Batman in the 1970s Part 21: November and December 1972

by Jack Seabrook &
Peter Enfantino 

Detective Comics 429 (November 1972)

"Man-Bat Over Vegas!"

Story and Art by Frank Robbins

Victims of a "giant mutant bat" have been found in the streets of Las Vegas, all blood drained from their bodies. When Bruce Wayne gets wind of this, his first inclination is to call Kirk Langstrom (aka the "giant mutant bat" Man-Bat) for his opinion. Just as he's dialing the phone, the scientist pops up on a Las Vegas news station. Now convinced that Langstrom has reversed the process that cured him of his vampiric tendencies (in Detective #416), Batman heads for Sin City. Once there, he convinces the girlfriend of the Man-Bat's latest victim to act as bait to bring Langstrom out of hiding. The lure works and Batman is able to fend off the giant bat before both hurl through a glass ceiling into the casino below. The most important clue as to the bat's real identity becomes a band-aid torn from the its wrist: the same band-aid worn by Kirk Langstrom's wife, Francine while she was being interviewed on TV! Now Batman learns the frightening truth that Francine Langstrom is the blood-drinker.

PE: Holy moley, I feel like the scales of justice. One hand holds Frank Robbins the artist, the other Frank Robbins the writer. I've always been convinced (and the evidence surely backs up my findings) that Robbins is deadlier with a pencil in hand rather than a typewriter. Now I'm not sure. Those scales are tipping back and forth. Robbins doesn't even try to add one whiff of originality to his rip-off of the then-recently broadcast The Night Stalker other than maybe the crazed radio reports of "the smart money has it that the 'Vegas Raider' is a nuclear-created . . . monster mutant vampire-bat!" Really? A nuclear test one week and the next week we've got mutated vampire-bats? The funny thing is that Bruce Wayne scoffs at reports of a mutant bat when he's fought The Man-Bat before so, in his goofball DC Universe, anything should be possible.

Jack: A vampire in Vegas? Where’s Kolchak?

PE: I think he's investigating the same murders.

Jack: This story should have been called “Woman-Bat Over Vegas!” Or better yet, “Still more clunky art by Frank Robbins.”

PE: Well, let's not forget the clunky dialogue. Kirk Langstrom suddenly talks like Moon Doggie. "Dig?" How about the awkwardly phrased: "Thank you, professor--and your lovely wife, Francine!" And the clunky logic: Francine becomes the She-Bat when the moon is out, right? Well, I'm not sure. She enters a cave (and out of the direct rays of the moon) but retains her vampire form until the moon is covered with clouds. She then reverts back to her beautiful human form until the cloud covering moves away from the moon. But the moon is out regardless, so why the flip-flop? Yeah, I know. It's a comic book. Or the, to put it mildly, abrupt climax? From start to finish this is an all-around disaster.

"Case of the Loaded Case!"

Story by Frank Robbins

Art by Don Heck and Joe Giella

Jason Bard discovers a briefcase loaded with a hundred thousand bucks and a message from Wall Street analyst Harrison Baron. If Bard can safeguard the money for 24 hours, he can keep 10% of the greenbacks. Easier said than done.

Jack: Who thought this was a good idea for a series? A complete waste of eight pages. At least Robbins didn’t draw this, too!

PE: Utter crap. Julius Schwartz must have owed Frank Robbins one hell of a big favor. Like the Man-Bat lead-off, this has got a very abrupt ending. Usually that bothers me but I'll make an exception for these two "stories."

Batman 246 (December 1972)

"How Many Ways Can a Robin Die?"

Story by Frank Robbins

Art by Irv Novick, Dick Dillin and Dick Giordano

Batman is summoned by a fake Bat Signal to Gotham’s tallest building, only to see Robin fall to his death after being shot with an arrow. Fortunately, it was just a dummy Robin, but a note pinned to its chest promises another Robin death the following night. Batman telephones Robin’s boarding house at Hudson U and learns that he is nowhere to be found. The next night, another dummy Robin is killed by a magician’s sword. After two more nights where dummy Robins are drowned and hanged, Batman figures out that a criminal who was just released from death row is the culprit. He tracks the killer to a wax museum and saves the real Robin from beheading.

