Detective Comics #805

Issue Details

Synopsis

CITY OF CRIME PART 5 - THE HEATING UP The masked attackers approach Batman with a raging desire to eliminate him. Batman, on the other hand, unleashes all his wrath against this new opponents and takes them down, one by one. However, they are too many for Batman to deal with at the same time on the same environment. Batman decides to change the fight from the streets of Gotham, to the nearest park in the neighborhood. The attackers follow Batman by jumping from building to building and crawling upwards using walls and lamp posts with an extraordinary agility. As soon as they are gone, Mister Freeze slowly recovers and walks to the place where he holds the pregnant girl and the church minister. Once in the park, Batman tries to lose some of the attackers but almost all of them can keep up with him. Taking the battle to the trees, Batman starts fighting them with gadgets from his Utility Belt and dropping them from the top of the trees until there is just one masked attacker left. Batman grabs him and questions him about who are they all working for, but the man refuses to answer. Batman removes the chicken mask from the head just to learn that the man's face is shaped in the same way as the mask. After a few seconds the entire body of the creature starts dissolving along with the rain and Batman is left with rags and soil in his hands.  Meanwhile, Mayor Hull seems to be glad that the situation about the missing girl, Cassie Welles is giving him extra publicity and he prepares for an interview with the grieving mother, Marlene. However, his assistant Norman tries to warn him about his latest illicit activities.   At that moment, Frank Ivers and Elliot Lynch interrogate Marcus Rivera, Cassie's boyfriend, and Ivers forces the young man to give him an answer about Cassie's whereabouts. At the end of the day, Ivers drops Lynch at his home and before leaving, Lynch gave Ivers a word of advise: to take it easy on the suspects. Ivers is left alone in his car and he contacts someone by cellphone.   Later, Batman is in the Batmobile and Robin has joined him in his motorcycle. Batman tells Robin what he discovered that night and he gives the young man a tube with a sample from the soil that was once a human-like creature and asks him to analyze it on the Batcave while he goes looking for Freeze.   At Freeze's hideout, the kidnapped girl and the priest are freezing in an ice cage. The priest and the girl have been talking about the situation and their need to do something. Freeze arrives, desperately looking for a cold atmosphere and as soon as he steps inside, he removes his broken Cryo-Suit and lowers the temperature of the room even further, much to the priest's dismay.   During the night, Elliot Lynch's house is attacked and Norman, the mayor's assistant, makes some important phone calls concerning the whole events happening in Gotham right now. However, he is distracted when his wife comes to him and takes him to have a night of sex. Norman can't believe that just a few weeks ago, his wife was fat, ugly, unkept and nagging him all the time, but now she is entirely the opposite. She even got taller, but he doesn't seem to be concerned about that mystery...   The next night, Ivers gets Lynch at his home and he informs his partner about some vicious creatures that can duplicate other people's physical appearance, but Lynch seems to be uninterested in the revelation. A few seconds later, Ivers realizes that Lynch has been already replaced by one of these creatures and that the man sitting next to him is a doppelganger.   At Freeze's hideout, the mad man is placing some diamonds on his cold gun while the priest and the girl get ready to set their plan in motion. The priest gets closer to the girl, pretending to take care of her and the baby she is carrying and Freeze notices the situation and he freaks out, thinking that the priest might hurt his beloved "Nora". Freeze runs towards the cage and tries to push the priest away from the girl, when suddenly the priest, who was shirtless, waves his burning shirt against Freeze, who tries to get away from the fire. The priest has managed to start a fire with some matches he had in his pocket. The priest tries to attack one more time with his burning shirt, but Freeze attacks with his gun, freezing the man completely. After this, Freeze approaches the girl and asks if she is fine, but the girl replies that he doesn't love her. Freeze feels guilt and he begs for forgiveness, telling her that he would do anything to fix his mistake. The girl jumps at him and she tells him to hug her. Freeze can't refuse her request, but the warm body of the girl starts burning him until he is unable to move. At that moment, Batman arrives and asks the girl's name, and after making sure that she wasn't Cassie Welles, Batman takes her with him, leaving Freeze to the authorities.   Moments later, Ivers and "Lynch" arrive at a crime scene on a building. Ivers realizes that Lynch already knows what happened at the crime scene and also that he is good friends with some of the officers that he hadn't even met before. Ivers knows that his partner, Elliot Lynch is dead but he plays along with the creature posing as him and they step inside the building and go upstairs to the room of the crime. Ivers is left in shock after he watches the dead bodies of Marcus Rivera, who shot himself with a shotgun on his mouth, and Cassie Welles on top of him, apparently dead after she cut herslef with a knife. They were both laying on a bed and Ivers can't help but dismiss all the strange events happening and only think about where would he throw up. MUD Batman arrives at the Batcave with an almost destroyed Batmobile. He gets down from the car and goes straight to the laboratory area, where he leaves a plastic container with a mud sample inside and then he goes to change his soiled Batsuit to a new clean one.   In the meantime, the mud sample starts moving by itself and soon it manages to free itself from the plastic container. Moving itself towards the floor, the mud starts absorbing the soil left by Batman's footprints and soon the mud reaches the Batmobile, which is covered in mud. The mud from the car joins the mud in the floor and then, after being almost complete, a small Clayface is formed.   After changing to a new Batsuit, Batman contacts Oracle and informs her that he encountered a child-like Clayface, unlike any of the other versions. Meanwhile, the small Clayface starts roaming around the Batcave and finds a sack of manure, which he starts eating. Then, he watches his own reflection in a mirror and he breaks it by pressing too hard against it. Batman notices something's wrong and ends Oracle's communication. After investigating a little, Batman finds the small Clayface wearing one of his Batsuits and saying "I'm Batman". Batman kicks the creature in the stomach area, causing it to spread mud all over himself and across the floor and then, instead of reforming, several tiny Clayfaces run towards the Batmobile.   Once they are inside the car, they start reforming into one single Clayface, who tries to start the car, but Batman uses a remote control to eject the driver's seat upwards to the ceiling of the cave. However, Clayface seemed to enjoy the ride and soon he lands on top of the Batcomputer. Alfred arrives and offers Bruce a midnight snack, but Bruce tells Alfred to stay quiet as Clayface is about to drop down from the top of the Batcomputer. Clayface tries to cling over to the Batcomputer, but the impact caused it to move backwards and then forwards. Clayface falls to the ground and soon, the extra large monitor of the Batcomputer falls on top of him, destroying it all once and for all.   The living Clayface sample is lost and Alfred remarks how awful Batman smells at the moment. Batman replies that it was his last clean suit and that he would be taking a bath. While Batman eats some of Alfred's snack, he also tells him to remind him to invite Clark over so he can "move some furniture".