Retro Comics are Awesome

[andersonh1]

So, I decided to embark on the lengthy project of reading X-Men from the beginning. Like 1963 beginning. I'm on issue #18 right now. I really like Kirby's art. The intro for Juggernaut was fantastic.

Nice. I haven't read X-Men, but I've read Fantastic Four from the beginning through issue 140 and it has some great Kirby art. He draws every issue through #102 I think, so quite a run.

[Ursus mellifera]

One thing that's kind of refreshing is not having to switch between multiple books for multi-part stories since this is well before all the endless crossovers.

[Ursus mellifera]

Also decided to read Spider-Man from the beginning since that was always my first comics love. That ought to keep me busy for a few years.

[andersonh1]

Also decided to read Spider-Man from the beginning since that was always my first comics love. That ought to keep me busy for a few years.

I've got the first three omnibuses, so I've read the first 100 issues of Spider-Man. It's a pretty enjoyable series. I like the Steve Ditko issues quite a bit. Surprising that the series is only set in Peter's high school for 17 or 18 issues, and then he's off to college. I'd have expected more time in high school, given how the adaptations have gone. One of these days I'll get the next omni and keep on going.

[Ursus mellifera]

I've got the first three omnibuses, so I've read the first 100 issues of Spider-Man. It's a pretty enjoyable series. I like the Steve Ditko issues quite a bit. Surprising that the series is only set in Peter's high school for 17 or 18 issues, and then he's off to college. I'd have expected more time in high school, given how the adaptations have gone. One of these days I'll get the next omni and keep on going.

Wow. I'd have expected a few years in high school, at least. That is surprising.

[andersonh1]

I've got the first three omnibuses, so I've read the first 100 issues of Spider-Man. It's a pretty enjoyable series. I like the Steve Ditko issues quite a bit. Surprising that the series is only set in Peter's high school for 17 or 18 issues, and then he's off to college. I'd have expected more time in high school, given how the adaptations have gone. One of these days I'll get the next omni and keep on going.

Wow. I'd have expected a few years in high school, at least. That is surprising.

I went and checked, and it's actually issue 28, so a little later than I remembered, but still, not long at all in the grand scheme of things.

[andersonh1]

Batman #93
August 1955

Journey to the Top of the World!
Script: Bill Finger Pencils: Dick Sprang Inks: Charles Paris

I had to look up K4, and it's Gasherbrum II, a peak in the Himalayas that is 26,262 feet high, first climbed on July 7, 1956. It is the 13th highest mountain in the world. The splash panel with Batman and Robin planting the flag on K-4 while being watched via rifle sights is a good strong opener. A plane going down over the Himalayas ditches a cylinder with some vital information about international criminals before crashing. The FBI contact Batman and Robin to help recover this information, which is believed to be somewhere atop K4. Bruce and Dick adopt the civilian identities of mountaineers and join an expedition to the top, which no one had yet reached according to Bruce. Considering the story was published in 1955 and the peak wasn't reached in real life until the following year, that's accurate. Bruce and Dick meet with the members of the expedition (also known as the suspects in the forthcoming mystery) and head out with them to climb the peak. I think Bill Finger must have been inspired by a real life attempt to climb the mountain, and he includes several terms referring to features on a high mountain. Dick Sprang's art is exactly what was needed for this story, given his skill with backgrounds. Suspicious incidents occur and Sidney Smythe falls to his death, leading to Batman and Robin making an appearance to investigate (how is Robin not freezing to death literally in his shorts and short sleeves?!?). And of course the "mystery snow creature", the Yeti, is inserted into the story just to add to the mystery and danger.

Batman and Robin reach the summit first, of course (said to be 27,000 feet, which is higher than the actual K4), plant the US flag and retrieve the cylinder. When a masked individual appears with a rifle to take the cylinder, Batman blinds him via a mirror reflecting off the snow. It's the supposedly dead Sydney Smythe. During the fight, both men are about to go over the edge of a cliff, but Robin uses his rope to save Batman. Smythe really is finished this time. There's one more twist though: the real Sydney Smythe missed the expedition. The man who died was a fraud, a crook hired to retrieve the cylinder. Dick wonders if the snow creature tracks they saw were real, but Bruce doesn't know.

