Batman is having a booming year, with Dark Nights: Metal #1 hitting the stands this week, Scott Snyder's All-Star Batman wrapping up an epic run in September, and now a gritty new series that further deconstructs the Dark Knight into a period-set fable about a Batman-loving boy who suffers a tragic loss in his life similar to Bruce Wayne.

DC's Batman: Creature of the Night is a provocative four-issue mini-series, written by Astro City's Kurt Busiek, with somber, detailed art by Mother Panic's John Paul Leon. It's set in Boston in 1968 and confronts the inner rage caused by real-life trauma after the comic-loving child's parents are murdered.

Here's the official solicitation synopsis:

Young Bruce Wainwright lost his parents in a violent crime…and in the real world, no superheroes exist to save the day. But as grief and rage builds inside Bruce until he feels he can’t keep it inside anymore, something strange starts taking wing in the Gotham night! Perhaps Bruce’s grief isn’t inside him after all?

Modern masters Kurt Busiek and John Paul Leon unite for the spiritual companion to the beloved SUPERMAN: SECRET IDENTITY, putting a new spin you’ve never seen before on the legend of Batman—and the dark emotions that drive him!

Descend into the darkness of Boston's crime-ridden boulevards in the five-page preview below and tell us if you'll add this to your pull list when Batman: Creature of the Night #1 swoops into comic shops on November 29.

(Via Flickering Myth)