Batman #195

Issue Details

Synopsis

THE SPARK-SPANGLED SEE-THROUGH MAN! Ned Creegan was just an ordinary crook who was tipped off about valuable jewels from Billy Blabbermouth that were being used for scientific tests in the northern suburbs of Gotham City. The home he breaks into belongs to scientist Nevil Logan, who passing radiation through the gems to find out their effect on living creatures by exposing them to farm animals. Knocking Logan out, Creegan steals the gems and takes them to his fence. There, the sale of stolen goods is interrupted by Batman and Robin battle the fence and the crook. While Robin easily knocks out the fence, Batman is shocked to see Creegan's body become transparent leaving only a skeleton in it's place. Dubbed "Bag O' Bones" by Robin, Creegan easily defeats the Dynamic Duo with his new electrified touch. Escaping back to Logan's lab, Ned orders the scientist to figure out what's wrong with him. Explaining he was attempting to come up with a means to make people immune to the effects of a nuclear bomb attack in case of a nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia, Nevil created the experiment that he did. Having developed a temporary antidote from the side effects of the radiation, and providing them to Creegan, Logan explains that while he is his "Bag O' Bones" form he loses a day of his life for every second he's in that form, calculating that in the time he was effected to the point where he took the temporary antidote, Creegan lost four years of his life. The two agree to work together as Logan intends to use his results to sell to the highest bidder. Logan sends Ned out with a handful of the pills in order to test their results in the hopes of coming up with a solid cure. Meanwhile, Batman and Robin have returned to the Batcave with one of the stolen gems and experiment on it and realize that it generates a similar electrostatic jolt to those given by Bag O' Bones. They then create special gloves out of hard rubber that will protect them from Bag O' Bones' electrical jolts. When Creegan goes out on another crime spree, Batman and Robin go out to stop him. They corner the crook as he is attempting to rob a Nature Museum, and during the fight Creegan's pills are lost. Although he gains the upper-hand against Batman and Robin, he realizes that he's lost his pills and surrenders to them as he is getting weaker with each passing second. When they are told about Logan, Batman and Robin run to his lab. Realizing that Creegan snitched on his secret discovery, he sicks a number of similarly irradiated animals on the Dynamic Duo. The two crime-fighters manage to fight off the animals and take Logan into their custody forcing him to give up more pills for Creegan. After agreeing to sell and all secrets to the United States to avoid legal troubles, Logan is present at Ned's trail where the crook is sentenced to 20 years in prison. Being led away, Ned blames Logan for the prison sentence he is unlikely to survive, to which Ned retorts that Creegan would not be in this situation if he had not broken into his lab to begin with.