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| The Caped Crusader in the 1960s by Jack Seabrook & Peter Enfantino |
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| Moldoff |
"The Creatures That Stalked Batman"
Story by Bill Finger(?)
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris
"The Impossible Inventions"
Story by Jack Miller (?)
Art by Joe Certa
"The Creature from the Sorcerer's Stone!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Ruben Moreira
While making their rounds one afternoon, the Dynamic Duo notice that the gates to Professor Martin's laboratory are open. Concerned, Batman and Robin enter the lab and discover the prostrate form of Martin; the professor is conscious long enough to warn Batman that the door to his dimensional gate has been opened. With that, he collapses.
The silence does not last for, as Batman approaches, the monsters attack. The costumed crimefighters escape via a manhole and plot their avenue of counterattack while hiding in the sewers. Brainstorm at an end, our boys reappear on the street (oddly enough, the police have left the creatures unattended--donut shop sale?), where they are swiftly set upon once more. But Batman is ready for the titans this time and litters the space between bulb-dome and silver-man with bits of aluminum foil, thus temporarily breaking the psychic bond between the two intruders. A bat-a-rang renders the robot useless, but that still leaves the purple people eater.
Seems this interloper witnessed a top-secret demonstration of a powerful weapon known as the "Arrow of Energy" and then stole the gizmo, slipping back through Prof. Martin's dimensional revolving door and bringing the firearm back to our world. Ardello is tasked with finding the weapon and bringing it back in one piece. Using a few clues lifted from the Prof.'s lab, Batman feeds the info into the Bat-Computer and a card spits out with the identity of the Faux-Caped Crusader: Ed Collins, a/k/a Gimlet! After that, it's not long before the Dynamic Duo track down Collins and return the Arrow of Energy to Ardello, who vows never to forget his new friend. Discharged from the hospital, Prof. Martin destroys his dimensional machine and promises Batman he'll never again tread where man was not meant to tread.
But I digress (as I often do). All that goofiness adds to the fun of Bill Finger's complex plot, a script that could easily have been broken up and spread out over three different stories. The Moldoff/Paris art is typical 1960s DC/science fiction quality, just enough to present an illustrated story but nothing strenuous.
Jack-Not only did the Roy Raymond story have the best art, as always, but this time around it had the best story as well! The sorcerer's stone strongly resembles a pepper-grinder and I thought for sure that when Roy's gal-pal Karen slipped some rings off of the stone to add to her charm bracelet, she'd somehow come to the rescue in the end, but not so. As for J'Onn J'Onzz, he definitely comes up with some complicated solutions to simple problems, doesn't he?
The highlight of the Batman story for me was the giant Humpty Dumpty statue made out of wax that was prominently displayed in the Batcave. I don't recall seeing that before. It was pretty callous of Batman to melt such a treasured memento just to foil the robot from outer space!
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| Moldoff |
"The Martian from Gotham City"
Story by Bill Finger
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris
Once again, I wonder why they feature something other than the lead story on the cover. After plunking down my dime for an issue highlighting the Sea-Fox, I want to open to the first page and read about the Sea-Fox!
The next day, the Gotham Gazette asks if Batman is cracking up and Commissioner Gordon shines a big "R" in the sky to summon the Boy Wonder, alone. Robin rushes to the Gotham Balloon Company's factory and finds crook Big Jim Masters, who escaped at the start of this tale and who has already enlisted two more goons. The bad guys overpower Robin and tie him to a helium-filled balloon, intending to set him free to drift up into the sky to his doom.
A fun story and a good example of how Bill Finger can pack a lot of plot into nine pages. The GCD credits the art on this story and the next to Moldoff alone (without Paris); he draws a classic Dynamic Duo but his Bruce Wayne leaves something to be desired.
Detective Comics #280
"The Three Faces of Batman"
Story by Bill Finger
Art by Sheldon Moldoff
"The Lair of the Sea-Fox"
Story by Bill Finger
Art by Sheldon Moldoff
When Batman and Robin encounter what appears to be "The Martian from Gotham City," he escapes after an electric bolt from his ray-gun causes a water tower to fall and nearly crush our heroes. Commissioner Gordon explains that the Martian is really Clive Norris, an actor in a science fiction movie who hit his head and now thinks he's from the Red Planet. Three crooks trick him into helping them by posing as fellow Martians in disguise, but when Batman and Robin fight the crooks, Norris heads back to the movie set, thinking it's really Mars. Batman scares the actor with a cat after learning that he has a phobia of felines; the encounter jolts him back to recalling his human identity.
