It's not exactly an original premise, but it certainly isn't the norm for comic books.

Honestly, considering that O'Neil was homaging the world's greatest mystery writer, queen of the totally warranted surprise twist, I was expecting the doctor himself to have been the one who hired the gunmen -- a good man the world had turned insane, intentionally creating this predicament so that Batman could fight to save his soul by uncovering his villainy. I was really disappointed when the story didn't go this way.



For me, it just felt too rushed. This story really felt like it was missing two pages, that triumphant final outcome seeming to come just a little too soon. I wasn't ready for it.


I respect and enjoyed the story overall, just not as much as you did.

Just be glad (and given the schlock they have done, I'm surprised it hasn't come up) they haven't had it turn out to be that Thomas or Martha set the whole thing up as a murder/suicide, because the other was having an affair.

In the first volume of the Tales of the Shadowmen pulp anthologies, there is an interesting story, where Thomas and Martha Wayne are in France and run into Judex, the cloaked avenger who predated the Shadow. Martha is infatuated with one Kent Allard and the Gotham Girasol has been stolen. Lots of twists and turns, set up the future of two heroes.

It wasn't exactly the first time Batman had encountered an ape, of course.

Detective Comics #482 (March 1979)



Big changes once again with this issue. Two months out from the DC Implosion, the newly merged Batman Family/Detective Comics has fallen under the editorship of Paul Levitz, and he does not appear to be a fan of Bob Rozakis. Man-Bat is (thankfully) gone as of this issue, and the interior cover hints that Levitz has already chosen a replacement for Rozakis on the Batgirl and Robin solo features who will be taking over with issue #484:



Additionally, we've got a new The Demon feature for the next few issues, The Human Target (clearly a casualty of the implosion) coming up soon, and even a Bat-Mite feature in this issue that might well prove to be the highlight of Bob Rozakis' entire career.



Batman: "Night of the Body Snatcher!"

Script: Jim Starlin
Pencils: Jim Starlin (layouts)
Inks: P. Craig Russell (finished art)
Colors: Tatjana Wood
Letters: Karen Kish (as Karisha)

Grade: C

Pacing continues to be an issue for Starlin in the second part of his Batman vs. a talking ape story. We spend pages upon pages on explanations and unnecessary dialogue once more, only to finally get a brief and relatively forgettable battle between Batman and the ape:




Though Russell and Wood do pour on the mood at times:




but even that can't save the battle we've waited FAR too many pages to see from culminating with a random security guard firing a single bullet that somehow instantly kills the ape:




It's so thoroughly disappointing. And yet it somehow warrants two pages of decompressed epilogue in which Batman refuses to explain what happened to Gordon. Clearly, Starlin needed a better editor (I believe this was originally submitted to Milgrom).




Batgirl: "A Quick Death in China!"

Script: Bob Rozakis
Pencils: Don Heck
Inks: Frank Chiaramonte
Colors: Jerry Serpe
Letters: Milt Snapinn

Grade: B

A surprisingly ambitious plot for Rozakis after doing so little with this feature for far too long. We have a Chinese criminal mastermind holding Babs and her friend hostage as a means of drawing out her long lost secret agent brother:



And a case of mistaken identity in regard to who Batgirl is:



but...again...how does NO ONE suspect that the other woman -- the one with the RED HAIR -- might also be Batgirl??


But all this is interrupted by the triumphant return of Tony Gordon. Now we'd been waiting and hoping for a touching reunion between Tony and Babs since Batman Family #12 (and, honestly, I didn't think it would ever happen!), but...something goes wrong here.

I mean, is it a coloring error, or just a bad sense of fashion?

Because this highly anticipated moment is undermined

by Tony

seeming to appear in drag:



Turns out he just stole a super powered costume (Sino-Supergirl's, maybe?) so that he can save the day.




The story ends soon after, and on what should have been a poignant, touching note, Heck's art actually coming alive for once:



...only I'm still stuck on Tony wearing a super skirt one page earlier.




The Demon: "The Eternity Book"

Script: Len Wein
Pencils: Mike Golden
Inks: Dick Giordano
Colors: Glynis Wein
Letters: Milt Snapinn

Grade: B-

So we've entered the Post-Implosion, "let's-throw-every-homeless-feature-into-'Tec" era. Fortunately, Wein and Golden are an excellent team for this kind of story, Wein churning out the moody prose while Golden brings it to life with grim visuals.

