Detective Comics #78

Issue Details

Synopsis

THE BOND WAGON THE MEANEST MUGS IN THE WORLD THE PREVUE MUDERS MENANCE OF THE MOUSE-TRAPS After years of patient toil, inventor Sam Maker develops a better mousetrap, but can't sell it to the public. Big Paul Anousi, an underworld boss pretending to be an exterminator, visits Maker and orders a thousand traps; Maker labors night and day to produce them. Meanwhile there's a lull in the city's crime level; this makes Air Wave suspicious, and he starts turning in to metal pieces near known gangster hangouts. One evening soon, there is a rash of crimes, simultaneously, at banks and jewelry stores across the town. Crooks are using Maker's mousetraps in innovative ways, including setting some on the transmission wires that Air Wave typically uses to zoom across town. After a few setbacks, Air Wave manages to tune in on the light, strong metal used in the traps, which leads him to Sam Maker, who doesn't know the crime boss's real name. They work up a plan. Meanwhile Anousi also cooks up a new scheme for dealing with Air Wave. The next night at a swanky society party thrown by wealthy Mr. Putnam, Anousi's gang strikes, and the cops who charge to the rescue get snagged in some traps, but then Air Wave comes zooming into the house, bypassing all the boobytraps, and beats up the whole gang, all of whom flee into the woods, but there's only one path so they all take it, and it leads them right into a boxcar-sized trap that Mr. Maker had set up earlier. FREEDOM STATION