TF Views

Batman #24 continued

Convict Cargo!
Criminals are running a racket where they take money from rich men guilty of crimes and smuggle them out of Gotham by boat. Bruce Wayne is visiting his friend Comissioner Gordon and agrees to make it appear as though he's guilty of a crime so he can get inside the racket and learn what's going on. He is contacted, pays $10,000 to get smuggled out to sea, where the crooks promptly toss him overboard. He's prepared, and Robin is not far away in the Batplane to pick him up. They're able to track the boat until the crooks can be arrested by the authorities.

Police LIne-Up!
The Adventures of Alfred's latest installment sees him at a police lineup to practice his visual recognition skills. He wants to be familiar with all the criminals in town, just like Batman and Robin are. But when he sees one of the men from the lineup and follows him to a meeting with a group of criminals, he nearly messes up a sting operation, since the man he saw was actually an undercover detective. Alfred's memory needs some work.

The Mayors of Yonville!
Tweedledum and Tweedledee pull a scam on the small town of Yonville by pretending to be one person and running for mayor. It's the old "crook gets in a position of power so he can abuse it" scam. The end goal for the two is a gold swindle, where they pretend to find the gold in a nearby worked-out mine, take money from the town for shares, and then take off with the money. Batman and Robin are tossed in jail for assult when they bring in some crooks, and since this is 1940s Batman, he submits quietly and agrees to do his 10 days, though he ultimately breaks out with Robin to bust up the Tweed's scheme. I like the Tweed cousins as villains, and this is honestly a fun little story, probably my favorite of this issue of Batman.

Getting near the end of the book now. Only a few more stories to go.

Detective Comics #90
August 1944

Crime Between the Acts!
Every time a certain Mississippi showboat with a stage crew on board visit a town, a crime takes place in that town, making Batman and Robin suspicious at the pattern. The crew and actors on the showboat seemingly have an airtight alibi: the crimes occur in the middle of the performance. But a little messing with the clock and a longer than announced intermission are how the crooks pull it off, and Batman and Robin trail them to their bayou hideout, dodging alligators along the way to put an end to the scheme. I'm not entirely sure the "clock fixing" scheme really works as illustrated, but it's another decent "how are they committing these crimes?" puzzle for Batman to solve.

Detective Comics #91
September 1944

The Case of the Practical Joker!
The Joker is in prison, and while there someone begins playing practical jokes on him, embarassing him in front of the other inmates. Bruce Wayne is suspicious and goes undercover as a prison guard. Of course, it's all part of a scheme by the Joker to get everyone laughing at him instead of taking him seriously so he can escape and get back to his life of crime. In this case, he threatens to steal an entire city, but he's being cryptic as the city he plans to steal is a model city studded with jewels. The Golden Age Joker loves to steal jewels.

Batman #25
October-November 1944

Knights of Knavery
Thanks to an odd decision by the prison system, the Joker and the Penguin end up in the same cell. Yes, it's the very first team-up of these two villains, whose massive egos are set aside long enough for the two to collaborate to break out of prison (which really is a revolving door for both). The two of them at first work against each other as a challenge to steal the Van Landorpf jewels (jewelry again!), but then collaborate to trap Batman and Robin, and steal the jewels. Batman only escapes by playing to each crook's ego, so that by the time the Joker decides that Batman has just been stalling for time, Batman has freed himself from the trap and some quick fisticuffs put the Joker and Penguin back in jail.

The Sheik of Gotham City!
A story told partly in flashback recounts how a Sheikh of Bagdad plotted to kill his rival as a child by sinking the ship he was on. But the child was rescued and grew up in Gotham City with very little knowledge of who he was. He makes his living as a taxi driver Learning that he was alive, the Shiekh determines to travel to Gotham and kill him, which is where Batman and Robin get involved. There is a mix-up in identity, and Bruce Wayne spends much of the story captive to the usurper and his men, only to be rescued to the true Sheikh and Robin. Not a bad political story, and despite the Arab stereotypes employed, the culture is treated with a decent amount of respect. We don't see a lot of the non-white population of Gotham in the 1940s, but we know they have a Chinatown (and that Batman was friends with the unofficial "mayor"), and now we see a little bit of the Arab population. Gotham isn't all gangsters in suits!

