DETECTIVE COMICS #426, #429, & #435

"KILLER'S ROULETTE!" | "MAN-BAT OVER VEGAS!"
"MASTER CRIME-FILE OF JASON BARD: CASE OF THE DEAD-ON TARGET!"
Story & Art by: Frank Robbins

And now the actual, honest-to-goodness conclusion to my look at "Batman in the Seventies", featuring Frank Robbins' final three stories as writer/artist. The first of these is by far my favorite: "Killer's Roulette" sees Batman investigating a string of suicides. Three of Gotham's wealthy citizens have killed themselves with a bullet to the head, and the Caped Crusader wants to know why. Batman goes undercover as a high roller at an offshore casino, where he meets a man named Conway Treach, who challenges him to the biggest game of chance anyone can ever play: Russian Roulette.

Batman and Treach head to Treach's cabin, where the villain explains the rules of his challenge: they will each write out a suicide note, then begin their game with a single bullet in Treach's revolver. After each pull of the trigger, one bullet will be added, until one of them dies -- at which point the survivor will take his own note and depart. At this point Batman reveals his true identity to Treach, but insists on playing the game anyway, and this is where Robbins' already excellent artwork becomes brilliant, as he captures the intensity on each man's face with every pull of the trigger, until Batman finally emerges victorious, deducing that Treach has a trick gun which will never kill him.

Even though this story's subject matter would never have cleared broadcast censors for a kids' show in 1992 (or today), I can't help feeling it would have been a really great adaptation into an episode of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES. I can't really explain why, but something about it just feels like a B:TAS story.

DETECTIVE COMICS #416, #420, & #421

Surprise! Oh man, you should see the look on your face! We're not quite done with "Batman in the Seventies" after all. See, about seven months ago, in my look at DETECTIVE COMICS #429, I said:

"I should note that if I could, I'd look at all of the half-dozen or so Batman stories [Frank] Robbins drew, but over all these years, so far as I can see, DC has only ever collected "Man-Bat Over Vegas", which was in THE GREATEST BATMAN STORIES EVER TOLD. Anyone else up for a TALES OF THE BATMAN: FRANK ROBBINS book??"

Well, DC hasn't published such a tome, but at some point after I typed those fateful words, they did release all six of writer/artist Robbins' Bat-stories to Comixology. I bought them in a DC sale a few months back, and I've been saving them for now. I simply wouldn't have felt this retrospective was complete if I didn't write about these tales, knowing they were out there. Plus, two posts to cover these issues will take us right up to the end of the year, so the timing works out perfectly.

So, without further ado...

BATMAN #335

"ASHES TO ASHES!"
Writer: Marv Wolfman | Artists: Irv Novick & Frank McLaughlin
Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Letterer: Ben Oda | Editor: Paul Levitz

"The Lazarus Affair" -- and our overall look at Batman in the Seventies -- concludes with the May, 1981 issue of BATMAN. On Infinity Island, the Caped Crusader is offered a chance to join Ra's al Ghul, and -- after weighing the options -- he agrees.

But of course, Batman is bluffing. The funny thing is that everyone goes along with this in their own ways, but they all know it's a sham. Ra's al Ghul welcomes Batman into the family and sends him off with Talia for a tour of the island, then confides in his chief scientist that he knows Batman's agreement is insincere. Robin puts on a show of feeling betrayed, but secretly receives hand signals from Batman that let him know the Dark Knight is simply buying time. Even King Farady, who throws a punch at Batman over his betrayal, does it for show, as he also catches the hand signals, and even though he doesn't know what they mean, he understands this is a ruse.

So surely Batman, the world's greatest detective, must realize that no one believes him. Yet for whatever reason, everybody plays along... until they decided they're finished. For al Ghul, it happens when Talia escorts Batman into a room containing the Lazarus Pit. He decides at this point to go beat Batman up and turn him into a mutate. For Robin, Faraday, and Catwoman, it happens after they've been escorted back to the slave mines. Robin randomly decides that Batman needs them, so the group breaks free -- again -- and returns to the dome -- again -- to help Batman. From a story perspective, none of this seems to make any sense. We could've jumped straight from the opening page to al Ghul knocking Batman out and his friends fighting on his behalf -- but Wolfman needs to squeeze in some exposition, so he uses Batman's transparent ploy to work it in.

