I know, I know. It's been over a year since the last post. And I know I've promised no long breaks between posts before. Guess I shouldn't make promises I can't keep. But here we are again, in Fall of 1943. I am excited to be back, hope you'll join me again for Golden Age Batman goodness, because this one is excellent.
"A Thief in Time!"
Writer: Bill Finger
Penciller: Jerry Robinson
Inker: Fred Ray
Synopsis: Our story begins in the Gotham City of the late 21st century! Yes, it's the future, complete with rocketships and Flash Gordon looking fashion. A laboratory worker named (no shit) Rob Callender comes out of a Batman Museum, wishing he was in Batman's time, because then he could be a millionaire!
And then he's so absent minded about that at work, he accidentally mixes some chemicals and BOOM, space-time warp to 1943! It's just that easy.
He realizes he's in Batman times, and promptly sets about getting some new old clothes, then "borrowing" (read: stealing) some vacuum tubes and other equipment to start assembling some future technology! Good thing he has the knowhow. If you sent me back to 1916 and told me to make an iPod with shit lying around, I'd have to just shrug.
Anyways, he manages to make a gun that shoots a light absorbing ray that creates an area of total darkness ahead of him, and with the aid of infrared goggles, he's totally ready to just straight up rob a bank. But, oddly, he makes a point of saying that if he's taken more money than he needs, he'll return the rest to the bank by mail... Weird.
Using the money he's stolen, he hires a bunch of criminal thugs, but makes a big point of there being absolutely no violence. They then proceed to dark-ray rob an elementary school for a third grade reader book, and an obscure woodworker for a random table lamp. The thug are understandably perplexed, but as long as he's paying, who cares right?
About this time Batman and Robin take an interest, because this weird shit is definitely up their alley. Luckily, Batman already has infrared goggles (he's used them before in the comic), so they're well prepared to fight these guys.
My favourite moment in this comic has to be when they head out in the Batplane, and two dudes spot them overhead and say "Here's where some gangsters get what's coming to them!" It's a great little moment showing normal people reacting to living in Gotham City.
Anyways, the crooks are robbing an unknown author who lives in a waterfront shack (jesus, I guess things could be worse for me), and steal an entire manuscriot from him.
Batmn and Robin show up for the fight scene, while Rob Callender exclaims "Dear, dear! This is so unnecessary and painful!"
Rob shoots the Dynamic Duo with a goddamn paralysis ray he whipped up somehow, but he won't kill them. Instead, he tosses them in a rowboat, rows them out to a derelict ship beached on a reef that heknew was here then dumped them in the hold, where the paralysis ray will wear off once the crooks are safely away. After all, he can't let anyone be killed... but he can leave clues, dude knows from going to a Batman musem how to be Batman villain afterall, and taunts the Dark Knight with a reference to "art in a textile mill".
However, once he's left, water begins pouring into the hold -- when the tide rises the ship goes under and fills with water through holes in the hull, ironically putting Batman and Robin in an unintentional death trap!
Batman figures how to get free of course -- the walls of the hold are covered in barnacles which they use to cut through the ropes -- but then the question is how to get back to shore! Luckily, the ship is a light ship, with it's own light tower! They light up the beacon, with Batman sticking a Bat symbol on the glass to form a makeshift Bat signal, which alerts the harbor police to come and rescue them.
Back on dry land, they ask the robbed author about the manuscript, who tells them it wasn't valuable, and in fact he was super dissatisfied with it and wanted to tear it up. The two look for clues, but all Robin finds is a penny... a penny minted in 2043!! (Goddamn it, America, you're really gonna hold on to pennies that long??)
The two hop back in the Batplane and head to the textile mill, where the night watchmen paints in his spare time, and of course Callender is there to steal the painting. Batman figures out that he's from the future, stealing seemingly worthless items that only become famous in a hundred years, after the unknown craftsmen become famous after their deaths.
Callender reveals he got the idea from seeing all of the items in a collection of Batman's trophies in the Batman Museum, which is certainly a weird place to see them unless...
And then SWISH! The space-time warp closes, and Callender is back... to the FUTURE!
And then Batman and Robin are like "well, shit, what do we do with all this stuff?" None of the people who it was stolen from want it (despite now having certifiable knowledge it will be valuable one day?) So Batman and Robin put it in their growing trophy collection...
...and thus Rob Callender sees it in the Batman Museum over a hundred years in the future!
~~~~
My Thoughts: I love time travel stories, especially when they are simple enough not to be aggravating, but clever enough to actually make sense. I am delighted this is a Bill Finger time travel story. I'm sure I've mentioned this, but Finger was always collecting weird story ideas from stuff he'd read -- odd facts, interesting gimmicks, and this is a story that seems fueled by those. But the mention of stuff like "space/time warp" and the pretty good looped time travel logic really makes this a surprisingly good time travel story for a 1943 comic! Very enjoyable. Also, I just love that Callender refers to the 1940s as "Batman times". Like, fuck World War II, Batman is the thing about the 40s that will be most remembered.
The Art: It's Jerry Robinson. This is the good stuff, but Fred Ray's inking makes it even better, just solidifying the work a little more so it looses some of Robinson's loose scratchiness and looks nice and polished. But it's top notch Golden Age Batman, just a joy to be looking at again. The best single panel is on the first page, with Callender shaking his fist in triumph in an utterly classic villain pose.
The Story: The fact that Callender won't let anyone be killed (he's not such a bad guy, and it would cause paradoxes), the trick of everything he's stealing not being worth anything in the present, the little clever details like the waterline in the hold alerting Batman to danger, using the barnacles to get out, and figuring out how to light the DIY Bat signal, these are all great clever details you expect from a class act Bill Finger script -- but the bit about how the reason those items are in the Batman museum for Callender to get the idea to go back in time and steal them is because they are from the case where he goes back in time to steal them? That's some A+ classic time travel storytelling there. Love it.
Up next on Bat to the Beginning? It's time to keep on with the Batman serial, guys!
Another patriotic cover, this time courtesy of artist Dick Sprang - who we've yet to see any interior work from, but who's time will come soon enough (and I couldn't be more excited for!)
"The Secret of Hunter's Inn!"
Writer: Joe Samachson
Artist: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: Bruce and Dick are off on one of those sporadic vacations they take whenever the writers feel like putting them in a new locale. They have been driven to a little inn in the woods called The Hunter's Inn by Alfred (still looking ever much like Arthur Treacher's Jeeves than like William Austin's Alfred) in their limousine.
Bruce has an ulterior motive for this visit though - the Hunter's Inn has recently been the scene of a serious of disturbing robberies of its wealthy patrons, and the rural police haven't got a clue. Upon arrival, the boys are greeted by a cheerful looking fat man in a ridiculous wax moustache and goatee combo. And Bruce Wayne isn't the only millionaire staying there, there's also John Gottorox. Nobody else, though....
Strangely, the inn's famous Hunter's Stew is awful, the rooms are shit, but there's still no sign of wrongdoing anywhere -- well, until Bruce and Dick hear a call for help from one of the other rooms. So, transformed into Batman and Robin, they burst through a window into Gottorox's room, where he's being accosted by some "rough men".
They fight off the men, but the fat man from the front desk appears again and toss a bomb made of bees at them, to whose bite he's immune!! Batman and Robin run from the room, down the hall, but bump into another identical fat man! Quickly our heroes deduce that they must be dealing with the Tweed Brothers - Tweedledum and Tweedledee - recently escaped from jail. The Tweed gases them with poisonous coal gas and trots off to get Gottorox's money.
And it's Alfred who comes to our heroes' rescue, having heard the commotion in the hall he finds their prone forms and takes them out to the car and departs quickly.
Batman and Robin wake up in the car the next morning, Alfred having driven them out to the woods to hide. They thank him for his assistance, then head back to the inn to investigate.
There they meet Soup McConell, an ex-con. Batman accuses him of working for the Tweeds, but McConell denies it, claiming he has only hired a few other ex-cons to keep them out of trouble - he's gone straight, running the Inn himself. Batman is also confused by the large number of guests at the Inn who weren't there last night, but McConell claims they've been there for a long time.
However, Batman spots two of the thugs they fought the night before, so he and Robin attack them. McConell's men, very confused, try to stop the Dark Knight and Boy Wonder from assaulting random people in the inn, which is full of guests. Soon, Batman and Robin are outnumbered by employees, and kicked out! Soup says he doesn't want any trouble, but if the heroes bother him or his guests again, he'll call the cops!
Batman and Robin walk back off into the woods, very confused, until Batman notices that the hotel entrance faces south... and last night it faced west!
Walking through the woods, they come across another Hunter's Inn, identical except it's in a different place, facing a different direction! And so they ener the other inn to investigate, finding a copy of the Hunter's Inn reservation book!
Robin figures out that the scheme is that the Tweeds steal the real Inn's reservation info, and then when a particularly wealthy guest is arriving, somehow lure them to the fake inn and steal their money - then, when the police investigate all they find is the real inn and no evidence!
