InsaneJournal

A few weeks ago, I went in to the library for the first time in ages, and stumbled across The Strange Deaths of Batman. It's an interesting collection, some of the earlier imaginary stories with Dick and Clark dealing with the grief over the loss are interesting, even if one of them is just a setup for Gardner Fox to sell his idea of the Multiverse further. But this story stuck out for me in particular, due to my earlier request.

Written by Gerry Conway, with art by Rich Buckler and Frank McLaughlin, Batman is buried alive somewhere and no one knows why he's missing.

Clark is so upset to have his date ruined~~

Jim gets a call from the Metropolis police. There's some guy with a bomb strapped around him, gloating about how he's kidnapped Batman. Dick and Clark waste no time. Jim's used to quiet exits.

Clark tries to talk the guy down, gets him to spin the tale of how he captured Bruce (which amounted to camping on the route to a crime scene and shooting out the tires of the Batmobile, causing it to swerve, crash, and ultimately explode after the crook's dragged Bruce's unconscious body out), keeping him distracted while Dick goes for a sneakier approach.
It doesn't quite go as planned.

Dick is injured in the explosion, so Clark rushes him to the hospital. The staff there are courteous enough to leave the mask alone, apparently.


Jimmy helps Clark decipher some of the clues the crook had left before Dick grabbed him, so Clark runs off to the cemetery to find Bruce, but the lead-lined coffin he finds is...empty!
Because Bruce is right behind him!
They return to the hospital, where, after Dick wakes up, Bruce gives with the details of his daring escape, and they all have a laugh and act chummy because their friendship is awesome. (and i guess they got over that crook blowing up pretty quickly, though Alfred won't be happy with the stains it would've gotten in Dick's suit)

(worth noting this is 1981, so i think the Fourth World wasn't heavily involved with the DCU and they might not be familiar enough with Scott Free to know just how wrong they are here)

As an added bonus, espanolbot's post with Cass and Azrael put me in the mood to read through No Man's Land (i think i'd only read whatever trades had the Ivy story and Sarah's death before), and while I'm hardly 1/4 of the way through, I've stumbled upon some lovely single-issue stories (i've been putting them off to the side to post later, of course).
One of them is Batman #566, written by Kelley Puckett, art by John Bogdanove and Eduardo Barreto. The story's about Clark visiting NML Gotham to try to help as he can. When word gets to the Blue Boys, we get this scene.

It's sad that he turns out to be right, but seeing Clark try was important.

What do you guys think?