Posted in: Batman, Comics, Current News, DC Comics | Tagged: becky cloonan, Doctor Death, matt fraction, rccc, rose city comic con

Matt Fraction & Becky Cloonan Revive Doctor Death For Batman One-Shot

Matt Fraction and Becky Cloonan revive Doctor Death for a new Batman one-shot together, revealed at Rose City Comic Con

Published Mon, 08 Sep 2025 06:57:05 -0500

by Rich Johnston

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Article Summary

Matt Fraction and Becky Cloonan team up for a new Batman one-shot, revealed at Rose City Comic Con.
Doctor Death, Batman’s very first supervillain, returns in a story spanning the Dark Knight's history.
The one-shot connects to Fraction's current run with Jorge Jiménez and explores Batman’s legacy.
Doctor Death’s sinister evolution through decades of Batman comics sets up his 2026 comeback.

Over the weekend, at Rose City Comic Con, the DC Comics: Batman with Matt Fraction and Friends panel on Saturday late morning in Room E141-144 was billed thus: "Spoiler Alert: There's no rain in Gotham City when Matt Fraction and Jorge Jiménez's Batman #1 hits shelves on September 3! Matt Fraction leads this Batman-focused panel that looks deep into the new comic book run, while guests Brian Michael Bendis and Becky Cloonan give insight and comic relief."

Well, how much of this is insight and how much of this is comic relief is down to you. A Bleeding Cool reader who wants to remain anonymous, as he doesn't want Matt Fraction to hate him, tells me that;

"So Matt Fraction let it slip that Becky Cloonan will be drawing a one-shot Batman comic, set in the continuity of his current Jorge Jimenez run, but covering the whole of Batman's history. And will have Batman fighting Doctor Death, the very first supervillain he fought, from his third issue, Detective Comics #29, and their relationship ever since, with Doctor Death blaming Batman for everything. Becky Cloonan, however, chose not to comment. The Batman editor seemed to suggest that Fraction might have gone too far…"

: Detective Comics #29

: Detective Comics #29

I'm sure that was just comic relief. Doctor Death, or Dr Karl Hellfern, originally developed chemical agents from pollen extracts to extort wealthy Gotham City citizens, fighting Batman, though their first meeting saw Doctor Death's face horribly disfigured from his own laboratory explosion, giving him a brown, skeletal appearance.

: Detective Comics #30

He returned over four decades later in Batman #345 and Detective Comics #512 in 1982, updating that original story, now a paraplegic.

: Batman #345

: Detective Comics #512

. Then, another two decades later, he returned in Batgirl #42-44 and #50 in 2003 as, a producer and seller of biological weapons, now a bald, shrivelled man, wearing a lab coat and an oxygen mask.

: Batgirl #44

He popped up a lot more after that, in War Games, Infinite Crisis, 52 and Hush, now with lidless eyes, long skeletal fingers, no nose, and several rows of jagged fangs. Rebooted for the New 52 as a scientist for Wayne Enterprises, studying bone growth, his failures saw him fired and dealing with The Riddler to create a chemical that caused accelerated bone growth and horrifically mutated its victims. More recently, Batman: Zero Year saw Batman inadvertently kill Hellfern by snapping some of his bones, causing them to regrow into the doctor's brain.