Gangster Bat

"Hot off the press! All the crime that's fit to print!"

Grab your dancing flats and top-coats, ladies and gents-they don't call them the Roaring 20s for nothing. But it wasn't all cool jazz and hot hedonist night life. On September 16, 1920, a terrorist bombing on Wall Street in New York City killed 38 people: men, women, children. One man survived-for vengeance.

One year later and it's 1921, New York City, and the bombing's survivor has fashioned the blackened bits of his slain wife's fur coat into the ferocious mask of a bat. He dons a black-and-white pinstripe suit. Spats on his shiny black shoes. Modifies a tommy gun. He vows to hunt down the ones responsible for killing his family that day. That hunt begins... tonight.

The fuzz? Forget it, kid. Coppers are outmatched, over-run. No, to take the underworld down, as Gangster Bat puts it, "You've got to swoop on them from on high: Like the rats they are. Rout them out. Rip them apart." So swears Gangster Bat!

From the violated vault of a bank to a joltin' jazz club in Harlem, none can stop Gangster Bat from the next clue towards his prey. In this stand-alone debut issue, Gangster Bat blasts through a quirky cast of colorful cads to finally find the name of his enemy. But first, Gangster Bat has got to get past the maleficent Madam Toxin!

With story & art by three-time best-selling independent cartoonist ROBERT PILUSO (Redemptor Playing Hero, Redemptor Power Up, Señor Zorro The Curse of Capistrano), GANGSTER BAT takes the concept of "the Bat-masked man" back to its original, gritty, pulp roots of its creators Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood from their 1920's play, novel, and film The Bat, as told in the art style of a 1920s fever-dream cartoon. Also included in this edition is Piluso's scholarly essay "The Mask of the Bat" illuminating the complete "secret" origin of the bat-masked vigilante character including documented sources from Will Eisner to Bob Kane himself.

"Gangster Bat! Gangster Bat! Read all about him! The Pin-Striped Prince of Darkness! The Bat Beast out of Hell! The Midnight Mauler! The Tommy Gun Terror! If it bleeds, it leads, and it's probably 'cause Gangster Bat got another one!"

Go ahead. Pull back the black-striped curtain. Peer into the darkness. If you dare.