BATMAN #339

"A SWEET KISS OF POISON..."
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Irv Novick & Steve Mitchell
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Dick Giordano

The Plot: An exhausted Batman returns from a night of crime-fighting, with only a few hours to sleep before attending a Wayne Foundation board meeting as Bruce Wayne. After that meeting, Lucius Fox encourages Bruce to take a vacation, but the philanthropist refuses. Later, Bruce meets with mayoral candidate Hamilton Hill for lunch, in the middle of which a mystery woman kisses him, mistaking him for someone else. The woman leaves in a taxi, revealing herself to be Poison Ivy. She crosses Bruce's name off a list and prepares for her next target.

That night, Batman is about to thwart some smugglers at the waterfront when a sudden urge seizes him and he leaves, making his way to the Ambassador Hotel. There, he spots all the other members of the Wayne Foundation board waiting at the hotel entrance. Batman changes back to Bruce Wayne and joins his fellow board members in entering the hotel. Inside, Poison Ivy appears and explains that she drugged each of them with her kiss, and they will now obey her every command. Ivy orders the men to sign over the full assets of the Wayne Foundation to her, and one by one, they do so. She then orders them never to divulge what has happened. Most of the board members leave, but Bruce sneaks into the shadows and becomes Batman once more. However Poison Ivy is ready, and traps him with a choking vine, then escapes.

Batman returns to the Batcave to call Commissioner Gordon, but finds himself choking as he struggles to spit out the story of Poison Ivy.

DETECTIVE COMICS #506

"WHO DIES FOR THE MANIKIN?"
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Don Newton & Steve Mitchell
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Dick Giordano

The Plot: Ten months ago, Batman arrives at the scene of an auto wreck. He pulls the car's lone occupant free, but she is horrifically burnt and rushed to the Gotham Burn Center. In the present day, Bruce Wayne watches the news and then prepares for a night out. He and his date, Crystal, arrive at the trendy Studio 52 nightclub, where a woman strides in and murders fashion designer Kevin Clane in front of the club patrons. Bruce follows her out the back door and changes into Batman, then confronts her in an alleyway. But the woman disrobes to reveal herself as a golden "Manikin" and easly subdues Batman with super-strength. A mystery accomplice then helps Manikin escape.

Batman takes Manikin's discarded dress to Selina Kyle for identification. Selina tells him that the dress is the handiwork of one of Gotham's greatest designers, Mister Hoston. Batman heads to Hoston's office and as they speak, the place is firebombed. Batman gets Hoston out into his showroom, where he is attacked again by Manikin. As flames spread out of the office and into the showroom, Manikin again subdues Batman and then goes after Hoston.

Continuity Notes: As Bruce watches the news, he tells Alfred that he wants to catch up on what's been going on in Gotham while he was in Alaska last issue. He sees a debate between mayoral candidates Arthur Reeves and Hamilton Hill, with the former accusing Batman of unchecked vigilantism and promising to bring him to justice, while Hill is more interested in a recent spike in police shootings, for which he plans to demand Commissioner Gordon's resignation if elected. (And again, in today's climate, it feels kind of weird that the story wants us to root against Hill over this!)

BATMAN #338

"THIS SPORTING DEATH!"
Script: Gerry Conway | Plot Assist: Roy Thomas
Artists: Irv Novick & Frank McLaughlin
Letters: John Costanza | Colos: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Dick Giordano

The Plot: Late at night on the field of Gotham Stadium, a man in sports gear kills a sportswriter named Hank Klugmann. Later, Commissioner Gordon calls Batman to assist with the investigation, which is the latest in a series of sports-related murders. The next morning, Bruce Wayne inspects the field in the daylight, but finds no leads. Later that night, the Batman stakes out a Sunday Night Hockey game. The mysterious "Sportsman" skates onto the ice and blows up star player Pierre Foote with an exploding basketball. Batman chases the Sportsman out of the arena, but the villain escapes by throwing a razor-edged tennis raquet at the Caped Crusader.

The next day, Bruce Wayne visits Gotham's Sports World Mall, looking for leads on the raquet. As he asks a saleswoman about it, a shop buyer named Martin Mantle makes a break for it. Bruce follows, but loses Mantle. He changes to Batman and finds the Sportsman terrorizing the mall patrons. Batman falls into a pitching machine's net, and elicits a confession from the Sportsman -- he was an unathletic child, and his father, a sports physician, concocted a formula to make an athlete of anyone. He injected young Mantle with the formula, and the boy grew up to become a sports star, dominating every school and collegiate sport in which he participated. But eventually he learned that the formula in his veins was killing him, and he became the Sportsman to take revenge on all the sporting world.

Batman then triggers the pitching machine, which launches a ball at Mantle. Briefly stunned, the Sportsman is easily dispatched by Batman and arrested by the police.

BATMAN #337

"WHERE WALKS A SNOWMAN"
Script Gerry Conway | Plot Assist: Roy Thomas
Pencils: Jose Garcia-Lopez | Inks: Steve Mitchell
Letters: John Costanza | Colors: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Dick Giordano

The Plot: Batman arrives at a sporting good store to help the police apprehend a hoodlum holed up inside. When Batman enters the store, he finds the crook babbling about his friend Jackie. Batman captures the criminal, but also finds Jackie -- frozen solid. Soon, in Commissioner Gordon's office, Batman and Gordon go over the crook's statement: he and Jackie had broken into the store, but Jackie was attacked by a man of snow. Batman leaves police headquarters and returns to Bruce Wayne's penthouse, where a party is in full swing. Among the guests is renowned skiier Klaus Kristin, who arrived while Batman was out, and who Bruce now observes has wet shoes.

The next day, the Snowman breaks into a jewelry store while Batman investigates Kristin's hotel room nearby. He finds and pockets a diary, then leaves when he hears an alarm from the store. But the Snowman has escaped before Batman arrives. Later, Batman and Alfred go through the diary, written by Kristin'a mother, Katrina, in the fifties. It details how she was hiking with friends in the Himalayas and got separated from them. A man found her and took care of her in a cave, and in the darkness they succumbed to their passion together. But the next morning, Katrina saw the man's face by the light of the fire -- he was a yeti. When she was found later on, Katrina was completely insane.

Having deduced Kristin's next destination, Bruce Wayne travels to Austria. He plants the diary in Kristin's room with a note requesting a meeting that night on Summit Peak. When midnight comes, the Snowman attacks Batman on the peak, explaining during their fight that he robs in order to finance his globe-trotting ski trips, since he must remain in the cold whenever he can. Then the brief fight ends, when Batman blinds the Snowman with a flare, and the creature slips and falls off the mountain to his apparent death.

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.