"Ghost of the Killer Skies" (writer: Denny O'Neil; artist: Neal Adams) was first published in Detective Comics #404 (October 1970), but I first read it when it was reprinted in a 1977 paperback:
It was in black-and-white, but Batman stories work well in that format. Of course, the panels were rearranged so that they could fit two or three to a page, but I hadn't read this story before, so I wasn't picky about the poor formating.
I've written before about how I feel the O'Neil/Adams era of Batman gave us the best-ever interpretation of the Dark Knight. There was a dark undertone to Batman and his tragic history, but this wasn't represented by making him a rude jerk. Also, the stories acknowledge all the various skills that make Batman exceptional--he was a Holmsian-level detective as well as a superb martial artist and escape artist.
"Ghost of the Killer Skies" highlights all this wonderfully. Bruce Wayne is in Spain, funding a movie about Hans von Hammer, the German pilot from the First World War who is commonly known as "Enemy Ace."
Why would Bruce Wayne become personally involved in producing a movie? The story has a perfectly reasonable explanation for this that also reminds us that Bruce looked for ways to do good even when he's not dressed up as a giant rodent. He wants to make a meaningful anti-war film and believes a biographical movie about Enemy Ace (an honorable and often reluctant warrior) is the best way to do this.
But things are not going well on the set. Production is being sabotaged, culminating in the mid-air murder of a stunt pilot.
This sets of a truly excellent story, but I suppose you can nit-pick one part of it. A few pages in, we meet the guy who is charge of maintaining the WWI planes being used for the movie. He's a dead ringer for Enemy Ace and he's droning on about how it is not fated for the movie to be completed. Gee, do you think he might be the bad guy?
Actually, there are two sets of bad guys. A cameraman has been hired by a rival film company to sabotage production, but Batman manages to snag him and his allies when they attempt to dynamite the planes, figuring out how the mid-air murder was committed at the same time.
There's one part of this I love. Batman interrogates on of the saboteurs and scares him into talking. Then he just lets the guy go, telling him to turn himself and his partners into the cops--OR BATMAN WILL COME FIND HIM! The combination of O'Neil's skilled writing and Adams' art work completely convince us that Batman is indeed that scary when he needs to be.
After one more murder, Batman confront the Enemy Ace twin, who--not surprisingly--turns out to be a decendent of von Hammer. His motivation is simply that he views Enemy Ace as a god-like warrior, refusing to accept that he was capable of mercy or respect for his enemies. Thus, a movie depicting the Ace as an actual human being must be stopped.
The two end up in biplanes, fighting a duel. Batman "thought balloons" us the information that he has limited training with antique planes, but he seems to be flying with more skill than should possible for him. The implication, of course, is that the ghost of von Hammer is helping him. Since this is a Comic Book Universe, we can probably accept that idea at face value.
But the bad guy has a gun and Batman doesn't, so soon the Dark Knight is flying a plane that's leaking oil. Batman handles this situation by simply jumping aboard the enemy Fokker. Gee whiz, this story is full of cool-looking panels, isn't it? It's no wonder the story grabbed me even when chopped up to fit in a paperback.
In the ensuing struggle, the villain's scarf is caught in the Fokker's propellor, tearing him from the plane and sending him on a plummet to his death.
So Batman gets to be a great detective and a skilled martial artists AND he gets to fly a World War I biplane. Even in context of Batman's eventful life, that's a pretty cool day.
Next week, we continue with our World War I Biplane theme in a Man from U.N.C.L.E. story that tosses the Spirit of St. Louis into the mix as well.
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