Having figured this out, they soon fall into a trap - cornered by Tweedledum and Tweedledee! But Batman buys some time with a smoke bomb and he and Robin beat feet to the elevator. Inside, they find a switch whereby the Tweeds could control a set of fake trees to be placed over the road to the Hunter's Inn, revealing a second road to their own Inn, thus luring in their victims and keeping away the cops!
Batman flicks the switch to lead to the Tweed's Inn, and the police headed to answer to Gottorox's report of the previous night find the Tweeds and surround them. They're arrested, and Bruce and Dick head back to Gotham with Alfred.
~~~~
My Thoughts: This is a fantastic Golden Age Tweedledee & Tweedledum story, and like their first appearance, it really helps me understand these villains and their place in Batman's Rogues Gallery in a way their modern day appearances (mostly cameos) don't manage to. It's a creepy tale, one that is truly unnerving in the way it makes no sense at the start, but comes together in a way that really reinforces the themes of doubling and duality present in the twin villains, which of course also reinforces those themes in the character himself. It's very smart and well done.
The Art: Jerry Robinson must've had an affinity for the Tweeds. He drew them in a delightfully creepy manner in their first story and does an equally effective job here. They're an unnerving pair, and Robinson gives all the scenes an effective, almost expressionistic touch, while still keeping everything in his usual fine realistic style, with his unique "scratchy" light linework. Really great stuff here.
The Story: Samachson delivers a really smart mystery plot here. As said before, it reinforces the themes of the characters, but it's also just really smartly done. Seeing Batman a step behind for a part of the story is really cool, and Alfred is also used in a very effective and competent manner. The detail that the crooks running the real hotel really have gone straight is great too, to see that not all of Batman's enemies remain criminals is a great way to speak to the character's effectiveness as a crimefighter.
"Robin Studies His Lessons!"
Writer: Joe Samachson
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: Dick comes home and tries to sneak past Bruce to his room without saying hello. Bruce picks up that something's wrong and confronts the boy. Turns out Dick is flunking his subjects in school, despite promising Bruce he'd study. It's probably because he's out every night being a crimefighter, Bruce. Bruce comes to the same conclusion, and places Dick on temporary suspension - Batman's a solo act until Dick passes his classes!
Dick's all upset, but what can you do? Batman goes out alone, and quickly ends up fighting some robbers. After a two page fight scene, they bop Batman on the head and scam. After running a ways, they realize Batman was alone, and that perhaps that now that he's without his partner, perhaps he'd be easier to bump off! They make a plan to trap Batman!
Batman trails after them, and finds a clue that they'll be hitting the treasurer's office of Consolidated Fisheries next. Thing is - it's a planted clue!
He shows up, and finds some weird blocks on the ceiling. No time to figure out the clue, so he heads inside, and sets off some odd noisemakers somehow accidentally. Odd, but he heads into the next room, and is plunged into darkness. His hands are glowing though, and in the darkness the crooks pistol whip him over the head. Turns out the blocks on the ceiling were coated in phosphorescent paint, and the noises were caused by unstable chemicals left on the floor. The lead crook used to work in a lab, where he learned this stuff.
Meanwhile, Dick's feeling sad and lonely at home, so he uses his belt radio to contact Batman just to see what's up. Batman's tied up at the crook's hideout at the "Consolidated Fisheries" building, and the crooks tell Rbin to come alone and try to rescue him (figuring they can take out both of them). Batman warns Robin to "stay home and study!" but Robin disobeys.
Robin figures out the phosphorescent blocks, and figures Batman fell into a trap. He doesn't go intothe next room and instead finds a big electric refrigerator and smashes the coils with a hammer. The fumes fill the building, but Robin avoids them because he recognizes the gas is sulphur dioxide and thus heavier than air, so if he stays up high he won't breathe it in.
The gas gets to the crooks, allowing Batman to escape, but despite the handicap the criminals manage to beat feet. Although Batman is happy Robin saved his life and is pretty impressed with the refrigerator trick given Dick is flunking chemistry, he believes in discipline and thus tells the Boy Wonder to go back home and get back to studying.
A tearful Robin decides to go after the crooks himself to show Batman up, and figures out they'll have phosphorescent paint on their shoes from those blocks. He follows the gang and throws the blocks at them when he finds them.
Batman follows Robin, finding the Boy Wonder engaged in battle with the crooks. The moon moves behind a cloud and it gets very dark on the rooftop but Batman can see them fine thanks to Robin throwing the blocks at them.
After they're beat up, Robin explains he threw the blocks at them so he could identify them, but Batman one-ups him by explaining that the sulphur dioxide gas would've acted as a bleach on their clothes that would've identified them. But them Robin outgeeks Batman explaining that "well, actually..." the effects of sulphur dioxide disappear very quickly.
After the thugs are turned over to the police, Bruce goes to Dick's school to investigate, because how is this kid flunking school? Turns out it's not because he's up all night every night getting knocked over the head, it's because his report card was mixed up with some dumbass named Richard E. Grayson instead of our Dick (who's Richard John Grayson, for the record!)
~~~~
My Thoughts: A fun little "focus on Robin" story that's obviously supposed to be relatable for kids who feel their parents are too hard on them for telling them to do their homework. I do feel sorry for that kid who had a really good report card for like a day before the mistake was discovered!
The Art: The art's a good serviceable job from Kane/Robinson, in particular a lot of the fight scenes in the dark are cool, and there are a lot of great silouhetted "Dark Knight" evocative images of Batman that surface in the "solo" sequences, images that we haven't really seen that much in the series since the early days.
The Story: Joe Samachson was clearly reading a book of chemistry trivia or something the day before this story was due. Oh, phosphorescent paint glows in the dark? Fridges use sulphur dioxide gas, which isn't good to breathe, and can bleach things? Cool, what kind of story can I base around these little facts? A very Bill Finger way of working.
"The Good Samaritan Cops"
Writer: Bill Finger
Artist: Jack Burnley
Synopsis: Bill Finger's decided to do a series of stories spotlighting the true-to-life work of real police services, in which Batman and Robin will meet various types of police officers. The first story will be about the "men in the green trucks", the "police emergency squads". These guys don't really exist today the way they did then -- this old Popular Science article kind've explains the idea though, and I think nowadays they've evolved into these guys.
Anyhow, one day Batman and Robin decide to head down to police headquarters to basically do some ride alongs to learn more about the police department of which they are honorary members. They decide to start with the Emergency Squad because they are "hand-picked and specially trained" and "roll only when the regular force is stumped".
Sergeant Mead introduces the Dynamic Duo to his squad - Bressler, who's obsessed with pics of his kid (if this was a movie, he'd be marked for death; Brannigan and Flannigan, a couple of Irish stereotypes always arguing over a girl; and Richards, the rookie who's looking for some action. Of course, there's also their truck - Suzie.
A call comes in, and they roll out! They rescue a cat from a telephone, and then rescue a man stuck in a quagmire. But Sergeant Mead is going to retire and is sad about it - age limits, he can't even serve in the army! Retirement after a lifetime of service is truly the worst thing.
Then an ammonia pipe bursts in a refrigerating room at a meat packing plant, so off they go! They put on gas masks and head into the plant to rescue the workers, but Batman and Robin find some gangsters in the refrigerating room - they burst the pipe on purpose so they could steal the meat for the black market! (Food rationing, wartime, all that).
The next call is a hostage situation - a madman has a pretty girl and a gun in a high rise apartment. Flannigan gets shot trying to save her, but the Dynamic Duo manage it cuz after all they're names are on the strip. Brannigan is all upset about Flannigan, but it turns out the bullet ricocheted off his badge and he's fine (that happens so often in fiction, ever in real life?) and soon the two are back to arguing.
The next call comes through, and it turns out the cops have "kill-crazy Two-Gun Foley and his mob" bottled up in a building but can't smoke him out! So in comes the emergency squad to storm the place with tear gas!
After the successful raid, the rookie apologizes for complaining about the lack of action, and Commissioner Gordon decides to defer Mead's retirement because too many young officers are going into the army -- hooray, more high tension risky physical work into old age!
Batman and Robin finish their ridealong, and before they can even say goodbye, the emergency squad is off again on another call!
~~~~
My Thoughts: So, obviously this is another Bill Finger Public Service Announcement type story. It basically lays that all out in the splash page. It's also probably a "Bill Finger was reading about this in a magazine or newspaper and filed it away in the idea drawer" type story as well. Ultimately, it's also really not a Batman story. It's a "day in the life" tale, with our heroes as witness-proxies for the audience. And what a weird little snapshot of time it is!
I guess modern SWAT teams and the currently heavily militarized police of the US have kind've evolved from these sorts of squads, but the whole sight of these men in blue hanging off a green truck that basically looks like an old school fire truck and just jetting around on call seems so strange to me. Then again, I've lived my life in a large Canadian metropolis that nevertheless has a population about a seventh of that of NYC. So, y'know, my relationship to and awareness of police is a little bit different. But from my perspective, this whole thing seems weird and quaint.
