Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Detective Comics #573 by Mike W. Barr Detective Comics Vol 1 573. The second Mad Hatter is released from Gotham State Prison on parole. He asks them to give him a hat, but Warden Fisher says they decided against it. There is an official car waiting outside to pick him up, but Batman and Robin are in the front seat. Batman counsels the Hatter to go straight, telling him he's lucky to have a second chance. Batman explains to Robin that he's frustrated seeing so many of his villains become repeat offenders, and he's hoping they're not all beyond redemption. The second they let Hatter out of the car he makes a paper hat out of newspaper and goes crazy again. Okay, sure, why not. One week later, Commissioner Gordon tells Batman and Robin that the Hatter missed his parole meeting. They also received a package addressed to Batman, a hatbox with a clue inside. Batman hears that Mad Hatter is terrorizing the Liars' Club so he swings into action. When they arrive, they find the Hatter and his armed goons passing hats around to collect wallets. They fight Hatter's goons, but Hatter uses his flame-spewing fireman helmet and escapes. Batman and Robin retire to Wayne Manor with Alfred until they can figure out the Hatter's next clue. Batman realizes the Hatter is committing crimes that are only symbolically related to hats. They go to the Gotham Sports Arena because when someone scores three goals in a sports game it's called a hat trick. Mad Hatter is robbing the ticket booth, but he throws a gasmask filled with gas at Batman and escapes. They chase Hatter's goons into the Hall of Sport where there's a big fight on a giant billiards table. also Robin gets shot. Batman decides to draw the Hatter out by running for councilman as Bruce Wayne, "throwing his hat into the ring." Commissioner Gordon attends the ceremony and tells Bruce Wayne that his parents would be ashamed of his foppish behavior if they were alive today. The Mad Hatter arrives with flying campaign hats that are also razor blades and they fly around and cut you. Batman and Robin spring into action, barely dodging the deadly hats. They chase Mad Hatter onto the roof where he gets onto his flying hat rocket thing to escape. Batman sabotages the Hatter's controls and makes him crash. The Hatter tries to pull a gun on Batman, but Batman knocks his hand away and punches him out. Batman is then horrified to see that the bullet hit Robin. Babblings about DC Comics 2. Detective 575 (June 1987) begins the four part Batman: Year Two storyline. A sequel only in concept to Batman: Year One. Curiously, although Mike W Barr writes the entire storyline, Alan Davis and Paul Neary provide the art for only the first issue. Through Leslie Thompkins, Bruce Wayne is introduced to Judson Caspian and his daughter Rachel, both recently returned to Gotham after many years abroad. Bruce is quite smitten with Rachel, and only mildly deterred when she announces her intentions of becoming a nun. But it’s Rachel’s father that Bruce should have been interested in. We discover that he is The Reaper, a murderous vigilante that had plagued Gotham in years past, but who has not been seen in a long time. About the same amount of time Judson Caspian was in Europe. And Caspian resumes his alternate identity, using his deadly blades to eliminate the criminals he finds. Batman encounters the Reaper, but finds himself outmatched, and has to flee. The issue concludes as Batman decides he may need to arm himself with a gun in order to be able to match the Reaper. Category: Tagged with: Detective 574 – the re-introduction of Leslie Thompkins. Continuing the story from the previous issue, Detective 574 (May 1987) sees Robin being tended to as Batman flashes back to his origin, thanks to Mike W Barr, Alan Davis and Paul Neary. The story really serves to re-introduce Leslie Thompkins. She appears a bit younger, and definitely more active, as she now runs a clinic, and is a practicing doctor. She operates on Robin and takes care of him, as she and Batman reminisce on their shared past. From this story on, Leslie has known of Bruce’s alter ego from the moment he adopted it. This expands on the earlier stories, in which Leslie took care of Bruce immediately after his parents’ murders. Now, she and Alfred are shown as the guardians of young Bruce all the way until adulthood. Interestingly, the story passes on detailing the origin of Robin to any degree, likely because they were already planning