Batman (1990) # 443

 By Mark Rodriguez

While Detective Comics issue 610 was my first ever Batman comic, as in, Batman is featured in the comic, Batman issue 444 was my first ever Batman comic as in the comic being titled Batman. Similar to Detective # 610, this one was also part 2 of a pre-existing story. I managed to track down the issue before it, so here we go.

"The Coming of Crimesmith" opens with a hsband, wife and kid jogging together. They go to the wrong part of time and several gang members approach them, pulling out guns and knives. One of the thugs taunts the husband over wearing a fanny pack and asks if he has any bank cards. Batman watches and the scene reminds him of the tragedy that hit him over twenty years ago (???). 

The husband tries to wrestle the gun away from the thug. His wife pleads to just give them the money. Another man pulls his own gun on the man, as their son watches helplessly. Just then a batarang smacks the gun out of the man's hand. As the man are confused, a rope grabs and snatches the thug that was packing the pocket knife. The first gunman flips out, starts shooting wildly into the darkness and runs off, convinced that 'The Bat' isn't human. Some people in a car are watching the events unfold. One of them advises the other that it's better to just stay in the car and watch for now.

The gunman keeps running and trips over a trash can in his hurry. The man is scared out of mind as Batman slowly approaches, still shrouded in darkness. The man open fires, but doesn't see a trace of the Dark Knight anywhere. He runs off and sees the aforementioned car and bangs on the window, begging to be let inside. One person in the car asks what to do. The other says the thug can take care of himself and they are only there to observe.

The man collapses and asks Batman what he did wrong. Batman approaches him and says he did everything wrong.

Later at Wayne Manor, Bruce reminds Tim that the idea is to minimize danger towards civilians and himself, and not to let anyone see him unless he wants them to. Tim asks when he can go out as Robin again. Bruce says he won't at least not for a long time. Tim said he proved himself. Bruce says he proved her has the makings of being a good partner, but it doesn't mean he's ready to be one. Alfred prepares to take Tim back to his dorm. Bruce says Tim is still a novice, and he won't make any mistakes this time. Alfred will continue his training until he's ready. From then the real workout can begin, or Tim can take that time to back out. Tim says being Robin means everything to him and he'll do whatever it takes.

Bruce watches Alfred drive off with Tim. He wonders why he needs a partner and says he can stop this now before the kid gets hurt.. like Jason was. Bruce meditates by the fireplace, but the TV distracts him as a man named Jeffrey Fraser talks about science. He picks up the phone and calls Lucius Fox. It's late at night and Lucius tells him to call him in the morning as he was wants to get some sleep.

Bruce asks him what he knows about Jeffrey Fraser. Lucius says they used him as a consultant three years ago and he saved the Astrochart Project. His wife adds that he's gorgeous. Bruce says he called recently to help smooth out recent problems in Wayne Tech. He adds that a little public relations never hurts. They'll discuss it in the morning. Lucius' wife hugs him and is surprised that Bruce actually cares about his business since he usually leaves all of that to him. Lucius says Bruce is hard to read, sometimes it feels like Wayne Tech is the last thing on his mind, but sometimes he'll suddenly show he knows exactly what's going on.

Elsewhere, Commissioner Gordon and some officers find a dead body and it looks like the explosive heat that killed him came from the inside out. Gordon says when he came to Gotham he never thought the city could ever sink lower, but every day proves him wrong. Gordon asks a fellow officer, Dilley, if he knew when Gotham was like this. Dilley, Gotham City born and raised, tells him the city has always been that way. Gordon remarks that he was afraid he'd say that.

 

Batman is watching over the scene, but nothing stands out. Just as he was about to leave, he sees a phosphorescent light flicker in the distance. Batman rushed to check it out.

Batman finds a fallen security guard, poisoned and  dead before he would realize what was going on. As Batman examines the scene, he sees that the lock was electronically bypassed. He sees the correct wire to a security camera was cut, any other wire would have triggered the alarms. The vault time lock was also circumvented, and Batman figures that these guys were professionals. 

Batman sees the thugs working the vault. One of them says he didn't like what they did to Eddie The other one says Eddie started to talk. As the open the vault, they see millions of dollars worth of furs. Batman tells the men that the furs aren't going anywhere. The men are scared but the muscle of the group thinks Batman is nothing to worry about.

The big guy takes a swing and Batman would move to the side to dodge it. Batman would chop the guy in the back of the neck and then do a spin kick to the chest. The man falls on his back. Batman asks the others who's next.

The others are surprised that Camby was taken down so easily, since he was the largest of the group. One of the men tries to ram the tray of furs into the Caped Crusader. Batman flips over it and lands onto the man's back. The third guy makes a run for it, in complete panic. The man is worried that 'he' figured everything out and handed this job over to them. Despite them failing, 'he' is still going to want his money. He asks how he will be able to explain this to his boss. Batman says he won't get the chance.

