Batman in the 1960s Issue 33: May/June 1965

 

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

Infantino/Anderson

Batman #171

"Remarkable Ruse of the Riddler!"

Story by Gardner Fox

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella

E. Nigma, a/k/a the Riddler, is released from the state pen and buys a newspaper, where he reads that Batman has been baffled by the Mole-Hill Mob. Nigma runs into the Dynamic Duo in front of Police HQ and reminds them of his origin and their last encounter. Swearing that he's reformed, Nigma offers to help Batman catch the Mole-Hill Mob, gangsters who emerge from beneath manhole covers to commit crimes before vanishing into the vast network of tunnels beneath Gotham City.

That evening, the Riddler leads Batman and Robin right to the gang's hideout, where the Dynamic Duo avoid rolling manhole covers and mop up the bad guys. Two days later, at a picnic, Batman receives a riddle that leads him and Robin to the city wharf, where they are temporarily incapacitated by puzzles that spring from the Riddler's convertible. Giving chase, they accuse the Riddler of stealing the Black Pearl of the Pacific, but the Riddler proves that he paid $30,000 for the pearl and that the cash came from an inheritance. Now a rich man, the Riddler says he has no more use for crime. The puzzles in his car were just his way of saying hello!

As he drives off, the Riddler tosses Robin a present, which includes another riddle. That night, Batman watches through a widow as a jeweled cross is handed over to the Riddler at gunpoint. Batman chases and tackles the costumed puzzler, only to learn again that the transaction was above board--the gun Batman saw was really a cigarette lighter. The Riddler tells Batman that he has provided another riddle for the Caped Crusader to figure out. That evening, the Riddler holds up the Ox Club, but once again Batman has figured out the clue and arrives just in time. He and Robin fight off the Riddler's gang before turning their attention to the criminal himself.

Punches from the Caped Crusader and the Teenage Thunderbolt have no effect as the Riddler either spins in place or sways back and forth. Robin rushes off, saying he's figured it out and will be right back. Batman presses a dot on the Riddler's chest and switches off an electrical connection, allowing the villain to be captured. E. Nigma returns to the state pen, where he reluctantly gives the answer to a riddle that he had posed to the warden as he was leaving.

I very much enjoyed the "Remarkable Ruse of the Riddler!" From the notes in the story and some quick online research, it looks like this is the Riddler's first appearance since 1948, which means that one of my favorite Bat-villains disappeared for seventeen years! At this point, we're only a year away from the premiere episode of the TV show, which featured the Riddler. The story is entertaining and the riddles are good. Infantino's cover is really sharp, which is not a surprise, but the interior art, by Moldoff and Giella, is above-average, especially for them. We all know from page one that the Riddler will return to a life of crime before the end of the story and it's fun following along to see the way he manipulates Batman into thinking he's gone straight. I hope this is just the first of more returns by costumed villains!-Jack

Peter- How could one of Batman's most famous Rogues have been in jail 17 years? Penguin and Joker are paroled after three months! It's clear that this story was a huge influence on the TV Riddler. The gun lighter and Batman's assuming E. Nigma was pulling a heist are both memorable aspects of the premiere two-parter, "Hi Diddle Riddle/Smack in the Middle" (far and away the best episode of that show). The Riddler is a welcome face; I just wish that face were drawn by a different artist.

Infantino/Giella

Detective Comics #339

"Batman Battles the Living Beast-Bomb!"

Story by Gardner Fox

Art by Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella

After being dismissed his whole life by everyone around him, "Worthless" Walter Hewitt focuses his brilliant scientific brain on perfecting a machine that will absorb the powers of certain animals and change the loser into a bruiser. The eyesight of an eagle, the hearing of a dog, the singing voice of Yoko Ono and, finally, the strength of a gorilla. Ah, but it's that last component that leads Wally to a Gotham City police precinct, begging the cops to lock him up and call Batman.

He explains to the cops that something happened with his "Bioniformer" and the gorilla he used became super-intelligent. Now, that ape, who's evidently named himself Karmac, is doing what any smart ape would do: pulling bank heists. Can't anyone help Wally? The cops are naturally skeptical until Wally receives a psychic call from Karmac to bust out and get back to the lab, pronto. As the weakling tears the cell door off and uses it as a battering ram to bust out of the building, the cops grab their donuts and head for safer climes.

Luckily, Batman and Robin have just pulled up as Hewitt escapes the building. Astonished by the man's super-strength, Batman is left with no other option than to use his patented whirly-bird trick and smash Wally into a nearby brick wall. Somehow immediately grasping what's going on without a debriefing, Batman has Hewitt put under heavy anesthetic for some reason. Meanwhile, across town, Karmac has been monitoring the situation and decides Batman is the most agile fighting machine on Earth. How cool would it be to have that power in his own hairy body?

Karmac lures Batman (on a solo flight since Robin is at an all-important sixth-grade pep rally) to his lab and zaps him with the Bioniformer, thereby soaking up some of the Dark Knight's prowess. Batman passes out and the big lug escapes. Back at the Gotham Jail, Hewitt awakens and tells Batman everything we already know about his simian foe. The Dynamic Duo suit up (with Bats soaking his gloves in a special anesthetic) and follow a lead into Gotham Park, where Karmac awaits. The gorilla informs his enemies that he's strapped on a bomb that will "destroy everyone--and everything--in Gotham City--except me!"

But sometimes being the World's Greatest Detective brings advantages other than small talk with good-looking chicks in seedy bars; Bats works out that all he has to do to deactivate the device is to lift Karmac off the ground and hold him for approximately five minutes. He uses the anesthetic gloves to knock the gorilla out and lifts him high over his head in an obvious nod to Waldemar Baszanowski (go ahead and Google him). 700 pounds over your head for a lengthy period of time? No problem. And, just like that, bomb dismantled and threat fizzled. Karmac returns to his "normal monkey" status and is shipped back to the jungle and Wally Hewitt is given a job on the ballooning staff of the Alfred Foundation.

The script leaves a lot to be desired but hey, if Jack is happy (and Jack is always happy when there's a DC super-ape around), I'm happy. The art is good but I see a definite trend in some of Carmine's characters to have sky-high foreheads. What animal do you suppose Wally used to get that effect?

In my day, if you'd have done the whirly-bird with your friends and released them near a brick wall, you'd be facing manslaughter charges. Luckily, Wally must have absorbed the strong bone structure of a rhino because he's knocked out but seems to exhibit no signs of a massive concussion. An interesting bomb that Karmac whips up, one that will obliterate every living soul and every gag shop in Gotham but won't harm a single simian cell in his body. How does that work? And an explosive device that has one fatal flaw: if you get picked up, the bomb will deactivate. Again, how does that work?-Peter

Jack-Another eye-catching cover and impressive interior art by Infantino and Giella can't hide the fact that this is yet another DC gorilla story! Why couldn't Hewitt's machine malfunction when he was acquiring the skills of a hippo, for example? A hippo battling Batman might have been interesting. Or a cockroach? Holy insecticide! One thing I love about Infantino's pages is his use of panels and captions. He can make a dull caption more interesting by wrapping a character's arms around it or by stretching it out, and sometimes he puts panels in interesting arrangements on a white background. He was quite inventive.