The Mesmerized Manhunter!
Alfred goes to a magic show, gets called on stage as a "volunteer", is hypnotized and catches a thief who was stealing the box office receipts. I'm still not a fan of "Alfred, bumbling detective", but this is a small, fairly contained mystery that doesn't outstay its welcome.

The Kilowatt Cowboys!
Batman and Robin venture outside Gotham yet again to investigate sabotage of power lines being installed by the Rocky Dam Light and Power Company out in the desert. The story spends some time setting up its human interest plotline in the form of Jack and Alex, lifelong rivals from the rich and poor sections of Gotham respectively, until Jack lost his fortune and had to work for a living. The two men will fight at the drop of a hat, but by the end of the story involving sabotage and mistaken identity, they develop a firm friendship. Batman and Robin learn the ins and outs of power line work, with Batman constantly ribbing Robin for not understanding the slang terms the riggers use. This feels like a story meant to have some educational content as well as action, and it's one of the better examples of the two getting outside the normal Gotham City environs.

Detective Comics #92
October 1944

Crime's Manhunt!
The final story of this omnibus sees three crooks busted by Batman and Robin and sent to prison. A year later they get out, and apparently unable to fathom the idea of working for a living, hit upon the notion of capturing former associates and turning them in for the reward money. That's fine as far as it goes, but once the easy targets run out, the crooks decide to break others out of prison, double cross them and turn them in for the reward. That of course crosses the line into illegality, and it doesn't take Batman and Robin long to put an end to the scheme.


Overall, I think Batman as a character and as a series became much stronger over time. The three volumes published so far cover his debut in May 1939 all the way to October 1944, so that's five years and change. I was going back and reading some of the earliest stories in volume 1 last night, and though Batman resembles his modern version far more, the storytelling is very sketchy at best. Once Robin is added and the series settles down into a standard adventure/crime strip and begins adding the villains that have become so familiar, the level of quality becomes pretty consistent from month to month. A few stories really stand out as excellent, while a few are poor, but all in all I enjoyed this third volume of reprinted material more than the other two.

Some other thoughts:
- Alfred is a good addition to the cast. Batman and Robin benefit from having someone who knows their secret, and having that additional character opens up some new avenues for storylines.
- On the other hand, I just can't get behind Alfred's desire to be a detective. I don't know when that character trait will be dropped, but he's clearly not up to the job, and it's more annoying than entertaining to watch him bumble his way through minor crime after minor crime.
- The writers clearly had very little interest in Bruce Wayne's love life. It used to be his fiance Julie Madison that disappeared for long stretches of time, before finally breaking up with Bruce. Then Linda Page was introduced as a love interest, but she did not appear once in this volume.
- Female characters in general are scarce. I couldn't tell you how often the Joker or Penguin turn up, but Catwoman had only one story in this book, and she suffers the humiliation of being captured by Alfred of all people. Not a good showing for Batman's main female villain.
- Rarely does a month go by that the Joker doesn't appear in at least one story. He's defintely overused, but oddly he hasn't worn out his welcome yet either. Maybe it's the short 12-page stories that go by so quickly that account for that. It's hard to say.
- The Scarecrow makes no appearances in this volume, and the Riddler hasn't been introduced yet. Catwoman gets only one story. If Batman and Robin aren't fighting the Joker or the Penguin for the umpteenth time, they're fighting gangsters. And they always know them by name! They must spend hours studying Gotham City's mugshots or something.
- Commissioner Gordon, oddly, doesn't turn up often. He makes frequent enough appearances that he's useful and clearly not forgotten, but rarely is he important to the plot in any way.

