The countdown continues with 1971's "Silent Night, Deadly Night!," from Batman #239 by Denny O'Neil, Irv Novick and Dick Giordano...
As an aside, this is sadly the only "Silen Night, Deadly Night!" on the countdown. Sorry, Steve Gerber fans!
In this story, drawn by the highly underrated Irv Novick, Batman is on the hunt for some guy who has been robbing Santa Clauses for a week or so. Eventually he captures the crook, who pleads his case to Batman…
Man, the expression by Batman in that last panel! Lordy, Novick was amazing.
Don't let your guard down during his sob story, Batman!
After Batman comes to, he is tied down but manages to free himself, however he is “stuck” taking care of the man’s niece…
Isn’t that an awesome setup?
The big twist is that Tim decides not to kill Evans when Evans has a heart attack. So while Batman is still going to insist on Tim turning himself in, he'll use Bruce Wayne's influence to see that he gets a reduced sentence...
Cool ending, but what I don't get is, isn't it kind of a stretch to act like the guy was going to have a heart attack no matter what and Tim happened to save him? Doesn't it seem more likely that Tim bursting into his home and ASSAULTING him was what induced the heart attack? It's certainly possible that he was going to have a heart attack no matter what and if that is the case, then yes, he was lucky that Tim was there, but that's FAR from a given, no? So that's kind of a weird plot point. I think it would have made more sense if Tim had burst into Evans' home with the INTENT to kill him but when he gets there, Evans has already had a heart attack and Tim has to choose whether to let him die or not.