I want a Superman "time stick" now.

I feel like everyone and their mom bought that Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez DC Style Guide but me; I have to content myself with random ads like this one! The Superman "time stick" momentarily looked like mullet-Supes, but no. Anyway, as long as we're here, let's check out the front of this one! From 1982, Batman #354, "Showdown" Written by Gerry Conway, pencils by Don Newton, inks by Alfredo Alcala.

This was maybe intentionally stepping away from the '66 TV show: Batman had just been stripped of his "special deputy" status, by crooked Mayor Hill and Commissioner Pauling. Although currently outlawed, Batman still confronts them, since he had Deadshot held prisoner--probably illegally--but Bats hoped to spook them into confessing their conspiracy with Boss Rupert Thorne. While Pauling doesn't have the stones to shoot Batman, he still triggers an alarm, and one of his loyalists, fat pig Sgt. McClosky, takes a shot at Batman leaving police headquarters. He gets five shots off as Batman tries to swing away, and Bats catches one and falls...but his body isn't found.

Meanwhile, since he had been haunted by the ghost of Hugo Strange, Boss Thorne has brought in some help: "Ghost Breaker" Dr. Thirteen! The abrasive doctor doesn't like Thorne, or even accept his money: his whole thing was, there was no such thing as ghosts, and he almost compulsively has to prove it. And he's right this time: someone had set up hologram projectors and tape recordings, to hound Thorne. Thorne thinks Pauling and Hill did it, and storms off to get his revenge, although he also plans to settle with Thirteen later.

Alfred is attending to the blindfolded and caged Deadshot, when a bleeding Batman barely makes it in; then a brief subplot with Vicki Vale receiving an anonymous "cat-call" warning her to stay away from Bruce Wayne. Later that night, Thorne is drinking at home, when Batman arrives and scowls at him, silently. Thorne doesn't quite spill all the beans, but does accidentally set his house on fire! Thorne escapes the blaze, then at City Hall confronts Hill, Pauling, and McClosky; furious over their betrayal and all the fake haunting stuff, which Hill swears he didn't know anything about. Thorne shoots Pauling, but is himself shot by McCloskey, who is then knocked out by Batman.

"Batman" then reports back in: it was Robin filling in, as Bruce was currently bedridden. While Thorne would go to jail, their conversation didn't entirely incriminate Hill; and with Deadshot still not talking, they had nothing on the mayor. Robin wonders about the ghost business, though; as a limousine drives away, with Hugo Strange softly chuckling in the back. Well, the caption box says he's softly chuckling, the art and lettering in the last panel make it look more like he's cackling his head off. I feel bad for his chauffeur; imagine driving that around all day. 

I wasn't reading regularly then, but I think this plotline had been bubbling away for a long time, so it had to be immensely satisfying seeing the conspirators turn on each other and get some measure of what was coming to them. I wonder what that's like, huh?