Infantino/Giella

Batman #172

"Attack of the Invisible Knights!"

Story by John Broome

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella

"Robin's Unassisted Triple Play!"

Story by Gardner Fox

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Sid Greene

At the Gotham City Museum, a guard/guide named Jenkins tells visitors the story of the Black Opals of Ealing, jewels that the first Duke of Durnham sent a trio of knights to destroy centuries ago to prevent his family from being cursed. The knights were crushed when a castle collapsed and, 800 years later, an archaeologist named Harris uncovered the jewels and the armor of the dead knights. His discoveries are now in the museum.

The guard reports that the suits of armor seem to be changing position at night! The next morning, Jenkins is found unconscious and reports that he was knocked out by one of the suits of armor. This looks like a job for Batman! The Dynamic Duo meander to the museum, where Batman goes to have a look around while Robin stays by the suits of armor. Suddenly, Robin cries out and Batman rushes back to find the Boy Wonder on the floor and one of the suits of armor coming toward them! The "Attack of the Invisible Knights!" has begun!

Batman and Robin manage to get knocked out cold. When they awake, the suits of armor are back in place as if nothing happened, but the Black Opals have been smashed to bits. Batman and Robin notice that their watches have stopped and Batman deduces that magnetism must be at work. They use a magnetometer to lead them to the home of the guard, Jenkins, where they discover that he and his brother used magnetism to activate the suits of armor and steal the jewels. It doesn't take much for the Dynamic Duo to knock out the Jenkins brothers, saving the jewels and solving the case.

John Broome's scripts use more science than those of Bill Finger and Joe Giella's inks are better than better than those of Charles Paris at shining up Moldoff's pencils. Still, this story isn't a big change from the sort of tale we were used to reading before the New Look started.

In the Batcave, Batman tests a new gizmo that involves six TV screens receiving pictures from six TV cameras flying over Gotham City watching out for crime. One camera picks up a robbery in progress at the Morrow Art Gallery being carried out by the Flower Gang, who use trick plants and flowers! Just as the Dynamic Duo are about to head to the scene, Batman gets an emergency call from the Justice League, so "Robin's Unassisted Triple Play! begins. The Boy Wonder hops behind the wheel of the Batmobile and is soon at the art gallery, where he engages in fisticuffs with three members of the gang until he realizes that they are all illusions brought on by whiffs of a special plant they left at the scene.

Robin follows the gang to a wharf, where he overcomes one member and follows the others by boat to a secluded seaside house. Tricking them into thinking Batman is with him, the Teenage Thunderbolt overcomes two of the gang members, but a third gets away. Robin trails him to a greenhouse and is able to hold his breath and avoid inhaling deadly flower gas long enough to knock out the ruffian. Back at Wayne Manor, Dick brags about his success to Bruce.

While it's interesting to see a rare solo adventure for the Boy Wonder at this stage in the development of the Batman comics, this one is decidedly ordinary, though Greene is an excellent inker and probably makes Moldoff look his best.-Jack

Peter-I was hoping that the Invisible Knights would turn out to be ghosts or something supernatural but, unfortunately, John Broome went for the old pulp standby, the perfectly logical solution. Seems like an awful lot of trouble for an evil genius to go to. If he's so smart, just invent a Radiozappitator that transports the jewels from within the case to the palm of your hand. No need for all the theatrics. Thank goodness Bruce just happened to be flying his little UFO cameras around the gallery at just the moment it was about to be heisted in "Robin's Unassisted Triple Play." If I were Bats, I wouldn't have bothered with the Justice League excuse. Robin has been missing so much patrol time lately thanks to Junior Proms and dates with Nancy that Batman could be excused for just wanting to hang out around the mansion, drink some wine, and enjoy some Brahms on the Hi-Fi. Call me crazy but of the six Bat-tales I read this time out, the Robin story was the only one I enjoyed.

Infantino/Giella

Detective Comics #340

"The Outsider Strikes Again!"

Story by Gardner Fox

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella

Why is Batman and Robin's equipment turning against them? The Batarang becomes almost fluid and envelops Robin, forcing him over a cliff. Only lightning fast skills can save him. Ditto Batman, whose Bat-rope becomes a boa constrictor, squeezing the very life out of the World's Greatest Detective! Only the Dark Knight's super-inflatable chest and a handy branch save him from being crushed. 

Back in the Batmobile, they receive a call from the mysterious Outsider, who claims responsibility for the equipment malfunctions. He intends to smash the Dynamic Duo if it's the last thing he does. As his speech ends, the Batmobile turns against its masters, chasing the Caped Crusader up a building's wall (!). When it doesn't catch its prey, the vehicle explodes in flames as if displaying a fit of temper.

Dick has a date with Nancy at the prom so, after reminding his young ward what happens when a teenager has too much booze and a babe on his arm, Bruce works on a special chemical drawn from the dust of the Batmobile wreckage. He's convinced the stuff will counteract the properties used by the Outsider to take control of the boys' gear. 

Gordon calls to inform him that there's a ruckus at the Athletic Hall of Fame; someone has burned into the entranceway an invitation to Batman to enter. Since Bats has never been one to ignore a challenge, he shows up at the Hall and is immediately set upon by three nattily dressed thugs who throw bullets at him, explaining they've been told by the Outsider they don't need a gun. But Batman's new dust bomb, tossed at the bullets, renders them harmless. The thugs are rounded up and taken away. Later that night, the boys agree they haven't seen the last of the Outsider, even though (ironically) they've never seen him!

Months ago, I thought this Outsider continuing storyline might be fun, but it's going absolutely nowhere. Fox leaves us no clues as to the identity or why this force is out to get Bats and Robin rather than Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, or the Flash. To add insult to injury, the art is the pits; stiff and generic, with no style or originality. Without the credits, I couldn't tell you who drew this crap.-Peter

Jack-The Batmobile on that great cover looks purple to me! Inside it's the usual color. I'm to the point where I'm disappointed to see Moldoff rather than Infantino drawing the Batman story in Detective. Fox and Broome's stories are more science-based than what we'd been reading before the New Look and I don't miss the space aliens.

I like that the Outsider stories are linked but I think the effect is lessened because we still haven't seen the villain. There's also a reference here to a recent Joker story. Is Marvel's success with continuing stories influencing the editors at DC? At least one thing never changes--Moldoff's fondness for drawing giant objects. I laughed when Dick got home from the prom and Bruce offered him a piece of cake and a glass of milk.

Next Week...
What indeed?

Journey Into Strange Tales Issue 122: Atlas/Marvel Horror & Science Fiction Comics!

