Scans_Daily

#194'd seen his early-in-his-career hand-picked team of civilian assistants in an op that'd gone bad.

#195 saw them on a follow-up, tracking the mobster Peter Scotta's meeting with Derek Parke, sole survivor of a cryogenic attack on researchers at his company.

The meeting was interrupted by the attacker, and former lead of that research team - Victor Fries, turned endothermic by an accident with technology similar to the freezing gun he was carrying.

The gun chilled and killed Scotta and his men.

Parke, his plan to sell that cryogenic technology to Scotta as a weapon scuppered, fled.

One of Batman's team broke cover to help him away.

Batman dropped out of the sky, putting himself between Parke and Fries.

( He landed in Scotta's pond. )

The team was Batman's, early in his career, to give him what he wasn't getting from Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent.

Its members - a Green Beret discharged on a frame-up, a forensic analyst not getting professional fulfillment at the FBI, an electronics shop owner whose brilliant amateur work wasn't being recognized, a criminal psychologist frustrated at having only pop appeal, and an ex-con finding it hard to get and live on work that wasn't criminal - were all talented, and all open to the purpose and validation Batman was offering.

He brought them together at a meeting he didn't attend in person.

( He spoke from a screen. )