Oooh, boy. Prepare for patriotism and propaganda!
"The Bond Wagon"
Writer: Joseph Greene
Pencils: Jack Burnley
Inks: George Roussos
Synopsis: Dick is reading book on American History, presumably for school, and the thought strikes him that World War II is a revolutionary war for freedom in the same way as the War of Independence! Bruce totally agrees, and Dick thinks that if only modern Americans could remember the heroes of the American Revolution then they'd be inspired to buy more war bonds!
Bruce agrees again, and decides to cast for doubles of American founding patriots for a "Bond Wagon" to sell war bonds by restaging famous moments from the Revolutionary War. For some reason, he decides to do this in his Batman identity, instead of just as millionaire Bruce Wayne.
Sure enough, a bunch of patriotic Americans show up to volunteer to play George Washington, Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, Sam Adams, and Betsy Ross and Molly Pitcher because after all "women served then just as today!" (I have to admit, as a Canadian I only recognize five of those names off hand...)
One of the applicants is a former merchant marine captain who's ship was destroyed by the German Navy. He can't get another command because he suffers from "gunshock" (PTSD to us modern folk). Batman understands and casts him as Captain John Paul Jones of the Bonhomme Richard.
Then there's Pete Arnold, a college football player accused of betraying his team and throwing the Rose Bowl Game to cover his gambling debts. Now everyone calls him "Benedict" Arnold. He tells Batman the reason the team lost was because he was sick. Batman believes him and casts him as Nathan Hale.
The Bond Wagon is a huge success and generates a great deal of sales for war bonds and war stamps. Naturally this means it attracts the attention of Nazi spies operating in America, who decide to sabotage the bond wagon to destroy American morale.
Apparently the best way to do this is take the place of the actors playing the Hessian soldiers in the reenactment of Washington crossing the Delaware. Batman was over on the Washington side of the river while Robin had been stationed with the Hessian actors in a cabin on the other side. When the Nazis burst in and replace the Hessians, they capture Robin. But the Boy Wonder puts some logs on the fireplace because it's "cold", and the Nazis inexplicably allow him to do this, making fun of how weak Americans are.
Naturally, Robin is sending smoke signals from the chimney. Batman sees them, and knows there is trouble. He crosses the river and throws gas pellets into the cabin so the Nazis can't fire on the American actors.
The battle is joined, and of course our heroes beat up all the Nazis and arrest them. But these were simply the small fry - we still don't know who's leading the spy ring.
Next up we have the re-enactment of the Bonhomme Richard, which ends up being attacked by a Nazi submarine! Captain PTSD gets all freaked out, but Batman shakes him out of it and cures his PTSD by yelling patriotic slogans at him, because THIS COMIC IS PROPAGANDA IN CASE YOU DIDN'T NOTICE.
Then despite the fact that it's a wooden schooner with 18th century cannons versus a modern Nazi submarine, the schooner wins -- largely because Batman and Robin sneak onboard the deck, take over the guns, and point them at the Nazis. Another victory, with the US Coast Guard NOWHERE TO BE SEEN. Gosh, they really do need those bonds!
Finally, the leader of the Nazi spy ring decides that if Pete Arnold was willing to betray his school in a football game, he'll be willing to betray his country in wartime!
So the Nazis meet up with Arnold, and take him to meet the head of the spy ring. Robin is following Arnold and sees what's going down. But he can't find a car to drive out and warn Batman because of gas rationing (seriously, was it normal for ten-thirteen year olds to drive in the 40s?), and so Robin hops on a horse (so much more common) and we get the Midnight Ride of Boy Robin (instead of Paul Revere, yeah?)
So the Dynamic Duo head back to Nazi Spy HQ and punch all the Nazis till they fall down. They find Arnold shot in a back room, and take him to hospital. When he recovers he reveals that he didn't betray Batman, he was playing along to find out the identity of the leader and they shot him when he asked too many questions.
After a re-enactment of the signing of the Declaration of Independance, Batman makes a speech about signing a new Declaration of Independance, independance from the slavery of "Schikelgruber" (Hitler's maternal grandmother's name), and asks "Fellow Americans - Which is it to be? Bondage, or War Bonds?"
HOORAY FOR AMERICA.
~~~~
My Thoughts: How do you even judge this? I mean, it's really just wartime propaganda. I was surprised there wasn't a "paid for by the War Department" message at the end of it!
We see so much of these "Buy War Bonds" propaganda pieces in old pieces of popular culture from this period, from comics covers to Bugs Bunny cartoons, that I'm often very curious as to how many people were buying bonds. These pieces always make it seem like the American public wasn't very invested in the war and needed to be woken up to the dangers of the Third Reich and really pressured into patriotic spending -- but from what I understand war bonds sold really well in the US in WWII and the campaigns were usually a huge success? Apparently over the course of the war $185 billion was raised by 85 million Americans, approximately two-thirds of the population.
For those who don't know, cuz I really didn't either, the way the bonds worked was you bought a bond at a rate of say, 0.75 of a dollar - so a $25 bond for $18.75, and then ten years after you bought it the government would pay you back for the whole amount. I think. Someone with a better knowledge of finances and/or US history can correct me.
The Art: It's Jack Burnley art, so it looks great. Makes me think that this was maybe considered a prestige story, a "pull out the stops" kind of effort. Or maybe it was just another assignment. Oddly he's paired with George Roussos instead of his brother, so the ink line is a little thicker than usual. It works in most places but in some panels with more figures and details Roussos's line overwhelms a little and obscures things - like in the "Washington Crossing the Delaware" panel.
The Story: How do you even judge a story like this? It's pure propaganda. Aside from that, it's the kind of plot that feels natural in Captain America or Wonder Woman but doesn't work for me in Batman - fighting Nazi spies with hidden submarines and sabotage plans. I mean, I know we're in the thick of the war, but it just feels alien to Batman. Granted, ignoring the war is even weirder - the comics still haven't explained why Bruce Wayne isn't fighting overseas lol - but it still feels strange for Batman and Robin to be fighting Nazis. And as a Canadian I have to say the overwhelming American patriotism here doesn't really do anything for me. Who's Nathan Hale? Who's John Paul Jones? Also -- World War II is a modern War of Independance? Maybe for France! For America? A bit of an exaggeration.
