In Batman: Black and White #5, the Electructioner returns, but his reappearance on the streets of Gotham is cut short by another return
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for “Blue” from Batman: Black and White #5 by Mariko Tamaki, Emanuela Lupacchino, Wade Von Grawbadger and Ariana Maher, on sale now.
The Dark Knight has had countless villains over the years. Names like the Joker and the Riddler always return to plague Gotham, but many villains have far shorter stays. The ones who appear only occasionally are frequently forgotten, and that makes them all the more likely to meet a grisly fate.
That’s the case for lesser-known villain the Electrocutioner in Batman: Black and White #5, where the electricity-wielding foe meets his untimely demise at the hands of noted Gotham City killer Gilda Dent, ex-wife of a pre-Two-Face Harvey Dent.
The Electrocutioner was originally introduced by Marv Wolfman, Michael Fleisher and Irv Novick in 1981’s Batman #331, but the current version of the character, Lester Buchinsky, debuted in 1992’s Detective Comics #644, by Chuck Dixon, Tom Lyle and Scott Hanna.
The third person to assume the villainous identity, Lester is the brother of the original Electrocutioner. Like his brother, he began as a misguided vigilante who executed criminals. However, both brothers ended up the same way, becoming the kind of criminals they set out to hunt, with Lester even joining teams like the Suicide Squad and the Secret Society of Super-Villains during Forever Evil. Pre-Flashpoint, Lester Buchinsky even met his end at the hands of Roy Harper for his involvement in the attack that killed the Teen Titan’s daughter.
The Batman: Black and White #5 story “Blue” sees a different fate for this version of the Electrocutioner, and a slightly more tragic one at that. The story opens with Buchinsky celebrating his recent engagement with friends over drinks. He flaunts his powers in the bar, bringing out his shocking abilities to discourage any talk of “business” and killing one of his friends in the process. As he walks out of the bar alone, he is confronted, at gunpoint, by the bartender.
The story’s beginning may feature Electrocutioner as its main focus, but in reality, the story is about the bartender, who is revealed to be Harvey Dent’s ex-wife — Gilda Dent. As she watches the men at the bar celebrating the villain’s engagement, she reminisces on her own engagement and the failed marriage that spawned from it. As Gilda recalls the life she could have had with Harvey if it weren’t for the accident that made him Two-Face, she asks a question: Did her life fall apart because Harvey became Two-Face, or was her marriage doomed by the man Harvey was even before he was Two-Face?
Gilda comes to the conclusion that it was the latter. Men like Harvey and Buchinsky will destroy women’s lives with the promise of something great but inevitably reveal their true nature, causing untold collateral damage. Gilda decides to take matters into her own hands, in a way not dissimilar to how Buchinsky and his brother did all those years ago, and gives Buchinsky’s fiance an early wedding gift. She shoots the Electructioner, declaring “no more” to the cycle of women being a casualty in the games of men. Not only putting an end to the Electrucitioner’s reign of terror on the streets of Gotham, but the potential reign of terror at home too.
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