BATMAN #348

Yes, we skipped BATMAN #347. It was a fill-in written by Roger Slifer and is
not reprinted in DC's TALES OF THE BATMAN: GERRY CONWAY volumes.

"SHADOW PLAY"
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Gene Colan & Klaus Janson
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Dick Giordano

The Plot: Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, and Alfred unpack in the original Batcave beneath Wayne Manor, under the secret observation of Man-Bat. When the doorbell rings, Alfred goes upstairs to answer it and finds an angry Francine Langstrom, with her daughter Rebecca, waiting. Francine raves that Bruce had promised to help find her husband, Kirk, but has not done so. When Bruce appears, Francine berates him and then passes out. After putting Francine to bed in the mansion, Bruce, Dick, and Alfred head down to the Batcave with a blindfolded Rebecca. Bruce changes to Batman, dons some infrared contact lenses, and takes Rebecca into the subterranean caverns in search of Man-Bat. But as soon as they depart, Man-Bat shows himself, swooping past Dick and Alfred to follow.

After some time searching, Batman decides to give up for the night. But as he and Rebecca are about to turn around, Man-Bat appears and attacks, knocking Batman down a cliff. The Caped Crusader climbs back up a few minutes later to find Man-Bat and Rebecca gone. Batman follows the sound of Rebecca's screams to find that Man-Bat has taken her to "his" Bat-cave; a cavern filled with bats. Man-Bat attacks Batman, but the hero appeals to his humanity by way of Rebecca. Suddenly, Kirk Langstrom's personality returns, and Batman overdoses him with the Man-Bat antidote. Soon after, Kirk is reunited with his wife and daughter in Wayne Manor.

Continuity Notes: Dick wonders how Bruce moved the giant penny to the urban Batcave beneath the Wayne Foundation Building, to which Bruce flippantly replies, "Don't ask" -- which feels like Gerry Conway editorializing a bit on something I, too, have always found odd -- it's one thing for Batman to open a new Batcave beneath the Wayne Building. I have no issue with that. But the fact that he moved all his memorabilia there, including the giant penny and the huge frikkin' dinosaur, stretched believability just a bit.

Batman recaps Man-Bat's origin, with a footnote pointing to DETECTIVE COMICS #400.

Barbara Gordon confronts her father again regarding his aimlessness since Mayor Hill forced him to resign. When Gordon again rebuffs her and wanders off, she digs out the business card of Jason Bard, private investigator -- a character who had a regular backup feature in the Batman comics of the 1970s.

Meanwhile, Vicki Vale tells her editor at the Picture News that she has photos proving Batman's secret identity, but she is not yet ready to publish them -- citing the previous fake photos circa BATMAN #544 as the reason she wants to validate their authenticity (or lack thereof) first. As soon as Vicki leaves, her editor, Morton, calls Rupert Thorne to fill him in. Thorne appreciates the irony as he recalls that he tricked Arthur Reeves with the fake photos "a few months ago."

My Thoughts: It feels like just a week ago that I was commenting on what often feels like Gerry Conway "phoning in" the action/adventure content of his issues in favor of focusing on the soap opera. And while I still believe that has been the case several times in the recent past, and I imagine it will remain the case off and on going forward, I have to say that this particular issue doesn't suffer from that problem. Is it perhaps a little contrived that Francine happens to show up at Wayne Manor, where Kirk happens to be hiding out, the exact day that Bruce and Dick move back home? Sure! But that's comics. Contrived coincidences are par for the course in nearly any serialized comic.

And after that contrivance passes, we're off into a pretty strong story, as Batman focuses on finding and curing Kirk Langstrom once and for all. I find his decision to bring Rebecca along into the caverns, essentially as bait, questionable at best -- but this is the guy who regularly took a ten year-old into battle against the Joker after all, so it's not exactly out of character! And the end result is an exciting and engaging fight in the caverns beneath Wayne Manor.

Maybe Man-Bat just brings out the best in Conway. I seem to recall enjoying the character's prior outing in the story with Doctor Thirteen, as well. And Conway wrote Man-Bat's solo feature in BATMAN FAMILY during the seventies, so perhaps he feels an ownership over the character which results in stronger stories when he brings him out.