The Caped chicken!

Jack: Batman engages in some pretty strange behavior in this tepid tale. When the first Robin falls with an arrow in his chest, Batman does not rush to see if he is still alive—he runs for cover, fearing he might be next! That is not the Caped Crusader we know and love. When Robin is drowned, Batman cuts a chain between a rock and the body—why not just check to see if it’s a dummy and let it sink? This is a pretty bad story.

PE: But, Jack, the best thing about that scene is that Batman doesn't actually cut loose Robin once he sees the message from his tormentor! He doesn't even make sure it's another dummy. It could very well have been the bad guy's plan to have Batman assist in the murder. Another nice art job by Novick and Giordano but the length of the cape is really getting ridiculous. Yeah, it looks very cool but is impractical to a running, jumping, flying, and swimming superhero. Batman's sudden awareness of what he's going through and who's doing it to him is confusing and asinine, the worst kind of writing. Well, the worst kind of writing is what makes up the bulk of this 23-page waste of time. Only bright side: no swingin' Robin back-up this issue!

Jack: The switch to Dick Dillin pencils occurs on page 18 and he contributes the last six pages. I like Dillin’s art and hope to see more of it.

PE: Even serial killers dress as super villains in Gotham. I have no idea what is supposed to be happening to Emil Ravek in the climax. Does Batman kill him?

Jack: It's not clear. Batman swings Ravek around by his hood, which tears off, leaving Ravek to fall and apparently hit his head on a wall, landing on the scales of justice. He looks pretty dead, but maybe he's just out cold.

Nice Dick Dillin art.

Detective Comics 430 (December 1972)

"Clue of the False Faces!"

Story by Frank Robbins

Art by Bob Brown and Nick Cardy

When Batman breaks up an assassination attempt, he's conked on the head and loses his memory. Trying to determine exactly who he is under the mask, The Dark Knight takes a quick peek only to find he's a balding redhead with a nasty scar across the bridge of his nose (since we, as readers, don't have amnesia, we're 100% sure this is not Batman's usual secret identity!). Using the bit of master detective still lodged in his brain, the Caped Crusader uses the police master identification file to discover that his "true identity" is petty car thief Jobo Larch (again, if you're a regular reader, you know something irregular might be going on!). The only way to get to the bottom of the mystery is to retrace the steps of Jobo Larch.

Jack: Nick Cardy inked this story and the combination of his inks and Bob Brown’s pencils makes for some strange variations in art quality. Cardy began in the Eisner/Iger shop at age 18 in 1939, so he certainly was in the comic biz for a long time, and he was a DC mainstay. He is still kicking at age 91 and he still makes appearances at conventions.

We both have had this feeling!

PE: Oh dear, and here I thought amnesia stories were a trademark of Marvel Comics. Actually, selective amnesia here, as Batman remembers mundane things like an officer's name but can't remember the important stuff like Bruce Wayne's favorite golf course. Since he's got amnesia and can't remember anything about his aka, why is Batbrain so sure he can't be a car thief in his spare time? What kind of names do the underworld heavies have in Gotham? Jobo, Aldo, Gort and Rack. 

Jack: Peter, do you agree that the quality of Detective Comics has been plummeting? We started in January 1970 with a Neal Adams classic and now we have Brown and Cardy illustrating another bump on the head causes amnesia story. I think that the long monthly run of this series will be interrupted in 1973 and I have to wonder if the declining quality led to declining sales.

Get me some of that cream!

PE" Seriously. Amnesia or no, wouldn't you feel make-up on your face? And wouldn't it begin to melt after a while in the humidity of that suit? I'm beginning to wonder if my nostalgia for the "wonderful Batman comics of the 1970s" should be filed next to "Gosh, those Bay City Rollers were a great band, weren't they?" Nice imaginative twist there in the end when The Dark Dope removes the, by now, several layers of make-up and looks at his true self in the mirror, immediately lifting the veil of amnesia. If only our top amnesia therapists read Batman.

Jack: Does this mean you are having second thoughts about the Bay City Rollers blog? What should I do with my YouTube link to "Saturday Night?"

"The Haunted Studio Mystery!"

