Batman Annual #9 – “The Four Faces of Batman” – Mike W. Barr
This annual features four stories highlighting different facets of Batman’s character: the Child, the Avenger, the Detective, and the Man. Every story was written by Mike W. Barr but illustrated by different artists, who I’ll list separately for each story.
“Childhood’s End” – Jerry Ordway
This one tarts with a couple of punks getting ready to rob a liquor store for some easy cash. Not far away, a kid named Donald Brinks is finishing his
violin lesson and he teacher tells his parents that Donald has real talent and could be a professional musician someday. The Brinks’s run into Bruce Wayne on the sidewalk (Donald and Jason Todd are classmates) and he hears about Donald’s musical gifts. Down the block, one of the punks goes in to rob the liquor store, but the owner smells trouble and blows him away. His partner freaks, taking off in the car like a maniac and heading straight for the Brinks family. Bruce pushes Donald out of the way, but his parents are run down. Donald is so consumed by grief and anger that all he can think about is revenge 
against whoever killed his parents, a mindset Bruce is certainly familiar with. Bruce remembers how his own obsession with finding his parents’ killer consumed his entire life, leaving him no time for anything else. He doesn’t want that to happen to Donald, so he decides to bring the deadly driver in as Batman. After tracking a parking sticker on the getaway car, he finds the driver, who’s so freaked out by what happened he’s actually relieved to be caught. Batman lets Donald know his parents killer has been caught and tells Donald not to waste his life in grief. After Batman leaves, Donald picks up his violin and starts playing again.
“Innocent Blood” – Alex Nino
This one starts with a bank robbery by a terrorist organization called the Black Heart Liberation Army. They knock off the bank by threatening to
detonate the explosives strapped to their bodies. The bank employees give up the cash, but it’s all too much for one manager, who has a stroke and dies. Batman is soon on the scene and realizes the Black Heart wouldn’t use explosive right across the street from a construction zone because the signals could get mixed up. He figures someone pretended to be the Black Hearts to make the bank job go easier. He’s right … we see the robbers in their hideout counting the loot and basking in their triumph. They have to be careful though: they used fake explosives to pull off the bank robbery, but their hideout is full of real explosives they’d planned to use to blow the vault before they came up with the “fake terrorist” idea. Meanwhile, the real Black Hearts (led by a woman named Jenna) see the news report about the robbery and decide to track down the filthy capitalists who are co-opting their name. They find the guy who sold the detonators to the robbers and get the location of the 
hideout from him. Batman isn’t far behind and gets the same info just before the weapons supplier dies. In the robbers hideout, there’s a tense stand-off but everyone’s afraid to start shooting because of all the explosives in the place. The robbers try to bribe the terrorists and Jenna surprises her fellow revolutionaries by accepting. A shot rings out and both sides assume the other is responsible, so they both start shooting and the whole place blows up. Outside, we see Batman set off a firecracker (which was the first “shot” they heard), meaning he basically tricked them into blowing themselves to hell. I can’t say they didn’t deserve it, but it seems a little out of character for Batman to cause the deaths of multiple people without any remorse.
“Death by Double Fault” – Dan Jurgens/Dick Giordano
This is a basic murder mystery concerning an old friend of Bruce Wayne’s named Philip Vernon Jr., who was once a promising tennis player ten years
ago, Philip was pushed down some stairs after a party attended by Bruce, Philip’s father, his older brother Larry, and his (now ex) girlfriend Jane Clareborn. Now Philip is inviting all of them to another party, where he claims he’ll reveal who pushed him down the stairs and left him crippled for life. Philip has turned quite bitter over the years, brooding on who might’ve tried to kill him, although he admits to Bruce he knows it wasn’t him. Philip has hired a security guard to watch him but Bruce finds the guard unconscious and gets knocked out himself. When he wakes up, Philip is dead, whacked over the head with a tennis racket. Bruce changes to Batman and starts gathering 
clues, the biggest being Philip’s pocket video tennis game, where he left the score 40-0 on the screen right before dying. Each of the suspects has a connection to the number forty and the score Forty-Love seems to indicate Philip’s ex, Jane (who he dumped ten years ago for cheating on him), but Batman deduces that the Forty-Love score refers to Larry O. Vernon, Philip’s brother. Larry was afraid Philip would expose the fact that he’s the one who pushed Philip down the stairs a decade ago, so he killed him. (Larry’s motive was plain old jealousy, since their father preferred Philip to him.)
