Warning! Preview pages for Knight Terrors: Batman #1 ahead!A moment of reflection reveals the one thing connecting Batman's greatest enemies. While building the ultimate self-defense tool, the Dark Knight sheds light on what separates Bruce Wayne's rogues from common criminals.

In a preview for Knight Terrors: Batman #1 by Joshua Williamson and Guillem March, a flashback shows Bruce and Alfred some time ago preparing to place Batman in an isolation tank to help him find a way to prevent his fears from being weaponized. While discussing his rationale for the experiment, many of Batman's worst villains find some way to manipulate Bruce's mind. Poison Ivy, Mad Hatter, and Hugo Strange are also shown to prove Batman's point about villains that specialize in mind warfare. So Batman decides to strengthen his mental defenses and isolate himself in a tank for 24 hours. However, the experience proves to be too harrowing even for someone as resilient as Bruce.

Batman's Greatest Enemies Attack His Mind, Not His Body

Batman has a lot of powerful and deadly villains ready to make Gotham their playground. Sure, criminals like Killer Croc or Clayface make defending the city a tough job. But the villains who can do the worst damage are the ones who can attack Batman on a psychological front. Gotham is full of colorful rogues who love using their chemicals or mind games to worm their way into Batman's head. Joker toxin, fear gas, Poison Ivy's mind-control kisses. These things are far worse than overwhelming force because they can break Batman down from the inside.

Granted, not every Batman villain uses forms of thought control or chemicals. But many of Bruce's best antagonists still attack his mind before his body. Bane infamously broke down Bruce mentally before he broke Batman physically. Dr. Simon Hurt spent years orchestrating a psychological attack on Bruce and almost drove him mad. Even Bruce knows that the worst thing that could happen to him isn't someone defeating him physically, but getting inside his head and conquering Batman from within.

Batman's Best Villains Go After His Biggest Weakness: His Psyche

While not every Batman villain has mind-altering drugs at their disposal, he's got a lot of baddies in his rogues' gallery that know how to manipulate him psychologically. In addition to the villains Batman brings up, antagonists like Riddler, Two-Face, or Ra's al Ghul all know how to mentally wear him down before they ever get in a fight. Many of them don't have the skills to take Batman down (after all, he was trained by the best martial artists in the world). But the one thing that Batman's greatest villains have in common is that they can fight him psychologically, a more equal ground. Fans can see the ties that bind Gotham's greatest enemies in Knight Terrors: Batman #2, on sale now.