Batman #417, the first appearance of the KGBeast.
Published way back in 1988, while the 'Evil Empire' of the Soviet Union was starting to implode into several states, the writers of Batman decided to ignore this historic event. They had a better idea: Create a villain that is a die-hard communist villain that is hell-bent on killing the President of the USA! Such a nasty piece of work has now become a key book in the Batman folklore. Comrades, I give you the KGBeast!
The presentation of this hardcore character, is still a bit baffling for me as you will note from the cover from a few issues later. While The KGBeast is definitely a formidable, super hard bastard (he cuts his own hand off at one point to get away from the Bat!) and very well trained, it is the politics that makes for the interesting subtext in his 'Ten Nights of the Beast' debut (which I'll probably come revisit at a later date).
However, there is a little bit of (what're the words, ahem) sexually deviant involved with the costume that doesn't quite fit well with the doctrine of Marx and Engels.
