BATMAN #319, #321, AND #322

Writer: Len Wein | Colorist: Glynis Wein | Letterer: Ben Oda
Editor: Paul Levitz

"NEVER GIVE UP THE GHOST!"
Artists: Irv Novick & Bob Smith

Gentleman Ghost's turn against Batman in issue 310 must have been well received by fandom -- or at least, Len Wein must have enjoyed writing it -- because here we are nine months later with a rematch between the two. This time, Batman thwarts the Ghost and his gang from stealing some diamonds in the issue's opening pages, and then when they try again the next night, they capture the Caped Crusader before departing to steal some jewels from a party at Wayne Manor. But Batman gets free, heads home, and stops the Ghost yet again -- though the villain escapes in the end.

It's a little weird to see Wein returning to the exact same well as the last time he used Gentleman Ghost, sending him yet again to Wayne Manor. But perhaps there's some reason for this. Maybe Wein wanted to establish some connection between the Ghost and Bruce Wayne's ancestral home. But this is Wein's final outing with Gentleman Ghost, so we'll never know. (Another unsolved mystery is the fact that Batman explicitly notes in the opening scene that the Ghost is trying to steal "crude industrial diamonds" rather than some nicer jewelry. It seems unlikely Wein would've mentioned this unless he intended it to go someplace.)

In sub-plot land, Bruce talks about how happy he is to be back at Wayne Manor for this party, and considers that he may be seeing a lot more of the place in the near future. I'm pretty sure I've read that it was actually Gerry Conway, in his run that followed Wein's, who actually moved Batman back to his mansion, but I guess Wein is planting the seeds for that move here. And besides the potential move for our hero, we also find that his secret identity may be in jeopardy, as, at the party, Lucius Fox and Selina Kyle make up and then begin discussing Bruce's frequent disappearances.

DETECTIVE COMICS #486 & #487

"MURDER BY THUNDERBOLT" | "THE PERILS OF SERGIUS"
Writer: Denny O'Neil | Artists: Don Newton & Dan Adkins
Letterers: John Workman (issue 486) & Milt Snappin (issue 487)
Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Paul Levitz

Two more issues of DETECTIVE COMICS mean two more stories from Denny O'Neil, which -- circa late 1979/early 1980 -- mean Batman is going up against Maxie Zeus and the League of Assassins, respectively, again.

The first of these two stories, in issue 486, isn't half-bad. In fact, the opening is the sort of pulpy sequence O'Neil would have produced with Neal Adams a decade earlier: a skydiver jumps out of a plane, but he lands as a skeleton. Batman, who was on the scene as Bruce Wayne and changed into costume when the skydiver's parachute didn't deploy, watches as the skeleton then spontaneously combusts. Had Adams drawn this scene, it would have meant the promise of another masterpiece from him and O'Neil. But, much as I like Don Newton, he's no Neal Adams -- and the story that follows never quite lives up to its opening scene.

We follow Batman from this point as he investigates the strange death and learns that Maxie Zeus was behind it. Zeus, incarcerated at Arkham Asylum, is still insane, and is now predicting how some of his former associates will meet their ends. The mystery turns out to be twofold: how did a skydiver turn into a skeleton in midair, and who is carrying out these killings on Zeus's behalf? Unfortunately, the solutions to both questions are quite easy to discern -- the skydiver was already dead and a skeleton was simply dropped out of the plane (which is basically what Newton's art makes us see from the start), and the killer is the most obvious choice.