I dunno, it's hard to criticize this thing - it's a propaganda story to stir up patriotism and sell war bonds. Whether it's good or not depends on whether it succeeds at that goal -- is evoking the Founding Fathers something that effectively gets Americans stirred up to fund foreign wars? I guess it is.
"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 Harlequin's Hoax!"
Writer: Joseph Greene
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: Four men in Gotham City receive some very strange packages from the Joker. Charles Saunders receives a radio with no loudspeaker, Mr. Fordney an automobile with only three wheels, Richard Morse gets a telescope with no lens, and finally Jim Brown gets a clock with no hour hand. Despite the seeming nonsensical uselessness of these "gifts", the men are all shocked and horrified -- there is some meaning behind the Joker's seemingly random "generosity".
Meanwhile Bruce Wayne is on a date with Linda Page at an amusement park -- but when they go on the "parachute drop" the ride gets stuck with them hanging in the air! An hour goes by and it still hasn't been fixed, and then the Bat-Signal blares into the night sky! What's a guy to do? Well, Bruce releases his safety belt, and pretends to "fall" and then catch a cable and slide down it. Playing "shaken" he hurriedly leaves the amusement park, and Linda still stuck in the air. Responding to the call of duty? 1. Not being a dick to your date? 0.
At HQ, Gordon fills him in on the Joker's latest mad antics, and Batman (reasonably by this point) assumes there must be a pattern and a larger scheme at work here. But what??
That night, Joker easily robs a department store -- the alarms were all turned off, leading Batman to think it must have been an inside job. And what a coincedence -- Saunders works at the same department store! With that in mind, when Joker attempts to rob a camera store where Fordney is a superintendant - Batman and Robin are there to meet him! A quick fight later and they've actually caught him! Tied up in the back of the car, ready to be taken to the police! What the heck? There's still six pages left in this comic!
Well, Joker ignites a flashbulb making Batman think they've popped a tire (really, Batman?) and when the Dark Knight stops to take a look at it Joker manages to get away. It may be the most down-to-earth and yet somehow ridiculous Joker escape yet.
Anyways, Batman decides to check on his hunch of what connects the men with the gifts and quickly finds himself proven right. Saunders is deaf in one ear, Fordney has a wooden leg, Morse a glass eye, and Brown an artificial hand -- just like the radio with no speaker, the car missing a wheel, the telescope with no lens and the clock with no hand. Turns out the four men had been in an accidental explosion in another city which caused their injuries and lead to the death of two other men. They had been implicated in the deaths and acquitted, but the scandal had forced them to leave and set up shop in Gotham. Joker somehow found out and has been blackmailing them.
A flash on the radio reveals Morse has given into the Joker's demands, but Brown promises Batman he will go to the police. At that moment, Joker and his men burst into Brown's home. They overpower the heroes and handcuff them to the radiator, leaving them to die with a time bomb about to go off (of all the hackneyed things!)
Brown manages to get out of the handcuffs since, ya know, one of his hands is fake (weird that Joker would forget about that) and throws the bomb out the window. He lets Batman know that Joker is headed to an aircraft manufacturing plant.
There, Joker is going to steal the diamonds the plant uses for it's precision drilling and cutting. Batman and Robin show up to stop the theft, culminating in a dramatic battle in and around the assembly line of the plant! But at the end of the line are the finished planes and surprise surprise Joker uses one to escape! The End.
Wait, what?
~~~~
My Thoughts: Another formulaic Joker story, although quite competently handled by Greene. The most interesting element is the wartime references -- Joker stealing cameras because they aren't being made anymore and thus valuable, Batman won't drive on a popped tire because it would ruin rubber that's in short supply, Joker raiding an fighter plane manufacturing plant, etc.
The Art: Absolutely nothing special at all here, in fact a little subpar, until we get to the chase through the factory, an unfortunately truncated two-page sequence that is awesome in its scope and superbly drawn (perhaps traced or otherwise based heavily on photoreference).
The Story: Greene handles the Joker formula better than in his last few appearances -- the random acts of mischief at the top are actually important throughout the whole story, the bigger crimes are consistent and build on each other, the clues actually progress and make sense, etc. It's nothing special really, just competent writing, but unfortunately competent writing reads like a breath of fresh air sometimes in Golden Age comics. What Greene gets right here is that Joker's scheme only seems crazy at the start, but is completely reasonable once we have all the facts.
Here's a special treat -- cover art by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon! One of the few times The King ever drew Batman, although the focus of the cover is welcoming Kirby's own feature "Boy Commandos" to Detective Comics. As it stands, there's not much of Kirby's style, even Golden Age Kirby, in tis Batman and Robin -- there seems to have been a concious effort to keep them "on-model" , as it were.
"The Cop Who Hated Batman"
Writer: Joseph Greene
Pencils: Jack Burnley
Inks: George Roussos
Synopsis: Our story opens in 1937, before Batman took on Robin, before he was officially recognized by the police, hell -- before "Case of the Chemical Syndicate!" Two crooks, Mike Nolan and Nick Rocco, are holed up in their hide-out, surrounded by cops. The Batman bursts in on them, knocking out Rocco. Nolan decides to turn himself in and confess everything -- he never really wanted to be a part of this anyway, but Rocco gets up and shoots him dead. As the cops rush in, the Batman must flee since he's an outlaw, and the police believe that perhaps the Batman killed Nolan (which would fit with the Dark Knight's early history of lethal measures).
Five years later, the Bat-Signal once again lights up the night sky, calling the Dynamic Duo to the office of Police Commissioner Gordon. However, Gordon has no horrific crime for them, but rather an invitation to join him on his holiday! (I'm sure Gordon's family loves that he chose to be accompanied by two identityless masked vigilantes rather than them). And hilariously enough, Batman accepts, and they all drive up to a "northern state in the mountains" together!
Gordon has accepted an invitation to stay at the barracks of the state troopers of this unidentified northern state and thought Batman would be interested seeing them in action, which is a pretty darn contrived premise if you ask me, but hey, here we are.
Anyways, the Staties all love Batman, all except one -- Tom Bolton, who utterly hates Batman without giving a reason. He's a good cop, one of the best according to his fellow troopers, so this is a mystery which Batman declares the strangest he's ever come up against. I dunno, Batman, that seems like quite the exaggeration.
That night, Batman is so shaken by Bolton's hatred that he has nightmares -- his first since childhood!! (Kinda flies in the face of modern writers who write him as haunted by his parent's death every night. Also -- Batman sleeps in his costume). The next morning, the dam bursts from the pressure of the spring thaw and there's a flood!
