Polite Dissent

The Batman Family #14 “Old Super-Heroes Never Die — They Just Fade Away!”
Bob Rozakis, writer
Don Heck, penciler
published in October 1977

Batwoman knocks on the door to Barbara Gordon’s apartment, only to disintegrate before Barbara’s eyes when she opens the door. It turns out that a short time before, Batwoman had confronted a couple of thieves who shot her with their special gun called a “Convincer” that knocked her out. She came to and crawled to Barbara’s apartment.

Believing the remnants on the costume look familiar, Barbara travels to Hudson University to meet with chemist Dr. Nu. He confirms what Barbara suspected, that it is a virus similar to the hybrid virus he once created – only this one is deadly! Both Dr. Nu and Batgirl put on a special plastic suit to keep the virus from spreading.

Barbara calls up Robin and together they look for clues. Their investigation leads them to a carnival on the Washington D.C. Capitol plaza. While there, they run into carnies Mr. Brain and Dr. Brawn who they soon deduce are the criminals responsible. Dr. Brawn pulls out the Convincer, and fires it at Robin, knocking him back into the crowd. He then fires it at Batgirl, but it has no effect. It seems she is protected by her plastic sheeting. Batgirl is able to subdue the crooks and bring. Kid Flash swoops in and runs the Dynamic (more or less) Duo and the Convincer to Dr. Nu for testing. The doctor determines that the virus it produces shrinks people into smaller and smaller bits. A counter-virus is produced and Batgirl, Robin, and even Batwoman are cured.

Medically, this “shrinking virus” is nonsense. I suspect “virus” was a convenient scientific-sounding catch word at the time this was published, because the concept of a virus introduces more plot holes into the story:

• A gun that shoots viruses?
• How exactly did Dr. Brawn and Mr. Brain (not particularly competent criminals) get their hands on such a gun? Did they invent it or steal it?
• Why weren’t Dr. Brawn and Mr. Brain infected?
• Why was Dr. Nu able to see the virus with a normal microscope?
• Why is a chemist investigating a virus instead of a biologist?
• When Robin asks Kid Flash to help him write his overdue term-paper, is this the beginning of the moral slippery-slop that leads to the murder of Blockbuster in Nightwing?

The comic does contain some classic Silver Age moments, reproduced here (click on thumbnails for larger views):

I love that line: “We’re fighting the clock, sir…the clock of doom!”