- Title: Batman #331
- Comic Vine: link
- Writers: Marv Wolfman, Michael Fleisher
- Artist: Irv Novick
Wayback Wednesday takes us back 42 years to 1980 and the first appearance of the Electrocutioner. Batman #331 offers two tales for the Dark Knight Detective. In the first, Batman hunts down a self-appointed executioner targeting criminals who have gotten away with crimes and imposing vengeance by frying them with his electric suit. The plot also includes tension between Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson over Dick’s decision to leave college (when not investigating the gang involvement of Lucius Fox‘s son) and Bruce’s relationship with Talia who returns at the end of the issue.
The Executioner works as a single-issue throwaway villain, although some of Fleisher’s dialogue hasn’t aged all that well. And Irv Novick knows how to draw the classic Batman. The back-up story features Batman going undercover in the GCPD as a beat cop and helping to defuse a bomb meant for Commissioner Gordon.
[DC, $.50]