So of course Batman and Robin save a ton of people, but when Batman spots some looters he rushes off to fight them. He bites off more than he can chew, however, and gets kocked into the raging flood waters. And who should save him but Tom Bolton! Batman's confused, but Bolton says that it's his duty as an officer to save lives, and then refuses to shake Batman's hand.
See, turns out that Tom Bolton is Mike Nolan's son. He changed his name when his dad turned to crime so he could still join the police academy. And to this day he believes the Batman killed his father.
The next day, contrived circumstances get Bolton and Batman into a full on fisticuffs brawl. One of the officers points out that since Batman is a deputy, technically Bolton is assaulting a fellow officer, but Batman says he'll let it go and fight Bolton if this gets things out of his system. Bolton does all right, but eventually goes down.
Later he's on jail guard duty, and one of the inmates who saw his fight with Batman through the window asks him why he hates the Dark Knight so much. Bolton explains, and tells him he wishes Rocco would just tell the world what happened so everyone could see the Batman as the murderous coward he is. But the crooks explains he knows Rocco! Yeah, he used to run with his old gang! He can lead Bolton straight to him!
Anyways, as they set off, turns out Robin was eavesdropping. He reports to Batman and they take off on skis after the pair. Bolton arrives at an old cabin, and of course it was all a trap. They get the drop on Bolton, but Batman shows up for the rescue and explains the truth to him. Rocco admits to it -- Nolan only got into crime to pay for Tom's college tuition! The crooks tie up Batman and Bolton and make off on skis (killing them would bring too hot a manhunt on their heads). But the heroes escape and begin their pursuit!
One exciting ski chase later (including a cool bit where Batman and Robin use their capes as sails in order to catch enough wind to clear a jump), and they catch up with the crooks and Tom delivers good old fashioned fist justice to Rocco's face. Tom and Batman shake hands, everyone's happy.
~~~~
My Thoughts: "The Cop Who Hated Batman". What an interesting premise. Especially starting with a flashback to the Bat's earlier dark vigilante days. Maybe it's about the jealousy that a cop can feel for a superhero, especially one who gets to have the best of both worlds. After all, Batman can operate outside the strict law like a vigilante, but is still free from reprisals like a cop. He has it all, and no one even knows his name. His face isn't out there like a cop's is. There's a lot of room for resentment there.
Or, it could be a contrived situation regarding mistaken identity and a murdered relation where it turns out neither the cop nor Batman are really at fault. That could work too, I suppose.
The Art: The art here is by Jack Burnley, who we've previously seen only do covers, and it's gorgeous. DC had hired him themselves, not the Kane Studio, and he's clearly a cut above the other draftsmen workin on this strip. I mean this is just gorgeous stuff compared to what's been the norm lately. It's like an entire comic strip done just like pulp cover art, albeit without the painted colour but definitely in that style. The figure work especially, the faces and whatnot. The only disappointment is Batman and Robin themselves, oddly enough. Inker George Roussos (making a triumphant return!) keeps everything drenched in noir shadows gorgeously, but I also suspect he did some work keeping the Dynamic Duo on model, because while everyone else in the strip looks a cut above, the heroes don't appear all too differently than they usually do. It also would have been cool if Batman had been drawn in the old Bob Kane style for the 1937 flashback, but obviously this is way before there were fanboys caring about such things. Still, it's all great stuff, with very good layouts and very, very good pacing, which I appreciated.
The Story: This is the first script from Joe Greene in a while that hasn't sucked outright. While it doesn't live up to my expectations for the premise, it's still a good story well told. The contrivance of getting Batman and Robin out to the mountains is a bit of a stretch, and not even really necessary for the tale -- it all could have been told in Gotham City, but I'll admit the new locale makes for a nice change of pace. While I can't say this tale does anything especially memorable, it was interesting, entertaining and well-told, which makes it I think the best script Joe Greene has done for the strip so far. Good stuff.
Another patriotic wartime cover from Fred Ray. Since it's only 1942, it's pretty innocuous.
"The Secret of Bruce Wayne"
Writer: Joseph Greene
Artist: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: Okay so we start with Batman smashing another crime ring but turns out it's actually a re-creation for a TV show! Yes, a TV show, which apparently is simulcast for radio as well, called "Racket-Smashers!" It's very popular (one viewer wonders why Batman doesn't have his own radio show, like Superman, another hint from the creative team which fell on deaf ears -- he was actually depicted as having one in previous issues in another such hint. The Caped Crusader would never have his own radio program).
Meanwhile, the editor of "View" magazine gives his top reporter Scoop Scanlon the assignment of finding out the true identity of Batman, promising Scoop a raise which he needs to get married. Meanwhile, an out of work actor named Loring asks the director of "Racket-Smashers", Mr. Rand, for a job but is turned down. Scoop asks Batman if he can accompany him and Robin on patrols to promote their works in a series of articles and Batman agrees.
Batman and Robin chase down some bank robbers who manage to escape. Batman questions the bank guard and finds out that the robbers managed to commit the crime successfully by avoiding a mistake the criminals in the "Racket-Smashers" show made. Perhaps it's a conincedence? Meanwhile, a shadowy figure bursts into the "View" editor's office and begins making demands.
Scoop tells the editor that revealing Batman's identity would ruin his ability to fight crime effectively, but the editor keeps pushing, promising Scoop "help". Using the Bat-Signal, Scoop lures Batman into a trap in an old abandoned mill, but when the thugs have Batman down and out and Scoop wants him unmasked, the gangsters instead decide to kill him (why not do both? It's seriously no effort). Scoop objects, so they decide to kill him too. And of course rather than just shoot them they tie them up in the grinding millstones. But Robin shows up to rescue them, of course.
Batman questions one of the thugs who says their boss shook down the editor and made him hire them. So Batman questions the editor who confirms this but says the mystery guy was masked. Scoop basically says no hard feelings and that he'll keep trying to find Batman's identity and the Dark Knight wishes him good luck (I thought Scoop didn't want to find it and only was motivated by his editor's pushing??)
Mystery dude gives a "new script" to some other shadowy figures and tells them to watch out for Batman. Another episode of "Racket-Smashers" airs where the crooks are found out by a mistake they made, then another crime is committed without said mistake. Batman questions the writer who says he gets his ideas from case files from a source in the police department. Batman then questions the director who says the scripts are written a week in advance because TV actors can't read the scripts live like radio actors. Then Loring shows up to beg for a job again, doesn't get one, and Batman takes pity and gives him a wad of dough. Loring promises to return the favour.
