The 13 O'Clock Robbery!

Detective Comics #349 has a cover date of March 1966, and is on Comixology and DC Universe.

Over in the letters page, only Gregory Kopko of Stratford, Connecticut writes in about "Robberies in Reverse!" He says the story was wonderful as usual "except for the part where Sue was tickling Ralph under his arm. He could of just put down his arm and push Sue out of the way—but of course that was a ticklish situation and problem."

Notably, the letters page sees Henry Goldman of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania guess that Batman's recurring foe "The Outsider" is none other than an amnesiac Alfred, who was killed some issues back. Julius Schwartz calls it the best guess yet and mentions that Alfred will be appearing in the new Batman TV series, soon to debut.

"The 13 O'Clock Robbery!" was written by Gardner Fox while Carmine Infantino inked his own pencils for the first time in awhile, Gaspar Saladino lettered while Julius Schwartz served as editor.

The splash page is probably one of the most eye-popping ones in some time. Ralph is getting hit and stretched out by three boxing gloves popping out of the walls and ceiling and floor. Meanwhile, his target, a strange-looking man peeks out and laughing that the burglar alarm's traps are helping the crook, not the "Crook-catcher." It's not a bad splash page, except for how the crook comes off as looking a bit Asian.

Okay, as I stated in the credits, Carmine Infantino returned to inking duties on this story after a long time of Sid Greene handling it, and the difference is rather striking. Some of Infantino's panels look rather bad and suffer from weird details. Sue's appearance here is pretty bad. Where did you go, Sid Greene?

Our story is set near Lake Cherokee in the foothills of Vermont, which again, doesn't really exist. Ralph is getting ready to go fishing, surprised that Sue was letting him go, but then discovers that she wants to accompany him, because she has a designer lady angler's outfit she wants to wear.

There is a nice bit where Sue says "A wife's place is with her husband! Her interests should be his interests! I think fishing's going to be a lot of fun!"

It's a nice sentiment, but I've met couples who have differing interests and they find ways to compromise and make it work between them, even if it involves going to events they typically wouldn't be interested in. That said, if Sue is genuinely interested in fishing, that's great.

Ralph mentions he fished at Lake Cherokee as a child, but when he and Sue arrive, they find the lake dried up. So it's surprising when Ralph notices he's not the only fisherman at the lake as there is another seemingly fishing like normal.

Ralph's nose begins twitching and Sue decides it's time to cut out. She says there's something important in town that she wants to do. Wait, what happened to "A wife's place is with her husband?"

The fun thing is that Ralph stretches his ears to listen to Sue.

The mysterious fisherman keeps casting his line into different spots of the muddy lake with a magnet, trying to bring up something. Finally, he cheers that he found something.

Ralph switches to his Elongated Man uniform and follows the mysterious fisherman through tree tops in some very good art by Infantino.

Ralph sees that the fisherman is heading to the home of the late Elmer Ewell, and then witnesses him knocking out the caretaker of the house. (Geez, Ralph, you didn't act now? He just harmed an innocent person.)

The fisherman goes in and Ralph is intrigued when he hears the clock chime thirteen times. Peeking into the house, Ralph sees a hidden door open to a money vault and the fisherman heads in.

Ralph realizes that Elmer Ewell was a rich man and that the fisherman is obviously not a beneficiary of the estate.

Ralph thinks of the fisherman as "Izaak Walton," which I briefly wondered if I'd missed Ralph picking up his name, but it's a reference to the author of The Compleat Angler, first published in 1653. How did these references work in a pre-Google age? Guess you'd have to hope to have a good encyclopedia on the shelf.

Ralph accidentally sets off an electronic eye loop which activates burglar traps, setting off boxing gloves on mechanical arms that punch him and stretch him out.

The fisherman notices Ralph and delivers him a punch, knocking him out.

To add insult to injury, the fisherman makes some puns. "When it came to rigging up a burglar-proof alarm system—he sure was punchy!" And then, "Those gloves are eye-poppin' all right—but not as eye-poppin' as my fist makin' contact!"

The fisherman shoves Ralph into the vault, which happens to be air-tight, and thinks about how the clock-key he fished up let him get past the traps harmlessly. Now he's got the money and is sure he's got one ductile detective down.

There is a lot of Ralph stretching. I'm very convinced Infantino loved drawing Ralph's powers in action. This is feeling like a fair trade off to seeing Infantino ink himself again.

Ralph awakens in the vault and has to figure out how to get out. However, when he spots a light fixture, he unscrews the bulb and manages to thread himself out through the fixture.

Getting outside of the house, Ralph spots Jabez the caretaker, who's recovering from being attacked earlier.

Ralph informs Jabez that he'll be trailing the man who attacked him and that his tracks will be easy to follow.

Ralph, buddy, maybe you could also ask Jabez to call the police as you'll almost be certainly be needing them?

Ralph tracks down the fisherman with Infantino drawing him with his head close to the ground, his body fluid. He finally reaches a cabin where Ralph overhears the fisherman being addressed as "Chuck" and being threatened by a gang he used to belong to.

They critcize Chuck for going "Lone Wolf" since he got out of jail and he explains himself. He was going to directly rob Elmer Ewell near the end of his life, but witnessed him going into his money vault. He was caught and knocked out by one of the booby traps.

In jail, Chuck read about Ewell's death and for some reason, the newspaper mentions the clock key being thrown into Lake Cherokee. So he determined to find it and get Ewell's money for himself.

Chuck really got lucky that the key would respond to the magnet he was using. Or maybe he's been doing this a long time and this is the day he finally had the right magnet and the right aim.

Anyway, now that Chuck has his prize and is being held at gunpoint, he offers to split the goods with his old gang. Except Ralph just overheard the whole thing and makes his move.

Time for an Infantino Fight scene going for TWO pages!

So, Ralph reaches in to grab the loot and stretches a finger to knock out one crook. Some of the others try to fire at him, so he moves around to other side of the cabin, still holding onto the bag. Distracting them with the rest of him, he now lifts the bag...

...And uses it to whack two of the crooks! Chuck now tries to punch him again, but Ralph puts his nose to work, then hits the first crook again, then uses his knees to deliver another blow to the other two, then gives Chuck a big old wallop.

It's not really until the next panel that it's clear that there's been three other gang members along with Chuck, making a grand total of four guys Ralph handles. Would've been nice to have all four in one panel earlier.

Still, Infantino is in top form drawing these action scenes, which are the real highlight. They're very lively.

Ralph takes the four gangmembers in their car and Chuck's jeep and manages to drive both simultaneously. That can't be safe. Or legal. I knew he should've had Jabez call the police.

After so much fun, Ralph gets back to his motel room and wants to relax, but he notices Sue packing up, saying they're going to Lake Indian Head, which again, doesn't exist. There's an Indian Head Lake in Arkansas, but I'm sure that's more than the "couple of hundred miles away" that Ralph says it is. However, Sue has heard there's good fishing up there and is anxious to go.

The final panel has Sue driving the car, Ralph bemoaning the "good old days when wives let their husbands go fishing alone."

I won't call that sexism as Ralph doesn't want to fish right now, he wants to relax!

Overall, this is a better action story than a mystery. There's only two pages where Ralph isn't using his powers, the first page and the page where Chuck tells his story. Still, it was a pretty fun one.

Next time, Ralph teams up with another superhero and we are introduced to the iconic second costume.

Actually, I'll likely be posting my review of Parts 4 and 5 of the CW's Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover first, but don't be surprised if it's a little late as my actual paying job scheduled me a shift that conflicts with the broadcast time.