All in all, the stories and the characters are not too deep and not too dark, but they're fun to read. Volume 4 won't be out until November, so I'll have to wait a bit to see how the series continues to change over time.

edit: looked up Linda Page, and apparently we have seen the last of her for years worth of comics.

http://batman.wikia.com/wiki/Linda_Page

One of the last times she appears physically is Detective Comics #73, but Bruce is still with her in Batman #32, when it is mentioned Bruce purchased a sapphire for her birthday.

I went back and started reading volume 1 just to see how far the character had come and how much he had changed, and to no one's surprise, there's a big difference between the Bat-Man of 1939, and the Batman of 1944. I finished reviewing one entire omnibus for once, so maybe I can do the same for another. We'll see.

The Batman Golden Age Omnibus vol. 1


Detective Comics #27
May 1939

The Case of the Chemical Syndicate
Bill Fingers wrote and Bob Kane illustrated this story of a secret agreement between four men who had written contracts making them co-owners of Apex Chemical Corporation. One of the four, Alfred Stryker, is murdering the other three so that he will be the sole owner. But he's foiled in his attempts by the Bat-Man, a mysterious vigilante being hunted by the police. Police Commissioner Gordon discusses the Bat-Man with his friend, bored pipe-smoking socialite Bruce Wayne, who accompanies the Commissioner to interview the son of the first murdered man. The Bat-Man turns up at the second murder scene, overcoming the thugs and learning from the file they stole just what the whole scheme is. He arrives in time to save the third man from Stryker, punching the man into a chemical tank when he pulls a gun on him. "A fitting end for his kind," declares the Bat-Man, who seems not at all disturbed by the death he's just caused. The final panel of this six-page story reveals to the reader that (surprise) Bruce Wayne is the Bat-Man.

The omnibus reprints the uncensored version of this story, complete with the knife sticking out of the dead man's back on page 2. There are some other changes that I can't quite remember, though I think both the Archives and Chronicles have the censored version. Six pages is a very inauspicious beginning for Batman, but a lot of the elements we know so well are there right from the start. Bruce Wayne, bored rich guy with no job, Commissioner Gordon, the Batman out after nightfall, using his fists instead of guns (though we'll see him with guns soon), and escaping death traps (though the trap is set for someone else, not him; he only enters to save the victim). Even the black and gray costume is more like the modern version than the blue and gray one he'll shortly be seen in and will stick with for decades. And the Batman gets the villain precisely because he doesn't abide by any rules of evidence gathering or court proceedings. He goes around the law to bring justice. In short, despite the efficient narrative, this is a very familiar Batman, right from the start.

Detective Comics #28
June 1939

Frenchy Blake's Jewel Gang
Where would Golden Age superheroes be without jewel thieves to contend with? This is another Bill Finger/Bob Kane story, and a rather standard tale of the Bat-Man tracking down and stopping a gang of jewel thieves led by Frenchy Blake is given a plot twist by the fact that Batman lets himself be seen by police with the criminals, so he'll be blamed and Frenchy Blake will feel bold enough to continue his activities as a result, allowing the Bat-Man to find him more easily. We see Bruce get information from a police informant via phone by imitating Gordon's voice, and we see the "silken rope" for the first time, allowing the Bat-Man to swing from skyscrapers and other buildings and climb them.

Detective Comics #29
July 1939

The Batman meets Doctor Death
Gardner Fox writes this story, still drawn by Bob Kane, where Batman meets his first supervillain, Dr. Death, and his hulking manservant Jabah (who is supposed to be some sort of "sinister foreign type"). The page count has increased to ten pages from six. Dr. Death is threatening to kill various rich men around the city with his poisonous pollen extract if they don't pay up. Batman first makes note of his utility belt and the gas capsules he stores there as he's preparing for the investigation. He walks into a trap set for him by Dr. Death and overcomes the thugs, but is shot by Jabah. Still, being Batman, it barely slows him down, and he escapes, has his wound treated and passes it off as an accident to his suspicious doctor. He is able to track Jabah to Dr. Death's lair and take him down (literally... he strangles him with his silken rope, apparently!) and chases Dr. Death, who accidentally sets his lab on fire and seems to die laughing. 'Death to Dr. Death", Batman remarks, again not at all bothered by this.

