DETECTIVE COMICS #319; Sept. 1963; DC Comics; Jack Schiff, editor;
featuring Batman and Robin vs. "The Fantastic Dr. No-Face!" (Writer unknown to me;
art probably by Sheldon Moldoff, pencils, ghosting for Bob Kane, and Charles
Paris, inks.) On the cover, a faceless and bald figure in a trenchcoat is
stitting on a scaffold hanging down from the top of a mountain and attacking a
giant Mount-Rushmore-like bust of Batman's cowled face (which appears to be
wincing as No-Face's jackhammer destroys its eye). The real Batman swings down
on a rope as Robin declares, "Dr. No-Face is destroying another 'face' in
revenge-- YOURS, BATMAN!"
Review by Bill Henley (by special request of Hoy Murphy)
On the splash page, Batman and Robin burst through the doors of an art
gallery to find their faceless foe already on hand and destroying paintings with a
flamethrower. "DR. NO-FACE has destroyed the FACES of those masterpieces--
and now he's out to destroy ours!" As the story begins, "world-renowned
medical authorities" prepare to observe a new advance in plastic surgery as Dr.
Paul Dent demonstrates his "skin rejuvenation ray" on a chimpanzee.
Supposedly, the ray will make the chimp's "rough, wrinkled face smooth as a child" and
then go on to instantly heal "fleshy scars" on human faces. But as Dr. Dent
manipulates the controls, something short-circuits, the machine explodes,
and Dr. Dent receives a "super-dose" of his own ray right in his own face. The
result is that his face is completely blanked out, leaving only a smooth
expanse of skin and bald head. Screaming, :"My eyes, ears, nose...GONE! I have
NO FACE! YAAAA!:" Dr. Dent flees in a fit of madness. (You'd think he'd
have more than just cosmetic and psychological effects to worry about.
Without eyes, nose and mouth, how is he going to eat and drink, see, or even
breathe? The answer is unclear.)
Some time later, the Bat-Signal alerts Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson to don
their "crime-fighting togs" and Commissioner Gordon alerts them to Dr. Dent's
tragedy and asks them to be on the lookout for him. The doctor makes himself
easy to spot, as he is standing on Gotham City's version of Broadway firing
a rifle at the giant faces on lighted billboards. "*Ha, ha* I'm destroying
his face-- then he'll look as I do-- DR. NO-FACE!" Arriving on the scene,
Batman and Robin try to urge No-Face to calm down and seek help from plastic
surgery, but the doctor's shots sever an electric cable which falls to the
ground, threatening to electrocute bystanders. Batman hurls a "cutlass Batarang"
which cuts the power line high up where it cannot threate anyone, but in the
meantime, Dr. No-Face escapes. "I'm afraid we'll meet him again! Dent is
like a man possessed-- he'll strike agan!" Sure enough, he shows up at the
art exhibition room of the Gotham Museum and starts destroying the faces of
famous portraits with a flamethrower. Robin uses a fire extinguisher, not
against the flames but against Dr. No-Face's blank face, momentarily 'dousing his
enthusiasm". But the doctor pulls a giant Chinese plaque off the wall which
blocks the exit to Batman and Robin as he makes his getaway.
Going on further rampages, Dr. No-Face destroys the faces on clocks,
statues, and ceremonial masks. As Batman and Robin search for him at Dr. Dent's
known past haunts, Robin suggests he might have a hideout in the mountans, but
Batman points out, "Hardly, Robin! The doctor suffers from acrophobia-- an
intense fear of heights-- remember?" No-Face's next target is the "Bonaparte
Emerald", seemingly an odd choice for him, but he intends to destroy the
gem's "face" in a rock-pulverizing machine. Batman and Robin reach the machine
too late to save the gem, and as No-Face flees he boasts, "YOU WON'T STOP
ME, BATMAN! And YOUR face is the next one I'm going to destroy!" "Of course!"
Batman realizes. "There's ONE place he could have a field day with MY
facial features! C'mon!" Arriving at the "Batman Face Monument" carved into the
side of Mount Gotham, our heroes find Dr. No-Face already hard at work
defacing the stone Batman with "high-powered sand-blasting equipment". "We've got
him this time!" declares Batman, but as he and Robin swing towards the mad
villain on ropes, Batman's rope is severed by the sandblaster, and as Batman
clings precariously to his likenss's face, No-Face prepares to use his
sandblaster on the Cowled Crusader's real face. Batman urges No-Face to remember
that he is a doctor, not a murderer, but it is Robin who saves face for Batman
by cutting the hose of the sandblaster. Batman seizes Dr. No-Face's scaffold
and twirls its hanging lines until the doctor is hopelessly and helplessly
tangled. Once caught, No-Face seems to recover his senses; "What have I done,
destroying all those things? I must have been out of my mind!" Batman
asures him that the law will go easy on him and plastic surgery plus psychotherapy
should be able to restore him to his normal self.
