Batman in the 1960s Issue 31: January/February 1965

 

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

Infantino & Giella

Detective Comics #335

"Trail of the Talking Mask!"

Story by Gardner Fox

Art by Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella

Acting on a tip from P.I. Hugh Rankin (who's still trying to accrue enough points to become a member of the Mystery Analysts Club), Batman and Robin enter the Gotham City Jewel Mart and find three suspicious-looking characters intent on robbing the Mart of its prized possessions. Batman lays a fist into the chin of one of the trio and Robin takes a flying leap at another, but both crimefighters are easily shunted aside like rag dolls. 

Picking themselves up and dusting off their capes, the duo give chase, but the bad guys are already burning rubber in a getaway car. Using that insanely-intricate detective brain of his, the Caped Crusader proposes that he and his teenage partner visit the office of Hugh Rankin to see what gives.

But Rankin is not at his office and his secretary has heard nothing from him for hours. Bats deduces that Rankin was back at the Mart, hidden in the shadows, watching the action from afar. And that's exactly what happened, as we see in a quick flashback that details Hugh's witnessing of the escaping criminals. Turns out the trio of goons who robbed the Mart were "audio-automatons" (from here on out referred to as "robots" or "androids" or something even shorter), controlled by three very human bad guys aping their every move a block away. Hugh follows the two escape cars to an old abandoned theater on the outskirts of Gotham.

There, the androids and controllers meet up with their boss, the self-monikered Make-Up Man, who wears a prosthetic face and, therefore, has never let the world glimpse his true identity. Hmmmm... sounds like the start of a great mystery villain to be unmasked at a later date, right? Hugh enters the building and is quickly overpowered by the Make-Up Man's human goons and pummeled unconscious.

Meanwhile, our heroes have picked up a brilliant clue Hugh left for them in case he was incapacitated: a special paint sprayed on the tires of the getaway cars. With a special lens, Robin is able to trace the paint to the theater and the boys enter the building quietly. The body of Hugh Rankin lies splayed across the floor before them and Robin approaches to see if the man is alive, only to be viciously knocked off his feet by his boss, the big guy in tights. Seems Robin wasn't paying attention to detail and Bats saw that the face had no five o'clock shadow. Hugh had not been home to shave since the morning and would surely have stubble. Once again, the precocious Robin is saved by the World's Greatest Detective.

Hearing all the noise, Make-Up Man sends one of his robots to take care of business, but this time the Dynamic Duo are ready for the nuts-and-bolts villain and smash him to pieces. They quickly make equal piles of tin scrap of the other androids and rescue Hugh. The Make-Up Man seems to have gotten away. But just one second... as Hugh tugs at the door to his car, Batman leaps forty feet and wrestles Rankin to the ground. Has Batman lost his marbles? Nope, he knows that Hugh Rankin is careful to lock his car door and would know it was locked and wouldn't be caught dead tugging at a locked car door! This guy is the Make-Up Man, for gosh sakes! The boys put the cuffs on the MM and head back into the theater to find the real Hugh Rankin. All in a day's work.

There's way too much coincidence and guesswork in "Trail of the Talking Mask!" The androids work in the same way as our contemporary Virtual Reality games, but the fact that three guys have to accompany the robots to the heist site and then ape all their movements seems a bit cumbersome for such a sneaky operation. The Make-Up Man's real identity would forever remain a mystery, since no one on the staff had the foresight to consider a long arc to keep the readers guessing a la the Green Goblin. But continuing storylines evidently were anathema to six-year-old kids. Or so Julie believed. Anyway, this was MM's sole appearance. Gotta say, the Infantino/Giella team is cooking here; this is some of the most dynamic art we've seen in the 1960s adventures. It's very Gil Kane-ish. -Peter

Jack-I agree, but I'd still like to see Sid Greene ink a Batman story, since his inks look so great over Infantino's pencils on the Elongated Man stories in every issue of Detective Comics. The Make-Up Man is an okay villain, I guess, but the lack of any follow up is disappointing. I like the Hugh Rankin character and hope we see more of him. In addition to the nickname of Cowled Crusader, we now have the Masked Manhunter and the Teen-Age Thunderbolt. My hero blogging thesaurus continues to grow with each issue!

Infantino & Giella

Batman #169

"Partners in Plunder!"

Story by Ed Herron

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella

"A Bad Day for Batman!"

Story by Ed Herron

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Sid Greene

The Penguin, the Man of 1000 umbrellas, is out of jail and out of ideas for new crimes to commit, so he decides to launch an umbrella barrage on Gotham City so that Batman will provide him with the idea for a new caper and they will be "Partners in Plunder!" First, patrons at a jewelry store are given umbrellas that open by themselves and shoot smoke and lightning inside the store. Second, umbrellas given to bank patrons take flight and zoom around the bank. Third, giant umbrellas roll down the street with wild abandon. Fourth, a giant umbrella drifts down from the sky and lands in the street.