Batman surprises a trio of thieves trying to steal rare metals from the Gotham Science Laboratory. One of them knocks Batman backwards into a machine that suddenly emits an alarm and a siren. The leader of the crooks escapes and, the next night, when Batman is summoned to deal with an escaped convict atop a tower at the Gotham Oil Field, bells herald the arrival of fire trucks and the Caped Crusader suddenly becomes reckless, going after the convict alone in a way that requires Robin to prevent his death. Afterwards, Batman can't remember what happened.
The next night, Batman and Robin are asked to execute a daring maneuver to free a stuck landing wheel on a plane circling Gotham Airport. Batman stands up in the Bat-Plane but, when a siren warns the crowd below to clear the field, he is suddenly paralyzed by fear and Robin has to free the plane's wheel. Again, Batman can't recall what happened.
Luckily, Batman appears. Masters sets off a siren and Batman is suddenly afraid, but wait! He's faking it to get close enough to Masters for a sock in the jaw! Batman knocks out the other two villains, frees Robin, and explains that the scientist at the lab used the same machine that set off his problems to cure him.
Batman and Robin encounter three men in purple scuba suits robbing a shop in Chinatown, but the crooks get away by escaping through a hole in the floor into the sewer below the shop. The Dynamic Duo head down into the sewers only to let the crooks get away again. How will our heroes discover "The Lair of the Sea-Fox"? With the rarely used Bat-Sub, of course! The gang robs a bank that sits above an underground river and the chase is on; eventually, good triumphs over evil and Batman captures the Sea-Fox at his lair on the abandoned Fort Island.
Why in the world do these crooks dress up in purple diving suits and go to such lengths to rob Gotham's banks and stores? Why does the Sea-Fox's headpiece have two fox ears while his subordinates' head-pieces sport fins on top? Who knows? What really intrigues me is whether we'll see a story that doesn't revolve around robbery. Gotham City's courts and prisons must have been filled with robbers, leaving very little room for other sorts of ne'er-do-wells.-Jack
Peter-"The Martian from Gotham City" (my favorite Batman story of the five covered this time out) reminds us of the dangerous early 1960s when studio special effects crews created ray guns for their science fiction thrillers that actually worked! Oh, for the days before CGI! Karik's henchmen look exactly like the guys who are helping out Atomic Man in 'tec #280! "The Three Faces of Batman" is good for a handful of chuckles, chief among them when the Commish gives up on his old chum and lights up the Robin-Signal. Surely, this is the first and last time we ever see that prop.
"The Lair of the Sea-Fox" closes out the issue and, again, I'm amazed that Bill Finger was able to whip up so many clever and entertaining stories each and every month. I have no idea (nor does the GCD) who the author of the 'tec installments was, but they have a similar, energetic vibe to them, so I'm not going out on a limb to say those might be Bill Finger properties as well. Where does Batman keep his Bat-Sub anchored/submerged? You'd think some underwater bad guy would have stumbled onto it and hijacked it by now. I'm intrigued to find at what point all these crazy crafts start disappearing from the mythos.
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| Moldoff |
"The Menace of the Atomic Man"
Story Uncredited
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris
"Prof. Wetzel's Mystery Ray!"
Story Uncredited
Art by Ruben Moreira
"Bodyguard to a Bandit"
Story by Jack Miller (?)
Art by Joe Certa
Which brings us back to the present. Batman answers a distress call from the Hayes Float Company and arrives as Strode and his henchmen are destroying Hayes's inventory. Hayes was one of the Filthy Four and he's going to rue the day he ever set eyes on the Atomic Man. The crazed Molecule Man is too much for the Dynamic Duo but, as he's making his exit, he promises to see them later.
