Retro Comics are Awesome

[andersonh1]

Detective Comics #82
December 1943

Quarterback of Crime!
I'm not a big sports fan, so these old stories that involve the hero stopping some form of sports corruption are always among my least favorite. This particular story doesn't quite go down that route, despite the appearance that it will. The crooks in these stories are always looking for some new foolproof angle to commit crimes, and gangster Blackie Blondeen is inspired by football plays to do the same for robbing banks. He sets up the "field" (the bank layout), the "opposing team" (guards, tellers and responding police) and the gameplan, giving his gang a carefully planned series of actions as they rob the bank. There's nothing wrong with an idea about crooks planning an operation and doing a number of practice runs before the real thing, but adding in the football element weakens the plot. And it's done so that Alfred can confuse American football with British football/soccer and attempt to use his rusty soccer skills to take on the crooks. I can't say I was a big fan of this one. Instead of Batman and Robin using their wits to break up a well-practiced gang of robbers, it turns into hijinks with Alfred and an unnecessary sports connection. They can't all be winning stories I guess.

[andersonh1]

World's Finest Comics #12
Winter 1944

Alfred Gets his Man!
We're still on the original look of Alfred here: the portly, bald, knobby-nosed, well-meaning but clumsy butler stereotype who is dying to be a detective. Alfred is out shopping when the wind catches his ration stamps (we're still in World War 2 here at the beginning of 1944) and he has to chase them down. When he finally grabs them, he overhears two men talking and it sounds very much as if one is extorting money from the other. With Bruce and Dick off deep-sea fishing (it's always good to see those two have a life beyond crime fighting), Alfred decides to catch the crooks himself. It goes very badly of course, and only the fact that he's imprisoned on a derelict boat in the harbor when Bruce and Dick are passing by while returning from their fishing trip saves his life. With the help of Batman and Robin, a diamond smuggling ring is busted up, and Alfred gets credit in the newspapers as "anonymous detective" for helping Batman.

Detective Comics #83
January 1944

Accidentally on Purpose
I think this is the first named appearance of the Batcave. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that's correct, and I've read that it's due to the Batman movie serials appearing at the time. Even in the 1940s there was some cross-pollination between different media, just like today. And there's another change in this story that is due to the movie serial, but we'll get to that shortly.

Alfred is down in the Batcave working out, and Bruce suggests that he needs a vacation. He agrees and has a certain place out in the country in mind. While he's gone, Batman and Robin work a case where men are seemingly robbing their own stores. The common link is an "accident" and the same doctor treating the injured men. Unfortunately for Batman, during an attempt to bust up the gang, Batman gets injected with the formula and nearly robs a store but is able to resist the commands in the end. As the watching crooks and doctor are about to shoot him and Robin, a tall thin man distracts the crooks long enough for Batman to punch his way out of the situation. The man is Alfred, now looking much as he does to the present day: tall, thin and moustached, something Bruce and Dick remark on. He had decided that he needed to lose weight and get in shape, and he worked hard while on vacation to do just that Alfred's appearance in the comics was changed to match his appearance in the movie serials, and that's how he's looked ever since.

[andersonh1]

Batman #21
February-March 1944

The Streamlined Rustlers!
Batman and Robin head out west to stop cattle rustlers, the given reason being that black market beef is bad for the war effort. I can't say I was all that impressed with this story, mainly because pulling Batman out of his urban element can work, but Batman and a western setting just doesn't quite work for me. All the various ranchers in the area have had cattle stolen, and it's up to Batman and Robin to help the local sheriff figure out who's doing it. In the end, it's one of the ranchers that's been faking being robbed of cattle himself in order to avoid suspicion.

Blitzkrieg Bandits!
Gangster Chopper Gant and his thugs duck into a lecture hall to avoid being captured by Batman and Robin. A lecture on military science is being given by mousy expert Hannibal Boneparte Brown, and Gant is inspired to use his expertise to plan crimes. They trick Brown, who is flattered that he's finally going to gain recognition as an expert. After a few attempts to stop the gang, Batman figures out that they have expert help and deduces that it came from the lecture the gang ducked into. Brown is only too willing to help stop the crooks once he knows he's being used.

[andersonh1]

His Lordship's Double
Alfred accidentally ends up impersonating a Lord Burleigh for an evening, a man his cousin worked for in England. It's all part of a plot by Burleigh's butler Stevens to imprison Burleigh and steal his formula to cheaply manufacture rubber from petroleum. The butler himself had been posing as Burleigh, but sent a double to a formal diplomatic function that he didn't want to attend, and when Alfred called on him in order to deliver a message to his cousin, the fake Burleigh thought he was the actor hired to play him at the diplomatic ball. The whole deal with Alfred exists to provide a humorous subplot for the butler, as well as to draw Batman and Robin into the case, which otherwise they would have known nothing about.