Story by E. Nelson Bridwell

Art by Dick Giordano

Ralph Dibny (aka The Elongated Man) and cutie wife, Susie, decide it's a beautiful day to jump the fence at an abandoned Hollywood studio where, the following day, millions of dollars of movie props will be auctioned. Once they get into the sound stages they find something very peculiar: exact reenactments of famous scenes from the studio's films. Well, almost exact.


PE: I love the fact that Elongated Man has no problem breaking into the studio lot and, when questioned by his wife, says "Hey, there's no sign around that says, 'No Trespassing, right?'" By that logic, half of the bad guys he goes after should be let free.

Jack: Average story, nice art, but MUCH better than another Jason Bard entry!

PE: I checked my brain at the door for this one and found it charming. The expository is one of the dopiest I've ever read but I loved all the dopey name-switches for the famous Hollywood stars (The Hartz Brothers are comprised of Beppo, Banjo and Gruffo!) and Ralph Dibny's sense of self-importance and inflated ego is a breath of fresh air. He certainly seems to be more fun than his Marvel counterpart. Out with Bard, in with Dibny, I says.

Jack: Elongated Man is a pretty weird idea for a super-hero. He does an awful lot of stretching that neck! And his twitching crime detector of a nose reminds me of Elizabeth Montgomery on Bewitched.

Robert Bloch on TV Part Sixteen-The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: The Second Wife

by Jack Seabrook

“The Second Wife,” for which Robert Bloch wrote the teleplay from a short story called “The Lonely Heart” by Richard Deming, is only tangentially a tale of terror. The story is essentially one that tells of a tragic failure of communication between a husband and wife in a marriage, a failure that ends with a shocking and wholly unnecessary murder.

The show opens with a lyrical musical theme characterized by a series of descending notes on a piano accompanied by ominous woodwinds. A bus arrives in a dreary town square, the pavement wet with recent rain. A woman, no longer young, disembarks, watched by two men, one of whom helps unload a heavy trunk from the bus’s storage compartment. The woman is Martha Peters, and her eyes shine with anticipation as she meets Luke Hunter for the first time. He is matter of fact, unsmiling and brusque as he tells Sam Ogle, the man waiting with him, that Martha is “not a friend—we’re getting married tonight.”

Martha’s disappointments begin early, right after she meets Luke. He drives off with her in his pickup truck and their awkward attempts at conversation include his questioning her about her savings account; he even checks her bankbook as he drives. The two met through a correspondence club, two lonely people looking for companionship. Luke drives straight to a minister’s house from the bus station, much to Martha’s surprise, where they are married in the minster’s living room. She is so anxious for everything to work out that she goes along with his suggestions. Martha was born in Michigan, in a cold, northern climate, but she has spent the past twelve years in St. Petersburg working as a librarian, a classic spinster occupation. Martha has sought warmth, first by moving south and now by agreeing to marry a man she has never met.

Luke, on the other hand, is taciturn and connected with coldness and death. He has been hired by the county to build coffins for the funerals of paupers, and his bachelor’s home is sparsely furnished, with little natural light and fireplaces in each room. Martha is again surprised to learn that the house does not have a furnace; her prayers for warmth and love have been answered with cold rooms and emotional distance. The musical score that supports this episode is at turns lyrical and ominous; it is this ominous music, along with the increasingly nourish lighting that causes the Hunter home to be filled with shadows, that leads the viewer to expect the worst from Luke. When he shows Martha the basement, she remarks that it is already cold in the autumn, and he cautions her that it will get even colder when winter comes. John Anderson’s performance as Luke is brilliant; he never does or says anything particularly angry or threatening, yet his emotionally reserved personality allows Martha to develop a sense of doubt that will eventually prove fatal.

John Anderson as Luke

Poor communication, disappointment, and misunderstanding between husband and wife mount as Martha goes to church and becomes involved with the ladies of the church quilting bee. Luke buys a new carving knife as a surprise; the kindness of the gift is undercut by the  foreshadowing of the knife as potential weapon. At a quilting bee at the same house where the marriage took place Martha learns that she is not Luke’s first wife. He had been married to a woman named Virginia, another mail-order bride to whom he was married a mere six months before she died of food poisoning on a trip to Luke’s hometown of Small Boot, Texas.

