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Gotham City’s Hitman, Tommy Monaghan, encountered one of DC’s most ridiculously over-the-top Batman parodies in his cult classic series.
The heroes of Gotham City have long inspired new generations of vigilantes, with the protectors of the city coming together loosely as members of the Bat-Family. But they’ve also had the ability to inspire the worst in others and giving them the chance to turn their terrifying desires and brutality on the world, including a clear satire of Batman that remains one of the harshest views on that type of character.
In the pages of Hitman, DC introduced the short-lived Gotham vigilante — Nightfist — who may be one of the harshest parodies of Batman that has ever appeared in comics.
Hitman by Garth Ennis and John McCrea focused on Tommy Monaghan, the titular Hitman. A Gotham City boy his entire life, Tommy was a deft shot with a gun, a surprisingly lucky and tricky survivor, and even received x-ray vision from an encounter with aliens in DC’s “Bloodlines” event. Tommy’s unique perspective as a morally dubious gun-for-hire with a genuine heart of gold allowed him to see the Bat-Family and their rogues in a unique light. He flirted with Catwoman, tried to kill the Joker, and perpetually infuriated Batman. Over the years, he encountered plenty of other superheroes, including Nightfist.
Nightfist debuted in Hitman #5 as a vigilante operating in downtown Gotham. Utilizing specialized armor — that gave him a physical appearance similar to Batman — to protect himself from gunfire, his primary weapons are a pair of gauntlets and a brutal willingness to use them. Notably, Nightfist didn’t just savagely beat and sometimes kill Gotham’s drug dealers; he also took the contraband drugs for himself to use and to sell for his own gain. This caught the attention of both the police, who were able to track him down. Nicky Lincoln, a dirty cop on the GCPD who was hired to get Tommy into the open and into the crosshairs of another assassin, hired Tommy and his friend Natt the Hat to track down Nightfist’s regular hunting ground and kill him.
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By staging a mugging, Tommy and Natt were able to get the drop on Nightfist and shoot him in the chest — injuring him, but failing to kill him due to his armor. Before Tommy could finish the job though, the arrival of Johnny Navarone — a rival assassin hired to kill Tommy — allowed Nightfist to escape. Discovering the truth of what had happened to him, Nightfist decided to take vengeance on everyone involved, and rushed headlong into their fight — getting himself shot to shreds in the crossfire, his final words being “Nightfist!”
Ennis, famously a harsh critic of many superheroes who would later go on to write the far darker The Boys, was able to address some of these issues throughout this contribution to the DC Universe.
Nightfist is also a brutal look at Batman, particularly how the vigilante operated in the ’90s. Nightfist is a brutal brawler who has no care or concern for his enemies, instead driven purely by his own desire to control the streets and inflict pain onto others. He shows no mercy or restraint in any of his appearances — and is a deadly fighter when he has the advantage. However, the instant he loses the element of surprise, he’s shot repeatedly — the second time lethally so. He’s useless as a hero and only makes the city a worse place for his actions. The fact that such a dark parody of Batman actually existed in one version of the actual DC Universe is a reminder that the harshest satires can come from places strikingly close to the source.
KEEP READING: Batman: Scarecrow’s Strongest Attack Sends His First Victim Into Fear State
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