Batman in the 1960s Issue 8: March/April 1961

 

The Caped Crusader in the 1960s
by Jack Seabrook
& Peter Enfantino

Moldoff

Batman #138

"Batman's Master"

Story by Bill Finger

Art by Sheldon Moldoff 

"The Simple Crimes of Simple Simon"

Story by Bill Finger

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris

"The Secret of the Sea Beast"

Story by Bill Finger 

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris

A renegade scientist named Dorian has an answer for Batman when the Caped Crusader bursts through the door of his secret lab: a rocket-ram fired at point blank range to the gut knocks Batman out! Before the scientist can remove the cowl to discover the hero's secret identity, however, the real Batman and Robin charge in and apprehend the villain, revealing that the first Batman was really the Batman-Robot.

That night, a masked man calling himself Kadar enters the hideout of the Tiger Gang and announces that he is "Batman's Master" and that he can anticipate Batman's every move. This proves to be true when the not-so-Dark Knight meets up with the Tiger Gang and Kadar at the Gotham Planetarium. The next night, heroes again meet villains at the Gotham Oil Refinery, where Batman is unable to resist Kadar's command to seize Robin and leap into a vat of water.

Later, Batman and Robin burst into the Tiger Gang's hideout and, with Kadar's help, vanquish the bad guys. Batman reveals that Kadar is really the Batman-Robot, whose programming got knocked out of whack by Dorian's rocket-ram. A quick twist of the screwdriver to the robot's mechanical brain and all is well.

I had a funny feeling that Kadar was the Batman-Robot all along. What I don't understand is why the leader of the Tiger Gang wears a tiger's head all the time. He has human hands and sports a suit and tie, but then there's that tiger head. I'm not sure it strikes fear in anyone's heart.

"The Simple Crimes of Simple Simon" are committed by a hick who is not as dumb as he looks. Batman and Robin encounter him at a fair (of course), where he creates a distraction in order to steal the gate receipts before escaping on a flying carousel horse. Simon uses a giant, inflatable whale as part of his scheme to steal a treasure map from a ship's cabin; finally, he rolls a giant snowball downhill into a hotel so that he can steal $10,000 in prize money. His attempted getaway on an ice-boat is foiled by the Dynamic Duo.

Bring back the aliens! Simple Simon is bottom of the barrel entertainment. More interesting are the banners that appear at the top and bottom of several pages for the first time in this issue, reading "The BEST Comics are STILL 10 cents." Dell had raised the price of its comics to 15 cents and DC was competing. Uncle Scrooge and Walt Disney's Comics and Stories were selling an average of a million copies per issue in 1960, about double the sales of Batman, so that nickel price increase translated into big bucks.

A huge sea beast is terrorizing Gotham Bay and socialites Hal Torson and Lester Guinn are missing and thought dead after their yachts capsize! Unable to stop the creature with spear guns, the Dynamic Duo switch gears at the request of Commissioner Gordon and go after escaped convict Chips Hassel. They discover him at an abandoned glass works, where Batman overhears Chips saying something about being seen falling into the water. Batman acts on a hunch, disguises himself as Chips, and is knocked off Pier 14 by the sea beast. Underwater, he discovers that "The Secret of the Sea Beast" is that it's really a submarine. It turns out that the missing socialites faked their own deaths so that their stock swindles would not be uncovered. Robin helps Batman vanquish the baddies and Batman pilots the sea beast and its contents toward Gotham Island Prison.

Certainly the best of the three stories in a weak issue, the tale of the sea beast has as a highlight the panel where Batman's waterproof makeup begins to melt as soon as he climbs aboard the mechanical beast. He flips the light switch on the wall so no one can see his real face and, before you know it, reappears as Batman! Whew! That was a close one!-Jack

Peter-Robots... robots... and more robots. Soon, they'll replace apes and aliens as DC's go-to villain. The Tiger and Simple Simon are two hilarious, one-shot bad guys who, sadly, never made much of a mark in Gotham. The former probably suffocated from his cumbersome mask while the latter ran out of rhymes. Ah, the Golden Age of DC, where you get away with creating a character whose M.O. was stupidity. Sadly, the Sea Beast ends up being yet another giant prop paid for with the ill-gotten gains of a Gotham swindler. After spending all their dough on a sea beast ship and its huge warehouse dock, I'd say the bad guys better hope they can get a swell public defender. Look on the bright side, they'll be out in three months, anyway.

