Well this is a bit daunting. How does one do justice to Batman in just over a thousand words? I better get on with it! Many consider Batman to be the best superhero there is. After watching all the great films over recent years and having read the first year of all of DC’s New 52 range, I can’t say I disagree. It’s not just all the cool gadgets and vehicles. It’s not the quirky yet highly dangerous villains. It’s the humanity. Batman is just a normal guy, albeit a highly cashed up one. He solves mysteries and crime through intelligence and networking, and defeats the bad guys (and gals) with guts and sheer determination. Sure, Superman could kick his ass off the planet in less than a second, but where’s the fun in that!? So checking out what Batman was all about back in 1977 wasn’t so much about whether or not I’d like it. I figured I would. It was more about seeing how much the character had changed over time. Would the campiness of the 60s TV show still be present in the comics, or would the gritty darkness of modern Batman have already taken hold? Before I reveal the answer to that question, I’ve got some superheroic backstory summarising to get through.
Scott Snyder’s Court of Owls run in The New 52 Batman series was absolutely outstanding…
…and I’m sure the recent Christopher Nolan movies need no introduction.
Image Credit: Dark Knight Rises Wallpaper via Alpha Coders
Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 way back in May 1939. Artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger came up with the character in direct response to an editor request for more superheroes to follow up the success of Superman. After Bruce Wayne witnessed the murder of his parents (note that this origin didn’t appear until Detective Comics #33), he swore to spend his life fighting criminals. It helped that he inherited a fortune, allowing him to live the life of a billionaire businessman during the day, then become a technology-assisted vigilante after dark. Wearing a bat-themed costume, Batman is highly skilled in martial arts and extremely knowledgeable on all matter of topics. Just as well, since the villains of Gotham City are a dangerous bunch, standing out not only for their unique appearances, but also their deranged states of mind. They’re often referred to as the Rogue’s Gallery, and include the Joker, the Penguin, the Riddler, Catwoman, Two-Face, Scarecrow and Poison Ivy. Thankfully, Batman isn’t working completely alone, getting assistance from his younger sidekick Robin, his butler Alfred Pennyworth, and the police commissioner, Jim Gordon.
They wasted little time with origin stories back in the Golden Age.
They really are a crazy bunch, which is what makes them so unpredictable.
Image Credit: DC Digests and Tabloids
Detective Comics was an immediate hit, and would double in sales with the introduction of sidekick Robin. By 1940 Batman had his own comic, and also featured alongside Superman in World’s Finest Comics issues. Like Action Comics and Superman, Detective Comics and Batman were able to survive through the difficult fifties and early sixties, when public interest in superheroes waned and the content of comics came under fire for “corrupting the morals of the youth”. The newly formed Comics Code did have a drastic effect on Batman though, with the issues of this period having a much lighter and even campy feel to them. Like many comic series, science fiction began to play a bigger role, taking things away from the city-based detective stories where it all began. There was a brief attempt to revitalise the character in 1964, with Editor Julius Schwartz and artist Carmine Infantino given the task of overhauling the look and feel, and to return Batman to its roots. This path was turned on its head though, when the 1966 Batman TV series hit the screens, ramping the camp up to unprecedented levels. Understandably, given the huge success of the show, the comics followed suit, and enjoyed a circulation of close to 900,000 copies as a result.
The 1960’s TV show: Campy as, but fun, and a not insignificant part of my childhood.
So who do we have to thank for bringing the gritty darkness back to Batman for good? The answer is writer Dennis O’Neil and artist Neal Adams (and to a lesser extent inker Dick Giordano). They joined forces in 1969 to undo the “damage” that the TV series had inflicted. They didn’t actually produce too many comics together, often working with other artists and writers across both Detective Comics and Batman, but their influence was immense. Both of them had moved onto other things by 1977, which is of course the time I will be focusing on. I should point out at this stage that I decided when formulating RetroSmack that I would not write two comic posts that cover the same character in a single year. I needed some way to limit the amount of issues I would be reading, as well as the amount of posts that would cover comics. In the end I had to find a compromise, as not covering Action and Detective comics (along with Superman and Batman comics) just didn’t feel right. They were after all the place where two of the most important comic characters in history were introduced. This post therefore covers not only Batman issues #284 through to #294, but also Detective Comics issues #467 through to #474.