to change it. Category: Tagged with: Detective 573 – The Mad Hatter passes the hat. Detective 573 (April 1987) features the last appearance of the Mad Hatter in which Jervis Tetch resembles the Silver Age/tv version of the character. Mike W Barr, Alan Davis and Paul Neary are the creative team on this story. The Mad Hatter is released from prison, and Batman warns him not to make any more hats. Tetch decides to base his next series of crimes on not wearing hats – quickly pegging this notion to “passing around the hat,” and “throwing ones hat into the ring,” as the story centres on politics. Once again, this feels very much like a pre-Crisis story, and elements like the giant pool table, and billiard ball, seem out of place with the post- Crisis character appearing in Batman. Only the final page kicks this into high gear, as the Mad Hatter accidentally shoots Robin. Category: Tagged with: Detective 572 – Batman and Robin, Slam Bradley, the Elongated Man and Sherlock Holmes. It’s yet another anniversary issue in Detective 572 (March 1987), marking fifty years since the debut of Batman. Barr scripts, with Neary and Davis on the art for Batman’s chapter, but the story includes more artists for the different chapters. Slam Bradley, last seen in Detective 500, gets to open this tale, which involves a lost book being hunted by Professor Moriarty. His client barely has time to hire him before being murdered. As Slam pursues the killer, he encounters Batman and Robin – the first time these characters have met, despite all the years they shared this book. Terry Beatty also contributes to the art on Slam’s part of the tale. The Elongated Man chapter is easily the weakest part of the story, simply because of Carmine Infantino’s art. I cannot think of a single thing he drew after 1980 that does not look like a poor imitation of his style. The chapter does introduce the villain, and we also discover that the Elongated Man is a descendant of Moriarty, though that will never be mentioned again. The backstory of the book is handled superbly. Ernesto Cruz is the perfect artist on the Sherlock Holmes chapter, which looks, and feels, like something from a DC horror/mystery comic from the 70s. In a good way. After the backstory is filled in, we jump back to the present day, as Batman, Robin, Slam Bradley and Elongated Man face off against Moriarty. An extremely old Sherlock Holmes even shows up to congratulate them. It’s a decent tale, and had it been published before Crisis on Infinite Earths, Batman: Year One, and Batman – The Dark Knight Returns, would probably have been fondly remembered. But as it stands, it feels a bit like a holdover, and not on par with some of the other anniversary issues released the same year. The Elongated Man returns the following year in the pages of Adventures of Superman, while Slam has to wait for more than a decade for his return. There is a really nice Dick Sprang spread, featuring Batman and Robin, as well as both variations of Alfred, Commissioner Gordon, the Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, Scarecrow and Cavalier. Sadly, at the time this did not impress me at all, it was simply another thing that made the book feel out of date before the ink was dry. Comics You Should Own – ‘Detective Comics’ #569-574. Hi, and welcome to Comics You Should Own, a semi-regular series about comics I think you should own. I began writing these a little over fifteen years ago, and I’m still doing it, because I dig writing long-form essays about comics. I republished my early posts, which I originally wrote on my personal blog, at Comics Should Be Good about ten years ago, but since their redesign, most of the images have been lost, so I figured it was about time I published these a third time, here on our new blog. I plan on keeping them exactly the same, which is why my references might be a bit out of date and, early on, I don’t write about art as much as I do now. But I hope you enjoy these, and if you’ve never read them before, I hope they give you something to read that you might have missed. I’m planning on doing these once a week until I have all the old ones here at the blog. Today it’s time for the short but amazing Barr/Davis run on Detective Comics. This post was originally published sometime in early 2006. As always, you can click on the images to see them better. Enjoy! Detective Comics by Mike W. Barr (writer), Alan Davis (penciller), Terry Beatty (penciller, issue #572), Carmine Infantino (penciller, issue #572), E.