Bloch may be playing a subtle game with names here—Small Boot recalls Little Soldier's Boot, the English translation of the name of the notorious Roman emperor Caligula, whose violent reign included many murders. Martha returns home to a dark house after earning the disturbing news about Luke’s first wife; doubt begins to creep into her mind and she is surprised—this time in a frightening way—when Luke suddenly emerges from the basement. She confronts him about his first wife and he tries to be tender but remains reserved and distant. Echoes of Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca can be felt as the second wife—this time, Martha—develops a fear based on rumors and pieces of information she learns about her husband’s first wife.

Martha’s fear grows when Luke suggests a trip over the Christmas holidays to his hometown in Texas; Martha knows that this is where Virginia died, and she dreads the thought that the same fate might befall her. She is in the cold basement hanging laundry when she sees Luke’s pickup truck pull into the garage with a large wooden box in the back. We (and she) remember that he makes coffins for a living, and Martha’s imagination continues to get the best of her. The situation worsens when he denies that there was a box in the truck and she investigates, confirming that what she saw was real. The clever musical score features pizzicato violin at this point, reminiscent of Hitchcock’s Psycho and its jarring use of strings.

Following another meeting with the church ladies, Martha goes home to find Luke asleep; dirt in the sink suggests that he has been hard at work in the basement, but the door is now locked. Suspense builds in a long, dialogue-free sequence as Martha takes the key from Luke’s coat pocket as he sleeps. The ever-present fires in the home’s fireplaces cast flickering shadows on the walls and the music helps create great tension and suspense as Martha ventures into the basement and sees a shovel and a newly dug hole the size of a grave.

June Lockhart as Martha

With the benefit of hindsight, having seen the entire episode and its surprise ending, this sequence can be appreciated for the outstanding work by director Joseph M. Newman, who melds light, shadows, music, and the performance of June Lockhart to turn a husband’s kind surprise into a symphony of terror. The great irony of “The Second Wife” is that Luke turns out to be nothing more than a quiet, shy man trying to provide for his new wife, yet the story is presented in such a way that the viewer completely understands the fear and doubt that begin to consume Martha’s thoughts. Her descent into the basement again evokes Psycho and the similar descent by Vera Miles into the basement of the Bates house at that film’s conclusion.

After discovering what she must think is her freshly dug grave, we next see Martha in the light of day, yet she sits at the kitchen table, hunched over, wrapped in her overcoat to fight the cold that comes not only from the poorly heated home but also from her seemingly loveless marriage. Luke comes home early to get ready for the trip that she thinks will end in her death. She decides to go to town; he suggests that she do some Christmas shopping, but she has other ideas.

Martha goes to a pawn shop and buys a revolver, then returns home after dark. She sees dirt in the sink again, a sure sign  in her mind that Luke has been preparing her basement grave. He insists that they leave for their trip right away, instead of the next day. Director Newman once again excels here, with nourish lighting and ominous music, the fireplace flames casting undulating shadows on the walls.

Luke stops Martha as she heads outside to put her bag in the truck, saying he wants to show her something in the basement. He opens the door that leads downstairs and his wife, certain that she is about to be killed, shoots him with the gun she had bought earlier that day. He tumbles down the stairs and lies dead at their base. She slowly follows him down and finds—in a heartbreakingly tragic conclusion—that the surprise is a new furnace that he has installed, with an oil tank filling the no longer menacing hole in the floor. A card on the furnace reads, “Merry Christmas to my dear wife,” and the screen fades to black as she hears Luke’s voice in her head repeating the kind sentiment.


Robert Bloch’s teleplay for “The Second Wife” serves as the basis for a brilliant and tragic hour of television, where the director turns a marital misunderstanding into a harrowing tale of suspense by combining all of the elements at his command. The story on which it was based, “The Lonely Heart” by Richard Deming, was first published in the December 1964 issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine.

The story is not as emotionally wrenching as the TV show, in part because Deming's style is so matter of fact. Bloch made some significant changes when he adapted it; perhaps the biggest was that, in the story, Martha knew before she married Luke (Rufus, in the story) that he had been married before. Her worry comes from the revelation that his first wife had also been a lonely hearts bride, and she fears he may be a lonely hearts killer. In the story, Luke/Rufus is 55 and Martha is 50. John Anderson, who played Luke, was only 42 years old, and June Lockhart was 39, and much prettier than the story's “angular, horse faced spinster.”

