Batman #6 - Story 2
June 18, 1941
"The Clock Maker"
Let me say from the start that I loved this story. In reading it, I got visions of Clock King, who is one of my favorite Batman villains. I also have a thing about stories dealing with time, be it time travel or where time is just central to the story.
The story opens with Bruce attended a stockholders meeting for a clock company that Bruce's father had shares in. Right off the bat, we get Robin noting how Bruce is out "early". Time is front and center in this story as we see the clock company is located in a clock tower building.
After the meeting, Bruce and the other stockholders join Atkin as he brings one of the others to meet Brock, an antique clock dealer. Brock becomes enraged when he hears Bruce and others talking about "killing time". He calls them murderers as he manages to lose their business.
That night, Keating, one of the stockholders, calls Bruce. He is certain he is being stalked. Bruce brushes it off, but Batman and Robin go to investigate. They are able to stop an attack by a group of men so ruthless, they kill one of their own as they escape so he cannot talk.
The men return to their boss, an unseen figure who wonders if clocks might be the key to getting to Keating. Now, on the surface, it might seem that this is Brock, but there's more to the story.
What follows is a series of murders of the stockholders by clocks that kill when the clock strikes thirteen. Bruce even saves Dick when the young man opens a package with a clock in it rigged to explode.
We cut to Brock who is involved in this, creating the rigged clocks, but he is guided by another figure, one who Batman determines is Atkins, our man who guided the group to Brock in the first place. Turns out that as each stockholder passes, his shares are distributed among the remaining holders. Eventually, Atkins would have all the shares.
When Batman confronts Atkins, Brock is shot in the struggle. He cuts down Atkins with a Father Time scythe. But Brock isn't hurt as his pocket watch deflected the bullet. He leaves, threatening to blow up the clock tower and kill as many people as possible who waste time.
It ends with a spectacular race to stop Brock as we get a series of panels, ticking away the chiming of the clock as Batman literally throws himself into the bell's clapper to stop it from striking thirteen. And again, Robin is the one who deals the death blow on Brock as he tosses him from the clock tower.
