Batman #227

Issue Details

Synopsis

THE DEMON OF GOTHOS MANSION! Alfred receives a letter from his niece Daphne, saying she is a teacher to children at Gothos Mansion but thinks there is something strange. Batman decides to investigate and once he arrives at the place, he is attacked by some men, but easily defeats them. He then gets into Daphne's room, where she tells him she has discovered the children were Dwarves and she is forced to wear ancient clothes. On the wall there's a portrait of a girl who looks exactly like Daphne. Batman breaks the lock and opens the door of the room in order to leaves the room. However, he steps outside the room into a hallway and he falls through a trapdoor into a net.  The Elder Heathrow and his men bind Batman's hands and he is placed on a stone with a noose round his neck. In about a quarter of an hour it will drop into the cellar and Batman will be hanged. He tells Batman that as Daphne was born at precisely midnight on October 31st he will sacrifice her to summon the demon Ballk, which his family has waited six generations to do. He claims an ancestor of his did so also and the spirit of the sacrifice walks these halls. When he is left to die, Batman tenses his neck muscles to prevent strangulation and by swinging catches a torch with his feet and burns through the rope. He proceeds to free his hands on the flame and he goes outside of the building. In the dark grounds of Gothos Mansion, he sees a girl he mistakes for Daphne but she says she is not her. She leads him to the coven in an old chapel and he finds himself loving her.   Inside the chapel, Daphne is bound and gagged, standing on the altar while the coven chants. She is forced down and the Elder prepares to slay her with a pitchfork. However Batman enters and puts an end to the sacrifical ceremony. As the coven attacks, he throws the Elder to them and they run out. The Elder dies and Batman deduces that his heart couldn't take it. Batman unties Daphne, telling her to go to the mansion as he goes out to meet the girl that guided him, but she says in besting the coven he has freed her and disappears into the night. Finally, Batman finds the image of the girl similar to Daphe fixed to a tree. HELP ME ... I THINK I'M DEAD! Robin saves a youth addled by a chemical accident, then becomes involved in a political issue involving a Congressman who has aided an industry's entry into New Carthage and a professor who opposes it because of industrial pollution.