The Man Behind the Red Hood! / The Electric Thinking Cap / The Return of the Iron Man / Ten Little Indians last edited by luphawk on 09/11/22 07:47AM View full history

    Cover by Lew Schwartz and Charles Paris.

    1. The Man Behind The Red Hood!: (Batman written by Bill Finger, penciled by Lew Schwartz, and inked by George Roussos) Batman is summoned to GCPD headquarters and introduced to Dean Chalmers of State University. the school is starting a course on criminology and would like Batman to be a guest instructor. to better understand his students he conducts private interviews with each of them but we only see 2. Paul Wong is from Hawaii and hopes to become a medical examiner there someday and Jimmy Kale wants to repay society for his gangster father's crimes by replacing the FBI man he killed.

    a month in and the class has been going well so Batman decides to give them a test case, an actual crime he never solved, a criminal who called himself the Red Hood. 10 years ago his crimes stirred Gotham and his victims all described the same thing, he wore a red hood, shiny, all one piece without even eye holes, begging the question of how he sees through it. Batman finally confronts Red Hood in an ice plant where he explains that he will never be identified because his hood covers his features completely. he shoots a pipe with choking ammonia gas and escapes, seemingly unaffected by the gas as Batman ran from the room for air. his crimes went on for another month until he was cornered fleeing the Monarch Playing Card Company. he dove into the catch basin for waste chemicals. they didn't find a body but it was thought he was killed by the chemicals and the red hood was never seen again.

    the next day the newspapers report that Batman's students have reopened the 10-year-old Red Hood case. Paul and Jimmy are working together, Paul thinks he figured out how Red Hood saw through his hood while Jimmy realizes all he stole adds up to $1,000,000 saying he has a hunch Red Hood is still alive and at that moment Red Hood is robbing the collage payroll.

    A guard manages to trip the alarm and Batman and Robin respond swiftly. Robin catches up to him and tries to punch him but breaks his finger on the hard hood. Batman gives chase but Red Hood escapes through the school’s gas main. Retracing his steps Batman finds a roll-up felt hat and in it, he finds a hair. Needing more light to see the color robin accidentally knocks the lamp into it and chars it. They use a chemical that is supposed to restore the original color of burned threads but Robin thinks they must have done something wrong because the hair turned green.

    Back on campus, Batman thinks he sees the Red Hood and jumps at him through a window but it turns out to be Paul wearing a replica they made to show that Red Hood used red two-way mirrors in the eye holes to see, the glass blended in with the shiny metal to make one blank piece. They also figure that the hood was a gas mask and diving helmet as well, allowing him to ignore gas and breath underwater. Jimmy theorizes that Red Hood had intended to seal exactly $1,000,000 and then retire, which he did but decided to return when the case was reopened.

    Hours later Red Hood is spotted heading for the college museum and Batman confronts him in its Mayan exhibit. Red Hood runs but avoids going through a room with gas jets that are used to disinfect new exhibits. He briefly losses his pursuers before they think they have caught him but it turns out to be one of the gardeners who Batman recognizes as an ex-con but the man is only 22, too young, and not educated enough to be the original Red Hood so they let him go.

    Batman decides to set a trap, planting a fake story about a valuable trophy being exhibited in the gym and Red Hood takes the bait. Batman uses red lights to blind him and when they pull the hood off it turns out to be the gardener after all. Turns out the first robbery was the real Red Hood but the gardener spotted him coming out of the gas main so he tied him up in the tool shed and used the suit to commit the other crimes. They go to the tool shed where they find that the reals Red Hood is…the Joker.

    He explained that years ago he had normal skin coloring and worked in a lab until he decided to steal $1,000,000 and retire so he became Red Hood. the Monarch Playing Card job got him to that goal and his hood let him survive the chemicals but they turned his skin chalk-white, his hair green, and lips rouge-red. Thinking he looked like an evil clown he became the Joker.

    This was the first appearance of Red Hood and the first time we got an origin for the Joker.

    2. Peg: (humor strip) Peg asks her dad to go for a walk with her which makes him happy and when they walk to a department store she tells him she loves a sweater and he tells her it is her, have the sales girl wrap it up. He then looks angry when he hears the sails girl say she held it for her while she went to get her father.

    3. Captain Tootsie Cheers Orphans: (Tootsie Roll add)

    4. The Electronic Thinking Cap: (Impossible But True) a man claims to have invented a thinking cap that will let people learn while they sleep.

    5. The Return Of The Iron Man: (Robotman) Robotman is passing through a New Mico town when some criminals impersonate spanish ghosts to scare villagers away so they can search for buried treasure in peace.

    6. The World Of Adventure In Books: (PSA)

    7. Your Thinking Cap: (text story)

    8. Jerry The Jitterbug: (humor strip) Jerry is out shoveling snow when a man asks how much to shovel a path to his house. He thinks the house isn’t far from the street so tells him he will do it for a dollar. The man agrees and points to the house across the street with a big yard saying “that's my house, start shoveling”.

    9. Ten Little Indians: (Pow-Wow Smith) Smith gets a letter addressed to Pow-Wow Smith but it isn't meant for him.

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