The Art: Very very polished looking art, but then of course it is! It's Jack Burnley for cryin' out loud! Very slick inking and an all around excellent looking story, with many elements clearly taken from photo reference. Now, Burnley always turns in good art, but I wonder if perhaps he was selected for this assignment because Finger clearly had high hopes for this "series" or if he was just up in the rotation. It is hard to know the ways of Whitney Ellsworth.
The Story: It is what it is. It's a day-in-the-life PSA piece about police in which we see the emergency squad do a wide variety of tasks in a single day, do them all well, and make it home safe. What semblance of story there is revolves around the group of stereotypes who make up the squad - the two guys who argue but really care about each other, the rookie who grows up, and the sergeant who doesn't have to retire. They all have one personality trait causing one conflict which is easily solved by story's end. It's not a bad thing - it's all done so painlessly and smoothly that you don't really mind - but it's hard to really call it a story.
"The Crime Surgeon!"
Writer: Bill Finger
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: An escape attempt leaves a prison warden shot and the prison doctor unskilled enough to operate. And so a convict is called in! It's Doctor Matthew Thorne... the Crime Doctor! He operates, but uses ether to gas the guards and make his escape!
Soon enough, he's right back to his old tricks, operating a "crime clinic" to assist crooks in planning and executing their schemes, for a percentage of the loot. But this time, the crime clinic is moving across country!
Batman and Robin analyze the pattern, and find the doc is moving in a straight east-to-west line, stopping along the major cities. So the crime-fighters head to the next logical city, and Robin adopts a cover as a street urchin shoeshine boy. He overhears some crooks and confirms Thorne is there.
The heist involves disguising the thieves as a construction crew working on a sewage system, using the dynamite blasts to cover the dynamite blast used to get into the bank vault. But Batman and Robin dive in right before the blast, and we get to have a cool dynamic two-page fight scene in a construction site before the doc makes his getaway to the next city.
In the next city, Thorne sends his accomplice to drum up business, and he meets a crook who needs a job planned. The crook is blindfolded on the drive to the doc's hideout, and we get five panels of nothing but blackness and sound effects: the sounds of a train, clanging and bonging, rumbling, cows, and then roaring water.
But after they arrive, Robin is discovered following the car and the crook is revealed as a disguised Batman (doing that weird human face make-up over cowl over real face thing that I always find suuuuper weird).
In the ensuing fight scene, Robin is shot and the doc freaks out ("You're working for a doctor, not a killer!") He's not dead, but Thorne will need to operate -- and so once again Batman finds himself assisting Thorne in an operation, this time on Robin!
The two enemies call a truce, and after the operation, Thorne allows Batman to leave and take Robin to a hospital. Because the boy's unconscious, Batman still doesn't know where Thorne's hideout is -- but it doesn't matter. Batman counted his pulses and thus was able to time his journey with the sounds he heard, which were a train junction, a blacksmith's, a wooden bridge, a farm, and a waterfall.
But there's nothing there! Just some extra wide tire tracks... then Batman realizes that the Doc took his practice on the road by operating out of a trailer! Luckily, the trailer back into a mud bank and left a perfect impression of the license plate (ha!) and so Batman has an APB put out on it.
They spot it by a gold field in California, which allows for a suitably dramatic industrial area to have a climatic battle in. Thorne plans to steal the gold from the mine... but then the wife of one of his goons gets sick and needs an operation! The doc intends to help, Hippocratic Oath and all, but then the timetable for the gold job gets moved up and he has to choose... crime or medicine!
Thorne chooses crime, and so on the day he's one goon short since the guy has stayed home with his sick wife. Batman busts in, and takes off after Thorne, who leads him on a chase through the mine, of course ending up on a high platform where things are most dramatic.
Thorne's about to stab Batman with a scalpel, but SUDDENLY! He's shot! Yes, it's Mocco the goon with the sick wife, all pissed off and vengeful because she died! And so Doctor Matthew Thorne dies in Batman's arms, and finally seems to achieve a sort of peace in death which he never had in life.
~~~~
My Thoughts: This story is so strange on so many levels. On the one hand, it's strange to see the story of a Golden Age villain end. Heck, it's strange to see a Modern Age comics character get an ending, unless he's a "created just for the arc" type, and even then. I mean, the Crime Doctor was locked up and sent to jail in his last appearance, which is generally code for "will be a returning villain", and yet here he is, dying. And we know it's a real death because it's all dramatically appropriate and such.
And speaking of drama, wow is this story all over the place with it in just twelve pages! It has the kind of noirish feel that the best Bill Finger dramas do, evoking both the Warner crime dramas of the period and also previsioning the tone of some of the best stories of the seminal 90s Batman animated series. It's really unique and well done and definitely my favourite story in this issue.
The Art: Robinson and Kane bring the dark drama in this one. Noirish shadows, dramatic poses, expressive lighting, it's really all quite well done, starting with the amazing splash page which draws you to Thorne's crazed eyes. Many panels are mostly darkness, with a hint of a figure. It's really cool and well done in the dramatic moments, even if the panels of Batman driving around figuring out what noises he was hearing are super bland filler.
The Story: Finger was obviously fascinated by the duality of the Crime Doctor character. Like Two-Face before him, the Crime Doctor is a villain who is not fully evil. He has compulsion to do evil, as explored in his last story, but he also feels compelled to do good, as we see here. Ultimately, evil wins out and so Thorne pays the ultimate price in dramatic terms. Yet in death his soul is reconciled, no longer tormented by his split moral code. It's interesting and deep stuff for a 1943 comic for children, and the examination of Thorne's character is what makes this top notch stuff, not the ins and outs of the robberies.
Notes and Trivia: The death of the Crime Doctor.
P.S. - If you're wondering where I've been since August, I've mostly just been very busy with work - both film/television work and otherwise, but in terms of reading comics I sucked myself into reading all of Jack Kirby's work and from September til now made it from his earliest Golden Age work on Blue Bolt through to now being fifteen issues in to Fantastic Four. Considered blogging about it, but that would've slowed down the progress immensely and besides the internet doesn't need me to tell it Jack Kirby was the King.
"The Crime Clinic"
Writer: Bill Finger
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: George Roussos
Synopsis: Brilliant, fashionable, rich person's surgeon Matthew Thorne leads a double life - he secretly operates a "crime clinic" where instead of examining patients and prescribing medication he examines criminal plans and prescribes methods for carrying them out! Of course, "secretly" is a relative word, since he gets the word out about his services through advertising to the crooks - and also insists he take their fingerprints on file to ensure they aren't cops, which... just... I mean, that's where I'd just walk out if I was a Gotham gangster -- but no one thinks to ask "How do I know you're not a cop, Doc?"
Anyways, Thorne gets a 25% cut of the loot as a consulting fee, and a 50% operating fee if he has to come out on the job himself (where he wears full surgical gear for reasons that kinda make sense, but are mostly because he's a Classic Batman Theme Villain).
However, on one particular evening when the doctor is operating on a rubber warehouse (rubber being a valued commodity during wartime), the operation is spotted by the Batman and Robin! And so we get a standard pun and props filled fight scene in the rubber warehouse, which apparently contains only manufactured rubber toys instead of any kind of valuable base rubber. While the crooks get the drop on the heroes, Thorne refuses to allow them to kill the Dynamic Duo, because as a Doctor he is sworn to "do no harm" after all. The Doctor escapes, but not before Batman manages to place a "tiny, low power, short wave transmitter" that they can trace with the Batmobile's "direction finder" -- which I believe makes this the first use of a "Bat-tracer", unless I am mistaken.
They follow the Crime Doctor to Matthew Thorne's office and thus realize his true identity. Bursting into his office, we get a fight filled with medical props, including a cool panel where Batman grapples with Thorne behind an x-ray screen. Then Thorne pulls a gun on Batman, because he's decided now that he'll kill if he's forced to.
But it doesn't come to that, because one of Thorne's legitimate patients bursts into the room with acute appendicitis! He has to be operated on now! So Thorne enlists the help of Batman in an impromtu surgery, saving the man's life!
After the patient has left, Batman questions the exhausted Thorne -- why does a brilliant surgeon turn to crime? And, if a criminal, why bother to save a man's life instead of using the opportunity to escape? Thorne explains that while he is a doctor and dedicated to saving men, he can't help but enjoy acting criminally. It's a compulsion, he cannot help himself. In light of this admission of madness, Batman declares Thorne his strangest foe!
Then Thorne throws ether in Robin's face and ties up the heroes with rubber hoses. Thorne tells Batman he can't help how he acts, and gives the clue that he's off to look for the Philosopher's Stone. Batman uses the Doc's discarded cigarette and ether bottle to make a flame to heat up the rubber hoses and thus cause them to expand and allow him and Robin to escape.