Moldoff

Detective #289

"The Bat-Mite Bandits"

Story by Bill Finger (?)

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris

"The Deadly Designs from Space"

Story by Jack Miller (?)

Art by Ruben Moreira

"J'onn J'onnz--Witch Doctor"

Story by Jack Miller (?)

Art by Joe Certa

When Batman and Robin inadvertently hurt the feelings of Bat-Mite, the precocious imp aids three rotten scoundrel thieves in a heist of a stone-encrusted Spanish scabbard. The mirthful midget brings several stone statues to life to prevent the Dynamic Duo from preventing the theft. What gives? As Batman says (to paraphrase), "The little guy is a pain in the ass, but usually he's on our side!" Robin shrugs.

"No cowboy never had
a steed like this!"

What our heroes don't know is that the gullible little elf has been manipulated by yet another Gotham bad guy, the wascally Willie Wile, who convinces Bat-Mite that he's a movie producer and that the best way to impress Batman and Robin is to dramatize robberies that the Duo can star in. That way, Batman's fame will reach epic proportions. The costumed giblet is delighted and gleefully agrees to use his powers in any way he can to escalate his idol's renown.

The next day, Bat-Mite sends a faux message into the Bat-cave's radio system, pleading with the Boys to hurry to Ace Sports Equipment to bust up another robbery. When they arrive, B&R must contend with giant baseball mitts and bowling pins while "The Bat-Mite Bandits" crack the store's safe (who knew that sports was a big money ticket in stuffy Gotham?) and escape on a ginormous football. Robin scratches his head and puts forth a theory that Bat-Mite may have decided to become a crook. World's Greatest Detective's Partner. But Bat-Mite finally gets wise to Wile's plan and aids Batman and Robin in their capture of the crooks. As the tiny terror disappears into thin air, Batman can be heard to echo his readers, "Good riddance!"

I've settled into this 1960s fantasy nonsense and I'm getting a big kick out of it, to a point. Bat-Mite is right at the edge of that point. The character isn't amusing or entertaining in the slightest and you can see Bill Finger (?) straining to come up with plots to use the imp even more than usual. It's hilarious how many hoods and henchmen populate Gotham City and it's strange the writers never seem to use the same crime bosses twice. 

Roy Raymond, TV Detective, and his super-patient girl, Karen, are amazed by their latest find, a scientist who's built some extraordinary gizmos, including a vehicle that can bore holes into mountains. Unfortunately for Roy and Karen, they've been duped by radium thieves (you see, the machine can only be stopped by pouring a huge amount of pure radium into the contraption's engine and Roy volunteers to retrieve the deadly, cancer-causing metal from a nearby radium street vendor) into abetting a crime; fortunately, Roy is really smart and he contacts the cops while shopping for radioactive material.

Just wait 'til Roy finally makes it back to his network studio and discovers that his show was cancelled three months previous due to bad ratings; the guy is never where he's supposed to be! By the 15th bogus scientist, you'd think Karen would be carrying a frying pan to bash her sometime-boyfriend over the head and give him some sense. Never mind Roy getting to the bottom of the criminal activities, I want to see the edited panels where the bad guys shop for all their expensive props! "The Deadly Designs from Space" is pretty dumb stuff.

For reasons known only to Jack Miller (?), Captain Harding is monitoring the whereabouts of mob boss Cleat Moss in the jungles of Asia and sends his ace detective, John Jones, to the exotic locale to bring the hood back (ignoring the fact that this might be illegal extradition). Jones finds Moss in a village with his hoods, strong-arming natives for their ivory. The village chief explains excitedly to Cleat that if the American scalawags try to steal their treasure, he'll use his magic voodoo powers to bring the crooks down. 

