As Batman’s confrontation with Ghost-Maker comes to a head, the Dark Knight’s rival points out Bruce Wayne’s biggest hang-up.
Warning: The following contains spoilers for Batman #105, by James Tynion IV, Carlo Pagulayan, Danny Miki, Christian Duce, David Baron, and Clayton Cowles, on sale now.
While the Joker was able to nearly push the Bat-Family to its breaking point in the crossover event “Joker War”, Ghost-Maker, one of Bruce Wayne’s oldest rivals, can effectively skewer the Dark Knight’s psyche more incisively than the Clown Prince of Crime.
A figure that has known Bruce since he was training around the world to develop the Batman, Ghost-Maker has resurfaced in Batman’s life years later intent on replacing him while proving why his approach to fighting crime was always destined to fail. And in a heated confrontation between the two former classmates, Ghost-Maker completely and accurately roasts Bruce in a single observation.
A flashback reveals the final conversation between Bruce and Ghost-Maker before they went their separate ways as teenagers to embark on their respective crimefighting crusades. Ghost-Maker notes that Bruce invests too much of himself in every person that he seeks to defend and, as they continue to fail, betray and die on him, it will steadily erode his very soul. Ghost-Maker assesses that Bruce is still very much that eight-year-old child that watched his parents get murdered in Crime Alley all those years ago and no matter how hard he tries, he will never be able to retroactively save himself from the tragedy and trauma that he endured firsthand.
Ghost-Maker reunited with Bruce in Gotham years later to underscore how accurate that assessment was, drawn to the city by perceived failures made by Batman that enabled “Joker War” to take place in the first place. Ghost-Maker openly criticized Batman’s refusal to employ lethal force when dealing with criminals, noting that if he was going to create an alter ego to terrify villains, the lack of capital punishment would hollow the threat he presents. Citing the murderous vigilante Clownhunter as a prime, living example of Batman’s failures, Ghost-Maker decided to prove his point by terminating the teenage serial killer instead of spending a perceived waste of time in an attempt to apprehend and rehabilitate him.