After years of abusing the Man-Bat serum, Kirk Langstrom’s happiness is finally up.
WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Man-Bat # 1 by Dave Wielgosz, Sumit Kumar, Romulo Fajardo Jr. and Tom Napolitano, now on sale.
Kirk Langstrom has always been addicted to the Man-Bat serum. Although he consistently made the excuse that he could perfect it one day and eventually turn the Man-Bat into a true force forever, it seems that Langstrom is finally running out of time. During perhaps his most devastating rampage ever, Man-Bat is captured by Batman. After a few tests, Batman confirmed that Kirk Langstrom was dying from the Man-Bat serum and that he had only a tiny bit of time left.
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In Male bat # 1, before Langstrom joined the Justice League Dark, Kirk again succumbed to his addiction to the serum. This particular setback was the worst yet, as it was the last nail in the coffin with his wife Francine, which Kirk could not stop using the formula. But her anger and departure only fueled Kirk’s delusion that his serum could benefit the world. Kirk wanted to flee and tried to search for a crime to stop.
Man-Bat quickly discovers the Blackout Gang robbing a solar cannon of an unknown source. Man-Bat went in and certainly scared the criminals, but accidentally caused a chase through the streets of Gotham that put many civilians in the crossfire. Not even the arrival of Batman could have prevented the inevitable disaster that would follow. The Blackout gang, desperate to get rid of the winged beast, used the weapon against Man-Bat. The ensuing battle destabilized the core of the weapon and caused a massive sonic explosion, which knocked out Man-Bat.
The next time he woke up, he was under Batman’s supervision. The Dark Knight explained that after the tests on Kirk, he discovered that he only had a few weeks left to live. But while Kirk would die, Man-Bat would survive. His years of exposure to the Man-Bat serum mutated his cellular structure, Man-Bat would soon take over Kirk’s body completely, and Kirk Langstrom’s humanity would disappear completely. Kirk refused to accept it, still believing he could perfect the serum, but Batman told Kirk that the blast injured more than a hundred people and left those closest to the blast deaf.
This battle seems to have removed the battle from Kirk. He originally developed the Man-Bat serum to restore people’s hearing, but his experiments led to the creation of a monster that terrorized Gotham for years. The same monster has now plagued people by the condition that Kirk himself tried to reverse. As the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Kirk Langstrom started out as a promising scientist with a bright future, professionally and personally. Now, his obsession and addiction cost him his family, his morality and soon enough his life as well. But maybe he still has time to do one last good thing before being taken over by the monster he was born with.
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