 

The Marvel/Atlas 
Horror Comics

Part 107

June 1956 Part I

by Peter Enfantino

and Jack Seabrook

Astonishing #50

Cover by Carl Burgos

"Buried Forever" (a: Don Heck) ★★

"The Fantastic City!" (a: Manny Stallman) ★

"Waldo's Wonderland!" (a: Bob McCarthy) ★1/2

"The Missing Man" (a: John Tartaglione) ★★1/2

"Decision!" (a: Sol Brodsky) ★1/2

"The Conquest of Saturn!" (a: Lou Cameron) ★1/2

Greedy old Ellery Kidd has been searching for the lost family treasure all his life, shirking the love of his relatives and spending every last dollar on... you guessed it!... a time machine! With the gizmo, Ellery hopes to travel back to when and where the treasure done got lost and, sure enough, he finds success.

Turns out Ellery's ancestor was Captain Kidd and Ellery witnesses the pirate's acquisition of the chest of gold doubloons. The elder Kidd buries his booty on a deserted island and Ellery makes a copy of the map. Back in the present day, our protagonist spends his last dime buying a boat big enough to haul the treasure and heads out to the little piece of land. Unfortunately for our soulless miser, the little island is marked for A-bomb testing and Ellery Kidd watches as all his dreams go up in a mushroom cloud.

I can imagine all the Atlas writers and artists sitting in the bullpen/breakroom with a giant chalkboard in front of them, Stan's words in big bold font: "Work in a time machine or a time warp!" What I did get from "Buried Forever" is that Don Heck could come up with interesting, evocative artwork when he applied himself. I'm not a fan of Heck's Iron Man work in the mid-60s but here his stuff is just fine.

Not so fine is "The Fantastic City," about an arrogant tiger hunter who happens upon a hidden city made of gold and diamonds. He begins constructing his fortune in his mind until he encounters the rulers of the city, who have no time for greedy white men. The Stallman art here looks rushed, lacking the usual pizzazz Manny can bring to a funny book strip. At least Bob McCarthy's work is easy on the eyes in "Waldo's Wonderland," an otherwise inane affair about a toymaker who invents a set of glasses that make everything more colorful (think one of those wonderful Christmas color wheels from the 1960s that used to catch the tree on fire). He inadvertently puts them on in the middle of an alien invasion. The final panel, where the aliens are frightened by Waldo and hightail it back to outer space, shows how far the quality has slipped on these scripts.

Elmer hasn't had a day off in ten years so he hires young buck Andy Miller to run things for a day while he blows off some steam. The bewildered Elmer looks in awe at the skyscrapers that have popped up in the last decade and runs right into a gorgeous gal named Lucy. They end up on a sort of date at a carnival and the day is going swell for Elmer until, while the couple are riding a roller coaster, they begin to float. 

Elmer says his goodbyes and floats back to work where he fires Andy (who's fallen asleep on the job) and starts the gravity machine back up. Yes, Elmer keeps the world a' spinnin'. "The Missing Man" is a cute little strip that reminded me of the 1930s screwball comedies, with a clever finish and some really nice Tartaglione art. The final two stories, both achingly insipid, involve the planet Saturn. In "Decision," Grjg's spaceship crash-lands in the Ozarks. The only survivor, he's adopted by a hillbilly family and falls in love with beautiful Esme. After making Earth his home and settlin' down with Esme, the newly-christened George is dismayed to see a rescue ship arrive from his home planet. After a quick word, he convinces the crew that he'd rather stay and raise rugrats with Esme. 

In the even dopier "The Conquest of Saturn," movie producer Sam Mosby discovers his latest epic is bringing in millions but he can't figure out from where. Turns out his biggest draw is on Saturn! I really wanted to see the extra panels where the details are spilled about the FedEx bill from shipping prints to another planet and how Saturnian bucks are traded in at the border for greenbacks. Grooooooan.-Peter

Journey Into Mystery #35

Cover by Carl Burgos

"Fallon's Folly!" (a: Paul Reinman) ★1/2

"The Unexpected Voyagers!" (a: Lou Cameron) ★★

"Missing Persons" (a: Mac L. Pakula) ★1/2

"Turn Back the Clock!" (a: Jay Scott Pike) ★

"The Mysterious Mr. Peebles" (a: Bob McCarthy) ★★

"The Green Fires of Mars" (a: John Forte) ★★1/2

Professor Fallon works hard on his "Man-Made Solar Energy Machine"™ but he's become the butt of jokes around the university. His snot-nosed colleagues refer to the professor's life's work as "Fallon's Folly!" The money man at the uni is cutting off all funding to the prof, explaining that dough is hard to come by and must be allocated to "practical" research. "Bushwah!" exclaims our hero and heads out into the afternoon sun, only to find himself transported through some kind of rare time warp to a future that has no sun. Talk about coincidence!

Fallon helps his future pals with their research into man-made solar energy and saves the world. He then heads back to the present where he's looked on as a quack. "Oh well," he sighs, "let them think." Yet another "time warp" fantasy where the main protagonist's vocation just happens to come in handy to the Earth of the future. More intriguing would have been if Fallon were working on a refrigerator that made ice cubes.

When they are denied funding for their rocket ship to Pluto, two scientists will do anything they can to see their dream come true. So, when a skid row bum approaches them, asks to see their ship's blueprints, and then claims he'll be back the next day with a million bucks to get the project going, they shrug and go with the flow.

Sure enough, the money comes through and the strange man insists that he and a few of his friends be on board for the historic flight. Once they land, the source of instant income becomes apparent: the men are from Pluto and crash landed years before. They've been selling their hair, which is made of pure gold, to pay for their trip home. A cute and harmless fantasy with some sharp Lou Cameron art. A few years after this issue appeared, Cameron would leave comics and begin a successful career as a crime novelist.

Detective Sam Kirby is tasked with solving the case of "Missing Persons" on the East Side. All the "victims" were seen talking to a fat man before they disappeared. Turns out the obese gentleman is from another dimension and is transporting our population through a "time flaw" over to a parallel world. Kirby is sent to the world himself but figures out how to get everyone back and the world is saved. I was hoping this might be a satiric send-up of the hard boiled genre (Kirby is dressed in a gaudy yellow trench coat) but my interest quickly dissipated thanks to the insipid script.

Worse is the half-baked "Turn Back the Clock," wherein star athlete and all-around nice college kid, Ambrose McAllister, is late for his date with Helen, so he does what every male caught in a similar situation would do: he climbs to the top of the town's steeple and sets the giant clock back two hours. Suddenly, he's caught in a time vortex and sent back to ancient Greece. where he must participate in several (non-violent) sporting activities. 

Ambrose manages to escape and get back to present day Parker University but he's still late for his date. Helen won't believe his cockamamie story about ancient games until she sees the olive wreath on her beau's head. Time warp stories are really starting to bring me down and this one doesn't even have a decent climax. Helen must be one of Parker Uni's poorest students since she never once thought Ambrose could easily have made an olive wreath to fend off her female rage. 1950s women! 

The world's rudest neighbors pull hurtful pranks on "The Mysterious Mr. Peebles." When the mousy Peebles doesn't get angry, the band of losers hire a magician to up the ante but their playtime is ruined when the climax reveals that Mr. Peebles is the greatest magician on Mercury. You would think it odd that Mercury is selected as planet of origin until you discover the writer responsible is Carl Wessler, the king of random. At least the art by Bob McCarthy is fetching. 