Hoping to help the chief but realizing if he intercedes as J'onn J'onzz, Martian Manhunter, Capt. Harding will figure out his secret identity, J'onn wisely chooses a brilliant disguise, masquerading as Marsmann, from the Land Beyond Beyond, and puts a stop to the mossy Cleat's shenanigans. If you can't dazzle them with brilliance...  Is J'onn's disguise the best aspect of "JJ--Witch Doctor" or is it the sheer stupidity of Moss and his men not to recognize their city's greatest Justice Leaguer?-Peter

Jack-J'onn J'onzz sure does a lot of drilling and tunneling, doesn't he? It seems like spinning really fast and burrowing into the soil is one of his main skills. For me, the best panel in every story is the one where he transforms from human into Martian. As for Roy Raymond, it's a shame that Moreira's great artwork is wasted on this series. What's the point of calling him a TV detective if he's never on TV? In the Batman story, we again see a good guy pretending to be a bad guy. This is like the recent story where Robin pretended to leave Batman to team up with a rival. There's always that tell-all flashback that explains why what we're seeing isn't really what we're seeing. At least there were some cool props and giant-sized objects!

Moldoff

Batman #139

"The Blue Bowman"

Story by Bill Finger 

Art by Sheldon Moldoff 

"The Island of 1,000 Traps"

Story by Bill Finger

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris

"Bat-Girl!

Story by Bill Finger 

Art by Sheldon Moldoff 

Commissioner Gordon receives an anonymous tip that The Signalman will be at the Gotham Coal Refinery tonight, so he tells Batman and Robin and they head to the site. Instead of their old nemesis, however, they meet The Blue Bowman, which is what The Signalman now calls himself. Dressed like a blue Green Arrow, he uses a boxing glove arrow and a boomerang arrow to get the best of the Dynamic Duo and only quick acrobatic work by Batman prevents Robin from falling beneath the wheels of a speeding train!

Helpfully, the Blue Bowman leaves a vinyl record behind and Batman takes it to Police HQ where he, Robin, and Gordon listen to the Blue Bowman narrate the tale of why he switched villainous identities. It seems that, while he was in prison, the former Signalman met another crook who had fought Green Arrow as Bull's Eye. The Bowman decided that trick arrows would be just the thing to beat the Caped Crusader, and so the Blue Bowman was born. Acting on a clue, Batman and Robin rush to the Gotham Candle Company, where battle with the Bowman ends in the Dynamic Duo being encased in giant Halloween candles. The Bowman gets away and they extricate themselves.

The third encounter with the Blue Bowman occurs at the Gotham Archery Company, but this time the Dynamic Duo are properly prepared with trick Batarangs that allow them to make short work of their new enemy. He is last seen riding in the middle of the Batmobile's front seat, with two crooks sharing the back seat, as Batman drives them all to State Prison.

"The Blue Bowman" is a hoot and is easily one of my favorite Batman stories so far in the '60s. I love that the Signalman was stewing in prison when he cooked up a new identity with which to battle Batman! It's too bad he never got out and fought the Green Arrow. Wikipedia tells me that the Signalman later became a recurring villain and even the Blue Bowman came back eventually. Having a "super" villain whose main concern seems to be going after Batman is refreshing after so many stories with crooks trying to rob this or that establishment. Is it a coincidence that, on the page after the story ends, there's a full-page ad for the new issue of the Justice League of America, in which Green Arrow joins the team? I think not!

Marvel's martial arts hero makes an early appearance.

Acting on a tip, Batman and Robin approach an island said to be the hideout of George Milo, "the nation's top criminal," an electronic genius who turned to crime. Little do they know that it's "The Island of 1,000 Traps"! An artificial shark, an electric field, a tank with a large, iron fist, and a giant squid are all no match for the Dynamic Duo! They even manage to get into Milo's castle and avoid being shot by a sniper. When they finally reach Milo, he gives up, begging them: "'Don't hit me!'"

"Nation's top criminal," my foot. I'd like to read the sequel, in which the Gotham Police Department get slaughtered as they try to dismantle the other 995 traps on the island.

Batman, Robin, and Bat-Woman are fighting the Cobra Gang when its leader, King Cobra, gets the upper hand. Suddenly, "Bat-Girl!" bursts through an open window and saves the day, leaving the same way she came in. At home, Kathy Kane's visiting niece, Betty, reveals that she figured out her aunt's secret identity, made herself a nifty costume, followed her aunt, and debuted as Bat-Girl! Batman advises Kathy to stall her niece by insisting on a long period of rigorous training, but Bat-Girl gets fed up, dons her costume, and sets out alone to find the Cobra Gang's hideout.

