DETECTIVE COMICS #516

"PART TWO: 'ACADEMY OF CRIME': FINAL EXAMS!"
Writers Gerry Conway & Paul Kupperberg
Artists: Don Newton & Frank Chiaramonte
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Dick Giordano

The Plot: At the Adacemy of Crime, the Headmaster's class practice gunning down Batman. After class is dismissed, "Matches" Malone heads into downtown Hollywood with two of his fellow students. When he spots a fight on a rooftop across the street, Matches ditches the men and changes into Batman. He intervenes in the fight, but when the victim of the attack departs while Batman is distracted, the Caped Crusader leaves since there is no one to press charges against the attacker.

The next morning on a Hollywood backlot, the Headmaster asks Matches to assume the identity of Batman for the day's lesson. Suddenly realizing that the previous night's action was staged and the Headmaster is on to him, Matches enters the designated changing trailer and slips out just before the Academy class opens fire and destroys the trailer. Finding the trailer empty, the Headmaster sends his pupils out into the backlot to find Batman. But the Dark Knight takes the criminals out one-by-one until only the Headmaster and one student, Miles, are left. Batman dispatches Miles and the Headmaster grabs his defeated student's flamethrower. But he fails to kill Batman, and the Caped Crusader captures him.

Continuity Notes: While Batman is in California, a lot transpires back in Gotham City! First up, Rupert Thorne meets with Picture News editor Morton Monroe and demands Vicki Vale's Batman photos. Monroe returns to his office and requests same from Vicki, who blows him off and goes to visit Alfred, giving him two weeks (down from the prior issue's three weeks) to concretely refute her theory.

In other news, Thorne sees Hugo Strange's apparition reflected in a pool ball and yells at it in front of Monroe.

Commissioner Gordon and Jason Bard toast the establishment of their new private investigation firm, with Gordon vowing to take down Mayor Hill -- something that concerns Bard.

My Thoughts: I didn't talk at all last week about the actual story of the issue, so today we will examine both chapters of "The Academy of Crime" as a whole. And -- it's good! I'm generally a sucker for stories that move Batman out of the familiar confines of Gotham City. I loved what a globe-trotter the character was in the Denny O'Neil/Neal Adams stuff, and I've enjoyed some of Gerry Conway's tales along those same lines. Here, we have the Caped Crusader in the foreign land of California (a place he's visited once or twice prior during Conway's tenure), visiting the Sunset Strip and fighting a bunch of crooks on a Hollywood backlot.

The idea of the Academy of Crime itself feels a little stale, at least in the sense that David Michelinie had just invented a very similar concept over at Marvel with the creation of Taskmaster in AVENGERS a mere two years earlier. And frankly, I think Michelinie did it better -- he dreamed up Taskmaster when he was thinking one day about all the goons in the Marvel Universe -- not, like, the AIM or Hydra troops loyal to a big terror organization's ethos, or the organized crime types working for the Kingpin -- but rather the random, reasonably trained henchmen who would show up in the emply of Doctor Octopus or whoever. For Michelinie, Taskmaster filled that position.

And while it's probably not fair of me to contrast the Academy of Crime with Taskmaster's school, since they were created for different purposes in different universes, I can't help but do so. The Academy of Crime and the Headmaster simply feel like a poor man's version of Taskmaster's shtick. I probably would've liked this better if Conway had simply swiped the Taskmaster concept wholesale from Michelinie, and shown the Headmaster training guys to be henchmen for the likes of the Joker, the Penguin, etc.!

Nonetheless, I am always a sucker for a good Batman "fish out of water" story, as noted above, so even if I find the Academy of Crime to be no great shakes, I appreciate seeing Batman fight them in Hollywood rather than Gotham!