The gorgeous art of John Forte is the main ingredient of "The Green Fires of Mars" but there's also a melancholy tone to the script concerning the occupants of an outpost on Mars. The men are warned to stay away from the deadly green flames but Jan is visited in his dreams by a gorgeous Martian redhead, a babe who tells him to go to the green flames. His C.O. watches helplessly as Jan walks into the fire, unaware that on the other side awaits sexual gratification. I can't help imagining a 1953 script for this story where the babalicious redhead has three rows of sharp teeth when she goes to kiss her new conquest.-Peter

Journey Into Unknown Worlds #46

Cover by Carl Burgos

"The Specimen!" (a: Jim Mooney) ★1/2

"Three Were Lost!" (a: Vic Carrabotta) ★1/2

"If Worlds Collide" (a: John Forte) ★★1/2

"Rain from Nowhere!" (a: Bob Bean) ★★

"Falling Star!" (a: Kurt Schaffenberger) ★1/2

"The Giants" (a: Bob Forgione & Jack Abel) ★★

Scientists just can't figure out how to build a spaceship! Meanwhile, Norman wastes his education as an engineer by taking a job looking after animals at the zoo. One of the creatures is the first of its kind ever found and resembles a gorilla with big eyes that stare straight ahead. Norman becomes tortured by the eyes, even when he sleeps. He picks up a stray newspaper and reads about the problem with building a spaceship. When he gets home, the gorilla creature enters his house by passing through the wall, stares into his brain, and departs. Norman wakes up, quickly solves the spaceship problem, and vows to tell the scientists. The creature hops in its spaceship and takes off, sending a message that he has shown mankind the key to space travel and they will now "reach the stars and join hands across the universe."

Good Lord. The best thing about "The Specimen!" is the gorilla with the eyes that look like the ping pong ball eyes on Muppets. How many Atlas stories have suddenly ended with the brotherhood of planets agreeing that it's time for Earth to join? What the heck happened? I'd like to head to Saturn for a burger.

Bart is the last of a family of test pilots and his two brothers disappeared without a trace when they took a new plane model up for a spin. Instead of finding a new career, Bart heads up in the same model and poof! his plane disappears. "Three Were Lost!" He lands and meets his brothers; they've all passed through the time barrier into the future, where everything is peachy. A wise man asks them not to say anything when they return to 1956, since mankind needs more time to bake before folks can handle such a wonderful world. The trio return to the '50s and mum's the word.

Boy, the future sure looked rosy in 1956, didn't it? Imagine being so optimistic in the wake of the Red Scare, the Korean War, Ed Wood films, etc. Kind of makes me think we need to cheer up in 2024. It's not so bad.

When Prof. Drummond returns from a rush trip to outer space in his rocket ship, he tells the waiting world the bad news: the Earth is being pulled away from the sun and is heading toward Mars! That's why it's getting progressively colder. Nothing good will happen "If Worlds Collide"! The Prof has a brilliant idea that involves building a "great Magneto" to draw the Earth back toward the sun. Will it work? Who knows! But since no one has a better idea, the nations of the world unite and spend ten months building the thing. Drummond explains the theory of gravitational pull by using a rubber band and a ball. One of the reporters asks if he's saying that a rubber band holding the Earth and the sun together really broke. The Prof insults the "slow-thinking" newsman and leaves.

A flip of the switch and ta da! The Earth starts moving closer to the sun. Months later, a grateful world gives Drummond a check for $2,000,000. The reporter who asked the dumb question never hears the end of it. And, on Mars, we see that the planet has attached a giant rubber band to a satellite that keeps it from being pulled closer to Earth by the magnetic force.

This story is truly bonkers. They must have decided to heck with it, the kids don't pay attention either way and we're probably selling ten copies of this issue, so we may as well throw everything in the pot. It starts out with the professor returning from space in his rocket ship. Never mind that in the first story in this issue, Earth scientists couldn't figure out space travel. Then Drummond comes up with his bright idea and a caption tells us that "Nobody had a better idea," so everyone pitches in the build a magnet. Or a Magneto. After a panel with Japanese stereotypes we move on to the reporter's dumb question and the Prof's snotty response. The plan works and Drummond is handed $2M! But nuttiest of all is the last panel, where we see Mars tethered to a satellite that looks like a miniature Saturn. I think it's allowing it to avoid being pulled closer to the Earth because of the magnet. Easily one of the most bizarre stories I've read.

Ted and Larry fly a cargo jet back and forth from New York to London twice a week and are getting bored when suddenly they encounter "Rain From Nowhere!" The rain is so heavy that they can't see where they're going. An hour later they land and are jailed for causing it to rain. It seems the pumps have stopped working. Larry is handy and repairs them, so he and Ted are hailed as heroes and allowed to fly home. On the way back, their plane emerges from the ocean and on its side is a banner reading "Good luck to the heroes who saved the undersea continent of Atlantis."

I admit I didn't see that one coming. But then I didn't expect to see a rubber band around Mars, either. Bob Bean's art is not bad--the first panel sure looks like a swipe from a newspaper cartoon by someone much better at drawing faces, since the rest of the panels don't measure up.

A green-skinned, pointy-eared fellow named Jklywr Ngm is dropped off by spaceship after a planetoid conference, only to realize that nothing looks familiar. He breaks down the door of a farmhouse and runs in confusion when he sees the frightened human family inside. He runs up a hill and his ride returns to take him back to space. His companions confess that they dropped him off on the wrong planet and he tells them of the weird sights he saw.

"Falling Star!" is another example of Kurt Shaffenberger's skill at cartooning. His characters all look cute and I can't see his art without thinking of Captain Marvel or the Superman Family.

Captain John scoffs at a radio broadcast from the Society for the Moderation of Space Exploration, which argues that the cherished family unit will disappear if man continues his relentless probes into the cosmos. His ship happens upon an uncharted planet and lands, only to discover that the planet is really a massive spaceship transporting "The Giants." An enormous alien picks up John and his crew in the palm of his hand and thinks that they will make a good museum exhibit.

Fortunately, John can hear their thoughts with the help of a machine, so he and his fellow crewmen blast the aliens with tiny ray guns. Thinking he's been stung, the alien drops John and his crew and the humans blast off into space as quickly as they can. Back on the giant spaceship, the aliens commend themselves for arranging the chance meeting with the humans, certain that the visitors will have a better understanding of what their space exploration will yield. On the ship, Captain John applies for membership to the Society, having had enough with discovering the wonders of space.

The story's not much, but the art by Forgione and Abel reminded me of one of Wally Wood's strips, and Wood was the master of this kind of thing, was he not?-Jack

Marvel Tales #147

Cover by Bill Everett

"Frozen Alive!" (a: Bob Brown) ★1/2

"The Trouble with Marcus" (a: Frank Bolle) ★

"It Happened to the Captain" (a: Jim Infantino) ★

"The Vanishing Martians" (a: Steve Ditko) ★1/2

"The Perilous Prize" (a: Sid Check) ★★1/2

"Voices in the Night!" (a: Bernard Bailey) ★1/2

A trio of scientists find a T-Rex "Frozen Alive!" in ice, so they start to chip away in order to release it. Once it's free and rampaging, the dimwits worry that it would destroy large cities, so they blast it with their rifles and it sinks in the Arctic waters.

