[Comics]: Batman #6, "Suicide Beat"

Publication date: August/September 1941

Author: Bob Kane

This melancholy story is chronologically mixed; the past and present fuse to create an enduring portrait of an early beat poet contemplating suicide in the wake of his mother's death, a story which I made up just now.

No, actually, this is about cops. So a word about the GCPD, before we begin.

I've mocked them before for being totally incompetent--early on, they declared they couldn't catch any criminals because it was foggy out--while at the same time acknowledging that the narrative of Batman required the police to be deficient in some manner, or Gotham simply wouldn't need a costumed vigilante in the first place.

However, there are ways to get around that, and a lot of Batman stories will eventually take different routes to the same conclusion. Nolan's Batman films have the police as competent, but largely corrupt, with the good cops outnumbered in a system that's turned against them. Other stories focus on the criminals being far too dangerous for the cops to deal with. The excellent series GCPD melts all of these concepts into a gooey, tasty concoction of a police department, where good cops are hindered by corruption, limited by their own human needs and fears, and traumatized on a daily basis by the need to live and do police work in a city populated by surreal monsters in human form.

Anyway, hopefully this story is the beginning of that trend toward realism and not more Keystone shenanigans.

To steal a phrase I read the other day on Aaron "Dresden Codak" Diaz's nascent blog, Indistinguishable from Magic, comics are a form of compression. Not just because sequential art can turn a long story into a very short one (panel 1: Boy graduates from high school, proud parents watching; panel 2: the same man now aged, bearded, and clothed in filthy rags sits glumly on the street, ignored by passerby, holding a sign which says, "Please Help, God Bless"). But because comics involve a very specific and deliberate symbolic language. Take a look at the panel above; is there any element of it, from top to bottom, that isn't short-hand for something else?

The city skyline, for instance, isn't drawn in detail, but we understand that a blocky set of silhouettes likely means "city". Guns don't actually make a puff of smoke like that when they fire, but in the absence of sound (or sound effects, which are their own comics language), the "smoke"--itself just a squiggly line  in a rough circle, colored white--tells us that the gun has fired.

The gunshot and its effect are portrayed in the same panel, as if simultaneous, another form of compression that only comics can really do well. The characters are faceless and stand for Cop and Criminal, not themselves; body language indicates how criminals operate from a position of strength and audacity, and how the cops can't even keep their feet against them. Thus, although this is a singular event, the visuals tell us that it is iconic and indicative of the general state of affairs in Gotham City.

The dialog, finally, is also extremely stylized, from the way it renders non-verbal sounds (laughter, the cop's dying moan, itself a comics convention of the time indicating death) to the way the killer says precisely what he doesn't mean, ie., "Fancy Dan" is probably not as nice as his moniker would indicate, and he is certainly not sending "regards".

Batman does this sort of stylization and compression to a greater and lesser extent all the time; but it's interesting to see, through close reading, how an individual panel reveals itself as being almost entirely comprised of symbols and signals that tell us much more than what's literally on the page.

In conclusion, this Fancy Dan fellow is sure in for a punchin'!

Later, the cop's body is found by other police officers, who confirm what we've already come to suspect: this neighborhood is "the suicide beat", because Fancy Dan murders any cop who gets close to his local operations. Grogan is dead cop number three, and the brass is certainly going to take notice and take action against Fancy Dan's reign of terror. Right?

Well, shit.

After Mr. My-Desk-is-Taller-Than-You gives him his marching orders, Kelly, who is even more screamingly Irish than the rest of the cops in his precinct--are there no Protestants on the GCPD?--walks out humming "'tis the wearin' of the green", to the astonishment of his fellow officers. The explanation given at the time is that he's proud of his son, Jimmy, who has just become a police officer.

But I think he's just some kinda whistlin' freak.

This cannot possibly go wrong.

In short order, Kelly is executed on the street by another one of Dan's thugs. Now this is out of line. It's not as though he was trying to mess with Kelly; it was simply a pre-emptive murder based on there being a cop on that beat at all. It's nothing less than a declaration of war on the Gotham City police.

