Retro Comics are Awesome

[andersonh1]

Detective Comics #76
June 1943

Slay 'Em With Flowers
The Joker, as always, has a new scheme to rob the wealthy citizens of Gotham. This time, he's set up cover in a florist shop, and has the potted flowers he sells rigged to render the purchasers unconcious, after which he and his hired gang enter the home and rob the victim, while replacing the rigged plants with an unmodified one. It takes Batman and Robin awhile to work out the plot, and Bruce Wayne allows his own house to be robbed in order to test his theory.


Batman #17
June-July 1943

The Batman's Biographer
Boswell Browne, an elderly writer, is a great admirer of Batman and Robin, and loves to tell children all about them. He's accumulated quite a bit of information about them, a fact which some crooks take advantage of to try and set a deadly trap for Batman, using a massive car bomb. Browne is willing to sacrifice his life to save Batman's, but is rescued at the last minute by Batman as Browne drives the truck outside Gotham so no one will be hurt by the bomb.

The Penguin Goes A-Hunting
The Gotham penitentiary just can't hold these super-criminals, and the Penguin is out again. He hears a lecture about some of Gotham's more well-known villains, and when his name is not among them, he objects and is forced to run, but not before the lecturer has noted that the Penguin is a one-note crook, always using those umbrellas, which indicates a lack of imagination. His pride wounded, the Penguin turns to sporting goods as a theme for his crimes, which works initially but soon leads to his downfall. It turns out that the whole thing was a plan by Batman to flush the Penguin out of hiding and into the open by using his own vanity against him, and it worked like a charm.

Rogues' Pageant!
Bruce and Dick take a vacation at Alfred's insistence, but they're really following "Ducky" Mallard's gang from Gotham to San Pablos, a city celebrating its 300th anniversary with a parade of historical reenactments, which the crooks use to hide in while committing crimes. There's a little bat themed imagery that we don't always see in the stories of this era, and it still seems odd to see Batman treated as a respected lawman by all police that he runs into instead of a wanted vigilante. But that's how things worked at this point in his history.

Adventure of the Vitamin Vandals
The title doesn't inspire confidence that this will be a worthwhile story, but it's actually not too bad. Fishermen off the Pacific coast are engaged in bringing in some fish that are highly sought-after for their vitamin-rich livers, and are due to be sent as rations for the troops off in WW2. But the hauls keep being stolen by the "phantom robbers" who appear and disappear off boats at will, despite a close watch being kept on all sides. Bruce and Dick get jobs on a boat in an attempt to learn the secret, which turns out to be attacks from above, from a nearly silent blimp hidden in the fog. Crooks descend via a ladder, rob the ship and then vanish, and the ringleader is the man who hired the boats to go out to sea in the first place.

[andersonh1]

World's Finest Comics #10
Summer 1943

The Man With the Camera Eyes
The story revolves around a man named Oliver Hunt, who has a perfect photographic memory. He's put it to use in show business, but he's grown bitter over being perceived as a freak, and when a group of criminals makes him an offer, he joins them, as long as there's no violence. While they create distractions, he memorizes blueprints or documents, and the gang is able to turn his knowledge into money. Oliver even memorizes the way the Batplane is constructed, allowing the gang to build a second one. In the end, the crooks go too far and Oliver bails on them, almost dying from a gunshot wound. But he lives, and at Batman's recommendation, is accepted into counter-intelligence where he puts his gift to work against the Nazis.


Detective Comics #77
July 1943

The Crime Clinic!
Dr. Matthew Thorne is the crime doctor, hiring out his services as a crime planner to crooks for a small fee. He does this purely for the thrill that being a crook gives him. But he's still a doctor, and like Oliver Hunt in the previous story, doesn't want to see anyone killed. In fact, in the most interesting scene in the story, Batman has him dead to rights when a patient staggers into his office suffering from appendicitus, and with Batman's assistance he operates and saves the man's life. But he refuses to give up being a criminal, despite Batman attempting to convince him, and in the end almost falls to his death, only to be captured by Batman.

[andersonh1]

Detective Comics #78
August 1943

The Bond Wagon
This story is pure WW2 propaganda, but that's not always a bad thing. I liked the opening panels where Dick Grayson is working on his history homework and discussing American history and then-current events with Bruce Wayne. We do the same thing in my house every since I got interested in Civil War and early American history, so I enjoyed the scene. Then the story takes off in a direction you'd never see modern-day Batman go: Batman decides to use Revolutionary War history to inspire people to buy war bonds. He puts an ad in the paper, talks about his plans with the press, and hires people to play George Washington, Jon Paul Jones, etc. And then his group performs historical reenactments (another hobby of mine, so again I enjoy the fictional depiction of reenactment) such as the crossing of the Delaware by Washington. But Nazi agents working in the US find out and are determined to destroy the Bond Wagon to strike a blow against American morale, and they attack several appearances by the bond wagon until Batman is finally able to track down the Nazi leader. The whole thing is an overtly "rah rah America" type story to support the war effort during WW2, and it's a type of story that I just can't imagine being published in today's comics.


