BATMAN #354

"SHOWDOWN"
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Don Newton & Alfredo Alcala
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: At Gotham City Hall, Mayor Hill confronts Commissioner Pauling over the latter's having revoked Batman's status as a special deputy. Batman bursts in on the two, intimidating them with the possibility that Deadshot could testify against them. But after the Masked Manhunter leaves, Pauling trips an alarm to alert the Gotham Police, standing guard outside City Hall. Officer McClosky opens fire and hits Batman, sending him falling into an alleyway. But when the police, Pauling, and Hill move into the alley, they find Batman gone.

Meanwhile, Rupert Thorne meets with Doctor Thirteen at Hugo Strange's one-time clinic, Greytowers. Thirteen reveals that the Strange apparition Thorne has been seeing is a hologram, and asks Thorne if anyone would want to drive him mad and have him committed again. Thorne immediately thinks of Pauling and Hill, believing they want to get him out of the way now that he's helped them into office.

At the Batcave, Alfred is feeding Deadshot when the injured Batman gets home. Later, Thorne is at his townhouse when Batman appears. Batman says nothing, but a frazzled Thorne begins babbling about Pauling, Hill, Arthur Reeves, and Deadshot. Then embers from Thorne's fire ignite brandy he spilled when Batman arrived, and the townhouse goes up in flames. Thorne runs away, eluding Batman. Later, at City Hall, Thorne bursts in on Pauling, Hill, and McClosky, brandishing a gun. Thorne shoots Pauling as McClosky shoots Thorne at hte same time. Pauling is killed and Thorne injured. Batman appears and knocks out McClosky, and Hill proclaims his innocence, promising to reinstate Batman as a special deputy.

Outside, "Batman" unmasks as Robin, speaking with Alfred and the real Batman, recuperating from his injuries, over a communicator. Batman thanks his partner for a job well done.

Continuity Notes: Throughout the issue, a mysterious limousine is seen, first at Greytowers and then outside Thorne's townhouse. On the final page, it is parked across the street from City Hall, and its passenger is revealed as a very much alive Professor Hugo Strange (inexplicably wearing a tuxedo, which to me is a bigger mystery to be resolved in his next appearance than how he's not dead).

Vicki Vale receives a harassing call on her private phone line from a mystery woman who is pretty clearly Selina Kyle (and the next issue box tells us we're about to encounter Catwoman, so it all seems to add up).

Footnotes: Batman reveals to Hill and Pauling that he learned last issue from Deadshot that the duo conspired with Thorne to have Bruce Wayne killed. Doctor Thirteen mentions Hugo Strange's apparent death in DETECTIVE COMICS #472. And the rare forward-looking footnote tells us that the Catwoman/Vicki plot will continue in the upcoming DETECTIVE #520.

Not continuity, but I find it noteworthy: when "Batman" appears in Thorne's townhouse, narration describes him as "the tall man in black and gray". I find it interesting that Batman's costume is described as black and gray. At this point, and for many, many years prior, artists had drastically scaled back the black from Batman's cape and cowl, gloves, and boots (but tended to still spot in a lot of black for his trunks for whatever reason). I think a lot of people would interpret the Batman of this vintage as wearing blue and gray, regardless of what the colors are "supposed" to be. Batman is pretty consistently drawn wearing a costume that is primarily blue, but with black highlights. So it's nice to see Conway here reference the properly intended color scheme, even if the art doesn't really match it.

(One of my favorite things about the original BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES character design was how it flipped the comic book colors -- the cape, cowl, etc. were primarily black with blue highlights, and it looked way better. I have often wondered why the comic artists of the seventies and eighties didn't do it that way. I once took some random Neal Adams Batman covers and, for fun, "inverted" the black and blue on his costume -- and I think they looked way better.)

My Thoughts: Wow! What an issue! Every member of the creative team pulls out all the stops on this one, the grand finale of Gerry Conway's political saga. The plot is tight, the script engrossing. The artwork is some of the best Don Newton has turned in, with beautiful inking from Alfredo Alcala to really sell the whole "dark and stormy night" setting. Back when Newton first came aboard DETECTIVE COMICS, he was paired most often with Dan Adkins, and I have always felt they made a wonderful team, with a sort of "slickness" or "gloss" remincisent of Byrne & Austin or Davis & Farmer. So it's taken me a while to get used to a "roughter" version of Newton since Adkins departed. But Alfredo Alcala nails Newton perfectly, looking just as good over his pencils, albeit in a different way, than Adkins.

And as for the writing -- well, I have to say that I'm often let down when a major story arc reaches its conclusion. Not necessarily by the writer, but typically by my own expectations. I'm a very participatory reader/viewer/etc., and I'm constantly thinking up my own ideas for how stories should end, and I often build up my ideal endings so much that the actual story can't live up to them. But this -- I'd go so far as to call this finale pretty much perfect. Thorne's still fragile sanity evaporates as a final act of revenge from Hugo Strange, Pauling is killed, and it all comes together in a spectacular shootout scene at City Hall.

I suppose if I do have a single complaint, it's that this stuff didn't last long enough! I mean, between the two Bat-titles, it's been more than thirty issues since the election plot started, and a couple dozen issues since Thorne came back into the picture -- the equivalent of nearly three years and two years, respectively, of a single monthly title. Yet somehow it doesn't feel like we got enough of this stuff. That's probably due in part to the fact that I read all of it in a matter of a couple months, rather than the couple years over which it was originally published, but I also feel like there weren't enough check-ins with Thorne, Pauling, etc. along the way. I noted a while back that Thorne feels more like a plot device than a person in these stories, and I'd say the same about Pauling. Hill is the only one who seems somewhat fleshed out, given his early friendship with Bruce Wayne and the fact that he has, more than once, regretted throwing in with Thorne.

But if my only real issue is that we didn't get enough of this storyline, then it must have done something right! And with the return of Hugo Strange born from its ashes, I'm hopeful Conway won't lose any momentum as we move into the tail end of his run (there are only eleven issues in total, between both series, remaining).