The mutual inspection of bankbooks had been agreed to in advance, and Martha is taken home so that she can clean up before the wedding ceremony, unlike in Bloch's teleplay, where Luke's brusque insistence on speed seems merely cold hearted. The wedding scene, so disappointing to Martha in the TV show, is absent from the story. Bloch also adds the comment about how Luke works building coffins; this foreshadows the pine box he later brings home in his truck. Finally, Martha not only buys a gun and ammunition, she stops off on her way home to practice shooting. When it's time to leave, there is no rush and no surprise early departure--as in the rest of the story, it is told very matter-of-factly, with less suspense and less emotion as a result.


Deming also wrote “The Geniuses,” which Bloch had adapted into the earlier Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, “Bad Actor.” Just as “The Geniuses” recalled elements of Hitchcock’s film Rope, “The Lonely Heart” recalls the Alfred Hitchcock Presents first season episode “Back for Christmas,” directed by Hitchcock and based on a John Collier short story. In it, a husband murders his wife and buries her body in the basement, only to learn after he has moved away that his wife had hired excavators to dig up the basement as a surprise Christmas present.

Starring in “The Second Wife” are John Anderson, as Luke, and June Lockhart, as Martha. Anderson (1922-1992) was featured in a huge number of television episodes in his long career, including an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, one of Thriller, one of The Outer Limits, and four of The Twilight Zone. He also played car salesman California Charlie in Psycho (1960). Anderson is perfect in “The Second Wife” as the husband who means well but is unable to communicate with his wife and pays the ultimate price.

Martha is played by June Lockhart (1925- ), who has been in movies and on TV since 1938. She starred in She-Wolf of London (1946) and was a regular on three consecutive TV series over a period of twelve years: Lassie (1958-1964), Lost in Space (1965-1968) and Petticoat Junction (1968-1970).Her performance in ”The Second Wife” is outstanding and carries the show—she goes from anticipatory excitement to disappointment to terror with complete credibility. Lockhart is still alive and maintains a small website.

Eve McVeagh

David Fresco

Supporting cast members include Eve McVeagh (1919-1997) who plays the church lady who befriends Martha; she also played a reporter in Bloch’s “The Gloating Place.” David Fresco (1909-1997) appears briefly as Sam Ogle, who is waiting with Luke when Martha’s bus arrives at the show’s beginning. He had appeared with Eve McVeagh in “The Gloating Place” as the photographer; he also appeared at the start of Bloch’s "Water’s Edge” as the newsstand dealer who sells John Cassavetes a copy of Romp magazine.

Joseph M. Newman (1922-1992), whose skillful direction guides “The Second Wife,” was in the movie business from 1938 and TV from 1960; he directed This Island Earth (1955), as well as four episodes of The Twilight Zone and ten episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. An interesting article on Newman may be read here. The director of photography on “The Second Wife,” responsible for the beautifully noirish lighting in the night scenes where the interior of the Hunters’ house is lit only by flickering firelight, was Ray Rennahan, who won Oscars for his photography on Gone With the Wind (1939) and Blood and Sand (1942)—both were shared with other cinematographers. Ironically, he was best known for his work with color photography; he was in movies from 1917 and TV from 1956, he worked on one episode of Thriller, but this was his only contribution to the Hitchcock series.

Finally, and most surprisingly, the music for “The Second Wife” was not written specifically for this episode; the only music credit goes to supervisor Stanley Wilson (1915-1970), but I would not be surprised to find that a comparison of the music used in this episode to the scores written by Bernard Herrmann for other episodes of this series revealed that Hermann’s music was the source for the themes in “The Second Wife.”

“The Second Wife” was first broadcast on NBC on April 26, 1965, and may be viewed online here; I hope that it is released on an official DVD someday so that we may appreciate fully the lighting and camerawork.

Sources:

Deming, Richard. "The Lonely Heart." Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine Dec. 1964: 64-82. Web.