But once locked up in a prison hospital ward, Dr. No-Face in his private
thoughts is less repentant than triumphant; "My plan worked! I've fooled
Batman....the police....everyone! Ha, ha!" It seems that the man called Dr.
No-Face is not Dr. Paul Dent at all, but a gangster named Paul Magan who, hearing
of Dr. Dent's skin rejuvenatio ray, approached Dent before his scheduled
demonstration and demanded that Dent use the ray to erase a telltale scar on his
features. Dent claimed the ray didn't work properly and that he was about
to cancel his demonstration but Magan insisted on going forward, operating the
ray himself. And it was he, not Dent, who found himself faceless. But
instead of being driven to madness, Magan came up with a scheme to use his
condition for criminal gain. Having his gang hide the real Dent at their hideout,
Magan the gangster disguises himself as Dent and goes through the
"demonstration", removing he disguise to reveal his faceless face. He then goes through
No-Face's rampage of face-destroying crimes. His ultimate plan, it seems,
is to have plastic surgeons give him Dent's face-- and identity-- permanently
so that he can live out his life as the respected doctor rather than the
wanted criminal. But as he prepares to go in for surgery, he is shocked when
Batman shows him a picture of the face the plastic surgeons will be working to
restore-- and it is his own, Magan's, face, not Dent's. When he protests,
Batman says, "Come off it, Magan! We became suspicious of you last night when
you put on that phony show at the Batman Face Monumnt!" because the real Dent
was known to suffer from fear of heights and wouldn't have been able to hang
from a high perch to sabotage the Batman face. Becoming suspicious, Batman
checks the fingerprints taken of "Dr. No-Face" and finds they match those of
the wanted gangster Magan, not Dr. Dent. And so, Batman and Robin track down
Magan's gang hideout and find there not only the kidnapped Dr. Dent but the
valuable paintings and Bonaparte Emerald, which "No-Face" actually stole while
destroying fakes. And now, the foiled faceless man faces a long prison term
in his true identity rather than a brief institutionalization followed by
freedom and wealth as "Dr. Dent".
Speaking of whom, it's curious to note that Dr. No-Face's supposed civilian
name was the same as that of a better-known Batman villain with a facial
fixation-- Two-Face, aka Harvey Dent. (If No-Face and Two-Face had somehow met
and merged identities, would they have wound up with a normal number of
faces?) It's also interesting that Two-Face made no appearances in Batman comics
between 1954, around the time the Comics Code started, and 1971, when the Code
was liberalized. Did the original stringent Comics Code frown on Two-Face
because of his grotesqueness, or maybe because in his origin he was a law
officer, a district attorney, who went bad? And is it possible that Dr. No-Face
was a conscious attempt to create a replacement in Batman's rogue's gallery
for Two-Face, a similarly conceived but more Code-acceptable variation? (But
if so, I guess it didnt work out, since Dr. No-Face made no further
appearances that I know of.)
It's also worth noting that a few years after this story appeared, a good
guy adopted the faceless look-- Charlton Comics' the Question. And of course,
the Question was later taken over by DC and has met Batman on occasion.
(Though I doubt if Question creator Steve Ditko was inspired by this No-Face
Batman story.)