Then the comic cuts to a 16-page ad (yes... 16 pages) about Lightning Racers. The summarized version is about some kids playing with the advertised toy race cars. They run into a villain named Dr. Micro that uses a special gun to shrink things down. He was robbing a store and the kids ended up getting shrunk down too. Now the same size as their race car toys, they drive in them and thwart Dr. Micro's plans. 

Anyways, back to the main comic, Bruce and Alfred show up at Wayne Tech, as Bruce comments that the guy he chased was a lot more afraid of his boss than of Batman. Alfred teases and says it must have been a crushing blow to his ego. He asks what the world is coming to when giant scary bats no matter instill fear into the mind of the superstitious and cowardly.

The receptionist Ellie tells Bruce that Lucius and Dr Fraser are waiting for him. Bruce thanks her and gives her a flower. A co-worker says first Fraser was nice to her and now Mr. Wayne as well, and asks what her secret. Ellie says she's just lucky.

Bruce arrives and greets both Lucius and Fraser. Fraser's assistant Raya will take notes. Fraser says Wayne has had a recent problem with the government that left a credibility gap, and he can help turn that around. He says he's a scientist though, not a public relations agent. Fraser says science works best when properly funded and he'd hate to see Waynetech's finances dry up because of a mistake. 

Bruce says if he can help them, Waynetech will fully fund him for five years. In return, Fraser will be their public advisor and spokesman which he'll be further compensated for. Lucius has a prepared summary of all their progress so far and will answer all his questions. Fraser ponders that his work will be funded and Waynetech's reputation will be restored. He'll look everything over and if everything looks good, then they have themselves a deal. Bruce says he hopes so since he will love to have him on the team.

As they take the elevator, Fraser asks Raya what she thinks of Mr. Wayne. She says that Wayne speaks disinterested in the business and lets Lucius answer all the questions, but it's clear that he's the one in charge. Fraser feels that Mr. Wayne needs to be investigated, and tells Raya to get on it. Lucius asks Bruce if he thinks Fraser will take the deal. Bruce they'll just have to wait and see.

Gordon is his bedroom, having nightmares about what the Joker did to Barbara. He wakes up to see Batman there. Batman says he needs information that can't wait until the morning. He asks if there have been any unusual break-ins lately involving expert penetrations of security systems. Gordon wants to ask how Batman knew, but he doesn't want the answer. He says there has been four such break-ins in the last month but they kept them under wraps. Batman wants all the details.

Later on, a police officer is taking the guy who gave Batman chase earlier to see someone. The man, named Reese, asks if the cop finally got through to his lawyer. The cop takes him to see Batman, who says that now he's going to talk.

Elsewhere third man from the fur heist is being checked over by security. The security identifies him as Montgomery Marr, a man with four convictions and currently wanted with parole violation. The security system asks him why he is enlisting his services.

Montgomery calls out to the Crimesmith, saying that Reese ruined the fur heist. He couldn't remember the floor plan and used a flashlight. Batman got both Reese and Camby and Montgomery got away by the skin of his teeth. The Crimesmith says he is aware of Reese's failure and asks why he is wasting his time. 

Montgomery says that Reese told him the Crimesmith plans out jobs for them to pull. The Crimesmith figures it all out on computers and it's said that if you follow his plans you won't fail. Montgomery says he won't fail like Reese did and he wants in. The Crimesmith says his cut is 60 percent. Montgomery says 40 percent is better than nothing and agrees.

The Crimesmith reminds him that Reese has already failed twice. He states that his name and whereabouts are not to be mentioned to the police or his underlings. Montgomery promises not to say anything. The Crimesmith presses a button and something shoots into the back of Montgomery's neck. The Crimesmith says it's a very effective guarantee against betrayal.

Later on, Batman waits for several hours covered up with a coat and newspapers, posing as a homeless man. Batman ponders that Reese was too scared to talk and Camby could barely remember anything, but there was a third guy that got away. The Batcomputer showed that Reese and Camby shared a cell with Montgomery Marr. Speaking of which, Montgomery walks past with some thugs with plans to get past a security system. Batman figures that six hours worth of waiting has paid off.

As the men arrive at their target, one of the asks if they're sure about this since the place is packed with security. Montgomery says things will work out and hands a radio to one of the guys as he'll keep lookout. As the other leave, the guy with the radio figures he got the easy job. Batman reaches out to grab him.

Once inside the facility, Montgomery explains that there aren't any guards since the place is time-locked and under computer control. The door isn't supposed to open until eight in the morning, but his specific lockpick tricks the system into thinking it's the next day. The door unlocks and the crooks step in. Montgomery uses a white noise device to override the sonic sensors. They see their target, large trucks packing several luxury cars such as Rolls Royce's, Lamborghinis, Jaguars and Mercedes. Each truck is worth at least half a million. There are several men, they can take a truck each and each truck is packing six to seven cars. Batman calls out and tells Montgomery that he can't drive in prison.