What behavior did these dingbats expect from a dinosaur that somehow managed to remain alive while frozen for millennia? And how exactly would it get to the cities, anyway? The stupid scientist award goes to these three.

Not unlike behind the scenes at
bare bones ezine, where Peter
tells Jack not to slack off.

After three years of exploring outer space, Marcus Blake tells his co-pilot Otto that he can't wait to be back on Earth and will resign from the space service. "'Once a spaceman, always a spaceman,'" says Otto. Things don't go so well on Earth for Blake, however, and "The Trouble with Marcus" is that he can't get used to the gravity, the need to wear a mask, or the way everyone stares at him. Finally, he asks to resume his career as a spaceman. Happily, Otto sent a message that he's found the perfect planet!

Another yawn-inducing Atlas story where next to nothing happens and, after four pages of humdrum art, there's an unexpectedly happy ending that doesn't make a lot of sense. This reads like page filler to me.

An old man summons his wife to the basement to witness a strange sight on his hobby bench. Sometime before, an obnoxious sea captain kept taking credit for his crew's hard work every time the ship survived a bad storm. Eventually, the crew slipped off in a rowboat, leaving the captain alone to see how well his willpower would protect him without all hands on deck. A storm comes up, the captain tells the waves to be calm and, before you know it, his ship is miniaturized and sitting in a bottle on the old man's hobby bench!

"It Happened to the Captain" is the worst story yet in a terrible issue of Marvel Tales. Jim Infantino was Carmine's kid brother and this story looks like he dashed it off without much care. I read a good blog post about Carmine's surprise at learning his brother briefly worked for Stan Lee.

While out looking for uranium with his Geiger counter one day, Matt Lawson witnesses a rocket ship landing and overhears the thoughts of the green-skinned creatures from Jupiter who emerge from the vessel. He steals the ship and flies to Mars, which he heard had recently been beaten in battle by Jupiter and which he assumes must be loaded with gold and diamonds taken as spoils of war. On Mars, Matt sees lots of round rocks and his Geiger counter tells him that they're loaded with uranium.

Matt brings some of the rocks back to Earth but they quickly disappear. He assumes they're stolen but, on his way to the police station to report the theft, he sees that numerous bridges and buildings have suddenly disappeared. Matt flies back to Mars, where he sees all of the missing Earth structures. It turns out that the round rocks are Martians and they inform Matt that they rebuilt their planet with the Earth buildings.

Even Steve Ditko can't save this muddled mess of a story. It's not credited to Carl Wessler in the GCD, but who else could make such hash of a plot in only four pages? Matt is your typical Ditko creep, hairy and sweaty.

Tod Templeton is a meek young man who enters every contest but never wins. One evening while he's out fishing, a shooting star passes overhead and he finds a lottery ticket on the ground. That night, a man from Venus arrives and spirits Tod off to the second planet from the sun, where he is told that he's the lucky winner of a Ruler-for-a-Day contest. He enjoys a rocket car and a nice home before being sent back to Earth, where he is satisfied that he no longer needs to enter contests.

Sid Check provides smooth art in this simple yet effective tale.

In a San Francisco office building, Henderson whispers something to the boss, Amos Frobisher, who races for the elevator and demands to be taken at once to the fifteenth floor. Meanwhile, around the world, "Voices in the Night!" are heard coming from nowhere that prevent one close call after another. Frobisher reaches the fifteenth floor and yells at his sound engineer, who has been broadcasting the soundtrack for a TV show on the wrong frequency. You see, the lines of dialogue happen to have been heard on a ship, a plane, a truck, and a submarine and they were interpreted as orders to be followed; coincidentally, they resulted in avoiding disasters.

And so ends a terrible issue of Marvel Tales. It's not that odd that the stories are bad, but usually there is at least some half-decent art to get us through. This time, even Ditko and Baily are off their game.-Jack

Next Week...
Has the Riddler Gone Legit?

The Hitchcock Project-Kill With Kindness by A.J. Russell [2.4]

by Jack Seabrook

"Kill with Kindness" was the second and last episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents to be based on a story by A.J. Russell. The first, "The Hidden Thing," was adapted by James Cavanagh "based on a story by A.J. Russell," according to the credits. It appears that Russell's story was actually a teleplay he wrote for an earlier TV anthology series called The Clock, which featured an episode titled "The Hidden Thing" that aired on July 13, 1951. Russell also wrote a number of episodes for another early TV anthology series, The Web; one was titled "Kill with Kindness" and it aired on May 14, 1952. From the brief plot synopsis available in online sources, it seems that it was the basis for the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode of the same title. Unlike "The Hidden Thing," which was adapted by a different writer for the Hitchcock show, A.J. Russell also wrote the teleplay for the Hitchcock version of "Kill with Kindness."

Unfortunately, this episode of The Web appears to be lost, so it is unavailable to compare with the episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Still, the Hitchcock episode, which aired on CBS on Sunday, October 21, 1956, seems like it could have been done as a live TV show in 1952, since it features a small cast and few sets.

Time seems to have stood still in the parlor of the Oldham siblings, a middle-aged pair named Fitzhugh and Katherine, who pass the time pleasantly one sunny day. She sits on the sofa knitting while he tweets happily at his pet canary. Butterflies, mounted and framed, line the walls behind Fitzhugh, who is also a serious birdwatcher. He summons his sister to the window to point out a rare bird that he has spotted through his binoculars, but she is more interested in an old, ragged man who sits on a park bench every day, feeding the pigeons. He "'looks about right,'" she says.

Hume Cronyn as Fitzhugh Oldham

Fitzhugh notes the bird sighting in his journal and asks Katherine if they can keep his butterfly collection, making the viewer wonder what is going to happen that will put his treasures in jeopardy. Whatever it is, Katherine is clearly more determined to carry it out than her brother, remarking that the collection "'will have to go like everything else.'" After making her brother promise not to say the wrong things, Katherine visits the man on the park bench and offers to feed him some of the stew she has prepared. She calls her offer "'an act of human kindness'" and tells the man to pay no attention to anything her brother says. The man, who slurs his words as if he has been drinking, is surprised and glad to accompany Katherine across the street to her home.

Once he is inside the man announces that his name is Jorgy and laments that he has no home or family, admitting that he wanders from place to place, often driven out of town by the local police. He wears ill-fitting clothes and a rumpled hat and he is unshaven with thinning grey hair. Fitzhugh happily shows the man his butterfly collection, confessing that he and his sister are "'impoverished--nothing left except this house and my insurance policy.'" At this point, the viewer begins to suspect what is happening and gets an inkling of Katherine's plan.

Katherine serves the stew and Jorgy digs in, wrapping one arm around his bowl, bending over close to the stew and spooning it quickly into his mouth, clearly used to protecting his food from others. A moth flits through the parlor and Katherine wants Fitzhugh to kill it, but he catches it and releases it out the window. This demonstrates the siblings' differing views on killing, at least when it comes to small creatures. Fitzhugh remarks to Jorgy that Katherine once tried to kill him, noting that she is the beneficiary of his insurance policy and demonstrating why Katherine had told Jorgy to ignore her brother's comments. He goes on to reveal that he told his sister that they need to find a substitute for his corpse, thus revealing the Oldhams' plan and giving Jorgy a good reason to stand up and announce he's leaving.