Batman Issues #284 to #294
Detective Issues #467 to #474
The first few Batman issues I read didn’t impress me all that much. It was great to see the Dark Knight having to utilise all of his detective skills to solve cases, but David V. Reed’s stories fell a bit flat for me. He seemed to be a writer that put a lot of research into certain topics (such as Tibetan magic in the Tzin-Tzin storyline and extinct birds in the next one containing The Penguin), and appeared determined to make use of all the homework to the story’s detriment. Thankfully I had Mike Grell’s artwork to enjoy, even when I was feeling a little underwhelmed overall. My disappointment was short-lived though, as I soon reach issue #291.
Screw the elixir, use the dragon!
I get excited every time I see Mike Grell’s name on a comic ever since I read The Warlord.
The cover to #291 was intriguing enough, displaying six of Batman’s major enemies standing around his tomb, with four of them (Catwoman, The Riddler, The Joker and Lex Luthor) all claiming to have made the kill. But Reed had something really special up his sleeve for this four-issue mini-series pencilled by John Calnan, inked by Ted Blaisdell and coloured by Jerry Serpe. Each issue would find one of the villains standing up in front of court, giving their version of events that led to the death of Batman. The judge was none other than Ras Al Ghul, the prosecutor Two-Face, and the jury was made up of The Mad Hatter, The Spook, Poison Ivy, The Scarecrow, Signalman and Mr. Freeze. It all could have been a disaster really, but Reed absolutely nailed it, with plenty of humorous courtroom antics (the jury shouts “Not Guilty!” whenever it is proved that a villain didn’t commit the act of murder) and a heap of action to boot. A cameo from Superman and a very well executed twist at the end were just the icing on an exceptionally tasty cake.
This was a fantastic setup from David V. Reed, and he followed through on it perfectly.
It was a great way to match Batman up against four of his enemies with unpredictable results.
Moving onto the Detective issues, I was surprised to find that the first issue was split into two stories (the first being a Batman one and the second Hawkman). A bit of research revealed that Detective Comics had been running that way for a long time, with the backup story switching between different DC characters. Thankfully this trend came to end a couple of issues in, resulting in the Batman stories getting the room they needed to thrive. Just as well too, as after a decent storyline written by Bob Rozakis (involving a challenging, if a little silly, villain named The Calculator), Steve Englehart took over the series and began one of the more celebrated runs in Batman history. With the help of artists Walt Simonson and Al Milgron (and eventually the fantastic duo of Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin), Englehart took inspiration from Golden Age Batman. He not only brought back long missing villains and locales (such as the batcave), he also reintroduced the square jaw and long pointed ears that had been softened over the years.
At least the Hawkman story had a strong connection to the current Batman plot.
Now this is the Batman we love. Flirting with hot chicks one minute, using high tech gadgets to solve mysteries the next.
Unfortunately this ten issue run continues well into 1978, so I’ll have to wait a while to check out the final four issues. The six issues I did read were absolutely fantastic though. There’s a dark edge to proceedings, exacerbated when council leader Rupert Thorne manages to set the community of Gotham against Batman. There’s a great new villain in Dr. Phosphorus, a vengeful and dangerous man determined to bring down the whole city, starting with Batman. There’s the return and subsequent death of Hugo Strange, and the mystery surrounding his post-demise apparitional appearances. There’s a new lover for Bruce Wayne, the alluring Silver St. Cloud, who at the climax of the last issue I read discovered the truth about Batman’s identity. This is the way Batman should be, and he’s still my favourite superhero.
Some of Rogers and Austin’s artwork is just beautiful.
Even the Boy Wonder gets involved!
The moment Silver figures out who Batman is. I’ll have to wait to see how this plays out.
The Batman (1977) RetroCard has now been added to the RetroCard Shop. It’s a common card, so therefore costs 10 smacks and has a limited release of 120.
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