DETECTIVE COMICS #520

"THE HAUNTING OF 'BOSS' THORNE"
Script Gerry Conway | Artists: Don Newton & Alfredo Alcala
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: On a stormy night, Rupert Thorne answers his townhouse door to find the corpse of Professor Hugo Strange, wearing a Batman costume, standing on his porch, threatening that he will kill Thorne. The apparition vanishes and Thorne quickly makes a phone call to Doctor Thirteen for help. Meanwhile, Batman meets with Jim Gordon, Jason Bard, and Vicki Vale. The detectives ask Vicki to show Batman her photo of Rupert Thorne from the night he confronted her late boss, Morton Monroe, shortly before Monroe killed himself.

The next day, Doctor Thirteen visits Thorne, who explains that Hugo Strange is haunting him. Meanwhile, Batman visits Gotham Prison to speak with Deadshot about the photos he was given that allegedly proved Batman was actually Bruce Wayne. But Deadshot instead tells Batman that the prison's warden is in cahoots with Commissioner Peter Pauling, and arranged for Deadshot's escape to go after Wayne, and that the warden is now under orders to kill both Deadshot and Batman. Batman and Deadshot team up to take out the guards and leave the prison. As the unlikely duo drives away in the Batmobile, Deadshot reveals that the Wayne photos were given to him by Pauling and Thorne. Batman knocks Deadshot out and drives him to the Batcave.

Elsewhere, Doctor Thirteen visits Greytowers, the clinic once run by Hugo Strange. He explores until he finds Strange's secret lab, where the ghost of the deceased professor appears to menace him. Back at Wayne Manor, Alfred is cleaning the Batcave when Batman arrives with Deadshot. Alfred directs Batman to the television, where Commissioner Pauling says that due to the prison break, Batman is now Public Enemy Number 1 -- which leads Batman to break out in a fit of laughter.

Continuity Notes: Lots of it here! This issue is basically the Cliffs Notes edition of the Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers run as it pertained to Rupert Thorne and Hugo Strange. Thorne describes to Thirteen how he had Hugo Strange beaten to death and how Strange's ghost subsequently haunted and nearly killed him -- though there are no footnotes. Later, Thirteen visits Strange's clinic from those issues.

The saga of the photos gets a couple footnotes as well, as Vicki recalls Deadshot's attack on Bruce Wayne in DETECTIVE COMICS #518, and Jason reacalls that in BATMAN #353, Arthur Reeves revealed he had received his doctored pictures from Thorne.

But otherwise there are no true sub-plots to speak of here, as the long-running Rupert Thorne saga takes over the main storyline.

My Thoughts: I don't know what's going on with this issue's cover. That man freaking out at the sight of Hugo Strange's ghost appears to be Commissioner Pauling, who has no interaction with the ghost and only appears on TV on the issue's final page. It could also be meant to represent Doctor Thirteen, who wears glasses too, but Thirteen doesn't dress like that, and when he encounters the ghost, it's a true ghostly apparition, and it happens in Strange's lab.

The only person in the issue who sees the ghost in the flesh, wearing a Batman costume, standing outside a doorway, is Rupert Thorne. So I don't know if Jim Aparo got the characters mixed up when he drew the cover (understandable since he's not the regular artist of either Batman series), or if the powers-that-be thought an old fat guy would somehow be less attention-grabbing than a younger thin guy with glasses, or what... but it's weird, because I don't feel like this is artistic license. What would be the purpose? Thorne's encounter with the ghost occurs on page 2; it's not like there was a late-issue surprise to spoil! And in any case, you're showing the ghost on the cover regardless, which would be both the biggest draw regardless of who sees it, and the biggest surprise as well (even if, again, it only happens on page 2)!

So exactly what's going on there will remain a mystery for the ages. But the good news is that it really doesn't matter, since what's under the cover is outstanding. There is, as noted above, a dearth of sub-plots at this point -- Conway's soap opera style plotting has fallen by the wayside, at least for now -- but in this particular moment, that doesn't matter, since the main storyline of the entire run is barreling toward its conclusion. As noted recently, the Thorne plot ties back to the election, which was Conway's very first sub-plot. So to see a payoff on the very near horizon is an exciting thing.