Detective Comics
Batman investigates a series of apparent murders surrounding the production of a Hollywood war film. The film's technical consultant, Heinrich Franz, claims to be a descendant of Hans von Hammer, and seems to be channeling the Enemy Ace's lethal instincts into something deeply modern and deeply wrong. Denny O'Neil folds Enemy Ace mythology into a Gotham City thriller with surprising elegance.
The most unusual issue in the Enemy Ace canon, a Batman story rather than a von Hammer story, but one that treats the legacy of the character with genuine respect. Neal Adams' dynamic compositions and Dick Giordano's precise inks give it the visual weight the crossover premise demands. The concept of a twentieth-century descendant haunted by his ancestor's deeds is never revisited, which makes this feel like a strange and unrepeatable satellite of the main run.