The story also reminds us that Alfred has changed (this is his first appearance in the Batman comic since he came back slimmer and trimmer in Detective Comics). Dick Grayson makes fun of his moustace, calling it a "misplaced eyebrow" and remarking on how he can't get used to how slim he is now.

The Three Eccentrics!
The Penguin uses a micro-sized camera to obtain information like safe combinations that allow him to rob wealthy eccentrics. The Penguin uses their eccentricities to gain access to their houses, which is all the opportunity he needs.

[andersonh1]

Detective Comics #84
February 1944

Artists in Villiainy!
One of the notable features of Golden Age comics is splash pages that cannot be taken literally, often featuring giant versions of the villains, or something along those lines. This story has one of the more bizarre images so far. The opening narration talks about Ivan Krafft, the main villain, having his (allegorical) tentacles all over the country through his crime training facility. The artist literally illustrates him as a bizarre octopus with a human head, holding Batman, Robin, and various crooks in his tentacles. Krafft already looks weird, so turning him into a literal illustration of the figurative language certainly catches the reader's attention.

Krafft has a school, a training ground for criminals where they learn for example how to scale buildings to get into upper story windows, or how to crack safes, or the best way to fight the police. And then Krafft hires out his trainees for a percentage of whatever they take. They don't just confine themselves to Gotham (though that's how Batman and Robin first encounter them) but cross state lines and return with the stolen goods. Organized crime is a huge problem in these golden age stories. Batman and Robin infiltrate the camp, and are together able to break up the gang and call in the state police, though not without some difficulty.


Detective Comics #85
March 1944

The Joker's Double
The Joker commits a crime against a member of a four-member card club, with his crimes apparently based on playing cards. But in a nice touch, considering how often these two have met already, Bruce Wayne knows that it isn't the Joker, because the methods the crook used are nothing like what the Joker would do. Meanwhile, it was only a few months ago that we had a story about someone committing crimes and blaming it on the Joker, so it's not all that different to have someone go all the way and impersonate him, making the plot feel slightly recycled. What is different is that this time the Joker is determined to "play on the side of the law" and catch the man to prove his innocence, and he wants Batman to see it. Not because he cares about lawlessness, but because he feels the impostor doesn't live up to his reputation. As an added bonus, he gets Batman and Robin under his Joker Gas, and shows off his lair full of death traps, just because he feels like bragging when they can't do anything about it.

World's Finest Comics #13
Spring 1944

The Curse of Isis!
A decent little wartime smuggling tale, though it's not hard to figure out what's going on very early in the story. A group of superstitious sailors are convinced they won't survive the Atlantic crossing back to America because of Nazi submarines. They go see a swami, who gives them "lucky rabbit's feet" that they have to deliver to another Swami in New York. One of the sailors thinks it's stupid, and disposes of his rabbit's foot with a homeless man. It's all cover for a diamond smuggling operation, which Batman and Robin break up without too much difficulty.

Batman #22
April-May 1944

A little of Alfred goes a long way, and this issue threatens to overdo it. Maybe he was fairly popular at the time, but I prefer modern day Alfred to the silly, bumbling, would-be detective we get here. The "clueless detective who solves crimes by dumb luck" may have been a thing once, but small doses are plenty.

The Duped Domestics!
Alfred is acting strange and is distracted in his butler duties. Bruce and Dick notice, but have no time to deal with it now as they're trying to stop a series of robberies in the rich neighborhood they live in. Note that there still is no Wayne Manor, and Bruce Wayne's house is in the city, in a neighborhood with others, even though we established that there's a Batcave beneath it a few months back. While Bruce investigates the robberies (and spends a lot of time as himself this issue, only putting on the Batman costume near the end), Alfred goes out to meet the girl he's in love with, explaining his distracted condition. But he's had the misfortune to fall for the source of all the problems in the neighborhood, Catwoman! We haven't seen her for a long time now. Alfred puts on the spare Batman suit to try and impress her, and ends up captured. Rescued by the real Batman, he captures Catwoman while Batman and Robin capture the rest of the gang.