Find it she does and the plucky teen takes them on alone, but they easily overpower her and lock her up. Some quick thinking on Betty's part alerts the Terrific Trio, who come to the rescue. Betty helps out and in the end, Kathy suggests that they might fight together as a team someday. Betty turns to Robin and suggests that they team up, asking "'Is that a date?'" to which the Boy Wonder can only reply, "'Ulp!'"

Two very enjoyable stories in one issue are two more than we often get, so I'm satisfied with Batman #139. "Bat-Girl" is filled with wonderful moments:

*in the initial fight scene, Bat-Woman's little purse swings behind her as she flips one of the Cobra Gang over her head

*unlike her aunt, Bat-Girl wears a skirt and not pants, the better to display her legs

*Betty watches TV footage of Bat-Woman tacking thugs and notices that cartons of gold stars fell on her; when she uses Kathy's hairbrush and some gold stars fall out, she deduces that her aunt must be Bat-Woman

*Bat-Girl surprises the Cobra Gang with a self-inflating balloon from her crime compact; the balloon bursts when it comes in contact with King Cobra's cigar

*Bat-Girl tricks King Cobra by pretending to grow faint

*when Bat-Girl asks Robin how she's doing, he replies, "'Not bad--for a girl!'"

An instant classic!-Jack

Peter-The Sig.... er, Blue Bowman is a lot of fun. I love how he hits on the fabulous idea of stealing the M.O. of a Green Arrow villain becuz Batman would not be prepared for his weapons! Blue Bowman will disappear for 15 years and then Len Wein will revive the character in Detective Comics #466 , reborn yet again as The Signalman. Neither of these resident Bat-Fanatics cared much for that out-of-the-blue resurrection. "The Island of 1,000 Traps" is standard fare, while "Bat-Girl" is a hoot. In Gotham, you're either an evil genius or a genius just itching to fight crime. Little Betty Kane (just entering her teens, I assume) is smart enough to whip up all kinds of crime-fighting gizmos, but her downfall is an errant cigar! Bat-faithful will already be aware that Betty Kane is not the Bat-Girl we all grew up with, but an early prototype for Babs Gordon, the Batgirl. The real deal won't show up for another six years but, in the meantime, we'll get a few more guest appearances from this one.

Moldoff

Detective Comics #290

"Robin's Robot"

Story by Bill Finger (?)

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris (?)

"The Curse of King Neptune"

Story Uncredited

Art by Ruben Moreira

"Lights, Camera--and Doom"

Story by Jack Miller (?)

Art by Joe Certa

The latest small-time/big-time mob crime boss, "Gadgets" Blore, is terrorizing Gotham with his high-end tech gizmos. Batman and Robin track Gadgets (thanks to the extraordinary amount of electricity the goon must use) to the Great Tractor Factory, where the robbers are melting the company's vault to get to a one hundred grand payroll. During a whale of a fistfight, Batman and Robin are zapped by Gadgets' "Electronic Cannon" and become opposing charges of energy (just roll with it). Batman glows red and Robin glows green. If either comes close to each other, bolts of electricity destroy anything in the area. Gadgets and his goons escape.

Well, obviously the Dynamic Duo can't fight crime together, so Batman quickly invents a "Robin's Robot," in order to... well, I don't know exactly... to let Gotham know everything is just hunky dory with the crime-fighting team, I guess. The partners once again track Gadgets, this time to an abandoned airfield, where the bad guys are hoping to ransack a cargo plane full of uranium. Robin stands off to the side, working a control panel that transmits orders to the Robin Robot. The robot climbs Gadgets' radio transmitter tower and destroys the beacon luring the cargo plane, but there's a snafu on the flesh-and-blood Robin's end and the robot takes a header off the tower.

While Robin is recovering from a bad shock received from his control box, Batman is fighting Gadgets and his goons by throwing his cape over them and creating a sort of tent (no, seriously!). When he sees the robot has been short-circuited, Bats leaves the contretemps and the hoods exit stage left... again.

The next day, Gadgets is at Gotham State Penitentiary, attempting to break out three inmates (at a cost of 50k each) with an ultra-sonic gun, when the Dynamic Duo swing in. Gadgets, having been clued in on the "Robin's Robot" gimmick, has a man waiting in the outlying area to capture the Boy Wonder. With the control box in hand, Gadgets orders the Robin Robot to turn on his human partner and Batman is kayoed. With Boy Wonder and robot in tow, Gadgets heads back to his Gizmo Factory to dissect Batman's wonder robot.