Not much actually happens in this one. We get a brief recap of Etrigan's origin:



get (re)introduced to Jason Blood's supporting cast, and set up a quest for the missing book of Eternity, which (in the last panel) pits Etrigan against Baron Tyme. To be continued...





Bat-Mite: "Bat-Mite's New York Adventure!"

Script: Bob Rozakis
Pencils: Michael Golden
Inks: Bob Smith
Colors: Tony Tollin
Letters: Milt Snapinn

Grade: A

For several months prior to the implosion, Rozakis had been printing fan letters requesting that Bat-Mite appear in Batman Family. What he ends up producing here with Michael Golden may well be the high point of his lackluster writing career, as Bat-Mite shows up in Al Milgrom's office, demanding a feature in Batman Family.



Soon, Rozakis is brought in



followed by Jack C. Harris



Michael Golden



and the entire production team behind this story



before they finally agree to make this story so that Bat-Mite will go away.


It's the kind of campy, self-deprecating, behind-the-scenes tongue in cheek stuff that lent an almost mythic identity to Marvel's bullpen a decade and a half earlier. The premise is great, Rozakis is funny enough, and the sheer range of Golden's art becomes staggering to behold, with life-like caricatures of himself and his colleagues, the most adorably cartoony Bat-Mite I've ever seen, and (let's not forget) all this coming right after he drew a dark, sordid, and supernatural The Demon feature. The guy's incredible.


And yet, there's a sadness to this story too when viewed in context. Al Milgrom is no longer editing this title as of this issue, Rozakis will be gone in two more, Bob Smith, Tony Tollin, and Milt Snapinn won't be hanging around after this story, and even Michael Golden is gone after this. Not a single one of the staffers we just humanized for the reader's sake is sticking around on this title.

But at least they all went out with a bang.




Robin: "The League of Crime!"

Script: Bob Rozakis
Pencils: Juan Ortiz
Inks: Dave Hunt
Colors: Adrienne Roy
Letters: Ben Oda

Grade: C+

Rozakis really seems to be trying harder on both of his core features this time around. The shadowy criminal organization Robin has been trying to trail is growing more complex, and some of Rozakis' ideas for how they operate are actually pretty clever. I particularly like how they initiate their agents: give them a morally reprehensible murder to commit that has no foreseeable logic to it. If the agent refuses, they are ousted. If they perform the task and prove their unwavering loyalty, the organization holds on to the proof in case they ever need to blackmail the agent back into obedience.

Rozakis also envisions a villain parading as a hero who takes a cut of all money she recovers and then allows one villain to get away so that the theft is attributed to him. Clever stuff, especially for Rozakis.

And his big reveal at the end of the story: this criminal organization is MAZE, the group Batgirl and Robin believed they defeated forever back in Batman Family #5, not that there was anything special or memorable about them until this issue.

But, of course, Rozakis can't leave well enough alone, and so a perfectly decent script has to get cluttered up with some ridiculous Atom-Age silliness. Let's hear it for the return of the Bat Whirlybirds...I guess?



And don't leave home without your patented, mass-inconsistent Robin parachute:




Frankly, it's a bit amazing we had to go through THREE editors before one decided to boot Rozakis entirely.




And thus, the end of another era. I'm not grieving for Milgrom nor Rozakis (well, we've still got him for another issue). But I'm devastated to see Michael Golden leaving. He truly was the one worthwhile part of this magazine for so many issues now, and boy did he go out with a bang here.

I bought a beat-up copy of this last week and I liked the Fatman story and I wasn't too impressed by the Robin or Batgirl stories (I've already completely forgotten them).

Last night, I finally got around to the Elongated Man story. I've read it before and it's a fun little romp. It contains my favorite Sue Dibny moment!



In the lower left panel, I love how unimpressed she is that Batman and Robin are in her hotel room. She's all "I'm going shopping and then to the show! Have fun, boys! Clean up after yourselves!"

They're like Ralph's work friends and she can be civil to them but don't expect her to hang around, ready to go get beer and pretzels! (She does serve tea later in the issue.)

That Bat Mite story was a hoot! I thought the quality of the stories jumped somewhat (at least the art) when Batman Family merged with Detective Comics. Michael Golden, Marshall Rogers, Jim Starlin. All great artists.

This story was actually reprinted from Detective Comics #343