"Destiny's Auction"
Writer: Don Cameron
Artist: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: Judy O'Casson is an aspiring young actress who hopes to break into broadway. She visits a gypsy fortune teller named Madame Calagra who tells her that her name shall be written large for all to see and she will move from humble lodgings to a great palace. Judy thinks this means she's gonna get her big break, but actually it means she's behind on her rent and getting evicted. The landlady won't even let her into the room to get her trunk until she pays what's owed! That's cold.
Tremaine Wentworth is an over-the-hill character actor who visits Madame Calagra and is told that he will take on a new role in which his past will be overshadowed. So Tremaine walks home thinking he's gonna have a big comeback, glad he hung on to his trunk full of momentos of his stardom days, and gets hit by a car and wakes up in hospital without any memory of who he was. Truly, Madame Calagra is from the douchey ironic school of fortune telling.
Diamond Pete Ransome is a diamond thief (don't say?) who visits Calagra and is told that strong fighters will follow him and help him enter a heavily guarded place. Ransome figures this means his hoods will help him break into a jewelry shop and steal some diamonds. The goons are still shook up because they had to kill a night watchman on their last job and haven't even been able to fence the diamonds from it yet because they're too hot, so they're stored in Ransome's hidden trunk. But Ransome's confident because, after all, he got a fortune told by a gypsy
Anyways, turns out the strong fighters who follow him are actually Batman and Robin, and after they beat up him and his mean they help him enter a heavily guarded place, which is to say - jail! So now we've got three people, and three trunks. We can all see where this is going, yeah?
A whole year passes, and Ransome's getting released from prison. Bruce and Dick decide to check up on him and follow him from the prison to see if he leads them to the still missing diamonds from the earlier heist. Ransome drives back to his old digs, but of course his trunk is gone, after being unclaimed for a year it's been turned over to be offered up for public auction!
As it turns out, Judy has just returned to Gotham with the money to buy her trunk back from that landlady - but the landlady has also turned the unclaimed trunk over for auction!
And golly, what a coincedence, but Tremaine Wentworth has undergone an insulin shock treatment that's restored his memory! And he's also got a trunk he needs to get that's up for auction!
Well, I think we can see where this is going.
Judy shows up first and wins the auction on the first trunk, with Wentworth getting the second and Pete the third. Of course, they all get the wrong trunks. Batman and Robin have been following Pete and bust in for a quick fight before it turns out they have Wentworth's trunk full of old costumes and disguises.
Things get hilarious when the Dynamic Duo realizes they have no grounds for arresting or harassing Pete - technically, they're breaking and entering, and Pete purchased the trunk and its contents legally! So they have to leave him alone!
But they figure if Pete has Wentworth's trunk, maybe he has the one with the stolen diamonds. So they hightail it to his place, but all Wentworth got in his trunk was the typescript of a hitherto unknown play by a master playwright - which is cool, but not stolen blood diamonds, y'know? They realize the real trunk therefore MUST be with Judy, and head off to get her - but they've been unknowingly eavesdropped upon by Pete and his goons who've used Wentworth's old stuff to disguise themselves.
Pete makes it to Judy first, but just as he's about to straight up just throw her out a window to her death Batman spots her in time and swoops down on a bat-line and rescues her. Hot damn! Wentworth recognizes the disguises and Batman puts two and two together and we get our climatic fight scene.
Turns out the famous dead playwright wrote his greatest play just for Judy, but could never find anyone to produce it (maybe it's not so great then?) and then died. She carried the script around to everyone in town but no one would bite (maybe it's... not so great then?) So Batman offers to get BRUCE WAYNE to put up the dough!
The play opens with Judy starring and Wentworth in a supporting role! It's a hit, she becomes a star and Wentworth's career is reignited! And with Pete in jail, about to get the electric chair for murder, it looks like all those old gypsy prophecies came true after all!
Curious, Bruce and Dick visit the fortuneteller, who tells them all she sees is a swirling mist and a bony finger pointed in warning -- for they are the hand of fate!
They are understandably freaked out by this.
~~~~
Thoughts and Review: So this is another entry into what I've started thinking of as the "literary" genre of Golden Age Batman. These stories try to be about "real" people, try to present a cast of various characters all pulled into the "drama", try to talk about social issues or perhaps just be a bit more sophisticated in their storytelling. They try to be more complex and clever than the standard bank-robbers-with-a-gimmick plot. They're cool - sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Sometimes thirteen pages is too little to try to write in a "novelistic" manner, sometimes they're too few to drag a weak plot across.
But they always seem like they're trying to hard. Like a writer trying to prove he's better than the series he's writing for.
I don't know where I stand on this one. I love the art, but the story's a big bag of meh.
The Art: It's all Jerry Robinson, so of course it's gorgeous. I mean, I love this guy's unique blend of cartooning, realism, light, shadow, detail, grit, grime and bravura. The thin line work isn't always very well reproduced in modern reprints, but it's still some really fantastic stuff. I've compared it to the work of George Freeman on Captain Canuck before, and that's still what it reminds me of, except of course that here's Robinson doing it forty years earlier. The art saves this story. It's great.
The Story: The story itself, thinks too highly of itself and is based entirely on one forced dramatic contrivance after another. It's all coincedences and happenstance masquerading as plot. Of course, it also suffers the number one problem of these "literary" stories. Without fail, they're always based around some new random characters we've never met, investing them with character development and pathos and all that, and we're never going to meet them again. Batman and Robin become observers and guest stars in their own feature. They can never get character development, they must remain static, two-dimensional, cardboard cutouts to facillitate more stories.
It's not that I don't like the writing or I don't appreciate these kinds of stories, but I've seen Bill Finger write better and I know better is possible - if maybe not on the kind of demanding schedule Batman demanded of approximately forty-five stories per year. Granted, I think Batman appears in just as many if not far more comics at once nowadays - but I also feel quantity over quality wins the day now, just as it did then.
"The Batman's Biographer"
Writer: Don Cameron
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson and George Roussos
Synopsis: B. Boswell Browne is a little old man who is nonetheless very popular with the children of Gotham City as he is a veritable font of knowledge about Batman and Robin!
Bruce and Dick overhear him entertaining some children in the park with tales of the Dynamic Duo, and Browne ends up inviting the two to his home where he has assembled a collection of facts and artifacts about Batman, in hopes of one day writing a definitive biography of the hero. However Browne feels he can never properly complete the book unless he actually meets and talks to Batman and Robin. Bruce and Dick feel like this could happen sooner than the old man thinks, *wink* *wink*!
Meanwhile, Batman and Robin have been tracking a criminal called "The Conjurer", who uses tricks and illusions to distract potential witnesses while he commits robberies. However Batman sees through their tricks and so the Conjurer and his gang are forced to abandon their loot.
The Conjurer realizes he must find a way to outsmart the Batman, and having heard of Browne he decides to press him into his service -- knowing so much about the Batman he must know of a way to defeat him.
Pretending to be a reporter for the "Evening News", the Conjurer milks Browne's knowledge of Batman's cases for ideas on how to outwit and capture the Dynamic Duo. At his next robbery, the Conjurer manages to outwit Batman into targeting the wrong building and then as they escape the crooks delay Batman and Robin with nets made of chicken wire!
However Batman recognizes this as an old tactic of the Penguin's and realizes the Conjurer has been doing some research. Our heroes decide to pay a visit to their "biographer", who realizes his has accidentally aided a criminal against his idols and falls into a deep attack of guilt.
After Batman and Robin leave, the Conjurer returns and now threatens to kill Browne unless he continues to help the criminals. Browne doesn't want to betray his heroes, but at the end of the day he's just a regular old man who doesn't want to die.
Browne helps the Conjurer develop an ingenious plot to steal a collection of art treasures from an auction (a plot so ingenious that it requires the comic to stop and post a diagram for the readers to understand it!) Browne's contribution to the plan is the idea to put an unlocked parked car with the engine running right by the villains' getaway that Batman and Robin will commandeer to chase after them, but rig the engine with a bomb.
However, when the crooks make their actual getaway, Browne himself gets in the rigged car, and uses it to run the crooks' getaway trucks off the road so that Batman and Robin can catch up and arrest them. Browne keeps driving the car until it's far enough away to not hurt anyone, intending to sacrifice his life heroically to make up for his past misdeeds, but Batman rescues him from the car just before it explodes.
Days later, Browne finishes his biography of Batman, which Batman himself writes the preface for -- and everyone lives happily ever after. (Except the Conjurer presumably)
~~~~
My Thoughts: A decent enough little story that is definitely in the "stories about other people featuring Batman" genre. It reminds me of the story about the druggist from Batman #14 in that it's also about crooks taking advantage of a kind hearted old man.
The Art: The full Kane Studio team of Kane/Robinson/Roussos is on this one and as such the art looks very polished. There are the usual bevy of swiped poses of course but nothing to complain about.
The Story: In a more modern context it may be interesting to compare the fictional character of "Batman's Biographer" with his real world biographers of Bill Finger and Bob Kane, but there really is no subtext or metaphor in the story to allow for any such metatextual analysis. What is fun is the number of accurate continuity references the Browne character makes to actual past Batman adventures. That kind of attention to detail is always appreciated, particularly in a Golden Age comic.
"The Penguin Goes A-Hunting!"
