TF Views

Detective Comics #224
October 1955
Cover art: Win Mortimer and Dick Sprang

The Batman Machine
Script: Bill Finger Pencils: Dick Sprang Inks: Charles Paris

Batman unmasked! If only the cover and the splash page hadn't already given away the fact that there is a Batman robot in the story, so it's not hard to guess what the crooks are seeing. The story flashes back to Batman and Robin testing new jet engines they've installed. These two are amazing engineers given that they build all of this equipment themselves. They spot a robbery underway at an explosives factory and land to take on the crooks. Batman grabs and holds on to the getaway car, and when a crook hits him with a ratchet to try and dislodge him, his arm appears to be made of metal! Batman loses his grip, so he and Robin head back to the plane to resume following the explosives thieves, but have to stop to inform the railroad office about a line damaged by an explosion. The crooks escape.

The news that Batman is a robot spreads in the underworld. They think something happened to the real Batman, and this is a way of hiding it. One of the crooks is convinced than an earlier attempt to drown Batman was successful. The story does not leave us in suspense long, revealing that in actuality Bruce and Dick had body reinforcing armor under their costumes to help protect them during the testing of their new jet engines. But the rumor that Batman is just a machine is something Bruce thinks he can use to catch the explosives thieves. So he and Dick build one, and use it to distract the crooks, and then lure them into taking it themselves so they can follow the tracking signal back to the gang's hideout.

The gang use the robot to rob more explosives, or so they think. While in the shed, Batman deactivates the robot, gets inside, and goes back to the gang's headquarters, where he threatens them as the robot with explosives in order to make them surrender. They do and are rounded up. And of course, the Batman machine ends up in the trophy room.

You can't go wrong with Dick Sprang on the artwork. He always does a great job with the angles and the facial expressions, and sets scenes nicely with objects or people in both the foreground and background. Moldoff never comes close to drawing the book this well, sadly. I like the in media res opening, and the flashback within the flashback which sets up the whole "Batman drowned" scenario that the crooks believe. I enjoy how he freaks them out, as he should. "He ain't human!" one of them exclaims at one point. That's two stories in recent issues that get Batman back to basics, at least to some extent. And we get some action at night, which is always where I prefer to see Batman operate. I have to say, I really enjoyed this one. It was sci-fi, but not in an "aliens and other dimensions" way. It was more restrained, and it kept Batman well within his usual modus operandi.

Continuing through the Hard-Traveling Heroes omnibus...

The Flash #220
February-March 1973

Duel for a Death-List!
Script - Denny O'Neil Art - Dick Giordano

And we're back to solo Green Lantern stories for a while, which I'm looking forward to. I'm not a big fan at all of O'Neil's Oliver Queen. Neither is Hal, apparently, given that the story opens with him driving along thinking that it's good to be alone and he's as tired of Ollie's self-righteousness as I am. He's also hunting for a job. A "yellow explosion" ahead in the Arizona desert is his cue to change into GL and charge his ring. Just ahead, miles from anywhere, is a skyscraper under construction, and a blue-skinned humanoid alien who tries to hand a message to Green Lantern, only to be shot and killed by a yellow energy beam, fired by another of the same species, who recognizes the "Green Lantern of Earth" but refuses to obey his authority. He teleports around, evading the power ring while Hal takes several hits from his weapon. GL figures out that he needs a large mass nearby to teleport and by removing the building under construction with his power ring, is able to determine where the alien will reappear and use his fists to punch him out, only for the alien assassin to kill himself via a self-destruct device. Hal translates the list the alien handed him and discovers that it's a hit list, with his name on it! "Hal Jordan -- Green Lantern of Earth". To be continued...

Short and simple, this reminds me somewhat of the old days where Hal would encounter a problem and have to figure out a creative way to solve it with the power ring. Resorting to fists calls to mind the latter half of the Silver Age issues where Gil Kane loved to draw those fistfights. We get a fairly impressive power ring feat as GL lifts an entire building into the air, and a minimal cast of just three characters. Dick Giordano's art isn't as outstanding as Neal Adams (and to be fair, who is?) but it's very good and tells the story nicely. There's nothing deep to chew on here, but honestly I don't mind. Sometimes a simple action-adventure story that ends with a mystery is just fine.

Batman #95
October 1955
Cover art: Win Mortimer

The Guardian of 100 Cities!
Script: Bill Finger Pencils: Sheldon Moldoff Inks: Charles Paris

Stanton: Here I'm master of Paris, Cairo, Venice, Barcelona -- I'm the king of a hundred cities!
Batman: ... cities made of plaster and painted canvas. A fake world!

I like the interesting character of the watchman right off the bat. He guards a movie studio full of replicas of historic locations from around the world, and he sees this as his own little world. He doesn't care about what's going on outside. But some crooks led by Shag Darnell have taken refuge in this movie warehouse with Batman and Robin in pursuit. They ask the watchman to phone the police, but he not only refuses to do so, he wrecks the phone. Batman recognizes him as Roger Stanton, former actor. Batman accuses Stanton of being a coward, of hiding from reality. He's not the only man to fall on hard times.