Also in this issue of DETECTIVE is John Jones, Manhunter from Mars, playing
the role of "J'onn J'onzz, Wizard of 1463". (Why do Silver age time travel
stories usually have to take place in a year an exactly even number of
years/centuries from the "present" year the story is published?) Story probably by
Jack Miller, art by Joe Certa. As J'onn J'onzz upends a bridge to halt the
advance of a medieval army, the opposing army's soldiers marvel that "Prince
Charles' wizard body is defeating the Black Duke's soldiers!" J'onn thinks,
"They'd really be shocked if they knew was secretly a Martian living on
Earth 500 years in the future!" Hardworking police detective John Jones takes
some vacation time off to visit an unspecified European country (and, receiving
plane tickets, reflects he could travel a lot faster if he didn't have to
"keep up appearances"). Hearing as a tourist about the "Dolmain Caverns" which
have never been fully explored, John Jones decides to "duck the crowd" and
explore them himself, figuring if he gets lost he can always just become the
Martian Manhunter and escape right through the cave walls. But Jones
encounters a strange hazy mist inside the caverns, and when he finds his way back to
an entrace, he is confronted by what he first thinks is "a gigantic movie
set" of a castle and a realistic-looking chase on horseback. More realistic
than he knows, as the man being chased is thrown from his horse and would fall
to his death down a chasm-- if not for John Jones becoming J'onn J'onzz and
flying to his rescue. The man is understandably puzzled by the appearance of
this flying green-skinned fgure, but explains that he himself is the cpatain
of guards for Prince Charles of Auvergne Province (in France?) who has been
captured by the evil Black Duke, Coming to suspect that we're not in the 20th
century anymore, Toto, Manhunter asks the year and learns that it is 1463.
After leaving the guard captain with farmers loyal to Prince Charles,
Manhunter enters the castle and spies invisibly on the Black Duke plotting with his
henchmen. The rightful prince is safely locked away, it seems, but
adamantly refuses to abdicate in the Black Duke's favor, and the Duke fears to simply
kill him lest this cause a mass rebellion among the populace loyal to the
prince. The Duke sends his agent with guards to the Prince's hiding place to
try to again persuade the prince to quit, but the Manhunter joins the mission,
knocking out one of the guards and shape-changing into his form. The
henchman boasts as they travel, "Soon I will show you how tough I can get with
Prince Charles!" but our hero's silent response is, "You wouldn't talk so big if
you knew how tough I can get!" When the Duke's agent threatens Prince
Charles with death if he refuses to abdicate, his "guard" turns on him and helps
the Prince escape to rejoin his guard captain. As the "guard" reveals his
true Martian form, the captain marvels at the amazing powers of the prince's
new ally, but the prince himself fears that the Black Duke will just take over
again once the Manhunter returns where he belongs. Manhunter explains that
he will take the prince's own form and use his powers to rally the people and
defeat the Duke once and for all, before departing 1463. "Prince Charles"
appears to his people and reveals that he now has supernatural powers which he
can manifest in his green-skinned "wizard form". (Hmmmm.... given religious
attitudes of the time, it's possible that if anything like this had actually
happened, the people would have rallied to the Black Duke, fearing to support
a prince who had obviously sold his soul to Satan to obtain witchly powers.)
In his "wzard form", the "prince" defeats a detachment of the duke's army
and twists their weapons into a giant pretzel. But then the Black Duke
decides to test the prince's new powers in person, and sneaking up behind the
"prince" as he addresses his people, the Duke knocks him unconscious with a pike.
(It wasn't portrayed completely consistently, but usually, in SA John Jones
stories, when the shapechanging Manhunter was in his John Jones form or any
other normal human form, he didn't have his other Martian powers including
invulnerability. It was also somewhat inconsistent whether or not he was
vulnerable to fire in human form, but in this story, as we'll see, he isn't.)
The "Prince" awakens in one of the Black Duke's cells and prepares to burst
free as the Manhunter, but then has second thoughts when he notes that the
cell is lighted by torches, whose flames will weaken and destroy him if he
becomes the Manhunter. When the Duke demands once more that the "Prince"
abdicate,J'onn stalls for time by asking to be given till dawn to make a decision.
But in the meantime, learning that his doppleganger has been captured and
seemingly lost his "magic" powers, the real Prince (who up to now seems like a
rather passive, ineffectual sort) resolves to take matters into his own hands
by rallying his people himself. While the Prince leads his loyal followers
in arms, he sends the guard captain to free J'onn J'onzz from the Duke's
dungeon. The Duke is baffled that the Prince is out leading his people though he
should be locked up in the dungeon, but he leads his troops against the
roused populace, and the people might face defeat by the better armed troops were
it not for the now-freed Manhunter, who wrecks the bridge over which the
Duke's troops are charging. With his army beaten, the Duke surrenders publicly
to the Prince, and the Manhunter takes his leave of the restored prince,
saying, "You have proven yourself to be a brave leader, Prince Charles!" After
finding his way back to the future through the cave mists and "sealing the
time-warp with tons of rock", our hero returns to America and to his Detective
Jones job, where he smirks behind his hand as Diane comments that he's "had a
good rest" during his vacation.
