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Detective Comics (1937-2011)
Detective Comics (1937-2011) #584
Batman faces off against the guilty party behind the drug known as the "Fever" that has been plaguing Gotham City.
23 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 2, 1988
4 people want to read
About the author
Alan Grant
1,714 books144 followersAlan Grant was a Scottish comic book writer known for writing Judge Dredd in 2000 AD as well as various Batman titles during the late 1980s and early 1990s. He is also the creator of the character Anarky.
Alan Grant first entered the comics industry in 1967 when he became an editor for D.C. Thomson before moving to London from Dundee in 1970 to work for IPC on various romance magazines. After going back to college and having a series of jobs, Grant found himself back in Dundee and living on Social Security. He then met John Wagner, another former D.C. Thompson editor, who was helping put together a new science fiction comic for IPC, 2000 A.D., and was unable to complete his other work. Wagner asked Grant if he could help him write the Tarzan comic he was working on; so began the Wagner/Grant writing partnership.
The pair eventually co-wrote Judge Dredd. They would work on other popular strips for the comic, including Robo-Hunter and Strontium Dog using the pseudonym T.B. Grover. Grant also worked on other people's stories, changing and adding dialogue, most notably Harry Twenty on the High Rock, written by Gerry Finley-Day. Judge Dredd would be Grant's main concern for much of the 1980s. Grant and Wagner had developed the strip into the most popular in 2000AD as well as creating lengthy epic storylines such as The Apocalypse War. Grant also wrote for other IPC comics such as the revamped Eagle.
By the late 1980s, Grant and Wagner were about to move into the American comic market. Their first title was a 12-issue miniseries called Outcasts for DC Comics. Although it wasn't a success, it paved the way for the pair to write Batman stories in Detective Comics from issue 583, largely with Norm Breyfogle on art duties across the various Batman titles Grant moved to. After a dozen issues, Wagner left Grant as sole writer. Grant was one of the main Batman writers until the late 1990s. The pair also created a four issue series for Epic Comics called The Last American. This series, as well as the Chopper storyline in Judge Dredd, is blamed for the breakup of the Wagner/Grant partnership. The pair split strips, with Wagner keeping Judge Dredd and Grant keeping Strontium Dog and Judge Anderson. Grant and Wagner continue to work together on special projects such as the Batman/Judge Dredd crossover Judgement on Gotham. During the late 1980s, Grant experienced a philosophical transformation and declared himself an anarchist. The creation of the supervillain Anarky was initially intended as a vehicle for exploring his political opinions through the comic medium. In the following years, he would continue to utilize the character in a similar fashion as his philosophy evolved.
Grant's projects at the start of the 90s included writing Detective Comics and Strontium Dog, but two projects in particular are especially notable. The first is The Bogie Man, a series co-written by Wagner which was the pair's first venture into independent publishing. The second is Lobo, a character created by Keith Giffen as a supporting character in The Omega Men. Lobo gained his own four issue mini series in 1990 which was drawn by Simon Bisley. This was a parody of the 'dark, gritty' comics of the time and proved hugely popular. After several other miniseries (all written by Grant, sometimes with Giffen as co-writer), Lobo received his own ongoing series. Grant was also writing L.E.G.I.O.N. (a Legion of Super-Heroes spin-off) and The Demon (a revival of Jack Kirby's charac
Alan Grant first entered the comics industry in 1967 when he became an editor for D.C. Thomson before moving to London from Dundee in 1970 to work for IPC on various romance magazines. After going back to college and having a series of jobs, Grant found himself back in Dundee and living on Social Security. He then met John Wagner, another former D.C. Thompson editor, who was helping put together a new science fiction comic for IPC, 2000 A.D., and was unable to complete his other work. Wagner asked Grant if he could help him write the Tarzan comic he was working on; so began the Wagner/Grant writing partnership.
The pair eventually co-wrote Judge Dredd. They would work on other popular strips for the comic, including Robo-Hunter and Strontium Dog using the pseudonym T.B. Grover. Grant also worked on other people's stories, changing and adding dialogue, most notably Harry Twenty on the High Rock, written by Gerry Finley-Day. Judge Dredd would be Grant's main concern for much of the 1980s. Grant and Wagner had developed the strip into the most popular in 2000AD as well as creating lengthy epic storylines such as The Apocalypse War. Grant also wrote for other IPC comics such as the revamped Eagle.
