DETECTIVE COMICS #510

"HEAD-HUNT BY A MAD HATTER!"
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Gene Colan & Klaus Janson
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Klaus Janson | Editor: Dick Giordano

The Plot: Batman watches a mayoral debate between Hamilton Hill and Arthur Reeves, then stops a robbery. Meanwhile, Lucius Fox is working late at Wayne Enterprises when the company computer goes haywire and knocks him out, and he is subsequently kidnapped by the Mad Hatter. The next morning Bruce Wayne takes a call from Commissioner Gordon, informing him of the incident. Bruce meets the commissioner in the Wayne offices, where his secretary presents him with a business card from Head Hunters, Inc., which she found on her desk. At Gordon's order, Bruce calls the number. The Mad Hatter answers and tells Bruce he will return Lucius for two million dollars.

Gordon orders Bruce to pay the ransom so the police can track it. But before doing so, Bruce does some investigating of a component which was added to his company computer. Afterward, Bruce pays the ransom and when the Hatter confirms it has been done, he drains all of Lucius's business knowledge with a special computer, then perpares to erase the executive's memory -- but Batman appears, having traced the electronic component to the Hatter's hideout. Batman takes out the Hatter's goons, then volunteers to take Lucius's place in his machine. The Hatter agrees, but his device fails to erase Batman's memory. Later, as the police take the Hatter and his men away, Batman explains that he wore a special rubberized headpiece under his cowl, which prevented his brain from being drained.

Continuity Notes: As described above, the opening pages feature a debate between mayoral candidates Hill and Reeves. Hill is still on his anti-police brutality crusade, stating that he will demand Commissioner Gordon's resignation if elected. Meanwhile, Reeves has in his pocket the incriminating photos provided to him by Rupert Thorne in BATMAN #343 -- photos which he puts to use by the story's final page, as the next morning's paper presents a cover story stating that Reeves knows who Batman is and intends to prove it.

Last week I puzzled a bit over Wayne Enterprises and the Wayne Foundation, and this issue suggests that Gerry Conway does understand the two are separate entities. Lucius is explicitly stated via narration to be working on a financial forecast for Wayne Enterprises, while a footonote on the next page states that Poison Ivy is working to steal the Wayne Foundation's assets. So that's good, at least.

He still seems a bit confused as to what Lucius's position in the company is, though -- or perhaps I'm the one who's mistaken. I noted previously that Conway described Lucius as Bruce Wayne's "assistant", while prior stories from Len Wein seemed to make it clear he was an executive in the company; perhaps the CFO. Here, dialogue refers to Lucius as an "executive assistant". Now, to me, an executive assistant is essentially a secretary who works for a company's CEO or other executive leadership. But perhaps the term meant something else in 1982, as Conway's intent is clearly for Lucius to be a higher-up in the company, to the point that he is described here as having his own secretary! It's all quite confusing.

When Batman catches up with the Mad Hatter, he observes that this is not the Hatter he has fought in recent years. The Hatter confirms this is the case; he states that after his first appearance in 1948's BATMAN #49, he was replaced by an imposter, who used his identity for some time. The real Hatter says he "disposed" of the imposter, but he would go on to appear in subsequent stories over the years, so I guess that disposal wasn't terribly permanent.

My Thoughts: I've never been quite sure why writers do things like this -- the original Mad Hatter had apparently been out of circulation for over thirty years at this point, and the "imposter" had had numerous appearances in that span. Indeed, I may be wrong, but I would imagine there was never any intention that the "imposter" was anyone other than the original Hatter with a different visual. What on Earth is gained by ret-conning this, bringing back the "original" and turning the version readers had known for decades at this point as an imposter? Nothing, in my opinion. Yet it's done, and I can't help wondering if it was done via Roy Thomas whispering the suggestion into Gerry Conway's ear. Knowing the two were friends and had worked together on a few prior Batman stories during this run, and knowing that this feels like exactly the sort of continuity "glitch" Thomas might feel would need to address, it just seems to fit.

Anyway -- otherwise, this is another decent issue, though I'm beginning to see a pattern here. Every so often, Conway gives us an issue that fires on all cylinders, and really knocks everything out of the park. But more often than not, as I'm sure you've noted, I find myself stating that Conway's "A" story was okay, but that what really saved the issue at hand from mediocrity were the sub-plots. And I know I've also mentioned that Conway stated in Tom DeFalco's COMICS CREATORS ON SPIDER-MAN book that when he wrote SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN and WEB OF SPIDER-MAN in the eighties, he did so by coming up with the sub-plots first, and threading the action/adventure material through them. By the time of that Spidey run, Conway had pretty much mastered the approach, and his action stuff was typically just as good as his soap opera stuff.

But here, reading this run of Batman issues, I can't help feeling that Conway would rather be writing a soap opera; that the action/adventure/mystery material is a distant concern for him beside the soap opera. And as I've noted many times before, I love the soap opera. The sub-blots are great. But I just wish Conway would put a bit more effort into the obligatory action material running alongside them -- because I'm getting tired of constantly saying that the main plot, while freqently "good enough", is only all right in comparison with the sub-plots!