Batman has killed at least four men at this point: two were thugs he tossed off of a roof, one he punched in the acid tank, and now Jabah. And his fight with Dr. Death led to the lab fire, but as well see next issue, Dr. Death has survived. At this point, Batman has no qualms about killing, which always seems bizarre given how much a determination not to kill has been engrained as a part of the character in the years since. Story by story, his standard equipment is being introduced as well.

Detective Comics #30
August 1939

The Return of Doctor Death
Exactly what it says on the tin. Dr. Death has survived the fire, though he's horribly injured, and he needs funds to get started again. He decides to steal and fence the Jones diamonds. Bruce figures out pretty quick that Dr. Death survived and tracks him down, killing yet another of his foreign servants, this time by snapping his neck with a kick. Batman is racking up quite the body count here! At least this time he arrests Dr. Death rather than leave him to burn to death. There's not a lot that's remarkable about this story, other than the fact that we get a sequel right away.

Detective Comics #31
September 1939

Batman vs. the Vampire, part 1
Some of these early stories are just so amateurish, and that's a little surprising coming from Gardner Fox, who is generally a competent writer. So much that takes place in this story is never explained, starting with just why the red-robed and hooded Monk, the main supernatural villain of the story, has targeted Bruce Wayne's fiance, Julie Madison, or who her target is as she's hypnotized at the beginning of the story. Yes, you read that right, Bruce Wayne is engaged. He's also operating out of New York at this point, not "Gotham City". He takes Julie to see a doctor the next day, and the doctor suggests a holiday and sea voyage to Hungary, land of werewolves. What the...? And the doctor is hypnotized himself, something Bruce notices. He sends Julie on her way despite this, and then follows as Batman in his new Bat-gyro, a combination of airplane and helicopter. Batman also has his new weapon, the Batarang, based off of the boomerang. He lands on the ship as Batman and meets Julie, only to be mentally attacked by the Monk. He escapes, and ... nothing. The Monk disappears. Julie reaches France just fine. Batman goes to her room and is attacked by a giant gorilla. Seriously. The Monk captures him and throws him in a snake pit. Julie is kidnapped, but Batman forces the car off the road and rescues her, then travels to Hungary for revenge....

Gardner Fox was smoking something when he came up with this plot, or else he wrote it in five minutes figuring that this "Bat-Man" character would never catch on. "Snakes. Gorillas. Vampires. Werewolves. That'll work in ten pages." So many illogical, unconnected random things happen that just make no sense, even in the sort of supernatural horror story that this clearly aspires to be. The story has atmosphere, I'll give it that, but it lacks any sense of cohesion and logic. And it's continued!

Detective Comics #32
October 1939

Batman vs. the Vampire part 2
The madness continues. In Hungary, Dala is introduced, a woman that Batman rescues from a runaway carriage. It turns out that she's a vampire, who bites Julie then escapes, only to be recaptured by Batman. She wants him to kill the Monk. The Monk captures Batman by pulling the Bat-gyro from the sky with a magic silver net. He throws Batman in a pit of wolves and threatens to turn Julie into a werewolf. Batman escapes, finds a silver candalabra, melts it into bullets, and kills the Monk and Dala by shooting them. Julie is freed from the spell.

Again, the story has plenty of atomosphere, and plenty of opportunities for Batman to outwit a supernaturally powered opponent, but again there's no explanation about why Julie was targetted by the Monk, or who and what he is, other than some sort of vampire/werewolf creature. Julie never suffers any ill effects from the bite, and as for Batman carrying a gun (where else could he have obtained it?), it's not the only time we see that in these early stories. This two parter feels like a first draft where Fox just threw everything he could think of against the wall to see if it would stick. The Monk is an effective villain, but the plot seriously needs a better plotted series of cause and effect to make any sense.

