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| Publisher |
DC |
| Writer |
Doug Moench |
| Penciler |
Paul Gulacy |
| Cover Artist |
Paul Gulacy |
| Inker |
Terry Austin |
| Colorist |
Steve Oliff |
| Letterer |
John Costanza |
| Published | January 1991 |
PREY PART 4 - THE NIGHTMARE Enraged by his daughter's kidnapping, Mayor Klass demands that Captain Gordon recover her and capture Batman within five days - or else be fired and blacklisted for life. With no other options, Gordon reluctantly allows Cort and the rest of his taskforce to pursue Batman with maximum firepower. For his part, Batman finds his psyche fraying, his nightmares of his parents' murder growing sharper and sharper. Still, he maintains just enough composure to outfight and evade Cort's men; shortly after, he learns of Catherine's kidnapping from a passerby's radio. Immediately - and correctly - suspecting Strange is trying to frame him, Batman invades Strange's penthouse and demands answers, only to trigger a trap full of hallucinogenic dust. As Batman reels from the hallucinations, Strange attacks with a baseball bat, and eventually forces Batman off the penthouse balcony. As he falls, Batman desperately cries out for his mother and father, inadvertently correcting the one flaw in Strange's psychoanalysis: his motivation stems not from some recent crime, but one from his childhood. While Strange eagerly phones Cort for new data, the concussed Batman helplessly scrambles through Gotham, barely evading the police even as a vision of his parents' killer completely overwhelms him. Eventually, Batman stumbles into a river and is washed beneath a pier, where he passes out until morning. Meanwhile, Captain Gordon finds Cort similarly exhausted; though unaware of Cort's activities as the Night-Scourge, Gordon nevertheless investigates, and discovers the hundreds of files Cort has been secretly passing to Strange, chief among them a dossier of all family murders within the past twenty years. With these files, Strange has already deduced Batman's secret identity, and arranged his masterstroke. On returning to Wayne Manor, the still-exhausted Batman is horrified to find Alfred struck unconscious, and every room occupied by mannequins of Thomas and Martha Wayne. Through tape-recorded messages, these mannequins relentlessly blame their "son" for the night that took their lives, driving Batman into a complete breakdown - and a panicked flight into the depths of the Batcave.