Writer: Don Cameron
Pencils: Jack Burnley
Inks: Ray Burnley
Synopsis: The last time we saw the Penguin, Batman had finally captured him and he had been sentenced to death for double homicide. As this story opens we suddenly learn that Penguin escaped from prison a month ago, in some awkward expositional dialogue as Bruce and Dick attend a lecture from prison Warden Keyes on criminology. As it so happens, the Penguin's immense ego and vanity persuades him to attend the same lecture!
Keyes describes Joker, Scarecrow, and Catwoman as topping the city's most wanted list, causing Penguin to become incensed and ask what the warden thinks of him, who replies that he feels the Penguin has no imagination and is a one-trick gimmick who relies too much on his umbrellas.
However the Penguin is recognized by some police officers in the audience who move to arrest him, but the crafty crook beats a hasty escape and manages to make it out alive, but with his dignity bruised. He decides to rob a sports equipment store and begin using some new techniques to replace his umbrellas to prove he's not a one-trick criminal.
And so the next day, almost a million dollars in bills and bonds are stolen out of various windows in the Gotham financial district by the Penguin using a fishing rod out the window of his penthouse hideout!
In the Penguin's next crime, he robs a mansion full of rich folk by shooting a gas pellet into the living room using a big game rifle! When the Dynamic Duo attempt to track the fiend down, his men overpower and capture them, and they awake tied up in the Penguin's penthouse.
The Penguin proceeds to unleash a pair of vicious trained hunting dogs on the two crimefighters and then leave to go rob a hunters convention rather than wait two minutes to make sure the dogs kill them.
Batman manages to stop the dogs' vicious behaviour by appealing to the innate bond between all dogs and men by using a gentle persuasive voice to break through the Penguin's abuse of the animals.
The Penguin arrives at the hunting convention riding trained show jumping horses allowing them to break in and out quickly despite obstacles and traffic jams. However Batman and Robin show up, take out two of Penguin's men (leaving them for the police) and follow Penguin himself down the streets of Gotham in a horse chase with the abused dogs now chasing Penguin and leading the Dynamic Duo!
They end up cornering Penguin at an outdoor cafe, where Batman knocks over all the open table umbrellas, trapping the fiendish criminal. Thus, after abandoning umbrellas, the Penguin is done in by them!
As the Penguin is arrested and sent back to prison, it is revealed that the Batman told the warden to badmouth the crook in his lectures, in order to goad the Penguin into overreaching himself, as the Dark Knight knows his enemy's greatest weakness is his vanity!
~~~~
My Thoughts: This is a fantastic Penguin story by Don Cameron, an amazing examination of the villain's character considering the age of this comic. Nowadays the Penguin is often reduced to being a joke Batman villains, mocked for his cheap and corny gimmicks, so it's incredible to see a comic addressing this mockery head on in 1943, in the character's sixth story!
And unlike a modern comic which might, upon deciding the Penguin is corny and needs reinventing, this issue doesn't completely throw the character under the bus or misunderstand him. Instead, it turns out to be a near-perfect analysis of his character and what makes him tick! Fantastic.
The Art: The Burnley bros really deliver here, with smooth clean linework, excellent blacks and shading, fluid action, and good expression. It's fun to see the Penguin in alternate costumes (fisherman, big game hunter, English gentleman, etc) but perhaps the coolest visual of all is Batman and Robin riding horses through Gotham traffic -- although maybe that's just because of my fanboy brain associating it with The Dark Knight Returns.
The Story: Really topnotch writing from Don Cameron, in managing to balance telling an action packed and typically wacky Golden Age superhero story with a simple premise -- Penguin trades his umbrella gimmick in for a sports equipment gimmick - and yet still have something new and unique to say about this character, keep things true to the established personalities and yet also comment on the Penguin and his place as a member of Batman's Rogues Gallery. (And hey, I'd be incensed too if I was ranked below the Scarecrow -- dude's only appeared in two stories!)
"Rogue's Pageant"
Writer: Don Cameron
Pencils: Jack Burnley
Inks: Ray Burnley
Synopsis: Alfred has insisted that Bruce and Dick take a vacation, and forbids them from bringing their Batman and Robin outfits -- this has Bruce and Dick incensed, but they still promise Alfred.
After hopping in the car, Bruce and Dick both reveal to each other they've been wearing extra suits under their clothes, because after all the whole point of this "vacation" is actually to do some crimefighting in Santo Pablo, "one of the oldest cities in the Southwest."
Flashback time: On a previous night, the Dynamic Duo foiled a bank robbery by "Ducky" Mallard's gang. However, the gang managed to escape and it's only by interrogating a stool pigeon that Batman and Robin learn they are headed for Santo Pablo, hence the vacation!
Arriving in the town, they discover it is celebrating the occasion of its 300th birthday!
The townsfolk are all dressed up in period costumes and the museum is displaying gold nuggets from the finds that made the town's fortune in the early days. So of course the gold is stolen.
With all the commotion in town it would have been easy for the crooks to escape, but Bruce is convinced they are still in Santo Pablo, and so the two take a look around the next day. At the city bank, the festivities continue with a reinactment of an old fashioned bank robbery. However, when the "actors" playing the crooks show up, it turns out they're real crooks and they rob the bank, escaping easily because the cops think it's all part of the show!
By this point Batman has determined the crooks are indeed Ducky Mallard's crew and also decided that the natural egotism of the criminal means that they won't leave early with their swag but instead stick around until that evening - the height of the festivities! With this in mind, Batman hatches a plan with the Santo Pable Police Department.
That evening is the big parade (an evening parade?) with everyone dressed up as "Indians", Spanish conquistadors, pioneers, etc. and Batman and Robin hiding in a belltower observing everything.
At this moment Ducky's gang sets off a series of dynamite explosions in several buildings around the parade area, in order to cause a panic big enough to distract everyone from their robberies. Because as Die Hard movies have taught us, acts of terrorism are always the best cover to larceny.
What the crooks didn't count on, however, is that the police department is wise to their plan and surrounding them dressed in parade costumes! Using special flashlight Bat-signals Batman has given them, they signal for the heroes in the trouble spots, and a quick fight scene later the crooks are in jail and the town is giving Batman and Robin their own spot in the parade!
When they return to Wayne Manor, Bruce and Dick think they have Alfred fooled, but news travels fast and the butler has already read of their exploits in the newspaper (which isn't surprising considering that would be a two-day trip with no breaks by car). Alfred simply demands that they take him with them the next time they leave on a crime-fighting trip!
~~~~
My Thoughts: This is yet another "Batman and Robin go somewhere, not Gotham" type story, and like so many of them it focuses on a town with a "pioneer" theme. I don't really like these stories, I don't see the appeal of putting Batman in these small towns that are always drawn like Wild West movie backlot sets regardless of where they are supposed to be or how modern.
The most uncomfortable aspect of this story for a modern reader is the glorification and nostalgic view of America's genocidal past. The town's parades paints pioneers and conquistadors alike as romantic heroes, and while a lot of time is also given to the "Indians", they are equally painted with a romanticized view that ignores the crimes done to their people.
Granted, none of this comes across as malicious in the comic, it's very much "of the time", it's just a little cringe inducing from a modern standpoint.
The Art: Another Burnley Bros. story here, but the art's only just okay. Nothing stands out about it, indeed it's all very generic. The "Indians" of Santo Pablo are drawn like Iroquois warriors instead of a more Southwestern tribe like the Kumeyaay. The town itself looks exceptionally generic and blocky, instead of appearing with interesting local architecture like one might find in San Diego or Los Angeles. Honestly it all renders the story itself kind've forgettable and almost negates the point of taking Batman and Robin to a different locale.
The Story: It's a real yawner, too. There are crooks, they're stealing stuff. They dress up to fool us, we dress up to fool them. They're caught. The end. What should have made this generic plot special is the unique setting, but it really ends up adding nothing at all. You could plop anybody into this story and it'd have the same exact feel.
"The Adventure of the Vitamin Vandals!"
Writer: Joe Greene
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: Jenny Jones is a fishing vessel off the California coast on the hunt for soupfin sharks, also known as school sharks, because their livers are rich in vitamin A and is thus in desperate need by the United States Army for supply to soldiers fighting overseas (and this is entirely true). The sharks bring in $1,500 a ton (about $19,600 today) so this is good fishing -- but there's a problem.
A gang of crooks called the Phantom Raiders have been attacking fishing boats. When the fog rises up they appear out of nowhere, not having boarded the ships or stowed aboard. But regardless of where they come from the result is the same - the sharks are stolen and the sailors left with nothing, and the Raiders gone as mysteriously as they arrived.
Luckily, Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson are in the area, vacationing at Malibu Beach! (Wait, weren't they just on vacation? In, like, the same area?)
Anyways, they hear about the mysteries Raiders and decide the best plan of action is to join the crew of the Jenny as seamen! Meanwhile, the fish brokers are now offering $2,000 a ton for soupfin sharks because of the shortage!
After some decent hard shark-catching labour for Bruce and Dick, the Raiders appear again - with Batman noticing that a crewman named Lefty seemed to signal something with his lantern before they did.
A customary fight with the crooks leads Batman to discover a rope ladder leading up into the clouds. Climbing it reveals -- a blimp! That's how the Raiders get in and out unseen! However a fight on the blimp results in the Dynamic Duo being thrown out of the blimp and falling a fatal distance into the water of the Pacific, where they of course survive because this is a comic book.