BATMAN #333 & #334

"THE CHINA SYNDROME!"
Writer: Marv Wolfman | Artists: Irv Novick & Frank McLaughlin
Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Letterer: Ben Oda | Editor: Paul Levitz

As with the previous issue in the "Lazarus Affair" saga, BATMAN 333 begins with a one-page prologue -- this time it's a mysterious white-haired man in Nepal, listening for a signal from somewhere. And, for the first time in ten years, he receives it.

We then jump to Switzerland, where Batman is impersonating Gregorian Falstaff's right-hand man, Karlyle Krugerrand, in an attempt to gain access to Falstaff's safety deposit box. But the disguise is penetrated, and the Caped Crusader finds himself on the run from several agents of Falstaff's mysterious master. It becomes immediately clear in the subsequent pages that "The Lazarus Affair" is, at least in part, Marv Wolfman's tribute to the classic James Bond movies. Because if Bond winds up in Switzerland (or really, any exotic, snowy locale), it's pretty much guaranteed that he'll get involved in a high-speed ski chase -- which is exactly what happens here to Batman.

The Darknight Detective is shot in the arm, but nonetheless manages to elude his pursuers and meet up with Talia at their shared hotel suite. But when he changes to Bruce Wayne and attempts a romantic dinner with his traveling companion, he's attacked again -- suggesting that his enemies know his secret identity. So with dinner ruined, Bruce and Talia instead return to their room to knock boots before departing the next morning in a small plane for Hong Kong to meet with another contact, Feng-Wei. But after sneaking to the island through China, Bruce leaves Talia behind for this new rendezvous -- and is immediately captured by a sinister sea captain.

BATMAN #332

"THE LAZARUS AFFAIR: FALLOUT!"
Writer: Marv Wolfman | Artists: Irv Novick & Frank McLaughlin
Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Letterer: Ben Oda | Editor: Paul Levitz

After a brief prologue that we'll look at in a moment, this week's BATMAN installments begin where last week's ended -- with Robin storming out of the Batcave after Batman has agreed to allow Talia to stay there. But Batman soon leaves his love behind to go investigate Gregorian Falstaff, and we learn some tidbits I don't think Len Wein intended when he created the character: specifically, that Falstaff was virtually unknown before three years ago, when he made all his money, and that he is operating as a front for someone else. This is confirmed a scene or two later, when Falstaff himself refers to a mysterious "master" while chatting with his lieutenant, Karlyle Krugerrand.

Batman deduces that Falstaff has been getting intel on Wayne Enterprises from Bruce Wayne's secretary, Caroline Crowne. The Caped Crusader payes Crowne a visit and saves her from being roughed up by a "mutate" on Falstaff's payroll. Crowne admits that she's only been spying on Bruce because Falstaff is holding her daughter hostage. Batman changes to Bruce and visits Falstaff, where he learns that the villain is seizing Wayne properties left and right. Later, back at the Batcave, Talia sedates Batman, but as she leaves to carry out a mysterious errand, she fails to realize he's still conscious.

BATMAN #330 & #331

"TARGET!" | "CLOSED CIRCUIT!"
Writer: Marv Wolfman | Dialogue: Michael Fleisher (issue 331)
Penciler: Irv Novick | Inkers: Vince Colletta (issue 330 & Frank McLaughlin (issue 331)
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Paul Levitz

And now we rejoin our story, already in progress... or so it seems when one dives into this issue. Don't get me wrong -- the story begins cleanly, with a setup introduced on the first page (specifically, a crook Batman sent up the river years ago is scheduled to be executed the next day, so he puts out a bounty -- he will pay ten million dollars in gold to anyone who can off Batman before he dies). But in terms of sub-plots, something's a bit off. Robin arrives early on to assist Batman in avoiding the various assassins who are now gunning for him. So far, so good -- until suddenly, Batman gives his partner the cold shoulder, and Robin realizes it's because this is the first time they've interacted since he announced that he was dropping out of college.

