Batman #124

Issue Details

Synopsis

THE INVISIBLE BATMAN Batman and Robin, battling two members of Smiley Gober's gang at the Aladdin Lamp Company, are dismayed when one of the gangsters accidentally triggers a ray-machine's beam on Batman, causing him to become invisible. After the hoods are taken by the police, a scientist at the plant explains to Batman that the machine is used to experiment with light waves, and the ray which caused his predicament is unknown to them. The invisible Batman carries on, even though he knows he will have to make a televised appearance later in the week with the Gotham Community Chest, as Bruce Wayne. Batman and Robin next encounter Smiley and his gang going through bags of soy flour at a bakery. When they detect the unseen Batman's footprints in spilled flour, the gangsters employ a vacuum cleaner filled with soy flour switched over to exhaust to blow flour all over Batman, rendering him visible. When he accidentally falls into their hands, Smiley unmasks Batman, only to find that the concealed upper half of his face is still invisible. Robin appears, removes the flour from Batman's body with an exhaust fan, and helps his mentor bring the crooks down with the help of a vat of butter. Later, Bruce Wayne appears at the Community Chest with make-up covering his face, but the hot lights of the television crew causes the make-up to run. However, his invisibility has worn off, and no harm is done. THE RETURN OF SIGNALMAN Phil Cobb breaks jail and returns to the Gotham underworld as the Signalman. He hopes to acquire a gang, now that he has one battle with Batman under his belt, but the Gotham crooks refuse, since Batman has outsmarted him before. Accordingly, Signalman begins a new solo crime campaign, sending clues to Commissioner Gordon and Batman. The symbols of theater masks and a short voyage sailing symbol indicate his first raid will be on an old showboat's box office; Batman and Robin confront Signalman on board, but he brings down a smokestack with an explosive and forces the heroes to stop the resulting fire as he escapes. Later, the heroes receive the astrological symbol for Sagittarius, the archer, and the chess symbol for a castle. They deduce correctly that Signalman intends to rob a priceless borrowed diamond necklace from an actress portraying the queen of England in a Robin Hood movie being filmed nearby; the Signalman flings down a checkered flag and escapes in a racing car. Finally, Batman receives a flashlight with a Bat-Signal fixed to it. He realizes that the Signalman plans to rob the police exhibit at a nearby hall, heisting a display of the many honorary police badges sent to Batman. During the confrontation, Signalman attempts to escape by climbing a giant microscope, but Batman climbs a giant safety patrolman's statue, reaches Signalman, and knocks him onto a giant scales of justice. THE MYSTERY SEEDS FROM SPACE A farmer outside of Gotham City and his wife are the first to feel the effects of a trio of strange "space seeds" fallen from the heavens: a strange, incredibly loud whistling noise that sets up powerful vibrations in the air around it. Hearing the noise, Batman and Robin investigate in the Batplane, seeing Gotham Tower and a cross-river bridge disintegrating from the noise. They protect themselves with wax earplugs and, finding the strange seedpod, cause a small avalanche with rubble and muffle, but not stop, its sound. Batman and Robin then encounter the farmer, who tells them of two other seeds which fell to Earth right after a meteorite recently struck the ground. The second seed releases a petrifying gas cloud which threatens to drift towards Gotham City; the heroes anchor their Whirly-Bats over the gas cloud and hold it stationary in a small ravine. They track the third seed by the radio interference it caused and find a giant, collapsible robot emerging from the interior, which proceeds to free the gas cloud and sound seed, all of which head for Gotham. Realizing the meteorite must be a control element, Batman uses the Batplane's grappling hook to snag it and then dips it into the petrifying gas cloud. It becomes brittle enough to be shattered by the vibrations of the sound seed. Without the control element, the gas cloud evaporates and the robot and sound seed disintegrate. When Robin wonders why another planet would use those means to attack Earth, Batman speculates that it may have been due to a military error.