Batman explains that the Philosopher's Stone was an old myth of a substance that could turn base metals into gold, and so Thorne must be going after a physics professor who has a formula with which Thorne believes he can use an atom smasher to change the atomic order of objects to make gold!
So Thorne steals the formula and heads off to the Great Eastington Atom Smasher, with Batman and Robin hot on his heels. Now, for translation from nineteen-fortiesese, an atom smasher is a particle accelerator, and Finger is probably referencing the cyclotrons and calutrons that were being built to produce materials for the Manhatten Project, not that Finger would know that or what they were for beyond a vague knowledge of the basics of popular understanding of atomic science.
Kane and Roussos also demonstrate that they have no idea what an atom smasher looks like, or else didn't care, drawing it as a comically large metal balloon-like structure protruding out the top of a small little box-like building, with some stairs and ladders nonsensically going up the side to the top (why would anyone need to go up there?)
Once inside the building, we can see that the visual inspiration is the Crockcroft-Walton generators used in nuclear disintegration, but we don't spend much time inside as soon the characters are chasing on those ladders going up the outside of the building to the top, and it's clear that the whole purpose of this was to enable the characters to battle dramatically in a high place.
Thorne announces his intention to commit his first murder and kill the Batman, but Batman punches him off the top of the atom smasher and Thorne falls into the convenient river just below the drop. Showing more foresight than he ever has before in this situation, Batman dives into the river to ensure Thorne's capture and so the Crime Doctor is arrested (but is promised a return in Batman #18!)
~~~~
My Thoughts: The Crime Doctor is a Batman villain who has lasted through to the modern day, but still never managed to become anything more than a footnote character. His lasting claim to notoriety happened when he was retconned into being the brother of the much newer but more popular gangster character Rupert Thorne.
In modern interpretations Matthew Thorne is usually depicted one of two ways - either as a psychotic mudererous surgeon, the medical serial killer gruesomely doing away with his patients; or as a "crime doctor" in the more common sense of the term, which is a corrupt doctor who works for criminals to patch them up from wounds since they obviously cannot go to hospitals. It is in this second sense that he is usually connected to his mobster brother Rupert.
However Finger chooses neither of these, and in terms of actions he makes the Crime Doctor fairly standard -- what makes the story special is the way Thorne is depicted in terms of characterization. The Crime Doctor feels like a true member of the Rogues Gallery not just because he's a "theme" villain, but because of the unique focus Finger gives on his psychology. This focus is what has defined, and continues to define, the best of Batman's villains.
The Art: So the way things normally work is Kane does some flat, undefined pencils and then Roussos or Robinson comes in and give definition and texture to Kane's characters with inks and copious shadows. In this case, I feel like Roussos almost goes overboard. There are some really great dramatic panels and great noir-esque "lighting" but it really does go too far in some panels where Roussos has just drown the characters in ink to the point where I feel like he's just covering up Kane's flat art more than trying on purpose to be dramatic. That being said, several of the panels are very dynamic and cool looking, even if the design of the atom smasher building for the climax does look patently ridiculous.
The Story: In all honesty, the story in this issue is perfunctory. The whole idea of the Crime Doctor as a consulting criminal devising plots for lesser gangsters for a fee is one that has already been used with The Joker and The Penguin in the past and even goes back to Professor Moriarty. The plot with the Atom Smasher comes out of nowhere and doesn't seem motivated at all with what Thorne had been doing. No, what makes this issue golden is that none of this matters -- the jewel of the story is the centre section where Thorne's psychology is examined. The idea that he is compelled, that he can't help himself, that he simply feels good committing crimes, that it excites him, but that otherwise he's a moral, brilliant surgeon. Only even that goes down the drain -- we actually see Thorne's psychological unravelling over the course of the story, the way that his criminal impulses corrupt him: At the start of the tale he refuses to kill, midway through he'll kill if he needs to, and by the end he's blatantly murderous. It's a great series of subtle character details that give Thorne an arc, and show that Finger really put some effort into the characterization and psychology of his villains above and beyond the norm for Golden Age storytelling. The last time he was this good, however, was probably the Two-Face two-parter.
Notes and Trivia: First appearance of Matthew Thorne, the Crime Doctor and first appearance of Bat-tracers.
An interesting cover here, with the different characters featured drawn by different artists rather than one unified penciller. Superman is by Fred Ray the Boy Commandos by Joe Simon, Green Arrow and the Star Spangled Kid are by Hal Sherman, and Batman and Robin are by an artist we will be seeing a lot more of in the future... the legendary Dick Sprang!
Sprang's art has yet to appear in this feature, for a variety of reasons, but once it does it's gonna change the whole ballgame.
"The Man With the Camera Eyes"
Writer: Bill Finger
Pencils: Jerry Robinson
Inks: George Roussos
Synopsis: Oliver Hunt is a man with a photographic memory (an eidetiker, which is something that probably doesn't exist). He works a vaudeville routine called "The Man with the Camera Eyes" where audience members pick a letter from the phone book and Hunt recites it all from memory (although how would they know his accuracy?)
Bruce and Dick are at the show, and Dick thinks the whole thing must be a fake. Bruce, however, vouches for Hunt's legitimacy, as he's been famous for his memory since he was a boy. Hunt instantly memorizes anything he reads, and scientists verified his abilities. Bruce claims Hunt left college with "every possible kind of degree", which shows a) a vast misunderstanding of how long it takes to get a degree, fantastic memory or no and b) the common misunderstanding of memorization of facts as being intelligence - just because Hunt can memorize a book doesn't necessarily means he can understand it. Either way, it does beg the question as to what the man is doing in a vaudeville show when he should be able to make a better living doing, like, anything else.
And it just so happens that the gangster Dude Fay (which is just might be the gayest name for a gangster possible in the 1940s) has realized this as well, and offers Hunt a job working for him. Hunt himself wishes to devote himself to psychological research, but can't afford it with the money from his vaudeville shows (again, if he has all of the degrees why can't he work for a university?).
Anyways, Hunt is confused as to what use he'd be to criminals when his only skill is remembering things, but it turns out that Fay has hit on the brilliant idea of the value of intellectual property theft fifty-six years before Sean Parker ever did.
So Fay's gang creates distractions and heists that allow Hunt to do things like get into the record rooms of music publishers and memorize the sheets for hit songs before they are recorded, then sell them to rival publishers. And there's no way to prove any theft because the "loot" is all in Hunt's mind. Soon the gang is "stealing" prosecutor's records and book manuscripts, making a killing selling them to the competitions.
So of course one day Bruce and Dick happen to see the "Man with the Camera Eyes" coming out of a publisher's office and Bruce realizes that the connection in the recent rash of crimes is that what was stolen was ideas and then they see Hunt get into a car with Dude Fay's men and so on the next page we find Batman and Robin have swung into action and followed Dude's men to their hideout at a... carpenter's workshop? Huh. Guess all the good hideouts were taken.
Anyways, fight scene time, but a page and a half later the crooks have gotten away, however the Dynamic Duo knows the name of their next target - a patent attorney named Arthur Medwick.
Sure enough the gang is at the patent office with Hunt memorizing blueprints for patents currently under review. Batman and Robin swoop in and try to reason with Hunt about how what he's doing is wrong and that stealing ideas violates individual rights and is the same if not worse than stealing property but Hunt takes them about as seriously as the average user of PirateBay. So Batman punches Hunt in the face and the heroes take him captive in the Batplane. Does anyone reading along not see where this is going?
So Hunt Vulcan Neck Pinches the Dynamic Duo (because he read an anatomy book once) then lands the Batplane and memorizes it's every detail of design (he read an aeronautics book once).
Returning to his criminal cohorts, Hunt gives them the plans to build their own Batplane, explaining that he did not kill the heroes because despite all the intellectual property theft he's still firmly against violence. Once the plane is built, the crooks are off to steal dress designs from Henri Longvieux (props to Finger for the faux-French name there).
What Hunt doesn't know is that Dude has made one alteration to the Batplane's design -- the addition of mounted machine guns to blast the real Batplane out of the sky when it comes after them. The crooks intentionally set off the burglar alarm to draw Batman and Robin into the trap, and soon the two Batplanes are engaged in an epic dogfight over Gotham!
In a somewhat confusing panel layout, the OG Batplane realises a smokescreen but the Faux-Batplane scores a few hits. Batman dives intentionally to trick the crooks into thinking they've finished them off, then pulls up and follows them to their next target.
It's a government weather station and Dude wants Hunt to memorize government weather reports so he can sell them to enemy U-boat commanders. Hunt refuses to participate in treason, and runs off when the Batman and Robin burst in and start pun-fighting the villains. They try to escape but Hunt has cut the feed line and set fire to the gas. Dude shoots Hunt and leaves him in the plane to die, but Batman rescues him just as it explodes.