featuring Batman and Robin vs. "The Fantastic Dr. No-Face!" (Writer unknown to me;
art probably by Sheldon Moldoff, pencils, ghosting for Bob Kane, and Charles
Paris, inks.) On the cover, a faceless and bald figure in a trenchcoat is
stitting on a scaffold hanging down from the top of a mountain and attacking a
giant Mount-Rushmore-like bust of Batman's cowled face (which appears to be
wincing as No-Face's jackhammer destroys its eye). The real Batman swings down
on a rope as Robin declares, "Dr. No-Face is destroying another 'face' in
revenge-- YOURS, BATMAN!"
Review by Bill Henley (by special request of Hoy Murphy)
On the splash page, Batman and Robin burst through the doors of an art
gallery to find their faceless foe already on hand and destroying paintings with a
flamethrower. "DR. NO-FACE has destroyed the FACES of those masterpieces--
and now he's out to destroy ours!" As the story begins, "world-renowned
medical authorities" prepare to observe a new advance in plastic surgery as Dr.
Paul Dent demonstrates his "skin rejuvenation ray" on a chimpanzee.
Supposedly, the ray will make the chimp's "rough, wrinkled face smooth as a child" and
then go on to instantly heal "fleshy scars" on human faces. But as Dr. Dent
manipulates the controls, something short-circuits, the machine explodes,
and Dr. Dent receives a "super-dose" of his own ray right in his own face. The
result is that his face is completely blanked out, leaving only a smooth
expanse of skin and bald head. Screaming, :"My eyes, ears, nose...GONE! I have
NO FACE! YAAAA!:" Dr. Dent flees in a fit of madness. (You'd think he'd
have more than just cosmetic and psychological effects to worry about.
Without eyes, nose and mouth, how is he going to eat and drink, see, or even
breathe? The answer is unclear.)
Some time later, the Bat-Signal alerts Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson to don
their "crime-fighting togs" and Commissioner Gordon alerts them to Dr. Dent's
tragedy and asks them to be on the lookout for him. The doctor makes himself
easy to spot, as he is standing on Gotham City's version of Broadway firing
a rifle at the giant faces on lighted billboards. "*Ha, ha* I'm destroying
his face-- then he'll look as I do-- DR. NO-FACE!" Arriving on the scene,
Batman and Robin try to urge No-Face to calm down and seek help from plastic
surgery, but the doctor's shots sever an electric cable which falls to the
ground, threatening to electrocute bystanders. Batman hurls a "cutlass Batarang"
which cuts the power line high up where it cannot threate anyone, but in the
meantime, Dr. No-Face escapes. "I'm afraid we'll meet him again! Dent is
like a man possessed-- he'll strike agan!" Sure enough, he shows up at the
art exhibition room of the Gotham Museum and starts destroying the faces of
famous portraits with a flamethrower. Robin uses a fire extinguisher, not
against the flames but against Dr. No-Face's blank face, momentarily 'dousing his
enthusiasm". But the doctor pulls a giant Chinese plaque off the wall which
blocks the exit to Batman and Robin as he makes his getaway.
Going on further rampages, Dr. No-Face destroys the faces on clocks,
statues, and ceremonial masks. As Batman and Robin search for him at Dr. Dent's
known past haunts, Robin suggests he might have a hideout in the mountans, but
Batman points out, "Hardly, Robin! The doctor suffers from acrophobia-- an
intense fear of heights-- remember?" No-Face's next target is the "Bonaparte
Emerald", seemingly an odd choice for him, but he intends to destroy the
gem's "face" in a rock-pulverizing machine. Batman and Robin reach the machine
too late to save the gem, and as No-Face flees he boasts, "YOU WON'T STOP
ME, BATMAN! And YOUR face is the next one I'm going to destroy!" "Of course!"
Batman realizes. "There's ONE place he could have a field day with MY
facial features! C'mon!" Arriving at the "Batman Face Monument" carved into the
side of Mount Gotham, our heroes find Dr. No-Face already hard at work
defacing the stone Batman with "high-powered sand-blasting equipment". "We've got
him this time!" declares Batman, but as he and Robin swing towards the mad
villain on ropes, Batman's rope is severed by the sandblaster, and as Batman
clings precariously to his likenss's face, No-Face prepares to use his
sandblaster on the Cowled Crusader's real face. Batman urges No-Face to remember
that he is a doctor, not a murderer, but it is Robin who saves face for Batman
by cutting the hose of the sandblaster. Batman seizes Dr. No-Face's scaffold
and twirls its hanging lines until the doctor is hopelessly and helplessly
tangled. Once caught, No-Face seems to recover his senses; "What have I done,
destroying all those things? I must have been out of my mind!" Batman
asures him that the law will go easy on him and plastic surgery plus psychotherapy
should be able to restore him to his normal self.
