Detective Comics #557 (December, 1985)

During the Crisis on Infinite Earths, a multi-year storyline involving Nocturna drew to a close. She was a homeless orphan teenager, informally adopted by a criminal, until he was killed. Then she took up a romance with his adult son, and the pair turned to burglary to support their lifestyle. Nocturna had the incident that drained her of pigmentation, leading her to entanglements with the Wayne Foundation. For two years across two titles, Nocturna romanced the Batman, and became a surrogate mother to his young ward, Jason Todd. However, Batman was already involved in an ongoing relationship with Catwoman, causing violent conflict. Further, Nocturna had used and discarded her prior lover, the son of her initial benefactor, and left him to rot in prison. When he got loose, he adopted the guise of Night-Thief, and started stabbing all of their mutual associates to death on his way toward slaying Nocturna.

In this specific story, Batman was in the hospital watching over Selina Kyle after she'd been struck by Crisis Red Sky lightning. An exhausted Robin returned alone to the Batcave, where he received a transmission from the Martian Manhunter and the Justice League. "Nothing new to report on the bizarre weather phenomena, Robin-- just checking in to tell Batman to remain on alert-- and ready for action. Until this is cleared up, none of us can afford a moment's rest." This entirely random interaction convinced Robin that he was acting like a wimp, and needed to act in his mentor's absence to protect Nocturna and, if possible, stop Night-Thief. He couldn't, as Night-Thief beat on Robin, and nearly killed Nocturna, before Batman and a revived Catwoman intervened. That was mostly in the next issue of Batman, where Robin put the severely injured Nocturna in a hot air balloon, which seemed to get blown up by Crisis energy. Don't ask me "why?" It's all too messy to get into.

I wasn't reading Batman comics in these years, but some of my friends had copies that I'd toss through on occasion. I was always intrigued by that alabaster goth girl, but nobody in my circles to this day ever brings her up, and I rarely feel the need to cross the Crisis boundary on DC icons. These comics were selling less than 70K a month, an attainable number even today, and this interminable soap opera couldn't have helped. I've read biography pages on Nocturna several times, but my eyes always glaze over at the twists and turns, the finer details soon forgotten. Only the Psycho-Pirate could remember all this junk, which is probably why we don't talk about Nocturna. But boy, somebody really should reprint those Green Arrow & Black Canary back-ups with the Jerome K. Moore art. They're worth recollecting.

"Still Beating" was by Doug Moench, Gene Colan, & Robert Allen Smith.