By the late 1980s, Grant and Wagner were about to move into the American comic market. Their first title was a 12-issue miniseries called Outcasts for DC Comics. Although it wasn't a success, it paved the way for the pair to write Batman stories in Detective Comics from issue 583, largely with Norm Breyfogle on art duties across the various Batman titles Grant moved to. After a dozen issues, Wagner left Grant as sole writer. Grant was one of the main Batman writers until the late 1990s. The pair also created a four issue series for Epic Comics called The Last American. This series, as well as the Chopper storyline in Judge Dredd, is blamed for the breakup of the Wagner/Grant partnership. The pair split strips, with Wagner keeping Judge Dredd and Grant keeping Strontium Dog and Judge Anderson. Grant and Wagner continue to work together on special projects such as the Batman/Judge Dredd crossover Judgement on Gotham. During the late 1980s, Grant experienced a philosophical transformation and declared himself an anarchist. The creation of the supervillain Anarky was initially intended as a vehicle for exploring his political opinions through the comic medium. In the following years, he would continue to utilize the character in a similar fashion as his philosophy evolved.
Grant's projects at the start of the 90s included writing Detective Comics and Strontium Dog, but two projects in particular are especially notable. The first is The Bogie Man, a series co-written by Wagner which was the pair's first venture into independent publishing. The second is Lobo, a character created by Keith Giffen as a supporting character in The Omega Men. Lobo gained his own four issue mini series in 1990 which was drawn by Simon Bisley. This was a parody of the 'dark, gritty' comics of the time and proved hugely popular. After several other miniseries (all written by Grant, sometimes with Giffen as co-writer), Lobo received his own ongoing series. Grant was also writing L.E.G.I.O.N. (a Legion of Super-Heroes spin-off) and The Demon (a revival of Jack Kirby's charac
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 26, 2023
Batman has set his sights on the Ventriloquist and will not stop until he gets Fever off his streets!
Interesting that Bats doesn’t even entertain the whole Scarface thing.
He is understandably quite enraged about this new drug and even knocks off the dummy’s head.
After listening to a bug he planted, Batman catches them red-handed, having snuck drugs in via Fatman’s dead body.
I’m excited to see more of this villain (villains?) as I haven’t really seen much of him (them) before.
Interesting that Bats doesn’t even entertain the whole Scarface thing.
He is understandably quite enraged about this new drug and even knocks off the dummy’s head.
After listening to a bug he planted, Batman catches them red-handed, having snuck drugs in via Fatman’s dead body.
I’m excited to see more of this villain (villains?) as I haven’t really seen much of him (them) before.
February 1, 2023
yeah this was dumb. The fever storyline gets goofier and goofier and the ending? A let down. Weak.
August 10, 2017
First Appearance of Scarface, more of a comedic issue just because of the sheer absurdity of Scarface and his oneliners!
May 9, 2025
What an absolutely fantastic issue, a nice 2 issue story that covers all the bases and wraps things up nicely while going to some extreme places. The perfect introduction storyline for Scarface and the ventriloquist. Although there is one funny thing I noticed I want to mention right off the bat, it looks like Batman is driving more of a bat buggy vs a Batmobile. It’s pretty small and without a roof it looks like something he would drive on the beach, lol. I mean geez his cape doesn’t even fit and when he drives it around it hangs out the back, lol. But getting into the issue itself, we do start with a loss. RIP to Scarface’s henchman known as fatman. Seems he took the last train down to Tijuana and came back via coffin over air fare all while his body is packed full of the drug known as fever. Scarface really didn’t forgive the 50K him and Louis lost last issue, and sent him down there to become the delivery bag.
All the while, back in Gotham, Batman has decided to pay Scarface a visit after finding out he is the supplier of fever. Batman dropped in one night to the ventriloquist club while Scarface was enjoying a nice meal with his goons and lawyers. Hilariously Batman eould not address Scarface in the slightest, and even slammed his lawyer’s face into their food. Every moment was Batman grabbing the ventriloquist and telling him off for giving drugs to kids, as Scarface continued to try and talk to him…Batman slammed his head off and sent it flying across the room. Impressively ventriloquist was still able to project his voice to Scarface’s head. Batman doesn’t have anything on them at the moment but after taking down their guys, e left quite the impression that he is coming for them. He even picked back up Scarface’s head and dropped it into the ventriloquists food. But as it turns out he did this for a very particular reason, as he snuck a listening device into Scarface’s head.
