A pivotal scene from Batman: Ten Nights of The Beast saga circa 1988. It wrecked my brain that Batman simply just walked away. He'd done everything he needed to do and just... walked. Just left  the antagonist, KGBeast (seriously) locked away. No food. No water. Well, none that we knew of anyway. When asked by Commissioner Gordon if he saw him, Batman just sort went, "Uh. Nah." For very teen aged Devon, seeing Batman go full-Marvel on a dude, kinda messed me up a bit. 

A few issues later, DC Comics editorial pushed writer Jim Starlin to add in a throwaway line that explained away Batman's actions. It went sorta like, "Yeah, I called the police and they sent a guy to check on him. He was gone, though. Eh. Shit happens." 

I dug this story so much that I wrote freaking FAN-FIC. Yes, in 1988, I wrote fan-fic where Batman doubled down on his effs to give and continued on to fight Orca, The Whalewoman. The KGBeast continued on, eating the occasional rat and sucking up whatever sewer water he could. One night, a maintenance worker, wondering why that door had been sealed up, fell into the plot device hell I made for him, unleashing The KGBeast back into the Gotham streets and into a story only a teenaged Devon could tell titled, "Return of The KGBeast."

Yeah. I named it that. By the way, I am still available to write this.

So, imagine my surprise when I see this month's Doomsday Clock #3...

Post-Crisis Superman circa early 2011

New 52 Superman September 2011

Rebirth Superman 2017

Superman 2018

It takes seven years to get back to where you shouldn't have left.