Story: "The Big Romance" (22 Pages)

Credits: Chuck Dixon (plot, script)
Mike McDonnell (pencils)
Rodney Ramos (inks)
Albert T De Guzman (letters)
Gloria Vasquez (colors)
Digital Chameleon (separations)
Nachie Castro (assistant edits)
Matt Idelson (edits)

Feature Characters:

Oracle
Black Canary II

Supporting Character:

Jason Bard (last in issue #19)

Villains:

Pistolera
Vicious (both next in Titans #30)
Ra's al Ghul
Talia
Ubu

Synopsis:

Pistolera and Vicious return to the present. Faced with a squadron of guards, they are taken into custody, swearing to have their revenge on Cheshire.

Jason Bard, private detective, is visited by Barbara Gordon (for whom he still has feelings), who wants him to carry out a surveillance job on a woman in Cannes. He catches up with his quarry playing bezique in a casino, where her voice shows him that he already knows her - it's the Black Canary. They get reacquainted out on the beach but are interrupted by a man who wants to take Dinah (Canary) to her dinner date with an older man she's met here. When she leaves, Bard is attacked by three thugs, but is able to take advantage of their lack of finesse to escape.

Jason contacts Barbara to ask him why on Earth she wants him to shadow her partner; she tells him that it's because she's worried that she'll get in trouble on the rebound from her romance with Jon Haraldson. She equips him with audio and video transmitters, and sends him off to put a tracer on the bottom of Dinah's older man's boat (the Comte de Renaut de su Mer). While he does so, he is attacked by some divers, one of whom severs his air hose. When he surfaces, he is hauled on board the Comte's boat. Here the Comte introduces himself as Ra's al Ghul.