Batman #18
August-September 1943

The Secret of Hunter's Inn
Wealthy patrons are being robbed at Hunter's Inn, so Bruce, Dick and Alfred check into the Inn to investigate. The whole thing is a plot by Tweedledee and Tweedledum (cousins Deever and Dumfree), two short, rotund villains with creepy smiles on their faces, and of course they're inspired by the Alice in Wonderland characters. Batman and Robin only escape with their lives due to Alfred's quick thinking, but when they come back the next day to investigate, the nearly deserted inn is full of guests and run by ex cons who claim to have gone straight. Everything has changed. It turns out that there are actually two inns, not far apart in a heavily forested area, and prospective victims are brought to the wrong one under cover of darkness rather than the correct one, and there they are robbed and then set free, with no one the wiser and no one able to find any evidence of the crimes, so nothing can be proven.

[andersonh1]

Batman #18 continued. The main Batman title had four Batman stories in it each month, while Detective Comics featured a variety of characters that shared the book with Batman.

Robin Studies his Lessons!
Dick comes home with a bad report card, which he cannot understand, claiming he knows the material backwards and forwards. For his low grades, Bruce essentially grounds him from going out as Robin until his grades improve. And we thought only Tim Drake had problems moonlighting as a costumed crime-fighter! That puts Batman on his own against the criminal gang they're currently after, and in Robin's absence they plot to trap Batman, which they successfully do, even though Batman suspects it's a trap. Robin hears it all on their two-way radio, and defying Bruce's instructions, goes to help Batman. He uses what he's learned in chemistry class to defeat the gang. Batman notes that given Dick's insistence that he knows the material and how well he used it in the fight, his low grades make no sense. The two of them check in with Dick's schoolteacher, and it turns out that he was given the wrong report card. Apparently there's another Richard Grayson with a different middle initial at his school. Who knew?

[andersonh1]

The Good Samaritan Cops
Batman and Robin spend the day with the Police Emergency Squad who ride around the city in their green truck, and apparently do things that EMS or SWAT teams would do today. I have no idea how historically accurate this police organization is. The story involves Batman and Robin riding around town with the squad as they respond to various emergencies large and small, such as a hostage situation or a fire at a meat packing plant. It's almost an extended public service documentary. An effort is made to give the four members of the squad each a little personality and a small character arc, which is pretty well done for a 12 page story. The efficiency of these old stories is notable when compared to modern decompressed comic book writing.

The Crime Surgeon!
Matthew Thorne escapes from prison and sets up his Crime Clinic again. This sequel to the story from Detective Comics 77 is interesting in that taken together with that story, the character arc of a man struggling between the thrill of crime and his desire to save lives ends in the only way it really can. Thorne sets up his crime consulting, but has less success than last time since now Batman and Robin know who he is and how he operates. He escapes a few times, and Batman goes undercover to track him to his lair, only for Robin to be shot during the gunfight. Thorne saves his life and then sends Batman to take him to a hospital. The final scenes of the story involve Thorne struggling between operating on a criminal's wife or fulfilling a crime contract. He chooses the crime, and is shot in the back by the criminal when his wife dies because Thorne didn't perform the operation as promised. It's hardly sophisticated writing, but the whole thing is presented as the tragic downfall of Thorne due to a character flaw and bad choices, elevating him a bit over some of the other villains Batman fights.

[andersonh1]

Detective Comics #79
September 1943

Destiny's Auction
Three very different individuals, writer Judy O'Casson, actor Tremaine Wentworth, and thief Diamond Pete Ransom all visit the same fortune teller and get theiri fortunes told, and each thinks it means something good for them, but events instead turns out badly. And each one loses a trunk of belongings in the process. There's a mix up when the trunks are recovered, with each of the three individuals again seeing their fortunes fulfilled as predicted, but again not in the way they expected. Batman and Robin get involved because of Diamond Pete, and they do what they can to help out the other two. Between the astrologer driving the plot and artist Jerry Robinson, this feels like a Starman story rather than a Batman story. This is the type of storytelling that seems unique to the Golden Age, where different people are thrown together by unusual circumstances and then the mix of characters produces drama which the heroes have to help resolve.

