Detective Comics #92

August 23, 1944

"Crime's Manhunt"

The cover for this issue is a little weird as the characters on the front all have a boxy kind of look to them. And there's something about Batman's proportions that do not seem normal. In any event, we have a story to look at so let's get into it.

Socialite Carter Van Alt is holding a party and his guests are dancing in a conga line. Suddenly, the waiters pull out guns and begin to rob the guests. But Batman and Robin arrive and round the three up with them winding up in jail. Sounds like the end of the story, right?

A year later, the three see that they can't get a decent racket going with Batman on the case. So they decide to use their knowledge of the criminal underworld to become bounty hunters and capture wanted cons. It's interesting as one of the captures involves going to New Jersey and New York is mentioned. Once again, it looks as though Gotham City is New York City.

The problem is the three are so good at it, that they start to run out potential marks. It actually begs the question, how is it Batman isn't this successful that he runs out of criminals to apprehend? They take their scheme up a notch by working out plans to spring criminals from jail so that they can be recaptured for the money.

One of the cons they spring twigs to their scam, but before he can act, Batman and Robin jump in. They are able to subdue the con who then rats out the three bounty hunters. The news gets to Batman who decides to trap them by posing as a wanted criminal with $25,000 on his head.

There's the usual moment the trap is sprung and the momentary halt as Batman is stunned by a falling grandfather clock. (The clock isn't usual, but he getting either distracted or even caught at this point is.). But after a sequence where he rescues Robin who is trapped on a flagpole, the two round up the three and drop them off to the police.

It's not a bad idea, in fact it's a great one, but since it's the same execution of story, there's nothing overall exciting to recommend. And what's next? It's another issue of Detective Comics, Citizens!