Retro Comics are Awesome

[andersonh1]

Batman #3 continued

The Ugliest Man in the World
Not a story for the easily offended. Carlson, the villain of the story, was accidentally injected with a random mix of chemicals as a prank when in college. Rather than killing him, the mixture alters his features, turning him into a deformed, ugly man. His friends shun him and his fiance breaks up with him. Angry and bitter, he vows revenge. After many years, he is able to recreate the same formula, and he takes revenge by injecting his former friends one by one, turning them as ugly as him. His gang of ugly people (and I can hardly type that without chuckling at the absurdity of it all) go around smashing beautiful items around the city. Carlson is ultimately defeated when Detective McGonigle shoots him to save Batman's life.

Police Detective McGonigle is a new supporting character (who won't be around long, but it's no great loss) who keeps trying to capture Batman. But Batman always either smacks the gun out of his hand or pushes him off a pier or whatever. The other cops make fun of McGonigle for claiming he almost had the Batman, and Gordon berates him for obsessing over it.

[andersonh1]

The Crime School for Boys!
Batman breaks up a robbery and chases down and slugs all the perps, only to find the final one is a boy, probably still a teenager. Batman lets him go when the boy promises to steer clear of crime from now on, and learns that he is a product of a "crime school" run by a shifty character named Pockets, who teaches the boys the art of pickpocketing and other criminal activities. It's sort of an "Oliver Twist" setup, with Fagin and his boy orphan pickpockets. Batman decides that it will take more than just taking down Pockets to save the boys, so he opens up a gym in the neighborhood and has Dick Grayson work his way into the boys' confidence as part of a plan to show them a different way and offer them something better. When two of the boys "graduate" to working with actual crooks, Batman gives them a good scare and does what he can to deter them. The crooks think Pockets has ratted them out and murder him. When the gang leader threatens to shoot Batman, he goads him into a fistfight and takes him down hard, leading the boys to turn on the crooks. With the help of Batman and Dick Grayson, the gang is subdued, and the boys vow to try and take a more honest path in life.

It's not the most sophisticated approach to the topic, but I like the way Bruce tries to not only scare the boys out of being criminals, but he works overtime to make the crooks look bad, and he works to offer a more positive alternative. In a crime-ridden town like Gotham (which still may not have been named Gotham yet), a pickpocket ring is sadly believable. Good story, and it uses both main characters well.

The Batman vs. The Cat-Woman!
So much for a dignified look for Catwoman... the cat head mask debuts in this, her third appearance, and as of volume 3 of the omnibus reprints, she's still using it. A mask and ears are one thing, but a full-on housecat mask just doesn't work. I guess it's no siller than the title character dressing up like a blue and gray bat.... in any case, Catwoman is also referred to alternately in the story as "The Cat" or "The Cat-Woman", hyphenated, so this is essentially where she transitions from jewel thief to one of Batman's costumed rogues gallery.

That makes what is otherwise yet another jewel robbery plot more interesting than it should be. She's been hired to steal some diamonds. The police are being made fools of, and Gordon assigns the hapless McGonigle to track down the Cat. Batman is also after her, and after stopping a murder he learns about the "diamond syndicate", only to end up having to escape McGonigle. The whole thing turns out to be a plot to collect the insurance money on the diamonds. The men from the Syndicate are rounded up, but Catwoman flirts a bit with Batman, then escapes by planting a big kiss on him and running for it. He doesn't try very hard to catch her either. He leaves evidence of the crime with McGonigle, and while he talks about what a nice night it is for romance, much to Robin's disgust (and what about poor Julie?), Catwoman wishes she and Batman were just ordinary people out for a ride in the moonlight...

Bruce is still smoking his pipe.

