A rash of kidnappings appears to have Gotham City's Police Department stumped.  All the victims appear to have one thing in common, they wear hats.  That alone points to the machinations of The Mad Hatter.  But what is his scheme?  Why take the people as well as their hats?  What do they have in common?

Joining John to figure out The Mad Hatter's scheme is life-long Batman fan, Linda-Ali Cruz.

Comment on the episode here or write thebatcavepodcast@gmail.com or call 888-866-9010. Take a moment to rate the episode by using our star system at the bottom of this entry.

Linda-Ali Cruz is a self-proclaimed GeekGirl whose love of superheroes has inspired her to teach her sons to appreciate the fantastic, in particular, the Caped Crusader and his pantheon of villains.

King Boris' visit to the United States is interrupted by an exploding bouquet of flowers that hide a riddle inside, the calling card of the Riddler.  What is his scheme?  Can Batman and Robin figure it out before an international incident can occur?

Joining John to figure out the Riddler's clues is author, musician, and podcaster Keith R.A. DeCandido.

Comment on the episode here or write thebatcavepodcast@gmail.com or call 888-866-9010. 

Keith R.A. DeCandido is a writer, editor, musician, podcaster, curator, voice actor, and probably some other stuff, too, but he can't remember due to lack of sleep. In 2009, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers, which means he never needs to achieve anything ever again.

He has written tie-in fiction in prose and comics form for more than twenty different universes ranging from TV shows (Star Trek,Farscape, Supernatural, Leverage, and many more) to movies (Cars, Serenity, Resident Evil, Kung Fu Panda), to games (World of Warcraft, Dungeons & Dragons, StarCraft, Command and Conquer) to comic books (Spider-Man, X-Men, Hulk, Silver Surfer). He is the author of the acclaimed Precinct series of fantasy police procedurals including Dragon Precinct, Unicorn Precinct, and Goblin Precinct, with 2013 seeing the release of Gryphon Precinct and Tales from Dragon Precinct, as well as a comic book and audios of all four novels.

Other recent work includes writing the monthly Farscape comic book with series creator Rockne S. O'Bannon; the SCPD novel The Case of the Claw, a novel about cops in a city filled with superheroes; the Leverage novel The Zoo Job; the comic book miniseries The Fallen; the short-story collection Ragnarok and Roll: Tales of Cassie Zukav, Weirdness Magnet, urban fantasy stories taking place in Key West; and short stories in the anthologies Apocalypse 13, Bad-Ass Faeries: It's Elemental, Defending the Future: Best Laid Plans, Liar Liar,More Tales of Zorro, Star Trek: Seven Deadly Sins, and Tales from the House Band Vols. 1 & 2. He has also contributed to several shard worlds: Steven Savile's Viral (the novella -30-), Aaron Rosenberg & David Niall Wilson's The Scattered Earth (the novel Guilt in Innocence), and Jonathan Maberry's V-Wars (the story "The Ballad of Big Charlie").

Keith is also a longtime editor. He was the supervising editor of the Marvel novels published by Penguin Putnam from 1994-2000 and the monthly series of Star Trek eBook originals published by Simon & Schuster from 2000-2008. His anthology credits range fromImaginings and Liar Liar to the Doctor Who: Short Trips anthology The Quality of Leadership to the Star Trek anthologies New Frontier: No Limits, Tales from the Captain's Table, and Tales of the Dominion War. Currently he edits for clients both personal and corporate via KRADitorial.

Keith is a musician, once the percussionist for the Don't Quit Your Day Job Players (musical guests of Dragon*Con in 1998), currently the percussionist of sometime D*C filk guests the Boogie Knights. His work can be heard on the DQYDJP CDs TKB and Blues Spoken Here and the BK CDs Many a Sleepless Knight and Wasted Days, Wasted Knights.

Of late, Keith has become a serious podcaster -- he's part of the staff of The Chronic Rift, a pop-culture podcast, and has his own 'cast, Dead Kitchen Radio. He also provides voices for the audio dramas The Dome, Gypsy Cove, and the Parsec Award-winning HG World.

On top of all this, Keith is a black belt in Kenshikai karate and a devoted fan of the New York Yankees (in fact, he co-edited the 2013 Yankees Annual for Lindy's Magazines). He lives in New York City with a couple of humans and several animals. Find out less as his cheerfully retro web site of DeCandido.net, which provides links to his Facebook page, his Twitter feed, his blog, his podcasts, and many and varied other things that probably sound cooler than they actually are.

The Gotham City Police Department have an unusual criminal on their hands.  For three years in a row, the April Fool's Bandit has been robbing banks of exactly $100,000, leaving behind millions more in the vault.  The identity of this mysterious bandit is unknown and Commissioner Gordon has called in Batman and Robin to investigate.

Joining John to discover the identity of this mysterious bandit (if the title of the episode didn't tip you off) is Mighty Movie Podcast's host Dan Persons.

Comment on the episode here or write thebatcavepodcast@gmail.com or call 888-866-9010. Take a moment to rate the episode by using our star system at the bottom of this entry.