Hunt believes he can never make up for his crimes against his country, but Batman offers him a chance at redemption by joining Military Intelligence! Yes, apparently a masked vigilante's word is good enough reference for Uncle Sam, and soon Hunt is helping the war effort stealing Nazi secrets!
~~~~
My Thoughts: Pretty clearly this another story from Bill Finger's Fact Files - which is to say that Finger probably read an article somewhere about photographic memory and figured it would make a unique ability for a villain. Finger was right, and the idea of stealing intellectual property rather than just jewels or money gives the story a unique flavour that is quite refereshing. Of course, while popular science and pop culture love discussing photographic memories and the possession of one is often an attribute of brilliant fictional detectives on TV, actual science posesses very minimal evidence that such a thing even exists.
The Art: Decent stuff from Robinson and Roussos this ish, with good facial caricatures on the various characters, but the standout sequence in terms of penmanship is the one-page dogfight between the Batplanes, which is gloriously dark and moody and atmospheric -- unfortunately it's just a chore to read because the panel layouts are hard to follow -- any time you're reading a Golden Age comic and the panels have to be numbered and feature arrows to guide you, the penciller has just flat-out failed at his job.
The Story: Despite some leaps of logic and some plot contrivances, I quite liked this one. I liked Hunt's attempt to straddle morality by agreeing to steal IP (since that's not really stealing, right Internet?) but refusing to do violence, murder or treason. It's great because the idea that intellectual property theft isn't a real crime and doesn't hurt anyone is one that has continued to this day and spread quite a bit, there are so many people who believe it's their right to steal from artists and creators because, after all, they're rich enough already right? However Hunt finds out that corruption is absolute - he can't just "sort've" be evil, once you've corrupted some principles you've corrupted them all, theft is theft and you can't just ignore the consequences of it. The redemption ending is predictable but still well done, and I liked it better than Hunt just simply dying to save Batman.
"Crime of the Month"
Writer: Bill Finger
Pencils: Jerry Robinson
Inks: George Roussos
Synopsis: The top crime bosses in Gotham are all invited to a "literary tea" at Mystery Castle, the home of best-selling crime novelist Bramwell B. Bramwell (wanna bet the middle initial stands for Bramwell?). For some reason despite being experienced criminals they all decide to go (I wonder myself how Bramwell got their addresses).
Arriving at Bramwell's Castle (I bet Stephen King wishes he lived in a Castle) Bramwell explains that for years he's been writing crime novels in which criminals outwit the police and he thinks he's so good at it that he himself can commit crimes with impunity. The criminals (rightfully) laugh at him, but Bramwell proposes a contest -- whomever can pull off the "smoothest" theft shall be declared the Crime of the Month, and win the loot from all the jobs!
For some reason the crooks agree to go along with this instead of just shooting Bramwell or walking away laughing, and so Gotham experiences a new spree of overly elaborate robberies (such as a gang that robs a bank under the guise of exterminators dealing with a rat problem -- that they caused!). Somehow Bruce, by listening to accounts of the thefts on the radio, deduces the entire "Crime of the Month" contest and which gangs are involved and thus that they must follow "Slim" Ryan's gang next.
In the Batplane, they tail the gang to a wooden bridge where the gang is setting up dynamite to blow the bridge and capture an amored car. Batman and Robin foil the attempt, butt Ryan escapes. Batman follows Ryan's car in the Batplane and leaves Robin to turn the rest of the gang to the police.
Of course Ryan drives back to Bramwell's castle and so Batman enters in, deducing that Bramwell is "obviously connected with the Crime of the Month in some way!" But Bramwell immediately drops Batman into a fiendish deathtrap (because of course the best-selling author's castle has built-in deathtraps). Batman is locked in a sealed room with an induction furnace, which melts his utility belt and it's gadgets -- luckily Batman has no metal fillings in his teeth or "they'd heat up to 3000 degrees and cook my brain!" I admit this is so far one of the most impressive death-traps I've seen.
Robin figures Batman must be in trouble because he hasn't checked in on the radio, and drives to Bramwell's castle in the Batmobile -- only to be immediately locked in his own death trap room where a dynamo is building up a ten million volt charge in a metal rod which will eventually strike Robin with a bolt of artificial lightning!
Batman has no way out of the furnace room, where he will slowly suffocate, until he pulls a suction cup out of his utility belt (wait - I thought the belt and it's gadgets melted??) and uses that to pull the door open. He hears Robin's cries for help and saves him by smashing the dynamo.
Bramwell escapes, but not before gloating that his Crime of the Month will be the "social event of the year" and involve the "most tedious movie ever made!"
So of course from those two vague phrases Batman figures out that Bramwell is planning to rob a War Relief Drive being put on by high society by hypnotizing the audience with an experimental hypnosis film (which honestly just looks like the kind of Stan Brakhage/Andy Warhol/Michael Snow films I had to watch in my Bachelor's program).
Just before Bramwell robs the transfixed audience, Batman switches the film with some Batman & Robin newsreel footage which snaps the audience out of it because that shit is dope and then captures Bramwell in between panels because we've only got three of them left.
Turns out Batman had read the phrase "most tedious movie ever made" in a book of Bramwell's where a crook pulled off this exact same crime and figured the author was just egotistical enough to plagiarize himself.
In jail, the crooks tease Bramwell by remarking that he ought to be used to pens.
~~~~
My Thoughts: There's not much to say about this story except that I really like the deathtraps. They're very clever and deadly and a cut above what we've seen so far in the strip. Too bad Batman gets out of his through bad writing.
The Art: It's an interesting combo. Robinson's style shines through here, with his superior grasp of anatomy and slightly more realistic style than Kane's simplistic cartooning, but unlike in Detective #74 he's got Roussos inking him, which settles his linework down a bit and stabilizes things to look less "sketchy" and the faces look more on-model with Kane's style. It's still good art though, even if he can't decide from panel to panel whether Bramwell has glasses or not.
The Story: Safe to say I've missed Bill Finger -- we haven't seen a script of his since Detective #71 instead Don Cameron seems to have taken over the lion's share of Batman writing. Finger's story for this issue is very simplistic -- it follows his formula of coming up with a simple gimmick and then using that mostly as a wraparound springboard for over-the-top action scenes and setpieces. That being said, at least this time he sticks with the gimmick all the way through to the end, and man does he do deathtraps and action better than anyone else writing this book. I mean it's really fantastic the imagination he applies to this stuff. Unfortunately, Batman gets out of the trap by Finger just conveniently forgetting the melted utility belt from a couple of pages ago -- which I have to blame Whitney Ellsworth for as well since an editor's job is to catch shit like that. A bad point in an otherwise good story.
"Crime a Day!"
Writer: Bill Finger
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: Batman has agreed to give a daily series of lectures about crime fighting for the USO, and so come Monday crowds of Gothamites show up to watch Batman's lecture (can you imagine modern-day Batman doing something like this?).
Batman's opening lecture addresses the concept of clues, and he points out that the Joker is often undone by his egotism where he intentionally leaves clues daring Batman to stop him and these are often his undoing.
Batman's remarks hit the newspapers which are soon calling Joker an egotistical fool -- there's even an editorial cartoon lampooning him!
Well, of course, openly mocking the psychopathic muderous clown in your city is a good way to get a response, and so Joker crashes Batman's next lecture with some of those clues he's going on about: "Take a Bow - Sow the Seeds - Shed a Tear - Reap the Harvest". Joker plans to commit crimes based on clues Batman can't possibly figure in order to shame him into quitting. He'll commit a crime a day to match Batman's lecture a day.
Batman realizes that the "Harvest" refers to a painting of that name by a famous artist that's being displayed at a new art exhibit. The Dynamic Duo race over there, but Joker and his men are already there -- spraying the crowds with pepper spray while they make off with the goods (oh, and Joker takes a bow before doing so, so that all the clues work).
Joker and his men make off with the painting in an oil truck and while the Batmobile is in hot pursuit they easily shake it by pouring oil all over it and then lighting it on fire! Joker escapes whlie Batman has to ram the Batmobile into a fire hydrant to save Robin and himself (the car is wrecked, though).
Joker's daily crimes continue and he continues to make a fool out of Batman, until it is the Dark Knight who finds himself the subject of an editorial cartoon. At his lecture, he is hammered with questions about his inability to catch the Joker. The pressure is such that Batman actually does consider quitting crime fighting, until Robin sets him straight and restores his self-confidence.
Joker airdrops his newest clues on the Dynamic Duo: "Kill the Motor - Hang the Jury - Take the Rap". Batman and Robin think it must refer to a court or a trial at first until they realize that "rap" could also mean "wrap" (what) meaning a woman's wrap garment, meaning the beauty contest being judged tonight for which the prize is a fur wrap worth $15,000! (Almost $200,000 today!) This month's apophenia concluded, they race to the contest, where Joker has trapped the contest's jury in the elevator for which he has cut the power (hence the first two clues).
Our heroes save the jury, and Batman manages to catch up to Joker and capture him this time -- at his next lecture he displays Joker live in a cage and mocks him on stage (which seems like a questionable decision) and our story ends with a final editorial cartoon mocking the Joker.
