Detective 426 – Batman plays Russian roulette, and the Elongated Man begins, again

A powerful Kaluta cover on Detective 426 (Aug. 72), and a good story by Frank Robbins – and one on which I feel his art style works perfectly.

Batman comes across a thief in a home with a dead man.  At first, it looks like murder, but the thief protests his innocence, and Batman realizes the man died playing Russian roulette.

A series of similar death follow, and the trail leads Bruce Wayne out onto a gambling ship, where he meets Conway Treach.  Treach is on the prowl for compulsive and extreme gamblers, challenging them to Russian roulette.

The story climaxes with Batman and Treach playing, as the bullets decrease but neither gets shot.  Probably my favourite single page of art by Robbins.

Batman has spotted the trick, a latch Treach presses to prevent a bullet from going into the firing chamber, and uses it as well. A solid, intense story.

The Elongated Man returns to the pages of Detective Comics in this issue, with a fun little story by Len Wein and Dick Giordano.  The Elongated Man would alternate with Atom and Hawkman and Jason Bard at this point, but his series would continue sporadically in the back pages of Detective throughout the 70s and into the 80s.

In the desert, Ralph and Sue come across a dying man in divers gear.  The only form of civilization around is an abandoned western film set, but Ralph finds blind fish, leading him to an underwater lake, and the criminals who are hiding their loot, and killed the member of the gang who tried to betray them.