But once locked up in a prison hospital ward, Dr. No-Face in his private
thoughts is less repentant than triumphant; "My plan worked! I've fooled
Batman....the police....everyone! Ha, ha!" It seems that the man called Dr.
No-Face is not Dr. Paul Dent at all, but a gangster named Paul Magan who, hearing
of Dr. Dent's skin rejuvenatio ray, approached Dent before his scheduled
demonstration and demanded that Dent use the ray to erase a telltale scar on his
features. Dent claimed the ray didn't work properly and that he was about
to cancel his demonstration but Magan insisted on going forward, operating the
ray himself. And it was he, not Dent, who found himself faceless. But
instead of being driven to madness, Magan came up with a scheme to use his
condition for criminal gain. Having his gang hide the real Dent at their hideout,
Magan the gangster disguises himself as Dent and goes through the
"demonstration", removing he disguise to reveal his faceless face. He then goes through
No-Face's rampage of face-destroying crimes. His ultimate plan, it seems,
is to have plastic surgeons give him Dent's face-- and identity-- permanently
so that he can live out his life as the respected doctor rather than the
wanted criminal. But as he prepares to go in for surgery, he is shocked when
Batman shows him a picture of the face the plastic surgeons will be working to
restore-- and it is his own, Magan's, face, not Dent's. When he protests,
Batman says, "Come off it, Magan! We became suspicious of you last night when
you put on that phony show at the Batman Face Monumnt!" because the real Dent
was known to suffer from fear of heights and wouldn't have been able to hang
from a high perch to sabotage the Batman face. Becoming suspicious, Batman
checks the fingerprints taken of "Dr. No-Face" and finds they match those of
the wanted gangster Magan, not Dr. Dent. And so, Batman and Robin track down
Magan's gang hideout and find there not only the kidnapped Dr. Dent but the
valuable paintings and Bonaparte Emerald, which "No-Face" actually stole while
destroying fakes. And now, the foiled faceless man faces a long prison term
in his true identity rather than a brief institutionalization followed by
freedom and wealth as "Dr. Dent".
Speaking of whom, it's curious to note that Dr. No-Face's supposed civilian
name was the same as that of a better-known Batman villain with a facial
fixation-- Two-Face, aka Harvey Dent. (If No-Face and Two-Face had somehow met
and merged identities, would they have wound up with a normal number of
faces?) It's also interesting that Two-Face made no appearances in Batman comics
between 1954, around the time the Comics Code started, and 1971, when the Code
was liberalized. Did the original stringent Comics Code frown on Two-Face
because of his grotesqueness, or maybe because in his origin he was a law
officer, a district attorney, who went bad? And is it possible that Dr. No-Face
was a conscious attempt to create a replacement in Batman's rogue's gallery
for Two-Face, a similarly conceived but more Code-acceptable variation? (But
if so, I guess it didnt work out, since Dr. No-Face made no further
appearances that I know of.)
It's also worth noting that a few years after this story appeared, a good
guy adopted the faceless look-- Charlton Comics' the Question. And of course,
the Question was later taken over by DC and has met Batman on occasion.
(Though I doubt if Question creator Steve Ditko was inspired by this No-Face
Batman story.)