Carmen Mathews as Katherine Oldham

Katherine is persuasive, however, and convinces the old man to stay with a promise of warm milk. Fitzhugh leans his head despondently against the fireplace mantle, upset with himself for having said too much, until Katherine distracts him by suggesting that he give Jorgy a suit and shoes to replace the rags he's wearing. Instead, Fitzhugh goes to attend to a job in the basement, leaving his sister to take Jorgy upstairs to change into her brother's clothes. Before they ascend the stairs, another moth flits around the parlor and Katherine catches it and feeds it to Fitzhugh's canary, explaining to Jorgy that she kills the insects when her brother is out of the room.

Upstairs, Katherine helps Jorgy into one of Fitzhugh's suit jackets, flattering him that it is a perfect fit and again deeming her own acts "'human kindness'" even though they are nothing of the sort, since her plan involves deception and murder. Down in the dirty, cobweb-filled basement, Fitzhugh locates a large can marked "Kerosene."

In the next scene, Katherine is back on the sofa, happily knitting, when Jorgy enters the parlor wearing Fitzhugh's suit. She insists that he stay the night and he agrees. Katherine then goes down to the basement to check on her brother, who is happily spreading straw around the room, explaining that he must start a fire, go upstairs, and change into Jorgy's clothes, and then leave by the back door. Katherine reminds him to take the ring off of his own finger and put it on Jorgy's finger so that his corpse will be identified as Fitzhugh's after the house is destroyed by fire. The siblings lament all that will be lost; Katherine expresses sorrow that Jorgy will be killed while Fitzhugh is upset about losing his butterfly collection.

James Gleason as Jorgy

Back in the parlor, Katherine serves Jorgy a glass of drugged milk. Later, she sits on the sofa knitting while Fitzhugh shows Jorgy his butterfly collection. Jorgy begins to yawn and his eyes begin to close, so Fitzhugh takes him upstairs and leaves him in the bedroom. Fitzhugh returns to the parlor, anxious to start the fire, but Katherine insists that they go upstairs to confirm that Jorgy is asleep. She instructs her brother to put on Jorgy's clothes and leaves him in the bedroom but, after she is gone, Fitzhugh rushes downstairs and grabs the birdcage and one of his butterfly frames before joining his sister in the basement, where she lights a match and starts a huge fire.

At this point all of Katherine's careful plans begin to come apart. As smoke fills the parlor, she tells her brother to hurry up and change clothes so that he can leave, but she notices that he forgot to take the ring off of his finger and put it on Jorgy's. She realizes that, without her brother's ring on Jorgy's finger, his corpse will not be identified as that of Fitzhugh and her scheme to defraud the insurance company will fail. They go upstairs and see that Jorgy already has his own ring, which is stuck on his finger and won't come off. As smoke continues to fill the house, the Oldhams panic and Katherine wakes Jorgy and has Fitzhugh help him downstairs.

Later, Jorgy and Katherine sit side by side on the park bench where they had met the day before and a woman brings coffee to Fitzhugh, who holds his precious birdcage. The woman calls him a "'real hero'" and he agrees. A fireman also praises Fitzhugh and, as Katherine looks crestfallen, her brother remarks to the fireman that "'You know how women are in an emergency. Poor Katherine. She always loses her head.'" Fitzhugh smiles smugly and watches his house burn down as the screen fades to black.

"Kill with Kindness" is a classic episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents that includes great acting by the three leads and mixes humor and dark themes in a way that recalls Arsenic and Old Lace. The difference here is that no one is killed.

Margie Liszt

Hume Cronyn is superb as the eccentric Fitzhugh Oldham, who seems so focused on his butterfly collection and his bird watching that he fails to understand that he and his sister are no longer able to support themselves. Childlike, scatterbrained, and forgetful, he is a gentle soul whose personality contains contradictions: he wants to save moths and set them free yet he kills butterflies and mounts them in frames on the wall; he has no compunction about killing another human being and he has an unhealthy interest in setting and watching fires.

Cronyn does a wonderful bit of business each time he goes up or down the staircase. Instead of stepping on alternate stairs with alternate feet, he looks down intently and makes sure that each foot lands on each stair, shuffling along quickly like a child afraid of falling. The effect is humorous and subtly demonstrates the character's arrested development.

As Katherine, Carmen Mathews is cold and calculating, having once tried to murder her own brother to collect on his insurance policy and now trying to carry out a plan to murder a stranger and make it look like her brother has died. She is cheerful at all times and repeatedly refers to her own acts as being done out of "'human kindness,'" yet underneath she is trying to manipulate the men around her to suit her own purposes. She treats Fitzhugh more like a son than a brother, often referring to him as "'dear'" and gently chastising him.

Finally, James Gleason is utterly convincing as Jorgy, the homeless man who is brought into the Oldhams' home in order to be killed. At once charming and pathetic, he eats like he rarely gets a hot meal and he is easily manipulated with promises of warm milk, clean clothes, and a comfortable bed. It seems like Jorgy has so little to lose that he is willing to overlook clear signs of danger from Fitzhugh and Katherine Oldham; perhaps his brain has been so addled by alcohol that he no longer has much interest in self-protection.

Taken together, the clever story and the fine acting make this an enjoyable episode of the series. It's not clear where the story takes place, though. Behind Jorgy on the park bench, the background resembles New York's Central Park, with tall buildings seen in the distance. However, in a subsequent scene, Fitzhugh refers to "'our little town'" and Katherine later reminds him that he is to go to the Trenton Hotel in Spring City, clearly a fictional place.

The buildings in the background look
like Central Park West in New York City.

A.J. Russell (1915-1999) was a successful writer for television beginning in 1950. He wrote 11 episodes of Lights Out and adapted Fredric Brown's story, "Crisis, 1999" for the series, Tales of Tomorrow. He began writing for The Jackie Gleason Show in 1952 and was one of the writing staff responsible for the classic 39-episode season of The Honeymooners in 1955-56. He went on to write for The Phil Silvers Show in 1957-58 and shared an Emmy with the rest of the show's writing staff in 1958. He continued writing for television into the 1980s. Russell's skill with humor is evident in his teleplay for "Kill with Kindness."

"Kill with Kindness" is directed by Herschel Daugherty (1910-1993), a prolific TV director from 1952 to 1975 who also directed a couple of movies. He directed 27 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in all, including "The Blessington Method," and he directed 16 episodes of Thriller.

Hume Cronyn (1911-2003) began his acting career on Broadway in 1934 and he was on screen from 1943 until 2004. He had important roles in Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943) and Lifeboat (1949) and was also one of the writers credited on Hitchcock's Rope (1948) and Under Capricorn (1949). Cronyn appeared twice on Alfred Hitchcock Presents (the other episode was "The Impromptu Murder") and among his other memorable film roles were The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) and Cocoon (1985), a late-career hit. His wife, Jessica Tandy (1909-1994), was also a great actor who appeared on the Hitchcock TV show.