Scoop meanwhile, is examing the case files at the police department of crimes Batman solved and notes that society playboy Bruce Wayne is always hanging around crime scenes and that is really suspicious behaviour for a society playboy. (True, except Commissioner Gordon is always the one inviting him and a better question maybe why the police commissioner is always inviting civillian friends to crime scenes, and a better question than that is why the police commissioner keeps visiting crime scenes personally, which is totally bizarre.) Anyways, from this Scoop concludes that Bruce Wayne and Batman are the same dude, which, while true, is a bit of a stretch.
Batman shows up and gives Mr. Rand a script for this week's show, insisting that they do his story, at the end of which Batman will reveal the identity of the criminal -- an ending not printed in the script -- and that he'll play himself. For some reason he allows this to be publicized in the paper and mystery dude sees it.
When the show begins, however, Scoop rushes in (how did he get on the set? They're live!) and proclaims Bruce Wayne and Batman to be one and the same on (not-really-national-at-all) live TV! Batman promises to reveal the truth at the end of the episode.
At the end of the episode, a bunch of gangsters show up to try and kill Batman for real, but Loring shows up out of fucking NOWHERE and takes a bullet meant for Batman. Batman reveals that the mystery criminal is... Graves, the announcer! (What.) See, Graves had been losing heavily in the stock market, yet could afford to live beyond his means (since... when?) and while Batman suspected him, he had no definite proof until now (What?). Graves is taken into police custody and the broadcast ends (notably with no resolution to the Batman identity question).
Scoop demands Batman answer, and then Robin faints "from the excitement." Batman takes him into a back room, where of course it's reveal Robin faked it to stall for time. Then Loring comes in, still bleeding out (wouldn't the police who took Graves have taken Loring to a hospital?) -- apparently Loring came there to die alone. Batman offers him "the role of a lifetime". Batman walks out of the back room hand in hand with Bruce Wayne, proving to Scoop they're different people (wouldn't Scoop notice that Batman and Loring went in, and Batman and Bruce Wayne came out??).
Anyways, it's Loring in the Batman outfit, and he dies. Bruce remarks that he played the greatest role of all... a man! (What??) And Robin basically says that dying to protect Batman's secret is a noble death (what... the... ?) The End.
~~~~
My Thoughts: First up, the TV thing legitimately threw me for a loop. I had no idea there were real, programmed TV broadcasts in 1942. Turns out there were about 5,000 sets in the US at the time, mostly owned by rich people on the east coast. There were no networks or anything, just individual stations. However, in 1942 TV production was halted by government order because of the war, those resources being needed for less frivolous shit, and didn't pick up again until after the war, with no real broadcasts in that time, hence why we mostly think of TV as a post-war thing. Still, threw me for a loop. The comic's presentation of TV production is... questionable at best of course. I'm sure the creative team had never seen a TV studio, TV being produced, or probably even a TV broadcast themselves, so I'll let it go. Still, it's a cool sign of how rich Bruce Wayne is that he's depicted as having one. Probably would have looked something like this. That's a nine-inch screen, by the way.
Anyways, this comic really demonstrates the limitations of the 13-page Golden Age story. It's crazy how rushed it all is, with whole scenes either being one-panel long or taking place between panels. It happens so fast, with so many new characters and plot twists coming in all the time that you really get whiplash reading it. Maybe it seemed exciting and action-packed to a kid in 1942, but to a modern reader it really seems shallow and slipshod, the whole thing is spread so thin.
The Art: First up, I think it's hilarious that Scoop is drawn like a skinny, older, Dick Tracy, complete with yellow fedora and overcoat. I wonder if that was on purpose, since Tracy was such an obvious inspiration for the Batman comics and their crazy rogues gallery. The art, technically, is okay, but with so much happening in so few panels on every page, you really lose narrative clarity. Especially because a lot of pages are wasted on fight scenes. In my summaries I almost never give details on fight scenes, because they're very rote. Batman and Robin using props in the room to knock out bad guys while making puns. And you can tell from my synopsis how much shit goes down in the story, even though I tried to simplify as much as possible. But to give you an idea, chasing the bank robbers is two pages, the rescue from the mill is a page and a half, and the final fight is a page. There's also an entire half-page near the start on people listening/watching "Racket Smashers". And everything else is squeezed into the remaining eight pages. It's fucking crazy. Bang for your dime, I guess. And I will say that Jerry Robinson, on his own, does a really good job. You don't miss Bob Kane at all.
The Story: This shit is fucking ridiculous. I give Greene props for doing something new, although this "reporter tries to uncover Batman's identity" plot is gonna get real old real fast once Vicki Vale shows up. There are so many leaps of logic here that it feels really "DC Silver Age" in style. I mean, the reveal of the mystery crook is probably the worst part. Oh, it's a minor previously unnamed character who we knew NOTHING about and had no clues?? That's the worst kind of mystery writing, making something an "unexpected" plot twist by making it impossible for the audience to recognize it beforehand. And wait -- radio announcer loses money on the stock market so he becomes a gang lord? And why was he pressuring "View" to reveal Batman's identity/kill him? Yeah it gets him out of the way, but until they moved on him Batman didn't even suspect anything -- and wouldn't defeating Batman get rid of material for the scripts? Scoop's character changes motivations halfway through the story for no reason. Loring is in there for no reason other than to provide an out for Bruce -- and I'm sorry but getting shot for Batman and then dying to save his secret identity is a really lame ending for a character who really only appears in like two panels before that. And even if Scoop recanted his views in an article, the idea that Bruce and Batman are the same has been planted in public imagination anyway. It's just... really the issue is that Greene tried to pack what would be like a six-issue arc in today's comics into 13 measly pages. As you can perhaps tell from my synopsis, a lot of shit happens way too fast without a lot of details. It really shows the weakness of the Golden Age form. The thing is a total mess, but it could've been better with space to breath. As it is it's a bunch of events in a row that rush by way too fast and don't make a lot of sense if you put any thought into them. But then, maybe the 5-10 year olds reading didn't put a lot of thought into it either, but that, to my mind, doesn't excuse the 28 year old writing it -- Greene gets an "A" for ambition and a "D" for execution.