Detective Comics #80
October 1943

The End of Two-Face!
Harvey Kent (not Dent), aka Two-Face, breaks out of jail and resumes his criminal activities. Bruce and Dick recall how it was an attack by gangsters, scarring his face, that turned Kent into a criminal, and as friends they'd like to help him if they can. But in the meantime, they have to stop his crimes. While tracking him down, they never notice that they are also being tracked. It turns out to be Gilda, Harvey's fiancee, who gets shot during a firefight. Overcome with guilt, Two-face accompanies her, Batman and Robin to the hospital. The story has a happy ending and, surprisingly, writes Two-Face out of the series as a villain as he is able to repair his face with plastic surgery, and he and Gilda get married as originally intended. It's rare that one of Batman's villains gets redemption, but Two-Face does.

World's Finest #11
Autumn 1943

A Thief in Time!
In the far distant future Gotham City of 2043, lab worker Rob Callender (get it?) dreams of being back in Batman's time, feeling that he could strike it rich if he was there. Through a lab accident, he creates a space/time warp and ends up in 1943, where he proceeds to use his future technical knowledge to steal several apparently valueless items. Batman and Robin get on his trail, and finally corner him, learning that all three items would be extremely valuable in the future. Sadly for Callender, the time warp closes and he is returned to the future without being able to take the items with him. Robin wonders whatever happened to Callender, and Batman opines that they'll never know. The last panel of the story shows Callender looking at the three items in a museum, noting that he should have known he couldn't cheat time.

[andersonh1]

Batman #19
October-November 1943

Batman Makes a Deadline!
Gotham reporter Larry Spade is near retirement due to age and health issues, but he's got one last big story that has to go to print that will expose a major Gotham crime ring. But on the way home, he's attacked and seriously injured by members of Big Ben Bolling's gang to prevent him from delivering the story. Batman and Robin get involved after Spade is hospitalized. While they go after the gang, a badly injured Spade leaves the hospital and heads back to deliver his copy to the presses. Batman and Robin keep the desperate thugs from stopping the presses, and Spade dies as he wants to, reading his final headline. Big Ben and his gang get the death penalty, thanks to the information uncovered by Spade.

Atlantis Goes to War!
There's often a wide variety of stories in each of these old Batman issues. We go from hard boiled crime to Nazis basing their subs out of Atlantis. Seriously! Nazi subs are sinking merchant ships off the US coast, and Batman and Robin take the Batplane to go investigate. They extend pontoons and land on the ocean to help Ben Stunsel, a survivor of a Nazi attack, and while on the surface are sucked down an artificial whirlpool into the undersea dome protecting Atlantis. No sign of Aquaman. The Nazis have fooled the Atlanteans into thinking that they are noble and trustworthy, and Batman is sentenced to die. But Robin impersonates the Atlantean prince and buys Batman some time, as well as causing the Nazis to revert to form, showing the Atlanteans who they really are. The Nazis will no longer be able to use Atlantis as a base, and Batman and Robin head home.

The Case of the Timid Lion!
Crime story, Nazis, and now one of Batman's villains makes an appearance. It appears that the Joker is starting a new series of crimes, putting Mr. Fish in the fish tank at the zoo, and doing the same with another animal-themed person, while sending a threatening note to a Mr. Lyon. Lyon demands protection and gets it. Meanwhile, Bruce and Dick can't figure out what the Joker is up to this time. It turns out that it's not the Joker at all, but Lyon himself using the Joker as a cover for his own crimes. The real Joker is not amused, and takes his revenge on Lyon by putting him, Batman and Robin in the cage with a lion. Batman and Robin are able to restrain the lion with their ropes, get out of the cage, and pursue the Joker, capturing him and ending Lyon's schemes at the same time.

[andersonh1]

Collector of Millionaires
Finishing out Batman #19 is a story about a man named Ali who is busy kidnapping millionaires and sending out substitute lookalikes to steal their fortune, or as much of it as they can. He knows the scheme isn't sustainable long term, but he's willing to take what he can and move on. His mistake, not that he can be faulted for making it, is that he kidnapped Bruce Wayne, who is able to contact Robin to rescue him, and between the two of them they break up the various plots. Once again, the other three guest characters all have a character tic that makes them a little more memorable, and it's genuinely surprising to see the story open with (fake) Bruce Wayne slapping Dick Grayson around, calling him a brat. And for once, all four stories were drawn by the same person: Dick Sprang, well known early Batman artist. He's more cartoony than illustrative, and is clearly a skilled artist whose exaggerated characters fit the world of this adventure strip very well.

[andersonh1]

Still keeping up with my reading, for once! While I prefer the better character drama of today's comics, I enjoy these old stories and find them entertaining. There's something to be said for a little escapism involving the more innocent comics of decades ago.

