I think the closest this story gets to addressing Batman's 364 days a year indifference to Crime Alley is Leslie telling Batman that she has "a sense that something is wrong here.  When you've lived in Crime Alley as long as I have... well, you just know!  I don't mean the poverty, the disease, the petty thefts... no, it's bigger!  Something evil!  Something... monstrous!"  

O Neil doesn't go anywhere with this, but it does kind of remind me of Peter Milligan's later Dark Knight, Dark City which posited that Gotham itself was somehow evil.  Not something Batman should buy (and if he did, not something he should accept) but O Neil does seem to suggest that there is something inevitable about Crime Alley being, well, Crime Alley.

I wonder if that scene with the wife who defends her abusive husband was meant to create a sense that, hey, Batman would like to help these people, but if they won't let him, what can he do?  If so, it's pretty weak sauce.

As the one day of the year that Batman is known to haunt Park Row (June 26 according to Batman Special 1), you'd think it would be the safest day of the year and it very well may be, but man, what a cesspool - criminal punks in the shadows just waiting to mug the oldest man they can find, wife beaters, arson - this is Crime Alley on a good day?

Oh, and if it's weird that Leslie Thompkins (or anybody else for that matter) hasn't figured out that Batman = Bruce Wayne due to his interest in the area on this day, Tec 457 established that even Alfred, who knows who Batman is and knows what happened to his parents, hasn't been able to figure out where Batman goes on this night.  How is he keeping this a secret?

Yeah, that's a very Milligan/Morrison answer to the question.



I read it more as Batman being so thoroughly out of touch with how the other half lives that he simply doesn't understand them. The failure is his. Thus my comparison to Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76. In that circumstance, O'Neil uses the experience to teach Hal Jordan, but in this circumstance Batman needs to return to his status quo by the end of the story. It's idiotic, really. Don't knock the hero down and then do nothing with it.



I completely forgot about that!

This image appears to be a shot through an exterior window which is tinted blue to reduce glare from the sun. So everything has a blue-ish tint, making Batgirl's yellow costume elements appearn slightly green. So the error is that her skin isn't bluish as well.

Detective Comics #485 (September 1979)



Paul Levitz finally has the Batman Office running exactly how he wants it: Batman is fighting colorful villains in every issue of every title (we're told Maxie Zeus is even coming back AGAIN next issue), he's put the kibosh on features that leave off on cliffhangers (other than the lead Batman story), and he promises that they have now run through all the DC Implosion inventory by this point (but then why does he also promise The Human Target feature is coming back in a few months' time?):



And yet, the fallout from the DC Implosion isn't exactly done affecting this comic. Levitz may be done giving a home to homeless file stories in these pages, but the lead feature of this issue is certainly concerned with finding homes (or at least resolutions) for homeless characters.


Batman: "The Vengeance Vow!"

Script: Denny O'Neil
Pencils: Don Newton
Inks: Dan Adkins
Colors: Adrienne Roy
Letters: Ben Oda

Grade: D+

Boy was I excited to see the return of Kathy Kane, the Atom Age Batwoman, who had now appeared twice in this title but had yet to get a reunion with Batman. Well, they are finally reunited:



...for exactly three panels before she is arbitrarily and anticlimactically killed off panel by a bunch of low level martial arts thugs:



As this is the one cliffhanger Levitz has allowed for the issue, we have no idea whether her murder is ever going to get explained satisfactorily. Did it serve any purpose at all? It is certainly implied by Batman that they didn't even know this was Batwoman.

What in the world was the point of this? Was Levitz so concerned with the over-abundance of homeless heroes post-implosion that they had to unceremoniously off this one? Was it O'Neil trying to get the atom age campiness out of the franchise again? Bob Rozakis had been the one to re-introduce her, as it fit his campy, throwback style, and Levitz just demoted him, so maybe that explains this move.

Whatever the case, it's upsetting.

But Kathy Kane is not the only homeless DC character getting revisited in this story. Once she's out of the picture, the true focus falls on Bronze Tiger, a refugee from the now cancelled Richard Dragon feature.



The League of Assassins has somehow kidnapped him and brainwashed him to do their bidding.