[andersonh1]

Detective Comics #45
November 1940

The Case of the Laughing Death!
The Joker returns for his fourth appearance. He's still interested in murder and in fine jewelry, or in this case, precious stones. He spends much of the story in disguise as a music store owner named A. Rekoj. His gang fails a robbery attempt and he berates them, but they protest that the Batman messed things up, not them. He's up to a number of things in this story, and takes time out of sending his gang out and then robbing them as himself to murder the D.A. by sending him a record coated with Joker gas that is released when the record is played. When Batman tracks him down to his shop and discovers that Rekoj is the Joker (should have been obvious, Batman!), the Joker leaves him trapped and suffocating while he heads out to sea to commit yet another robbery. Batman escapes thanks to a vial of acid in his utility belt, and stops the Joker from stealing a priceless Jade Bhudda. The Joker ends up in the ocean, apparently drowned, but the Batman, having figured out how tough the Joker is at this point, wonders if he's really dead. The plot of this story is all over the place, and the Joker's name spelled backwards is a little too obvious, though given how the Joker taunts the police, I can buy him going with such an obvious pseudonym just to rub it in everyone's faces. It's a fun Joker vs. Batman story, and Robin is only in it at the end during the fight on the boat, so it's largely a solo adventure for Batman.

Detective Comics #46
December 1940

Professor Strange's Fear Dust
I think this is the final appearance of Hugo Strange for decades, and he's using what would later become the Scarecrow's primary weapon: a chemical that produces fear. In this case it's some sort of dust rather than a gas. Strange has set his sights somewhat higher than robbery this time, though there is plenty of that going on. He wants to spray the fear dust over various large cities around the country and over Washington DC and take over the country. When his men capture Batman, there's no clever death trap this time, they just beat him until he passes out in a pretty brutal scene. He recovers enough to eavesdrop on Strange's plans so that he can communicate the plans to Robin, who puts a stop to the use of the fear gas around the city. A little rest allows Batman to recover "from a beating that would have killed most men" as the story puts it. Tracking down Strange, the two fight and Strange falls over a cliff, apparently dead for good this time.

Hugo Strange is probably fairly called a B-list member of Batman's villains. I wonder if featuring him in what is essentially a trilogy of stories was the intention, or if the writers just felt the character had been played out? Two-Face only shows up for three stories in the Golden Age, so there's another example of a short-lived villain, while characters like the Joker show up every other month. I like the fact that Strange just can't be bothered with setting up a death trap and then leaving Batman to die, he just has his men beat him half to death.

[andersonh1]

Another Bronze Age book will be out soon, this time with Batgirl. I normally only stick with three or four lines because these books ain't cheap, but this one interests me.

BATGIRL: THE BRONZE AGE OMNIBUS VOL. 1 HC
Written by GARDNER FOX, MIKE FRIEDRICH, FRANK ROBBINS, DENNIS O’NEIL, BOB ROZAKIS and others
Art by CARMINE INFANTINO, GIL KANE, DON HECK, BOB OKSNER and others
Cover by KARL KERSCHL
Throughout the 1970s, Barbara Gordon, a.k.a. Batgirl, was one of DC’s most popular heroes. Now, the adventures of Gotham City’s greatest heroine are collected in an oversize omnibus collection, BATGIRL: THE BRONZE AGE OMNIBUS VOL. 1! This massive title features numerous appearances by Batman and Robin and collects DETECTIVE COMICS #359, #363, #369, #371, #384-385, #388-389, #392-393, #396-397, #400-401, #404-424, #481-499, #501-502, #505-506, #508-510, #512-519, BATMAN #197 and BATMAN FAMILY #1, #3-7 and #9-11.
On sale DECEMBER 20 • 504 pg, FC, $99.99 US - See more at: https://www.newsarama.com/34984-dc-comi ... oLId7.dpuf

And Sparky, did you see this one?