So having fallen into the Pacific there is only one possible outcome now, which if of course that Batman fights a shark. He stabs it with a knife until it's dead, as is his standard method for dealing with sharks.
Rescued by a passing patrol ship thanks to a portable Bat-signal, the Duo beat the Jenny to port, where they follow Lefty to the crooks' hideout - a large abandoned warehouse by the docks (y'know, like every other comic book hood).
Turns out the blimp docks in the warehouse and the roof opens up every night when the fog lifts. Batman and Robin stow away on the blimp and then spring into action when it attacks the Jenny... AGAIN (seriously, the same ship every time?) This time fish broker Gibbons is onboard to ensure a safe haul, but the Raiders attack anyway.
So of course Batman tackles Gibbons, who is of course behind the Raiders. The deal was to steal the fish and cause a crisis to drive prices up, then sell the fish to the government himself without having to pay back any of the fishermen. Pure fraud and war profiteering at its finest.
With the case closed, Bruce and Dick return to their lazy beach vacation.
~~~~
My Thoughts: "Adventure of the Vitamin Vandals" is kind've a lousy title for this story when something like "Case of the Phantom Raiders" would be so much more evocative. Other than that this is a much better example of "travelling Batman" than the previous story, and I am kinda perplexed that they put two stories of Batman going to the West Coast and fighting bad guys right next to each other in the same issue, especially when one is so lame and the other at least has cool blimp and shark stuff in it.
The Art: Decent work from Kane and Robinson. Nothing too special, but the shadows are really moody and the stuff with the blimp and the shark looks cool and the crooks are appropriately shady looking.
The Story: This story falls into the category of those inspired by the writer reading some odd fact somewhere. Bill Finger came up with a lot of his tales by basing them around little bits of trivia, but it's Joe Greene delivering this story. It is in fact true that soupfin sharks were harvasted for their vitamin A rich livers during WWII for supply to the US Army -- in fact the sharks were overhunted and today remain a vulnerable species.
The gag with the blimp is actually really clever because until that point it really is a total mystery as to how the Phantom Raiders operate, but once the blimp is introduced it seems so plausible. And of course there's the eternal cool factors of blimps. The ideal Golden Age Batman story for me features blimps, fights with sharks, an urban noir setting and shady crooks -- this story hits at least 3/4.
Number of Times Batman Has Fought a Shark: 2
"The Robber Baron!"
Writer: Don Cameron
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: George Roussos
Synopsis: The Robber Baron is the leader of a group of thieves dressed like a nineteenth century aristocrat (top hat, monocle, white tie tuxedo and cape). His gang is based in an abadoned factory that is also a tall skyscraper and sports a medieval style tower on top with a cannon that launches a grappling hook! Then they travel by zipline to the building they shot the hook at! And somehow the cannon is powerful enough, the hook strong enough and the line long enough that it can stretch across several city blocks to it's target (somehow not hitting other buildings along the way, implying this abandoned factory is very tall).
So they do the zipline, rob places, zip back and somehow the GCPD is completely "baffled" and can't discover how these guys are getting in and out despite the fact that a huge skyscraper topped with a stone tower shooting grappling lines across city blocks that dudes are zipping around on is totally something you'd think someone would notice!
Meanwhile, at Wayne Manor, new butler Alfred is bringing lunch to Batman and Robin as they work out the problem of the Robber Baron in their criminology lab. Batman has figured out that they're using grappling hooks from marks left on the edge of the rooftops of the buildings robbed, and then drawn straight lines from the sites of the robberies and found the intersecting point - an abandoned brass factory by the waterfront (and the crooks' footprints had brass filings in them at the crime scenes!) Detective work, folks! See, was that so hard, Gotham Police?
The Batplane brings our heroes to the factory, where they surprise the Robber Baron and his men. Using the grappling hook they zip over to a nearby suspension bridge. Robin recklessly zips over, despite Batman's warning, and the crooks cut the line! The Boy Wonder falls into the Gotham River, and presumably drowns. So, now Batman's pissed.
So he flies over the to bridge with the Batplane and just starts decking dudes off the bridge into the river, presumably intending to kill them. But the Robber Baron proves his intelligence by just shooting Batman, who then also falls into the river.
The Robber Baron then climbs down to a speedboat he had waiting there just in case this happened, which he uses to pick up his men who are all not dead, as well as the Batman who is also not dead. The Baron plans to kill Batman in a more dramatic fashion.
Meanwhile, Alfred's been reading his "How to Be a Detective" book and decides to seek out suspicious persons down at the riverfront. He happens upon the Robber Baron's boat just as it comes ashore, of course, and notices they have the Batman prisoner, so the crooks take him prisoner too.
Back at their tower hideout, the Baron's plan is to fire the grappling hook at police headquarters, then hang the Batman from the line and zip his corpse right to the Commissioner! Gruesome!
However, Robin didn't die when he fell into the river (gee, really?) and when he came out of the drink he found the abandoned Batplane and flies it over to the Tower. He freaks the crooks into thinking that the police have surrounded them by speaking over the two-way radio link to Batman and with them distracted he pounces on them.
Freeing Batman and Alfred, the three of them beat up the crooks, and then send them tied up to Gordon over the zip-line!
~~~~
My Thoughts: The second story to feature Alfred, it's clear that it's going to take a bit of work to get his inclusion to feel natural, although for now it's just fun to have a new regular character around -- even if his "written" British accent is a little overbearing to read. "Pardon me, Mawster Bruce, but it is pawst your luncheon" and so on.
The Art: Not Jack Burnley's best, perhaps because Roussos is inking instead of his brother? It's still very good, but Roussos keeps it looking more like Kane Studio standard than the high quality Burnley can reach when let loose.
The Story: It's all right. The Robber Baron is basically a generic gangster type in fancy clothes, but seeing Batman do some detective work is great, and even if the "death of Robin" moment is an obvious cheat it's still cool to see the Dark Knight go to town on the crooks in his rage. Alfred gets to have some part in the story, even if he gets involved entirely through contrived coincedence. Honestly my biggest problem is the whole "grappling hook launched across city blocks" thing. I mean, it's sorta awesome on one hand, but I really have a hard time believing that none of the GCPD detectives figured that shit out or noticed it. It kinda strains credulity.
Okay, so this cover. It's our first "homage" to Jack Burnley's classic cover to Batman #9 that forms the background of this blog. And by "homage" I mostly mean "swipe" -- Jerry Robinson has just taken that image, flipped it (although at least he remembered to reposition Robin's "R") and then added this menacing shadowy figure.
Secondly, the text on the cover tells us that someone in this issue is going to discover the secret identities of Batman and Robin, the implication heavily being that it's this tough thug looking guy. Which is completely false, placing this as I believe our first cover to fall under the category of "patently misleading", a type of cover that DC would become masters of during the Silver Age. Covers that imply or promise stories that are not what the issue is really about.
"The Joker Reforms"
Writer: Don Cameron
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson and George Roussos
Synopsis: Our story begins in the small town of Farr Corners, in the Ozark Mountains, which Bob Kane draws as one of these Old West towns that he and Bill Finger seemed convinced still existed in America anywhere west of the East Coast.
A mysterious, shadowed individual stumbles into town, finding his way to the Constable, where he produces a valise of precious jewels that were stolen in Gotham City. He wants to ensure they are returned to their proper owners, and gives his name as Ed Smith. The twist? Ed Smith is... THE JOKER!
Flashback to the night before, as Batman and Robin are swooping in to stop a robbery by the Joker and his men of a jewelry store. However the crooks get away when the Joker throws an ammonia bomb, and soon they're in a plane headed west to pick up the other stash of jewels the Joker hid during their crime spree.
However the plane's engines fail and so the gang parachutes out to avoid a horrible death. Joker figures he can still land the thing and thus claim all the stolen goods for himself. Unfortunately Joker is a better criminal than aviator and crashes in the Ozarks.
He's thrown clear of the wreck, wakes up with amnesia, finds the jewels, heads to town, and thus we're back at the beginning.
Back in Gotham, Bruce and Dick are trying to figure out the Joker's next move. Bruce thinks he has a lead with a scrap of paper he found at the scene referencing "Joe Kerswag, Farr Corners", and even though Bruce is somehow too dull to figure out the clue, they decide to head to Farr Corners anyway to investigate the lead.
Of course, the crooks who jumped off the plane are also headed to Farr Corners, where they find the town holding a celebration in honor of town hero Ed Smith, which... waitasecond, you're telling me none of the townsfolk recognize him as the Joker? A renowned federal criminal? The comic gives the rationale that they haven't seen pictures of the Joker this far out, but the townsfolk have clearly heard of Batman and the Joker, presumably through newspapers, so why do newspapers in the Ozarks not print pictures? And even if you didn't know what the Joker looked like, wouldn't a pale-white faced man with ruby red lips and green hair in a purple suit strike you as a little... odd?
Batman and Robin show up and are instantly recognized by a young boy in town who reads Batman comics -- wait, so this town gets Batman comics whose existence is confusing enough in a world where Batman is real and yet they don't get newspaper pics of the Joker? And this kid didn't recognize the Joker either? Are people in the Ozarks just really stupid?
Anyways, the constable introduces the Dynamic Duo to the town hero Ed Smith and Batman of course does a massive double take. He decides however to follow the Joker and observe him rather than immediately arrest him, in order to see what his game is.
