Cover Date: September 1939
Plot Overview: While Batman is doing his nightly patrols he comes across Julie Madison, fiancee to Bruce Wayne, as she is about to kill some random man. Batman saves the man and then snaps Julie out of her trance. He takes her home and tells her to tell her fiance Bruce Wayne what has happened. Bruce Wayne takes her to a doctor and he recommends a boat voyage to Hungary. Bruce realizes that the man himself is in a trance but plays along anyway.
Bruce sees Julie off and then becomes Batman. Batman reveals his new Baterang and the Batgyro. He flies the Batgyro to the ship and has Julie explain her plight to them. Just then, the Monk appears and tries to hypnotize Batman. Batman breaks away and uses the Baterang and then makes his escape.
Batman follows them and then searches Paris for Julie. He finds her only to be attacked by a gorilla. Batman escapes only to fall into a net left by the Monk. The Monk tries to lower the trapped Batman into a pit of snakes but Batman makes his escape. Batman chases the Monk but is captured in a cage. The Monk reveals that he is going to feed Julie to werevolves. Just then a rope lowers the gorilla down to finish him off. Batman evades the gorilla and climbs up the rope to safety.
Batman finds Julie and takes her away on the Batgyro. He vows vengeance as the issue comes to a close. Be here next week for the exciting conclusion to this story.
My Take: This story has a very special place in my heart. Around the time the first Michael Keaton movie came out my parents bought me a copy of the first volume of the Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told. I was a huge fan of the Superfriends and the Adam West Batman series at the time and this was my first chance to read Batman comics. This story with the Monk was actually the first Batman comic I had ever read. I carry a lot of nostalgia for this story.
As far as the writing and the art. I find the art to be really good in this story. It's moody and it's creepy and that's just the thing you want for the story that's being told. I also found the art on the regular people to be better than in previous issues. They had been really hit and miss on the art up until the last issue. The writing is again really clunky and the story doesn't exactly make sense if you take it word for word. Batman immediately running after the Monk hypnotized him was a little silly. It wasn't really explained well and you kind of wonder at face value why he just ran off. He could've at least grabbed Julie and ran.
I did enjoy the fact that his felt more like a Batman story than a rip off of some episode of the Shadow. Though there was an episode of the Shadow that used a gorilla in a similar manner as this issue did. But I don't know which came first on that front.
I'd give this a solid C- due to my personal nostalgia for it and the fact that the story isn't too awful.
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