Problem is, nobody can do anything about it. Fancy Dan's gotten away with everything that's ever been pinned on him, thanks to his having low friends in high places (namely, the local political boss).

Jimmy Kelly won't listen, however. His dead father will not go unavenged!

"Suicide Beat? Why, that's suicide!"

(Is anyone else having trouble taking a story about a man named "Fancy Dan" seriously? Maybe it's just me.)

The next day, Bruce Wayne (remember him?) is in Commissioner Gordon's office, listening to Gordon and Jimmy's superior talk about the boy. Bruce is alarmed to learn that Kelly won't even have the support of the neighborhood--apparently Fancy Dan's silent partner, the politician, makes sure to spread the wealth around, supporting the local poor in exchange for their votes and their loyalty, even against the police.

"Not like that quiet thunder, you know?"

This is yet another case of these comics over-explaining. We don't need to hear that the people on his beat hate him; not only did we learn that from the meeting with Gordon, but it's clear just from the way this panel is framed, drawn, and colored. The strange afternoon light lends an air of eerie tension to the scene, but it's the silent gazes of the locals that speak of real menace. Their body language denotes a casualness (slumped shoulders, leaning against walls and trash cans) that their looks belie--especially in the way that all of them are focused on the same individual, whose straight posture, forward gaze and strong stride indicate bravery.

Suddenly Jimmy is hit in the back of the head--with a tomato. He chases the offending kid down the block and into "Pete's", a bar... and comes face to face with his father's killer.

"You ain't so fancy."

Ironically, Dan is protected here by the very institution he despises. Despite Kelly's need for revenge, he recognizes that it's not "a cop's way" to just kill him, no matter how easy or satisfying that would be. Instead, he vows to get Kelly without breaking the law.

In the next sequence, Kelly tackles a small girl out of the street, thereby saving her from a speeding car and also scoring six points. The car continues on without even slowing down, and a frustrated Kelly says, "The dirty rat is getting away!"

Not for long, however; Batman and Robin (remember them?) come out of nowhere, steal a car, and give chase. A bit of fisticuffs later, and...

That's not Batman! That's... Mexican Batman! "El crimen no paga, senors! Adios!"

(Look, I don't think Mexican Batman is a bad person. I just think it's another case of those people taking jobs from real Americans. Unfortunately no fence can stop Mexican Batman, so there's not much we can do about him.)

The point of this sequence, narratively, is that as soon as Kelly brings the speeder in, Alderman Skigg (Fancy Dan's politician pal) is there to get him out of court scott free. However, there's a more important issue here: this sequence of events also shows the differences and relationships between the cops and Batman. Here, Kelly can save the little girl, but he can't stop the criminal, because his perspective is limited (akin to one ant within a very bureaucratic hive) and he is bound by the law. Batman, on the other hand, as a vigilante, can react quickly or even pre-emptively against those he understands to be criminals, because he is one man and not an organization; and because he is free to break the law (here, by stealing a nearby car), he is able to do what is necessary in order to take criminals down.

Neither man, however, can make a lasting impact without the overarching systems of society (the courts and the politicans). Here, the corruption of those systems prevents either Batman or the police from getting criminals off the streets.

This isn't coming out of nowhere; it's significant that it's the very next thing that happens after we see Kelly vowing to get legal revenge. This elegant bit of foreshadowing suggests that Kelly will be unable to achieve his goals without Batman's help--and that without fixing the systems that support Fancy Dan, neither of them will be able to stop him.

The criminals, on the other hand, are bound only by public perception. Shooting yet another cop might bring the governor down on all their heads; so Skigg suggests putting Kelly in the hospital, instead. Cue the fight scene.

Man, that sign means business, doesn't it? "The first rule of Suicide Beat is there is no parking! The second rule of Suicide Beat is there is NO PARKING!"