Mike Ragan

Carmen Mathews (1911-1995) appeared on screen from 1950 to 1992. She was born in Philadelphia and started her acting career on stage in England before returning to America, where she was seen mostly on TV and occasionally on film. She was also frequently on Broadway, from the late 1930s until the early 1980s. She appeared once on The Twilight Zone and was seen six times on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "The Older Sister," another story of domestic murder between siblings.

James Gleason (1882-1959) was a veteran character actor who started out on stage and who served in the Army in WWI. He appeared on film from 1922 to 1958 and on TV from 1952 to 1958; he was very busy in films in the 1930s and 1940s. This was one of two appearances he made on Alfred Hitchcock Presents; the other was "The End of Indian Summer."

The woman who calls Fitzhugh a hero at the end is played by Margie Liszt (1909-1992), who appeared on radio, film, and TV from 1947 to 1964. Hers was the voice summoning Fats Brown in the classic episode of The Twilight Zone, "A Game of Pool."

Rounding out the cast as the fireman is Mike Ragan, who was born Hollis Bane and who appeared in countless movies and TV shows starting in 1924. He was seen on the Hitchcock TV show eight times, including "Breakdown."

Watch "Kill with Kindness" here or order the DVD here.

Sources:

CTVA US Anthology - “The Web” (CBS) Season 2 (1951-52), ctva.biz/US/Anthology/Web_02_(1951-52).htm#google_vignette.

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. OTR Pub., 2001.

IMDb, www.imdb.com.

"Kill with Kindness" Alfred Hitchcock Presents, season 2, episode 4, CBS, 21 October 1956.

Wikipedia, www.wikipedia.org.

Listen to Al Sjoerdsma discuss "The Three Dreams of Mr. Findlater" here!

In two weeks: "Crackpot," starring Biff McGuire and Robert Emhardt!

Batman in the 1960s Issue 32: March/April 1965

 

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

Infantino/Giella

Detective Comics #337

"Deep-Freeze Menace!"

Story by Gardner Fox

Art by Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella

Fifty-thousand years ago, two Cro-Magnon gentlemen, Krag and Brugg, fought over territorial rights to Heap Big Mountain and Brugg won, with Krag taking a header into a deep rock crevasse. But the joke's on Brugg since the "minerals from the stalactite ceiling" above Krag's inert form kept the brute in suspended animation until an earthquake released the frozen Magnonsicle into the air of present day.

For some reason, the ice has formed a shield around Krag and absorbs the powers of the elements around him. It's also given the caveman ESP (!) and the gift of flight. With only one thought in mind ("Kill Brugg!"), the scantily-clad redhead takes to the skies in search of his old enemy.

Cruising over Africa, Krag sees a Sikh hunter trailing a tiger and, immediately knowing (despite his ESP) that this man must be Brugg in disguise, dives in for the attack. With super-human powers, Krag quickly defeats his enemy and then has a look. "Nope," sighs the brute, "He no smell like Brugg!" Disappointed, Krag takes to the air once again, with his ESP sonar telling him that the real Brugg is hiding out in Gotham City. The ESP just needed to be fine-tuned, I guess. Krag suddenly realizes he can harness the power of lightning, whether it's storming or not, and the bolts send him speeding to Gotham.

It's only a matter of time before the Dynamic Duo are informed by the man with the easiest job on the planet, Commissioner Gordon, that there's a semi-nude, ice-sheathed caveman flying through the streets of Gotham. Batman and Robin speed to the scene, expecting to find the caveman looting the Gotham Cotton Candy Factory, and instead find Krag atop one of the city's tall buildings, just chillin'. As the Dark Knight swings in on his Bat-rope, Krag addresses him as Brugg and tells him that, even though he's wearing a mask and cowl, he recognizes him as his true enemy. Batman, his super-tuned hearing aid having been left back in the Cave, mistakenly hears the monster call him "Bruce!" and becomes alarmed. How would a giant popsicle know his true identity?

Robin joins in the battle and flings tear-gas at Klag, but the beast's ice shield sends it right back into the Teen-Age Thunderbolt's face. Momentarily forgetting that the Dynamic Duo have fought aliens from outer space, supermen from the future, and women dressed as cats, Batman declares that they've "never fought anything like him before!" End of Chapter One!

Klag gets the better of the Duo, knocking both out with his super-powered club. With his sworn enemy prostrate before him, Klag unmasks Batman and... "It no Brugg!" Really riled up, Klag flies away in search of the real Brugg. Robin reaches his unconscious boss and pops his mask on just as the cops show. Coming to, the Masked Manhunter orders his teenage flunky to gather any clues (including ice drippings) so they can go back to the Cave and study this menace.

Back at the cave, the duo agree that Klag is 50,000 years old and the minerals which bathed his body gave him "strange and unusual powers." Just then, an Interpol message comes through, informing the pair that Klag had attacked a Sikh in Africa; the picture reveals... a Bruce Wayne twin! "Holy double danger, Batman," screams a suddenly very smart Robin. Batman declares he now knows how to defeat the primitive menace. Another Interpol message informs our heroes that Klag has been sighted flying over the Atlantic toward Spain.

Shortly thereafter, Klag lands smack-dab in the middle of a ring in Malaga, Spain, just as a bullfight is about to commence. One of the matadors looks just like...Bruce Wayne! As Klag is about to clobber the cow-killer, a Bat rope descends into the arena and stays the mighty club. Reasoning that the ice sheath around the mighty Samson-ite allows him to breathe somehow, Batman sprays a plastic sealant around the ice and the caveman becomes solid rock. Batman declares that they'll take Klag back to Gotham, where scientists and doctors will clean him up and educate him. Then he'll run for Mayor of Gotham and, who knows, perhaps become the President of the United States sometime in the 21st Century.

As noted plenty of times before, I roll my eyes at most of these goofy scripts, but Gardner Fox must have had a few extra Coronas before he sat down in front of his Smith-Corona to type out the classic kitsch known as "Deep-Freeze Menace!" I love how Fox just throws out anything resembling common sense (how does a man move while he's encased in ice?) and decides he's going to give the ten-year-olds that make up the bulk of his audience a thrill ride. And what a thrill ride this is! A caveman who can survive a stories-high plunge. Lightning bolts that spring out of nowhere. Cavemen who don't question their sudden mastery of flight. Bat-computers that can analyze ice particles and tell the boss that minerals in a cave gave this big guy super-powers. Oh, and if Robin can collect drip specimens, that means the ice is melting, correct? Would Klag's super-powers have eventually worn out? Alas, the follow-up where we see Klag cleaned up and reporting to work as Gotham's new D.A. never materialized.-Peter

Jack-Those must have been some amazing minerals in that cave if they could give ESP and the power of flight to a frozen caveman! Why did he stay sheathed in ice the whole time? Wouldn't it melt? I guess the super minerals resisted the sun's rays. Batman really needs to get his hearing checked. Imagine how bad this story would be if the art weren't so sharp!