~~~~
My Thoughts: We've really moved quickly from "Batman, Dark Avenger of the Night" into stories that would feel totally at home on the Adam West TV show, haven't we? Once again we have a Joker story that emphasizes that the Clown Prince of Crime is more into testing Batman than any kind of actual gain from his criminal exploits. The interesting thing about this issue is the way it frames their battles not as a private feud but as something that the whole city is an audience for, which makes sense. We only get rare hints occasionally in these Golden Age stories of how the average citizen reacts to Batman or his rogues, so this kind of story is fun for the new perspective it gives on our characters -- even if the idea of a publicly famous Batman who gives lectures for USO benefits is pretty unthinkable in a modern context.
The Art: Jerry Robinson is clearly doing a majority of the work here, contributing a lot of detail and dimension in his inks over Kane's rough pencils -- it appears to me that Kane is mostly doing figures, faces, and layouts while Robinson is fleshing them out. However the story also has a lot of really great black shadows and somehow the art all pulls together to give the story, ridiculous on the surface, an effective urban thriller feel that gives it the grandiosity of a classic Batman/Joker tale from this era. The mock editorial cartoons are also really well done and in a convincing imitation of the common style.
The Story: Bill Finger's scripts often meander, introducing an initial gimmick before quickly forgetting it in favour of big setpieces, but this story stays on track by keeping anchored to the crime/lecture a day, clues and editorial cartoons. Joker's clues are actually pretty clever this time around and the crimes and chases interesting and new -- by coming up with this exciting variations Finger avoids the feeling of repetition one sometimes gets when reading these stories one after another. The sight of the flaming Batmobile crashing into a fire hydrant is pretty amazing.
Notes and Trivia: Another Batmobile destroyed.
This wartime cover by Jerry Robinson is neat, but the sight of Batman and Robin parachuting into a combat zone does make me really wonder.... why the hell hasn't Bruce Wayne been serving in the war? Were rich people exempt? Guess he was just lucky enough not to be drafted, and didn't volunteer because he's... not patriotic? Devoted to his war on crime? It must be that second one.
"The Batman Plays a Lone Hand!"
Writer: Bill Finger
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson and George Roussos
Synopsis: Dick comes home to find Bruce packing his suitcase. Are they going on a trip? No! Dick is leaving, because from now on, Batman works alone! Bruce has finally realized what we've all been screaming at him, which is that having a kid sidekick is reckless child endangerment. Now, firing Dick from being Robin is one thing, but flat out kicking Dick out of the house and on to the streets (which is what is happening) is not just a dick move, it's also kind of cold and evil. Am I suddenly reading a 1990s comic?
Dick tries to point out all the times he's saved Batman from certain death at the hands of their enemies, but it's no use. Bruce is alone, and Dick is out on the streets, living under a bridge with hobos (holy shit this is dark, what the fuck Bruce?). Then, in the night's sky -- the Bat Signal! Dick almost springs into action before remembering he's not Robin anymore, and then sees Batman swing into action overhead.... with another Robin!! It's all clear now -- he got rid of Dick not to protect his safety, but because he'd found a new kid he likes better!
Heartbroken, Dick sells his two-way radio to a pawn shop for eight bucks, enough money to live off of until he gets himself a job in his new Dickensian lifestyle (eight bucks being about $100 in today's money).
Now the story flashes back an hour to show us the call from Commissioner Gordon that the Batman answered. "The Thumb" and his mob have tried murder Mayor Not-LaGuardia, and while unsuccessful they were able to escape. The Batman swings after their car, the new Robin close behind him -- but "The Thumb" (he's just a gangster who wants the city under his) fires at the boy with his tommy gun and kills him!
The Batman jumps down to attack the crooks, but they manage to get away. Luckily, they didn't murder anyone -- Batman's been carrying a mannequin dummy Robin around behind him as a decoy to draw the crook's fire. Which, when you think about it, if that's his main use for Robin... you're really fucked up, Bruce, y'know that?
The gangsters realize they need to kill Batman before they can do anything else (duh) -- so they place a clever trap for him: a notice in the newspaper saying to meet them at a certain address (oy). Batman decides to go anyway (really Bruce?) but in disguise as a door-to-door sweeper guy (were those a thing?) he's able to get a foot in the door before unleashing the typical Dark Knight can of whoopass on the gangsters. Somehow, despite just being a bunch of goons, they manage to overpower the Batman (Batman's Strength Level in a Comic - Act 1: Awesome, Act 2: Weakling, Act 3: OP as Fuck -- look it up, kids) and imprison him Cask of Amontillado style in the basement to die slowly of starvation and suffocation.
Which is when Batman decides to use his two-way radio to call the kid sidekick he threw away like a bad pair of socks, and the message comes through to the pawn shop owner. For a minute I hoped the pawn shop owner would step up, but he finds the message annoying and shuts off the radio. D'oh!
But luckily, Thumb and his boys go to dinner at a restaurant where Dick has been working as a dishwasher, and the kid overhears them gloat about offing Batman and thus springs to action. He changes into his Robin costume that he's been apparently wearing under the same outfit he's been wearing the last two days, and busts in to save the Batman.
After all the gangsters have been thoroughly K.O.'d, Robin heads off into the night again, since the Batman doesn't need him. But, he does! Turns out Thumb had threatened to kill Robin in order to keep Batman from interfering (a dumb threat), so Batman pushed Robin out of the team and had Thumb think he was killing Robin when he just shot a dummy, in order to keep Robin safe. And he didn't tell Robin and of this and was a huge dick to him because he knew that if Robin was in on things, he'd insist on being involved anyway (which is true, he totally would) and thus this was all an elaborate emotional manipulation so that Batman could beat up crooks without worrying about Robin (which doesn't negate the point that he always has to worry about Robin because he's a little kid and taking him into firefights is ridiculous).
~~~~
My Thoughts: So for a while I thought I was reading a late 90s/early 00s "Asshole Batman" story, with how manipulative Bruce is here. So, if y'all thought that Bruce being a total dick who doesn't trust anyone and will totally play with the emotions of his friends in order to get what he wants in his war on crime was something that started in the post Frank Miller world -- think again, cuz he's a total dick to Robin here, which is made worse by the fact that Robin is like between eight and ten years old here and their relationship has been totally buddy-buddy so far.
This story also introduces what is going to become a very familiar trope, especially as we head into the Silver Age, which is the "break-up" of the Batman/Robin team, which always turns out to be a fakeout -- it's almost always what we see here, with Batman tricking Robin, although sometimes Robin fools Batman and sometimes they're both fooling the villains, but it's always completely bullshit designed to fool the reader most of all.... except for when it isn't.
The Art: Good stuff here from the Kane Studio. Having George Roussos back to help Jerry Robinson means that essentially Kane's linework gets double the amount of detail as usual and returns to a very good level of quality. There's not a lot of Roussos normal shadow background, leaving the story with a lighter, more colourful feel, but character faces and expressions are very well done.
The Story: This is pretty lackluster, I must admit. Batman's just a total ass to Robin at the start of the story, and then acts surprised that Robin is leaving at the very end. And really, it's because a gangster threatened him that he decided to lie to his best friend? You guys are heroes, you face this shit head on. Batman wouldn't have a second thought about fighting a two-bit hood with Robin if he hadn't recieved that threat -- I mean, c'mon, they following mass serial killer The Joker all around America, and fought monsters and witches and all kinds of horrifically dangerous crazy shit. So really, The Thumb is too dangerous for Robin to come along on?
Notes and Trivia: First "break-up" of the Batman and Robin team.
"Comedy of Tears!"
Writer: Jack Schiff
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson and George Roussos
Synopsis: The Joker is loose again, and this time he wants Gothamites to see a different side of him. So he sends his goons out to run a serious marketing campaign promoting himself as the world's greatest tragedian as well as comedian, because "Tragedy is but the other face of Comedy". Yes, the Joker's new goal is to make people cry, and his first target is a little boy named John Blake whose straight-A report card the Joker steals - his first victory in making people cry! Yes, Joker steals a kid's report card, a scene which was later adapted into a colouring book page in the 1960s from whence it became a popular internet meme (not to mention the apparent source of Joseph Gordon Levitt's character name in Dark Knight Rises!)
The Joker also steals a petition to remove the city's park commissioner -- the gathering of which would've earned old Joe Brady his first honest paycheck in a year! Next he steals the reference letters a young chauffeur needs to get a job with the wealthy Mr. Van Gild!
Joker's crimes succeeded in making people cry, but Batman is convinced there is something more to the scheme than just random mischief, and hurries to Commissioner Gordon's office to try and foil him in time!