This is a pretty good fight, mostly because of this:

This is awesome, even if Batman has gotten so smug with himself that his neck has disappeared in shame.

And because one of the thugs tells Robin "I'll moider ya!", a threat which made my old-timey-slang-loving heart burst with joy.

Their plan foiled, the crooks make a swift getaway, but one of them happened to drop, ZOINKS! a clue! during the fight. The clue turns out to be a message from Skigg to bet five grand (about $70,000 in today's money) on "Mafey", whoever he is.

Kelly explains. It turns out that Mafey is fighting the champ tomorrow night at the Milk Fund Fight, which is as it turns out is actually a charity fight whose proceeds are intended to fund the purchase of milk for needy children. Huh. I always thought that was a metaphor. I guess it turns out that... okay I'll stop.

Kelly theorizes that Skigg wouldn't bet unless he knew it was a sure thing. Together, he and Batman hatch a plot. They intend to bet Bruce Wayne's millions on this sure thing, thereby doubling their money, which they'll then use to simply buy off the crooks.

Or, you know, this insanity:

Batman's muscular, bizarrely smooth, nipple-less upper body vibrated intensely as he waited for the crowd's response.

I'm honestly not sure if it's funnier if I tell you how we got to this point. Suffice to say, there are only four panels between this and the planning, and one of those has Batman putting a sleeper hold on the champ.

Also you can't see it here but it is important to note that Batman's costume apparently can be reduced down to his cowl and a pair of tight little shorts.

Needless to say, the crowd wants Batman, or at least these two terrifying twins do:

"We want him to join our circus sideshow!"

And so the fight begins. The first words out of the boxer who has seen his opponent replaced by Batman are, I shit you not, "The Batman, eh? Well, here's where I make you look like a punk!" For whatever reason, the ratio of balls to brains here is unfathomably large.

I feel like Batman should start extolling the virtues of Hostess fruit pies, here. This is precisely that bizarre.

Anyway, Batman does pretty well at first, but then his opponent starts fighting dirty. He rubs his glove in the shoe resin on the floor and then rubs his glove into Batman's eyes, blinding him. (Look, I don't know anything about boxing, particularly boxing in the 1940s, and I don't know if boxing rings were normally covered in shoe resin, or even what the hell that is. I just report this stuff.)

After a few blows, however, Batman's vision returns, albeit blurred, and he's able to knock Mafey out with one fantastic punch. Batman is declared the winner, as the crowd roars--until the lights go out!

Don't laugh! Look, this is the most important thing Robin has done all day, and it's very important that he knows we're all proud of him and his valuable contributions.

Not ones to lose a payday, Fancy Dan and his goons make off with the fight's proceeds. (But the milk! Won't somebody please think of the children?!) Batman tells Robin to collect Jimmy while he hitches a ride on the back of Dan's car.

This is a very silly comic.

Batman wakes up just in time to see Fancy Dan get all gloaty and bad-ass. Our hero is tied up in a warehouse, surrounded by gasoline. Dan cooly lights a cigarette, delivers a perfect bad-ass one-liner ("I'm gonna make it hot for you--good and hot!"), and then tosses the lit cig into the puddles of gasoline on his way out the door. Batman's very silly response to the rising inferno is "I'm in a spot!"

Meanwhile, Jimmy and Robin are racing toward someplace they don't know where. Batman must be at Fancy Dan's hideout, but who the hell knows where that is? For once in this comic, somebody externalizing their problems actually leads to results, as one of the passerby decides to help them. I know what you're thinking. On Suicide Beat?! (Yeah I know that's not what you were thinking. Can you just play along for now? Thanks.)

That's right, a stranger helps a cop on Suicide Beat. And why? Because Kelly saved his daughter from that speeding car a few days ago.

I know the comic wants you to think that:
a) Kelly's heroic rescue matters because it'll lead them to Fancy Dan
and
b) Police are only effective if they have local cooperation.

