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| Publisher |
DC |
| Writer |
David Vern |
| Artist |
Mike Grell |
| Published | August 1977 |
SKULL DUGGER'S KILLJOY CAPERS! Bruce Wayne, as himself and as Batman, valiantly struggles against his reversed joy-pain responses, and learns from Dr. Faye Somers that "Skull" Duggers' victims were killed by an intensification of their brains' electrical charge. He begins a survey of Dugger and attracts him to a will-reading in which Dugger murders the heir, but Batman is unable to prevent the killing or capture Dugger. Hitting on a new plan, Batman disguises himself as a prison guard, arranges to be let inside Dr. Tzin-Tzin's cell, and cons the evil genius into thinking he will free him for a million dollars. The villain mystically immunizes Batman to pain for an hour, supposedly so that he can endure the electrical shocks which guard a vault door. Instead, Batman waits for Dugger in the latter's home. The hour expires just as Dugger arrives. But Dugger hits Batman with a double-barreled electrical device, one beam to cure his reverse-response condition, the other to kill him. Batman not only survives, but is restored to normalcy. Dugger perishes during the ensuing confrontation, as he damages his own equipment and causes an electrical accident. Later, Batman tells Commissioner Gordon that the "killjoy" device only worked on someone experiencing joy--the opposite of what Batman was experiencing at the time.
