From Russia with love, and from the 1980’s with cliched speech patterns, I give you Anatoli Knyazev, the most dangerous man Batman would ever face, until they recycled parts of him to make Bane.
In 1988, the world was a very different place. The United States had appeared to claim the final upper hand in the Cold War, but like with any wounded bear, it was unwise to think the Soviet Union out of the fight. From deep within the dark underbelly of the KGB, in a secret enclave known as the Hammer, there was forged a terrifying agent to serve the needs of the Motherland. But when reformer Mikhail Gorbechev became Premier, he set about the task of dismantling some of these dangerous machinations hidden within his government. He shut down the Hammer, it’s power having grown exceedingly dangerous over the years, and unwittingly set The Beast in motion. The Hammer’s Chief Deputy Zhores Kunaev, spurned by a government he helped create, and unwilling to face the people whom he viewed with such contempt, chose to eat his sidearm. But he left one hell of a parting blow- he had sicced the Beast on Gotham City, to eradicate various officials in the US government crucial to the Strategic Defense Initiative.
This was no ordinary agent. This was a man bred for a single, officially sanctioned purpose, and that was to be the USSR’s greatest assassin. He had the strength of four men, allegedly cybernetically enhanced, and had mastered the art of death in all of it’s languages, proficient in every weapon known to man– especially his hands, which he could tear a man in half with. He was rumored to have masterminded the killing of Anwar Sadat– against his own government’s wishes– and responsible for killing nearly a dozen of the CIA’s top agents. His body count was easily in the triple digits.
And only Batman and Robin stood in his way.
Everything that made the 1980’s great found it’s way into Jim Starlin, Jim Aparo and Mike DeCarlo’s epic four-parter Ten Nights of the Beast. Hell, Jim Aparo’s classic Batman work alone could’ve assured that. But it was Jim Starlin’s take on the Dark Knight that has stayed with me for decades. I’ve often said Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns Batman is my hero of choice, but I like to believe that he was Jim Starlin’s Batman in the years before he retired.
And naturally, if you’re going to be one of the best damn Batman writers of all time, you have to write some damn good villains. And if you’re really good, you create your own. Starlin was, no surprise, really good.
The KGBeast was a villain that Batman has needed, but not necessarily had, for many years- a true opponent, not just an opposite. Batman has plenty of opposite numbers. But a guy who can stand toe to toe, match wits, skills, nerve and brawn with the Dark Knight? Not to many of those. Mike Barr tried it with the Wrath, but he never seemed to really catch on.
The KGBeast was someone as good at what he does as Batman was. Like Batman’s grim determination to always come out on top, the Beast was equally determined to meet his goals, and let nothing, even his own limbs, get in the way. And while a match for Batman in many areas, there was no matching his savagery or ruthlessness.
But Batman did get a little closer than you’d expect. In one of the most grueling final hand to hand fights of his career, Batman pulled a Beatrix Kiddo on the Beast’s left eye. Seriously, what’s the last Batman story you remember seeing him blind someone in a fight? Dark Knight Returns? See what I’m sayin?
In one of my favorite lines of any comic, The KGBeast and Batman find themselves at the end of the road. The Beast tells Batman, almost calmly:
“Well, my worthy opponent… a time of reckoning is upon us. Time for us to find out which of us is best…the best at this game of life and death! Come! Let us play out this black game!”
And Batman….breaks the rules. He bars the Beast in a closed off room, sealing the exit, and leaves him to die. Later, he revealed to Nightwing some time after, he informed the police of his location, after considering letting him become rat food. But the Beast was long gone.
I am a product of my era, and that was the era of Red Dawn. Of Rambo. Tom Clancy. John Millius. You get the idea. When I did the ROTC thang and flirted with enlistment, one of the topics of discussion we had still was “Who would win in a fight?” Sure, the fall of the Soviet Union had happened a decade before, but we still often wondered if we would’ve prevailed over our most formidable opponents in the Red Army. And I have long held immense respect for them. And I think Jim Starlin does, too. The KGBeast was a severely dangerous foe, rogue from his own organization, the sum of all Cold War fears brought to life in a creepy S&M styled costume.
And when he did resurface, some years later, his uniform had improved a little, but that’s the only thing worth keeping. Sadly, another writer I much enjoy turned the KGBeast into a cliche-spouting stereotypical bruiser, only worthy of a beating by Tim Drake’s Robin. In less than ten years we went from “Let us play out this black game!” to “I am to be killing you now!” In what might have been an opportunity to tell a really interesting story, one of a proud but ruthless warrior without a country, looking for a cause to kill for, instead becomes material that even GI Joe on it’s worst day wouldn’t stoop to.
KGBeast is a working man’s assassin. He’s done his time, paid his dues, and his fame has still been fleeting. A mention in a game here, a JLU episode there. Arrow is showing some promise with the character, and he even had a glorious few moments in the Assault on Arkham movie, however fleeting.
And yet, DCSH snubbed him. DCUC snubbed him. DC Collectibles continues to snub him. He got a JLU figure, but that don’t count. In time, I’m certain I will make my own. I will craft him cloth goods, and maybe get a real pro like Benty to make me a worthy, cyclop-ed scowling head, so that he can fight Mezco Batman in the rematch I always imagined in my head. But for now, KGBeast has no good action figures. And that’s even more wrong than making him talk like moose-and-squirrel.