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Batman, perhaps more than any other superhero, is forever associated with his origin story. Time and again stories return to that moment in Crime Alley. What started with a simple two-page story in 1939's Detective Comics #33 has been extrapolated into a series of indelible images: Gunshots ring out in the dark. Pearls scatter. Bodies fall. And a small boy cradles his dead parents alone and heartbroken.
It seemed inevitable then that the Knight Terrors event - which forces DC's heroes and villains to confront their own worst fears following a Nightmare Wave - would return to that point once more.
And so in last month's Knight Terrors: Batman #1, written by Joshua Williamson and drawn by Guillem March, it came to pass, with Batman's mind trapped in the body of his younger self and forced to wander through the scene of the crime once more.
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We've been here before, many times. Even Bats himself seems bored of this reliance on returning to his origin story. As he snaps to Insomnia, "You need to get some new tricks! I've faced so many people who hoped to use my last happy moments with my parents against me."
Knight Terrors: Batman #2, published by DC today, offers if not a solution, then at least a sense of resolution (spoilers ahead). Could it be that Batman is finally over it?
Well, no - at least, not quite. As he says at one point, early in the first issue of this short arc, "Nothing will ever take the pain of that night in Crime Alley away except for the end of my mission here in Gotham."
Still, the issue gives the character a sweet moment that allows him to reflect on the many positives that have come out of his strange life - a life that would have been entirely different if not for that same moment of tragedy.
In an extended sequence that takes up much of the second half of the issue, Batman meets and talks with an illusory embodiment of his younger self.
"Others will find you in the dark," Batman says, embracing the eight-year-old Bruce Wayne. "Friends you can't imagine. Some who can fly and shoot fire from their eyes, some who can stop bullets with their bracelets, who are so fast they can break the speed barrier. And children who will make you into a better man."
It's a gorgeous sequence, one that both brings the walls of Insomnia's illusions tumbling down, and which suggests that Batman has finally made some kind of peace with his past by embracing the love and friendship of his extended family.
Will this be the last time we go to Crime Alley? No, of course not. Writers and artists will continue to retell Batman's origin story as long as there are comics. And it remains to be seen if this will have even a shred of lasting impact on the character.
Still, in a doomy DC event that's been characterised by huge amounts of fairly graphic horror imagery, it was really rather lovely to see the Dark Knight prevail by remembering that not only is he not alone anymore, but he sometimes needs to look on the bright side of life.
Knight Terrors: Batman #2 is out now from DC Comics.
You can keep track of all the new Batman comics right here.