Detective Comics #33
November 1939

Who the Batman is and how he came to be
Bill Finger wrote the origin, as young Bruce Wayne's parents are gunned down in front of him in an alley by a mugger. He vows to spend the rest of his life warring against all criminals, and as he grows up he trains himself physically and mentally in all the skills he will need for his war on crime. His father's estate has left him with all the wealth he needs, but he needs a disguise. At that moment, a bat crashes through the window, and he takes it as an omen.

"Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot. So my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible... a . a... a bat! That's it! It's an omen. I shall become a bat!"

In two pages, Finger wrote such a strong origin story that it's still in use today, largely intact. Other writers have added to it over the years, but the basic set of facts are still the same. It is interesting to me how Bruce is such a self-taught individual at this point, with no mention of overseas travel or learning from mentors. And in just two short pages, his driven personality and even some sense of his beliefs ("it's an omen!") are clearly and succinctly communicated.

andersonh1 wrote:Gardner Fox was smoking something when he came up with this plot, or else he wrote it in five minutes figuring that this "Bat-Man" character would never catch on. "Snakes. Gorillas. Vampires. Werewolves. That'll work in ten pages." So many illogical, unconnected random things happen that just make no sense, even in the sort of supernatural horror story that this clearly aspires to be. The story has atmosphere, I'll give it that, but it lacks any sense of cohesion and logic. And it's continued!

Interesting that this is the same story that'd introduce the batarang. Although given the randomness of the plot that you've described, make me wonder if Fox intended it just be a silly one-off weapon, given Batman uses guns at this point in the comics, rather than the staple weapon it'd become for the character.

Sparky Prime wrote:

andersonh1 wrote:Gardner Fox was smoking something when he came up with this plot, or else he wrote it in five minutes figuring that this "Bat-Man" character would never catch on. "Snakes. Gorillas. Vampires. Werewolves. That'll work in ten pages." So many illogical, unconnected random things happen that just make no sense, even in the sort of supernatural horror story that this clearly aspires to be. The story has atmosphere, I'll give it that, but it lacks any sense of cohesion and logic. And it's continued!

Interesting that this is the same story that'd introduce the batarang. Although given the randomness of the plot that you've described, make me wonder if Fox intended it just be a silly one-off weapon, given Batman uses guns at this point in the comics, rather than the staple weapon it'd become for the character.

He actually uses it to escape the wolf pit. His silken rope is not heavy enough to clear the pit and snag anything, but when he ties the batarang to it, it goes farther and hooks something, letting him escape. It's one of the great "firsts" in an otherwise less than stellar story, watching him learn to use his new equipment effectively.

Detective Comics #33
November 1939

The Batman Wars against the Dirigibles of Doom
The rest of the issue concerns Batman warring against Carl Kreuger, a Napoleon lookalike with Napoleonic ambitions, and his army the Scarlet Horde. They're using dirigibles and energy weapons to attack Manhattan with terrorist attacks that make 9/11 look like a picnic by comparison. This story works very well because it's primarily a "Batman vs. terrorists" story, even if it's not couched in those terms. I don't quite understand why Kreuger needs to look like Napoleon, but it doesn't affect the story much. Batman gets another man killed when he switches his costume for a guard's uniform, and Kreuger kills the unconscious "Batman" with his red ray. Batman also kills Kreuger directly at the end of the story by using his gas pellets to cause Kreuger to crash his plane. He's racking up quite the body count.

Detective Comics #34
December 1939

Peril in Paris
Gardner Fox scripted another bizarre story this month. I have to wonder if this was printed later than intended, because it picks up right where "Batman vs. the Vampire" left off, referencing the events of that story with Bruce Wayne still in Paris. He runs into a man on the street who has no face. The guy looks like the Question, but this is decades before that character was created. Bruce thinks "that's strange... well, back to my hotel!" I guess he's seen enough weirdness that a guy with no face doesn't faze him. Or maybe it's more bizarre characterization by Fox, who really is normally a far better writer than this.

