1988.

Hank threw the Troubadour to the side, scooping up the pistol that had been dropped and readying it in one hand while keeping the crowbar in the other. 

The Crimson Wraith didn’t use guns. Hank knew this. But also the Crimson Wraith didn’t usually fight tigers. 

With one hand, he drove the crowbar into the boxcar door and wedged it open, then he swung his other hand forward, pistol at the ready.

What he wanted to see — what he hoped to see — was his friend, his roommate, his sidekick, facing down the great cat, trying to placate it, saying things like, “Nice kitty… Good kitty…” before looking up to Hank and shouting, “Well, it’s about damn time! Tony here thinks I’m a box of Frosted Flakes!”

That was not what Hank found.

Instead of being on its feet, stalking Jasmine, the tiger lay resting, lazily lifting its head at Hank’s entrance. Blood smeared its face, which wore the sleepiness of having eaten its fill. 

In the corner lay something dark and wet. Hank knew that it had once been Jasmine. He could tell from the sequined shreds of her torn costume.

Hank knew it wasn’t the tiger’s fault. That was just the tiger’s nature. Still, he pulled the trigger and kept pulling it until every slug had buried itself in the creature’s body. When the tiger lay as limp as Jasmine, Hank went to her.

He cradled what was left of her. “Don’t be gone, Jasmine. Come back to me…”  

Her arms dangled limply. Eyes within her claw-torn face did not move. But still Hank spoke to her as his throat tightened his words into a whisper. 

“I don’t know how to do this without you. Please…” He pressed her to him, as if the warmth of his body could return some warmth to hers.

Behind him, the Troubadour began narrating once again. “And so it ends. And what an ending indeed. Such pathos! What hardened heart might remain unmoved by so terrible a tragedy?”

As gently as laying a baby in its crib, Hank released Jasmine, then rose and turned toward the Troubadour, crowbar in hand. 

“But that is what the public needs a hero for, is it not? To face down tragedy? To overcome? Yes, let us see then. Show us how the drama has moved you.” 

He might have made his escape. But no, the Troubadour remained, pointing his camera at Hank even without the pistol to project himself. “Let us see it! Show the camera your righteous rage!”

The crowbar’s first swing spun the Troubadour in a circle. The second took the mask half off of his face, revealing his pudgy cheeks and scraggly moustache. 

Still, he kept hold of the camera, turning it again toward Hank after each strike. Through a torn lip, with blood dribbling down his chin, he kept on narrating. 

“Thank you,” he gurgled. “Such an ovation… So proud of my cast and crew…” 

Hank’s third swing took the Troubadour’s legs out from underneath him with the shattering of bone. The murderer dropped to the stage, and Hank dropped the crowbar and leapt on top of him, wrapping his huge hands around the Troubadour’s throat.

“Wait!” The Troubadour croaked, seeming for the first time genuinely concerned. “Remember your role! You have a part to play! You’re the hero! The Crimson Wraith doesn’t kill!”

It was true. Hank had followed that code since putting on the mask. Each criminal he defeated, he did not seek to punish with his own hand but to bring to justice, just as he had been. That was the Crimson Wraith’s way.

And so, with one hand still on the Troubadour’s throat, he reached up to pull the mask from his face and threw it down onto the floor of the stage.

The Troubadour’s eyes went wide. And as Hank began choking the life from him, the Troubadour’s face kept an expression of the most elated wonder. Finally, reality had proven more profound than art. 

Even after there was no motion from the Troubadour, Hank continued squeezing. Hank still held the Troubadour’s throat in his hands when he heard a sound from the lobby. He didn’t look up as Michael came running down the aisle, wearing his Zephyr mask and suit. 

Seeing only Hank on the stage, he called out. “What happened? Are you hurt? Is she safe?”

“It’s over…” said Hank. “It’s all over…”

“Oh, man! That’s going to be such a relief! The whole city is going to…” Then Michael saw the Troubadour, unmoving, unbreathing, underneath Hank. “You’ve killed him…”

“He killed her!” Hank rose to his feet with a roar. The Troubadour’s head lolled to one side. 

“No…” Michael shook his head. “Did he… How did it happen?”

Explaining it to Michael meant saying words that hurt to think. “He fed her… to an animal… like meat!” 

“No. Don’t say that…”

“Yes,” said Hank. “Yes, he did. And now it’s over. It’s all over. I’m done.” Hank extended his wrists to Michael. “Take me away. I don’t want this.” 

“Hank, wait…”

“Arrest me. You have to.”

“No…”

“The Crimson Wraith doesn’t kill. And I’m a killer.” His face contorted in agony. “It’s all I ever was.”