Batman #402 – (No Title) – Max Allan Collins/Jim Starlin
This one starts with a young couple getting mugged by a couple of scumbags. Batman shows up to deal with them, but we soon realize this isn’t the real Batman, since he breaks the punks’ necks. That’s confirmed as he heads home and we see some other guy under the mask, who thinks it’s his mission to rid Gotham of criminals. Later, the real Batman responds to the Bat-Signal, but it ends up being a police ambush, led by Deputy Commissioner Barnes (who’s bucking for Commissioner Gordon’s job). Batman goes to see Gordon, who fills him in
about the murderous imposter. After getting a few details (like the fact the two muggers were previously convicted of murder but released on a legal technicality) Batman advises Gordon to pretend to go along with Barnes’s witch hunt while Batman tries to track down the real killer. He has Alfred check costume dealers (finding out all the Batman costumes have been stolen) and explains to Robin why he won’t cross the line and kill the bad guys. As Bruce Wayne, he talks to the guy whose wife was killed by the muggers the fake Batman wasted. As the ersatz Caped Crusader piles up more bodies, a 
pattern emerges; the punks he kills were all guilty of previous crimes, but were freed because of legal technicalities. Batman and Gordon realize the connection is Tommy Carma, a cop who was kicked off the force for being a little too eager. Carma is highly trained and has a grudge against criminals, since his wife and kid were killed by mobsters trying to get Carma. Sounds a bit like the Punisher to me, but this was written before the Punisher became a big star, so maybe it’s just a trope. Batman goes to see Carma’s mother (who he lives with) and she mistakes him for her son, trying to talk him out of his crusade against criminals. Batman checks out Carma’s room and figures out
who his next target will be, a mob hitman who’s getting immunity and a new life in exchange for testifying against his former employers. Carma shows up at the safehouse dressed as Batman, pounding the cops and tossing the hitman out the window. The real Batman saves him and confronts Carma, who’s so far gone he thinks he’s the real Batman. They fight and they’re pretty well-matched, but when Robin shows up, Carma gets distracted (Carma was such an admirer of Batman that he named his daughter Robin) and Batman takes him down.
Detective #569 – “Catch as Cats Can” – Mike W. Barr/Alan Davis/Paul Neary
This one starts with a bunch of thieves in cat costumes robbing a medical warehouse. Batman and Robin show up to pound them, but the last guy grabs the security guard as a hostage. He doesn’t get far though … Catwoman is waiting to kick his ass. These cat thieves were once part of her gang and now that she’s gone straight, she feels responsible for stopping them from committing any more crimes. Despite developments in previous issues, it seems like Batman and Catwoman are still an item here (and Robin is still jealous of her). Meanwhile, Joker is bored and trying to come up with a crime worthy of his
genius, when one of his men shows him a headline about Catwoman helping the Dynamic Duo. That night, Batman, Robin, and Catwoman are summoned to police headquarters, where Commissioner Gordon shows them a card sent by the Joker with a clue on it. Batman figures out the clue and they head to the Gotham Library where Joker is stealing a rare joke book. They pound Joker’s henchmen, but Joker zaps Catwoman with a taser and captures her. Batman and Robin are wrapped up in some kind of covering that tightens the more they struggle. 
Joker leaves them to suffocate and takes Catwoman to his hideout, where he has a mad scientist named Dr. Moon waiting. Moon has a theory about bringing out the savage animal inside every human and says he can use a CAT scanner to reprogram someone’s mind … like Catwoman. Meanwhile, Batman manages to relax enough to slip out of his bonds and saves Robin. But in Joker’s lair, he and Dr. Moon have strapped Catwoman into the altered CAT scanner and are ready to reprogram her to fight Batman.
Noticeable Things:
- Alan Davis’s art is pretty stylized, as usual, almost cartoonish at times. But he does draw a pretty sexy Catwoman; her poses are almost pornographic in some places.
