Some people ask why Batman bothers apprehending super criminals and turning them back over to the police or Arkham Asylum. After all, the likes of The Joker, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, and the other rogues in Batman's rogue's gallery are going to break out and rape, pillage, and plunder again. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not a year from now. But it's inevitable, and people are going to suffer because at their hands. It would be better, people, for Batman to kill them. Wouldn't it be nice to see the Bat-signal in the sky and know that whatever evil he's being summoned to clean up, The Joker was not, could not be behind it?
And Batman would agree with them: Yes, that would be nice. But he will not kill even though The Joker in particular has taken more of his extended family from him than any other villain. He refuses to kill not for any religious reason or out of moral smugness, but because he knows, deep down, that he is mad; and if he kills one villain, he will kill all of them, and no mortal—and very few superpowered beings—could stand against him.
BATMAN: CRIMSON MIST is the third and final installment of the Batman: Vampire series. Gotham's super criminals are figuratively burning the city to the ground, so one of Batman's allies does what he thinks is the right thing and removes the stake from vampire-Batman's heart, bringing him back to un-life. Batman awakens believing he is easy because he drank The Joker's blood, and now that blood is coursing through his veins… kind of? Does blood course through a vampire's veins? I thought they were just, you know, super-duper thirsty for it? Anyway.
CRIMSON MIST is satisfying on two levels. The first is purely animal. If you've ever wanted to see Batman go on a tear and murder every villain who's so much as looked at him the wrong way, this is the book for you. Batman was right: No one can stand against him, especially because now, he has the powers of the vampire at his command.
The second level is psychological. Batman is one of the strongest, most intelligent heroes ever written. That's what makes him so compelling. He can break bones with the best of them, but he's also known as the World's Greatest Detective because his mind is as strong as his body. However, this comes with a powerful caveat: Batman is insane. He'd have to be. What man who witnessed his parents gunned down in front of him at the age of eight, who dedicated his life to avenging them by shunning any emotional ties and pouring his fortune into training his mind and body, and who interpreted a bat smashing through his window that he should dress up as a bat and stalk criminals, could be sane?
It's not a rhetorical question. Even the most intelligent people have flaws. Batman has many, but one of them is being a sucker for superstition. Case in point: Is Batman truly evil in CRIMSON MIST because The Joker's blood, which he believes to have been corrupted by the most potent type of evil, was the first he drank after becoming a vampire? Or is he just saying that, using it as an excuse to let himself go unhinged and kill every villain who has ever terrorized Gotham?
The final pages of CRIMSON MIST made me ask myself if the ends justified the means. There is no easy answer.