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| The Caped Crusader in the 1960s by Jack Seabrook & Peter Enfantino |
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| Infantino/Giella |
"The Blockbuster Invasion of Gotham City!
Story by Gardner Fox
Art by Carmine Infantino & Joe Giella
After a wonderful day off in his cabin cruiser goes awry, Bruce Wayne finds himself diving into the swirling sea, thankful that he saw a well-placed deserted island off to the right. He swims ashore and is immediately (and I do mean immediately) taken aback by cries for help. He follows the pleas to a nearby quicksand pit (!), where he finds a troubled lad up to his neck in muck.
Bruce reaches out a stick and pulls the kid out of the sand. He puts a warm arm around his shoulder and walks him inland, where he stumbles over the youngster's worried brother, Desmond. Bruce spends the night and is given a fond farewell by Desmond in the morning.
in the DC Uni, the Gotham police. While Commissioner Gordon is off at the local golf course, the boys in blue are investigating a gaping hole in the wall of a bank. One of the cops relates a startling story: they arrived, powdered sugar marring their wrinkle-free uniforms, and observed a violent, red-headed goliath busting through the bank wall and, minutes later, emerging with knapsacks of $$. Bullets only slowed the behemoth down a bit before he escaped into the Gotham night. Could Batman please take this case off their hands?
Robin tells the press that, sight unseen, the giant fought like a "Blockbuster" and the moniker sticks. The Duo head back to the Cave and, again without even laying eyes on their new nemesis, build a set of Blockbuster-Bandit-Control-Gear ("Bling" for short) in case their paths should cross. Three nights later, the cops call and the Caped Crusaders arrive at the Tolliver Art Gallery to find yet another gaping hole. They head inside to get a gander at Blockbuster and, for once, the hype is justified! None of their Bling works against the massive redhead and he quickly gets the best of them, hurling their forms at the cops, who were waiting outside the Gallery at the lunch wagon.
A strange high frequency brings the copter down and the boys are reduced to running from the big lunk. Bats heads for Desmond's house, where BB conveniently breaks the door down for them. Bats disrobes and changes into the same clothes he was wearing when he landed on the island months before. He tells Robin to find Desmond, since he's sure the brother knows what's going on, and turns to run through the forest with the red-headed monster just a few feet behind.
Bruce jumps into the quicksand and attempts to dislodge a memory from BB's big head; could the behemoth remember being saved by this guy? Yep, he thrusts the same stick out to Bruce and pulls him from the sand. Meanwhile, Robin is laying into Desmond with a barrage of upper cuts and right crosses. Bruce arrives just in time to give the Boy Wonder the skinny. Desmond explains that his brother, Mark, was tired of having sand kicked in his face and wanted to be a big man, but the potion he concocted played havoc with his endocrine glands and he became a raging beast.
"The Blockbuster Invasion..." isn't horrible but it sure is hokey. Once again, coincidence plays a big part in events that occur later. The scientific explanation Desmond gives the Duo about his brother's drastic change ("[Mark] worked out a serum that would affect certain endocrine glands to make him grow big and strong. But he was over-anxious--he never bothered to test his discovery first! An over-active anterior lobe of the pituitary gland made him shoot up like a giant--with tremendous strength! But simultaneously, a faulty endocrine gland retarded his mental development...") made me spit my Diet Coke all over the page. Here we are thinking Desmond was just a puppet-master, making his brother commit evil crimes (and never explaining to us why), but he was just as much a medical genius as little Mark. We'll discover what happened to BB in 'tec #349.-Peter
Jack-I've never liked Blockbuster as a villain. He just fights and grunts. This is his first appearance and there's too much fighting and too little story. The art by Infantino and Giella is competent but I'd rather see their every other month Batman story be something more interesting.
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| Infantino/Giella |
"The Decline and Fall of Batman"
Story by Gardner Fox
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella
While out on a hike with his pals, Dick Grayson's photo is snapped in front of the Old Carver Place. When he develops the film, Dick notices the figure of Robin, The Boy Wonder, standing in a window of the house! With Batman away on a case with the Justice League, Dick suits up to investigate and heads to the old house, where he is interrupted by the arrival of the Cowled Crusader, who speaks not a word but delivers a sock to Robin's jaw!