GREEN LANTERN: KYLE RAYNER VOL. 1 TP
Written by RON MARZ, BEAU SMITH and others
Art by DARRYL BANKS, JAMAL IGLE, DEREC AUCOIN, CULLY HAMNER and others
Cover by DARRYL BANKS and ROMEO TANGHAL
A new Green Lantern is born when artist Kyle Rayner is awarded the last power ring—but how can he fill Hal Jordan’s shoes? A classic chapter in Green Lantern history is collected beginning here with tales from GREEN LANTERN #48-57, REBELS ’94 #1 and NEW TITANS #116.
On sale OCTOBER 4 • 368 pg, FC, $29.99 US - See more at: https://www.newsarama.com/34984-dc-comi ... oLId7.dpuf

[andersonh1]

Detective Comics #47
January 1941

Money Can't Buy Happiness
This is a different sort of story than usual as Bruce tackles some domestic problems. Not his own, but those of his banker, Harvey Midas. I guess it's indicative of the circles that the wealthy Bruce Wayne runs in that he so often encounters problems among the upper class of the city. Midas and his wife are obsessed with their social status and Midas is an all work, no play type of guy, and it's having a detrimental effect on their children. Their son Roger isn't allowed to indulge in being a musician, and he ends up hanging with the wrong crowd and gambling. Their daughter Diane wants to marry a clerk, Johnny Brown, but he's simply not good enough, and she ends up forced into a marriage with a Count Alexis, who turns out to be a crook. When Diane has had enough and threatens divorce, Alexis decides to put a hit on her after stealing the family's money. Meanwhile Roger has injured a paperboy in a hit and run accident, and his gambling/gangster buddies blackmail Harvey. Throughout the story, Bruce hangs out at the same clubs as Roger, adding to his reputation as a worthless, do-nothing type (and it's truly odd to see Bruce Wayne smoking cigarettes while in the club, but that's the 40s for you), and then gets involved as Batman once the crimes are in process. In the end, things work out for all, as they so often do in these old stories, with the parents learning lessons about parenting and the children having a second chance at a happier life.

Bruce and Dick reflect on the incidents and Bruce thinks that all parents could learn something from what the Midas family went through. Parenting advice from a man who takes a boy who is essentially his adopted son out fighting deadly criminals every night is a bit suspect if you ask me. Still, I enjoyed the story, and found it interesting that while Superman is the champion of the working class, Batman seems to be far more often involved with the upper class. Given where both characters are in their lives, it makes sense.

Batman #4
Winter 1941

The issue opens with a page of scenes from various past issues, including the Joker's first story, Clayface, and the monster men. It's a nice little promotional continuity montage for the characters.

The Case of the Joker's Crime Circus!
The Joker has survived his plunge into the ocean by clinging to driftwood. He's picked up by a passing ship, who drop him ashore, with the captain creeped out by his appearance (while apparently not recognizing who he is). The Joker returns to his hideout, a "haunted" house on the edge of town. Having learned nothing from several near-death experiences, he immediately jumps back into a life of crime. His latest scheme is a "crime circus", a private circus troop that performs for the wealthy in order to case their homes, only to return and rob them later. Bruce again attends a high society party where he encounters the circus and recognizes the Joker. He and Robin pursue the Joker to his hideout and run a gauntlet of deathtraps, before Batman fights the Joker and knocks him into a shaft leading far down below the house that the Joker was going to throw Robin into. With the Joker having apparently fallen to his death, Batman and Robin head out, wondering if he's really dead.

[Sparky Prime]

And Sparky, did you see this one?

Yeah but I already have the individual Green Lantern issues that book collects. Interesting that they added REBELS ’94 #1 and NEW TITANS #116 with it though.

[andersonh1]

Batman #4 continued

Blackbeard's Crew and the Yacht Society
It's a good thing for Bruce and Dick that they decide to take fencing lessons and learn to swordfight right before a pirate adventure. Arrrrrr!

