Strange Apparitions is the name given to the run of Detective Comics from writer Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers. The storyline ran from issues #469-479.
Batman must face against a new enemy, Dr. Phosphorus, a scientist transformed by a nuclear accident into a walking radioactive burn pit. This puts Batman into the crosshairs of both corrupt politician Rupert Thorne and an old nemesis once thought long dead. Before long, Batman must face a cascading number of threats from Deadshot, the Penguin, and even the Joker.
The run is considered a high water mark for both Detective Comics and Batman comics in general.
Strange Apparitions provides examples of the following tropes:
- Auction of Evil: After figuring out Batman is Bruce Wayne, Hugo Strange tries to auction off this secret to the Joker, the Penguin, and Rupert Thorne. He ends up getting kidnapped by Thorne before the auction can even happen. He later regrets trying at all, noting that the secret wasn't his to sell.
- Back from the Dead: The arc brings back Hugo Strange long considered dead after falling off a cliff way back in the Golden Age.
- Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: While most of the villains can be dealt with by Batman beating them in battle, it isn't clear how Batman would be able to deal the fact that Rupert Thorne is a well-connected politician who has hidden his role in his crimes well or Hugo Strange who knows who Batman really is and could easily give that fact up to whoever he wanted at any time. Ultimately, Batman never has to worry about it because the two end up dealing with each other before Batman has to.
- Big Bad Ensemble: The main villains of the story include Dr. Phosphorus, Rupert Thorne, Hugo Strange, the Penguin, and the Joker with a returning Deadshot and a new Clayface rounding out the threats.
- The Bus Came Back: Both Deadshot and Hugo Strange come back after long absences from Batman's comic stories.
- Body Double: Batman tries to switch places with one of the Joker's prospective victims. It doesn't stop the Joker from killing the victim.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: The Joker is particularly off his rocker in this story even by his own previous standards, using a toxin to force Gotham's fish to take on a grinning, pale appearance similar to his and then trying to trademark fish itself in order to get royalties from the sales. The multiple officials who have to inform him that's not really how things work end up being victims of the Joker.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Double subverted by the Joker's fish scheme. He's trying to use trademark law to make easy money but it's 1.) a crime and 2.) total nonsense.
- Darker and Edgier: This run is generally more violent and disturbing than Batman comics had been up to this point. In particular, the Joker's toxin, which killed people and left them with a casual smile like in "The Joker's Five Way Revenge", this time contorts the victim's smiles into unnaturally wide rictuses and turns their skin into a pale yellow.
- Defiant to the End: No matter how much he's tortured, Hugo Strange refuses to give up Batman.
- Do Not Adjust Your Set: The Joker announces his crimes and when he's succeeded in killing someone by hijacking the TV feed.
- The End... Or Is It?: Lightning strikes a girder the Joker is on and he falls into the Gotham River below. Batman is understandably skeptical that the Joker actually died but is generally sure the immediate threat is over for now.
- Evil Counterpart: After capturing Batman, Hugo Strange tries to become Batman.
- Eviler than Thou: Rupert Thorne tries this with Hugo Strange with mixed results.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Batman faces off against Monster Men mere pages before it's revealed that the villain of the issue is a returning Hugo Strange.
- Hate Plague: The Joker kills Ernest Jackson by using his infected fish to drive Ernest's cat into a homicidal frenzy that results in Ernest getting scratched and dying of the toxin injection.
- Kill and Replace: Effectively what Hugo Strange wants after capturing Batman.
- Latex Perfection: Hugo Strange has a number of masks that perfectly mimic the facial features of another, to include Dr. Todhunter and eventually Bruce Wayne himself. Batman also uses one to pose as one of Joker's prospective victims and later still Joker uses one to pose as a cop.
- Legacy Character: The Preston Payne version of Clayface debuts at the end of the run.
- Love Interest: Bruce gains one in Silver St. Cloud.
- Mundane Solution: How Hugo Strange learns of Batman's identity — he simply drugged and unmasked Bruce.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: After Thorne has Hugo Strange killed for refusing to offer up Batman's true name, Thorne is "haunted" by a ghost of Strange and eventually goes mad. It's not especially clear if Thorne is hallucinating, if he's being gaslit, or if he's legitimately being haunted. This plot point continues even after the arc's end and it is eventually revealed that Strange was actually still alive and using holographic trickery to convince Thorne he was being haunted.
- Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: While only a Batman comic would use poisoning the city water supply with radiation as a "minor" crime, Batman's fight with Dr. Phosphorus puts him on the trail against Rupert Thorne and checking into a clinic to recover from the radiation burns post-battle reveals Hugo Strange is still alive and running the clinic as a front for his new criminal enterprise.
- Mythology Gag: A lot of Joker's actions during "The Laughing Fish" and "The Sign of the Joker" mimic his killing spree from his very first appearance back 1940.
- Near-Villain Victory: The Penguin almost manages to kidnap a plane full of members of the Security Exchange with a priceless penguin statue in tow before Batman figures out his plot and stops him at the very last moment.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Hugo Strange comes to see himself as two of a kind with Batman.
- Sanity Slippage: Rupert Thorne starts seeing visions of Hugo Strange's ghost which takes a toll on his psyche.
- Secret-Keeper: Both Hugo Strange and Silver find out Batman is Bruce Wayne.
- Smokescreen Crime: The plot to steal the Malay Penguin statue turns out to be cover for the Penguin to kidnap an airplane full members of the Securities Exchange. Also, Penguin had already stolen the statue before it reached the US and replaced it with a fake.
- Worthy Opponent: How Hugo Strange eventually sees Batman to the point that he regrets trying to sell Batman's identity and even refuses to give it up under threat of torture and death.
- When Joker runs into Thorne, he tells Thorne that, had Thorne learned Batman's secret identity, the Joker would have been forced to kill him to protect Batman since Joker needs Batman as an arch-nemesis.