In his twenty plus years as writer and film journalist, Dan Persons has interviewed the likes of Paul Verhoeven, Wes Craven, Stuart Gordon, Satoshi Kon and John Kricfalusi; published the well-received novella, "A Game of the Apocalypse", in The Ultimate Silver Surfer, edited by The Chronic Rift's own Keith R.A. Decandido; and been an occasional, and somewhat peculiar, guest on the public access incarnation of the Rift. He presently is the host of Mighty Movies Temple of Bad, Mighty Movie Podcast, and The Cinefantastique Podcast when he isn't haunting the dining room of his local Popeye's.

Ice on the streets of Gotham in July?  It sounds like the calling card of the cool, cruel Mr. Freeze.  He wants revenge on Batman for trapping him forever in the icy grip of his cold empty world, but first he will play with him "like cat with mouse". The question is, why is he doing that?

Joining John to try and answer this question is Hey Kids Comics's host Andrew Leyland.

Comment on the episode here or write thebatcavepodcast@gmail.com or call 888-866-9010. Take a moment to rate the episode by using our star system at the bottom of this entry.

Andrew Leyland - Born. Reads comics. Watches bad TV. Somehow found a woman that puts up with him and had three kids. Puts out a weekly comics podcast called "Hey Kids, Comics!" With his eldest son every Thursday on TwoTrueFreaks.com.

"The Joker is Wild/Batman is Riled"

January 26/27, 1966

The Joker "springs" himself from jail in time to exact revenge on the curators of a museum exhibit on comedy legends.  He's upset that he wasn't included in the exhibit.  But Batman's on the scene to stop him with the aid of his trusty utility belt.  The Joker swears never to fall for the gimmicks of the belt by fighting fire with fire and creating his own.  The belt proves to be a match for the Dynamic Duo as the city of Gotham begins to lose faith in them as they fall for the pranks from the Joker's utility belt.

Joining John for the first appearance of The Joker is Geek Radio Daily's Billy Flynn.

Comment on the episode here or write thebatcavepodcast@gmail.com or call 888-866-9010.

The Wonderful Billy Flynn brings the funny each week on Geek Radio Daily! His daytime alter ego is mild-mannered (well, that part is a stretch) radio station personality at WLEE in Virginia.   He actually gets paid to sit on his butt and run his mouth! His “edumacation” is from UNC-Wilmington, the Columbia School of Broadcasting, and University of Phoenix. When he is not gracing the podcasting airways with his comedic stylings, you can find Billy Flynn on Xbox Live (flynn71), rockin’ out on Guitar Hero or Rock Band, watching movies, reading comics, working out, or posting on the forums at geekradiodaily.com (ding!).

"Fine Feathered Finks/The Penguin's a Jinx"

January 19/20, 1966

ThePenguin is released from prison and comes up with a perfect scheme for his next crime - let Batman figure it out for him.  Can Batman figure this out before it's too late?

Joining John for the first appearance of "that pompous, waddling master of foul play, the maestro of a million criminal umbrellas" is Restaurant Stakeout narrator and Cyborgs: A Bionic Podcast co-host Paul K. Bisson

Comment on the episode here or write thebatcavepodcast@gmail.com or call 888-866-9010. Take a moment to rate the episode by using our star system at the bottom of this entry.

Wonder Woman, Star Trek, Six Million Dollar Man & Bionic Woman, and The Omen- for a poor kid growing up in Boston (where there wasn't much to do except watch TV or go outside and find trouble), they were doorways into the worlds of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and comics.  And they remain the cornerstones of Paul K. Bisson's inner Fanboy.

Today, Paul is an actor, writer, independent media producer, and all-around Geek.  He still collects comics (mostly DC and definitely Wonder Woman), he founded the member-rich Bionic Fan Network  (http://www.bionicfans.net) and an ambitious online Bionic encyclopedia, The Bionic Wiki (http://www.bionic.wikia.com), he's the webmaster of The Omen Chronicles, the only fansite devoted to the Omen film series (http://www.omenchronicles.com), and he's developing http://www.fancommentary.com -- a social networking site where people can upload their own audio commentaries for their favorite movies and TV shows.

Paul is currently the narrator for Food Network's Restaurant Stakeout, the co-host of Cyborgs: A Bionic Podcast, and the voice of The Chronic Rift Podcast.

So, the premiere episode of the podcast is out there and I'm hoping it causes the kind of stir that the premiere episode of the actual series caused.  But please don't take it this far.  I mean a club that offers nude girls AND Batusi...it's a bit much for me.

"Hi Diddle Riddle"/"Smack in the Middle"

January 12/13, 1966

The Riddler has plans for Batman in the form of a lawsuit claiming false arrest, but Batman knows the Riddler is not as innocent as he seems. Can Batman deduce the Riddler's scheme from the puzzles he's hidden inside the lawsuit?  Can he figure out that Robin isn't Robin?  And can we find all the ideas that would be repeated throughout the series that first led to its success and would ultimately lead to its downfall?

Joining John for the first episode of the podcast is author Dayton Ward.

Comment on the episode here or write thebatcavepodcast@gmail.com.

Dayton Ward is the author of numerous media tie-in fiction works in such realms as Star Trek and The 4400.  He is also the author of such original works as Counterstrike, The Last World War, Book 2 and The Genesis Protocol. When he's not writing or working for a software design firm, he's busy indoctrinating his two lovely daughters into the worlds that have so seriously warped his mind.