PLOT SUMMARY

Bruce Wayne's mission - which has sent him out to Hollywood in the guise of "Matches" Malone (Detective Comics #515) - to infiltrate and smoke out the so-called "Academy of Crime" is gathering speed as he has been admitted to the institute by its founder and spiritus rector, The Headmaster.

However, as "Matches" Malone follows class upon class - all of which seem to have "killing Batman" as their sole subject matter - his classmates seem to grow ever more suspicious about "Matches".

Back in Gotham, "Boss" Thorne - who is pulling the behind-the-scenes strings in Gotham City in a big way - is upping the pressure on Monroe, the publisher of Picture News Magazine, who has so far failed to get hold of the photographs which Vicki Vale has announced will unveil and prove the secret identity of Batman. Monroe's fear (as he is subjected to the threats of "Boss" Thorne should he fail again) is heightened further by puzzling additional outbursts by the mob kingpin - who, unbeknownst to Monroe - once again sees an apparition of a dead man who has come back to haunt him: Hugo Strange...

Gerry Conway
(*1952)

Not only would the various subplots - which were mostly tied to individual characters - continue over several issues of both titles, but now the mainframe story itself would carry on over several issues of Batman and Detective Comics.

The reason why this wasn't obvious to those reading only the latter title straight away was the fact that Conway was ingeniously setting up Batman and Detective Comics in a parallel narrative as opposed to the previously applied sequential stories.

Dick Giordano
(1932 - 2010)

In-house ad from Detective Comics #515

By going there without a rush and one step at a time - by having Robin and Batman separate and being afflicted individually - Conway managed to roll out a stark and chilling tale which remained true to the Batman's overall closeness to what seemed just possible in reality.

"One of the reasons why Batman is my favorite super-hero is because he's not really a super-hero. For me, it was always hard to get by radioactive spiders or someone who came from another planet." (Giordano in Cooke, 1998)

"Although his work was known by everyone in the business, along with most others, I never got to know Don Newton very well. He lived and worked in his home in Arizona and hated big cities, so he didn't like coming to New York very much (...) Don Newton, the artist, is another story, though (...) His penciled pages were, in and of themselves, works of art. They were complete when they left his drawing table. One did not have to visualize the finished inked page (...) When Don's work arrived at the office, it was an event. We crowded around to have a look and to marvel at the talent. He never disappointed. Don was a true professional."

TRIVIA

One thing that always set DC apart from its rivals Marvel was how the company and its editors would communicate with its readers, and tthis was still very noticeable in the early 1980s. For starters, unlike the House of Ideas' "Bullpen Bulletin", regular communication pieces at DC (such as "DC Currents" or "Meanwhile...") would never really become a permanent fixture and come and go - which also meant that the only regular line of communication were the letters pages published in individual titles.

But even there, the difference between DC and Marvel could at times not be more accentuated - as indeed illustrated by the letters page of Detective Comics #516, with readers addressing the editor as "Dear Editor" and "Dear Dick", but also as "Dear Mr. Giordano". Giordano was in some way trying to loosen up things by using a regular tagline to end the letters page ("Thank you and good afternoon!"), but again this was nothing like Lee's "and don't forget to take a turtle out to tea!".

The bottom line was quite simple: the two publisher's had a completely different house style.

BACK-UP FEATURE

Harking back to the days of the 1930s and 1940s when Detective Comics contained several features within its 68 pages, the back-up feature remained a tradition long after the page count had dropped substantially, and as Detective Comics #400 (June 1970), Bat-Girl was installed as the regular back-up feature - a role she fulfilled until she was replaced by Green Arrow as of Detective Comics #521 (December 1982).

When first introduced in Batman #139 (April 1961), Bat-Girl was originally Betty Kane, the niece of Kathy Kane, a.k.a. Batwoman, before the character was reprised by Barbara Gordon, daughter of police commissioner James Gordon, in Detective Comics #359 (January 1967).

The Barbara Gordon Bat-Girl immediately caught on with readers, building a loyal fan base over the years. However, by the time Detective Comics #516 was published, her stories displayed a distinct tendency of loose scripting and artwork, a deficiency that was felt all the more as the main Batman stories went exactly the other way, displaying consistently top quality work issue after issue. It was therefore probably no big surprise that Bat-Girl would be replaced by the end of the year by Green Arrow. When the end came for the Emerald Archer's back-up feature run in Detective Comics #567 (October 1986), the back-up feature itself was dropped from the pages of Detective Comics.

"DETECTIVE COMICS #516 was a masterpiece!" (Jerry Hooten, Lemon Grove CA)

"DETECTIVE COMICS #516 was basically a very enjoyable, well though-out and well executed "Batman-clobbers-the-bad-guys" story (...) Honestly, the only boring thing about the once terminally dull Batman strip is the consistent quality that marks every story." (No name or address given)

BATMAN and all related elements are the property of DC Comics, Inc. TM and © DC Comics, Inc.
The illustrations presented here are copyright material. Their reproduction for the review and research purposes of this website is considered fair use as set out by the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. par. 107.