Detective Comics #81
November 1943

The Cavalier of Crime!
A new criminal is introduced in this issue, the Cavalier. He's essentially someone dressed like one of the Three Musketeers. At some point way back when, I must have read a comic with this guy, because like Jay Garrick, I knew the image and name without knowing the character or consciously remembering having read about him. Maybe I ran across in a library book or something. That's my best guess. At any rate, he states in-story that he wants to become the equal of the Joker or the Penguin. Good luck pal... not gonna happen. The story itself isn't all that memorable, but the Cavalier does become a recurring villain. His real identity is never revealed in this issue. His gang is all captured by the end, but he escapes, vowing to return.

You can tell that these stories were originally restored at different times and in different ways, and of course from different sources as well. The Batman issue immediately preceding this issue of Detective has near-perfect crisp, clean linework. This issue of Detective, while perfectly readable, has less clean and distinct lines, and there is some bleeding on smaller images, resulting in dark ink filling an area that should be color.

Batman #20
December 1943-January 1944

The Centuries of Crime!
The Joker cooks up a plot with a fraud scientist and a swami to convince their victims that they have traveled in time, the better to fleece their money. Of course it's a fake, with the Joker using old abandoned movie sets and hired thugs for the "past and future". He threatens to leave the men trapped in the violent past unless they pay him, after which he "accidentally" sends them to "the future" and demands more money. The gullible and terrified victims agree. Naturally it doesn't take Batman and Robin long to work this one out, particularly when the walls between time periods are made of paper mache....

The Trial of Titus Keyes!
From colorful villains to courtroom drama, the trial of Titus Keyes, former safe manufacturer, is told in flashback as the various witnesses in the trial tell their story in an attempt to prove that meek, forgetful Titus Keyes (who embezzled some money and spent time in prison for it in the stock market crash of 1929) has been using his knowledge of old safe combinations to turn robber and blame the crimes on Slick Fingers Collins. Batman decides the evidence is too pat, too neatly cut and dried, and it turns out he's right. Collins was Keyes' cellmate in prison, and learned from him the location of a list of all the combinations of all the safes that Keyes ever manufactured. Collins is exposed, and Keyes goes free, thanks to Batman's detective work.

[andersonh1]

The Lawmen of the Sea
The second in a series of stories where Batman and Robin team up with a division of the Gotham Police department has them riding along with the harbor patrol. They rescue a woman trying to commit suicide, and then spend the bulk of the story fighting harbor pirates, led by "Shark" Hawkey, a human with facial features that are vaguely "sharkish". After some narrow escapes for the villains, Batman is seemingly killed as he's crushed by a tugboat, but he escapes to trail the pirates to their lair, where the harbor police clean up the gang.

Bruce Wayne Loses the Guardianship of Dick Grayson!
A standout storyline that sees some genuine character-based drama for Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, something fairly rare in the 1940s. Normally it's the guest characters in any given story that get the dramatic treatment, with the heroes always stalwart and steady.

The story opens with scenes from the happy home that is the Wayne household, and the story out and out says that Bruce and Dick are like father and son. But Dick Grayson's uncle George Grayson and his Aunt Clara arrive at the house, having been in Europe for years, and as his relatives they want to take Dick and raise him. Bruce demands to know where they've been, since the Flying Graysons died a few years ago, and they insist that they couldn't get back from Europe until now. Fair enough, there's a war on. When they ask for custody, Bruce refuses, and Dick doesn't want to go either. George Grayson angrily tells Bruce he'll see him in court.

There's a custody hearing, in which Bruce expresses his love for the boy who is like a son to him, and Dick says he doesn't want to leave. But in the end, it's Bruce's (sham) playboy lifestyle that turns the trial against him and causes the judge to award custody to Dick's aunt and uncle. It's a rough parting for both, but there's nothing either can do. The Wayne household is a sombre place, and when Batman goes out to work his case against racketeer Fatso Foley, he's grim and workmanlike and off his game, missing the "joy of battle" as the narration puts it. Thankfully Robin shows up to help, though he has to return home so he won't be caught sneaking out.

To make a long story short, George and Clara Grayson only wanted Dick in order to extort money from Bruce Wayne, and they essentially offer to sell him back for one million dollars. Bruce goes to see them as Batman in order to knock some sense into them, but George Grayson has notified Foley that Batman was at his house, so when Batman returns, Foley captures him and is about to kill him when Alfred and Robin arrive to help, Alfred having availed himself of one of the Penguin's trick umbrellas from the trophy room to help him fight. In the end, the Graysons are exposed and the judge reverses his order, saying that it's clear they meant the boy no good, and also that Batman had put in a good word for Bruce, who is a decent individual despite his lifestyle.

Excellent story, and the emotional drama certainly benefits the characters.