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Who Is the Grim Knight?

The Origin of DC's "Punisher" Batman

By Just a guyPublished 5 years ago 7 min read
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For those of you who have read or are reading Batman Who Laughs, then you know exactly who the Grim Knight is and how he differs from the Batman we are all familiar with. This post is going to go over this Batman's origin, and what I like about the character.

The Dark Multiverse

There clearly is a shortage of non-horrifying worlds in the Dark Multiverse.

Like the other evil versions of Batman that showed up in Dark Knights: Metal, the Grim Knight comes from there as well. So, what is the Dark Multiverse? For non-comic book fans this may get a little bit confusing, so let's just start with the multiverse. Within the DC Universe, there are multiple "Earths" where our favorite characters are re-imagined. For example, Earth-0 (Prime Earth) is where our classic superheroes as we know them live and do their thing. On Earth-10 however, the superheroes we know and love are not that lovable at all. In fact, they live in a world where Nazis won the second World War and are in fact Nazis themselves. On a different Earth, our heroes may live in a futuristic society, or a medieval society. The heroes we know have different iterations on different Earths. These Earths are part of the Multiverse, and there are 52 of them.

Underneath the Multiverse, there is a place called the World Forge. In the World Forge a being known as The Forger would create worlds continuously out of the metals of creation. This would result in some worlds being stable, and some worlds being unstable. The stable worlds would be moved to the Orrery of Worlds to be part of the Multiverse. As for the unstable worlds, The Forger's servant, The Great Dragon (who would later be known as Barbatos), would destroy them and give the recycled metals of creation to The Forger to create new worlds. The Great Dragon would later rebel against The Forger, killing him, and turning the World Forge into a place called the Dark Multiverse. So what kinds of worlds can you find in the Dark Multiverse?

The Dark Multiverse is packed with infinite earths that are born from people's bad decisions and nightmares. Since various evils, horrors, and nightmares make up these Earths, they are unstable and doomed to perish. In Batman: The Red Death, The Batman Who Laughs (an evil Batman from the Dark Multiverse) says "these worlds are doomed to rot apart, and die, because they are wrong at their core." This is where the Grim Knight is from. However, we do not know the specific Earth designation of Grim Knight's home earth in the Dark Multiverse.

Where It Always Begins...

The Grim Knight's origin begins where every Batman origin begins... Crime Alley. However, this is where the Grim Knight chooses a path vastly different from the classic Batman.

The version of Bruce Wayne that most are familiar with loses his parents after they are murdered by Joe Chill, who then flees the crime scene. Bruce is left alone in the dark with his parents in their final moments.

However, in the Grim Knight's origin, Joe Chill drops his gun to pick up Martha Wayne's (Bruce's mother) pearls from her necklace. The young, grieving, angry Bruce Wayne notices the gun, and seizes the opportunity to kill Joe Chill.

Training to Be Batman

After murdering Joe Chill, Bruce Wayne begins training so that he will not only be able to combat evil, but kill it. This leads Bruce to travel the world, "learning what he could from every assassin and soldier of fortune he could find." However, Bruce realizes that he needs much more than just guns and knives to strike fear in the heart of Gotham's criminals, he needed a symbol. At that moment a bat breaks through the glass of his window, entering his mansion, which Bruce shoots and kills. This leads him to take on the Batman persona.

"From This Moment On... No One Is Safe"

In his first outing as Batman, Bruce launches an attack on a group of people who fund and protect criminal activity in the city by burning them alive in their meeting place. This lead chaos to ensue in the city because of a likely power vacuum, but Bruce sought to create his own order from this chaos. In the years to come as Batman, Bruce would kill mob boss figures such as Tony Zucco and Carmine Falcone. He eventually moved on to other members of the criminal underground such as Roman Sionis (Black Mask), Oswald Cobblepot (The Penguin), Killer Croc (Waylon Jones), and Red Hood of the Red Hood Gang.