Batman and Robin are barely in costume for most of this story, and rightly so. It works just fine with Dick and Bruce as themselves, and indeed makes more sense that way, given the environment they're in and the lack of suspects for who Batman and Robin might be, given that only a handful of people are on the mountain. They change into costume only when no one else is around, other than the man who turns out to be the fake Smythe. Some of the long shots looking down at the mountain with snow and ice and cliffs are really effective at selling the isolation and danger. I'm not sure it makes any sease for Batman and Robin to appear at all after the opening scenes, except of course that Batman must appear in a Batman story. I'd have been fine with just Bruce and Dick doing the climbing and handling all the dangers. This is one of the most atmospheric and dangrous Batman adventures in a long time. He's outwitted tons of crooks, but watching him survive on this mountain is something different. I'm a big fan of this story.

[andersonh1]

Continuing Batman #93....


Batman, Baby-Sitter!
Script: Bill Finger Pencils: Dick Sprang Inks: Charles Paris

I'm not quite sure whether to laugh or roll my eyes at how ridiculous this story is. Not even Dick Sprang can save this story in which the "grim guardians of the law" who take on dangerous criminals routinely are helpless when confronted with having to babysit the son of Bruce's cousin Jane. It is nice to see another of Bruce's relatives, admittedly, but she's just a plot device to saddle Bruce, Dick and Alfred with the kid and she's gone in two panels before returning at the end of the story. Of course the three men are completely helpless, as is typical in this type of sitcom scenario. Batman and Robin run all over the countryside looking for milk because it's the good old days when stores still closed on Sunday. And we even get a threat to Bruce's secret identity for goodness sake, since the baby calls him Batman.

Bruce and Dick take any opportunity to run out and leave Alfred watching the kid (crime fighting is so much less stressful than taking care of a baby, you see!) so we get the requisite action scenes. Bruce even leaves Dick to help Alfred when the usually faithful butler threatens to quit. And of course the helpless, innocent little kid finds his way down into the Batcave without falling to his death going down those long stairs with no railing, where he messes with the machinery. Robin pointing at the kid and saying "Baby was bad!" with sweat bursting off his forehead is pretty funny, admittedly. Thankfully Jane shows up to retrieve her son, and mercifully puts an end to this, with Dick using the "bad baby" to explain away why the kid calls Bruce Batman. He's just mispronouncing it, you see!

I know this whole story is meant to be a madcap comedy, and it has some funny moments in it, but the "men are too stupid to take care of a baby" joke was probably old when this story was published, and it hasn't gotten any funnier since. Jane flying in and out of the house in two panels is amusing in light of the fact that in the last panel she's running out to the car... I guess she's always like this! And it is sort of amusing that Bruce thinks crime-fighting is easier than baby-sitting. But when even a baby is a threat to your secret ID, Bruce, maybe it's time to hang up the cowl. Good grief.

[andersonh1]

The Caveman Batman
Script: Edmond Hamilton Pencils: Dick Sprang Inks: Charles Paris

I was describing Tiger Man and this story to my oldest daughter and having fun with the concept, and her question was "what kind of crime was there to fight in the Stone Age?" Good question! It's not like there's a Gotham City full of criminals. Caveman crime was my answer. Stealing someone's club or something.

I only wish historical mysteries could be addressed in the way that Batman and Robin solve them. Who wouldn't love to go back to some past era and observe what we can only read about in books? Prior to the omnibuses being published, I had no idea there was this ongoing series within the larger Batman series where he and Robin regularly traveled in time to investigate strange things. In this case, a cave painting of a Tyrannosaur chasing two cavemen ruins the reputation of archaeolgist William Sayre, so Bruce and Dick visit Professor Carter Nichols "whose scientific genius has mastered time". No time travel via hypnosis any more? The two of them arrive in the Stone Age and switch to Batman and Robin (where do they keep their costumes? What do they do with their civilian clothes while in costume?) and investigate the cave. No cave painting. While going to find a village to investigate, they run across what they think is a sabretooth tiger, but is instead a man wearing a tiger's head (who speaks English!) running from a stampede of mammoths. They escape from being trapped by quickly turning some small trees into catapaults, hurling themselves to the top of the cliff.