And that may very well be true. And probably we'll hear something about it in the denouement panel. But I prefer to think the real lesson of this story is that a government must care for its people. Like Hamas, Fancy Dan is only able to maintain power because his ill-gotten wealth is shared with those in need around him. If the state or federal government had proper welfare systems in place, his reign never would have been possible.

At this point I would like to point out that I am almost certainly the only person in the world to have ever referenced Hamas and minor Batman character Fancy Dan in the same sentence. And now back to our story.

Man, Robin gets no respect.

Together, they take out Fancy Dan and the thug behind him. A crowd is drawn to the sound of gunfire, and then to the burning building, which was apparently not a warehouse but the basement of an apartment complex, because some woman's baby is in there.

Bwahahaha! Oh, man. The look on that kid's face! Priceless.

Jimmy runs inside the house next door, which is also on fire (probably unrelated) and up to the roof. He yells to Batman to jump across to him, but Batman won't risk the kid. This is plan B:

This is one of those "if I ever doubt why I do this" panels. Batman throwing a baby off the roof of a burning building. So good.

It all ends predictably from here. Jimmy catches the kid, and jumps off the roof into the firemen's net. Batman follows a moment later. Down below, Jimmy arrests Skigg for rigging the charity fight and helping Fancy Dan steal the gate receipts ("And those gate receipts would have bought milk for the kids of this neighborhood!" yells Batman, shaking the politician by the throat like a rag doll).

And from then on, all the people of Suicide Beat loved Jimmy. Hip hip hoorah!

Best of all, no moralizing from Batman. So I guess that duty falls to me.

When people read superhero comics, they're looking for escape. They enjoy watching godlike figures flying, being feared and respected, and beating the crap out of cartoonish thugs. They don't want to see a story where an ordinary police officer accomplishes more than the main character of the comic. Especially when that main character is Batman. I think the moral of this story is What Gives, People? Come On.

Okay, maybe the moral of the story is that not everybody in the GCPD is incompetent. Hell, a murdered parent, specialized training, strength and bravery--Jimmy probably could be like Batman, if he were a little crazier. And a lot less law-abiding. And much, much richer. But the point is, there are Gotham cops who can hold their own against criminals without Batman's help. So maybe there's hope for them after all.

Then again, maybe not. After all, even Officer Kelly can't stop Mexican Batman from dancing his way into our hearts.

"Vaya con dios, muchachos! Adios!"

[Comics]: Batman #6, "The Secret of the Iron Jungle"

Publication date: August/September 1941
Author: Bob Kane

On his nightly prowl, Batman rescues a man who has been pushed out a window.

"Well, I'm going to assume he's a goner. It would take too much effort to lean out the window, check to make sure there's a body, and say something pithy." Thugs today. No work ethic.

Later, we learn that the man Batman has saved is the New York representative of the Page Oil Company. Apparently somebody's trying to wreck the company. Batman never bothers to ask who, but the answer strolls into his living room the next morning anyway, in the form of Bruce's... well, not girlfriend, but current romantic interest, I guess. Linda Page. Last time we saw her, she had quit being a boring rich girl to become a nurse. Now it seems that her father is "having trouble down at his Texas oil fields," which sounds dirty, but isn't. Turns out that when not boating in Kentucky, Tom Page is running the Page Oil Company.

Bruce is well aware that money is the only thing anybody ever wants from him.

Linda explains that her father's rat-faced partner, Graham Masters, wants to push Tom out of the company before the gusher ups the stock price; and that "strange accidents" have been happening. Yeah, like getting accidentally shoved out a window. Bruce's response is that he needs a vacation, and Texas does sound nice, what with all the oil and the murder and the corporate intrigue. Linda tells him, "Well, watch out for those big, husky Texans!" Which sounds dirty, but... actually I don't know what the hell that means.

The Wayne Rolls rolls itself across America, over the Appalachians, down to the Mississippi, and finally into the domain of the Page Oil Company (with Dick in the trunk, which sounds... nevermind). The minute Bruce walks into the main office, he realizes he got there not a moment too soon, as Graham has been strangling Mr. Page for about half a day now and he's almost finished.

