Comics Reviews: Batman 431, Detective 598

Batman #431 – “The Wall” – James Owsley/Jim Aparo/Mike DeCarlo

This one starts with a flashback (said to be ten years ago) of Bruce Wayne travelling to a monastery in Korea to learn ancient martial arts techniques from a guy named Kirigi. In the present, Batman has been watching a thug named Ralph Stuart for weeks, hoping to get some evidence to put him away. Stuart is supposedly fearless and Batman was looking forward to testing that, but Stuart suddenly turns himself in and confesses to a bunch of crimes. When Batman listens to the tapes of Stuart’s phone calls, he hears something that disturbs him enough to go see Stuart in jail. On the tape, Stuart told the guy he was talking to on the phone that he saw some weirdly-dressed guys kill a woman in the apartment across from him, but when Batman sneaks into prison to question him, Stuart freaks out. He asks to be put in solitary, but Batman’s waiting there for him. Stuart still won’t talk because he’s afraid the killers will come after him next. Batman comes up with several possible victims and in order to narrow it down he disguises himself as the landlord to check the building across from Stuart’s. With the clues he’s able to glean about the missing tenant (Tanya Lloyd), he figures out which victim is her. She’s a Jane Doe who turned up in Los Angeles, which tells Batman the killers are professionals if they went to the trouble to dump the body on the other side of the continent. He goes to L.A. to examine Tanja Lloyd’s remains and figures out what’s going on. He returns to Gotham and grabs a woman who lives just down the street from Tanja Lloyd’s building. Batman goes to see Mugs Clifford, a mobster who’s currently on trial. Mugs hired the League of Assassins to take out the federal attorney prosecuting him (that’s the woman Batman grabbed to get her to safety), but the assassins got the wrong address and killed Tanja Lloyd by mistake. Batman knew who the killers were because they used the “vibrating hand” technique, something only a handful of people (including Batman) know about. Batman eavesdrops as Mugs calls the guy who set up the hit (Thaddeus Gladden), but by the time Batman gets to Gladden, the assassins have already taken him out. They attack Batman and he kicks their asses, using the vibrating hand on the last guy (to knock him out, not kill him). Later, Batman goes to see Kirigi in North Korea, telling him about the murder and giving him shit for teaching the assassins the vibrating hand. Kirigi says he teaches anyone who wants to learn without any moral judgments, and reminds Batman that he taught him the same technique without asking what he was going to use it for. Batman admits that maybe Kirigi should’ve asked that question.

Detective #598 – “Blind Justice Part 1: The Sleep of Reason” – Sam Hamm/Denys Cowan/Dick Giordano, Frank McLaughlin

This is a special 50th anniversary issue of Detective Comics. It starts with Bruce Wayne waking from a familiar nightmare about his parents being shot, except this time Batman is the one shooting them. He sees the Bat-Signal and goes to meet Commissioner Gordon, who shows him a body found at the jewellery exchange. The body is basically a bag of mush, with the skin unbroken but all internal organs and bones completely pulped. Meanwhile, a couple of homeless guys talk about tinfoil hats to block government transmissions and solicit a woman leaving the train station. The woman (Jeannie Bowen) ignores them because she’s come to Gotham looking for her brother (Roy Kane) who she’s never met since they were adopted by different families as kids. Jeannie has evidence that Roy worked at Wayne Tech, so she plans to go there and get whatever info she can. Batman checks out the crime scene and finds a hole in the wall, so whatever turned the guard’s innards to mush also made the wall crumble to dust. At WayneTech, Jeannie talks to Mitchell Riordan (Director of Research), but he tells her that her information is wrong and that her brother never worked there. She leaves in tears. Acting on a tip, Batman stakes out a drug deal at the docks that’s interrupted by a freaky-looking guy in a hood calling himself Bonecrusher. He has sonic wrist blasters (which explains the damage to the wall and the jewellery store guard) and gives Batman a tough fight, even though he’s rather slow and clumsy. Batman wounds him, but Bonecrusher jumps off a roof into some power lines, frying himself. Later, we see the homeless guys discussing the government transmissions and one of them mentions having a weird dream that he was a huge guy fighting Batman on the docks.

