Batman: The Cult

Jim Starlin truly takes Batman to the edge in back in Batman: The Cult. Investigating a mysterious cult that has taken Gotham by storm, particularly its homeless population, Batman winds up captured and brainwashed in a fight that he barely escapes a live.

What really carries this story is Wrightson and Wray's art. Although the writing is truly incredible, as is typically the case with legend Jim Starlin at the helm, the art in this comic is really unlike anything I have ever seen before in the world of comics.

There is one scene in particular, when Batman, freshly starved, tortured and brainwashed, escapes from his captors and reemerges in Gotham. A three panel spread illustrates his deluded vision of himself: at first a slowly rotting corpse, literally deteriorating to the part of collapse. When we return to Batman, following an interlude, the sequence is repeated with Batman's willpower creating a new vision of himself as a shining knight emerging from the depths. This scene has stuck with me ever since I read this comic and really is something special.

Additionally, this comic, like a select few others, closely examines Batman at the verge of collapse. The visual representation mentioned above is a neat summary, but what really speaks to this notion is the conclusion of this comic. Batman, forced to face down more than half of the population of Gotham, all indoctrinated by the same cult, resorts to a tank like version of the Batmobile equipped with a twin gatling guns firing rubber bullets.

Here we have Batman going against his tenet to never use firearms, but I guess if there's no other way...