Note: This is how Texans ask each other to dance.

Bruce, misinterpreting Graham's careful leg-stance and subtle romantic invitation, ends up giving him a few knocks on the head and tossing him outside. All the while bizarrely claiming that his punches and kicks are "accidents" and that he's just a harmless playboy, don't pay him no mind.

Afterwards, Bruce learns that Mr. Page has been told to sell out by midnight or be killed. "That kind of thing only happens in story books!" says Bruce. That head wound you feel is from the dramatic irony.

Meanwhile, Graham is outside, talking to Chuck, his "chief strong-arm man", which sounds dirty, but isn't. The plan? Chuck will attack Bruce, causing a diversion, under the cover of which Graham's men will abduct Mr. Page. It sort-of works. Bruce, inexplicably dressed in a white suit now, manages to humiliate Chuck by shoving him down in the mud. But he's still not paying attention to the office.

Note: The semi-automatic pistol favored by gangsters in the 1940s, the Browning M1911, is a fine hand-gun, used by the US army for decades. This particular variant, the M1911-B, is half as expensive, shoddily constructed, and comes with a hair trigger that goes off at the worst possible time.

Page isn't dead (yet), and they drag his bleeding body out to the Iron Jungle. Batman, unaware, finds Dick and the two change costumes. Meanwhile, Samnang, who got a dime a week in Cambodia to color Batman comics, was just realizing that he didn't know how to read English.

"Chuck--c'mere--quick--look who's here! A woman! Haven't seen one of those in months!"

They kidnap Linda, jump into her car, and race off to the Iron Jungle. But one of the Page oil tankers roars after them, driven by Robin and bearing a deadly cargo:

Interrogatives won't save you now, punk!

Batman punches the kidnappers, grabs Linda, and leaps back to the tanker. Note: when driving away from armed thugs, it's a bad idea to use a car full of flammable oil.

This is what happens when you let minors drive.

Our heroes (carrying Linda) leap out at the last possible second. Batman leaves the others behind to go after Graham. Following the villains into the "dense, semi-tropical undergrowth"--clearly the authors have never been to Texas--he spots Mr. Page tied at the top of an abandoned derrick. Only one thing to do!

Note: Lightning will strike the tallest conducive object around, like a huge rusty oil derrick. Batman's okay, though; if lightning strikes it'll probably just kill Page.

Once he's high enough, Batman ties a rope between his ankle and his derrick, which sounds dirty, but isn't. Then he jumps off into space, swinging toward Page's derrick. Unluckily, Graham and Chuck are watching. Graham's hair trigger goes off again, several times, and one of them severs the rope, but Batman's momentum still carries him to the other derrick, which is full of goons.

Note: Batman believes in doing unto others. Do not cross him.

Meanwhile, down below, Robin is fighting off more goons in an attempt to get to Batman. He gets the old knockout-via-pistol-whip treatment, and Chuck and his thugs bring him up the derrick elevator, intending to let the boy burn with Page. This brings them closer to Batman, however, a tactical error that no goon ever makes twice. Seeing our heroes on the elevator from above, Graham cuts the cord holding them up. The shaft gives way (which sounds dirty, but isn't) and he achieves the exact opposite of what he'd intended--Batman and Robin manage to grab hold of the derrick girders, but Chuck and the rest plummet to their deaths.

Batman climbs up to Page, and unties him just in time for the entire derrick to crumble. Everybody falls, inexplicably saved by a big oil puddle. Ew. Page has other concerns, however:

There's a "I drink your milkshake" joke in here somewhere, I just know it.

As Batman races off (for reasons that make no damn sense, only Batman is apparently brave enough to trigger the explosives) to trigger the explosives, Graham struggles up from the oil to commit one last evil deed. Luckily, Robin is there to put a stop to it. The two struggle--Graham tries to shoot him--his arm is forced back--

"Except with bullets. Bullets in the head. Head shot.