Turns out, Joker wanted the documents for the signatures on them -- the report card, the petition and the references are all signed by some of Gotham's finest and wealthiest citizens! J.P. Blake's forged signature gets them a pass onto the lot of Colossal Studios, where a "gala crowd has gathered to celebrate the filming of the final scenes of a great epic" which may be the most unlikely thing ever to have happened in a Batman comics -- from the idea of a movie studio lot on the East Coast to the idea that they'd let rich people in opera clothes gather around the shooting of complex, key sequences.
While Joker's men loot the star's dressing rooms, Batman is still in Gordon's office explaining the scheme, when an officer bursts in to report Joker's hold-up (even with Batman on the team, the GCPD is still the world's most bumbling police force). On the movie set (which appears to be a big boat or something?), Joker's men collects everyone's valuables in a big potato sack when Batman and Robin swing in and start fighting people while spouting movie-appropriate puns and wisecracks.
The fight ends up with Joker and Batman battling on top of a Tower set, and Batman dangling over the edge -- Joker threatens Batman's life unless Robin gives him the sack of jewels, and Robin almost does it, but Batman lets go of the precipice to fall to his death rather than allow Joker the victory (after all "those are not our jewels to bargain with!") Robin is shocked, Joker, escapes, but of course Batman is fine because it's a movie set and there are safety nets and shit!
The Joker's next scheme is to have a notorious criminal pardoned from the electric chair at the last minute by forging the governor's signature! The crooks get away with their fugitive, but the Batmobile is hot on their trail thanks to a clue (a newspaper clipping) one of Joker's men accidentally left behind at the movie set. So they follow them to the exclusive Surf... Beach... Club... where they chase continues on... sand sailboats... Even Batman remarks that of all his chases with the Joker, this one is certainly unique. Anyways, the boats end up crashing into the water, Batman comes up for air, Joker doesn't, is he dead or isn't he, standard Joker story ending.
Except... the story keeps going! Predictably, Joker is still alive, as the Dynamic Duo discovers when he pulls another series of jobs -- getting into rich people's homes using forged servant's references! So Batman decides to bait a trap for Joker with a news story of a "champion autograph hunter" collecting famous autographs of people in Gotham City, whom the Joker will be unable to resist stealing from. This person is of course Robin in "disguise", ie. wandering around looking exactly like millionaire Bruce Wayne's ward Dick Grayson but for plot reasons no one recognizes him as such. He collects signatures from famous real NYC personages Joe DiMaggio, Jerry Siegel (acknowledged as the creator of Superman - so the Man of Steel is a fictional character in the Batman universe at this point), and finally a signature from some guy named Mr. Bigby, and since he's the only fictional one, we know who Joker is gonna rob.
Because it's a trap, Batman and Robin are there to fight Joker and his men, but during the fight Joker manages to nab Robin and threatens to stab him with a pair of scissors (?) unless Batman lets him go and Bigby gives him $100,000 (over a million in today's money). Batman gives his word Bigby will pay, Joker lets Robin go and Batman hands Joker the money in an envelope (and for some reason lets him go). When he gets back to his hideout, Joker finds that the money is in fact a certified check in his name ("The Joker") and that he'd never be able to go to a bank to cash it without being arrested!
Batman and Robin have a good laugh at Joker's expense.
~~~~
My Thoughts: If I were to draw the dividing line anywhere, I think now would be the place to put up the definitive "The Joker is no longer dangerous" sign. His plan here is basically mischief and thievery, and he's so harmless that Batman doesn't even put him in jail at the end -- just knowing he's pulled a fast one on him is victory enough. It's just about the game, the scheme and the gimmicks now. What'll make a story memorable from here on out is how clever the plot can be.
The Art: Serviceable stuff from the Kane Studio -- facial caricatures are really good for Joker, our heroes, and some of the celebrity cameos and the action/chase stuff is well done -- but backgrounds and other details are often lacking and the sense of geography and physical space is usually neglected.
The Story: There's a lot of fun stuff in here, in general it's an enjoyable read, but I gotta knock Schiff down a peg here for his story's structure. I mean, it follows what is growing to be a Joker formula -- bizarre minor crimes at the start that actually presage a larger more elaborate crime, interspersed with chase and action scenes -- but this formula can be abused and mishandled and it totally is here. The story is called "Comedy of Tears" but ultimately Joker's "make 'em cry" campaign lasts about two pages and the majority of what he is doing is based around signatures and autographs. And ultimately the structure we get is a bunch of minor crimes, leading to two bigger crimes with action/chase scenes, and then a whole other third act section based on the bait and switch. It leaves everything feeling very disjointed and randomized, like Schiff's just throwing in ideas from the pile and struggling to fit them into the story. He does a good sleight of hand to make it all seem coherent, but it could have been much stronger.
Notes and Trivia: First appearance of John Blake!
"The Story of the Seventeen Stones"
Writer: Bill Finger
Artist: Jack Burnley
Synopsis: Okay, so this convict named Rocky Grimes is set free after twenty years hammering rocks (1) in the slammer. He's claimed innocence all this time, in fact he's claimed he can't remember anything of his life before prison, but it was the 20s so they locked him up anyway. Now he's out, but when he's hit on the head by a loose cobblestone (2) kicked up by a passing car (did shit like that ever actually happen?) his memory comes back to him in a flood.
Turns out he totally was a bigshot crook, but when his gang held up a bank and he shot a guard, he was dumb enough to blab his name to everyone in earshot. His gang is worried about being caught, but Rocky tells them if they squeal on him, he'll squeal on them. They get pissed and one of them hurls a stone from a fireplace (3) at his head, which knocks him out and gives him amnesia. They drop him at a police station, he takes the fall for the crime since all the prints match up and shit, and they give him 20 years instead of the chair because of his mental deficiency.
Now that his memory is back, Rocky thinks that since he spent twenty years pounding stones, twenty years bookended by getting hit in the head with a stone, he should get revenge on all the members of his gang -- with STONES AS HIS SYMBOL! Hooray for trademark Gotham criminal themed insanity!
First up, Lefty Slade, who waits to meet someone for a tip on a job under a stone archway -- but when a wire pulls the keystone (4) out, the whole thing collapses on him and he dies. The keystone bears the words "I finally remembered" etched into it.
Fin Gonzy is now a loanshark, and so Rocky goes in disguise to his shop to try and pawn a gold watch. Fin begins to use a touchstone (5) to test the purity of the gold, when Rocky throws off his disguise and stabs Fin to death with the touchstone, now also bearing the legend "I finally remembered."
The next day, Mayor Not-LaGuardia has invited Batman and Robin to help dedicate building of the new orphanage designed by famed convict-turned-architect Mason (*groan*). As the cornerstone (6) is being placed, the cable holding it from the crane breaks loose and Batman is barely able to push Mason out of the way in time! The cornerstone reads... "I finally remembered."
Robin spots Rocky getting away and they follow him down to the waterfront -- however Rocky loses them when he spills oil on the water and lights it aflame, leaving the Dynamic Duo unable to pursue. Batman realizes the killings are all connected by stones (ah, ya think?) and Robin figures if they look up the records of the victims, they may find what connects all of them.
So our heroes head to police headquarters only to be told by Gordon that a masked man walked in, threatened the cops with a tommy gun, and then burned some files from the criminal records! GCPD, you are truly the worst.
However, Batman announces he can still read the info off the charred cards using SCIENCE! He sprays the cards with a chemical dye, then takes an infrared photo of the cards, and the result is a black image where the paper absorbed the dye, and white writing because the ink did not, thus restoring the information on the cards! Holy forensics, Batman! I have no idea if this actually works but it's a really cool scene anyway for establishing Batman's scientific knowledge and giving a nice forensic procedural.
Anyways, the team figure out what we already know, and realize the last two members of the gang are Parks, who went out west to work in the petrified forest, and Brenner who became a diamond-cutter. So of course he's scheduled to cut the "famous Onkers Diamond" at the House of Jewels exhibit tonight!
Meanwhile, Rocky has obtained a heliotrope, or "bloodstone" (7) which he has had cut into the shape of a bullet and the standard message written upon it. He'll use it to shoot Brenner at the exhibition. This being Gotham City, the House of Jewels exhibit is just ridiculously over the top -- including a bejeweled miniature Taj Mahal and a physical rainbow sculpted of gemstones that leads to a gold pot filled with topazes, which is just the most overly extravagant thing I've ever heard of, especially for a major American city during World War II!
Anyways, Brenner is about to cut the diamond (8) when Rocky shows up to shoot him, but is foiled by a swift kick to the face by Robin. A fight with Batman results in a ton of precious stones being dropped to the floor, and the crowd goes wild, giving Rocky a chance to flee.
Chasing after him, we're suddenly at an abandoned old stone quarry, which, okay... sure, it fits the theme. The Dynamic Duo burst into the shack Rocky's hiding it, and run smack into a huge slab of stone (9). Rocky ties Robin up and throws him into the water flooded quarry with a rock (10) tied to him so that he'll have to tread water to stay alive (which he cannot do indefinitely of course). Meanwhile, Rocky has Batman tied to a chair in a room where he is burning sulfur, aka brimstone (11)! So of course he leaves the two to die, unsupervised.
