Batman #303

Issue Details

Synopsis

BATMAN'S GREAT IDENTITY SWITCH! Batman is struck on the head by a rock while fighting the Dodo Man, a crook with an unusual urge to steal anything related to dodos, in the Gotham Natural History Museum. The blow reverses his identity-switching impulse, so that he battles criminals as Bruce Wayne and appears in civilian life as Batman, but he cannot understand the commotion he raises by doing so.  Alfred consults his doctor and learns that the cure may be placing Batman back where he was hit by the rock. Thus, he places a bat-transmitter bug in the Natural History Museum under a stuffed dodo's wing. When Bruce Wayne tracks it down, his reversed-identity impulse is corrected and he dons his Batman uniform. As Batman, he intercepts the Dodo Man trying to steal the stuffed dodo, and captures him. IF JUSTICE BE SERVED Angus McKame dies of a heart attack while playing tennis with Bruce Wayne. As Batman, he goes to check out the apartment where McKame was rumored to have stashed his riches in a wall-safe, inexplicably in the worst part of town. Abruptly, he has to save Marty Rail, a reporter for the yellow-journal Graphic, from being caught by a seven-foot man. Only after he decks the giant does Batman learn that he is Buzzy McKame, Angus's adopted son. Batman learns from Angus McKame's maid that Rail stole materials from McKame's wall safe, and a scrap of newspaper which remains identifies McKame as a murderer from fifty years ago in Death Valley, Arizona.   Batman rushes to Rail's apartment to see Rail shoot Buzzy, who was trying to recover the stolen papers. Buzzy, as a dying act, pushes Rail out the window to his death. Batman notices that Rail's briefcase has sprung open, and the papers incriminating Angus McKame are wafting out to sea on the breeze. He resolves never to reveal Angus McKame's crime, except in a file he commits to a time capsule.