Notes and Trivia: Batman's true identity is reveal to a TV/radio audience, but recanted. Loring becomes the third (I think?) person to learn Batman's true identity, but he dies.
A nicely rendered and memorable cover from Jerry Robinson.
"The Isle That Time Forgot"
Writer: Joseph Greene
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: Dick Grayson awakes to Bruce Wayne spanking him ten consecutive times, even though he's done nothing wrong, because it's his tenth birthday (least I assume that it's his tenth because that's the number of time Bruce hits him, but it's also possible to interpret the scene as Dick is just turning 8, which means he's been a 7-year-old crime fighter so far! Jesus!). Cuz that's not weird. Then he let Dick have a piece of his own birthday cake (which has fourteen candles?), a cake topped by a model Batplane (where did Bruce get that?). Dick says he wishes he had a real Batplane... and GUESS WHAT? Bruce has made him his OWN small Batplane, exactly like the main one, only smaller (which means they now have two Batplanes sitting along with the Batmobile in the old barn linked to Wayne Manor with the underground tunnel). Ah, the privileges of the 1%! Dick wants to take it for a test run right away, and Bruce agrees. And this is strange, right? I'm not alone in thinking this first page is just bizarre?
Anyways, they're off flying and they run into a hurricane. It just straight up pops out of nowhere I guess and they get stuck right in the middle of it. They make it out fine, and Robin spots an island. Batman decides to set down on it (keep in mind the plane isn't damaged or out of gas or anything), and Robin thinks he's spotted a dinosaur. Batman tells him not to "get gay", then spots a good-looking couple being threatened by a bunch of cavemen looking types. So naturally he decides to set down the plane and help them.
While trekking through the jungle, the Dynamic Duo are spotted and knocked out by the cavemen. When they awake, they find that they are captives alongside the attractive couple -- captives of a mad scientist named Moloff who wants no trespassers on his island, which he sees as the scientific find of the century! Batman and Robin break free of their bonds and start fighting the cavemen, but then Moloff tells everyone to run and suddenly Batman and Robin are left fighting a Tyrannosaurus rex! (Which looks more like an inaccurate depiction of an Allosaurus maximus, but I doubt Bob Kane had a lot of paleontology).
Batman ends up strangling the Allosaurus to death with his Batrope (described as 'silken', yet also 'strong as steel cable'), and Robin remarks that "now we've fought everything!"
The girl faints in Batman's arms, gracious for having been saved, at which point her companion clubs Batman and Robin on the head and accuses them of butting into "other people's affairs" and "crabbing my act"! He and some goons he promises money too leave Batman to die in the jungle, although they complain that the "Big Guy" isn't going to like this.
Unconscious Batman wakes up to find himself attacked by a boa constrictor, which is luckily shot in the head by an unknown aide before it can kill the Dark Knight. Following a trail of footprints, Batman heads off to solve the mystery. Meanwhile, Robin is thrown in a kind of glass zoo/cage building, while the woman begs with the other guy not to be a murderer. He insists that Robin will be all right, and that this island is a fortune in buried treasure for both of them. The reader begins to wonder if this story will ever stop being coy and start making some kind of sense.
So Robin gets attacked by a sabretooth tiger. He climbs a tree and uses his radio to call Batman for help. Batman rushes to the rescue, and runs into Moloff, who denies being the one who saved Batman from the boa constrictor. He pulls a gun on Batman, who simply punches him and runs on after Robin. There's some suspense as Batman is chased after, but he eventually crashes through the glass windows and tackles the sabretooth tiger, only to find that it's tusks are fake! He pulls one out and uses it to stab the tiger to death! Yeesh, Batman.
Batman and Robin are stumped as to what's going on, but before they can figure things out they come across Moloff once again holding the handsome couple hostage with a gun. The Dynamic Duo jump in and a fight starts, and once again the handsome guy tries to take out Batman, but hitting him with a stone club seems to do nothing! During the fight, Robin uncovers a movie camera, and when he wonders what it's doing there, someone yells that he's ruining the shot!
Yes, turns out that it's all been a movie, directed by "Big" Guy Markham. Guy tells Batman they were already shooting when the Batplane landed and he decided to take advantage of the situation. Figuring the heroes would never consent to be in the film, he decided to have the actors improvise and stage scenes around them. The leading man got jealous, as this was supposed to be his break-out role, and this is why he kept trying to kill Batman. The dinosaur was a mechanical construct controlled from within by a man. A crack marksman killed the boa and would've killed the tiger if it had gotten out of control.
The director believes his "third-rate melodrama" is now an epic, and Batman and Robin fly back to the mainland looking forward to seeing it upon release.
~~~~
My Thoughts: Oh, man. So this is another in the "Batman and Robin NOT in Gotham City" genre that I generally dislike, and this time it's by Joseph Greene, writing his second Bat-script. And man it just doesn't work on so many levels. I don't like these kinds of stories, I just don't think Batman and Robin work well in them, but I admit they can be good if the change of scenery is well justified. This, on the other hand, is a story that works only through trickery. It's writing down to the audience. And sure, the audience is between eight and ten years old, but that doesn't make it okay in my eyes. Also, the whole damn thing is weird -- and also the first comic I've seen that falls into the "let's make Batman and Robin look gay by pulling panels out of context" genre of modern internet foolery.
The Art: It's all right. The Batplanes, the storm, the dinosaur, the tiger, they're all quite well done. Ultimately, too much happens too quickly in this story for the art team to really strut their stuff with the action bits. But what they do get, they do a good job of, like the boa constrictor scenes and Batman racing to rescue Robin. So in many ways the art is pulling the weight here. We're seeing Batman and Robin do cool things we don't normally see them do.
The Story: Yeesh! Not a lick of this makes sense. I kept waiting for Robin to wake up and it was all a dream. First Bruce gives Dick an airplane for his tenth birthday, which may be the height of Bruce's reckless child endangerment so far. Then they get lost in a hurricane, land on an island, fight dinosaurs and dudes with confusing motivation, and then it was all a movie? I think Joseph Greene either has no idea how movies are made, or decided his readers didn't and that it didn't matter. I get that special effects were a more mysterious and magical thing back then (no DVD commentaries and features to ruin it all) -- but a life-size mechanical dinosaur? Is that how people thought King Kong was done? And who is putting up the insurance for a picture that's really shooting on an uncharted island, with real dangerous animals? What director would just decide to start throwing dangerous animals at Batman and Robin and filming it? Why are the Dynamic Duo okay with this?? These people are crazy! This story thinks its being clever by keeping it all a muddled mystery til the end, but the explanation is just so lazy and nonsensical that it renders the whole story somewhat stupid.
