Detective 517 – Batman as vampire, and Lady Viper suffers a set back
The story in Detective 517 (Aug. 82) is the middle part of a tale, which began in the previous issue of Batman, and ends in the succeeding one. As such, Gerry Conway, Paul Levitz, Gene Colan and Tony de Zuniga have a bit of filler time.
Batman spends the duration of this issue fighting crime as best as he can. His vampiric powers are a help, but he has to fight within himself to suppress the blood lust.
Boss Thorne ordered Vicki Vale’s editor to steal her photographic proof of Batman’s identity, and in this issue he peruses her shots and calculations, and decides that she is right, and Batman is Bruce Wayne.
The issue also finds time to give backstory on the vampire that turned Batman, which makes the best use of Colan, whose long history of horror comics shows in the flashback.
The Burkett/Delbp/Giella creative team that has helmed much of Batgirl’s latest run has their last story in this issue, concluding the Lady Viper storyline.
Batgirl heads to a hospital, and it proves surprisingly quick and easy to cure her of Lady Viper’s body-changing attack. Back on her own two feet, she goes after the murderer again.
The fates are on Batgirl’s side, as Lady Viper discovers that her own transformation was not yet complete, and she changes fully into the body of a snake.
Batgirl’s series runs for one more 2-parter, with a different creative team, but both Jeff and Jim are nowhere to be seen. Jeff has not appeared since flirting with Supergirl. Did Batgirl never forgive him for that? And Jim’s interest seemed to wane following the trial.