Detective 786 – gifts to the Wayne boys, and the Dog Catcher makes a call
Brubaker, Zircher and Sowd are joined by Steven Bird for the final chapter of “Made of Wood, ” the Batman/Green Lantern team-up, in Detective 786 (Nov. 03).
Jim Gordon is in the hands of the killer, who tells him about his father, and discovering, after his death, that he had been the Made of Wood killer. The son felt this made his father much more important of a person, his huge achievement, and so has chosen to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a serial killer as well.
Batman gets on the trail of the man, and Alan does his bit to make Batman even more frightening than usual.
When they confront the killer, they learn the reason behind it all. Alan Scott had been hugely admired by the boy’s father, up to the point when he got knocked out by Sportsmaster during a fight, and Sportsmaster destroyed the father’s business, plunging him into debt and depression. He felt betrayed by Green Lantern, and his motive was to show how weak the Lantern was. Alan is cut to the quick by this, and genuinely remorseful. Batman has less patience with the excuses, and no trouble taking the man down.
After a concluding talk, in which both heroes express admiration for each other, and tell the other not to be so hard on themselves, Alan leaves Bruce a gift, the bat he had been knocked out with, which started the whole thing. Bruce puts it with a signed photo of Alan Scott with a young Thomas Wayne.
Not a big, huge story. But keeping it smaller and more personal made it emotionally quite powerful.
Rick Spears and Rob G continue the saga of the Dog Catcher in this issue.
He follows procedure, attempting to contact the dog’s owner, but Arkham tells him that the Joker has escaped. Which is not really good news in any fashion.
He tries asking on the street about the Joker, but everyone thinks he is crazy to try and find him. But as his only other choice is to put the dog down, and he figures the Joker will kill him for that, he puts up notices to try to get his attention.
The story continues in the next issue.