It's the sinister thin-faced, pointy eared Duc D'Orterre that has removed the guy's face and kidnapped his sister. He captures Batman when Batman tries to help and straps him to the "wheel of chance" to kill him, but Batman breaks free, falling into a garden of flowers with human faces. Who talk to him. I think they were talking to Fox too! In the meantime, the Duc has captured the man and wants to make him reveal where his fortune is. Using his Bat-gyro, Batman follows the Duc and the girl who are in the Duc's car. He pulls her free and the Duc crashes into a ravine, dying in the process. Another villain dead because of Batman. Yikes.

Detective Comics #35
January 1940

The Case of the Ruby Idol
We're back to Bill Finger on writing duty, thankfully. And I note that Batman's costume has been getting more and more blue as the months go by. The splash page shows him brandishing a pistol and looking grim, so we're not quite past Batman's gun-loving phase, but it won't be long.

The story revolves around an old "Hindu" idol to a god of death carved from a giant ruby. Legend states that each owner will die a horrible death. Sheldon Lenox, who found it and brought it to the US, sells it to Weldon, a collector, and Lenox is later found dead, exactly as predicted. Weldon begs Commissioner Gordon for protection. It's no good though, a gang of Hindus (I laugh every time I read that) capture him, stab him and throw him in the river. Batman's investigation of the murder and of the idol's whereabouts lead him to Chinatown, where he befriends the unofficial mayor, Wong, who directs him to collector Sin Fang. Sin Fang tries to kill Batman, who of course survives all attempts, and discovers that Sin Fang is Sheldon Lenox in disguise. He's a fake Chinese man, and the Hindus were all fake too. Lenox falls out the window to his death during the fight with Batman (another villain dead because of Batman!) and the idol has claimed its last victim.

This story isn't half bad, despite some weird ethnic stereotyping... which turns out to be white guys pretending to be other ethnicities, so it actually works. The mix of mundane crime and (supposed) supernatural deaths fit the pattern established for Batman very well. And I like how Batman befriends Wong, who will show up at least once more as an ally.

Detective Comics #36
February 1940

Professor Hugo Strange
One of Batman's oldest surviving villains makes his first appearance here. A strange thick fog is filling the streets, reducing visibility and making life difficult in general for the average citizen and for police. Crime is up. A G-man, John Davis, is gunned down almost right in front of Bruce Wayne, who goes to work as the Batman to learn what happened and why. It's all a plot by Strange of course, to allow his men to commit crimes more easily. The fog is created by a machine developed by Strange and kidnapped engineer Henry Jenkins. Batman finds Strange's lair, and after being captured and almost whipped for his "interference", escapes, rescues Jenkins and destroys the fog machine. Strange is put in jail instead of being killed by Batman, and vows "I shall devote the rest of my life in revenging myself upon the Batman!"

This is a decent story with a memorable villain, no doubt one reason he's survived into the present day, though he's not up there with the Joker or Penguin of course. I think he's in three or four stories before vanishing for a long time. He certainly wasn't in the volume 3 omnibus.

Anyway at this point there's a pattern. Any story written by Bill Finger is going to be decent or good. Anything written by Gardner Fox is going to be very strange. And that's odd, because as I noted, Fox is normally a solid writer. He wrote tons of stories for many different characters, and was with the JLA title into the late 60s. Maybe these Batman stories were early work for him as he was learning the craft. At any rate, Bill Finger has now created the first memorable Batman villain. I think he's responsible for the Joker and Catwoman in a few months as well, so we can thank Finger for Batman's colorful villains.