Also in this issue of DETECTIVE is John Jones, Manhunter from Mars, playing
the role of "J'onn J'onzz, Wizard of 1463". (Why do Silver age time travel
stories usually have to take place in a year an exactly even number of
years/centuries from the "present" year the story is published?) Story probably by
Jack Miller, art by Joe Certa. As J'onn J'onzz upends a bridge to halt the
advance of a medieval army, the opposing army's soldiers marvel that "Prince
Charles' wizard body is defeating the Black Duke's soldiers!" J'onn thinks,
"They'd really be shocked if they knew was secretly a Martian living on
Earth 500 years in the future!" Hardworking police detective John Jones takes
some vacation time off to visit an unspecified European country (and, receiving
plane tickets, reflects he could travel a lot faster if he didn't have to
"keep up appearances"). Hearing as a tourist about the "Dolmain Caverns" which
have never been fully explored, John Jones decides to "duck the crowd" and
explore them himself, figuring if he gets lost he can always just become the
Martian Manhunter and escape right through the cave walls. But Jones
encounters a strange hazy mist inside the caverns, and when he finds his way back to
an entrace, he is confronted by what he first thinks is "a gigantic movie
set" of a castle and a realistic-looking chase on horseback. More realistic
than he knows, as the man being chased is thrown from his horse and would fall
to his death down a chasm-- if not for John Jones becoming J'onn J'onzz and
flying to his rescue. The man is understandably puzzled by the appearance of
this flying green-skinned fgure, but explains that he himself is the cpatain
of guards for Prince Charles of Auvergne Province (in France?) who has been
captured by the evil Black Duke, Coming to suspect that we're not in the 20th
century anymore, Toto, Manhunter asks the year and learns that it is 1463.
After leaving the guard captain with farmers loyal to Prince Charles,
Manhunter enters the castle and spies invisibly on the Black Duke plotting with his
henchmen. The rightful prince is safely locked away, it seems, but
adamantly refuses to abdicate in the Black Duke's favor, and the Duke fears to simply
kill him lest this cause a mass rebellion among the populace loyal to the
prince. The Duke sends his agent with guards to the Prince's hiding place to
try to again persuade the prince to quit, but the Manhunter joins the mission,
knocking out one of the guards and shape-changing into his form. The
henchman boasts as they travel, "Soon I will show you how tough I can get with
Prince Charles!" but our hero's silent response is, "You wouldn't talk so big if
you knew how tough I can get!" When the Duke's agent threatens Prince
Charles with death if he refuses to abdicate, his "guard" turns on him and helps
the Prince escape to rejoin his guard captain. As the "guard" reveals his
true Martian form, the captain marvels at the amazing powers of the prince's
new ally, but the prince himself fears that the Black Duke will just take over
again once the Manhunter returns where he belongs. Manhunter explains that
he will take the prince's own form and use his powers to rally the people and
defeat the Duke once and for all, before departing 1463. "Prince Charles"
appears to his people and reveals that he now has supernatural powers which he
can manifest in his green-skinned "wizard form". (Hmmmm.... given religious
attitudes of the time, it's possible that if anything like this had actually
happened, the people would have rallied to the Black Duke, fearing to support
a prince who had obviously sold his soul to Satan to obtain witchly powers.)
In his "wzard form", the "prince" defeats a detachment of the duke's army
and twists their weapons into a giant pretzel. But then the Black Duke
decides to test the prince's new powers in person, and sneaking up behind the
"prince" as he addresses his people, the Duke knocks him unconscious with a pike.
(It wasn't portrayed completely consistently, but usually, in SA John Jones
stories, when the shapechanging Manhunter was in his John Jones form or any
other normal human form, he didn't have his other Martian powers including
invulnerability. It was also somewhat inconsistent whether or not he was
vulnerable to fire in human form, but in this story, as we'll see, he isn't.)
The "Prince" awakens in one of the Black Duke's cells and prepares to burst
free as the Manhunter, but then has second thoughts when he notes that the
cell is lighted by torches, whose flames will weaken and destroy him if he
becomes the Manhunter. When the Duke demands once more that the "Prince"
abdicate,J'onn stalls for time by asking to be given till dawn to make a decision.
But in the meantime, learning that his doppleganger has been captured and
seemingly lost his "magic" powers, the real Prince (who up to now seems like a
rather passive, ineffectual sort) resolves to take matters into his own hands
by rallying his people himself. While the Prince leads his loyal followers
in arms, he sends the guard captain to free J'onn J'onzz from the Duke's
dungeon. The Duke is baffled that the Prince is out leading his people though he
should be locked up in the dungeon, but he leads his troops against the
roused populace, and the people might face defeat by the better armed troops were
it not for the now-freed Manhunter, who wrecks the bridge over which the
Duke's troops are charging. With his army beaten, the Duke surrenders publicly
to the Prince, and the Manhunter takes his leave of the restored prince,
saying, "You have proven yourself to be a brave leader, Prince Charles!" After
finding his way back to the future through the cave mists and "sealing the
time-warp with tons of rock", our hero returns to America and to his Detective
Jones job, where he smirks behind his hand as Diane comments that he's "had a
good rest" during his vacation.
