BATMAN #357

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

The Plot: Batman takes down a gang of drug dealers and asks them who is taking over Gotham's mobs. The leader of the delears says that it's the Squid. Later, a mobster named Joey Taylor is cornered by a motorcycle gang looking to take over the mobs as well, but the Squid and his henchmen appear and save Taylor, sending the bikers into retreat. Meanwhile, Batman and Commissioner Gordon discuss the Squid's incursion.

At the Squid's aquarium hideout, he demonstrates to Gotham's assembled mob brass the price for failure to serve him by executing a gangster named Eddie Colson in a squid tank. Late that night, Batman meets with reported Olivia Ortega to hatch a plan to save Gotham's former top gangster, Tony Falco, from assassination at the Squid's hands. The next day, Ortega interviews Falco, who is subsequently sentenced to eighteen years in prison. But as soon as Falco is placed in a paddy wagon, the Squid breaks him out and takes him via speedboat to his hideout. But there, the Squid reveals he has deduced "Falco" is actually Batman in disguise. Squid's men gang up on Batman and knock him out, and when the Caped Crusader comes around, he is thrown into the squid tank.

Continuity Notes: Commissioner Gordon undergoes a physical exam at City Hall following his first thirty days back on the police force. The doctor orders Gordon to quit smoking and puts him on a diet, reminding him that he's not a young man anymore -- indeed, she lets us know that the commissioner is sixty years old.

Dick Grayson visits the circus again, following an adventure with the Teen Titans (footnoted to issue 28 of their title; the team's first encounter with Terra). Also at the circus is the mysterious Croc, who shakes down the owner for protection money. Meanwhile, Dick takes in the acrobatic show of the Todds, a father/mother/son team of trapeze artists.

Croc is also in attendance at the Squid's gang meeting, though he lurks in the crowd and does not speak.

My Thoughts: Everyone loves a good bookend, and Gerry Conway delivers one here, in the twilight of his two-and-a-half year run on BATMAN and DETECTIVE comics. Back in his very first issue, DETECTIVE #497, he introduced the Squid as a lisping spy, selling U.S. government secrets to foriegn powers. Now here, in the third-to-last month of his run, he brings the character back to match wits with Batman again. And where originally the Squid was played mostly for comic effect, here he's quite menacing and astute. He seized control of Gotham's mob, executes a rival, sees through Batman's disguise, and even captures the Dark Knight! Not bad.

My only issue is that thorughout the entire issue, everyone is talking about Tony Falco like he's someone we're supposed to know. We're told that the Gotham mobs are falling apart without Falco's uniting leadership, and that Batman recently brought Falco down. This feels like something we maybe should've seen happen. Even if it was just as a done-in-one story where Batman dethroned the reigning gangster a few months back, just to set the stage for this. As it is, a reader (or at least this reader) feels like they've missed something!

But I can see why Conway might not have wanted to do that, having just told the story of the fall of Rupert Thorne. Nonetheless, some sort of acknowledgment of this apparently major event in Gotham's underworld might've been nice to see!