The Joker's goons thus of course see their leader paling with the Batman and assume the worst.
They attack, but when they shoot at Batman the Joker actually saves him! The crooks run off, and Batman and Robin continue to be baffled by the Joker's behaviour. Robin believes it must be a trick, as it'd be impossible for the Joker to have reformed, while Batman believes they must keep following him until they find out where the cache of stolen jewels is hidden.
"Ed Smith", meanwhile, has been having a series of terrible nightmares, images of hidden jewels placed in the railroad express office. He isn't sure why he's having these visions, but decides to check the office and see if there isn't more good he can do by returning more stolen goods to their owners.
The crooks spot him and assume he's going to the cache, so they follow. Batman finally figures out the "Joe Kerswag" clue and also heads to the express office. Batman and Robin manage to tie up all the crooks, but Joker gets knocked on the head and regains his "sanity".
Threatening the Dynamic Duo with two pistols, they are only saved when Robin knocks a column of boxes over onto the Joker, which end up spilling out all the crook's ill-gotten gains.
Batman reveals the obvious clue ("Joe Kerswag" = "Joker Swag") and the Clown Prince of Crime is locked up and sent to prison once again.
~~~~
My Thoughts: One of the toughest things about reading and writing about these old Batman comics can be the monotony. The stories, which are very simplistic and formulaic by nature, can become very repetitive read one after another at a rapid pace. So to get a story like this, which even if it strains credulity at times, features the characters in different situations and settings, can read like a breath of fresh air. In terms of the development of Joker's character, it's interesting that when he loses his amnesia and becomes "himself" again, it's explicitly written as the Joker regaining his "sanity", especially since the madness of the character has become such an explicitly large element of how he is written today.
The Art: One thing I haven't mentioned that much when talking about Bob Kane's art is his excessive habit of swiping. In the early days of the Batman comic he excessively swiped many panels and poses from other sources, usually pulp magazine illustrations. Once he had built up a good number of Batman and Robin poses, his swiping mostly became about swiping from himself -- using the same poses and angles over and over when depicting those two characters, almost like the comic book equivalent of a Filmation "limited animation" series from the 1970s. Usually these aren't too obtrusive -- while he may use the same pose everytime he draws Batman putting on his cape, that pose only occurs once an issue usually and ultimately it's a pretty standard pose so you don't mention the repetition.
I mention all this because in this story Kane draws a very distinctive panel of the "Good" Joker talking to Batman, Batman doing a hilarious double take, and Robin reacting. And then two pages later he REPLICATES IT EXACTLY. Yep, even with uncredited writers assistants, ghosts and other help -- Bob Kane was still incredibly lazy.
That being said, the biggest joy of the art in this story is seeing the Joker being drawn as a good guy, having innocent expressions on his face, or really just any expression other than grinning evilly. It's a unique sight that makes up a lot of the fun of the story.
The Story: I've really got to hand it to Don Cameron for really delivering a fun and unique story. "The Joker goes good", even if it's just amnesia, is very different and really brought a smile to my face as being a unique and imaginative premise. Pretty much my only issue with it is the fact that I just don't buy that everyone else treats Joker as normal. He's a dude with green hair! That's a little bizarre.
Other than that I think this one was a lot of fun and it was just great to get a new kind of story -- even if the clue was really really obvious.
"The Grade A Crimes!"
Writer: Ruth "Bunny Lyons" Kaufman
Pencils: Jack Burnley
Inks: Ray Burnley
Synopsis: In the early hours of the day, as the milkman makes his rounds, a daring robbery is committed - the Van Dorn jewels stolen and their servant shot. The jewels are brought back to a mysterious ringleader who conceals his identity behind a domino mask, and sends his men out again and again dressed in black robes and cowls, committing a series of "early bird" robberies in the hours of the morning when only the milkman is active.
Late one evening, millionaire Bruce Wayne and his ward Dick Grayson are leaving a high society party at the Morgon Mansion, when they hear a gunshot -- the guard shot in the back! They quickly change into Batman and Robin and begin fighting the eerie cultist looking burglars. However they manage to overpower the two and escape -- the only man on the scene once again the milkman, who didn't see anything.
Searching the mansion for clues, they discover a white button ripped from a white shirt -- odd, since the crooks were wearing black mantles.
It's the next morning at the breakfast table when Bruce finally puts it all together - the early morning robberies, they're always the morning after a party, only jewels are stolen while other valuables are left untouched, the white button, the milkman -- obviously someone at the party is the inside man, they case the joint and perhaps lift the keys, and then the milkman is their getaway driver whom no one would ever suspect.
I for one am simply amazed that a Batman mystery was "fair play" for once and that Bruce figured out the clues at about the same time the reader would.
The next big society party is being held by Winthrop, treasurer of the Purity Milk Co. and a renowned gem collector. Batman figures that by spying on Winthrop's party they'll discover the ringleader of the crooks, since it must be someone high up in the milk industry! Waiting around for the party to end, Batman finds Winthrop's guards have been drugged -- just in time for the milkman's arrival!
One of the cloaked burglars enters and prepares to shoot the guards for appearance's sake -- but Batman charges in to battle -- but when the crooks escape he intentionally lets them go as Robin has coated their getaway vehicle with infrared paint of the kind we've seen Batman use before to follow people.
They follow the gang to a diary farm hideout, where of course a battle breaks out amid the cows and milking machines and so on. Batman fights the masked leader of the group, whom he deduces is Winthrop himself - Winthrop was the inside man, drugged his own guards, and of course he's the jewel collector.
After a few more fight scene pages, Batman and Robin deliver the thieves to Commissioner Gordon, revealing that Winthrop had gambled with his company's money, and had to resort to thievery, in addition to wanting more jewels for his own collection.
~~~~
My Thoughts: Sometimes all you really want is a standard story, well told -- or told well above the average level of quality. "Grade A Crimes" features no supervillain, introduces no new elements, it simply does a standard Batman robbery/mystery plot, but does it with style, panache and very well plotted storytelling. I enjoyed reading it -- on paper it's nothing special, but here it's all in the execution.
The Art: The Burnley Bros. deliver gorgeous artwork in this story. Go and get yourself a reprint of it somehow and see this stuff. It's looks like an episode of the hallowed Animated Series, it's dark and stylish and just lovely to look at. The touch of dressing up the crooks in cultist looking outfits adds a delicious extra element of macabre mysterioso that is perfect for Batman and feels like it's been missing from the strip for a while. It just instantly makes it cooler than just more gangsters in three-piece suits.
The Story: This story is written by Ruth Kaufman, and usually when a new writer appears I try to do some research to find out who they were. But all I can find out about Ruth is the somewhat self-evident info that she was one of the very first female comics writers. Apparently she wrote a couple more scripts for DC that appeared in their other books around this same time, and that was that. I have no idea what happened to her.
Which is a damn shame, because this is a really, really well written story for a rookie writer. It's solid and confident, it understands the characters and the world of the strip, it remembers that Batman is a detective and remembers his methodologies from past stories. It gives us a mystery with clues that we can figure out along with the Batman, and it's exciting and interesting. It's a standard kind of story, but it's done well, with excellent art and very competent plotting, and that puts it a cut above.
"The Adventures of the Branded Tree"
Writer: Don Cameron
Pencils: Jack Burnley
Inks: Ray Burnley
Synopsis: Scotty and Olaf are two highly exaggerated racial stereotypes working as lumberjacks in the "north woods" when they come across a tree with the image of a dagger cut into it. Oh well, there's choppin' to be done, so they get to it -- which of course is when a bunch of Gotham City gangsters who are looking for just that tree happen across them!
Olaf eats a bullet, but Scotty is saved by the timely intervention of Batman and Robin -- lucky for him Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson were taking a fishing trip in these very same woods! The Dynamic Duo drive off the Gotham gangsters, saving Scotty -- but they still have no idea why they wanted that dagger tree.
However, an exaggerated French stereotype lumberjack informs Batman that the tree is now heading down river on its way to the mill, and there's no way to find it out of all the thousands of logs in the river.
So, of course, the gangsters beat up a bunch of employees at the mill, rendering them unable to work and creating job openings that the gangsters themselves take, because somehow this is the easiest way to get into the mill to look for the log.
Batman and Robin arrive in town and question the local police, leading them to the suspicious happenings at the mill. The ensuing fight that breaks out of course ends up with Batman and Robin unconscious on the conveyor belt headed for the buzzsaw!
Batman manages to wake up in time to see Robin heading for some sawing, and saves the Boy Wonder by throwing logs into the saw to jam it!
However by this time the crooks have found the log with the dagger cut in it, and retrieved from it a small cylinder. Seeing that the tide of the battle is turning, the gang leader Bull Beaton stuffs the cylinder within a large roll of newly made paper and retreats.
Two days later Bruce and Dick are back in Gotham and just happen to be walking past a printing plant as paper from that mill just happens to be getting delivered and of course the gangsters just happen to be there at that exact moment to get their cylinder.
So we get our third fight scene of the story, this time in a printing press (lots of "stop the presses" puns) and finally the Dynamic Duo are victorious and retrieve the cylinder -- which holds industrial diamonds stolen weeks ago and hidden by Beaton and his gang in the tree. Well, those diamonds are of course badly needed for the war effort and so these crooks are branded traitors (a capital crime), and tied up for the police.
