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.
Retro Comics are Awesome
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andersonh1
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andersonh1
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Re: Retro Comics are Awesome
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.
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.