- There’s a meta-joke after they find out Joker’s going to steal a rare book where Robin says “Holy Gutenberg!” and Batman gives him shit, telling him to never do that again.
Outsiders #14 – “The Looker Murder Case” – Mike W. Barr/Jim Aparo
This one starts with Gaby (Halo) Doe getting braces, which freaks her out and makes her self-esteem take a nosedive. Tatsu (Katana) Yamashiro tries to reassure her, but Gaby’s so worried about her braces she doesn’t want to go to school or even have a birthday party. Meanwhile Cramer, the private detective who’s been investigating Lia (Looker) Briggs, tells Lia that he knows she used to be plain old Emily Briggs and threatens to ruin her career as a model unless she bangs him. Lia uses her psychic powers to erase his memory, make him destroy the file on her, and turn himself in. But right after she leaves, someone else shows up
at Cramer’s office and kills him. At school, everyone thinks Gaby’s a snob because she won’t talk to them (because she’s ashamed of her braces) and she’s so sad she wants to cancel her birthday party. The Outsiders are nice to her and the presents they bring help get her out of her bad mood … until Rex (Metamorpho) Mason mentions her braces and she freaks out again. The cops show up to arrest Lia for Cramer’s murder. Turns out Cramer was really into word games and he may have left a clue as he died. He was found clutching one of two model ships on his desk, a brigantine (the other being a bark), so the cops figure he was 
indicating Lia Briggs (for brigantine) the model was the one who killed him. Obviously, that’s circumstantial, but they figure they can hold Lia while they look for more evidence. Brion (Geo-Force) Markov and Jefferson (Black Lightning) Pierce tell Lia to stay in jail so whoever framed her feels safe, while the Outsiders investigate other suspects. Turns out Cramer was blackmailing lots of people with info he’d found during his investigations. Halo and Katana talk to a dog trainer named Belle Warren, Metamorpho checks out an accountant named John Rupert, while Black Lightning and Geo-Force talk to a watch shop owner named Phil Melton (who thinks they’re with Infinity Inc). All the suspects had reason to want Cramer dead (and aren’t sad about his demise), but none of them admits to killing him. Black Lightning figures out that the killer must’ve set up the clues to frame Lia, so they might’ve gotten the idea
from a real “dying message” that Cramer left, taking the real clue with them so the cops wouldn’t see it. Lia uses her photographic memory and a psychic link to her friends to realize there was a model of a ship’s bell on the desk that’s missing now. That lets her and Black Lightning know who the real killer is and we get the obligatory drawing room scene (in police headquarters) where Black Lightning reveals the killer. Belle Warren would be the obvious choice, but Black Lightning points out that Cramer was associating his clues with people’s professions, so if Belle was the killer he’d have used the bark as a clue. But he used the model of a ship’s bell, used to tell time on board ships, and Melton sells watches. Melton breaks down and is arrested and Lia is released.
“Starting Over” – Mike W. Barr/Mary Wilshire
This back-up story shows what happened to Windfall after she took off back in Adventures of the Outsiders 36. She wanders around Markovia trying to figure out what to do and steals some clothes to blend in with the locals. She runs into a guy named Nikolas, who invites her home to his mother’s place. 
Nikolas and his mom are both really nice to Windfall, but she ends up feeling guilty when she learns Nikolas’s father and brother were killed in the civil war that Baron Bedlam started, since Windfall and the other Masters of Disaster worked for Bedlam. She decides to make up for it by helping Nikolas and his friends, who are hunting a bear that’s been terrorizing the village. But the hunters recognize her as one of Bedlam’s mercenaries and knock her out, tying to a stake to burn her. Nikolas is stunned to find out she’s one of the people who helped Bedlam’s invasion, but the burning is interrupted when the bear shows up. Windfall gets loose and drives the bear away and Nikolas tells her to get away before the hunters return. She asks Nikolas if he really would’ve let them burn her, but he doesn’t have an answer.