At that point, Batman bursts in and unmasks robot Robin, revealing the real Robin underneath, then takes time out to explain the entire affair to an astonished Gadgets (who calmly waits through the lengthy exposition rather than attempt to escape). You see, when Robin was zapped by the control box, it eliminated the power charge running through his body. Batman thought it was a great idea to disguise the Boy Wonder as his robot in order to track Gadgets back to his lair (I guess the brilliant crime king never used an extraordinary amount of electricity in his Gadgets-Cave), so that he could throw a rope around both gang and gizmos in one shot. In fact, the oratory lasts long enough for Bats to lose his charge. Happy ending for all... except the vile villains, who will be carted off to the Gotham pen, never to be seen again.

An extraordinarily detailed and complicated plot (and, some would say, synopsis) and some of the points are hardly mentioned at all. We're just supposed to play along with Red/Sometimes Orange Batman and Green Robin, but I never understood what was coursing through their bodies and why the different colors. Perhaps it might have been easier if Bats had become a giant "plus" and Robin a "negative" (I've always thought of the Boy Blunder in that way, anyway). Also, wouldn't it have been a right ol' pain for Gadgets to haul around heavy equipment to each heist? If he's such a genius, why not hand-held devices? Whatever he's paying his goons, it ain't enough. 

But, as dumb as this story is, it's also a lot of fun. I'm amazed that, with all the fighting that must be done day-to-day, the World's Greatest Detective has the time to build a fully-functional Robin robot in a matter of hours. If I were Bats, I would keep that robot around at least until the 1980s so he could swap out the smart-ass pre-teens he'll be saddled with.

Sometime TV sensation Roy Raymond is called aboard his friend Bill's boat to investigate a curse. Evidently, every time Bill takes his boat out to sea, King Neptune attacks the ship! Roy dons scuba gear and dives down below, where he is attacked by the king of the sea, who orders a school of fish and an octopus to chase our hero off. But a flash of brilliance bursts into the head of our genius of a game show host, and Roy unravels the mystery behind "The Curse of King Neptune."

As with most of these Roy Raymond mini-sagas, the script is inane and the art is gorgeous. This script, however, could go down in the Hall of Dumb for its sheer hilarity. Once more, we discover that there are gangworld thugs behind the supernatural goings-on but wait--there's more. Racket boss Dirk Cranshaw (who will probably share a cell with Gadgets Blore in Forgotten DC Thugs jail) cooked up the whole scheme to get at Bill's boat, which hides millions in stolen loot in its hull. So, rather than simply kidnapping or killing Bill, Cranshaw spends "plenty" (probably 90% of the stolen loot!) on mechanized fish, an octopus, and a midget sub disguised as Neptune!!! That right there demands three exclamation points.

Policewoman Diane Meade is placed undercover as a stuntwoman on the set of The Lady Commando, a big Hollywood production that's been the victim of some strange and dangerous mishaps. Those events continue as Diane attempts to leap from helicopters, dash through a mine field, and leap into an auto full of armed Nazis. In the end, it turns out the director of The Lady Commando has been bribed by a rival studio producer, who's aiming to launch a similar movie and wants it to hit the theaters first. Murder and espionage seem pretty tame when you consider what movie producers were capable of in the dark ages of Hollywood. More really lame dialogue and limp graphics. Why would Diane's boss consider her competent to step into the shoes of a stuntwoman? And does Diane ever learn John Jones's alter ego and then bash the guy in the head with a frying pan for hesitating before each intervention? Yeah, it's a funny book, but these nagging questions make my brain hurt.-Peter

Jack-April 1961 was a pretty good month for Batman comics. "Robin's Robot" reaches new levels of goofiness, especially due to the fact that Batman and Robin are both glowing and electrically-charged, but their biggest concern is building a robot and catching Gadgets. Personally, I'd be heading for the ER at Gotham General Hospital. The Roy Raymond series continues to disappoint, and I don't believe for one second that the giant Neptune was really a scuba diver with a mini-sub! The reappearance of plucky Diane gives the J'onn J'onzz story more entertainment value than usual--in fact, I found her more likable than the spinning, tunneling, fire-averse hero!

Next Week...
Jack Katz introduces us
to The Man in the Mirror!