Comic Title: Detective Comics #583
Publisher: DC
Cover Date: February 1988
On Sale Date: November 3, 1987 Shipping Date November 3, 1987
Source: DC Releases, #45

Shipping Date November 3, 1987
Source: Amazing Heroes, #128

Copyright Date November 3, 1987
Source: Library of Congress, Copyright Office 1987

Newsstand Date November 27, 1987
Source: Amazing Heroes, #128

Cover Price: $0.75
Page Count: 32
Editor: Dennis J. O'Neil

Title: "Fever"
Pages: 22

Feature(s):
Batman (Post-Crisis)

Writer: John Wagner
Writer: Alan Grant
Penciller: Norm Breyfogle
Inker: Kim DeMulder
Colorist: Adrienne Roy

Reprinted In:
Legends of the Dark Knight:Norm Breyfogle Vol. 1 HC (2015)
Batman:The Dark Knight Detective Vol. 2 TPB (2018)

Feature Character(s)

• Batman (last appearance in Blue Beetle #22; next appearance in Detective Comics #584)

Villain(s)

• Ventriloquist (next appearance in Detective Comics #584)
• Scarface (next appearance in Detective Comics #584)
• Louis the Lump (dies in this story; no further appearances)
• Rhino (Scarface's henchman; next appearance in Detective Comics #584)
• Fatman (an associate of Scarface; next appearance in Detective Comics #584)
• Four teenaged drug users (Joey and Jack named; no further appearances)
• Several drug dealers (Chally named; no further appearances)

Other Character(s)

• A security guard (dies in this story; no further appearances)

Comments:
This story continues in Detective Comics #584.

Synopsis:
Batman catches a gang of young kids who have attacked a security guard while high on a new street drug known as fever. He learns where the drugs are being sold. The police have raided the building multiple times, but the dealers have thwarted them each time. Batman stages a raid of his own. He breaks into the building and catches one of the dealers with the drugs. He learns that the supplier is Scarface.

Scarface is actually a dummy controlled by a crime lord known as the Ventriloquist. The insane criminal issues orders and commands via the puppet, while he himself acts meek. Angered that two of his men have failed, Scarface executes one and sends the other to Mexico to help with the drug smuggling operations.