Tiger Man is Rog, and he uses the mask to hide his identity from Borr, a sort of caveman gang leader. He and his followers rob and loot. Batman asks about the Tyrannosaurus Rex, and Rog knows exactly where it is. Before showing them, Batman ignores the idea that history can't be interfered with, and equips Tiger Man with the stone age equivalents of the silk rope and utility belt. He constructs gliders out of animal skins and willow sticks to shock and distract Borr and his gang. When Borr threatens the chief, Robin goes with him and promises to show him how to "fly". Following Robin to Borr's cave, Batman discovers the Tyrannosaur from the cave painting, frozen in ice. It's the old school type of dinosaur, with the upright posture and body shape that's all wrong, but I love the depiction anyway. Batman and Tiger Man secretly pile wood on the fire and melt the ice, freeing the dinosaur who is still alive! Now we know where the cave painting came from. The poor dinosaur dies because the climate is different than when it was alive (I felt sorry for the poor dead fellow, lying there with his tongue sticking out) but not before he chases Borr out of the valley for good. Before returning to the 20th century, Batman fixes Tiger Man a tiger signal. Did he really go up near the top of that erupting volcano just to make sure there was light behind an old tiger skin? Yes he did. Batman, you crazy guy. In the 20th century, another painting is found, thanks to the trip to the past indicating that it would be there, and this one shows the Tyrannosaur frozen in ice, clarifying the situation which saves Dr. Sayre's reputation. Dick says that Tiger Man was probably the world's first lawman, and Bruce says he started humanity on the road to civilization. Thanks, Tiger Man!

This one was a lot of fun. I enjoy these time travel stories. They're just pure escapist adventure, and I love that Batman just throws all the "don't interfere with history" out the window and does everything he can to turn Tiger Man into a copy of himself, using his methods. Bruce, control your ego!

[andersonh1]

Detective Comics #223
September 1955

The Batman Dime-Museum
Script: ? Pencils: Sheldon Moldoff Inks: Stan Kaye

A cover where Batman and Robin are giving a tour of the Batcave to a crowd of onlookers is a great hook for a story. What in the world is going on here? Of course the story quickly gives away the answer within a page or two: it's an exhibit in Gotham, put on by showman "Breezy" Lane and his son. Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson take in the show and are amused by it, but Commissioner Gordon is offended and demands the show be shut down, or else he'll arrest Lane for impersonation. Abuse of the law! Lane is not claiming to be Batman, he's just putting on a show and everyone knows it. This will ruin Lane, he doesn't have the money to start over.

In the meantime, Bruce is approached by a real estate agent. An anonymous buyer wants his house. Bruce won't sell. He suspects Big Jim Jarrel of being the would-be buyer. Some eavesdropping outside Jarrel's window (a classic crime fighting technique, as the Lone Ranger would attest!) reveals that Jarrel wants the house for the cave underneath it. He learned about the cave from a dying prison inmate who stumbled across it years before the Wayne mansion was ever built. Jarrel plans to tunnel into the cave and use it for a hideout, and of course if he does that he'll discover the Batcave.

Bruce's solution is to pack everything up, all the equipment and trophies, buy the Batman show from Lane, and run it himself using all the genuine equipment while passing it off as props. It's a ridiculously overcomplicated plan and the logistics make it impossible for two people to carry out in a short amount of time. How would they get the plane and the car and the giant trophies out without being seen? How would they get them into town? Did they do all of this in one night? Gordon still wants to shut down the show, but Batman is able to stall him until he solves the mystery of the missing armored car that he and Robin were chasing earlier in the story. He's able to get the evidence needed to arrest Jarrel, and put him off moving into the Batcave by temporarily flooding it, so when Jarrel and his men tunnel into the cave, they see that it can't be used. The final panels show the museum being shut down as a relieved Batman and Robin move back into the Batcave.

It's a fun little story, but would the items in the Batcave really be that easy to pack up and move? That giant dinosaur and the giant penny alone would need a crane. I do appreciate Bruce going out of his way to help a down on his luck showman, but Commissioner Gordon is surely abusing his authority here! Perhaps we're seeing the first signs of corruption in Gotham City government...