“Perspectives” – Paul Smith
This is a “Rashomon”-type story, showing different people’s recollections of the same event (Batman saving a kid from a fire and catching the arsonist). The first perspective is that of Dr. Matterly, who was taking care
of some handicapped children at a hospital. When a fire broke out, she was trying to get the kids out and Batman showed up to help. She was impressed with how Batman handled the kids and tells the cops she finally realizes there’s a human being under the mask. Meanwhile one of the kids (Ralphie) tells a slightly different story to his friend. In this version, Batman is larger than life (literally) but needed help from Ralphie to take out the arsonist and save the other kids. Ralphie says Batman even asked him to be Robin in a few years, but Ralphie’s still thinking it over. The third perspective comes from the arsonist (Briggs), who puts everything down to bad luck. He was torching the records room of the hospital to wipe out an overdue bill they said he owed when Batman showed up. Briggs claims he knocked Batman down, shot him in the arm, and was about to finish him off when the ceiling 
caved in and then Ralphie blundered into him, knocking him out. The final part is from Batman’s point of view, as Alfred bandages his wounded arm. Batman says he was sloppy when he went in to check if everyone was out of the burning hospital. He ran into the arsonist by mistake, saved him from the falling ceiling, but let himself get distracted by Ralphie. That’s when he took the bullet in the arm and decked the arsonist, before getting everyone out. Batman figures he needs more training to get his edge back, but Alfred turns off the alarm so he can get some sleep the next day. I guess we’re supposed to believe that Batman’s story is the “true” version of what happened, but maybe his own perceptions coloured his recollections too, in which case the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
Batman & the Outsiders Annual #2 – “Dissembler at the Wedding” – Mike W. Barr/David Ross/Dan Adkins
This one starts with preparations for Rex (Metamorpho) Mason and Sapphire Stagg’s wedding. Sapphire’s father (Simon Stagg) seems to have accepted Sapphire’s love for Rex, although Simon’s Neanderthal manservant Java is still pissed off, wishing Sapphire had fallen for him instead. The Outsiders are attending of course (in civilian attire), but we see there’s someone else interested in the nuptials … and this guy doesn’t have good feelings about them. Just as Rex and Sapphire are at the altar, an exact double of Rex busts into the church, claiming to be the real Rex Mason and that Sapphire is marrying a fake. The newcomer doesn’t have
Metamorpho’s powers, but he does have some kind of super-powers that enable him to take down Geo-Force and Black Lightning. He grabs Sapphire and detonates a poison gas bomb before taking off with her. Bruce Wayne shows up late to the ceremony, but just in time to administer the antidote and save everyone. Everyone wakes up to find Batman there and Sapphire gone. Rex assumes Simon is behind it, but Batman points out the poison gas would’ve killed him too. Batman has traced the gas to a guy named Tremayne, who Rex and Simon are both familiar with. Tremayne had the hots for Sapphire’s mom 
(who she strongly resembles), which led to him having a weird crush on Sapphire herself. Rex and Simon agree to work together to get Sapphire back, which Java’s not happy about. In Tremayne’s hideout, he welcomes Sapphire but keeps calling her my her mother’s name, so she knows he’s nuts. The fake Rex who abducted her turns out to be a “chemical mimic” android called Even Steven, who can take on the appearance and abilities of anyone. He looks (and sounds) a bit like Marvel’s Chameleon. Tremayne notices the Outsiders’ plane approaching and calls on his hirelings, the Masters of Disaster, to take care of them. Windfall (who established a vague kinship with Halo in their first meeting) reluctantly creates a whirlwind, but secretly hopes the
Outsiders will survive. They do, thanks to Geo-Force’s gravity powers, but New Wave (the Masters’ leader) is eager to kill the superheroes, even over her sister Windfall’s objections. New Wave, Windfall, and Shakedown attack Black Lightning, Halo, and Geo-Force. Lightning handles New Wave with some basic science and Geo-Force takes Shakedown out. Windfall doesn’t want to hurt Halo, but has to attack to keep up appearances. Halo breaks free and attacks Windfall, saving her when she falls from the sky. Windfall tells Halo that she looks like their mother (whom New Wave killed), so that’s why she wants Halo dead (and probably why Windfall doesn’t). Heatstroke 
and Coldsnap go after Batman and Katana, who manage to take them down after a brief fight. Metamorpho and Simon get inside the house and Simon is decked by Even Steven pretending to be Sapphire. Metamorpho has to trash a killer robot before fighting Even Steven, but Steven’s powers make him a perfect match for Metamorpho. When Tremayne threatens to kill Sapphire, Steven attacks him, saying Tremayne programmed him too well, giving him Rex’s real feelings toward Sapphire. The Outsiders bust in to find Tremayne and Steven dissolved into a puddle of goo. After all the trouble, Rex is ready to call off the wedding (since he figures Sapphire will be in
danger married to him), until Simon points out that Sapphire’s kidnapping had nothing to do with Rex being Metamorpho, and that his powers enabled him to save her. Rex comes to his senses and he and Sapphire get married, much to Java’s chagrin.