The real Batman returns and finds a note from Robin that says he was going to the Old Carver Place. Batman follows and finds Robin nursing a sore jaw. The Teen Thunderbolt wonders if a ghost Batman and Robin are on the loose.
Meanwhile, at his hideout, Steve Jobs Eddie Repp demonstrates his new invention: an electronic keyboard that allows him to control holograms of Batman and Robin. He came up with the idea in prison when he saw ghostly images on a TV screen. Repp figures out how to have the holograms become solid with the press of a key on his keyboard and he sends them out to capture criminals at a rapid clip!
Batman catches up with his duplicate, but the all-too-solid hologram nearly beats the real thing senseless. The next step for Repp is to have holographic crooks start robbing banks, which is also a great success. Batman and Robin encounter the crooks after they have stolen emeralds from a yacht and the battle goes as badly as have all of the others. This time, however, Batman sprinkled some radioactive dust on the solid loot and he and Robin follow the trail to Repp's lair.
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| "I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for those meddling kids." |
Repp's plan to have the holographic crooks battle the Dynamic Duo quickly fails when Repp is temporarily paralyzed by the radioactive dust after touching the stolen loot. Batman and Robin cart him off to the pokey and resume their nightly bashing of robbers with glee. About ten years later, Repp is fully rehabilitated and founds Apple with Bruce Wayne's cousin Ronald.
After a great cover, the 24 pages drawn by Moldoff and Giella are an artistic disappointment. Repp resembles a Scooby Doo villain. The story is the usual fight, talk, fight, but the concept of using an electronic keyboard to create holograms is ahead of its time. Leave it to the old sci-fi pulpsmith to come up with this invention! The only thing about "The Decline and Fall of Batman" that has not yet come to pass, as far as I know, is the ability of the holograms to go back and forth from a solid state. In that way, they're like Marvel's Vision character, who had the same ability.-Jack
Peter-I'm finding these one-and-done villain stories to be intellectually draining (and if you knew how limited my intellect is...), as if Gardner can't get it up for any support character other than the Rogues. This art is truly bottom of the barrel and I can't imagine Julie got the finals and thought otherwise. The four-page expository is especially numbing; I love how Repp is in the big house but they allow him to wear a suit. Repp's reign of embarrassing the Caped Crusaders goes on for, it seems, months and I don't really get the point in the first place. Foil the good deeds of Batman and Robin? What a super revenge plot!
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| Infantino/Giella |
"Batman's Inescapable Doom-Trap!"
Story by John Broome
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella
A series of odd robberies has the World's Greatest Detective stumped. Why would a thief steal exactly $100,000 and not a penny more? Well, boys and girls, Batman isn't reading this inane script, but I am so I can tell you why.
Seems the "World-Famous Magician and Escape Artist," the Great Carnado, has an evil genius building his stage props for him. Yes, Eivol Ekdal charges Carnado exactly $100,000 for each prop and they are worth every greenback. But now Ekdal has thrown a slider at Carnado; he's created a prop that has no escape plan!
"Well, how the hell can I use the f*$#in' thing?!" exclaims Carnado, twirling his sinister mustache and staring at the huge plexiglass square. "Simple," sighs Evel, "we trap Batman in the box and watch how he does it!" Plan plotted, Carnado heads out to rob the Herald Loan Company, knowing Batman and Robin will be driving by on night duty. Carnado deliberately makes a heck of a racket and, sure enough, B&R arrive to investigate.
Disguised so that no one could possibly recognize him, Carnado throws a punch at Bats and ensures his interest. The magician exits stage left and races home where he's set up the plexiglass tomb. Batman stumbles into the trap and Carnado and Ekdal explain that a deadly gas will be pumped into the box and Bats must use any means necessary to escape... or perish!
The Caped Crusader deduces that scratching his utility belt across the box's electrified grate will, with the aid of the gas, create an explosion. Hoping his quick math is correct and that he won't blow himself to hell, the Dark Knight goes to work and, seconds later, the trap goes ka-blooey! Not waiting around to count the Bat-pieces, Carnado and Ekdal call the experiment a success and head back to Gotham.