~~~~
My Thoughts: It's hard to get this across in the synopsis but the gimmick of this story is that it's being narrated by the paper you're reading it on, and is supposedly the story of how it was made -- tree, cut down to a log, sent to a mill, pulped into paper, printed into a Batman comic. As such it's an educational story as well as a Batman adventure -- although the idea that Batman exists in the same world as his comic is one that keeps cropping up and gives me a headache each time.
The Art: Good stuff from the Burnleys -- not as good as the previous tale but still high quality. As the story consists mostly of fight scenes what makes all the difference here is the way Burnley takes advantages of the three setpieces the characters are dropped into -- forest, mill, printing press. It's well rendered, dramatic and exciting.
The Story: There's nothing too-too bad with this story, aside from it's heavy reliance on coincedence, but ultimately it's just some fight scenes in some neat locations tied together with a simple gimmick and capped with a rather non sequitorous ending -- why was such a big mystery made of what was in the cylinder? It was stuff the crooks stole, okay, anyone could've guess that! Frankly, while it's well done, it's also highly forgettable.
"Here Comes Alfred!"
Writer: Don Cameron
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson and George Roussos
Synopsis: A passenger liner pulls into Gotham pier after a dangerous wartime Atlantic crossing, and two gentlemen disembark. One is a mysterious fellow named Gaston LeDuc, the other a loquacious, heavyset Englishman with a thick posh accent who fancies himself an amatuer detective.
However, the new arrivals are being watched by a gang of (Mexican?) criminals led by Manuel Stiletti - who are themselves being watched by the Batman and Robin! The crooks attack the Englishman, as they are apparently after his valise. Batman and Robin rescue the gentleman, who offers to assist them in their cases as an amateur criminologist in return -- our heroes brush off the offer and retreat into the night.
But later that evening, at Wayne Manor, Bruce and Dick get a surprise when the doorbell rings and its none other than their English friend! Has he somehow discerned their secret identities? Is he a better detective than they thought?
Nope! He's Alfred the butler, arrived from England to serve "Mawster Bruce"! He had meant to be here two years ago, but because of the war he had to wait a year for a ship from England and then the one he did take took a very circuitous route, and then it was torpedoed and so was the next one and so on so that he didn't arrive until now. But of course, Bruce is still rather confused as he never sent for a butler and hadn't had one for years! Well, turns out that Alfred is the son of Jarvis -- who was Bruce's father's butler! Jarvis had wanted Alfred to carry on their family's service to the Waynes and succeed him as butler but Alfred wanted to be an actor in a music hall and so disappointed his father by staying in England and becoming an actor.
However, on Jarvis' death Alfred promised to return to America and take up the call of duty as the Wayne family butler, but has been delayed getting there on account of the war.
Well, this puts Bruce and Dick in quite a pickle -- what if he discovers their secret identity? Bruce can't think of any reason to send him away however, and so Alfred begins his duties.
But Manuel's gang has followed Alfred to Wayne Manor, and begin prowling around the house, tripping a burglar alarm that wakes up Bruce and Dick but which Alfred somehow doesn't notice. What he does notice is an old newspaper lying around about the "Duke of Dorian" fleeing the Nazi invasion of his country, and Alfred recognizes the Duke as "Gaston LeDuc", the man from the boat!
The crooks burst in and once again demand Alfred's valise, threatening to kill him. The butler gives it over to them and they begin cutting the labels off the valise, but Batman and Robin burst in, having intentionally delayed themselves so as not to get the crooks wise to the fact that they are the residents of the house. The crooks take off with the Dynamic Duo in hot pursuit, leaving Alfred alone.
Which of course prompts Alfred to check in on "Mawster Bruce" and "Mawster Dick", only to discover they aren't in the house! That's when a crook whom Batman and Robin simply left unconscious in the house (quite sloppy!) wakes up and attacks Alfred! Alfred knocks him into a wall, knocking him out again but also jarring a concealed trigger, opening up a secret passage!
Alfred follows the passage to a hidden criminological laboratory, and then through another tunnel to an underground hangar containing the Batplane! And thus Alfred comes to the obvious conclusion! Yes, the scary looking shadowy dude on the cover who discovers the secret identity of Batman and Robin is ALFRED!
Meanwhile, the Dynamic Duo has pursued Manuel and his gang to an abandoned theatre, and since we've reached that point in the story, they're captured and tied up -- hung from the catwalks high above the stage, but left alive because Manuel thinks its better to do "all our killing at once" because he's a really stupid criminal.
Turns out they needed the labels on the valise to learn the identity and address of their intended victim (huh?) who is of course Gaston LeDuc aka the Duke of Dorian!
Meanwhile Alfred has followed the crook left behind at Wayne Manor to the theatre, where he finds and rescues Batman and Robin. The crooks break into the Duke's hotel where they proceed to steal the crown jewels of his country -- which he had brought to America to establish credit for his government-in-exile.
Stealing the jewels and kidnapping the Duke, they return to the theatre -- where they fall right into the trap of Batman and Robin! The crooks rounded up, Alfred returns the jewels to the Duke, revealing his identity and purpose to the Dynamic Duo.
Back at Wayne Manor, Alfred explains how he solved the case to Bruce and Dick, and they realize he learned all the information by accident, and thus isn't a master detective after all. Dick is just through declaring him "not very bright" when he enters the room with their capes and cowls in his arms, pressed and ready since the Bat-Signal is calling them to police headquarters!
Alfred reveals he discovered their identities the night before (but doesn't mention how) and so Batman and Robin are off again into the night, but now they have Alfred at home taking care of them!
~~~~
My Thoughts: So this is clearly a very significat story in the Batman canon, perhaps the most significant since the introduction of the Penguin or Batman joining the police force. Today, Alfred is considered such an essential element of the Batman mythos, even more so than Commissioner Gordon or Robin, that it's bizarre to realize that the character had been around for four years before Alfred was introduced!
Of course, then there's the odd fact that when you're reading these early Batman stories, you don't really miss him. Part of that is the length of these stories mean there really isn't time for character development and interaction, just plot, so the things that Alfred contributes to stories today don't really factor in -- much the same reason that Gordon has barely appeared in the past four years of stories.
However, it is strange that millionaire Bruce Wayne hasn't had anyone working for him at Wayne Manor this whole time -- granted, Golden Age Wayne Manor is drawn much smaller and more modestly than it's mammoth Modern Age counterpart. But that doesn't really explain why, after four years without him, the creators decided to add a butler character.
It's even weirder because the Alfred that appears in this story is nothing like our modern conception of the character. He's overweight, clean-shaven, and most significantly something of a bumbling fool who considers himsef an amateur detective. He arrives from overseas and then accidentally discovers Batman's identity. He's basically the exact opposite of the supremely cool, tough Alfred of today who has served as Bruce's conscience and father figure since his parents died. Indeed, even the way Alfred is worked into the story is somewhat awkward -- the whole backstory that he's carrying on his father's legacy but couldn't make it until now because of the war and so on.
The explanation for this seemingly strange comedic addition is quite simple, however. The Batman movie serial. Although it's premiere was still several months away, production had begun on the first live-action Hollywood adaptation of Batman into a theatrical serial from Columbia Pictures, and it's screenwriters had decided that a rich guy should have a butler and that the butler could be a great source of comic relief in the serial. Thus, Alfred.
Bob Kane had been invited to serve as a creative consultant on the serial in LA and decided that the character should be brought into the comics ahead of time to familiarize readers with the character. However, lead times on comic books are actually quite long, and so in order to get Alfred in the comics before the serial, they had to produce the stories before an actor had even been cast.
Once the serial debuted (with William Austin as Alfred), the character was altered to resemble the actor (more on that when we get there!) resulting in the thin, moustached Alfred we know today!
So until then we will have this bizarre proto-Alfred, who is significantly different than how we're used to thinking of him.
The Art: Since we're introducing a significant new character, Bob Kane is on pencils, and while Jerry and George do a decent job cleaning him up, there are a few panels in here that really look quite bad -- characters drawn very far away and small in the panel and thus lacking detail, becoming vague smudges. Alfred's a decently designed character, drawn fat and goofy looking to match his bumbling personality. It's decent stuff, a little below par.
The Story: So aside from doing some creative gymnastics to justify Alfred's existence and inclusion, Don Cameron also has to provide some kind of action story for Batman and Robin to fight some criminals. And so we get a really weak story about this foreign politician and crown jewels that is mostly interesting solely in how it ties into the real-life war. Of course "Duke of Dorian" makes no sense - a Dorian is an ethnicity in Greece, which was conquered by the Nazis and had a government-in-exile, but there's no Duke.
Anyways, what I don't get is why they need labels off Alfred's valise to find the Duke. For a while I thought they were after Alfred because they got him and the Duke mixed up at the pier, or maybe Alfred's bags where switched with the Dukes, but there's nothing in the story that indicates that. Maybe I'm just unaware as to how 1940s US bag-tagging works? Seems odd that the name and address of someone else on the same boat as me gets tagged on my bag?
Oh well, here comes Alfred!
Notes and Trivia: First appearance of Alfred!
"Tweedledum and Tweedledee!"
Writer: Don Cameron
Artist: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: Late at night a truck pulls up at a fur warehouse and a gang of crooks begins raiding the expensive furs. Their leader? An extremely creepy looking rotund man in a bowler hat and suit. Batman and Robin spot the robbery and show up to foil it, but during the fight they are caught in wolf traps (ouch!) and so the crooks get away.