Resigned to capturing the four crooks themselves, Batman acts as bait to lure them out and catches two using a prop windmill to knock them out. He catches the third, but Stanton interferes with his effort to catch Darnell, allowing Darnell to push a statue over on top of Batman. Thankfully it's paper mache so Batman survives, though he's shaky after the blow to his head. Darnell outfights and captures Robin. He rounds up his men and is about to unmask Batman, when he frees him instead. Together Batman and Robin recapture the other three, and it turns out that Stanton had caught Shag Darnell alone when he went to free his three men and impersonated him, allowing Batman to round everyone up. Stanton still has the acting talent he once did, and he's ready to leave his make-believe world behind and go back to reality.

It's mostly the character of Roger Stanton that makes this story interesting. The crooks are small fry, honestly, and not really a challenge for Batman and Robin. But put them in the colorful setting of the movie location warehouse and put Stanton in the story as an obstacle, and even in only 8 pages we have a nice little human interest story. Not complicated, but good enough to keep my interest. Good one by Bill Finger.

Batman #95 continued...


The Bat-Train!
Script: Edmond Hamilton Pencils: Sheldon Moldoff Inks: Charles Paris

At first I was wondering about the wisdom of another vanity vehicle for Batman, and thinking someone was surely going to figure out how wealthy Batman had to be to keep manufacturing these things. But it turns out that the railroads offered to fix up a "traveling bat-cave" in the form of the Bat-train for anti-crime week. We're back to Batman as public figure and celebrity here, a status that definitely dates this story (though technically Batman's place in the modern Justice League means he is still a public figure of sorts). The train is loaded up with items from Batman's hall of trophies, and both the Batmobile and Batplane are loaded up, and off the train goes on a cross country tour. I note the first stop is Central City, which is an interesting thing to note since only a year away in October 1956 we'll see the debut of Barry Allen who is based out of Central City. Crowds line up to see the famous Batman and Robin and hear about their adventures and trophies.

There are crooks following the train, and they're after something very specific, though Batman doesn't know what. I'll admit that the story fooled me into not realizing what it was, though in retrospect it seems obvious. But once Batman knows that crooks after trying to find something on the train, he's able to prepare a trap and counter their efforts and capture them all. Turns out it was the wire that once belonged to "wires" Welkin, which got some discussion during a tour of the trophy room, but with multiple items discussed on the same page I didn't quite catch on. And even if I had I wouldn't have thought of it as some sort of recording. I looked up wire recording, and yes it was a real thing, mainly used until the 1950s when magnetic tape replaced it. The first wire recorder was invented in 1899 according to this site: https://museumofmagneticsoundrecording.org/Wire.html

If I was more familiar with the history of recording, I'd have been more likely to have picked up on the possible significance of the trophy. Welkin had the names of his accomplices recorded on the wire, and they knew it and were trying to recover the wire. If they'd left it alone, it's likely Batman would never have paid any attention to this trophy, and they'd have remained anonymous. Their own paranoia did them in. As long as the "celebrity Batman" of this era is not a big deal, this is a nice little mystery with a clever answer that caused me to learn a bit about an older sound recording method.

Finishing Batman #95:

The Ballad of Batman!
Script: Edmond Hamilton Pencils: Dick Sprang Inks: Charles Paris

What a great splash page. I have no idea if the musical notes were just copied from something else or not, but seeing "the Ballad of Batman" in the background is a great bit of detail that just shows how much effort Sprang put into his illustrations. That being said, I wasn't expecting this story to be very good, but it's actually not bad. Sam Strong, balladeer, leaves "the mountains" and heads to Gotham City where he sings his "Ballad of Batman" on the streets and attracts the attention of some men who want to put him on television. His ballad is a hit, though Robin is embarassed at all the attention. Batman, aware of the fickle nature of the public, is sure the fuss will die down soon enough.

The story shifts for a page to Batman convincing a publicity-mad diver not to jump off the Gotham Bridge, a feat which Sam Strong adds to his ballad. He is thrilled to meet Batman, and starts following him in the hopes of getting yet more new verses for his ballad. He nearly ruins Batman's plan to stop a broadcast from being jammed when one of the crooks hears Strong performing the ballad on the street and warns his cohorts. Batman figures out what Strong did, but rather than being angry, he figures that he can use the ballad to trap the crooks. The ploy works, and the crooks are captured. Sam heads back to his home, glad to have helped Batman with the case.