[andersonh1]

Dick Grayson, Telegraph Boy!
The "Ghost Gang" are robbing various secure locations around Gotham using information they should have no way of knowing. Batman is working hard on the case, but Dick Grayson is nowhere to be found, and Bruce doesn't know where he's gone. Dick has a job as a telegraph boy, delivering messages, for reasons unknown. When Bruce finds out, he can't understand it. Dick doesn't need the money considering how much Bruce is worth, but Dick has his reasons. Bruce tells him that he can't go to school, bust crooks as Robin and work, it's just too much. Dick asks to be allowed to finish his last few jobs before quitting, and Bruce agrees. They finally bust up the gang by figuring out that they're operating out of a nearby observatory, where one of their gang can read lips, and uses the telescope to spy and learn the sensitive info. The gang is caught, and Dick finishes his job, revealing that he had spent all his money on war bonds, but needed money to get Bruce a birthday present, hence the job.

Conversational Clue
A solo adventure for Alfred. I like Alfred, but a little goes a long way, so a (mercifully) short story where Alfred is studying how to be a detective, and overhears something suspicious, leading to him busting up a crime is a bit too much. He's fine as a supporting character, but not as a lead character. But maybe the kids liked him back in the day.

The Cavalier Rides Again!
The Cavalier returns, attempting to add a rare model diamond to his trophy room. He plans ahead and lays a trap for Batman and Robin, and his trap succeeds, allowing him to escape. We find out his identity in this story, one Mortimer Drake, and he's apparently just in it for the thrills. He and Bruce Wayne are also members of the same social club, and even talk with each other, each having no idea about the secret identity of the other. I'm not sure a rich guy dressed up like one of the three musketeers is all that compelling a villain, but as a dark mirror of Bruce Wayne, there's some potential in the concept. We'll see how future appearances go.

[andersonh1]

Detective Comics #86
April 1944

Danger Strikes Three!
Dick Grayson comes across a robbery in progress. He's solo, but he tackles the crooks as Robin, and given that he's outnumbered it doesn't go well and he's captured. He sends out a distress call on his belt radio, but Bruce is out of the house so Alfred picks up the signal. Despite being warned not to take on crooks on his own, Alfred goes out to help Robin, and gets captured himself. Batman is working a case against the same gang and also gets captured. The three are locked in a tower with a bomb, but they barely manage to escape in time (though Robin and Alfred weren't doing so well. It took Batman to figure a way out of the trap) and tracking the gang down, the three together bring the gang down where solo work got them captured.


Detective Comics #87
May 1944

The Man of a Thousand Umbrellas
Now we're getting to material I've read before. I have two Batman Archives (which collect only Detective Comics), volumes 1 and 4, and this is the story that opens volume 4. I prefer the oversized reprints in the Omnibus to the smaller Archive reproduction, and in comparing the two, the paper in the omnibus is whiter and the colors more vivid, so the quality is just better all around.

Bruce and Dick have done their job too well. There's no crime, and they're hanging out at the beach, bored by the lack of action. Bruce hatches a plan to go after the Penguin, who broke jail but hasn't been seen since. He sets up an umbrella repair business, and he and Dick travel the streets of Gotham in a wagon. They know the Penguin's obsession with umbrellas, and hope to track him down. Eventually the plan works and they learn the location of the Penguin's hideout, but he's prepared to be found and escapes. He opens up a second location, and this time has a trap prepared for Batman and Robin, an electrocution from which they barely escape. They pull out every umbrella the Penguin owns and open them up all around the lair, so when the Penguin returns from a robbery, he trips and falls and gets tangled up in the umbrellas, allowing his easy capture. This is a fun story that has it all: Batman and Robin in disguise, a major villain, escape from a death trap, and hoisting the villain on his own petard.

[andersonh1]

Batman #23
June-July 1944

The Upside Down Crimes!
It's as if Scott Snyder is writing 1940s Batman, because the Joker turns up so often. This time he's just wandering around town and goes into a funfair and is inspired to commit "upside down crimes" that begin as harmless pranks, but soon a real crime is concealed in the prank. The Joker has long since lost the edge he had in his first few appearances, but at least for the first time in a long time, he escapes at the end of the story so the writers won't have to contrive a way for him to escape from prison next time.

Damsel in Distress!
Dick Grayson has a crush on Marjory Davenport, a girl in his class at school. Both Bruce and Dick spend a lot of time in civilian clothes in this story, and Dick takes the lead role as Majory's father is forced to treat a gangster with a gunshot wound, and Marjory is kidnapped to be held as a hostage to keep the Dr. in line. Dick plans the rescue, gets Batman involved, and is forced to improvise when Batman is about to be shot by the gangster, ultimately saving the day and Batman's life. It's good to see a story focused on Robin and how capable he's become. This is also his "first love", so the first of Dick's many troubles with women begins here! Sadly the "loves my costumed alter ego" trope creeps into the story as Majory is besotted with Robin instead of Dick as the story closes.