Batman and Robin are determined to blame the Penguin, who has been expecting them and who switches his monocle from his right eye to his left eye just to give them something else to consider. He points out that they have no evidence to tie him to the umbrella mayhem and they depart. That night, a pair of multi-colored umbrellas light up the sky. The Dynamic Duo investigate and Batman deduces that the umbrellas hold a clue to the Penguin's next crime, which must involve stealing a jeweled meteorite from the museum. Little does Batman know that the Penguin is listening in to the Cowled Crusader's soliloquy and happily adopts Batman's suggestions for his next crime.

The Penguin and his gang land on the museum roof and meet Batman and Robin, but the heroes are pulled away by a giant magnet that attracts their metal belt buckles, which were "subjected to a powerful and special magnetic force when [they] picked up [his] last two umbrellas." The Dynamic Duo easily free themselves by cutting off their belts. They kayo the Penguin's goons as he escapes on a jet-powered umbrella. Batman and Robin follow on two of the now-dispatched goons' jet-powered umbrellas, quickly catching the fowl fiend and rescuing the meteorite. Once again, the Penguin ends up behind bars, but he enjoys Batman's puzzlement over the meaningless monocle switch from one eye to another.

This issue of Batman went on sale in the first week of December 1964 and the Batman TV show premiered in mid-January 1966. The Penguin story really seems like just the thing for the TV show, and I wonder if William Dozier read this story in 1965 when he was developing the series. At first, I was disappointed by the contrast in art styles between the cover, by Infantino and Giella, and the splash page, by Moldoff and Giella, but soon the goofiness of the story grabbed me and swept me along. I thought it was quite enjoyable and I was happy to see a member of the Rogue's Gallery other than the Joker.

The Cloaked Crusader answers questions from reporters at a press conference and admits that it's been "A Bad Day for Batman!" A necklace thief escaped due to a series of unlucky breaks, such as the lights going out in a hallway during a chase and a boat running out of gas. At the end of the press conference, Batman invites one reporter to tag along as Batman easily locates the thief and recovers the necklace.

It's a simple, straightforward story and it's passably entertaining due to the art, which is above average. How often has the Dark Knight Detective been stymied by things like a sunbathing woman's mirror reflecting in his eyes? In the wrong situation, such flukes could be fatal!-Jack

Peter-The Penguin yarn is just about as brainless as some of the scripts for the '66 TV show, as if Ed Herron had already run out of ideas. It does shine a spotlight on Gotham's increasingly poor criminal justice system, since it seems only months (in real time... what's that, a few days in comic book time?) since Penguin pulled his last caper and was sentenced to hard time. The cover hints at what great art could have been found within had Julie assigned the strip to the better art crew. As it is, there are some pretty nutty panels here, as in the one on page ten where the monocled menace seems to have either a huge head or a very small arm. I found "A Bad Day for Batman!" to be equally sophomoric in the script department but much easier to stomach as far as art goes. Which is crazy, since Giella seems to highlight Infantino's graphics but weigh down Moldoff's, and Greene almost makes Moldy into a passable artist. Strange how these combos work.

Infantino & Giella

Detective Comics #336

"Batman's Bewitched Nightmare"

Story by Gardner Fox

Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella

Batman and Robin face their deadliest foe ever--a witch who rides a broomstick and loves to rob banks. She can shoot lightning bolts from her fingers and transform a pumpkin and four rats into a car driven by gangsters. That's magic!

But her real aim is to defeat the Dynamic Duo. The boys discover quickly that the old hag can rob them of their five senses and she does that (with a loud cackle) during five deadly confrontations. In the end, Robin discovers that the witch's powers are voided when she doesn't have her broomstick. The "Teenage Thunderbolt" makes away with the kitchen tool and the woman can only look on in defeat.

But, after the boys have delivered Old Hag to the police and they are hanging the broomstick on the souvenir wall in the Batcave, the instrument begins talking to them in the voice of the mysterious Outsider. He acknowledges that the witch was his flunky and they've won yet another battle, but he'll be back soon to win the war.

"Batman's Bewitched Nightmare" is an entertaining bit of fluff, but why can't writer Fox leave well enough alone and hold himself back from explaining everything away in the end? The Outsider claims the broomstick is made of a rare wood and the witch used some "extra-sensory powers" to create her illusions. "Of course, there are no witches and no magic," he comforts the more sensitive six-year-old readers. Well, that may be true, but changing a pumpkin and some mice into a caddy full of goons sounds pretty magical to me. This "Outsider" sub-plot is a good one (and proves I may be wrong about DC's hesitancy to carry over plot elements) and I hope it's resolved in a cool way.-Peter

Jack-Moldoff's witch is pretty disappointing and I also was surprised by the need to explain things away at the end. What, there are no such things as witches, but we're supposed to accept Bat-Mite? Even stranger is the note in the GCD that this issue's witch was revealed to be Batman's Justice League teammate Zatanna in JLA #51. I did a quick review of that issue and it's true--she explains that she was compelled by the Outsider to do what she did!

Next Week...
More Severin +
Yet Another New Title!