Justice currency."

As his protege gloats over his stone cold murder, Batman presses down the plunger on the explosives; the resulting blast narrowly misses a swiftly-passing road-runner. It does, however, unleash a torrent of oil.

Yay! The oil company is safe! Now it can get back to doing all those charitable works, like donating free oil to the ocean.

Having saved Linda's life, father, and inheritance (in that order), Bruce is naturally looking to take her out, maybe go to a movie or something. Then he runs into that whole "secret identity" thing again.

Note: you're a bitch.

Will Bruce ever solve his troubles with Linda? Will Batman ever win her heart? Do criminals know that he's on vacation? Like, are the Gotham gangsters having a big ol' party without him? These are the questions Bruce and Dick ponder on their long drive home. These are the questions that probably won't be answered if you tune in next week!

By the way, "The Secret of the Iron Jungle" (which sounds dirty, but now we know isn't) is a terrible title. There never was a secret! What a bizarre and boring story this was.

[Comics]: Batman #6, "The Clock Maker"

Publication date: August/September, 1941
Author: Bob Kane

"The Clock Maker, or, Time Does Not Pay"

We begin with Bruce Wayne actually doing a little business.

Doesn't he sound like he's leaving town forever? "My clock stocks paid off big-time! So long, sucker!"

I don't wish to post this whole page, but it does an excellent job of setting things up for the action to come in a very natural way. Classic narrative technique--send the character on a seemingly banal errand which just happens to introduce many of the characters and settings that the main story's conflict will involve. Here, we meet:

-The Hobbs Clock Building, one of those bell-tower-and-clock buildings. Might even be the same one Batman where killed the Three Devils. This is where the stockholders' meeting is held. On his way up, Bruce remarks that the clock serves as a reminder to all of the size and power of the Hobbs Clock Company. A "good stunt," he calls it, no stranger to such effects himself. If nobody ends up hanging for dear life from one of the giant hands of this clock tower, I'll eat my proverbial hat.

-The stockholders, who you can only tell aren't gangsters because their ugly suits aren't as colorful. They are uniformly wealthy, bored people. They barely pay attention to the meeting, but afterwards, being I guess in a timepiece kind of mood, they decide to go buy some clocks. From the Hobbs Clock Company? No, of course not! That would be absurd. They go to the shop of our third set-up:

-The clock maker. I'll let Generic Shareholder #3 describe him:

Note the pimp cane.

Bruce, being a satirically empty shell of a man with neither personality nor desires, has no choice but to follow along.

Elias Brock, the clock maker, turns out to be a very strange man indeed, particularly his penchant for calling his wares "my friends". But the suits decide to browse around anyway.

May God strike you down for your vile puns!

Brock, it seems, agrees with me. He starts screaming about how they don't just kill time, they MURDER it, wasting precious moments that could be used for doing something.

His accusatory fingers say "MURDERER" but the placement of his arms says "1:15."

The suits leave, a bit shaken but trying to brush it off as nothing. None of them get what Brock, through his delusions, is actually saying: that they're all wasting their lives, doing nothing of usefulness to anybody. Boredom is violence against the infinite universe.

The next day (or as the narration box puts it, "exactly one day later", as if Brock waited for precisely 24 hours before unleashing his vengeance), Bruce receives a call from Keating (the man being menaced in the panel above). Keating is worried; he's seen prowlers around his house and he fears for his life. Bruce is skeptical, telling Keating, "Go back to bed! You've just got the jitters."

Really, Bruce? Pretending you got a psychic wavelength instead of a phone call? What is this, Psych?

Batman and Robin rush over to Keating's home. Hearing a cry for help, they race in and find Keating being menaced by three armed thugs. They toss two of the thugs outdoors. You know, rather than knocking them unconscious, disarming them, and taking them to the police. But, whatever, I'm sure that won't come back to bite them in the--

Wellllllllll, shit.

