Retro Comics are Awesome

[andersonh1]

Detective Comics #227
January 1956
Cover art: Win Mortimer

The 50 Faces of Batman
Script: ?? Pencils: Sheldon Moldoff Inks: Charles Paris

Barrett Kean! I could never forget you -- the man who taught me all I know about disguise!

So once again we're delving into Bruce's past, this time to learn something about his skill at disguise. Barrett Kean, "the king of impersonators" once taught Batman all of his makeup secrets. Kean takes a suggestion to have Batman lecture at his school for young actors to help promote it and build it up, and of course, Batman agrees. In the meantime, Batman and Robin are after Big Hugo's smuggling ring, and gang member "Lens" Vorden thinks he can get Batman through his lectures at the school.

So Batman lectures and demonstrates the art of makeup and disguise, as well as telling how he used some of them, and Vorden is able to photograph him each time. Robin becomes suspicious and follows Vorden as he calls in to Big Hugo, so he now knows what is going on and warns Batman. Makeup skills become the key to dealing with more than one problem. Batman disugises himself as Big Hugo, which confuses the gang long enough for him and Robin to round them up, and Kean disguises himself as Batman to ruin Vorden's composite picture plan. Batman, as modest and generous as ever, credits his old teacher Kean with being the best impersonator alive.

We're definitely back to variations on a theme when it comes to stories, as the various writers explore bits of Bruce's past. I don't know how accurate the makeup tips that Batman lectured on really are, but it sounds good on the page and makes Batman look like he knows what he's talking about, and I can believe the Batman of this era would be more than willing to help an old mentor out. I suspect modern Batman might as well, but he wouldn't do it by lecturing at his school and he'd keep quiet about how he knew the man so there wouldn't be any public connection between the two. Robin gets to be very useful since he discovers the composite picture plot, and without his vigilence the plan may well have worked. Score one for the sidekick. Pretty good story, and the vignettes of past cases that involved disguises all worked fairly well.