Previously on Ye Olde Comick Booke Blogge:

World's greatest detective? Maybe not... It seems Mannheim is a Nazi who escaped to South America after World War II and currently deals in drugs and illegal gold. Ironically, the UN guy who's face remains in shadow the whole time he's talking to Batman is probably supposed to be then-UN General Secretary Kurt Waldheim.

Mannheim has disabled the sphere's homing device, but Aquaman reveals it has a circuit that will send out a signal if it comes out of the water. Since that hasn't happened, they know it's still submerges, which eliminated about 30% of the planet right there. Only 140 million square miles left to search! That is until Batman looks at Mannheim's Interpol file and--because Bob Haney only had seven pages left and hadn't even gotten to the Nazis promised on the front cover yet--notices a big note with the name of a lake on it.Batman and a navy pilot take a helicopter to Lake Kanganchero, where they learn Mannheim has already taken off with the sphere and is swimming several miles down river to the ocean to rendezvous with a thirty-year-old U-Boat that's been hidden in a covered dock somewhere along the east coast of America since the end of WWII.

The plan is to use the satellite to find a submarine--any submarine--and blow it up from long range with a torpedo. The US will blame the Russians or vice versa and the world will be consumed in a nuclear ball of flame... which doesn't leave much for Mannheim and his followers to gloat about afterward. For that matter, given this plan, Mannheim's seems pretty lucky to have any followers at all.

"Um, Baron? I just got back from the secret, secluded, indoor dock in Connecticut. We did the maintenance on the U-Boat. She's still in pretty good shape considering she hasn't gone anywhere in more than three decades."

"I don't have time to talk. I need to go for my morning swim."

"Yeah, about that. Are you going to do the entire river that connects this lake to the ocean again?"

"Every day. I must be prepared just in case I ever need to meet up with the U-Boat while remaining underwater the entire time."

"Okay, I suppose that could happen, but have you given any more thought to how we're going to return Nazi Germany to her former glory? I mean I've been asking for bout 27 years now and I kind of hoped we'd have made more headway by now."

"Is the replica United Nations plane gassed up and ready to go at a moment's notice?"

"As always, Herr Kapitan, though I'm still not sure where that falls into place either."

"I've explained. Someday, we may have to fool someone into thinking we're the United Nations and unless we have a plane, they'll never believe us."

"Right..."

"Which brings up something that occurred to be yesterday. What if we want to fool someone into thinking we're the United Nations while in the middle of the ocean? Make some calls and buy us a cargo plane capable of aquatic landings and take-offs. Try to have it here by the end of the week."

"Sigh... jawohl, mein Kapitan... but--how exactly are we going to convince anyone that you and I are the United Nations?"

"It's simple. We fly up to them, land, and I'll say, 'Hi, I'm Baron Mannheim with the United Nations. Give me that thing you have.' See? It's not rocket science."

"You can't go telling them you're Baron Mannheim! You're one of the most wanted criminals in the world!"

"Fine. I'll come up with a fake name."

"Like what."

"Um... uh... okay, I've got one--"

"Please don't make it Schmaron Schmannhiem again."

"Uh... look, it'll be fine if I use my real name..."

"I hate to keep repeating myself--have you figured out how we're going to restore the Fatherland? I mean for the first sixteen, seventeen years, when you said you were still ironing out the wrinkles, I was right there with you, but the last fourteen have really tested my faith."

"I really have to get to my swim, so I'll have to give you the nutshell version. We're going to blow up a nuclear submarine with the torpedoes on the U-Boat. Then the Russians and Americans will destroy each other and we waltz in and take over."

"Take over what? The world will be a pile of radioactive rubble."

"Yes, but two of the countries responsible for the fall of our dear Fuhrer and his dream will have learned not to mess with us."

"Let's put that aside for a moment. We'll never sneak up on a modern nuclear submarine with our U-Boat."

"Which is exactly why I haven't ordered the plan into action yet."

"But their sonar technology is only going to improve. When do you plan to pull this off?"

"That's the part I'm still working on. My current plan involves a magical tracking device that tells us the location of every boat in the ocean to within eighteen inches."

"And where do we get this magical tracking device?"

"That's the other part I'm working on. Okay, I'm off for my swim. Deutschland, Deutschland, uber alles..."Batman intercepts Mannheim and the two have a battle that is much more evenly matched than one would expect in a fight between a guy who earlier in the story beat up a squad of Navy SEALs and a sixty-year-old man who just swam the length of an entire river carrying heavy machinery while in full scuba gear.

Unfortunately for Batman--and the entire world for that matter--the U-Boat shows up and Mannheim's henchmen come to his rescue.All seems lost. We're all as good as dead... and in the year of our bicentennial no less!

Then Aquaman shows up and hits the Nazis with a whale. The end.

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Ye Olde Extra: Chris Sims has pointed out that a Jim Aparo-drawn Batman can punch you so hard your head will explode.

Just thought I'd point out even when he doesn't even give himself a break.