Now, look -- we haven't been reading every Batman-related story that came out around this time. Yes, we've covered BATMAN consistently; every issue dating back nearly two years now. And we've looked at a lot of consecutive DETECTIVE COMICS issues as well... but only the main stories. Both these series ran backup features, off-and-on, usually starring Robin and Batgirl. And I have to assume that Robin dropped out in one of those -- which is fine! But what strikes me odd about this is that Wolfman's script mentions it casually, almost in passing, as if we're supposed to know about it. And to the reader of 1980/81, that may well have been the case -- but you can't assume that all readers have been picking up every issue of every comic.

BATMAN #328 & #329

"DOUBLE JEOPARDY!" | "TWICE DIES THE BATMAN!"
Writer: Marv Wolfman | Artists: Irv Novick & Frank McLaughlin
Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Letterer: Ben Oda | Editor: Paul Levitz

Look up top for a second, will you? No, not at the writing credit, which tells us that Marv Wolfman is now aboard as BATMAN's regular writer (for eight issues, anyway). Check out those story titles: "Double Jeopardy!" "Twice Dies the Batman!" Yep, you guessed it -- not only is Marv here, but Two-Face came with him! And on top of that, Wolfman is using these stories for a bit of a deep-dive into Batman's lore, which is always nice to see.

We begin in the Batcave, as Batman is taunted by a video message from Carl Ternion, who was recently tried and found not guilty of murder, but who -- in his message -- now brags to Batman that he did commit the crime. Protected by "double jeopardy" laws, he can never be tried for that crime again, but Batman nonetheless sets out to get to the bottom of Ternion's confession. As he investigates, the Darknight Detective finds that Ternion is dating Gilda Stevens, the ex-wife of Two-Face, who was recently widowed when her second husband, David, was murdered.

So here's the thing: Wolfman plays this as a mystery, but it really isn't one. Besides big clue in the title above, Ternion is depicted several times throughout part one with half his face obscured, or split down the middle through some means such as the divider between window panes as he looks outside. Combined with the fact that he's dating Harvey Dent's ex and has killed the man who murdered her husband (who was Harvey's former assistant when he was district attorney), it's quite obvious that Ternion is Two-Face in disguise.

DETECTIVE COMICS #494, #495, & #496

Way back in January of 2014, before this blog was even a year old, I read the 1970s WRATH OF THE SPECTRE series by Michael Fleischer and Jim Aparo. (Part 1 | Part 2). When I was done with those issues, I realized I had a few DETECTIVE COMICS Batman stories by Fleischer handy as well, in the pages of TALES OF THE BATMAN: DON NEWTON -- so I read and wrote about them as well, as sort of a bonus.

Well, as it happens, those issues were published in late 1980, overlapping with the BATMAN issues we'll be reading over the next couple weeks. So, for your pleasure, here's a post from the earliest days of NOT A HOAX!:

BATMAN BY MICHAEL FLEISHER: DETECTIVE COMICS #494, 495, 496

And with that, our two weeks of "reprint" posts come to an end. Next week, in the first pair of our final eight issues in this retrospective, Marv Wolfman comes aboard BATMAN to wrap up Len Wein's dangling plots, as the Caped Crusader goes up against Two-Face.

THE UNTOLD LEGEND OF THE BATMAN

In 1980, concurrent with the end of his run on BATMAN, Len Wein wrote a limited series called THE UNTOLD LEGEND OF THE BATMAN. Its framing sequence was a mystery set in the ongoing continuity, but the true purpose of the series was to sort through the then-nearly fifty years of Batman's history and hammer all the bits and pieces into a single solidified backstory.