There isn't much of a story at this point. It's mostly Kung Fu action (an extremely popular genre a few years earlier, but perhaps a bit out of fashion by 1979) and, honestly, the action isn't that compelling, even with a young Don Newton drawing it. The only action scene that drew me in was Batman fighting two hounds:



The one action scene in the story that didn't involve martial arts.


Very little else to say about this one. Ras Al Ghul's triumphant return didn't do much for me, nor did a pouting, lovesick Talia Al Ghul, as neither were really involved in the main action of the story. Batman battles martial arts dudes while Bronze Tiger questions his loyalty and--oh yeah, Kathy Kane is dead for some reason. That's pretty much the whole thing.





Robin: "The Case of the Cavorting Corpse!"

Script: Paul Kupperberg
Pencils: Kurt Schaffenberger
Inks: Dave Hunt
Colors: Gene D'Angelo
Letters: Ben Oda

Grade: B-


If you were waiting with as much anticipation as I was to see where Jack C. Harris was going to take this feature next...sorry. Paul Kupperberg is doing a filler story instead, for some reason.

There's a lot of change this time around, but it's hard to gauge how much of that is a new direction for the title, and how much of it will be gone once Harris returns next issue.

Kupperberg gives Robin his first true mystery in a long long while -- no costumed villains, no attempts to pander to the college crowd -- just a mystery, and damn if it isn't a compelling one. A Hudson U student dies in a car crash, and suddenly he's being spotted driving around town the day after. I'll admit to being very intrigued.

Unfortunately, the pay-off was utterly absurd:



I don't even know where to begin with all the reasons this explanation is totally ludicrous and nonsensical, but I will say that I think I'd notice if I was trying to make a deal with an upright corpse. Also, remote-controlled cars are one of those conceits in comics that always violate my suspension of disbelief, especially when the gadget is rigged up at the last minute by a college kid who happens to know a lot about electronics, but not so much that he has a promising future that would dissuade him from getting involved in diamond heists and murder.

It's just such a let-down after Kupperberg built up all that suspense.


Minor Details:

- Last issue, Harris and Schaffenberger gave Dick a brand new (but unnamed) supporting cast:



This issue, Kupperberg and Shaffenberger appear to be giving us a different one:




- Robin gets called in anytime there's a drunk driving accident on the interstate?


- Just as with last issue, We're regularly reminded that Batman taught Robin everything he knows.


- Considering how hard Levitz is working to build continuity across this title and throughout the Bat Office, this contrast found between this story and the lead feature is just a little insulting to the Teen Wonder:





Batman memorizes EVERY license plate he sees. Robin can't recognize kids who go to his own school.




Batgirl: "The Case of the Untouchable Crook!"

Script: Jack C. Harris
Pencils: Don Heck
Inks: John Celardo
Colors: Jerry Serpe
Letters: Ben Oda

Grade: A-

Possibly the finest Batgirl solo story I've yet read. This one has it all -- solid action, a compelling mystery, and all of it tying in neatly to intense drama happening in Babs' world as a congresswoman:



It's an especially well-crafted, carefully considered story for only being an 11 page backup feature, and I think my favorite part is the characterization of Babs. She's nobody's second rate hero. She is actively leading a major anti-corruption senate hearing in her personal life, and as Batgirl, she is a true protector and not just some second rate girl struggling to stop a second rate thug. She exudes true heroism:



Really, my only criticism of this story is Harris' repeated attempts to make Batgirl's dual identity more believable, which totally backfires. He takes great pains to explain where she hides the Batcycle:



Sure seems like someone is going to see Batgirl running to a car and popping the trunk at some point. Or does she have to patiently wait until no one is looking each time??

But even more ludicrous is his explanation of how Babs can now change quickly from senator to costumed hero on a moment's notice:



Where'd the purse come from?

He then goes on to have Babs do split-second costume changes literally four times in eleven pages, the most absurd of these being right in front of the bad guy:




Still, the story is firing on all engines, and I really love how Harris is writing Batgirl. I'm sold.


Minor Detail: The Batcycle has been destroyed, and it's going to take Batgirl several weeks to build a new one. Apparently, it is a custom design that Babs builds and maintains herself.





Man-Bat: "SST -- The Super-Sonic Threat!"