After freeing themselves, the Dynamic Duo are back in the Batmobile when the police dispatch reports another robbery lead by a fat man at a jewelry store fifteen minutes away. How could the guy have gotten there so fast?
Once again they confront a batch of crooks, and this time the fat man is wearing a top hat and suit, but otherwise is identical. He zaps them with an electrified walking stick, and by the time Batman and Robin are up they've gotten away with the diamonds.
The next day, Bruce and Dick look into the identity of the fat man by visiting the "Fat Man's Emporium", the only fat clothing store of its kind in Gotham City (how times have changed!) and questions them about whether they have any fat twins as customers. Well, there are the Meeker brothers, but they hate each other (one's a Republican, the other a Democrat) but that's about it -- oh, there is the Tweed brothers: cousins who look so alike they are often mistaken for twins. They always have plenty of money!
Bruce and Dick canvas the Tweed household and after seeing the cousins Dumfree and Deever decide these are indeed their crooks, deciding to raid the place after dark. However the cousins have figured that Batman and Robin will be playing a visit, and rigged their house with deathtraps!
The Dynamic Duo burst through the skylight, as is their custom, only to find themselves ensnared in a net and facing Tweedledum and Tweedledee, accompanied by henchmen in March Hare and Mad Hatter costumes (with the Hatter also portrayed as a rabbit for some reason, looking much more like the White Rabbit character).
The Tweeds are able to keep the heroes subdued by firing an "electron gun" at them which paralyzes them! The crooks head off to the "Grand March", leaving the heroes frozen and alone.
Luckily, through sheer strength of will, Batman breaks free of the paralysis enough to toss his utility belt at the electron gun, "short circuiting" it and allowing them to break free.
The Grand March is a high society masquerade ball which the Tweeds hope to rob. However Batman and Robin surprise them there and trap them, taking down the gang and the cousins -- who can't even fit in a regular paddy wagon!
~~~~
My Thoughts: Tweedledum and Tweedledee are a pair of B-list Batman villains whom I've been aware of, but never really read a story about. I've read stories where they've appeared as cameo characters at Arkham Asylum or as henchmen to other villains (usually Joker or Mad Hatter, sometimes Two-Face) but I've never actually read a comic featuring them as primary adversaries until now. Interesting that they're so obscure and yet they debuted in the same period as many of the A-list rogues gallery. They're fairly creepy and effective in this opening story, but as with other interesting characters like Professor Radium or Scarecrow, it's less important how you debut and more about whether anyone's interested in you after that.
The Art: Jerry Robinson's pencils here are half of this story's effectiveness. Tweedledum and Tweedledee's designs are of course based on Tenniel's Through the Looking Glass illustrations, but they are much much creepier here. They are often drawn underlit, with bulbous noses, gleaming smiles and wide eyes that just make them very unsettling characters to look at, desite all the jokes about their size. Unfortunately Robinson's art here is very, very rough -- it looks like he just quickly inked his own rough pencils and then sent it in without really cleaning things up all that much. DC Database and The Batman Chronicles trade paperbacks give Bob Kane credit for pencils on this issue, and I usually trust their credits to sort out who did what in an era when the only official credit on the issue is Kane's signature, but none of the art in this story looks anything like Kane's style -- whereas Robinson's is all over it.
The Story: Cameron writes a very effective script -- it's very moody and dark in tone despite the potential silliness of the two new villains. The Tweeds are depicted as being very smart, mastermind style villains, and Cameron gives them really unsettling and creepy dialogue to match Robinson's art. It's very clear Cameron wanted to create a pair of recurring villains, given the ending where they are sent to prison and Robin wonders if they've seen the last of them. And in a way, he did -- while the Tweeds have never achieved the prominence of The Joker or Two-Face, they've still managed to stick around for quite a while simply on the strength of their visual I think.
Notes and Trivia: First appearance of Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
"The Scarecrow Returns"
Writer: Don Cameron
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: Linda Page is taking Bruce Wayne on a date to a "hat show" because Bruce is always making fun of her ridiculous hats (to be fair, 1940s women's hat styles are really silly and Linda is always drawn wearing particularly awful ones).
But then the Scarecrow shows up to rob the place of all the... valuable... hats... Yes, the Scarecrow has escaped from prison and decided to rob a hat show because he wants Gothamites to be terrified of... small... words...
Anyways Bruce can't change into Batman with Linda around (secret identity and all that) -- so he stumbles around bumping into the Scarecrow's men and accidentally knocking them out. Eventually the Scarecrow pistol whips him and makes off with the goods, leaving a clue of a blackboard slate with the words "HAT" and "MAT" written on it in chalk.
Obviously the "HAT" refers to the most recent crime, and Bruce thinks that the "MAT" refers to an upcoming charity wrestling bout for which the proceeds are going to (what else) war bonds.
So Batman and Robin show up to guard the bout, and it turns out that Scarecrow's goons are actually both the wrestlers in the bout, and pull guns on the audience while Scarecrow steals from the cashiers. Everyone's incensed that Scarecrow would "steal from Uncle Sam", and the Dynamic Duo fights the wrestling goons and even save the money, but Scarecrow himself gets away again.
Another slate is left behind, and this time the clue is "VAT" and somehow Batman immediately deduces that this refers to the vats that clothes dyers use and also considers this so obvious a clue that it must be a trap laid by the Scarecrow. Well, considering that he's intentionally leaving you these clues, Batman, yeah I think that's a good bet.
So because it's that point in the story, when the Dynamic Duo shows up they're captured by the Scarecrow's men, tied up, and thrown in the vats while they are slowly filled with water, but not before Scarecrow tells them the next clue is "YAT" -- why are you giving him the next clue if your intent is for him to die? (And why not wait to make sure he drowns, or just shoot him, or...)
Anyways, turns out the "YAT" is Yat Sing, who runs a Chinese art store in Chinatown and is of course a big racial stereotype. Batman and Robin show up because OF COURSE they got out of the death-trap and OF COURSE they solved the clue (Yat Sing is the only Yat in the phonebook worth stealing from, you see).
So the Dynamic Duo beat up all Scarecrow's men and the Scarecrow himself and he's back to jail and THAT'S THAT. (Groan)
~~~~
My Thoughts: When I reviewed the first appearance of the Scarecrow, I remember being impressed by how unique the story was and the attention to detail and characterization that Bill Finger gave to developing and motivating this new villain in such a way that was psychologically convincing and felt new and fresh. I enjoyed that story, but I also knew intellectually that there was only one more appearance of the Scarecrow in the Golden Age before he'd disappear for two decades before resurfacing in the Silver Age. And I had wondered why that happened.
I don't, anymore.
The issue of creators' rights and corporate comics is a sticky one, and there are pros and cons to each side. On the one hand it's true that Batman would be a far weaker and far less known character today if the endless hordes of immensely talented writers and artists who worked on him hadn't have been able to. On the other hand, sometimes a writer picks up a character they did not create, and they clearly have no idea how to handle them.
And that can ruin a character.
The Art: Bob Kane and his studio handle things well enough. The Scarecrow looks like the Scarecrow, his unique appearance both in costume and out are retained as well as his gangly way of moving about. In many panels the characters are rendered very small in a large background space and Robinson's detailed inks become hard to discern. It's an overall trait of Kane's pencils and layouts.
The Story: The cover proclaims that the Scarecrow is back by "popular demand", and while I tend to believe that since it's been two years since he first showed up, I wonder why DC didn't wait for Finger to be ready to script Scarecrow's return himself, why they pawned it off on Don Cameron who clearly has no idea what to do with the character. In fact, Finger hasn't done a lot of scripts lately, last appearing in Detective two months ago, and another script of his won't appear in the book until July. My research hasn't turned up any explanation, but I conjecture that now that the Batman was a fairly established character and DC had a good number of other writers working on it, they didn't have to rely on Finger as much, who was notoriously bad at working to deadline.
But I wish they had. Cameron plops the Scarecrow into a dreadfully boring formula script. It reads like the formula from the Adam West TV show done straight. Nothing about it at all says Scarecrow, or retains anything about the character's methods and motivations. There are some token references to causing fear and terror in the character's dialogue, but it would just be the same fear and terror any criminal causes -- all he's doing is robbing stuff. And then leaving clues for Batman to find on purpose. Like the Joker does, like the Riddler will do, like every villain on that 60s TV show will do regardless of whether it's their MO or not.
Professor Jonathan Crane, Scarecrow's true identity, is not forgotten, but other than a few token lines referencing "psychological reactions" and "nervous breakdowns" his intellect seems to have dropped from college professor to grade school teacher. Chalkboard slates and crimes based around rhyming three letter words? Is this Batman or Blue's Clues?
This is a terrible story, nothing of note happens in it at all, and I'm convinced that it's complete misuse of the Scarecrow character, making him as boringly generic as any random gangster villain, was responsible for him falling by the wayside for twenty-four years.
Boy, I hated this story.
Notes and Trivia: Last appearance of the Scarecrow in the Golden Age of Comics.
"The Batman never carries or kills with a gun." - Editor Whitney Ellsworth, Batman #4
"Unless he's fighting Nazis! Blast those Krauts to hell!" - Cover Artist Jack Burnley, Batman #15, assumedly.