They give Keating some medical attention and head home. Bruce has another one of his "psychic" hunches: maybe somebody wanted to kill Keating and make it look like a robbery, so they sent thugs. Hm.

Meanwhile, the thugs return home to a house which, mysteriously, has a lot of clocks in it. How mysterious! The comic even pulls the old "bad guy's identity hidden because he's sitting in a high-backed chair" trick.

If the ticking of clocks disturbs your thoughts, why do you live in a featureless black void populated only by you, your tall secret-identity chair, and ticking goddamn clocks?

Apparently the clocks are least good for inspiration, as Mr. Secret Bad Guy Dude sends his thugs a few days later to sneak into Keating's house and replace one clock with another identical clock. ...yeah, I don't know either. Maybe the new one is filled with poison gas on loan from the Joker.

That night, Keating is sitting up reading--well, it looks like a book, anyway. But he's a suit. Perhaps it's upside down, more of an accessory meant to make him look smart, like his ridiculous Sherlock Holmes meerscham pipe. Anyway, he's sitting up "reading" when the clock on the mantlepiece chimes the midnight hour. Plus one. And on the thirteenth stroke...

Note the "bong" smoke. Pot is the suit's mortal enemy.

Hey, I was right!

As luck would have it, Keating's body isn't examined by the Commish and his friend Wayne until noon the next day. The thirteenth chime clues Bruce in to the strangeness of the clock. Which begs the question, why put the extra chime in there in the first place? Why not just have the gas go off at twelve? Does thirteen make it any scarier?

Bad Guy: "Well, it's one scarier, isn't it? It's not twelve. You see, most blokes, you know, will be scared at twelve. You're on twelve here, all the way up, all the way up. Where can you go from there? Where?"

-I don't know.

BG: "Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra bit of fear, you know what we do?"

-Put it up to thirteen.

BG: "Thirteen. Exactly. One scarier."

-Why don't you just make twelve scarier with more poison gas and make twelve be the last chime and make that a little scarier?

BG: ".... These go to thirteen."

Who IS this man? What relation does he have to the man in the long-backed chair? Why are all his clocks green? He's a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a CLOCK.

Also, why the hell did the comic choose to reveal him now, but conceal him before? It's not as though we received any new information in the interim. Nor is this a dramatic reveal; and it isn't happening when some other character discovers him, either. There's no reason for it. Dumb.

Anyway, Brock's "little bugler" does indeed blow--but a poison blow-dart, instead of a tune. Death strikes at thirteen, again.

The next day, the police are once more investigating the scene of a murder around noon. What, does the Daily Corpse Search happen at 11:30am every day? The GCPD are mystified, as usual, until Bruce hears another clock chime thirteen. He concludes that the bugler was the killer, and proves it with the magic of geometry.

Bruce: "Gentlemen, arrest this tiny wooden bugler!"

Gordon: "Don't listen to him! Find me a couple of priests, we must perform an exorcism on this possessed clock!"

While Bruce and Jim ramble on about nonsense (how could the killer have known about his reading habit? not that a blow-dart needs to hit the neck in order to work), Brock prepares--GASP--another murder!

And this time the clock is for Bruce Wayne!

Thanks, helpful yet redundant narration box!

I'm sure they'll be fine, though. It's not like Batman and Robin sit around at night reading books, for God's sake.

"For that matter, why did I calmly accept a ticking box from a mysterious dude in a trenchcoat at 11:30 at night? Oh well. I guess I'll just sit here and stare at it."

Robin, what are you doing?! Nooooooooooooooooooooo--

Just in time, Bruce races in, picks up the clock, and throws it out the window. Luckily it explodes out there, where the poor people are. Just think if anybody important had been hurt! Or the furniture!

Later, Batman breaks into the Hobbs Clock Company to determine that both of the dead men were stockholders in the company. I can only assume that he found his stockholder meeting to be so incredibly boring that he actually forgot it ever happened. He calls one of the remaining stockholders, Peter Selby, but Selby seems fine. For now...