Script: Bob Rozakis
Pencils: Don Newton
Inks: Frank McLaughlin
Colors: Adrienne Roy
Letters: Shelly Leferman

Grade: D

I guess Bob Rozakis still needs to collect a paycheck from writing something, and I'm at least glad it isn't Batgirl and Robin anymore. This is a typically useless Rozakis script, first recapping Man-Bat's origin in case you're reading him for the first time, and then putting Man-Bat (still doing private detective work with Jason Bard) on the case of a husband who works late each night and has his wife worried. Turns out, he's building a metal rocket suit, and Man-Bat shows up just in time for the guy to take his first flight. It's noisy and causes some minor property damage, so Man-Bat decides he needs to take the dude down. Turns out he just wanted to be a superhero and was going to call himself the Super-Sonic Threat.

Really, that's the whole stupid story. You can tell Rozakis pitched the title before actually writing a script, and I wonder if he just ran out of pages because we were promised a Super-Sonic Threat, and Rozakis certainly didn't deliver.




---

Well, I still don't like Levitz's approach to the Bat Office at all, I'm furious about Kathy Kane, and I hate having to wade through more Bob Rozakis scripts, but Jack C. Harris continues to give me major hope for the future of this title.

Thanks for the clarification. It's been years since I read that first appearance. The real issue I had was with how much the plot depended upon us believing she could change in a matter of seconds, especially between parked cars or in front of the villain.



Help me understand the appeal that I'm missing. I respect what O'Neal did with the first Crime Alley story, but I see less of the appeal of the second one. Batman working to keep his anger in check was an impressive idea, but I didn't feel it was handled particularly well. Bruce was written as an angsty and impulsive fool who doesn't understand the people he is trying to save and doesn't really intend to get better at that.

And, of course, the whole idea that he is only interested in preventing crime in Crime Alley one night out of the year.

Holy conjunctivitis, Batman!

If it's any consolation, Alan Brennert didn't like Kathy being killed off either and got around O Neil's cavalierly signed death sentence rather nicely by re-introducing her in Brave and the Bold 182's "Interlude on Earth Two" by assuring readers that while The Batwoman of Earth One was dead, the one in all those pre-New Look tales was alive and well.  Interestingly, while Batman is taken aback to see Kathy Kane amongst the living, Kathy is taken aback to see Bruce Wayne A-OK since the Earth Two Batman had been killed off in the equally unmemorable Adventure Comics 462 written by Paul Levitz. 

I found the following quote from Brennert online regarding his bringing Supergirl back for Christmas with the Superheroes #2 and am posting this here because while Brennert is obviously being asked about a different story, I really think you could substitute "Batwoman" for "Supergirl" without missing a beat as far as his intentions are concerned with "Interlude":

Well, I wrote it ["Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot"] for a fan -- me. Supergirl had just been killed off in "Crisis on Infinite Earths," and both as a reader and a writer, I was kind of pissed that she had been retconned out of existence. It seemed to me a repudiation of not just the character and her history, but the work of the writers and artists who had chronicled that history.

So when [then editor] Mark Waid asked me to write an eight-pager for "Christmas With the Superheroes" #2, I told him I wanted to do a Deadman story, then snuck in the ghost of Kara Zor-El at the end -- without even telling Mark what I was going to do. Mark was understandably startled when he first read it, but he loved the story and knew exactly why I had written it.

Incidentally Shaxper, if you haven't yet read Brave and the Bold 182, I urge you to do so.  It's one of the finest Batman tales out there and where O Neil is dismissive of Batman and Batwoman, Brennert is respectful and at the top of his game.  If nothing else, it will be a better send-off for Kathy Kane than this.

As to who should get the blame for her death, I'd go with O Neil.  I mentioned over in your companion thread Batman 300 and up, that Chuck Dixon killed off Mr Freeze simply because O Neil didn't like the villain.  Despite the fact that Freeze hadn't made an appearance in about three years when Dixon was given this request, O Neil still felt bothered knowing that the character was out there and felt an urge to do something about it.  I think that's what happened here.  Certain characters seemed to rankle O Neil regardless of whether or not they were likely to ever appear again and if given the chance, he'd raze them to ground and salt the earth (see also; Superman and Batman's Super-Sons).