After Jervis Tetch and his criminal quintet hit the road, Overbeck releases Batman and Robin, who managed to avert the deadly rays with the helpful aid of their trusty Bat-X-Ray Deflectors, from the cabinet and replace them with a pair of human skeletons clad in Batsuits. Later, The Mad Hatter and his slippery stooges are very convinced The Dynamic Duo is a Defunct Duo when they discover the skeletons (typical of a criminal to return to the scene of the crime to admire his handiwork!). And so does the rest of the world, when The Batskeletons are discovered by a cleaning woman the very next morning, and she alerts the police. With The Caped Crusader and The Boy Wonder out of the loop, the full force of Gotham City are at half mast, believing they're dead, and all businesses are shut down and people flocked into their homes by the thousands! The Mad Hatter is given carte blanche to commence with his true scheme: substitute Hattie Hatfield's paste ruby (certainly he knew it was phony!) for a priceless ruby from the forehead of The Golden Buddha Of Bergama on display at The Gotham City Museum.

Meanwhile, The Dynamic Duo, back at their familiar haunt, trace Jervis to his hideout at the defunct Green Derby Restaurant (what more fitting GHQ for a criminal of The Hatter's caliber to hang his headgear?), thanks to a Homing Battransmitter hidden inside the stolen pink cowl. Finding Jervis The Hatter and his quartet of crooked cronies awaiting them at the top of a giant water tower adjacent to the restaurant, Batman and Robin clamber to the top after them and rout them. Chief O'Hara and his boys in blue arrive to take over the proceedings, and The Duo greet the millions of Gothamites who came out to cheer them on, having learned they were still alive! Later, at Wayne Manor, Alfred Pennyworth answer Aunt Harriet's burning question about how Bruce and Dick could possibly have known The Dynamic Duo were still alive, while other's didn't; he says he told them himself, after hearing it from Maudie, his cousin Egbert's wife and cleaning woman at the atomic energy lab, who'd discovered the Batskeletons and, well, has a predeliction to exaggerate!


NEXT WEEK: a Batman special: the first installment of an action-packed 3-parter in which The Joker and The Penguin team up against The Caped Crusaders. Don't miss the start of the hostilities, Batfans...next week! Same Battime, same Batchannel!