A group of (once again) rich member of society head out for a yacht cruise, and are attacked and boarded by what appear to be 17th century pirates, led by Blackbeard himself. The yacht's radio operator manages to get a partial message to shore before he's cut off, and while the police don't take it seriously, thinking it a prank, Bruce figures there's no harm in taking the Batplane out and investigating. The plane reaches the deserted yacht with the pirate ship still nearby. After a disasterous first attempt at taking on the pirates, which ends with Robin walking the plank and Batman diving in to the sea and killing a shark with a knife to save him (leading the pirates to think Batman and Robin are dead when they see the blood in the water), the second attempt with the help of the captured and ransomed yacht passengers goes far better. The pirates are of course gangsters from the city (still New York, not Gotham) led by a man named Thatch in disguise. As Batman and Robin discuss the case during the flight home, Bruce speculates that Thatch has always had a love of disguise and theater, and maybe that's why he chose to portray pirates.

Public Enemy No. 1
Jimmy "Red" McCoy loses his father at an early age, so he and his mom are forced to move to a bad part of town where they can afford the housing. Jimmy grows up on the streets and becomes a bully and a tough guy, and ends up running bootleg liquor during prohibition. Caught by the police, he's sent to juvenile for a year, which kills his mother. Jimmy blames "the law" for his mom's death, and at this point, he's pretty much set on a life of crime. When he gets out, he goes right back to bootlegging, is caught again, and spends some time in prison. He gets out and goes right back to a life of crime, becoming a big shot in the underworld. When Prohibition ends, he goes into protection rackets and other crimes and is finally caught again, and sent away for a decade. When the story finally reaches the present day, McCoy is out and determined to regain his place as a big shot in New York's crime organization, but others have risen to power in his absence, and "Big" Costello isn't going to give up his position as a crime boss without a fight. Batman is involved at this point, having trailed McCoy to see if he's gone straight, but no such luck. There's gang warfare in the city, and McCoy is named public enemy #1. His gang deserts him, and enraged, he goes to the courthouse to kill Costello. Both men are hit in the crossfire, and McCoy tells Batman that he's too late, before collapsing and falling down the courthouse steps to the street below, dying of his gunshot wounds.

"Crime does not pay," Bruce notes to Dick Grayson when it's all over. As an attempt at telling a hard-boiled crime drama, Public Enemy No. 1 largely succeeds. The story is manily a case study of Jimmy McCoy's life with Batman an incidental player in the drama. Sometimes these characters who go wrong in their youth are redeemed by the end of the story, sometimes they aren't, and in this case McCoy led a violent life and died a violent death. Good stuff.

[andersonh1]

Victory for the Dynamic Duo
The final story of Batman #4 would be a retread of any sports-fixing storyline we've seen before, but a few pages into it things get a lot more interesting, thankfully.

A star football player is kidnapped by gangster Stacy's mob so they can throw a Panthers football game. The story opens with a street fight between Batman and Robin and Stacy's gang out on the street, where they rescue the Panthers' coach from kidnapping or worse. The two promise to look into it and run as the cops arrive.

It's here that things get interesting. Stacy and his gang are at their hideout, and talking about how much trouble Batman is, when Stacy tells the gang that he thinks he knows who Batman is. Some of his stoolies in the police department have mentioned to him that a socialite named Bruce Wayne is always hanging out with Commissioner Gordon. Why would a rich guy like that have any interest in Gordon and police business, Stacy wonders. Maybe it's all an act. He thinks Wayne is the Batman. The next day he calls Bruce Wayne at home, tells him he knows he's the Batman, and to meet him at such and such an address. Bruce decides to spring the trap, and when he goes to the address and Stacy's mob is waiting, he and Robin lead them on a chase. He manages to convince them that he's not Batman at all by means of a secret tunnel from a barn into his house, so the crooks see Bruce inside the house (and he even comes to the door to complain that they're ruining his quiet evening), only for Batman to appear a few minutes later, laughing at them for not catching him yet. Stacy is convinced he got it wrong, and the gang forget the whole thing and return to the football-fixing scheme. The ending is almost perfunctory as Bruce assumes the kidnapped player's ID to play the game in his stead as Robin tracks him down and frees him in time for the second half.

