The Crips are the largest and most notorious black gang. Now with an estimated 250 sets nationwide, the Crips started in 1969 with just 10 members in South Central Los Angeles. Gregory Batman Davis was one of these founding members. Since its inception, the Crips have been the subject of countless newspaper articles, news specials, and documentaries. Some have interviewed Batman, many have used one of the few images he released to the press-including newspapers like The New York Times, websites like StreetGangs.com, and documentaries such as O.G.‘s Gangsta King and Stacy Peralta’s Crips and Bloods-but none have told his story from start to finish. No ordinary tale from the streets, Batman’s story includes a host of unlikely characters-Field Marshal Cinque and Patty Hearst of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), cult leader Jim Jones, serial killers the Skid Row Stabber and Charles Manson, and ex-football player Jim Brown, to name a few. This is the true story of an Original Gangster. ILLUSTRATIONS: 140 photos