Immediately smelling a trap, Bats tells Robin to hit the deck and the boys barely miss being ventilated. They make quick work of the mob hoods and then slap the cuffs on Ekdal and Carnado. Bail for each is set at, you guessed it, $100,000. Carnado smiles at Ekdal and says "Relax, the Joker was out in six months and he murdered half the Women's League with Smilex. We'll be out in no time!"
I was, to say the least, a bit skeptical about Carnado's magnificent disguise when he's trapping Batman and, ostensibly, wanting to have a career post-armed robberies. Some skin-colored wax to cover his Snidely Whiplash mustache and a grey wig? Well, then I remembered this is the DC Universe, where no one connects the dots from Dick Grayson to Robin or Clark Kent to Superman. But my favorite element of the strip would have to be Eivol Ekdal, who immediately brought to mind the old Monster Scenes Dr. Deadly model. Brilliant!-Peter
Jack-After reading this story I went back to the blog post covering "Zelda the Great" and "A Death Worse Than Fate" to see how the TV version of this story compared to the print version. It looks like they had a lot in common, though the comic book sadly lacks the cliffhanger with Aunt Harriet dangling over a vat of boiling oil. Aunt Harriet has been little used to date in the comics; I wonder why her role was so much bigger in the TV shows?
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| Various Artists |
"The Parasols of Plunder"
Story by Bill Woolfolk
Art by Bob Kane, Lew Sayre Schwartz & Charles Paris
(Reprinted from Batman #70, May 1952)
"The Fox, the Shark, and the Vulture"
Story by Dave Wood
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris
(Reprinted from Detective Comics #253, March 1958)
"The Ice Crimes of Mr. Zero"
Story by Dave Wood
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris
(Reprinted from Batman #121, February 1959)
"Catwoman's Grasshopper Chase"
Story by Al Schwartz
Art by Jack Burnley, Fred Ray & Win Mortimer
(Reprinted from the Batman syndicated newspaper strip, April 28, 1946-June 16, 1946)
"The Caveman at Large"
Story by Bill Finger
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris
(Reprinted from Batman #102, September 1956)
"The Challenge of the Calendar Man"
Story by Bill Finger
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Charles Paris
(Reprinted from Detective Comics #259, September 1958)
"The Joker's Utility Belt!"
Story by David Vern
Art by Dick Sprang & Charles Paris
(Reprinted from Batman #73, November 1952)
"The Ice Crimes of Mr. Zero," despite the uninspired art by Moldoff and Paris, introduces the villain we'd come to know as Mr. Freeze and includes a scene where Batman and Robin are traveling on jet-powered skates for some unexplained reason.
As in the last giant issue, there's a sequence of Batman Sunday pages from the 1940s newspaper strip that is a delight. This time it follows Catwoman's exploits and includes a hilarious section where Batman and Robin go undercover as a Southern plantation owner and his daughter, Lulu Belle, a mischievous little girl with blond braids who is actually Robin in disguise!
Peter-The scripts might be loony (how about, Mr. Warden, you make the Penguin's release dependent on his abandoning the love of umbrellas rather than birds?) but the art is exquisite in many of these adventures. Even Moldoff seems to have still had excitement for his craft. My personal fave this time around would be "The Fox, the Shark, and the Vulture," combining dazzling visuals with a great science fiction-based strip. Add to that the looniness of three grown men wandering around with huge, cumbersome helmets. Give me more!
In an age before comic book stores, Masterwork reprints and (especially) digital files, these twice-yearly Giant Batmans must have been heaven on Earth for funny book readers. I can visualize teenage Jack Seabrook strolling down to Marge's Newsstand in 1965 for his fifty cents of nirvana.
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| Infantino/Anderson |
"Two Batmen Too Many!"
Story by Bill Finger
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Joe Giella
"The Art Gallery of Rogues!"