This story has a couple of things going for it: a crook who is actually smart enough to put two and two together and actually figure out who Batman is, and the proto-Batcave idea of a secret entrance into the Wayne house so that Batman can come and go unseen. Bruce's life-sized dummy of himself from Detective Comics 42 makes a reappearance so he can be outside as Batman and still sitting in his study at the same time. It's the near discovery of Batman's secret ID that makes this story fun, while the sports fixing scheme isn't all that interesting (Superman did the same plot back in Action Comics #4), and really seems to be little more than filler to reach the usual page count.

[andersonh1]

Detective Comics #48
February 1941

The Secret Cavern
Surveyor Henry Lewis is exploring in Kentucky and discovers a previously unknown giant cavern. It extends up under Fort "Stox" (meant to be Fort Knox, obviously). Excited, he babbles about his discovery in town, and of course, a couple of crooks hear him and immediately figure out "hey, we could tunnel up into the vault and steal some gold!". The men hold Lewis prisoner in his own cabin and try to make him talk about the location of the cavern, but he won't say anything. They find out he has a daughter, so they head to the city where she's a nightclub singer, and set her up to make her think she has killed a man in self defense for attacking her. She heads to Kentucky to find her dad, standing up Bruce Wayne in the process. He does a little asking around and finds that she left town in a hurry, so he and Robin track her down, stopping the crooks from stealing gold from Fort Stox and earning the gratitude of the army commander at the Fort.

Bruce is smoking cigarettes in the club again. The Batmobile is named for the first time, or the first time I've noticed it, though it's still the red sports car and not the more familiar blue car with the bat on the front. The secret tunnel from Wayne's house to the barn is used again.

Detective Comics #49
March 1941

Clayface Walks Again!
This sequel to the story from Detective Comics #40 sees Clayface, Julie Madison and Mr. Bentley, head of Argus PIctures all return, and sees both Clayface and Julie written out of the series.

The story opens with Julie Madison, Bruce Wayne's fiance and an actress, making the big time with her performance in "The Terror", and Bentley and his publicist decide she needs a screen name, coming up with "Portia Storme". Bruce congratulates Julie for her career advancement, and she wishes he would do something with his life. He says he's having too much fun, and she sadly breaks off her engagement to him, saying she'd be happy to return if he ever changes his ways. Bruce seems sad, but acts understanding and honestly gets over the whole thing pretty fast. Considering that he's been mooning over the Cat and asking other girls out, I get the impression that Julie really wasn't all that important to him anyway. Maybe it was just the writing of the 1940s that made her little more than a plot device, but Jay Garrick and Joan Williams are a fun and lively couple over in the Flash, so I don't think that's the case. Julie was introduced by Gardner Fox, so she wasn't really Bill Finger's character, and maybe he just decided that she didn't fit the strip, and wrote her out.

In any case, as Julie/Portia gets ready to film a new movie, a police van transporting Basil Karlo crashes in a rainstorm, and Karlo escapes, donning his Clayface makeup and vowing revenge on Bentley, Julie and Batman. News of his escape spreads fast, and Batman and Robin go after him. Karlo shows both of them up in their first encounter, leaving Batman to be run over by a truck and leaving Robin trapped in a burning building. Batman escapes being run over and douses himself with water before going into the inferno to rescue "his best friend in the world". He does so, and he and Robin rethink their approach. They talk to Julie and make plans. When Clayface strikes in full daylight, shooting Julie with an arrow and apparently killing her, it turns out that he actually shot Robin, wearing a heavy cork vest under the robes that Julie had been wearing as part of her costume. Julie had dressed as Robin (making her the first girl Robin, temporarily?). Batman subdues Clayface, who goes back to jail. Julie, now known as Portia, goes on with her acting, and Bruce and Dick continue crime-busting.

[andersonh1]

Ah, the efficient writing of the 1940s...