At the end of 2017, with some time to kill (ahh, those were the days), I decided to read UNTOLD LEGEND and write about it here. And since it fits in perfectly with the "Batman in the Seventies" retrospective I've been running here all year, I figure now is a good time to "reprint" the post for your enjoyment:

THE UNTOLD LEGEND OF THE BATMAN #1 - #3

Give it a whirl (and while doing so, remember that it was written more than a year before I even decided to read the full Wein run over these past months), and next week we'll look at one more "reprint" post before jumping back into the ongoing Batman saga.

BATMAN #326 & #327

"THIS WAY LIES MADNESS!" | "ASYLUM SINISTER!"
Writer: Len Wein | Artists: Irv Novick & Frank McLaughlin | Colorist: Adrienne Roy
Letterers: John Costanza (issue 326) & Ben Oda (issue 327) | Editor: Paul Levitz

Len Wein's run on BATMAN comes to an end with these two issues, and while not as strong as last week's Catwoman/Cat-Man saga, the story here isn't too bad. We open with Selina leaving Gotham City. After everyone immediately thought the worst of her when the Egyptian cat exhibit was stolen, she's decided she can't live (or love) among people who inherently don't trust her. After she departs, an angst-ridden Batman goes on patrol and stops a robbery, but the suspect escapes. However, Batman recognizes him as "Mad Dog" Markham, a criminal who should be incarcerated at Arkham Asylum. Batman visits Police Headquarters and learns of Commissioner Gordon's encounter last issue with the apparent work of "Kid Gloves" McConnell, another Arkham inmate.

Deciding that something is rotten in the asylum, Batman goes undercover as a crook named "Shank" Taylor and gets himself committed. Inside, he learns that the asylum is now being run by his old enemy Professor Milo. Batman eventually gets the better of Milo, and the sinister doctor is driven mad himself thanks to exposure to a special chemical he had prepared for the Caped Crusader.

Wein must be a fan of Milo; this is the second time we've seen him use the character (the first was in "Moon of the Wolf", and Milo here is scarred down the side of his face from his encounter with the werewolf he created in that tale). Considering Wein was born in 1948 and Milo debuted in 1957's DETECTIVE COMICS #247, that's not a surprise -- he probably had some childhood memories attached to that issue. Who knows; maybe it was his first Batman comic!

BATMAN #323 & #324

"SHADOW OF THE CAT!" | "THE CAT WHO WOULD BE KING!"
Writer: Len Wein | Artists: Irv Novick & Bob Smith
Colorist: Glynis Wein | Letterer: Ben Oda | Editor: Paul Levitz

We're entering the final stretch of Len Wein's run on BATMAN today. These two issues, plus the two we'll look at next week, mark his final four installment of the Caped Crusader's monthly adventures. And, at least based on these two, it seems like he wants to go out on a high note. "Shadow of the Cat!" and "The Cat Who Would be King!" are some of Wein's strongest stories out of his entire two-year run on the title, plus they resolve the ongoing sub-plot of Selina Kyle's headaches.

As we learned last week, the headaches were actually the final stage of some exotic virus Selina contracted during her days as Catwoman. She found out that the ancient Egyptians had cured the disease centuries ago, and not long after, a figure dressed as a cat was seen stealing some Egyptian artifacts from Gotham's Riverside Museum. This story opens later that same night, as Batman arrives at Selina's apartment to arrest her for the crime. But Selina professes her innocence and escapes. The next day, she shows up at the Wayne Foundation in costume as Catwoman to make her case to Bruce, but when he suggests she turn herself in and let the law sort things out, she runs again. Eventually Catwoman gets a lead on the stolen artifacts, while Batman shadows her. The pair winds up in some caverns that were once used by bootleggers to smuggle liquor into Gotham. Batman finally believes Catwoman is innocent, but before the two can make amends, they're captured by the villainous Cat-Man.