Well, it would appear that I must now eat my words. Apparently the crazy clock maker is just the hitman for the real power here, the power behind the tall-backed chair. Dang.

Before Mr. Bad Guy can send Brock on his crazy, crazy way, however, Batman shows up, recognizing--Atkins!

GASP!

...yeah, I don't remember either. *checks* He had literally one line, at the shareholders' meeting, where he shushed Keating for talking during the presentation. He didn't even go to the clock shop with them. He is literally just some dude who owns stock in the company. How dramatic.

Batman is immediately attacked by Brock wielding a scythe that is literally three times his size, and figuratively the size of an elephant.

"I admit, though, the last time I did this, there was no justification at all. None. Totally just for fun. No other reason at all. Nothing at all. Just up and decked an old man."

Brock skedaddles, while Atkins confesses his plan. Since Hobbs, the previous owner of the company, willed his stock to the remaining shareholders, killing one of them meant redistribution. Eventually he'd have it all. And that totally wouldn't look suspicious, I'm sure. Uh-huh.

As a side note, why is it bad guys confess to Batman so easily? Is it just because he could beat them up? I think it's because they know Batman's never going to be able to testify about any of it.

Or I guess it could be because they think he's about to be dead. After all, Atkins' next move is to try and shoot him. Batman tackles Atkins, the gun goes off, and Brock is hit! Oh...no? Wait, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

Batman, caught off guard, is knocked over the head by Atkins, who apparently was foolish enough to bring a gun with only one bullet in it. He ties Batman up and plans to toss both him and Brock in the river. But Brock begs to differ...

Oh, Lord, he's gone completely off the deep end.

(I do like the limp, dead arm implying a grisly corpse beyond the panel border, though.)

As Batman regains consciousness, he hears Brock raving on about HIS plan--to go up to the Hobbs Clock Company bell tower and blow it, himself, and probably Batman to smithereens, using a bottle of nitroglycerine triggered by the thirteenth chime of the giant bell. I predict this will all end in tears, or at least explosions.

Hey, that's my job!

Robin arrives to untie him, and they speed off to the clock tower in the Batmobile. Bruce explains, either because he's psychic or he's read the script already, that he knows Brock will set off his bomb at ten, not midnight. It makes sense, though, if you think about it--Brock would consider waiting to be a waste of time. Anyway, by the time they get to the tower, the first BONG has already bonged.

The comic does something really interesting here... The narration boxes, one every panel, describe each clang of the bell, numbering them as they go. But as time passes--and as Batman gets closer to the bell itself, and the compositions get tighter and tighter--each number is larger and bolder. It's a nice way of conveying volume and tension in a soundless medium.

Batman goes up in the elevator to the top, and punches Brock right in his crazy, crazy face. But the clock maker fights with the strength of a mad man! Reeling from a blow, Batman stumbles off the ledge, barely grabbing onto the hour hand of the clock. Brock pops out of the clock face like a deranged cuckoo (okay, maybe that's redundant), waving Atkins' gun around. Robin makes a desperate leap to join the fray.

I told you this would happen. Who's the psychic now, Batman? Hah!

Robin manages to climb his way over to Brock and give him a good yank. Brock falls to his death, the twelfth BONG in his ears. Batman returns to the belfry, surveys the situation, and decides the only way to stop the bomb is to wrap his entire body around the bell's clapper, dampening the vibrations, until Robin figures out how to turn the mechanism off. Gotham is saved!

And now, even better, Bruce is one of two remaining stockholders in the Hobbs Clock Company! Yay!

With all this action, there's barely room for an end-of-adventure Reflection.

"Yeah, the psychopathic killer was right! Those empty suits should have been doctors and scientists instead! Like half of our villains!"

Fittingly, the cramped nature of the last panel probably reflects the author's realization that maybe he should have spent more time on the theme and less time on pictures of clocks. Oh well.