THE BATMAN & THE SHADOW "Night of the Shadow" Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Heroes...

Bruce Wayne is the kid on the right. Art by Nick Cardy.

25 years ago, Dr Thomas Wayne and his young son Bruce were caught in the crossfire between a gang of jewel thieves led by Willie Hank Stamper and the mysterious figure known as The Shadow.

Stamper was imprisoned.

The Shadow disappeared.

Bruce Wayne later became The Batman after another encounter with a criminal left his parents dead.

Willie Stamper served his time and was released.

Now Stamper seeks to recover his ill-gotten gains, restart his career as the "Genius of Crime" and avenge himself on those who he feels caused his imprisonment...including Bruce Wayne!

One of the basic tropes of pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Batman (except for a couple of early Golden Age tales) was that The Batman never uses firearms (grapnel, flare, and water guns notwithstanding).

While it's always been a noble concept, and The Batman is equipped with enough non-lethal weaponry to deal with almost anything, it's never really been explained, except in a general "I hate guns" way.

Denny O'Neil found a way to both explain it, and justify the fact that The Batman, while idolizing The Shadow, didn't want to follow in his "the only good crook is a dead crook" methods.
The dedication at the end to writer Bill Finger was an unofficial way to acknowledge his co-creation of The Batman as well as the fact that The Shadow (both the magazine and radio versions) heavily-influenced the way Batman finally appeared from Detective Comics #27 onward...
Art by Irv Novick and Dick Giordano.

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