Notes and Trivia: Robin has his own Batplane, identical to the first, but smaller.
"Report Card Blues"
Writer: Joseph Greene
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: Little Tommy Trent plays hooky from school a lot and his grades are failing. His parents are angry with him, and tomorrow is report card day. His dad says that if Tommy doesn't get a good report card he won't be allowed to play after school anymore. Tommy just knows it's going to be awful, so he decides to run away from home, and sneaks off at night.
Meanwhile, in the City, some gangsters are setting a bomb at a storefront in order to scare the owner into paying protection. Batman and Robin happen upon them, and successfully beat up the crooks, but they forget about the bomb, which goes off. In the confusion, the three bandits make off in a bakery truck.
Batman tells the police to put an alarm out for the truck, which the crooks end up hearing on the radio. They put on butcher's uniforms and change the sign on the truck from Baker to Butcher, but they realize as they approach a carstop that they still match the description of three guys in a truck. But, seeing little Tommy Trent trying to hitch along the highway, they pick up the boy and use him to throw off the police. The gangsters talking makes Tommy realize they are, in fact, gangsters, and the crooks realize the kid could be a potential witness. They throw him into the back of the truck and decide to take him back to the boss for further instructions. But Tommy is smart, and drops a trail of breadrolls out a hole in the back of the truck so that... someone... can follow them. The truck arrives at a Florist's, and the lead crook reports to their boss, the flower-loving gangster named L. Milo.
Batman and Robin pick up the trail of breadrolls and follow it. At the Florist's, Milo instructs the men to kill the boy, but before they can do anything, the Dynamic Duo burst on the scene. There's a brief fight, before Milo manages to grab ahold of Robin and point a gun at him, telling Batman to stand down or Robin dies (Why he doesn't just shoot both of them is beyond me). Now captured, Batman and Robin sit tied up with little Tommy Trent, who relates his runaway story to his idol, the Dark Knight.
Milo announces that as it is the first of the month, they must settle accounts with those who haven't paid their protection money, and as they are now wanted by the police, they must work quickly. He splits the group into three, so as to hit all three businesses simultaneously, and takes Tommy with himself as a hostage, leaving Batman and Robin tied up alone in the flower shop with a guard. Batman manages to escape by pushing a fern plant in front of a steam vent, the heat causing the buds to ripen and explode in the guard's face, allowing the momentary distraction needed to strike! Ah, the things one learns in an encyclopedia! They find Milo's records book and figure out which businesses he is hitting and split up.
Robin heads to a barber shop and defeats the crooks there using a combination of barber shop props and bad puns. Batman promptly does the same at a penny arcade. There's a funny moment when he knocks a crook into a fortune machine which spits out a card reading "A tall dark man will enter your life and cause you much trouble."
They then arrive at the final location, a department store, but the crooks know the Duo is coming and outnumber them. Trying to help, Tommy grabs a bow and arrow off a shelf in sporting goods, ties his hankerchief around it, lights it on fire with a match, then shoots the arrow into the ceiling, setting off the automatic sprinklers (somehow managing to do all this without anyone noticing!) The sprinklers provide the distraction needed for the heroes to get the upper hand in the fight, especially when the Fire Department shows up to provide back-up!
Batman returns Tommy to his home, where he promises to be a good student and never play hooky again. Having only been gone during the night, he goes to school in the morning with his parents none the wiser that he was gone, promising to study hard and get good grades. (None of which will change that this term's report card is still gonna suck!)
~~~~
My Thoughts: I can really see what Greene's going for here, the wish-fulfillment fantasy of a regular kid sharing adventures with Batman -- but isn't that what Robin is for? The idea of Batman interacting with normal kids on adventures is going to be used over and over, but I can't recall ever seeing it done particularly well ("I've Got Batman in my Basement", anyone?)
The Art: Good, standard stuff from Kane & Co. Tommy Trent looks like something out of Dell Comics, like a poverty-stricken ginger version of Richie Rich. The gangsters also get some good designs, and the fight scenes in the barber shop and penny arcade are lots of fun.
The Story: Greene's script isn't as bad as the last story, but it does have a few issues. The biggest of which is that ultimately Tommy doesn't really learn anything in his adventure that actually applies to solving his issue. I get that Greene is trying to show a regular kid that the reader would relate to and impart the message that it's important to stay in school -- but Tommy running away from home means he gets to hang out with the Batman! He never could've done that if he'd stayed home! Meanwhile, he's still gonna get a rotten report card (changing your ways on the last day of term doesn't solve that) so his dad is still gonna ground him. Oh well, can't expect all your Golden Age comics to have good scripts, I guess.
"The Princess of Plunder"
Writer: Jack Schiff
Artist: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: Popular socialite Marguerite Tone is known for throwing elaborate parties with gimmicks and games for the guests. On this particular evening, she gives all the guests a card with a rare item on it, for the game is to be a scavenger hunt! However, none of the guests know that Marguerite Tone is actually the Catwoman! Donning her cat's head mask, cape and skintight black dress, she gives her gang of crooks scavenger hunt cards as well, and sets them upon Gotham to steal items from the wealthy!
When the crooks are questioned as to why they are in these homes, they are able to use the scavenger hunt as cover, pretending to be Marguerite's guests! When Batman and Robin come across a pair of the burglars on their patrol, they give the same cover story. Batman phones Marguerite to check the story, it all seems legit, except Batman recognizes her voice as that of Catwoman's (which begs the question of why noone recognizes his voice as that of Bruce Wayne's, especially people who know both men well, like Commissioner Gordon...)
Suspecting that something is up, Bruce accepts an invitation to Marguerite's next party, a costume party where the guests must show up as their favourite character. So naturally, Bruce goes as Batman. Perhaps not a great idea for secret identity reasons, but a worse one is that he and Robin drive there in the Batmobile! Batman leaves Robin in the car and heads into the party.
