Mother's Day in Gotham City--Batman is again in Arkham, interrogating Julian Day, the Calendar Man, in search of leads on the Holiday case. Calendar Man taunts Batman for his overconfident comments during his last visit about Holiday's capture being a certainty. Batman ignores Day's mockery and asks him why Holiday did not kill the Riddler the previous month. Calendar Man suggests it might have been motivated by the nature of the holiday itself. Then Batman asks Day about Harvey Dent. Julian dodges the question and tells Batman that he will stop Holiday if he is released, but Batman wants information first.
The interrogation comes to an abrupt halt when a terrified guard bursts in, telling Batman of an escape before collapsing. Batman knows instantly who the escapee is, and he rushes to the Scarecrow's cell to find him gone, fled out the window with the help of someone posing as his mother. Batman follows and confronts the Scarecrow, only to discover that it is merely a decoy boobytrapped with fear gas.
Meanwhile, Sofia Gigante is on the trail of Holiday. On the Gotham River Bridge, she dangles an informant over the edge in an attempt to find out what he knows. After he tells her about a gunsmith in Chinatown who makes a custom .22 pistol every month, she lets him go and heads for the location the informant provided, Chong's Tea House. But she arrives too late, finding the gunmaker dead at the hands of Holiday.
Back at Wayne Manor, Jim Gordon is again met at the door by Alfred, who tells Jim that Bruce is out honoring his mother's memory on this holiday. Jim later finds Bruce in Crime Alley, the site of the tragic death of his parents. But Bruce is experiencing the effects of inhaling the Scarecrow's gas and, hallucinating that Jim is his parents' murderer, he runs. After jumping on top of a bus from the roof of a nearby building, Bruce's final destination is his mother's grave site where he is finally apprehended by the police.
Annotations/Analysis
Page 2 and 3--Here's a rundown, top to bottom, left to right, of all the headlines on the walls of Calendar Man's cell.
Gang War Over Holiday--appears twice, once in upper left corner and once behind Batman's head
Who Is Holiday?--appears three times, two in northwest corner and one at bottom left
Valentine's Day Killer--twice, one under Who Is Holiday and one to the upper right of Bats' head
Holiday Terrorizes Gotham City--twice, below Valentine's Killer in upper left and in upper right
-ody -day--twice, above and below Calendar Man's right arm
New Year's Killer at Large--twice, to the left of Day's right shoulder and up and to the right from his head
Holidays Bring Death--under Day's arm and next to his lips
Top Ten Holiday Clues--twice, by Day's butt and by Bats' belt
Police Ask for Public Help--by Day's butt
Hol- Hor-(Holiday Horror???)--twice, behind Calendar Man's head and upper right corner
-ick's -ghter--twice, over Day's head (behind "It's May" balloon) and behind Bats' shoulder
April Fool's! No Killing!--above Day's head
Holiday Panic: Who Will Die Next?--under Day's left arm
Holiday Baffles Police--under Bats' arm
Police Baffled--above Bats' head
Holiday Nightmare Continues--twice, both between Day and Bats' heads
Holiday Killing Spree--behind Day's fingers
Page 3--
"The court's alternative to Gotham Penitentiary." Gotham Pen. is the precursor, I guess, to Blackgate. Anybody know when Blackgate was built?
Take note of the much ballyhooed gender switching here. "You said you would have caught HER by February. HE's making quite a name for HERself." (Even Bats starts falling for it at the top of page four with his "Why didn't SHE kill on April Fools' Day?") Big deal. Just a couple of pronouns. It doesn't mean that he knows it was Gilda and Alberto. More likely it means that he's unsure.
Page 4--
The Gemini comment in panel two is more Two-Face foreshadowing.
Batman's "You know, don't you?" shows that he believes Harvey is Holiday.
"Let me out" says Calendar Man. But back in issue three, Jim told Day he would be released if he helped them out. So Day's imploring for release isn't necessary. If he gives them what he knows, he'll be let out. But, if he doesn't know anything, then his request to be released makes sense. Day's playing games, hoping to swing a free release. That's why Batman says forcefully, "Tell me what you know." He knows that Day is just baiting him and won't go for it. (Remember that Hannibal Lecter exchanged false information for a chance to escape in Silence of the Lambs.)
Page 5--The level four comment doesn't quite make sense to me. We find out that it's Scarecrow who escaped and we see Batman jump down a floor in panel one of page five, but in issue three they were on the same level.
Page 6--In panel three and four we see the window only has three bars, but on the next page it'll have four.
Page 7--"Jonathan Crane strangled his mother years ago. On Mother's Day." Was this story ever published, and if so was the date established there? (And shouldn't the guards have been briefed on that? somebody should have realized and not let the mother in>)
Page 8-11--The decoy clearly MOVES! That's some great robotic technology there that Carmine provided him with to help his mistake.
Page 12 and 13--I love the transition between the two pages here, the alarms at Arkham to the sirens of the cop cars outside Wayne Manor.
Page 13--Alfred says "At the risk of sounding redundant, Capt. Gordon, Mr. Wayne is not at home." Redundant? He said that to Jim in FEBRUARY! Three months ago! They've known about this since Dec. 31 and are only now acting in May!
Page 14--
This is the bridge where O'Hara will die in issue one of Dark Victory.
Gunsmith normally makes a custom .22 pistol once a month, but this month since he knew ahead of time he was going to die, he made a ton, as you'll se on page 16.
Page 17--The line in panel four "Couldn't we make it special, Mother?" comes from Jeph and Tim's LODK Halloween Special, Ghosts.
Page 18--What we witness here and in the following pages is an intense exploration of Bruce's character. Bruce displays intense guilt here over his parents' death. He asked his mother to wear the pearls. (And as we learned in the Gothic storyline of LODK, his expulsion from his boarding school also led to them going to the movie that night.) The crook wanted the pearls. Therefore, Bruce feels he's to blame for what happened, and his nightly activities as Batman are a form of relieving his grief and anguish.
Page 19--Great parallel here. The way his coat resembles a cape directly relates to how Bruce is displaying through his paranoia some Batman-like tendencies, i.e. scaling a fire escape and jumping onto a moving bus.
Page 20--The next time you're in Gotham, remember that the 431 bus goes downtown.
Mother's Day in Gotham City--Batman is again in Arkham, interrogating Julian Day, the Calendar Man, in search of leads on the Holiday case. Calendar Man taunts Batman for his overconfident comments during his last visit about Holiday's capture being a certainty. Batman ignores Day's mockery and asks him why Holiday did not kill the Riddler the previous month. Calendar Man suggests it might have been motivated by the nature of the holiday itself. Then Batman asks Day about Harvey Dent. Julian dodges the question and tells Batman that he will stop Holiday if he is released, but Batman wants information first.