"The Menace of the Atomic Man" is another jewel crafted with looniness and imagination. Rather than simply kill the quartet of enemies, Strode goes to great lengths to do hardly any damage at all. In the course of the story, he manages to damage a few floats and a big boat, turn a safe into glass, and break into an art gallery. Knowing Gotham's lenient court system, I'd say Strobe gets ninety days with credit for time served. The real dum-dums here are the henchmen (who dress in very nice suits and ties), who never get paid for all their hard work. Early CSI detection methods are seen when Batman pulls down his ear chart in the Batcave and gives Robin a tutorial on lobes. "This is our man..." he exclaims, ten seconds after looking at the chart! He's the world's greatest detective, but why didn't he pack his Anti-Molecular-Structure-Alternator in his utility belt and save the boys a whole lot of trouble?
Roy Raymond, TV Detective, works with local police to "smoke out a gang of thieves" by disguising himself as the brilliant Professor Wetzel, creator of a molecular structure change-o-zapper (stop me if you've heard this one before). Unfortunately for Roy, the hoods get the upper hand and unmask our hero. Fortunately for Roy, the criminous lair is located across the street from a fire station. A little ingenuity goes a long way when you're a TV detective. "Prof. Wetzel's Mystery Ray!" is the weakest of the Raymond back-ups thus far. Most of Roy's adventures are far-fetched, but this one is way out there. Roy must know he's acting under the CCA and murder isn't allowed as he's pretty confident these guys won't leave him in a ditch somewhere. And two stories based on the same gizmo in one issue is pushing it.
In a tale that defines the word "convoluted," J'Onn J'Onnz aids police in thwarting a bad guy's attempts to be thrown into jail. Yep, that's right, the cops suspect that Biff Benson will be committing a robbery so that he can be incarcerated and commit another crime while in prison! J'Onn, always one to play along with authorities, does his best by, among other tricks, transforming himself into a meteorite to prevent Biff from robbing an armored truck. In the end, J'Onn discovers Biff wants to kill an inmate who'll be testifying against his boss, mobster Sam Spooner. At some point, does the Martian Manhunter take on dangerous missions? The art's not bad, but scriptwise, this series is just awful.-Peter
There's a new villain in Gotham and his moniker is the Atomic Man! In real life, he's disgraced electrical engineer Paul Strobe. Years before, Batman and Strobe's partners sent him up the river for stealing platinum and gold from the company. That day in court, Strobe vowed to get his revenge against the four men who testified against him. Now, thanks to his brilliance, he has concocted lenses that permit him to "alter the molecular structure" of any object. He can transform glass into water, metal into air, Justin Bieber into a singer.
Sure enough, Batman deduces that A-M's next target will be the ship-building docks belonging to another of the four, Mr. Barker. Batman discovers the villain cracking a safe onboard a docked ship and a kerfuffle ensues. Once again, Atomic Man escapes but, as he's making his getaway, he makes the boat lighter than air and it floats up to the heavens with Batman in tow. Only the quick thinking of Robin and a Whirly-Bat save him from a sure death. Using his crafty detective brain, Batman eliminates all other alternatives and decides the place to go is the gallery owned by remaining partner, Jenkins! He and Robin put the kibosh on A-M's plans and put the tenth-tier rogue back into Gotham's penal colony. At least for now!
Jack-I thought the Martian Manhunter story was fun and I appreciate the complex solutions to somewhat simple problems. His approach seems playful to me, much like the approach of the villain in this issue's Batman story. It's the Atomic Age and the last year of Eisenhower in the White House, so we're sure to get plenty more bad guys messing with the might atom. I do have a question: when Bruce and Dick are in the Batcave and Ace brings them something, why is the pooch masked? Bruce and Dick are in civvies.
The villains in the 1960 Bat stories are all averse to direct killing and prefer to give the good guys a sporting chance at survival. It's rather refreshing, isn't it? I was starting to think this was a landmark story where the villain's motive was revenge, not robbery, until the Atomic Man exposed cash in a safe. Why not just use the weapon to turn the kitchen garbage into $1000 bills? It would be so much simpler. As for Roy Raymond, it's too bad the stories aren't up to the level of the art, since the drawings this time out were as good as any we've seen in 1960.
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| Next Week... Sail the seven seas with the S.S. Batman! |
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