Marguerite of course has had the audacity of dressing as Catwoman, but Bruce finds that he's not alone as Batman! There's a whole wack of Dark Knight cosplayers, one of whom mistakes Bruce for someone named Duke and tells him to meet up with Catwoman upstairs. So Batman finds himself standing with three other Batmen being given orders by the Catwoman! The plot is that the Batmen will be able to enter any building without suspicion (since Batman is an honorary police officer), and if there's any problems they can once again use the costume party as cover. But that's when the real Duke shows up, and they realize that one of them is the real Batman. Batman uses the identity confusion to his advantage in the ensuing two-page fight scene and is eventually assisted by Robin. However, Catwoman points out to Batman that she has not in fact committed a crime and that he cannot prove anything. Foiled, Batman lets her go. (Couldn't he arrest her for her previous crimes, knowing that she's Catwoman now?)
Marguerite's next scheme is to recommend new serving staff to her high society friends, who are unaware their new employees are in fact Catwoman's thugs, who of course use their new positions to rob their employers. Unfortunately, one of them is spotted and recognized by Bruce Wayne at a dinner party, giving the whole scheme away. He follows the crook down to the servant's quarters and confronts him as Batman. A two-page fight scene later and he's beaten the next target Catwoman and the gang intend to attack out of him.
Batman and Robin intend to stop the Princess of Plunder, but after a two-page fight scene Catwoman once again gets away. But Robin spots a clue, which leads the Dynamic Duo to a lost-and-found agency. Catwoman, unable to fence the highly unique items she has stolen, is instead selling them back to the rightful owners through a lost-and-found. There's a fight, during which one of the crooks tries to kill Catwoman for getting them into this mess. Batman saves her, Robin rounds up the crooks, and Catwoman embraces Batman in a kiss.
Catwoman gets away, but the cops arrest everyone else. Once again Robin accuses Batman of letting Catwoman get away, while Bruce muses about what could be if only they weren't on opposite sides of the law.
~~~~
My Thoughts: This story is significant in that it is the first Batman tale created without any involvement from the character's two creators, Kane and Finger. Jack Schiff's second script is another Bat-classic, demonstrating a firm grasp of the characters, and story-telling style. Catwoman's character once again goes through some evolution -- this time given a real name. It's unclear whether Schiff intended Marguerite Tone to really be Catwoman's true name, but it is implied in the story that it is a recently created alias for the purpose of this series of crimes, as Bruce has never met Marguerite before this story despite both travelling in the same social circles, and the fact that at the end of this story Catwoman's scheme is outed and she gets away and seemingly abandons this identity. Still, it's an interesting development and continuation of a character who hasn't been seen in the book for some time now -- Schiff brings Catwoman back from near oblivion and makes her relevant to the book again.
The Art: Jerry Robinson pulls a fine solo job here. His greatest contribution is a refinement of Catwoman's costume design -- now a tight black dress with a dark purple cape, and even the silly cat's head mask is drawn much better, giving the character a sleeker, more evil appearance that works in her favour. Perhaps the only major issue in Robinson's work is his Batman and Robin faces, both of which appear somewhat sloppy and off-model throughout. However, it in large part indistinguishable from his work with Kane, which I suppose proves how significant his contributions to the look of the strip have been.
The Story: Schiff once again writes a tale that feels like a classic Batman story, with no bumps or hiccups in the narrative. He also writes the first truly good Catwoman story -- with no major changes from the Kane/Finger conception of the character, yet she finally seems a competent and worthwhile antagonist. Schiff makes her smart and capable, and also gives her a gang of henchmen where previously she had been an independant operator. He retains the mutual attraction between Batman and Catwoman, and the now standard ending of Batman letting Catwoman go, a questionably immoral decision influenced by their forbidden romance. Yet this story feels so much better than the previous attempts at the character that it's like discovering her again for the first time.
"The Sheriff of Ghost Town"
Writer: Bill Finger
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: Two tired travellers stumble upon an old ghost town somewhere in the American west. They are Cactus Joe, an old prospector, and a young boy named Joe Jeffers, son of his dead partner. Cactus Joe believes there's still gold to be found here, and decides to settle down to make some money to send the boy to school. Sometime later, a couple drives through and stops as they are out of gas. Their farm had failed, but Cactus Joe encourages them to homestead in the town and make another go of being farmer. Soon enough the town attracts a doctor (who arrives in a horsedrawn carriage?), a carpenter, a barber, a schoolteacher, etc. and becomes a flourishing small town (with the appearance of a Hollywood backlot version of a Wild West town, and everyone dressing in that style...) which names Cactus Joe its mayor and names itself Sunshine City!
So, this being a comic book, five crooks ride into town seeing easy pickings. And yes, I said ride -- horses, cowboy hats, everything like out of a western for some reason. They attack the town, they steal gold, they murder townsfolk and they burn the schoolhouse to the ground. Cactus Joe is at a loss for what to do (call the state police or the federal authorities, maybe?) but young Joe Jeffers suggests putting out a call to Batman to help them (of course! A quasi-legal vigilante from a city thousands of miles away!) The kid rides (on horseback, of course) to "State City" to ask a newspaper publisher to print their story in the hopes that it gets Batman's attention. The story is picked up by radio stations and broadcast coast to coast. Noone at any point apparently thinks to send police or help themselves or anything, of course.
Batman and Robin hear the story on the radio, and decide to leave Gotham to help. Travelling by Batplane, they actually come across the young boy being set upon by the crooks (all on horseback!)
So of course Batman dives out of the plane and knocks a dude off a horse and drives the criminals off, saving the boy. Riding triumphantly into town, Mayor Cactus Joe nominates Batman for sheriff of the town -- and the crooks promptly counter-nominate their leader, Frogel, and oh man this is stupid. Like, episode of the Adam West show stupid. How could either of these guys actually be nominated -- one's a crook and the other has no legal identity? Anyways, there's a mild subplot of Batman on the campaign trail with Frogel attempting to sabotage it, but it lasts a page and Batman becomes sheriff. He of course makes Robin his deputy, and for a time all is quiet and peaceful in Sunshine City. Newspapers ring out that Batman has ended crime in the small town, which is impressive considering he couldn't manage it in Gotham.
Now the news comes that the neighbouring town of Gila Gulch is going to lend Sunshine City money to pay for electric lights and other 20th century conveniences. For some reason they decide to bring the money in a stagecoach, and the whole town agrees to dress in pioneer clothes like it was "frontier days", despite the fact that this whole country has been doing that since the start of the story. So of course the gang of crooks plans to rob the stagecoach.
