The robbery was done perfectly, alarm bypassed and jewels lifted without a hitch, but for some reason the thief stopped to strangle the security guard. In downtown Gotham, Commissioner Gordon is called to the scene of a jewelry store robbery. Batman finds a piece of Cat-Man’s boot that was knocked off by the Batarang and figures it might give him a clue to the villain’s whereabouts, but first he has to help Catwoman. (He slices away quite a bit of her costume … but I’m sure it was all necessary.) He uses the tension in the web strands to catapult (pun intended) Catwoman to safety and springs after her. He uses scraps of costume to move across the web and repeat the procedure on Catwoman. It’s a delicate operation, since he has to cut his costume away from his body without touching the web with his skin.

Catwoman passes out from the pain and Batman uses a knife from his utility belt to cut himself free of the web.

Cat-Man takes off and Batman tries to tag him with a Batarang, but only manages to nick his heel. He flips a switch that starts the web expanding, which will tear Batman and Catwoman apart since they’re glued to it. Catwoman pleads with him to give her the herbs, since her life depends on it, but Cat-Man says they’re too valuable to just hand over. Their captor (and the real thief) turned out to be Cat-Man. Catwoman and Batman tracked the theft to an abandoned warehouse, where they were captured in a polymer spider web coated with super-strong adhesive. Last issue, we found out Catwoman is dying of some rare disease (which she hasn’t told her boyfriend Bruce Wayne, though he suspects) and she was suspected of stealing some ancient medicinal herbs from an Egyptian exhibit at the museum. Batman #324 – “The Cat Who Would Be King” – Len Wein/Irv Novick/Bob Smith

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