DETECTIVE COMICS #489, #490, & #491

"WHEN STRIKE THE ASSASSINS" | "REQUIEM FOR A MARTYR"
Writer: Denny O'Neil | Artists: Don Newton & Dan Adkins
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Paul Levitz

Denny O'Neil brings his 1979-80 League of Assassins saga to its conclusion in these two issues. Interestingly, it seems DETECTIVE #489 must have devoted most of its space to other features, because "When Strike the Assassins" runs a mere ten pages in length... and I have to say, the story is better for it! Something about this length works for O'Neil here; he cuts the fat and gets right to the point: Batman learns a geologist is in danger, goes out, and rescues him. That's it. It's short and sweet, but it feels more like an early seventies Batman outing from O'Neil (something he might've produced with Irv Novick, for example) than the stuff we've been seeing lately.

The next issue, however, features a full-length twenty-two page story to wrap things up -- and maybe it's because he's finally bringing an end to this League of Assassins epic that began several months back, but for whatever reason, O'Neil is again firing on (nearly) all cylinders here. The geology connection, combined with one or two other clues, leads Batman to realize that the League plans to create an earthquake which will destroy Gotham City's Matthews Estate, where several of the world's top religious leaders have gathered for a conference. Batman leaps into action and defeats the League and its master, the Sensei, saving most of the leaders. Ra's al Ghul then arrives to take the Sensei into custody, but when Batman refuses to give him up, Talia tranquilizes her love and drags him away, allowing al Ghul and Sensei alike to be consumed by the destruction of the (now evacuated) estate.

The story ends with Batman recuperating under Talia's care in a cabin somewhere, as she convinces him to set aside his mission for one day and relax. In his afterword to BATMAN: TALES OF THE DEMON, O'Neil notes that this coda almost reads as if he'd planned it from the start, with al Ghul seemingly dead and Batman and Talia together at last. And this may well be what O'Neil intended as his final word on Ra's al Ghul; he would not write the character again for a number of years. But, as we'll soon see, other writers would keep the character in circulation, as they did in the mid-seventies, while O'Neil stepped away.

BATMAN #319, #321, AND #322

Writer: Len Wein | Colorist: Glynis Wein | Letterer: Ben Oda
Editor: Paul Levitz

"NEVER GIVE UP THE GHOST!"
Artists: Irv Novick & Bob Smith

Gentleman Ghost's turn against Batman in issue 310 must have been well received by fandom -- or at least, Len Wein must have enjoyed writing it -- because here we are nine months later with a rematch between the two. This time, Batman thwarts the Ghost and his gang from stealing some diamonds in the issue's opening pages, and then when they try again the next night, they capture the Caped Crusader before departing to steal some jewels from a party at Wayne Manor. But Batman gets free, heads home, and stops the Ghost yet again -- though the villain escapes in the end.

It's a little weird to see Wein returning to the exact same well as the last time he used Gentleman Ghost, sending him yet again to Wayne Manor. But perhaps there's some reason for this. Maybe Wein wanted to establish some connection between the Ghost and Bruce Wayne's ancestral home. But this is Wein's final outing with Gentleman Ghost, so we'll never know. (Another unsolved mystery is the fact that Batman explicitly notes in the opening scene that the Ghost is trying to steal "crude industrial diamonds" rather than some nicer jewelry. It seems unlikely Wein would've mentioned this unless he intended it to go someplace.)

In sub-plot land, Bruce talks about how happy he is to be back at Wayne Manor for this party, and considers that he may be seeing a lot more of the place in the near future. I'm pretty sure I've read that it was actually Gerry Conway, in his run that followed Wein's, who actually moved Batman back to his mansion, but I guess Wein is planting the seeds for that move here. And besides the potential move for our hero, we also find that his secret identity may be in jeopardy, as, at the party, Lucius Fox and Selina Kyle make up and then begin discussing Bruce's frequent disappearances.

DETECTIVE COMICS #486 & #487

"MURDER BY THUNDERBOLT" | "THE PERILS OF SERGIUS"
Writer: Denny O'Neil | Artists: Don Newton & Dan Adkins
Letterers: John Workman (issue 486) & Milt Snappin (issue 487)
Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Paul Levitz

Two more issues of DETECTIVE COMICS mean two more stories from Denny O'Neil, which -- circa late 1979/early 1980 -- mean Batman is going up against Maxie Zeus and the League of Assassins, respectively, again.

