Captain Barton

An old seafaring man who is a member of the Stamp Club, a club for Gotham City stamp collectors each of whom specializes in stamps depicting scenes related to his particular hobby or occupation; Barton's collection, for example, features stamps containing pictures of ships.

Knowing that the monetary value of a stamp can be greatly increased by imbuing it with an air of notoriety, Barton begins buying up entire issues of stamps de­ picting scenes of violence, and then, one by one, at­tempts to murder his fellow club members in such a way that the manner of death reflects the victim's own stamp specialty as well as the particular issue which Barton has just purchased.

When Batman joins the Stamp Club in his Bruce Wayne identity in an effort to root out the would-be killer, for example, he presents himself as an amateur racing·car driver and as a collector of stamps containing pictures of racing cars. Soon afterward, Barton purchases a Mexican stamp series depicting a fiery auto accident during a running of the Pan American road race, then attempts to murder Wayne by tampering with Wayne's racing car during an automobile race. Ultimately, however, Batman exposes Barton as the killer and he and Robin take him into custody.