"Galactic Central." Galactic Central. Web. 27 May 2012. <http://philsp.com/>.

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. Churchville, MD: OTR Pub., 2001. Print.

IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 27 May 2012. <http://www.imdb.com/>.

"The Second Wife." The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. NBC. 26 Apr. 1965. Television.

Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 27 May 2012. <http://www.wikipedia.org/>.

Batman in the 1970s Part 20: September and October 1972

by Peter Enfantino &

Jack Seabrook

Detective Comics #427 (September 1972)

"A Small Case of Murder!"

Story by Frank Robbins

Art by Irv Novick and Dick Giordano

Toy designer Randall Barnes is found shot through the heart and the culprit is a wooden doll. Luckily, Commissioner Gordon has help in the form of Batman to investigate. As usual, there's no shortage of suspects. Could it be Gaynor, Barnes's partner in the business? Not likely. Or what about Anton Gralnik, disgraced and sacked by Barnes only a few short weeks before? That theory goes right out the window as well when Bats finds Gralnik dead. Luckily, the killer has stuck around and it's only a matter of time before The Caped Crusader gets to the bottom of this long and tangled web. It turns out that the doll has been programmed by Adam Cornelius, an advocate for children's anti-violence toys. Ironically, in a freak accident, Cornelius is gunned down by his own Woody.

Jack: This story was right up my twisted little alley! I love the "Doom Doll" and I love the (admittedly heavy-handed) irony of having the head of the League to Outlaw Violence be behind the murders. This is another in a series of very violent Batman stories!

PE: I thought it was just another run-of-the-mill Frank Robbins story with nice art by Novick and Giordano. The scene to the left, of Batman in death throes after being shot by the killer doll, is a cheat of course. The cheat, though, is a riot. Anticipating the doll taking a shot at him, Batman manages to turn away for a split second and slip a metal "cupid" statue under his Bat emblem. When the shot comes, the doll has luckily aimed right at the yellow bat on The Dark Knight's chest, thus deflecting the bullet. If The Batman's so smart, why doesn't he just pick up the doll and disarm him before he fires. How much longer would that take than disrobing?! There's a typical "Is it or is it not a supernatural force" moment in the climax when the doll utters Cornelius's name just before ventilating him. It's as though Robbins (or Schwartz) graduated from the Inner Sanctum school of writing where everything has to be scientifically explained at the finale and yet he wants to have it both ways.

"I Wake Up Dying!"

Story by Frank Robbins

Art by Don Heck

Jason Bard awakens from a nightmare to find his bad dream has just begun. Someone has dumped him in the back of a semi and then driven the truck into a lake. Bard has only precious seconds to escape the fast-filling vehicle. Once freed, he begins to piece together the events of the previous days that led to his dunking.

Jack: Better than the first Jason Bard story, mainly due to the frame and the use of flashbacks as Bard tries to piece together what happened to him. The wife-as-killer angle is as old as the hills, though, and Heck's art is not getting any better.

PE: I'm not sure if I stayed awake through any of the previous Jason Bard adventures but bring me up to speed: did he usually talk like a beatnik dope? Lots of hippie lingo like "chick," and "bread." Half the time he sounds like he should have long hair and beads, the other half he's a member of Mickey Spillane's country club. It does have a bit of excitement, lacking in any of the other Bard appearances, with his escape from a semi sinking deep into a river. For the record, I was rooting for the river.

Batman #244 (September 1972)

"The Demon Lives Again!"

Story by Denny O'Neil

Art by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano

As Batman and his friends reach the cable car, they are joined by Ra's Al Ghul, reborn with the strength of ten and possessed by a fit of madness. He is too much for Batman; Talia and her father take off down the snowy mountain in a hovercraft. Molly and Batman follow on skis, but the father and daughter escape when Batman must tend to Molly's injury.

Batman tracks Ra's and Talia to a desert camp, where they engage in a sword fight that is cut short when a scorpion bites the Caped Crusader. Talia saves him with an antidote-laced kiss, allowing Batman to catch up with Ra's and take him to justice.