I also found Bruce's admonition to Dick pretty funny. "You know our agreement. You get high marks in school or no crime-busting!" That's some messed up motivation right there!!

Borrowed Butler!
Sigh... the Adventures of Alfred gets a second installment, again at a mercifully short four pages. Alfred is "loaned" out to Bruce Waynes' next door neighbors, where Alfred foils a jewel theft by a guest in the house. It's better than the last installment, but not by much. It looks like Batman lost a few pages at some point (wartime paper shortages?) since instead of four 12 page stories, it's three 12 pages and a four pager now.

Pelt Plunderers!
I'm not sure if this is meant to be a third in the series of Batman and Robin working with police, but if not it's pretty close, as the two of them end up working a case with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I can suspend my disbelief a lot for these stories, but Robin in those short pants out in the snow in northern Canada is going a bit too far. The story hypes up the "modern detective equipment" of the mounties as they and Batman track down a gang of fur thieves, robbing trappers of their valuable cargoes in the northern Canadian fields and forests.

[andersonh1]

Detective Comics #88
June 1944

The Merchants of Misery!
This story is one of my favorites from the collection, just because I enjoy seeing Batman step in and set things right for the little guy against some crooks. It's basically a loan shark story, where "Big-hearted" John makes loans to the poor of Gotham who need a little help, but then charges insane interest rates and sends his hoods to rough up people who won't pay. In the end he'll kill them if they threaten to go to the police. Night watchman George Simpson needs money for an operation for his daughter, and goes to Big Hearted John. He starts to get the treatment where the thugs come and take his entire paycheck, then threaten John's wife, then bust up his furniture, and finally start to beat him up, only to be taken on by Batman and Robin, investigating the neighborhood where the murders of others who refused to pay took place. Bruce and Dick go undercover and take out a loan, with Bruce disguised as a dock worker for a company he partially owns (and this may be the first time we get an idea of Bruce's life outside of being rich and being Batman). He and Robin take on the hoods who come to kill them, only for the fight to go badly with both of them captured. They're locked in a safe to suffocate while John and his thugs go to kill George Simpson, but Batman and Robin escape and rescue George. During the fight, Batman is shot in the arm, and is unable to save Big Hearted John when he falls from one of the high beams of the construction site at which George was a night watchman. Another villain does himself in, and restitution is made to all the victims of the loan shark racket who are still alive.

Detective Comics #89
July 1944

Laboratory Loot!
The Cavalier is back, and this time he's after a prototype typewriter for his crime collection. Only this time, during the fight in a laboratory, the Cavalier spills a blue dye on his hands. It soaks through his gloves and stains his hand. He escapes, but while in the exclusive club of which they're both members, Bruce sees the stain and it's enough to lead him to realize that the Cavalier is Mortimer Drake. He confronts him during the Cavalier's next robbery attempt. Drake escapes, and Batman and Robin hurry to his home to try and catch him. They find his trophy room, still almost empty thanks to Batman having foiled most of his theft attempts. Drake has left them a note, informing them that he'll be back, and he'll be leaving the identity of Mortimer Drake behind as he adopts a new name.

[andersonh1]

World's Finest Comics #14
Summer 1944

Salvage Scavengers!
Several boats have mysteriously sunk in Gotham Harbor, with the contents gone by the time salvage operations can begin. Naturally it's the work of saboteurs and thieves rather than genuine accidents, leading Batman and Robin to investigate. There's an attempt at a "whodunit" type mystery with several suspects offered. Batman and Robin encounter the villain underwater, but he's got a diving helmet on and they aren't able to unmask and identify him until the end. I found the story notable for the fact that Batman and Robin use the old style diving suits with airlines running to the surface. I guess the story predates scuba gear, or at least predates widespread use of it.

Batman #24
August-September 1944

It happened in Rome!
I'm not sure how one is supposed to time travel via hypnosis, but this is the first story where Batman and Robin do so. Professor Carter Nichols hypnotizes them and sends them back to Roman times, where Batman gets mixed up with some Roman crooks who want to fix a chariot race and make money off the betting. Bruce gets to disguise himself as Gito, the actual chariot driver, and play Ben-Hur, winning the race and thwarting the plot, before he and Robin return to the present day. I think Grant Morrison used the character of Carter Nichols in at least one of his Batman stories, and the "time travel via hypnosis" trick sounds like an idea that would appeal to him. At any rate, this story is the first appearance of both.

And in another odd twist to an already odd story, Batman's ally in Rome prior to Robin arriving is the Jester, a Joker-lookalike with normal skin tones and a sense of honesty and scruples. He helps Batman turn the tables on the Roman crooks.