Detective Comics #37
March 1940

The Spies/The Screaming House
Batman is driving along and stops to ask for directions... that just seems odd to me. He hears screaming from inside the house he's stopped at, and he rushes in to find some thugs torturing a man. He beats them up and rescues the man, only for the victim to knock him out and then shoots the thugs, leaving Batman alive. The whole things involves spies who want to destroy a tanker coming into Gotham harbor. Batman tracks down the gang leader, Elias Turg, who ends up impaling himself on his own sword during the fight, though for once he is entirely to blame rather than Batman.

Counting the two page origin as it's own story, this is the twelfth and final story to feature Batman as a solo character. It's been a rough "shakedown cruise" for the character, with stories that varied wildly in quality. There's also an odd mix of urban crime and supernatural encounters, as well as a number of supervillains (Dr. Death, the Monk, Duc D'Orterre, Hugo Strange) making it hard to figure out just what genre the writers were going for. Gardner Fox wrote one type of story, while Bill Finger wrote plots that were entirely different. At the same time, we saw the character's costume and equipment evolve. Added to Batman's arsenal in that first year were his silken rope, gas pellets on the utility belt, the Batarang and the Bat-gyro. Batman starts out driving a red sportscar and shifts over to a blue one. And the most noticeable oddity of first year Batman is his willingness to kill, and the fact that he carries a gun, both attributes that will vanish from here on out.

Up next: Dick Grayson, Robin the Boy Wonder joins the book.

Detective Comics #38
April 1940

Introducing Robin, the Boy Wonder
Dick Grayson's origin is pretty well-known and has been re-told a number of times, but I still enjoy going back to read the original version, once again written by Bill Finger. The story opens at Haly's Circus, where two thugs try to pressure Haly into paying protection money. He refuses and throws them out. At the next circus performance, the "Flying Graysons" trapeze act, consisting of John and Mary Grayson, along with their son Dick, are performing. The parents are in the middle of their act when the ropes break and they fall to their deaths in front of a horrified crowd, and in front of Dick. He later overhears Haly agree to pay the two men so there will be no more murders and plans to go to the police, when he's stopped by the Batman, who warns him that the men work for Boss Zucco, who runs the town, and that Dick will be dead by morning if he tells what he knows. Dick wants to help bring his parents' killers to justice, and there's clearly a sense by Batman that he and the boy are kindred spirits, having both lost their parents to violent crime.

Batman takes him in, administers an oath to uphold justice, and then begins to train him in combat, acrobatics and detective work, noting that he could learn something about acrobatics from the young trapeze artist. At the end of the training, Dick has a costume and a secret identity of his own: Robin, the Boy Wonder! Dick goes undercover as a newspaper boy as part of the plan to track down Zucco and trap him. He picks up plenty of information which he passes along to Batman, who begins wrecking Zucco's protection rackets and gambling casinos, making Zucco angry enough to get personally involved in the next protection job. Robin shows up and dives into the fight without waiting for Batman, and is barely holding his own, but Batman arrives and dives into the fight. He forces a confession from the thug who sabotaged the ropes, causing the death of John and Mary Grayson. The engraged Zucco shoots his subordinate, and Batman informs him that Robin caught the murder on film, so Zucco will be facing the death penalty for what he's done.

In the aftermath, Bruce wonders if Dick wants to return to the circus, having caught his parents' killer and ensuring that justice will be done. Dick says no, he thinks his parents would want him to keep fighting crime and he wants to continue as Robin. He's sure the next adventure of Batman and Robin will be a "corker". It's a slightly trite ending that in no way mars an excellent origin story for what is probably the best known kid sidekick in comics. Having read Batman for many years now, it's hard to imagine the strip without Robin involved in some way, and there's no doubt that the character benefits from having his kid sidekick to work with, to help with exposition, and to help create drama. And Robin stabilizes a series that had been very uneven in tone and takes it in an entirely different direction. The supernatural elements will disappear for a long time, Batman will stop killing crooks, and the whole tone of the series will be more about stalwart, heroic adventuring.