The first of these two stories, in issue 486, isn't half-bad. In fact, the opening is the sort of pulpy sequence O'Neil would have produced with Neal Adams a decade earlier: a skydiver jumps out of a plane, but he lands as a skeleton. Batman, who was on the scene as Bruce Wayne and changed into costume when the skydiver's parachute didn't deploy, watches as the skeleton then spontaneously combusts. Had Adams drawn this scene, it would have meant the promise of another masterpiece from him and O'Neil. But, much as I like Don Newton, he's no Neal Adams -- and the story that follows never quite lives up to its opening scene.

We follow Batman from this point as he investigates the strange death and learns that Maxie Zeus was behind it. Zeus, incarcerated at Arkham Asylum, is still insane, and is now predicting how some of his former associates will meet their ends. The mystery turns out to be twofold: how did a skydiver turn into a skeleton in midair, and who is carrying out these killings on Zeus's behalf? Unfortunately, the solutions to both questions are quite easy to discern -- the skydiver was already dead and a skeleton was simply dropped out of the plane (which is basically what Newton's art makes us see from the start), and the killer is the most obvious choice.

BATMAN #317 & #318

"THE 1,001 CLUE CAPER or WHY DID THE RIDDLER CROSS THE ROAD?"
"MY CITY BURNS AT BOTH ENDS -- IT WILL NOT LAST THE NIGHT!"
Writer: Len Wein | Artists: Irv Novick & Frank McLaughlin
Colorist: Glynis Wein | Letterer: Ben Oda | Editor: Julius Schwartz

BATMAN 317 picks up where issue 316 ended, with Batman and Robin wrapping up the Crazy Quilt caper at Gotham Police Headquarters. Their next case begins immediately as Batman receives a parcel care of the police -- a book of riddles from the Riddler. The Dynamic Duo head home so Bruce Wayne can tend to the day-to-day operations of his company, while Robin does some investigate legwork. Eventually the heroes figure out the Riddler has gotten into the lucrative game of selling guns to foreign powers, and shut him down at Gotham's waterfront.

Along the way, Bruce makes up (and makes out) with Selina Kyle following their argument a couple issues back, while Lucius Fox continues to worry over his upcoming meeting with Bruce's reclusive rival, Gregorian Falstaff. And then , in a glorious half-page panel to close out the issue, Lucius comes face-to-face with the gluttonous Falstaff.

I'm not sure what it is about this one that speaks to me... maybe it's as simple as the inclusion of the Riddler, who has long been one of my favorite Batman villains, and who has gotten pretty short shrift in these 1970s stories we've been examining. This is by no means the Riddler's first appearance of the decade, but it is the first time we've looked at a comic featuring him.

BATMAN #315 & #316

"DANGER ON THE WING!" | "COLOR ME DEADLY!"
Writer: Len Wein | Artists: Irv Novick & Frank McLaughlin
Colorist: Glynis Wein | Letterer: Ben Oda | Editor: Paul Levitz

BATMAN 315 continues Len Wein's string of sub-par one-off adventures, padded by slow-moving sub-plots. This time, Batman goes up against Kite-Man, stopping the obscure villain from stealing the final day's payroll of Trans-Atlantic Airways, an airline moving out of Gotham City. It's a pretty lame story that would fit in nicely among Batman's TV episodes, but it really doesn't fit the Darknight Detective. Plus, the plot is similar in some ways to the Calendar Man story Wein just wrote a couple months earlier.

The sub-plots do a bit to elevate this one, but not by much. We get a brief appearance from Selina Kyle, who confronts Bruce Wayne about his digging up dirt on her. She's none too pleased about it, and throws a drink in Bruce's face, then leaves their lunch date in a huff. And then there's Lucius Fox, who thinks a bit about his son, Tim, before he's accosted by Karlyle Krugerrand, right-hand man to Gregorian Falstaff. It seems Falstaff wants a meeting with Lucius, and seeing an opportunity to learn a bit about his boss's rival, Lucius agrees to this proposal.