This story has me wondering if folk music was popular in 1955, because something had to have inspired Hamilton to write this. I remember the song "Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier", and when I looked it up the movie came out in 1955, so I assume this "Ballad of Batman" is meant to be something similar. This story gets the cover spotlight and I was not optimistic that it would be good, but after reading it I thought it was a decent idea since Batman is a "celebrity" in this era for a balladeer to sing about him, and for the ballad to figure into the plot. I can't think of another Batman story quite like this, where he is treated like a folk hero who inspires a song. This isn't one of the greats, but it's a unique little story that I will admit I found enjoyable.

Detective Comics #225
November 1955
Cover art: Win Mortimer

If I were Batman
Script: Edmond Hamilton Pencils: Dick Sprang Inks: Charles Paris

I like to think Robin is in on the joke and smiling at the reader on the cover of this issue as Bruce openly wears a Batman costume, along with Gordon and a few others. The story opens with Batman capturing John Larrow as he tries to evade arrest, with several watching this very public capture wondering what it would be like if they were Batman. Sure, you all want to risk life and limb night after night. This inspires newspaperman Martin Mayne of the Gotham Gazette to run a "Batman for a day" contest, with Batman's approval, to raise funds for the police widows and orphans fund. Robin agrees but is less than enthusiastic, and the crooks in town are gleeful at only having to deal with imitation Batmen.

Now in the era of Batman as public celebrity, I guess this fits and I can buy it. What I can't buy is all the contest winners not just putting on the costume, but actually risking their lives by going out to solve problems and fight crime, or in the case of an actor, use the contest to drum up publicity. It is hilarious though that Commissioner Gordon gets in in the action and gets to be Batman for a day. We do get a nice reminder that he was a policeman walking a beat before becoming commissioner. And it's really pushing credibility when Bruce decides this is his chance to play Batman without anyone suspecting that he's the real deal. I guess the idea is to convince Gotham that Bruce Wayne is far too soft and foppish to ever really be Batman, but I've always thought that Bruce should go to great lengths to never associate Batman and himself in any way, which he certainly fails to do here! Bruce solves the case of Larrow's gang trying to dig him out of prison in full view of the city and convinces everyone that he's not Batman at the same time. Yes, it's worth a smile when Gordon tells Bruce he's "hopelessly miscast" as Batman.

I chuckled a few times, but I was not a fan of this one. Even for the genre, it has almost zero credibility and feels more like a sitcom than a story in an adventure series. At least it's nowhere near as painful as the babysitting story!

Detective Comics #226
December 1955
Cover art: Win Mortimer

When Batman Was Robin
Script: Edmond Hamilton Pencils: Dick Sprang Inks: Charles Paris

Some of the events of this story were familiar to me before I read it, thanks to "The Untold Legend of the Batman" by Len Wein, Jim Aparo and John Byrne, which incorporates the idea that Bruce created and used the Robin identity long before Dick Grayson appeared on the scene. The story begins with a package arriving for Bruce Wayne from a man named Harvey Harris. Inside is a Robin costume. Bruce relates to Dick a story of his younger days when he admired police detective Harris and wanted to learn from him without giving up his identity. So Bruce created the Robin costume, had an opportunity to save Harris's life, and got the job as an apprentice, with Harris thinking to himself that he'd string the kid along until he could figure out who his parents were and warn them, getting the kid out of this dangerous situation.

I like the way Dick Sprang draws Bruce in the Robin costume with a different face and hair than Dick Grayson. It's a small detail and probably fairly obvious, but it still stood out to me. I enjoyed the battle of wits during the middle section of the story where Harris tries to learn clues about the identity of this costumed teen, and Bruce is aware of what he's doing and tries to deflect him at every turn. And I like the implication that the challenge intrigues Harris, which is part of the reason he keeps allowing Bruce to learn from him. It's Bruce in the learner's seat here as he makes several mistakes and fails to consider possibilities, but he learns from the experiences. I liked seeing Bruce as the apprentice, contrasting with his present day Batman persona. And the idea that it was also a test to see if he could maintain a secret identity is just a nice extra touch. What is also a nice touch is that Harris did figure out who Bruce was, and explained it all in a letter he included with the Robin costume, which leads Bruce to humbly pay tribute to "a greater detective than I."

This is a pretty major retcon to the series, establishing that Bruce himself was the first Robin. I don't think the series ever delved into how the Robin costume was designed in-universe, so this doesn't really contradict anything that's already been established. I guess we could say it characterizes Dick as Bruce's apprentice, wearing the same costume that Bruce did when he was an apprentice. Looking at things from a modern perspective when we've had multiple characters in the Robin costume fighting beside Batman, this story could be considered a foundation for that idea, even though it's largely ignored today. And of course it may not even be in continuity for the modern books. Regardless, it's a nice story that delves into some of Bruce's training for the eventual role as Batman, and gives the readers someone that he looked up to as a role model, which certainly humanizes him. I enjoyed that his own home number was the vital clue that gave Harris the final confirmation as to who this masked teenager was, and that we see Thomas Wayne's name on the page. Batman's origin hadn't been revisited all that often at this point, so it's a treat to see it referenced.