The Cult is one of the more divisive stories in the history of Batman. Jim Starlin and Bernie Wrightson's four issue miniseries from 1988 saw the Caped Crusader being kidnapped by supervillain Deacon Blackfire and his band of homeless followers, dragged into an underground cult and brainwashed into joining them. Of course he eventually breaks out of that conditioning and takes down the eponymous group using some good old fashioned detective work and superheroic violence, but before he gets to that, there's a whole lot of murder going on. The above panel where Batman thinks he's riddling Two-Face's body with machine gun fire - and enjoys it - turns out to be a fake-out. It's just somebody done up like Harvey Dent. Who the Dark Knight still killed in cold blood, mind you, and don't think the brainwashing thing lets him off the hook. Especially since, by the time he's shaken off that and turned his attention against the cult, he beats the stuffing out of a load of homeless people and seems poised to kill Blackfire: instead, he lets his former followers tear him apart. Literally. So he didn't actually kill the villain with his own hands, but as close as dammit.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