...Then he heads over to Wayne Foundation and nearly tells Bruce about the upcoming meeting, but changes his mind at the last minute and decides to keep his boss in the dark -- I assume to give him plausible deniability, though it comes across here as Lucius simply making a dumb decision, as he did last issue when he blabbed to Selina about the dossier he had compiled on her. I can see that Wein is trying to lace his stories with soap opera angst and intrigue, but the problem is that for whatever reason, he's not very good at it!

DETECTIVE COMICS #483 - 485

"THE CURSE OF CRIME ALLEY" | "ASSAULT ON OLYMPUS!"
Writer: Denny O'Neil | Artists: Don Newton & Dan Adkins
Letterers: Todd Klein (issue 483) & Gaspar Saladino (issue 484)
Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Julius Schwartz

Meanwhile, in the pages of DETECTIVE COMICS... not much has changed since last we checked in. Dennis O'Neil is still writing it and Julius Schwartz is still editing it. But we do have a new art team, and a pretty dynamic one to boot: Don Newton on pencils with Dan Adkins supplying inks.

I mentioned last week that Paul Levitz had taken over editorship of BATMAN, but I don't think I said that Schwartz had remained on DETECTIVE. I find it noteworthy that this is the second time in the seventies that Schwartz has had one of the two Bat-titles removed from his purview (not counting THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, which he never edited to begin with). Previously, he lost DETECTIVE COMICS to Archie Goodwin, and now it's BATMAN to Levitz. I guess it's not that I'm confused as to why a title was transplanted from one editorial office to another; that's bound to happen now and then. But I am curious as to why, in both cases, one of the two Batman books was moved. Why not both?

Anyway! DETECTIVE 483 and 484 introduce us to one of Batman's most storied foes, the gang leader who fancies himself a Greek god in mortal flesh, Maxie Zeus. As we'll see in upcoming installments, O'Neil seemed pretty intent on making Zeus the next Ra's al Ghul (Batman even compares his cunning to al Ghul's at one point), and out of the five more O'Neil-written issues we're going to look at after this post before our retrospective is done, three will feature Zeus as the villain. In fact, counting this post, that's eight O'Neil stories with Zeus featuring into five (and al Ghul in all of the other three)!

BATMAN #312 - 314

"A CAPER A DAY KEEPS THE BATMAN AT BAY!"
Writer: Len Wein | Artists: Walt Simonson & Dick Giordano
Colorist: Glynis Wein | Letterer: Ben Oda | Editor: Paul Levitz

Beginning this month, longtime editor Julius Schwartz is off BATMAN, replaced by Paul Levitz. I once read, years ago, that Levitz came in and upended Len Wein's plan for the series, demanding that every issue feature a costumed villain, and that the stories be mostly self-contained. I'm not certain of the truth of this rumor, though. Wein certainly will go on to use super-villains pretty much exclusively for the remainder of his run, but he had already been doing it from the moment he started! The only exception was his inaugural installment, issue 307, which featured a serial killer. But since then, it's been Mr. Freeze, Blockbuster, and Gentleman Ghost -- and prior to that, in his two-part DETECTIVE COMICS story, he introduced a new Clayface!

Plus, the storylines will not be self-contained going forward. We have a few two-parters on the way, and Marvel-style sub-plots will continue to be the norm throughout the entire run. So I really don't know where that rumor came from -- I honestly can't recall where I read it, since it was probably ten years ago at this point -- but I felt it was worth mentioning for posterity.

Now, on with the stories at hand. We begin with one that featured in THE GREATEST BATMAN STORIES EVER TOLD, though I've never quite been certain why. It follows a week in Batman's life as he battles the nefarious Calendar Man, failing to thwart him at every turn until Sunday rolls around, when the Caped Crusader finally gets his act together and brings the bad guy to justice. I feel like there are much stronger Wein-written stories that could've made their way into GREATEST STORIES, so the only reason I can imagine for its inclusion over anything else is that it features artwork from Walter Simonson -- back to form following those two horrid issues he contributed to Steve Englehart's DETECTIVE run a couple years earlier.

