Year One, and Batman: Gothic would see Batman going up against an undying man hundreds of years old who made a deal with the devil in a book that's very Grant Morrison. And whilst these stories were very good, and would go on to become cult favourites, Batman: Prey felt like something very different, a story that wasn't trying to cash in on Batman: Year One, and wasn't incorporating the fantastical. Instead, it was a straight forward Batman story.
Batman witnesses this mistrust play out in the court of public opinion as the mayor, Gordon, and famed psychologist Hugo Strange appear on a late night talk show where they're asked to talk about the Batman. It's here that we meet Hugo Strange for the first time since Crisis on Infinite Earths and get to see what the character is like in this new timeline. Strange first appeared in 1940, in Detective Comics issue 36, where he was a criminal scientist who used his knowledge to help his gang perform robberies. After that, he appeared in the very first issue of Batman, later that same year, where he escapes prison and turns his henchmen into hulking monsters to take on Batman. He would appear several times over the years, and would go through some changes in the 70's, but would always be presented as a mad scientist who uses his knowledge to change and mutate people into creatures.
Batman: Prey ignores everything that came before, and reinvents Strange for a then modern reader. The mad scientist working in his lab was replaced with a doctor of the mind. Strange begins the story as a media personality, coming onto TV to give an armchair diagnosis of Gotham's vigilante; an analysis that is a bit hit and miss, but does nail a few things. He deduces that Batman is obsessive, that he has a mistrust of other people, is obsessed with darkness, the night, and vengeance. He even figures out that he's been driven by the loss of a loved one in a violent crime in the dark. Of course, all of this gets to Bruce, who ends up crushing the glass he's holding as he watches the show.
As the story progresses, however, Cort begins to become more and more enraged with the hunt for Batman, and his rage leads him to Hugo Strange, who sees the burning passion within Cort and realises that he can use it to his own ends. Strange has become determined to bring Batman in so that he can study him and eventually publish a book on the man; a book that Strange believes will make him famous. He's become so obsessed by the idea that he's made his own Batman costume, one with a cowl that looks like a modified bondage mask. He parades around his apartment in the costume, talking about how he's going to bring Batman down, bragging to his sex doll that he's got sitting in his living room like a real person. Yep, turns out this new Hugo Strange is a bit unhinged.
One thing that I'll give the book a lot of credit for, it doesn't have Strange try to fight Batman whilst wearing the suit. They'll eventually have a confrontation whilst he's wearing it, but it isn't a physical one. Doug Moench knows that Strange needs to be a character that uses his mind, not his physicality, and the story works all the better for that. And he does use his mind against Batman. He uses his theories to investigate into previous crimes in Gotham, and with a drug induced clue from Batman, manages to figure out that he's actually Bruce Wayne. He then breaks into Wayne Manor and sets up a series of dummies dressed like Thomas and Martha that play recorded messages when Bruce comes home, messages where they tell him that it's his fault they're dead, and that they're ashamed of him.
This dual attack on Batman's mind and his body would be a trope that readers will see many times over the coming decades, and has become a firmly established trope for the character; and whilst Batman: Prey wasn't the first to do this it might be the first one to do it this well. The story established this firmly in readers minds, and the way that these attacks come very close to breaking Batman means that it has become one of the go-to plots for villains.
But this isn't the only thing that Batman: Prey establishes for the new universe. This story also introduces two very important elements for the character, the Batsignal and the Batmobile. As Gotham is turning against Batman he's left with one person he can go to, one man who might be able to help him, Captain Gordon. With Gordon willing to help Batman he needs a way of contacting him, at which Batman suggests a signal. Later in the book Gordon heads up to the roof of the GCPD, where he drapes a fabric bat on one of the spotlights, creating a proto-Batsignal. I really enjoyed the idea of Gordon creating a signal that he can quickly remove and hide whilst he's still a captain and can't give the go-ahead for a permanent signal. During the book Bruce spends time in the cave working on 'the car', and we see this engine inside a rough frame sitting in the background. Throughout the book he keeps mentioning how he needs better ways of getting around rather than using gliders, or just running home, but it's not until after his breakdown at the Manor that the finish vehicle is revealed in all it's glory; Bruce having finished it during his self imposed lock down in the cave. It's a cool moment, and one that makes for a decent origin for the Batmobile.
Batman: Prey is a brilliant example of an early Batman story, a book that strips Batman back to the most basic, and challenges him in interesting ways. It brings back a classic villain and reinvents him in such a way that this is how people think of Hugo Strange now (he even keeps putting the Batman costume on because of this story). I'd also believe that this story is in part responsible for the early success of Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, and helped to show people that it was a series worth reading. If you're a fan of Batman but don't always enjoy masses of continuity, or an extended Bat Family, Batman: Prey is something that you should definitely pick up.
Batman: Prey was originally published in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight from September 1990 - February 1991.
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