“Part 2: The Kindness of Strangers”

Jeannie goes to see a detective who specializes in reuniting families. The detective knows Bruce Wayne and sets up a meeting between him and Jeannie so she can talk to some people at WayneTech. They meet a Dr. Harbinger (who’s in a wheelchair), who recognizes Jeannie’s brother as a guy who used to work for them. Riordan overhears and makes a call to someone about Jeannie and Bruce snooping into Roy’s disappearance. Obviously, Riordan was bullshitting when he said he didn’t know anything about Roy. Bruce takes Jeannie out to celebrate but ditches her when he sees the Bat-Signal. Gordon tells him Bonecrusher has showed up alive and tried to steal some “fissionable material”. The cops have him trapped in a refinery and Batman heads over there. Meanwhile, the homeless guy who dreamed of fighting Batman gets pounded by some punks and starts hearing strange noises in his head. As Batman fights Bonecrusher at the refinery, the homeless guy mirrors Bonecrusher’s actions right down to the dialogue, freaking out his friends at the soup kitchen. The cops grab the homeless guy and Bonecrusher ends up blowing himself to hell, which makes Batman think all his crimes are just test runs to see what he can do. When Batman hears from a cop about the homeless guy saying the same thing Bonecrusher did, he realizes there’s a connection. He goes to see the homeless guy and recognizes him as Roy Kane, who tells Batman he woke up on a subway platform six months ago with a bag of clothes and no memory of who he was or how he got there. Bruce Wayne calls in a doctor to examine Roy and reunites him with Jeannie, who’s thrilled. The doctor says there’s an irregularity on the CAT scan and finds a biochip implanted in Roy’s skull. Bruce quickly realizes the chip is linking Roy’s mind to Bonecrusher, and that it must’ve been implanted at WayneTech when Roy worked there. Roy still can’t remember anything except a code word for a project he may have worked on: Sunday. Bruce looks through WayneTech files and finds a bunch of secret projects, one of which is called Sabbat. But his snooping triggers an alarm and Riordan calls Dr. Harbinger to let him know they’ve been found out.

“Part 3: The Price of Knowledge”

Bonecrusher shows up at Wayne Manor and knocks Roy out when he sees their connection (passing it off as Roy’s chip intercepting his transmissions). He’s really there to get Bruce, but Alfred shoots him with a tranquilizer and he self-destructs before they can get any info. Roy remembers what Project Sabbat was … a way of making remote-controlled killers. Batman observes Riordan’s men trying to get rid of evidence and figures out Riordan and Harbinger are involved in the scheme. He finds Harbinger dead in his lab and goes through his files to find out what’s going on. Apparently, Harbinger was using the biochips to regain his mobility (vicariously) by linking to other minds and using their bodies as his own. Riordan works for a Cartel who want to use the remote bodies for criminal purposes and had Harbinger do test runs as Bonecrusher. But they got pissed off at him constantly wasting “volunteers” and attracting the attention of Batman (and Bruce). They were ready to shut things down and sacrifice Harbinger, but he outguessed them and managed to pull off a full mind transfer, which means Harbinger’s not really dead, he just transferred his mind to another body. Bruce shuts everything down and tells Riordan he’s onto him, but Riordan claims the Cartel is worldwide and has unbelievable resources. He hints that they’ve uncovered a big secret about Bruce and says they’ll keep quiet if he lets them go on about their business. Bruce refuses to compromise, even though his secret identity may be in jeopardy. When Bruce arrives home, he finds Federal agents there and figures his days as Batman are over, but it turns out they’re there to arrest him for being a communist spy. After the story, there are a number of tributes (in art and writing) to Batman for his 50th anniversary, by the likes of Kevin Maguire, Terry Gilliam, Gene, Dan, and David Day, Mark Evanier, Jim Aparo, Thomas M. Disch, John Coyne, Norm Breyfogle, Ric Meyers, John Beatty, Harlan Ellison, Howard Chaykin, Will Murray, Carmine Infantino/Joe Rubinstein, Tom Fagan, Jim Shooter, and Tim Truman.