The guys open fire and Batman hides in between the trucks. The henchmen walk between the trucks thinking that Batman won't waste time with them and focus more on Montgomery. One of them thinks they see him among the cars and proceed carefully. One of them comments that they heard Batman is so fast you'll never know when he'll hit you. Just then Batman opens a car door, slamming it into the guy's face.

The other men continue checking in between the trucks and one comments that his brother told him he once shot Batman in the chest and it didn't slow him down. The other guy says maybe they can't stop Batman because he's already dead. As the man turns, he notices that the guy is hanging from a rope. Batman gets to him before he can respond. Montgomery soon sees his men tied up and hanging from ropes. Batman tells him he's next. 

Montgomery runs desperately, saying that Batman is everywhere. He sees more of his men dangling from ropes, this time upside down. Batman says it's just the two of them, and demands to know who is planning these robberies. Montgomery says the man will kill him if he talks. Batman says he's not exactly there to throw him a party either. Montgomery says maybe Batman can protect him. He says the man calls himself the Crimesmith, when suddenly he feels intense heat coming from his neck. Fire spreads and Montgomery thinks Batman is somehow causing this. The man screams as he suddenly burns up and becomes a pile of ash. Batman only know that this new villain is named the Crimesmith.

 

My Thoughts-

So this comic came at an interesting time. I didn't know it at the time but this was the first issue that followed after the multi-part A Lonely Place of Dying. For the few Batman fans that don't know this was a 5-part story (three issues of Batman and 2 issues of Teen Titans) that showed how Batman dealt with Jason's death, as well as the introduction of Time Drake and implication that sooner or later, he was going to be next in line. In fact in the final chapter of that story, Tim helped Batman defeat Two-Face while dressed as Robin.

While we do see Tim here, Bruce assures it will take a good while before he becomes Robin officially. Bruce is still dealing with Jason's death. Likewise, Gordon is still having nightmares about what happened to Barbara during The Killing Joke. Originally meant to be a non-canon one-shot story, here we start to see examples of Barbara being shot and paralyzed by the Joker start to become part of the official canon.

I was also entertained by the letter section as the promise of Tim becoming the next Robin caused a bit of a divide. Some were happy but most fans that actually voted for Jason to die during 'A Death in the Family' didn't just want Jason dead, but the overall concept of Robin to die. One fan even pointed out that some of the best stories like Year One and the Killing Joke work better because Robin wasn't in those. The overall sentiment was that it was a waste of time to kill off Jason if there was going to be a new Robin anyway. I did chuckle a bit when one of the editors actually said they weren't bringing Jason back. Give it a few decades there sir.

I wouldn't bet too much money on that one, chief.

As for the story itself, the Crimesmith is a cool idea, it just seems that, for the sake of the story, some of the thugs were just too incompetent to follow his instructions to the letter. With that one guy Reese having a history of always messing up, it seems the Crimesmith doesn't care about failure, but just about keeping his existence a secret.  I wonder if we're going to find out more about that first victim the police find earlier. Usually that first seemingly unrelated victim leaves valuable clues.

Batman was just a bad-ass in this story. He took down the largest guy in the gang, Camby, without breaking a sweat. Imagine you're in a group of some sort and some guy in a costume easily takes down the biggest guy in your group and then asks the rest of you 'who's next'. We also got to see Batman sneak around among the cars and trucks, slowly picking off Montgomery's men one by one. At this point, Batman was still an urban legend of sorts, with the bad guys thinking that he isn't even human. You got bad guys running from the Dark Knight, scared out of their minds.

It's rare to see Bruce take care of business, and it's so rare that everyone involved were also surprised. I guess Jeffrey Fraser has an amazing reputation because it looked like Bruce and Lucius were pretty much throwing money at him. But as it usually is in comics like these.. I'm sure Fraser and Raya are somehow involved in the crimes or are at the very least shady in some way or another.

There weren't any 90's ads that stood out this time around that we haven't seen before in recent articles. NES games and those wireless Acclaim controllers. The thing that stood out the most since it kinda hits you like a slap in the face was the 16-page comic advertising Lightning Racers. It was a toy line, it had a promotional comic tie-in and had an animated TV series that I personally never heard of. This sounds like one of those shows that didn't last past a single season and it sounds like the actual toy line didn't last long either.

The only other ad that caught my eye was one for a New York comic convention. I'm sure these cons were popular for years but wow, I could never imagine such a thing as a kid back in the 90's. My very first actual comic con (not to be confused with anime cons) was decades later.

Anyways the next part of this story will be the first ever Batman comic (actually titled Batman) that I ever bought as a kid back in the day. 

My god... 16 pages of a glorified ad. I mean, that's almost a whole other comic. No wonder the comic felt heavier than usual.