Every installment of Abandoned Love we will be examining comic book stories, plots and ideas that were abandoned by a later writer while still acknowledging that the abandoned story DID still happen. Click here for an archive of all the previous editions of Abandoned Love. Feel free to e-mail me at bcronin@comicbookresources.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.

This time around, we look at the time that Batman seemed to kill one of his opponents...

Ten Nights of the Beast pitted Batman against a Soviet assassin named the KGBeast. The Beast was a lot like Bane in that he was every bit as tough and as skilled as Batman. The Beast recently finished in the Top 40 on our ongoing Greatest Batman Villains list.

Soon before their final battle, Batman has an interesting conversation with a CIA agent...

This clearly informs the final battle between Batman and KGBeast.

Their final combat took place in a sewer in Gotham City.

Writer Jim Starlin has Batman pull a bit of a trick on the Beast, though. The Beast thought that this was going to be their dramatic final battle. Batman, knowing the sewers of Gotham better than most, had other plans (note that KGBeast's gunhand has malfunctioned and is therefore not working at this point)...

So yeah, Batman just flat out decided to let the Beast starve to death. It's a pretty hardcore ending for a Batman story.

Go to the next page to see how they abandoned the story...

That happened in Batman #420. Less than 20 issues later, the next writer on the series, Marv Wolfman, abandoned that plot for Batman, as likely editor Denny O'Neil changed his mind on whether he wanted Batman to be seen as having killed one of his villains.

During the Year 3 storyline, where Batman and Nightwing come together due to the release of the man who killed Nightwing's parents, the pair watch as the villain is murdered by other gangsters...

Nightwing believes Batman had something to do with it and uses the KGBeast example to show that something has changed within Batman since the death of Jason Todd...

So yeah, he changed his mind off-panel after the end of #420. A pretty simple resolution, but an effective one! Well, except for even there, Batman's plan to just tell the cops to go capture the dangerous assassin that Batman couldn't even take out one on one doesn't seem like a great plan, either, does it?

If YOU have a suggestion for an abandoned storyline that you'd like to see featured here, drop me a line at bcronin@comicbookresources.com.