"Your Face is Your Fortune!"
Writer: Jack Schiff
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: Elva Barr is a young woman in Gotham City, working at a beauty salon, living in an apartment, taking the subway, just like a normal person -- except that she's also the Catwoman! But why is the Catwoman masquerading as an ordinary citizen?
Elva takes part in a beauty contest for beauty salon workers (?) where one of the judges is millionaire Bruce Wayne. Elva wins the contest, but Bruce recognizes her as the Catwoman (since Batman has seen Catwoman without her mask many times), and can't believe she could have gone straight.
Linda Page reads about Bruce pronouncing Elva the winner in the paper the next day and is jealous, while Elva/Catwoman finds herself falling in love with the handsome playboy.
Anyways, turns out she's working at the beauty salon so she can make molds of her wealthy clients faces under the pretext of giving them facials, so she can make lifelike masks and get into places to commit robberies.
The Dynamic Duo follow Elva to find out her game, and witness her sneaking a message to a crook named Jim Jones. They follow Jones to a bowling alley, beat him up, and find out Catwoman plans to strike at the Maypoint Wedding.
It's a rich society wedding of the Maypoint heiress to a US Navy Captain, and Catwoman manages to get in under the guise of the society editor of the Gotham Globe. Once inside with her men (disguised as photographers) she changes into her Catwoman costume and they begin their theft -- but Batman and Robin are ready and waiting for them! Batman catches Catwoman, removing her mask, but she pleads with Batman to let her go -- saying she'll go straight if only she could date Bruce Wayne!! Well, this puts Batman in a quite a bind and so naturally he does the moral thing and... let's her go! Because screw your hard moral code when you've got other hard things to worry about!
And so over the next few days Bruce Wayne courts Elva Barr in a whirlwind romance, and announces his engagement to her! To which Dick pleads "What's gotten into you? What about Linda? What about... us??" On that suggestive note, Bruce tells Dick he's too young to understand, while Catwoman tells her men that's she's quitting crime and going straight for Bruce Wayne. But her men tell her that Wayne is sweet on Linda Page, "everybody knows that!" Meanwhile Linda herself is crying herself to sleep, bewildered and hurt.
Catwoman decides she has to know Bruce's intentions for sure, so when Linda Page shows up at Elva Barr's beauty salon to get a look at her, Elva makes a mold of Linda's face for a mask, and meets Bruce disguised as Linda to ask him if he really loves Elva! Bruce tells "Linda" that he's only doing this as a favour to the Batman, and that the engagement is only temporary! "Linda" storms out, and when Bruce gets home, he learns that the real Linda had stopped by to talk to Dick and wish Bruce good luck on his engagement -- d'oh!
The heart-broken Catwoman returns to crime, while the identity of Elva Barr as completely disappeared! With no leads, Bruce doesn't know what to do. But Dick has been scoping out the bowling alley and trailing Jim Jones, and learned that Catwoman plans to hit the Fairview Pet Show. He's a little smarmy about sharing this knowledge with Bruce ("you might be too old to understand") and almost gets a spanking (!) but soon Batman and Robin are off to stop Catwoman from stealing the prize-winning pedigreed animals.
At the end of the battle, Batman finally captures Catwoman and finally arrests her and takes her to jail, hoping she'll "go straight in prison!" At home, Bruce wonders if Linda will ever forgive him -- Dick says she will, but will the Catwoman?
~~~~
My Thoughts: It's been five issues since we last saw the Catwoman, when Jack Schiff pulled her out from obscurity and revitalized her as a villainess. Schiff writes this script too, and once again it's a great use of the character and really cements Schiff as a great member of the current Batman writing team. In that previous Cat-story Schiff has Catwoman operating under the alias Marguerite Tone, here he has her as Elva Barr. In both cases it's unclear if this is meant to be Catwoman's real name, but is heavily implied it's just an alias used for this particular job.
The Art: Good stuff from Kane and Robinson, with fun and dynamic fight scenes. Catwoman's cat head mask costume returns and still looks awful, but when she's out of costume as "Elva Barr" Kane and Robinson give her a kind of severe beauty that really suits the character. It reminds me of the young Joan Crawford. It's good stuff, although Linda Page looks a little different than she's usually portrayed -- a strawberry blonde instead of auburn haired.
The Story: One quality of this story that I really like is that Schiff writes a classic Batman tale and also brings in Bruce Wayne -- giving something to Bruce's personal life and romances and concerns, which have been ignored in the strip for some time. It really makes everything feel far more rounded. A kid in 1943 would've probably been bored by it, but oh my god does it make for more interesting and engaging reading for an adult seventy years later! Schiff really nails the relationship between Batman and Catwoman, and also begins a relationship between "Elva Barr" and Bruce Wayne, thus laying the seeds for a complex romance square that has been going on for seventy years hence! Schiff also moves the relationship forward in both cases -- Bruce proposes to Elva, something he hasn't even done with Linda yet, while at the end of the story Batman FINALLY actually puts Catwoman in jail instead of letting his boner get the better of him. And it's for a great reason -- so she can reform and get out and perhaps he can romance her on moral terms, which is far better than letting her go because she's pretty. Of course, the comic makes no pretense that she'll reform -- the story ends by teasing the reader not with if the Catwoman will return, but when.
Notes and Trivia: Catwoman captured and arrested by Batman for the first time, using identity Elva Barr but her real identity still unknown.
"The Boy Who Wanted to be Robin!"
Writer: Don Cameron
Pencils: Jack Burnley
Inks: Ray Burnley
Synopsis: From an alleyway, a mysterious figure watches Batman and Robin beat the tar out of the gang of "Knuckles" Conger. The men are easily defeated and the Dynamic Duo disappear into the night. Of course it is Knuckles himself who is watching, who decides he needs to change his methods if he is to ever defeat Batman and Robin.
His conclusion? That he needs a kid sidekick! So he picks a homeless orphan shoeshine boy named Bobby from off the streets, tells him he's a crimefighter like Batman and how would he like to be like Robin -- the kid's answer being the same as every boy in America's: an emphatic yes!
Knuckles trains the kid in an old barn in acrobatics, boxing, fencing, judo, etc. drawing upon his experience in a lifetime of crime. They soon begin pulling a multitude of jobs -- robbing jewelers that Knuckles tells the kid are crooked fences, etc. They soon begin getting attention from newspapers and police, with Knuckles telling the kid that the police are just confused and only think they are thieves because they don't know them as well as they know Batman. However Bobby is beginning to get suspicious.
At their next job, Batman and Robin show up and Knuckles and Bobby attempt to flee. However the Batmobile is a damned powerful vehicle (it does ninety miles an hour!) so they catch up and there's a fight and Bobby finally realizes Knuckles is a crook. Knuckles threatens to give Bobby up to the police if he betrays him, but the kid fights back anyway. Knuckles flees up the side of the building, pursued by the Batman.
The two battle on the ledge, but Knuckles slips off and almost falls to his death -- when Batman catches him, Knuckles promises to make a full confession so long as Batman saves him.
Commissioner Gordon takes pity on Bobby, understanding that he was only a dupe. Bruce Wayne sponsors the boy to go to a prestigious military academy where he does very well and looks to have a bright future.
~~~~
My Thoughts: This is another story in the "moral allegory"/"crime does not pay" genre, as well as another story involving a down-on-his luck kid. These are standard Bill Finger tropes, but Don Cameron does a neat thing by having us never lose sympathy for this kid who's taken in by the "slickest crook in Gotham". It's handled just differently enough for it to feel worthwhile.
The Art: The absolute number one reason to look at this story is the art. It is phenomenal, perhaps the best art seen in Batman so far. The Burnley brothers really knock it out of the park, especially with the artwork of Knuckles early on. The first four pages are on a whole different level. Knuckles is drowned in dramatic film noir shadows at almost all times. The lighting is amazing, the figures are exact and expressive, the action scenes dramatic and epic. It's an artistic triumph.
The Story: The idea of the underworld hiring their own kid sidekick is fun, although it's rendered a little less interesting because the kid is truly a good natured boy who's being tricked, so we know how things will play out once he realizes he's been played for a sap. Knuckles is believably clever with his ruse, however, and Cameron paces the story very very well -- it doesn't overstay it's welcome, everything develops very naturally. My only nitpick would be -- why doesn't Bruce adopt Bobby? Wouldn't two Robins be better than one?
Oh well, we can't change the status quo now, can we?
"The Two Futures"
Writer: Don Cameron
Pencils: Jack Burnley
Inks: Ray Burnley
Synopsis: Batman and Robin head to Gotham University because Batman wants to ask renowned historian Professor Ranier to predict the future of America after the war. Ugh, you guys realize that's not what historians do, right? It's almost the opposite of what historians do.
However, the Dynamic Duo are in luck, as it turns out Ranier has been debating just this very problem with his colleagues Professors Proe and Conn (oh, brother).
The future that the Professors present is one in which the Axis has WON the War, and the Nazi flag flies over the United States! Gothamites are rounded up and shot if they don't kowtow to the new regime, and enemies of the state are placed in horrorifc concentration camps!
Young Bobby Logan tries to slip his mother and baby brother some stolen food through the barbed wire fence and is caught by the Nazis and placed in the camp.
