Batman Standing Defiant Amid Rain and Rubble — Print & Oil Painting

Black is being used as a drawing tool here, not as a shadow. The chest, the flanks, the inside of the thighs and the whole cape have been filled in solid, and the grey of the suit survives only where the artist wanted a form to read: a rib, a shin, the outside of an arm. Take the black away and there is no figure left at all.

He stands on broken stone at the bottom of the frame with the feet planted wide, both fists clenched and held slightly away from the body, shoulders squared and the head level. The chin and mouth are the only exposed skin and they are set hard. A gold segmented belt sits low across the hips and is the single ornament anywhere on him.

Behind, the sky is on fire in a dull way: ochre and dirty gold banked in horizontal masses with black smoke rolling through them, and a beam or a girder leaning in from the left edge. It has been kept low in contrast on purpose so that the figure stays the darkest thing in the picture.

Rain crosses the whole canvas as long ruled diagonals, cutting across armour and sky alike without regard for what is behind them, and a scatter of small debris hangs in the same air. Both are drawn rather than painted, which keeps the surface graphic.

An artist's signature sits at the lower left. Part of our DC Universe collection, beside the same stance advancing through glowing embers and a heavier, older version of the character standing over a fallen foe.