BATMAN #349

"TITLE"
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Gene Colan & Alfredo Alcala
Letterer: Janice Chiang | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Dick Giordano

The Plot: In Hollywood, awaiting his appointment with the Headmaster, Batman returns from patrol and calls Wayne Manor -- but no one answers. And on the outskirts of Gotham, Robin is tied to a chair, gagged, as Dala speaks to him, then leaves the room. Robin knocks over a candle lamp to start a fire, and uses the flame to burn free of his bonds. But before he can escape, two monstrous beings -- Dala and a man called the Monk -- burst into the room. Robin flings the Monk out the window and smacks Dala aside, then retreats downstairs, where he finds a man and a woman bound, with fang-marks in their throats.

The Monk returns and attacks again, but Robin escapes when the monster catches fire. Robin flees out into the rainy night and is nearly hit by a car driven by a priest named Father Green. Green loads Robin into his car as Dala and Monk observe from their home. Later, at the hospital, Green asks the doctors to keep Robin's presence secret as he observes fang marks on the Teen Wonder's neck.

Continuity Notes: First off, I must discuss the weird placement DC gave this issue in TALES OF THE BATMAN: GERRY CONWAY vol. 3. In that book, this chapter comes after both installments of the "Academy of Crime" story -- something which, on a very cursory glance, might seem correct. "Academy of Crime" is a 2-parter, so one might think the two parts should run together, followed by this issue, which was published in between but probably didn't actually occur in between the two parts.

The only thing is, that's a totally wrong assumption! Part one of "Academy of Crime" doesn't end on a cliffhanger, per se -- it concludes mid-scene as Matches Malone meeting the Headmaster for the first time -- but the second part picks up a day or three later, with Matches reporting for his first class at the Academy. And, per this issue as described above, in between those chapters, Batman was cooling his heels, waiting to hear from the Headmaster, killing time by patrolling the Los Angeles area. Further, there's a sub-plot scene in this issue involving ex-Commissioner Gordon, and another scene with Gordon in part two of "Academy" which must occur after the one here.

So in short, some well-meaning but not terribly attentive individual in DC's collections department goofed and stuck this issue out of sequence, which results in a disjointed experience when reading TALES OF THE BATMAN: GERRY COWAY. I actually read and wrote up a post for DETECTIVE 516 before reading this issue, and as a result I wound up rewriting some of that post when I realized the Gordon sub-plot had not occurred as DC had led me to believe!

Whew! Now, on with the show... we're told to see current issues of DETECTIVE COMICS for more on the Academy of Crime, and then a page later we are referred explicitly to DETECTIVE #516 to see Batman's "plans" for that respected institution.

As he sits bound and gagged, Robin recalls how he got into this fine mess:

In Boston, Alfred meets with Christopher Chance, the Human Target, and hires Chance to impersonate Bruce Wayne via a lie that Bruce has been targeted for assassination, and has a weak heart so Alfred isn't comfortable telling him so. But as Alfred leaves, Chance confides in his friend Luigi that the butler is hiding something.

Barbara Gordon and private investigator Jason Bard pay a visit to Jim Gordon, flipping on the television to let Gordon see that his replacement, Commissioner Pauling, plans to institute mandatory retirement for all Gotham P.D. officers when the reach twenty years of service. This sets Gordon into a rage, and he agrees when Bard proposes that they team to investigate Mayor Hill's election.

I've been keeping this under my hat for a while, but now it can be told: Dala and the Monk are updated versions of characters from one Batman's very earliest advetnures, way back in 1939! I assume their reinvention here nullified their original appearance in pre-CRISIS continuity. Unless their original story took place on Earth-2? I'm still not entirely clear on how all that stuff worked!

My Thoughts: Okay, this is probably the part of Gerry Conway's run with which I'm most tangentially familiar, and which I have been looking forward to since I started this project! See, I'm a big fan of the Monk. And it may not come as a surprise to those who read my Batman in the Seventies retrospective a few years ago that the genesis of that interest is, yet again, the battered and dog-eared copy of THE GREATEST BATMAN STORIES EVER TOLD that I cherished as a child.

The original Monk story, a 2-parter in DETECTIVE COMICS nos. 31 and 32 by Gardner Fox, Bob Kane, and Sheldon Moldoff, features Batman going up agaisnt a pair of vampires -- the hooded monk and his beautiful associate, Dala, to save the live of Bruce Wayne's fiancée, Julie Madison. Notably, the story ends with Batman killing the vampires with a gun as they sleep; this was back in the very early era where Batman was more of a pulp vigilante in the vein of the Shadow or the Spider.

In (relatively) more recent years, I picked up Matt Wagner's BATMAN VS. THE MAD MONK, a limited series which adapted the original Monk story into post-CRISIS continuity (it was part of a duology of mini-series by Wagner, along with BATMAN AND THE MONSTER MEN, which updated the original Hugo Strange stories as well). I recall really enjoying MAD MONK, though I haven't ready it in well over a decade. (Perhaps I should pick it up and write about it here?)

But in between the original Monk tale and Wagner's reimagining was this little epic by Gerry Conway, told as part of the ongoing Batman continuity of the eighties. It's a storyline I've been aware of for some time, but never read... until now. And I have to say, due in large part to the participation of Gene Colan (no stranger to comic book vampire action), we're off to a fantastic start. The story and artwork drip with a creepy horror vibe, as Robin battles these two seemingly unstoppable fiends, beautifully illstrated by Colan, in the fiery inferno of an old decrepit house outside of Gotham. Everything from the architecture to the furniture to the utter creepiness of the true versions of Dala and the Monk to the chamber where the duo keeps their unnamed prisoners... it's all brilliant, and I can't wait for more!

But first, the wrap-up of the "Academy of Crime" saga next week.