Infantino/Giella

Batman #170

"Genius of the Getaway Gimmicks!"

Story by Gardner Fox

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Sid Greene

"The Puzzle of the Perilous Prizes!"

Story by Bill Finger

Art by Joe Giella

Batman and Robin chase a trio of crooks who robbed a factory payroll but fail to catch them because the criminals were aided by the "Genius of the Getaway Gimmicks!" Roy Reynolds has figured out that most crooks can't resist trying to kill the Dynamic Duo when they should be focused on escape. When the same crooks rob a department store safe, Reynolds ensures their getaway with a handy oil slick on the road in front of the Batmobile.

Batman figures out what's going on and sets a trap. A story in the paper reports that a villain called the Hexer has vowed to use the Bat-Signal against the Caped Crusader and, when the crooks steal a valuable chess set and are chased by Batman and Robin, the Bat-Signal seems to emit a ray that causes the Dynamic Duo to be wrapped in their own expanding uniform emblems. Reynolds keeps running but the other two can't resist the seeming golden opportunity to do away with the good guys once and for all. Batman and Robin easily overpower the crooks, who are so annoyed at Reynolds that they tell Batman where he's hiding. Batman and Robin find and apprehend Reynolds in two panels!

Moldoff and Greene provide art that is marginally better than that of Moldoff and Paris, all in service of an uninspired story. The main thing I took away from this one was that Batman and Robin were not wearing seatbelts in the Batmobile as of 1965, since when the Batmobile hits the oil slick they are both thrown from the car before it runs headlong into a telephone pole. It's probably for the best, because they didn't have air bags, either.

Aunt Harriet tells Bruce and Dick about her friend, a retired nurse named Mrs. Tompkins, who won first prize in a contest without ever having entered! Batman and Robin set out to solve "The Puzzle of the Perilous Prizes!" Traveling to Hillvale, where the winning entry was mailed, they accidentally stumble across criminal activity and barely survive the Batmobile being blown off the side of a cliff. Crooks try to run them over with a bulldozer and again the Dynamic Duo are nearly killed.

Batman analyzes a wristwatch he finds at the scene and it leads him to the town's riverfront dock, where they confront the crooks. Stilts, the gang's leader, sets a grizzly bear on Batman (don't ask), but to no avail. Batman discovers that the gang was using animal cages and a showboat to transport stolen loot from city to city to fence it.

But what of the contest? It turns out that Jimmy Statten, a young gas station attendant who Mrs. Tompkins kindly nursed back to health before she retired, entered the contest in her name, hoping to win and pay her back. In the end, Bruce wonders if Aunt Harriet suspects him and Dick of being Batman and Robin.

So much for the New Look! This story stinks like a dead deer on the side of the road. Now we know what it looks like when Joe Giella inks his own pencils--come back Sheldon Moldoff, all is forgiven! Bill Finger penned this terrible tale and I wonder if it was a leftover file story, since we haven't seen much of Finger's work lately. Also, two stories in one issue where the Dynamic Duo are thrown from the Batmobile and the car is wrecked! Who is their mechanic? Do they have an unending supply of new Batmobiles?-Jack

Peter-Neither one of these dim-witted adventures rung my bell. What a great gimmick for an arch-villain: do everything you can not to hurt Batman. We never got a moniker for our new criminal mastermind. How about the Eluder? The Neutral? The Sissy? Two juicy nuggets I learned in "Getaway Gimmicks": the newspapers somehow get hold of action photos of Bats and Robin they couldn't possibly be witness to and, as shown during the big oil skid, the Caped Crusaders do not wear seat belts. "Perilous Puzzle" should have been titled "Slow Crime Day in Gotham." Seriously? The boys are putting all their investigative skills into finding out how poor Mrs. Tompkins received a free car, fridge, stove, freezer, and Ginsu steak knives? The Dynamic Duo are in for a lot of work when Dick Clark and Ed McMahon start sending out their Publishers Clearing House packets in a few years! 

Infantino/Giella

Detective Comics #338

"Batman's Power-Packed Punch!"

Story by Gardner Fox

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella

A lab accident leaves Batman with a power-packed punch. Bruce Wayne is visiting one of the labs assigned to the Alfred Foundation, learning about Dr. Orval Manning's new potion, which, when applied to a wooden surface, makes that object invulnerable to rot and termites. The nutty professor accidentally spills some of the liquid onto Wayne's hands, but there is no visible damage done. 

Dr. Manning then introduces his boss to another invention, the Encephitector, a gizmo that enables bank presidents to detect when a person is thinking of committing a robbery. "Holy Minority Report!" thinks Bruce. Later, in the Bat-Cave, just to show off to Robin, the Caped Crusader whips up an "improved" version of the Enchephologramitizer and installs it in the Batmobile.

While on patrol, the boys run across a band of thieves running from a bank and give chase. The criminals head into a construction yard and use a crane to level Batman with a wrecking ball. The thugs get away but the Teenage Thunder-Bolt notices the ball has a fist imprint in it. Somehow, the wood-protector formula has transformed Batman's hands into fists of fury. Suddenly, the Enciphipecktor goes off again and the boys head to yet another heist. Bats uses his strong fists to bust through a wall and discovers two of the knuckle-headed thieves who had just robbed the bank, now cracking a safe. Don't these guys know when enough is enough?

Meanwhile, Robin has run down the rest of the bank gang and, with a returning Batman, makes quick work of the bozos. The boys haul the crooks to jail and Robin suggests they go see Dr. Manning and find out how long "Batman's Power-Packed Punch!" will last. Batman slaps the kid on the back, breaking Robin's shoulder, and admits the Teenage Tomato has a good idea now and then. 

I'd have liked Prof. Manning (or Batman) to explain to me why the Enchiladizer can possibly focus in on only bank robbers and not all crimes in general, such as men who are about to murder their wives or embezzling accountants or Avatar sequels. Is there a part of the brain reserved just for heists? As Robin says, the Duo "waste a lot of time driving around Gotham City on our patrols night after night..." Imagine a world where Bats and Robin can arrest the Penguin before he's even released from jail for his previous crime!

I'm not sure if visiting the scientist who spilled serum on Bruce Wayne's hands, while dressed as Batman, is really a good idea. My favorite scene is where Bats and Robin detect a crime going down behind a brick wall and our law-abiding detective exclaims, "No need to waste time looking for a door, Robin! I'll blast a door in that stone wall--with a power-packed punch!" Oh, and the crooks who are cracking the safe look like two of the guys who were robbing the bank but forgive me if I'm wrong. Shelly & Joe have a very limited amount of facial features and three-piece suits from which to work with.-Peter

Jack-This is just as bad as the stuff we were being subjected to before Infantino and the New Look came to Gotham. It's hard to believe Gardner Fox wrote the story. In the caption on page seven, the narrator refers to "rock 'em and sock 'em fists," which has to be a nod to the popular toy boxers, the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, which were introduced in 1964 and which I got for Christmas several years after that. The fact that there is an Alfred Foundation suggests that our favorite butler won't be rising from the dead anytime soon.

Next Week...
Hardboiled Sci-Fi!