BATMAN #309 & #310

"HAVE YOURSELF A DEADLY LITTLE CHRISTMAS!"
"THE GHOST WHO HAUNTED BATMAN"
Writer: Len Wein
Artists (issue 309): John Calnan & Frank McLaughlin
Artists (issue 310): Irv Novick & Dick Giordano
Colorist: Glynis Wein | Letterer: Ben Oda | Editor: Julius Schwartz

Picking up from the final scene of the prior issue, BATMAN #311 opens with the Blockbuster, Batman's Hulk-like villain, beating up some purse snatchers and then departing to return the purse to its owner. Meanwhile, Batman and Commissioner Gordon exchange Christmas gifts. But when they find that a desk sergeant is on the phone with a girl attempting suicide-by-sleeping pills, Batman departs in a hurry to find her. It turns out she's the victim of the purse-snatch, and Blockbuster finds her before Batman. The girl faints from the bottle of pills, Blockbuster takes her away to find help.

Naturally, this leads to Batman and Blockbuster crossing paths a few times, and while Blockbuster wants to help the girl, he refuses to let Batman take her to a hospital, since -- following his "death" at STAR Labs last issue -- he believes hospitals hurt people. Nonetheless, when their chase takes them out onto a frozen lake that cracks apart, Blockbuster throws the girl into Batman's arms as he sinks into the water of Gotham Bay. Batman gets the girl to an ambulance and her life is saved.

This is the kind of story where you honestly don't know which way it will go. We're so deep into the Bronze Age at this point, that there's just as good a chance the girl could die as there is that Batman could save her -- which gives the story an air of suspense that might otherwise have been missing were it published a few years earlier. There are no sub-plots in this one, either -- it's wall-to-wall Batman vs. Blockbuster action, which is always a nice change of pace in any sub-plot heavy series. Though I sometimes complain that such issues are "filler" without any sub-plots, in this case, for whatever reason, it doesn't feel that way.

BATMAN #307 & #308

"DARK MESSENGER OF MERCY!"
"THERE'LL BE A COLD TIME IN THE OLD TOWN TONIGHT!"
Writer: Len Wein | Artists: John Calnan & Dick Giordano
Colorist: Glynis Wein | Letterer: Ben Oda | Editor: Julius Schwartz

As mentioned a couple weeks back, from this point forward, we'll be seeing a lot of Len Wein. He wrote BATMAN for nearly two years, covering issues 307 through 327. His run begins inauspiciously, though, with "Dark Messenger of Mercy". It seems (as glimpsed briefly in Wein's framing sequence to DETECTIVE COMICS #477), someone is wandering around, murdering Gotham City's vagrants and leaving gold coins to cover their closed eyes. Batman of course gets involved, visits Commissioner Gordon, meets a homeless community living beneath Gotham, and ultimately brings the killer to justice.

Wein throws in a twist and has Batman use some legitimate detective work to solve the case, so those are a couple of pluses in this tale's favor -- but overall, it's just kind of boring. It feels like a sub-par done-in-one from the early part of the seventies; something Denny O'Neil or Frank Robbins would've produced with the help of Bob Brown or Irv Novick. In fact, the only thing that helps this issue to not feel like such a one-off is Wein's introduction of a sub-plot. Specifically, Bruce Wayne learns in the story's opening pages that reclusive billionaire Gregorian Falstaff has bought Gotham's Ambassador Hotel and moved himself into the upper floors. The Falstaff plot will sporadically carry on (and on, and on) for the entirety of Wein's run, and not even be resolved until his successor, Marv Wolfman, takes over writing chores on BATMAN!

Bruce learns about Falstaff from his newly introduced right-hand man, a Wayne Foundation executive named Lucius Fox. Fox, here in his very first appearance, will prove to be Wein's most enduring contribution to Batman's mythos, appearing in several movie and TV spinoffs beginning somewhere around the early nineties with BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES. He was, of course, famously portrayed by Morgan Freeman in Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" trilogy in the mid-00s.