Batman's murders leads Detective Jim Gordon to begin planning a way to apprehend him. Jim has a giant Bat-Signal with a strong magnet inside made to lure Batman to the Gotham City Police Station. Batman shows up and they capture him. Batman, stuck to the Bat-Signal listens to Jim Gordon reveal his plan. A squad would apprehend Batman, and others would raid his arsenal's that the police located.

That is when Batman detonates explosives in the Police department's bullet proof vests, and all of the men on the rooftop with Batman die. Batman then uses a vocal disarm code to break free from the magnetic bat-signal and grabs the only survivor on the rooftop, Jim Gordon.

"You're In My Way."

Batman tells Jim that all he is doing is getting his way, and shows him the "arsenals" that the police were raiding were fake and set to detonate. Batman then ties Jim down so he can't escape and is forced to watch his plane fail miserably. Batman leaves, but gets a radio transmission from people in the GCPD blimps. Essentially the two blimps were taken control of by Batman and sent each one to a location. One went to Blackgate Prison, and the other went to Arkham Asylum. Since the blimps were made of hydrogen, the explosions would have killed all of the inmates at both places.

"I Got You, You Piece of #$%#."

After the encounter with Jim Gordon, Bruce has a short conversation with Alfred and shows him that he can kill any criminal he wants remotely through implants as he causes a corrupt judge's car to crash and a child predator to choke on his own blood. Alfred, horrified by and disappointed in the boy he raised when the Wayne parents died, tells Bruce that he is leaving and cannot be a part of Batman's war anymore. Bruce threatens to use the implant in Alfred's neck and kill him, to which Alfred replies that he knows but he is leaving anyways. Bruce, having a soft spot for Alfred, lets him live which is the first domino that leads to Batman's downfall. After Alfred leaves, Bruce checks the computer to see if there were any sightings of Jim Gordon on the cameras he installed in the city, but there hadn't been any for six days.

Meanwhile, Jim was underground, hiding from Batman, and using clues to determine who Batman was underneath his mask and he deduces that Bruce Wayne is the Batman. Jim then goes to Mayor Dent's office while also avoiding Batman's cameras, and tells Dent that he figured out who Batman is and that he has support from the FBI. All he needs is for Dent to sign off on the raid. At first Dent is hesitant, but eventually agrees after he is reminded by Jim that he only let Batman do what he wanted after he was disfigured by him. Dent then signs off, and the GCPD and FBI surround Wayne Manor. Bruce tries to act innocent by saying that it couldn't be him, that the GCPD has him confused with someone else. But that is when Jim Gordon reveals that Alfred told them everything. Bruce then tries to shoot Jim, but fails and is placed under arrest.

Sometime after these events the Grim Knight is recruited by the Batman Who Laughs to take part in his plans outside of the events of Dark Nights: Metal.

What I Liked About the Grim Knight

One thing that is very interesting about the Grim Knight is that because he kills, there are so many villains that he doesn't know about because he killed them before they could develop into the well known villains we know them as. For example, the Grim Knight killed a gang leader known as Red Hood, who famously is the persona that Joker had before he fell into the vat of chemicals at ACE Chemicals. Because Grim Knight killed the Red Hood, he never fought the Joker. Because he killed Roman Sionis, he never fought Black Mask. Because he killed Oswald Cobblepot, he never fought the Penguin. You get the idea. I really enjoyed this version of Batman because of this concept. Is the Grim Knight a better Batman because he kills? Or is he just a psychopath? Honestly, I think he's the latter.

Recommended Reading:

Dark Nights: Metal & Tie-Ins

The Batman Who Laughs

The Batman Who Laughs: The Grim Knight

Note: I do not own the art, panels, texts, images, and characters shown and referred to in this post. All art, panels, texts, images, and characters belong to their respective owners.

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About the Creator

Just a guy

I like to read comic books, watch tv shows, and write about them. Ill also write about other things too!

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