Cold War Acronyms are Fun

  

Comics as a medium have always reflected the time period in which they are created, like all other artforms, really. In the 1940s, comicbook heroes were pitted against fascist Nazi adversaries. In DC Comics this included Doctor Poison, The Baroness, Captain Nazi, and a pelethora of Nazi soldiers, generals, and of course Hitler himself. However, as time goes on, American sentiments change. Nazis are still a favorite villain. Even alternate versions of our heroes have had Nazification treatments. I've written about Nazi Batman before. The deeper into the Cold War we get though, comic book villains shift from Nazis and Fascists to Communists, and Soviet spies. 

Aside from breaking up a Nazi spy ring in Batman #14, the caped crusader seemed to stay out of international conflicts. But, as the real Cold War goes on, Batman's storylines expand out of Gotham and into other spaces. By the 1980s, Batman is ready to move from Nazi spy rings, to Soviet spy rings.

In 1988, late in the Cold War, Jim Starlin and Jim Aparo created a master assassin from the Soviet intelligence network. He debuted in Batman #417. His real name is Anatoli Knyazev, codenamed The KGBeast. He is cybernetically enhanced, including a cybernetic eye, and an arm prosthesis that includes a grenade launcher, gun, and sword. Trained by Hammer, the KGB's special weapons unit, the Beast is well versed in espionage, and interrogation. While he is a spy, his skills are very assassin heavy, including poisons, explosives, hand to hand combat, and marksmanship. 

In Ten Nights of the Beast, The US and USSR are having a summit in Gotham City. Hammer sends the KGBeast to sabotage US/Russian relations by assassinating 10 key officials. Batman stops it, obviously. This story could have been a one-shot for this villain, as KGBeast is trapped in a room underground, and Batman leaves him there, potentially to die. 

The Beast does not die. In later stories, the collapse of the Soviet Union leaves the KGBeast without a job, or a government. He becomes a mercenary and a counterfeiter, and occasionally muscle for other criminal gangs.

Eventually, he is reconned, as most comic book characters are. The KGB part of his named was dropped, and instead of a Russian asset, the Beast is a former US military asset turned hitman for hire. This new Beast appears to be part Bane, part Man with the Golden Gun, part Predator. 

I like the idea of this character. There is a lot to explore with former spies, especially of governments that no longer exist.  He is also a foreign villain, and with that comes all the themes of a stranger in a strange land and conflict with the "other". Plenty of action franchises have characters with similar themes, including Jason Bourne, Wolverine, James Bond, The Equalizer...

As a Batman villain, he is a boogie man character, an impersonal force from the outside that poses a threat. Bane holds the same space, as does the Flamingo. This character has strong Slade Wilson vibes as well, and can also inhabit the same narrative spaces. There are also potentials for KGBeast and NKVDemon team-ups. The two characters are linked, but as far as I know, haven't appeared together, and could be the base for a 4th Reich-style Soviet themed team.