The Stop Button

It’s Batman versus the sky pirates! The bad guy’s name is Colonel Blimp. He and his pirates fly around in a tricked out zeppelin.

Of course, the issue doesn’t open with the sky pirates. It opens with the Gotham police admitting their beating up ex-commissioner Gordon because he’s investigating election fraud. They make this admission in front of Batman, who I would have thought could have called the UN or the President or someone when in a situation like that one… but he doesn’t. In fact, he forgets about it for the rest of the issue because he’s got a date with Vicki Vale.

Kupperberg has a really weird narrative gimmick in the issue–he has a cliffhanger, then immediately reveals what happened in a layered flashback. It reads they were originally making space for a Catwoman backup, then didn’t have one.

Calnan’s inks are atrocious. He mutilates Newton.

CREDITS

The Killer Sky!; writers, Gerry Conway and Paul Kupperberg; penciller, Don Newton; inker, John Calnan; colorist, Carl Gafford; letterer, Ben Oda; editor, Dick Giordano; publisher, DC Comics.