Story by John Broome
Art by Sheldon Moldoff & Sid Greene
Ed "Numbers" Garvey stole the Kimber gem collection and is certain that Batman is waging psychological warfare against him in an effort to make him confess. Numbers sees Bats and Bat symbols everywhere! Escaping to his mountain lodge, he sees bats fly out of a cavern and explores the interior, where he sees two clay figures--one big and one little. His torchlight reflects off of a crystal mounted on the ceiling and the clay figures come to life; one is a very big Batman and the other is a very small Batman, both of whom call him master and await his commands.
Numbers plays a joke on his fellow crooks by leading the Batmen to the crooks' hideout; some punches are exchanged before Numbers reveals the truth. He orders his Bat-slaves to find and destroy Batman but they respond that, because Batman fights evil, they can't obey any evil command. The little Batman adds that his powers must be recharged by placing a blue-white gem to his forehead and Numbers obliges. Numbers then tricks little Batman into helping him rob the Bangle Bros. Carnival, but the real Dynamic Duo show up mid-theft and the plan fails. For some reason, Batman lets the hoods get away.
Back at the hideout, Numbers has to hold an emerald to big Batman's forehead to recharge his juices. The crooks then knock out the fake Batmen and unmask them as Elongated Man and the Atom. It seems Numbers was suspicious and used a fake ruby as a test. Just as the Atom is about to be unmasked, Batman and Robin burst in, knock out the other hoods, and catch Numbers before he can escape. Batman spends several panels explaining that the whole setup was a ruse to trick Numbers into revealing the location of the Kimber gem collection and, after some quick deductions, Batman locates the missing jewels.
"Two Batmen Too Many" is an overly complicated story that is dragged down by the artwork. I'm not sure why Batman felt the need to go to such lengths to locate the stolen loot. What ever happened to a good old rubber hose and harsh lights at the police station? It's awfully sporting of Elongated Man and Atom to go along with this nonsense.
Bruce and Dick are driving across a bridge when they hear a cry from the water below and spy a damsel in distress! Bruce does a high dive and saves the gal, leaving quickly to avoid unwanted publicity, but an article in the paper the next day praises the millionaire hero and plugs the Alfred Foundation. Bruce realizes that the whole thing was orchestrated by PR man Roy Rennie, who had tried to get Bruce to hire him to do publicity for the foundation.
Bruce speaks to the girl, Marylene Haworth, and confirms that Rennie hired her to pretend to drown when Bruce's car passed overhead. Bruce and Dick head to Rennie's place, where they find the publicist unconscious. Switching to their Batman and Robin outfits, the Dynamic Duo investigate and find a clue that leads them to the Lathrop Art Gallery. At the gallery, they gaze at the modern paintings by James Porter and encounter a nervous Lathrop.
That evening, Batman and Robin return to the gallery, where they are attacked by a pair of hoods. Pages of fisticuffs ensue with the usual result. Inside, they confront Lathrop, who has a gun. Batman knocks him out and, when the cops come, the Cowled Crusader explains it all to Commissioner Gordon. Lathrop stole the paintings from a talented young artist and passed them off as the work of someone else in order to get a large grant from the Alfred Foundation. Bruce and Dick visit Rennie and tell him that, as a reward for being knocked out, they'll hire him to do publicity after all!
Sid Greene manages to get a slightly better result from Moldoff's pencils than Joe Giella did in this issue's first story, and "The Art Gallery of Rogues" is a tad more straightforward and less far-fetched than the story that precedes it, but that hardly qualifies as praise. The New Look is seeming pretty similar to the Old Look at this point.-Jack
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| The teenaged tornado has a point. |
And talk about far-fetched. How about Roy Rennie having an actress ready to jump in the river while seemingly assured that a spoiled billionaire would leap off Gotham Bridge to rescue her? Not a great publicity stunt if your boss breaks his neck in the dive. Count me officially checked out of this decade until Neal shows up.
Since most of these 1965 adventures do nothing for me, I pay attention to the little details. You can tell. My goal is to discover the exact issue when Julie proclaimed that badly-drawn henchmen would no longer wear suits, ties and hats. I'll sound the alarm when the big day comes.
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| Next Week... Travel Back With Us To The Summer of '56 For 24 More Tales of Wonder! |
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