Batman gets free by cutting his bonds against a grindstone (12) that was left behind, and then saves Robin by pulling him up out of the quarry using a boulder (13) as a counterbalance.
They follow Rocky to the petrified forest where he is set to go after Parks (Finger doesn't hesitate to remind us that in a petrified forest the wood has turned to stone), and is about to beat him to death with a piece of petrified wood (14) when Batman and Robin show up.
Batman chases Rocky onto a stone log bridge (15) and the two grapple, when a sudden storm of hailstones (16) comes down, knocking Rocky off the bridge and to his death -- now he lies under a tombstone (17).
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My Thoughts: A decent enough story that straddles the line in it's anatagonist between a normal "gangster" style villain and a more colourful "themed" villain. I mean, if this was a Silver Age story you can bet Rocky would've had a rock themed costume and a silly moniker like "The Stone-Cutter" or something like that, but as it is he's just a (relatively) normal guy in a suit who happens to become obsessed with rocks. It's an interesting middle of the road approach.
The Art: The number one reason to read this story is Jack Burnley's art - the story is basically just a showcase for it. Burnley's rendering of Rocky Grimes and his madness is absolutely superb, with an excellent use of black shadows and dynamic facial expression. The compositions and framing are excellent throughout. Truly, Burnley is a step or two above the Kane Studio in his draftsmanship.
The Story: It's all right. The gimmick of the stones is fun and it's nice to see that it remains consistent throughout, instead of forgotten early on like some of Finger's gimmick based stories. In some ways it's like watching a 1980s slasher movie, with the gimmicky murderer hunting down victims one at a time and killing them in a creative fashion -- only instead of Donald Pleasance our hero is Batman, which makes it infinitely better, really. The best and most chilling aspect of the whole story are the frames of Rocky's dead victims accompanied by the "I finally remembered" stones -- it's a really fantastic image. I also notice the subtle touch that Rocky actually succeeds in killing his victims who are still criminals, while the ones Batman happens to save are all reformed. The story doesn't draw any attention to this, it simply does it, and it's a really good way of maintaining a consistent morality to the Batman stories without making a big deal about it. Story choices like that get a lot of points from me.
"Destination Unknown!"
Writer: Don Cameron
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson and George Roussos
Synopsis: We open in Gotham Central Station as the secretary of Mr. Clayborn boards The Comet, a luxury train travelling non-stop to California. Clyde Clayborn is a collector of oddities, the "Tricky-But-True" man, and is in need of a new oddity for his feature (and if you're scratching your head, realize he's basically a thinly veiled Robert Ripley of Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not, which was near the height of it's popularity at this point). He sends the conductor on a mission to find him one on the train, but the old man insists that nothing interesting ever happens on trains.
Also on the train is a team of doctors accompanying Mr. Fortesque, a man in an iron lung who must get to a California specialist as soon as possible. Then there's John Keyes, an escapee from a California prison who is being sent back to get the death sentence (although he pleads innocence), and Detective Guffey, the overblown police officer who caught him. Finally there's a hobo hitching a ride.
So of course a mysterious shadowy figure knocks out the engineer and sends the train hurtling forward at full throttle. It accelerates from forty up to ninety, whipping through Jamestown and heading towards the dangerous Travers Trestle at a speed so high that it won't be able to make the turn.
News of the wild Comet reaches Gotham, and so Gotham City Police Commissioner decides to light the Bat-Signal and call in Batman and Robin, since they have so much experience in runaway trains 400 miles away from the city...? Turns out Bruce and Dick are out in a rowboat in a park lake when they spot the signal -- they quickly change into their outfits and head to Police HQ, learn of the sitch, and then head out to meet the Comet in the Batplane.
So - wait... the Comet is doing ninety heading out of Jamestown, 405 miles away from "Gotham City", and it takes an hour and a half to get to Police HQ from the Lake on foot, and then forty minutes to get up to Wayne Manor, by which time the Comet is now 600 miles away. Assuming the Batplane travels as fast as the fastest single propeller aircraft of 1942, then it will take the Batplane an hour and forty minutes to catch up to the Comet (by which point it will now be 750 miles away from it's starting position, or 345 miles away from Jamestown when the problem was recognized), and almost FOUR HOURS has past since Gordon first shined the Bat-Signal and in this time NO ONE ON THE TRAIN JUST THOUGHT TO GO TO THE FRONT CABIN AND DECELERATE THE FUCKING TRAIN???
Anyways, as the train approaches the curve of Travers Trestle, the Mysterious Villain prepares to parachute off the train, when Batman lands on top of it. The villain fires at him, but Batman swoops down into the train and pulls the brakes. He deduces the man with the gun and the parachute was the culprit (no shit!) and instructs Robin to meet him at the next station. By the time the Comet pulls into the station Batman is nowhere to be seen -- who sent the train wild and who saved them is a total mystery to everyone aboard.
With the train stopped, the hobo tries to hide among the freights, but is spotted by Batman and instantly suspected since, y'know, he's poor and without a ticket. The hobo pleads innocence and Batman believes him -- but ties him up and sticks him in a baggage car just to be sure of his whereabouts.
And so, with the train stopped, Bruce Wayne buys a ticket and boards the Comet, while Dick Grayson buys a ton of comic books and boards the train. Clayborn's secretary, meanwhile, finds the tied up hobo while she's looking through Clayborn's things, and is persuaded to untie him, not realizing til he's gone that he could have been the attempted train-wrecker.
Dick is trying to sell copies of World's Finest, and when the conductor catches him Bruce offers to pay his fare, so Dick rewards him with a copy of Batman, and WAIT -- why couldn't Bruce just pay his way to begin with? What purpose did the ruse with selling comics serve? And Batman and World's Finest are real comics within the world of Batman??!
Anyways, going from car to car trying to sell comics, Dick finds out that the hobo was untied by Miss Hibbs, Detective Guffey was knocked out and his prisoner is free, and the docs with the iron lung patient are reclusive dicks who won't talk to anyone.
Based on this info, they change into Batman and Robin and immediately investigate the iron lung patient's cabin to find that the docs are gone and he's being pumped full of poison gas instead of oxygen! Batman saves his life and then heads up onto the roof where he finds the two atop the racing train -- and is shot for his troubles! Robin swings onto one of the attackers using a semaphore signal -- but doing so causes the train to switch onto an eastbound track and head straight for another train coming right at them!
Despite having been shot, Batman makes his way to the front of the train and informs the engineer who hits the brakes -- but the track is curved and the other train doesn't see them to know to stop! So Batman rips the bat-logo off the front of his outfit and attaches it to the train's headlight, creating a Bat-Signal in the sky so the other train knows the slow down.
Anyways, get this: Turns out the Docs were never Docs to begin with -- the iron lung contained a dummy -- but they were the guys who committed the murder that Keyes was accused of, and tried to kill him in the iron lung with the gas and wreck the train -- because Keyes had escaped and headed east so that he could find evidence to prove his innocence and they didn't want that evidence getting out in a new trial.
Meanwhile, Miss Hibbs is gonna marry the hobo, who turns out to be Ken Thorne, President of the Railroad, masquerading, and the "Tricky-But-True" man has enough oddities to ensure his radio program's continued success -- while the bored conductor still insists nothing ever happens.
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My Thoughts: I'm not really sure where to place this story, genre-wise. It feels most like a screwball farce, what with the large cast of characters and the fact that nothing really seriously bad happens. It's also one of those Batman stories where Batman is barely in it -- he comes in about a third of the way through and barely does much of anything -- in fact he doesn't even solve the mystery or catch the bad guys! We simply cut from him having saved the train to an epilogue/wrap-up sequence that explains everything!
The Art: Pretty good Kane Studio quality. Most everything is quite well rendered, dramatically framed and lit, and only Batman and Robin look particularly "cardboard flat", probably because they're required to stay on-model with Kane's artstyle while everything else can be more or less redrafted to Robinson and Roussos' content.
The Story: Don Cameron's second script disappoints me. While there's a good number of colourful characters and pulse-pounding events, all of them are pretty cliché and rote from pulp adventures and serials (especially by 1942 standards) and the way it's all put together is really slapdash. For example, the way Batman and Robin are introduced into the story -- why not just have Bruce and Dick be passengers on the train to begin with? And then there's the ending -- another mystery where none of the clues and connections are given to the audience until the denouement, and the wrap-up and explanations themselves are just the final page of the story. All in all it's very messy story construction and leaves it all feeling rushed, disconnected, and sloppy.
The Art: It's Jerry Robinson. This is the good stuff, but Fred Ray's inking makes it even better, just solidifying the work a little more so it looses some of Robinson's loose scratchiness and looks nice and polished. But it's top notch Golden Age Batman, just a joy to be looking at again. The best single panel is on the first page, with Callender shaking his fist in triumph in an utterly classic villain pose. 
