BATMAN #343

"A DAGGER SO DEADLY..."
Writer Gerry Conway | Artist: Gene Colan | Embellisher: Klaus Janson
Letterer: John Costanza | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Dick Giordano

The Plot: Batman ends a fruitless search for Man-Bat near Wayne Manor, and drives back to Gotham City. Inside city limits, he spots a knife-thrower on a motorcycle who takes out a semi-truck with a well-placed dagger. Batman drives after the villain, who calls himself Dagger, but another hurled knife takes the Batmobile out of commission and Batman is forced to drive it off Gotham bridge to prevent it from exploding near civilians.

The next day, Dagger continues his spree, attacking a jewelry shop to extort protection money. He eludes the police and escapes. That night, Batman dives for the crashed Batmobile and retrieves Dagger's knife, which leads him to the weapon's manufacturer: the Rennington Steel company in New York. Batman speaks with Mister Rennington, who leaves him momentarily and then returns in the costume of Dagger. Rennington attacks Batman, but the Caped Crusader proves more than his match, using a dummy to distract Dagger and then knocking him out with a massive novelty dagger. Batman turns Dagger over to the police and then drives back to Gotham.

Continuity Notes: Narration states that Batman has been searching for Man-Bat for a week, with a footnote pointing to the prior issue for their last encounter. However Batman also thinks to himself that he traveled to Egypt during that week (footnoted to DETECTIVE COMICS #508), and wonders if the trail went cold because of that little side-quest.

Following his first encounter with Dagger, Brue Wayne meets the Wayne Foundation board of directors at Gotham National Bank, where the bank's "presiding officer" questions the board's order to liquidate all the Foundation's assets and turn them over to "Ms. Ivy". A footnote points readers to BATMAN #339 for more on this situation. All the board members remain unable to communicate Poison Ivy's scheme thanks to the kisses she planted on them in that same issue. Ivy herself soon shows up and asks when she'll have her money, to which the bank officer responds he will need a full week in order to liquidate the Foundation's assets.

For those curious, we're told that this liquidation will amount to a whopping ten million dollars -- which, even in 1981 dollars, feels way too low for an international charity of the Wayne Foundation's previously depicted scope.

(Though this may be in part due to some confusion among Batman's various writers as to just what exactly the Wayne Foundation is, and how it relates to Wayne Enterprises -- or whatever it was called back then -- not to mention Bruce's personal fortune. I believe it was way back under Frank Robbins that the Foundation was established, and at the time, both Robbins and Denny O'Neil seemed to treat it as Bruce's only business concern. But later, under Len Wein, it was pretty clear that the Foundation was a separate entity from Wayne Enterprises, which was the conglomerate that did all the business-type stuff, while the Foundation was strictly a charity. Gerry Conway seems to be following Wein's logic, though I feel like there have been one or two scenes during his run where we've seen the Foundation engaging in pursuits that would make more sense under the for-profit umbrella.)

Mayoral candidate Artur Reeves pops up, catching a glimpse of the police chasing Dagger, before he meets with a mystery benefactor (a shadowy Rupert Thorne) over his campaign. Thorne offers Reeves a boon, which Reeves accepts in exchange for a favor to be named later, and Reeves accepts. Thorne then hands over "photographic proof of Batman's secret identity!"

Random note: I briefly wondered if the name "Rennington Steel" was somehow a play on the 1980s TV series REMINGTON STEELE, but I'm not sure how it's possible, as this is the January 1982 issue of BATMAN (which, according to Mike's Amazing World, was on sale in October of '81 -- meaning it was plotted and scripted a few months prior even to that), while that series didn't begin until October of '82. Certainly it would have been in development for some time prior to then, but any intention similarity still feels like a longshot. I know Gerry Conway wrote for television and movies in the eighties, but his first credit isn't until the 1983 Ralph Bakshi/Frank Frazetta extravaganza, FIRE AND ICE.

My Thoughts: Okay, let's get one thing out of the way first: Dagger is kind of a goofy villain. First, his costume is a little lame (though, while I'm not sure it was intentional on the part of Conway and Gene Colan, it really sells the idea that this guy just sort of cobbled something together to wear for his crimes -- i.e., it really looks homemade). Second, when we see him unmasked, he's quite unimpressive. Indeed, he looks like a Marvel writer circa the 1970s for whatever reason. And third, he's not very bright! His whole motivation is that he's run the family business into the ground, so he's started a protection racket to make some fast cash in order to stay afloat. And during the course of this story, he does a few shakedowns, makes no money, and is quickly and quite easily bested and caught by Batman.

The thing is, it's all played totally straight! Within a decade or so, this sort of story, while not commonplace, would be something you might see more often, but it would be done in a very "meta" style, with we readers in on the "joke" that this villain is not to be taken seriously. But here, that's not the case. Here, Conway presents Dagger with all the seriousness you'd expect of any other member of Batman's rogues' gallery. And somehow, that makes it even funnier! You get to the end of the story, and you're left wondering, "What just happened? What did I just read? Was this real life?" I don't know that this was Conway's intent; for all I know, he intended Dagger to be a real, legitimate villain. But he doesn't come across that way, and as a result, we wind up with quite a (unintentionally?) comical issue.

And, while there's no way to prove it, I do think Conway knows what he's doing here. I think he wants readers to view Dagger as a goofball Z-lister, and I think he wants us to get a chuckle out of him. It's all thanks to the story's final panel. As Batman drives back to Gotham, he smiles and thinks to himself that Dagger "just couldn't cut it" as a villain. If that's not Conway letting us in on the joke, I don't know what is! (And, as longime readers of this blog know, I love a Batman who can crack a joke once in a while, so kudos to Conway for ending the story on this note.)

This issue also features a Robin backup story, "Odyssey's End", by Conway, Trevor von Eeden, and Rodin Rodriquez, with letters and colors from Pierre Bernard and Carl Gafford, respectively. It concludes the Robin saga begun several issues ago, as Dick Grayson drops off Deanna, the girl he rescued from cultists, at a roadside emergency clinic. But when he notices one of the doctors wearing his Caduceus pin upside-down, Dick changes to Robin and sneaks into the clinic. However he's captured and nearly killed, if not for Deanna rescuing him. Robin gets the drop on the fake clinic staff, who have locked up the patients and impersonated the doctors in order to steal a shipment of drugs. Following this affair, Robin leaves Deanna with the real doctors and asks a cop for bus fare to Gotham City.

This is probably the weakest of all Conway's recent Robin stories -- which isn't to say it's bad by any means. I still like solo young adult Robin quite a bit, and Conway has a knack for sticking him into stories you wouldn't really expect -- lots of creepy, almost "horror movie" themed stuff, set under the dark of night. And this one is basically par for that course. Indeed, perhaps my only real issue with it is that I feel it could've been a bit longer than the eight pages it runs!