Batman #224

 

Batman #224 (On Sale: June 4, 1970) has an interesting, if not creepy cover by Neal Adams.

The book-length "Carnival of the Cursed" is by Denny O'Neil, Irv Novick and Dick Giordano. Jazz great Blind Buddy Holden is murdered in a New Orleans alley by a gang of thugs looking for something. When Batman reads of his murder in the paper he rushes to New Orleans and when a couple of masked men interrupt the funeral through the streets of the French Quarter, Batman stops them from getting to the dead man's body, but in turn is attacked by a brutish man in slick red tights called Moloch.

When the crowd comes to Batman's aide, the creature jumps to the balconies and when Batman follows he is kicked to the ground, allowing Moloch to escape. The funeral continues and Blind Buddy is buried with his horn. After the funeral, Batman joins Max Dill and the other musicians at Reservation Hall where they find a man in a wheel chair trying to buy Blind Buddy's things from the group. When they refuse, the man says if they change their mind he will be staying at a nearby hotel and to ask for Rufus Macob. Batman recognizes Rufus's bodyguard as a man who used to drive getaway in Brooklyn.

Batman sends a book to Rufus at the hotel and indie of it is a bat and a note saying, "If you have anything on your conscience contact me through Max Dill." The bodyguard is worried but Rufus is not. Batman stakes out Reservation Hall and sees a note being placed on its door., supposedly from Max, urging Batman to meet him on a boat at pier 13. He knows it is a trap and heads to the pier. 

As a Mardi Gras parade goes by, Batman sneaks onto the mentioned boat. Batman breaks in and finds the guys who tried to upset the funeral. As a fight ensues, Macab shows up and a startled Batman is knocked out. HE awakes to find himself strapped to a paddlewheel. As he starts to go under the water, Batman uses his teeth to send a loose end of rope into the mechanism of the paddlewheel, jamming it. As the engine continues to try to push the wheel, the pressure built up finally destroys the wheel, allowing Batman to escape. He returns to the boat and is told by a wounded Dill that the goons wanted to know where Blind Buddy's horn was. As the Coast Guard arrives, Batman slips back into the water.

IN the cemetery a goon is digging up Blind Buddy's grave and Rufus is explaining that Blind Buddy's coronet used to belong to another, older musician, who had told someone that he found oil in the bayou and etched a map of its whereabout on his horn. Before he died he gave the horn to Blind Buddy. The goon finds the horn, but before it can be examined, Batman snatches it away. The goon runs when he sees Batman, but Macob reveals himself to be Moloch and attacks Batman. Moloch recovers the horn but before he can kill Batman the police show up and Moloch flees and attempts to hide in the Mardi Gras parade. Batman catches him and knocks him out, but the horn is thrown to the ground and trampled upon, removing any message that may have been on its surface. Reprinted in Showcase Presents: Batman Vol. 5 TPB.

Edited by Julius Schwartz.