But somehow Batman and Robin are still out and about in Gotham, and spot Bobby being beaten by the Nazis guards and decide to stop it if it's the last thing they do. They put up a good fight, but are eventually both captured and thrown in a cell -- the only reason they're still alive is that the Nazis want to make a show of executing them.
Somehow Bobby manages to sneak past the guards and helps the Dynamic Duo break out -- they overpower some guards and steal a truck to free the prisoners and make a break for it. They fill up the truck but many die in the escape attempt. Breaking through the fence they head out on the open road with many Nazis in pursuit.
In order to give the freed prisoners the time they need, Batman and Robin jump off and attack the Nazis to divert them. They are shot down, tied up, and finally executed by firing squad, although defiant to the last.
Well, back in the real world our heroes are none too happy with this prediction -- but Ranier insists that this is merely a vision of the future if people are indifferent and don't pull their full weight in the war. "It could happen here! It happened in Poland, Holland, France! It happened in Shanghai, Singapore, Java!" So, the people of France and Poland were indifferent?
Yes, only if every American fights for victory will the Allies prevail and give a good future, one in which Batman and Robin fly around in the Batplane knocking out Axis spy rings, where they discover the Axis fleets are launching a last-ditch desperate attack on Gotham City (what? why?) But the USAF gets amble warning thanks to the Dynamic Duo and soon the Batplane joins the squadron of fighter planes that utterly destroy the Axis fleet! Soon, the war is over, with Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini "jailed". The powers of evil utterly defeated forever, there is never war ever again and America's great industries are turned towards building a GOLDEN CITY of skyscrapers that rise into the clouds.
But this future will only happen if we ALL contribute to the war effort, by buying war bonds and stamps and recycling paper and metal and rubber and so on! Yes, it's all up to YOU to do YOUR part!
~~~~
My Thoughts: Holy crap. This is the most extreme propaganda story we've gotten in any Batman comic ever. We actually haven't gotten many stories about World War II in Batman, despite many patriotic covers and mentions of war bonds, probably because (like this one) they tend to beg the question "Why isn't Bruce Wayne over there fighting?" I guess someone's gotta look after Dick. This particular bit of story is pure propaganda, though, a fear piece designed solely to scare you into buying war bonds. In truth, neither Imperial Japan nor Nazi Germany ever had the resources or capability to invade the United States, and once the US was in the war the situation was never so dire as to present the possibility given in this comic. It wasn't a question of "if we don't all pull together, the Nazis will win" because neither the Nazis or Japanese had the manpower to accomplish this feat, especially with the Germans getting their asses handed to them by the Soviets.
By late 1942 the Battle of Midway had already occurred, turning the tide in the Pacific theater. Rommel was cornered in Tunisia and the German army surrounded in Stalingrad. Things were turning around for the Allies. Americans were fighting mostly for revenge in the Pacific, while the European theater for Americans was mostly a rescue operation -- the goal being the eventual liberation of Europe from Nazi control. It was never really about defeating the American mainland.
That being said, there was still another two and a half hard years of fighting to go when this comic was published, and for many Americans the Nazis did seem unstoppable. Stories like this one were useful propaganda to remind Americans why it was important to fight -- the possibility of Americans in concentration camps is stronger motivation for a people made up largely of isolationists than scenes of Europeans in said camps.
The Art: It's a Burnley bros. joint, but it's not up to the quality of their last story. It's never bad but it's just about standard -- I could see the Kane Studio doing about the same job of this story. One thing that stands out though is the excellent rendering of vehicles: the jeeps, the trucks, the planes and ships in the final climatic battle. It's overall all right. Worth noting that the Japanese soldiers are drawn as the standard glasses wearing, hair slicked back, buck-toothed stereotypes that were common to this era.
The Story: So, yeah, it's cardboard propaganda. The very idea of asking historians their predictions on the future is laughable, especially Batman's line that Professor Ranier's predictions are usually accurate. Since neither of these two futures came to pass (why would the Axis fleet launch a desperate attack on Gotham? What would that gain them?) I hope all three professors were fired -- oh, wait, tenure.
Both futures are total propaganda, but the "bad future" is I suppose at least an accurate view of what a Nazi-occupied America would look like, even if there was never a chance in hell of that happening. The comic doesn't shy away from firing squads, concentration camps, and even has a very downbeat ending with Batman and Robin being executed by Nazis. Granted, it totally ignores the Nazis' anti-Jewish racial policies, but I'm not sure whether you were even allowed to mention Jews in a comic in the 40s. (America had it's own weird racial issues at the time).
The "good" future is just as ridiculous, ending with America's industrial might basically turning the country into a post-war utopia because the historians assume that industrial production would stay at wartime levels, but be given over to peaceful ends. And of course there's the old rub about there never being any other wars after this one. That worked out so well, didn't it?
"The Loneliest Men in the World!"
Writer: Don Cameron
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: It's Christmas, and Bruce and Dick are out buying presents when they happen to notice that not everyone is filthy stinking rich and can afford piles of gifts for themselves on Christmas.
Back at Wayne Manor, Dick proposes the idea of bringing cheer and joy to the "loneliest men in the world", and Bruce was thinking the same thing so they suit up as Batman and Robin, dress up the Batplane with sled runners, sleigh bells, and a Christmas tree and head out to deliver presents to the three loneliest men in Gotham!
On their way out, they stop buy to wish season's greetings to Commissioner Gordon, who is in a meeting with Dirk Dagner, a gangster whom Gordon is letting go because they have no evidence to hold him! Batman and Robin swing through the window and tell Gordon all about their plans to bring Christmas to Ben Botts (doorman at a swanky club), Link Chesney (famous radio humourist) and Tom Wick the lighthouse keeper -- however they somehow don't notice Dirk listening in to the whole plan! Dirk heads back to his hideout and announces his plan to his men to attack Batman on his Christmas itinery.
First stop, is doorman Ben Botts, who has been working at the Crane Club for twenty-five years but never allowed inside. So of course Batman and Robin take him in to show him that the club's rich snobby patrons actually do appreciate and love him after all, and they start throwing him a party and his boss gives him a raise and so on -- but without Botts watching the door, Dirk Dagner and his men get in!
There's a fight, Botts is afraid he'll lose his job, but luckily Batman and Robin fight the crooks enough for them to... leave, I guess, and for no real reason Batman tells Robin not to pursue them (Batman must know there's six pages left in the comic).
The Batplane flies off to its next engagement with Link Chesney, who is a famous radio humourist in Gotham but also a notorious grouch who hates everyone and thinks everyone hates him. When the Dynamic Duo show up Batman points out that Link Chesney must have some humanity to bring such laughter into the world -- Chesney reveals that he buys old joke from other comedians and keeps them in a "gag file" and brings them out when he needs them on air (so... he's a fraud?)
That's when Dirk Dagner shows up to steal the gag file, and since it's the second act it's time for Batman and Robin to be captured and placed into a death trap! It's pretty elaborate -- the gangsters tied Batman and Robin to the raditor, tied a noose around their necks, then tie the end of the noose to Link Chesney who is then tied up and standing on tiptoes on a stool. The gag is that Chesney will eventually fall off the stool and thus hang Batman and Robin.
Batman gets them out of it by lifting up the stool with his legs enough for the rope to loosen and the three of them to escape. The crooks have already left to the lighthouse because I guess they didn't have much faith Batman would bite the dust either, but before going after them the Dynamic Duo reveal Chesney's Christmas gift -- all of his fans from across the country calling him at once through a national hook-up to wish him a Merry Christmas! Chesney fels appreciated and beloved (as he should, he's famous, after all!) and Batman and Robin leave in the Batplane.
The gangsters have knocked out lighthouse operater Tom Wick hoping to cause a vessel bringing in valuable war materiel will crash and they can loot it (who the hell do they think they can fence guns and ammunition to?). Batman and Robin appear, capture Dirk and his men, and celebrate Christmas Eve with Tom in the lighthouse.
Gordon's Christmas present is Dirk Dagner wrapped in a bow (literally) while Dick remarks that none of the men they helped were really lonely -- they all had friends, they just didn't know it. Bruce reveals that the true loneliest man is Dirk Dagner, who will never have a friend because he's "a wild beast to be kept caged"! Even on Christmas, Bruce Wayne is one cold sumbitch.
~~~~
My Thoughts: It's the second Christmas themed tale in Batman after last year's story in Batman #9. It's hard to know what to say about a story reviewed by Senior Batmanologist Chris Sims himself, but I will say I think it's a better Christmas tale than the last one. Both are of course overly saccharine but at least this one isn't a complete Dickens rip-off.
The Art: It's decent stuff, pretty standard layouts and character work from Kane, with Robinson clearly adding the extra detailing. It's a very busy style that fills the panels with a lot of lines, as opposed to the clean look of the Burnleys.
The Story: Can I take this opportunity to say... Dirk Dagner? I think that's the most over-the-top "villain" name any Batman gangster has recieved, and they've had some good ones. It feels like it should exist in the same breath as Dick Dastardly, Snidely Whiplash and Dan Backslide.
Anyways, the structure of the story is all right, with a good three act structure and so on, although the fact that Batman lets the villains go in act one so that they'll have someone to fight in the rest of the story is a glaring flaw. Of course, if this story were done today the writer would try to posit Batman himself as one of the loneliest men in the world on Christmas -- Don Cameron doesn't even bring it up since Batman is a millionaire with a ward, a best friend, and a girlfriend - his life's great!