Batman assigns Robin to escort the stagecoach while he... jerks off, I guess? It gets attacked by the bandits who steal the money, kill Cactus Tom, and take Robin hostage. Because Robin sucks. The kid at least leaves a trail for Batman to follow, so the Dark Sheriff rallies a posse of old-timers in cowboy cosplay to help him take down the gang because "one ounce of fighting spirit is worth a ton of muscle!"
A two-page fight scene later and the gang is defeated and Robin freed. And while of course Batman and Robin don't kill anyone, the cowboy cosplayers do indeed shoot a bunch of dudes with six shooters. Batman tracks Frogel to his hideout, and even though Frogel shoots right at him, it somehow doesn't matter and Batman beats him up and takes him to jail. The town erects a statue of Cactus Tom, and Batman reflects that the pioneer spirit is all anyone needs and then no one can rob you of happiness, before the Dynamic Duo fly back to Gotham in the Batplane.
~~~~
My Thoughts: Usually when Bill Finger does these "Batman in another genre" stories, there is some justification for what happens. Nope, not this time. Finger apparently thinks that a) all people in the Midwest dress like they're in a Western B-movie and b) that apparently there is still no law and order in the Wild West. It's a dumb story and not only that but the central gimmick of Batman in a Western is also one we've seen before, in World's Finest #4 just four months ago, which also did a poor job of justifying things and was also a bad story. Well, I suppose I will just have to get used to recycled ideas and scripts as I continue on through this review series.
The Art: I suspect there must have been some kind of miscommunication with the art team on this story. The dialogue seems to imply that no one starts doing the Western get-up and such until the final bit of the story, when everyone dresses up for the town's celebration. But everyone looks like the 1860s all the way through, which just seems bizarre.
The Story: It's just bad writing. Finger takes forever setting up this frontier town whose whole gimmick strains belief, then we're led to believe that no one else can help these folks except Batman. The "Batman is elected sheriff" plot is dumb, and seems like it's just there to use the silver star iconography and justify the title of the story. And the whole story can be summarized as "every B-western movie cliché, this time with Batman". This is the only Finger/Kane story in this issue and it stinks, which maybe demonstrates that the strip indeed needs new blood.
For those wondering, this cover is a good indication of what Bob Kane's artwork looks like when no one else is inking him -- flat like cardboard.
"The King of the Jungle!"
Writer: Joseph Greene
Pencils: Bob Kane
Inks: Jerry Robinson
Synopsis: We pick up directly from last month's story, with Penguin hopping railway cars like the world's classiest hobo. Speaking of hobos, he meets up with some, and quickly recognizes that many of them are wanted criminals, on the run. He proposes a scheme where he brings them in for the bounty, then springs them and splits the money. This is fairly successful, largely thanks to Penguin's upper-class appearance, intelligence, and umbrella gadgets.
Bruce and Dick, meanwhile, are travelling by train on vacation (picking up from the Winter issue of World's Finest), and Dick spots the Penguin at a station. They disembark from the train and vow to foil the Penguin's plan. After some questioning they find Penguin and his band of bums in a hobo's jungle, and there's a fight. A chase leads to the trains, wherein Penguin and his men manage to overpower the Dynamic Duo and place them in a primitive death-trap (hanging upside-down on meathooks so the blood rushes to their heads and they die a slow, lingering death).
Penguin and his men escape to continue their scheme, but Batman manages to get out of the deathtrap by cutting through the bonds with another meathook (convenient). Heading back to Wayne Manor, Batman examines his criminal files in his hidden laboratory (maybe the first time we've ever seen these items) and confirms his hunch that the hobos are wanted men and thereby guesses the Penguin's scheme. Because they know who Penguin just sprang from prison they guess that the next man will be the one geographically closest and off they fly in the Batplane to Arkansas.
They corner Penguin at the jail in the middle of the escape attempt. A fight turns into a running battle, and Penguin stows onto a riverboat on the Mississippi river. There's a fight on the boat which ends up with Penguin deciding he's no match in a duel with Batman (despite having a sword/umbrella!) and diving off the boat. The authorities aren't able to find him in the river, but flying back to Gotham Batman asserts that this is not the last they've heard of the Penguin.
My Thoughts: I think this is the first direct sequel from one month to another in Detective Comics since the Monk story in #31/32, but more significantly it's also the first Batman tale not written by Bill Finger since Detective #34. Joeseph Greene was a sci-fi short story author who's greatest creation was "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet", but at this point he was just a gun-for-hire writer probably being given a few bucks to fill in for Finger on a month he was late getting a story in. It's interesting he decided to follow up with Penguin right away -- by immediately giving the character a second story I think it really cements Penguin as a major new rogues gallery member on par with Joker and Catwoman. Greene sticks to Penguin's character as established and doesn't try to mess around with the formula, although he does give Batman a hidden crime laboratory (which, to be fair, has been hinted at before now), complete with case files and rogues gallery -- which also begins a slow transformation of Batman from "Shadow fan fiction" to "Sherlock Holmes in a cape and cowl".
The Art: No complaints. On-par quality for Kane and Robinson, capably produced all around. Good shadowy inks, dynamic action scenes.
The Story: My synopsis was much simpler and shorter than it usually is because in all honesty not a lot happens in this story compared to Finger's plots. Maybe it's a case of different pacing -- this story seems plotted a lot closer to how a 13-page story would be plotted today, as opposed to Finger fitting an entire six-issue arc into 13-pages. That being said, Greene is also using a lot of padding. Most of the story is seeing different variations of Penguin "arresting" one of his accomplices, bringing him to jail, then breaking him out using some umbrella based gadget. They're all pretty clever, but not worth really repeating in synopsis. Same with the several fight scenes. That's not to say it's a bad story -- it's good, it's enjoyable to read, and it's a good follow-up to the previous Penguin story that keeps the character relevant. But it's not up to Finger's level or standard -- which is perhaps understandable. Greene's playing it safe for his first script, delivering something workable, if neither original nor ambitious. He's playing with pre-established pieces, leaving things more or less where Finger left them when he's done. (Although continuity wise this story does a good job of picking up from where both Detective #58 and World's Finest #4 left off) That being said, the title annoys me -- Penguin becomes king of a gang of hobos, and in one scene they are in a hobo "jungle", but that's not the primary setting nor primary theme of the story.
Notes and Trivia: Batman's crime laboratory is explicitly noted as a secret, hidden room in Wayne Manor, complete with case files and rogues gallery