As a few days pass, fatman’s body is through customs and headed for the states, all the while Batman has spent days on patrol with Scarface in one ear. He compared his situation to the case where a woman with a filling could pickup radio signals, accept he had a madman in one ear 24/7. But it all became worth it once he realized fatman wasn’t Scarface making fun of “gatman” again. He still isn’t exactly sure what is going on, but hearing the importance of fatman’s body coming back and a mention of a run worth 10 million…sufficient to say Batman jumped in and immediately started driving towards their signals location. As they arrived and payed off the funeral home attendant and began to take the drugs out of fatman’s body…the ventriloquist couldn’t handle it and actually started to gag and cry on disgust and sadness at his old friend. Which created a very interesting problem for Scarface as he started to yell at the ventriloquist for making his speech gag up as well. But it didn’t take long for Batman to catch up, take out the two guards out front, and then run in horrified at the site he is seeing. That moment of hesitation almost led to his death right there, but he was able to dodge the gun fire and use the environment full of obstacles to his advantage. Even throwing caskets and using their lids as weapons. Without any care for his own men Scarface opened up on them, not only did he kill some of his guys but he also sent the drugs up into the air as a fine mist…which happened to make contact with Batman and get into his system. This is honestly the worst case scenario, but not particularly for Batman, cause if we remember from the last issue the drug causes major agitation and violence…violence which Batman immediately unleashed on the ventriloquist and Scarface. Almost immediately he dodged their gunfire and threw a knife into Scarface. As Scarface was screaming about bleeding out (that was of course blood from ventriloquist’s hand, lol), Batman then took down the ventriloquist…but using everything he had he was able to fight against the drug and voices telling him to kill the ventriloquist…and he was able to walk out of there without killing anyone. As he stumbled into his car he was able to call the police and get Scarface and the ventriloquist caught completely red handed. No quick get of jail free card for them. Although it seems the ventriloquist is open to turning states witness on Scarface, lol, something Scarface immediately tries to kill him over.
All the while, back in Gotham, Batman has decided to pay Scarface a visit after finding out he is the supplier of fever. Batman dropped in one night to the ventriloquist club while Scarface was enjoying a nice meal with his goons and lawyers. Hilariously Batman eould not address Scarface in the slightest, and even slammed his lawyer’s face into their food. Every moment was Batman grabbing the ventriloquist and telling him off for giving drugs to kids, as Scarface continued to try and talk to him…Batman slammed his head off and sent it flying across the room. Impressively ventriloquist was still able to project his voice to Scarface’s head. Batman doesn’t have anything on them at the moment but after taking down their guys, e left quite the impression that he is coming for them. He even picked back up Scarface’s head and dropped it into the ventriloquists food. But as it turns out he did this for a very particular reason, as he snuck a listening device into Scarface’s head.
As a few days pass, fatman’s body is through customs and headed for the states, all the while Batman has spent days on patrol with Scarface in one ear. He compared his situation to the case where a woman with a filling could pickup radio signals, accept he had a madman in one ear 24/7. But it all became worth it once he realized fatman wasn’t Scarface making fun of “gatman” again. He still isn’t exactly sure what is going on, but hearing the importance of fatman’s body coming back and a mention of a run worth 10 million…sufficient to say Batman jumped in and immediately started driving towards their signals location. As they arrived and payed off the funeral home attendant and began to take the drugs out of fatman’s body…the ventriloquist couldn’t handle it and actually started to gag and cry on disgust and sadness at his old friend. Which created a very interesting problem for Scarface as he started to yell at the ventriloquist for making his speech gag up as well. But it didn’t take long for Batman to catch up, take out the two guards out front, and then run in horrified at the site he is seeing. That moment of hesitation almost led to his death right there, but he was able to dodge the gun fire and use the environment full of obstacles to his advantage. Even throwing caskets and using their lids as weapons. Without any care for his own men Scarface opened up on them, not only did he kill some of his guys but he also sent the drugs up into the air as a fine mist…which happened to make contact with Batman and get into his system. This is honestly the worst case scenario, but not particularly for Batman, cause if we remember from the last issue the drug causes major agitation and violence…violence which Batman immediately unleashed on the ventriloquist and Scarface. Almost immediately he dodged their gunfire and threw a knife into Scarface. As Scarface was screaming about bleeding out (that was of course blood from ventriloquist’s hand, lol), Batman then took down the ventriloquist…but using everything he had he was able to fight against the drug and voices telling him to kill the ventriloquist…and he was able to walk out of there without killing anyone. As he stumbled into his car he was able to call the police and get Scarface and the ventriloquist caught completely red handed. No quick get of jail free card for them. Although it seems the ventriloquist is open to turning states witness on Scarface, lol, something Scarface immediately tries to kill him over.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 13, 2021
Breyfogle art looks better here, and he doesn't ink himself, with predictably better results than last issue. Some of the drug dealer scenes are cringe-worthy outside of the 80s, but the Ventriloquist is definitely an intriguing villain. Recommended for fans of 80s war against drug themes and Batman fans.
December 27, 2024
Really great issue! Continuing the Fever Drug storyline, featuring The Ventriloquist and Scarface’s second appearance but first actual encounter with Batman!
June 5, 2025
Scarface out to lunch
loses his head to Batman slap
straight man tosses cookies
loses his head to Batman slap
straight man tosses cookies
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews