Many thanks to those of you who stuck with this tale over the last year! And apologies for the lengthy delays – raising an infant proved more time-consuming that I anticipated. There's one final update to the images page for this conclusion

A few final notes:

"We must show our youngsters that everyone has to keep fit!" So said President Kennedy to Superman, in a story that was scheduled for late 1963 (Superman #168). Right before the issue went to press, the story was pulled from publication and the original artwork mysteriously lost.

Henry Corden (William Johnson in the 1952 Superman episode, Drums of Death) was also the voice of Fred Flintstone, but there were other Johnsons involved in the JFK assasination:

A) President Lyndon Johnson, who in the service of his corporate overlords, covered up the assassination. His role was shockingly documented in the Oliver Stone film JFK

B) One of the three tramps from the grassy knoll. Experts are almost certain this Johnson fired the shots that killed JFK

And now, the big finale…

Batgirl sped towards the leafy thicket, her cycle swerving to avoid the gunfire spitting at her. On the roof of the GothCyt, Moe also fired a shot down at the speeding vehicle.

From his position in the thicket, the Wizard concluded Batgirl would try to breach the shrubbery far to one side of him or the other. Despite all the course changes, however, the suicidal daredoll was still coming in straight at him.

The Wizard blinked in disbelief, and then fired two shots straight ahead. Anticipating the barrage, the girl veered off to the right, turf flying off her back wheel. Then, for the briefest moment, she passed beneath his view as she hit the bottom of the embankment. The Batgirlcycle charged up the embankment as if shot from a cannon and sailed over the Wizard. He fumbled with his eye slits, trying to keep sight of the airborne intruder.

A hurtling, purple leg kicked the rifle from his hands, while a knee smashed into his chest, sending him reeling backwards. The Wizard grabbed desperately at tree limbs as he backpedaled. He managed to wrap his grip around two just as he was about to land on his back.

Batgirl saw the cloaked villain using the tree growth to tug himself upright. She leaped in, her leg lashing upward.

1! 2! 3! times she snapped his head back with kicks to the chin that flashed so quickly he barely saw them. After the third, he saw only stars.

As he hit the ground, the Batgirlcycle floated slowly down on the parachutes Batgirl had activated at the apex of the cycle's leap.

Jimmy and Lois stood out on the roof of the STD building, looking into the barrel of Frenchy's revolver.

"Looks like I get the honor of exterminating the entire Daily Planet newsroom," he chuckled.

Lois didn't bat an eye. "Why kill Laura Lime? Was she in on this?"

"Nah, that was the Wizard's doing. I told him I'd left something that'd identify me back at the apartment, but I really just went back to grab Kent's traveler's checks. Anyway, that dumb broad announced she was going to chase me by elevator while she was standing right next to the phone receiver. The Wizard was on the other end of the line, just sitting there at his remote control machine. He 'got' to the elevator before she did."

"You know, the way you killed Clark made no sense. Was there some urgency to his death on the heels of the Ruby interview?"

Frenchy waved dismissively. "Not really. The Shivels had decided to kill him long before that. The Wizard just missed finishing him last week by remote-controlling Kent's car crash."

"Then why attempt murder – let alone staging a suicide – right when there were potential witnesses sitting in the very next room?"

"Where's the challenge in killing him when he's alone? That would have been so…pedestrian." Frenchy puffed out his chest. "You are looking at the Mozart of Murderers. I intentionally waited for visitors I'd have to sneak past – just to make things interesting. I'm not so sure Barry Brown would have cared, either way. He agreed to tell Shivel when he'd made contact with Kent that evening – Shivel promised some exclusive interviews on his plans."

"No remorse at all, huh?" Jimmy said bitterly.

Frenchy laughed. "What do you think? Ya know, I emptied half of that green stuff down Kent's throat before he even woke up. He put up a really feeble fight about downing the remainder - pretty disappointing. At least you two had a little guts . . . and, hey, let's see what color they are."

He pulled the trigger.

BAM!

Despite the Wizard's downfall, Batman and Robin were still racing around in circles. They continued to be fired on by the trumpet player and the policeman, as well as the sniper on the GothCyt roof.

Moe, for his part, was happy to get the practice shooting at moving targets. He squeezed off another shot, misjudging Robin's route slightly and missing by inches.

Doctor Shivel whirled as he heard a rustling in the thicket behind him. Barry Brown popped out of the foliage, tape recorder in hand.

"Doctor, I know I ended our interview earlier, but that was before I knew there'd be shooting. I wonder if we could just pick up where we left off?"

"Ach du lieber!" Otold exclaimed. "No time I haff for you!"

Brown hit pause on his recorder. "Exclusive interviews and complete access was the deal."

"Oh! Vhy don't you run to police and tell them what you did to get it?" Shivel hissed.

Otold was encouraged by the continuation of gunfire coming from the rooftops. He looked over the abutment, but was horrified to see Moe jerk backwards to the sound of a rifle report, clutching his shoulder in pain. As Moe swayed unsteadily, his rifle teetered for on the edge of the roof's ledge, before toppling forward to fall six stories. Just as the rifle was shattering against the pavement far below, Moe's face was hitting the concrete roof's surface.

"What was that?" Robin asked, whirling at the noise.

"It is ze chilling sound of your doom!" Otold bellowed through the megaphone.

Shots rang down on the street from above. The phony trumpet player fled as windows shattered around him. Meanwhile, the false policeman jammed another clip into his sidearm. He dropped to one knee, aimed, and fired at Robin.

Batman tossed his sidekick the Batshield. It assembled easily within seconds, and provided full-proof cover for Robin. The Boy Wonder discovered he could mostly ignore the policeman's shots and charge straight at him.

The frantic trumpet player unwittingly ran right past Batman's position. A right hook brought the gunman to an abrupt stop. WHAP!

Batman cocked his fist, but instinctively hesitated. Reassured that the Salvation Army uniform was stolen, the Caped Crusader let his fist descend like a hammer. POW!

The horn player collapsed like the slimy rat he was.

Robin rammed the phony cop up into a wall. WHACK!

He repeated this motion with the Batshield - BAM! SLAM! - until his foe dropped unconscious to the ground.

Shivel swatted at the air and turned back to Brown. "Oh, fine! Here is your exclusive - show me a way out."

The selfish pair took off running down the street. Batgirl spotted them as she dragged the Bat-cuffed Wizard from the thicket. Dropping her prisoner, she took off in pursuit. The pair had already had more than a bloc's lead on her. Batgirl raced down the street as fast as her boots would take her.

Robin studied the unconscious features of the fake policeman. "Who is he?"

"His name is William Johnson," said a voice from behind.

Lois had just strolled out of the STD building, Frenchy's rifle in her hand. "He's a master of disguise and hypnotism. He enjoyed a successful racket in Haiti for a number of years."

"He looks really familiar," said Jimmy, faintly troubled.

"He should," said Batman. "He's the 'LeX' who spun that tale about the cereal/bureaucracy connection."

"You mean he just made all that stuff up out of thin air?" asked Jimmy, scratching his head. "Then I guess Kellogg's doesn't really have an army of bloodthirsty mercenaries."

"No, you're thinking of Nabisco" Batman said.

Robin pointed at the gun. "Ms. Lane, you were the one shot Moe in the shoulder?"

"She sure was!" said Jimmy. "There was no way we could have used Frenchy's pistol."

"Jimmy jammed his camera rod down the end of the revolver while he was struggling with Frenchy in the parking lot. When Frenchy tried using it on us just now, it blew up in his hand."

"Gosh, I guess those guys will be needing an ambulance up there," Jimmy suddenly remembered.

(Bat Spin)

"This is Barry Brown, on the run with wanted fugitive, Otold Shivel. We're currently at the Axis Chemical Factory. Otold, why exactly are we here?"

"Ve are here because some fool of a reporter suggested we take this street."

"What do you think will happen if you're caught?"

"I know my way around large industrial plants, zo hopefully we vill lose our pursuit."

"That sounds like footsteps approaching. Might that be Batgirl?"

"Quiet, she might hear you! Qvickly, in here!"

CL-LANG!

"Doctor, was that the sound of the door locking from the outside?"

Batgirl pressed the 'stop' button on the tape recorder.

"That's the last discernible dialogue. After that, the steam and hydraulic noises drown out their voices."

The victorious crimefighters were gathered in the Commissioner's office. The police had recovered Cobblepot's belongings from Frenchy's apartment, and the Penguin was now insisting on hanging around.

Batman gestured towards a man in a white medical coat. "Doctor Wow, have you been able to piece together what happened after they entered that room?"

The doctor removed his glasses to clean them. "As best I can determine, Brown pulled every last handle in there, except the one that would have opened the door. They were in a chamber designed to test how impervious goutweed is to various chemicals. Mister Shivel got the worst of it. Whereas Brown would just run away, Shivel would take it upon himself to try and stop the spray at its source."

"Is he going to survive?" Vicki Vale asked.

"After having exposed themselves to every chemical possible, they finished with Brown inadvertently triggering a scalding steam spray. It will be a little while before Shivel's burns heal, but the chances are good for some kind of recovery."

"Serves him right," said the Penguin. "After the heinous fraud he's perpetrated, he's getting off easy."

"Doctor, considering his previous freezing physiology, how do you think his immune system will respond to those chemicals?" Batman asked.

"I really can't say. We'll just have to wait and see."

"What about Barry Brown?" asked Robin.

"Ah," said Doctor Wow, holding up a finger. "He came out in much better condition. "We don't understand too much about the long-term impact for him, but he was well enough to be released from the emergency room. He's refused to return for further tests, though."

"Even though we caught the killers, this is all so sad," said Batgirl. "I'm afraid Harvey Dent may have argued his last case in a courtroom."

"Don't be too sure," said the Commissioner. "Lieutenant Governor Condelee was severely wounded during the assassination, but managed to pull through. It turns out Dent was a roommate of his in college, and Condelee has no interest in replacing him District Attorney. So you had all best be prepared to work with Dent again, or forget about convicting any of your foes."

The Penguin sneered. "The stench of corruption in these halls never falters. Each one of you owes me an apology."

Robin ignored him. "It's too bad we can't interview Doctor Shivel; a lot of this still doesn't make sense."

"Right," said Batgirl. "For starters, since there was a conspiracy to frame Cobblepot, why trot out Chitt and LeX with conspiracy stories? What did they gain by killing Chitt?"

"I think I can answer that," said Chief O'Hara. "As near as I can figure, they wanted to pin the whole kit 'n caboodle on Oswald here, but they also had a back-up plan. Once we started asking around about this vagrant trio, they knew their lone Cobblepot story was out the window. So they started offering up wilder and wilder schemes for us to sort through. Killing Chitt got everybody thinkin' that his story must be the real stuff."

"Correct," said Batman. "Also, since Chitt's statements were influenced by Johnson's hypnotism, they had to deal with the likelihood that Chitt's story would remember the truth over time."

Commissioner Gordon nodded. "Johnson was also the one who brought Ruby Jones into the plot. Johnson and Rutherford Jones belonged to the same fraternal order of shady hypnotists. When Jones died in prison of natural causes, Johnson saw his chance to move in on Jones' widow under the pretense of bearing sad news."

Robin balled his fist. "Why, that no-good fink!"

"He told her that her husband had been rubbed out by the Penguin. Over the coming days, he fed her more and more information about opportunities for extracting revenge on Mister Cobblepot. Once Oswald was identified as the Governor's killer, Johnson made her feel guilty for not having killed him sooner."

"Misled or not, she'll face the gallows for her crime, I trust," said the Penguin, "and the name is 'Penguin,' if you please. Penguin - Bold Buccaneer of Banditry!"

"So Johnson played the role of LeX, Hermindra, the fake policeman, and Raoul? Busy guy," said Vicki.

Batman corrected her. "No, Frenchy was 'Raoul,' a fictitious character created so we would waste time looking for him."

"It still seems like a whole lot of trouble to go through," said Robin. "If you've got a remote control machine, you can just cause any number of car crashes."

"They first tried to kill Mister Klintody by forcing his plane to crash," explained Batman, "but, somehow, the plane pulled out of its tailspin, as if caught in mid-air by a superhuman deity, and landed gently on the ground."

"Hwah, hwah, hwah," said the Penguin. "The nincompoops would've spent a fraction of the cost if they'd simply hired me. I would have done the deed cheerfully in exchange for my old top hat and umbrella."

"Corky the dog was recovered alive and well from the Shivels' Metropolis condominium," said Commissioner Gordon. "After she was confronted with the evidence of her involvement, Rosemarie Shivel confessed to everything: their warped romantic arrangement, its fatal consequences for Mister Kent…and, very nearly, for Ms. Vale."

"The Shivels certainly let their infatuations get the better of them. Have you ever thought about asking Vicki out on a date, Batman?" Robin whispered.

Batman shielded his mouth with his glove. "A word of advice, chum. Women with repeating initials can only spell trouble."

(Bat Spin)

It was a beautiful, cloudless day, as if nature were compensating for the sadness of the occasion. Batman stood at a lectern situated ten feet in front of a gleaming, gold-colored coffin. He gazed at the faces of the small group that had turned out.

He shuffled his notes and cleared his throat. "I was asked to come here today to say a few words about our fallen comrade, Clark Kent. Lois Lane wanted to be here to give the eulogy, but her editor ordered her and Jimmy Olson to cover Governor Klintody's funeral on the other side of town. Frankly, any editor worth his salt would have made the same decision.

"I had the pleasure of meeting Clark Kent on several occasions. He was polite, studious, and hard-working. He was a good man, a great man. Well, that's not really true, but he was a good man. Although in no way remarkable, he was a model citizen and always did as he was instructed.

"Ms. Lane told me that Kent had the reputation of fleeing at the first sign of danger – even if the danger was in another city. Apparently, the joke around The Daily Planet offices was no threat was far enough away for Clark Kent's taste."

A murmur of gentle chuckles drifted up from the mourners.

"Look! Up in the sky!" someone yelled.

"It's a bird!" cried another, pointing upward.

"It's a plane!"

Everyone perked up at the thought of a plane going by, and they all paused to look upward.

Robin whispered to Batman, "Boy, whoever thought that was a bird must be pretty embarrassed."

"Indeed," Batman said. "The hump at the front of the fuselage plainly identifies it as a Boeing 747."

Every head slowly craned from left to right as the plane passed and disappeared from sight.

Batman shook his head, trying to recall the topic of his speech. "Now, where was I? Oh, yes, Kent!"

He gestured at the open casket. "Clark requested he be buried wearing his spectacles. They represent his tireless resolve to magnify the truth."

"Stop the funeral!"

Batman looked up and saw Lois and Jimmy running towards the gravesite.

"Clark isn't dead!" Lois said, gasping for breath as she finally reached Batman's side.

Confused, Batman glanced down at the coffin.

"It wasn't Mister Kent!" said Jimmy. "It was another guy! See, Mister Kent once ran across this fellow named Boulder, and saw the guy was the spitting image of him."

Lois chimed in. "Lately, when he felt he was being handed useless fluff stories, Clark would hire this fellow to go stand in for him at the event. He always somehow seemed to find out enough about what happened to write the stories, even if he wasn't within miles of the event.

"Once he was granted the Ruby exclusive, Clark realized he'd stumbled into the middle of a hot story. So he flew the look-alike out here, purely to misdirect attention, so he could move about without being mobbed. Also, he was worried Perry White would reassign him to something frivolous any second."

"So it was Boulder who got poisoned in the hotel room?" asked Robin.

"Right!" said Jimmy. "Laura Lime was Boulder's fiancée. She'd been instructed to play along with the charade. Mister Kent didn't even know she was in Gotham City until she'd already taken that fall down the elevator shaft."

"How did you discover all this?" Batman asked.

The phone in the Batmobile started beeping.

"From Clark himself," answered Lois. "That's probably him, calling from the Commissioner's office, right now."

The Dynamic Duo exchanged a perplexed look, then Batman moved to answer the phone.

"Hello?' Batman said. "Yes…hello, Clark. It's good to hear from you."

Jimmy sidled over next to Lois. "Gosh, that sure is a strange story. Do you believe it, Miss Lane?"

Lois threw up her hands. "Ohhh, who knows? The master of weird excuses has struck again. I'm beginning to think Clark's whole purpose in life is to miss breaking stories and come up with nonsensical tales to explain his absence."

"He's tough to figure sometimes, huh?"

"He's a chicken . . . but he's our chick– Jimmy, where are you going?"

Batman watched in puzzlement as Olson ran up and snapped several pictures of him holding the phone.

Jimmy returned to Lois, smiling as he checked his viewfinder.

"Wow! Clark talking to Batman! And I got it on film!"

"Yes. What's that?" Batman asked the voice at the other end. He placed the phone against his chest. "Ms. Lane, Clark says to tell you the boxing exhibition was for real, but it was being kept secret as a favor to Governor Klintody. The Governor asked Clark to participate to help promote his youth physical education program."

Jimmy patted Lois on the shoulder. "I knew you'd never cut any secret deals against Mister Kent! I wonder what Barry Brown has to say about that now?"

(Bat Spin)

On the 747 that had just passed over the funeral, a form sat hidden under a shawl at the back of the plane.

A stewardess approached with a plate. "Something to eat, sir?"

"Thank you. Leave it."

Seconds after she left, Barry Brown's face peered out from the shawl. Satisfied he was alone, he regarded the scrumptious meal in front of him. Without warning, his mouth secreted a glob of thick, dark mucous. It landed on the food and dissolved it within seconds. Brown lapped the resulting pasty mess up like a dog. His hunger sated, Brown glared with bitterness out the window.

"You did this to nee, Batnan! I'll hind a way to nake you pay!"

He would need a new name; something befitting his horrible state. He decided he liked the sound of "Acid Tongue." Plus, he could pronounce it.

Feeling nature call, he rose and shoved his way past the stewardess in the aisle. "Excuse nee."

After squeezing into the lavatory, Brown locked the door. He unzipped his fly and went about dispensing his foul business. Outside, the stewardess gasped as the smoke detectors in the back of the plane all began squealing.

THE END…?