Jack: Art gets an A+; story gets a B minus. This is an example of Neal Adams just taking a story and turning out some beautiful pages, even though what's going on doesn't always make a lot of sense. Why does Batman remark that Matches Malone is dead? The whole Matches Malone disguise never made much sense. And, oddly enough, this is an example of a cover that shows a scene not in the story, even though Adams drew both!

PE: I completely agree with your assessment and ratings, Jack. This issue features some of the most iconic art Neal Adams ever drew yet the story meanders and never really tells us what we need to know. I'm still not sure what threat Ra's poses and I'm not entirely sure that's all my fault. The Ra's al Ghul character is held in high esteem by most Bat-fans all because of these six appearances in 1971 and '72 and I'm ready for them to tell me why.

Jack: One other thing--Talia suddenly looks very Asian in some panels. She did not look that way before, even when Adams drew her. The continuity in this tale is a little bit shaky.

PE: Ra's will return several times in the next forty years but probably not with as much fanfare as in Grant Morrison's "The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul," a very popular mega-arc that began in Batman Annual #26 and ran through several of the various Batman titles in 2007. In the story we discover that Bruce Wayne and Talia have conceived a child, a really violent one, who is now in danger. Seems grandpa Ra's wants to use the kid as a vehicle for resurrection.

"Teen-Age Trap!"

Story by Elliot Maggin

Art by Irv Novick and Dick Giordano

Robin helps teenager Tommy Duffy after the young man robs a coffee house. It seems young Tommy reminds Robin of himself as a boy, and it's time to help someone less fortunate.

Jack: So much for Rich Buckler! This is the first Robin script by Elliot Maggin, and it has enough hokey jive to pass as a Frank Robbins effort. The art by Novick and Giordano is serviceable but a disappointment after Buckler.

PE: Are we sure that Maggin isn't actually Robbins? Do we have confirmation that someone actually saw them in the same room at the same time? This hokum reads like an eight-page advertisement for The Boys Club. Well, with hipster dialogue thrown in. How can we get Hawkman two times a month?

Detective Comics #428 (October 1972)

"The Toughest Cop in Gotham!"

Story by Frank Robbins

Art by Bob Brown and Dick Giordano

Steve "Shotgun" Smith has developed something of a reputation as Gotham's toughest cop, laying waste to felons at an alarming clip, but he's also respected for getting the job done. Commissioner Gordon, expecting the real bad guys are going to come gunning for Smith, enlists Batman to keep an eye on his top cop. While shadowing the big man, The Dark Knight begins to suspect that "Shotgun" may be skimming off the top.

PE: An amazingly violent little tale, capped off by a couple of shotgun killings witnessed with perfect calm by the Batman. The expository, as usual, is just way too much to swallow. All the "I knew you were doing this because . . ." twists and turns start piling up and tip over from the weight of their own dopiness. "Shotgun" seems to be an amalgam of Mike Hammer and Dirty Harry.

Jack: I thought that this was going to be a big cliche, but it turned out to be a solid crime story, featuring a Mike Hammer lookalike. The twists and turns are more subtle than usual for Frank Robbins fare. The Brown/Giordano art is nice and raw and it fits the violent theme. Nice work all around!

"The Invisible Thief of Bleakhill Manor!"

Story by E. Nelson Bridwell

Art by Dick Dillin and Joe Giella

Hawkman investigates the burgling of Bleakhill Manor. Someone is stealing artifacts that have to do with weapons. When Hawkman looks closer, though, he sees that the theft of otherwise worthless junk is only a diversion.

PE: Why would a master thief, who obviously has access to the collection in Bleakhill Manor, take the time and effort to clone the priceless artifacts he's about to rip off? He's got to cart these things in with him when he's breaking in! Otherwise, I found this Hawkman adventure boatloads more enjoyable than a Jason Bard, Batgirl, or Robin tale. That could have something to do with my enjoyment of the character as handled by Geoff Johns and James Robinson when they rebooted him after the Identity Crisis mini-series. Curiously, I find these 21st Century "re-imaginings" are better handled by DC than Marvel, a company that seems to want to destroy whatever fan base they've had over the years by alienation. Anime-style art, no story to speak of, and outlandish plot stunts designed to make longtime readers gasp and/or shriek (J. Michael Straczynski's debauchery "Sins Past" featuring the sons of Gwen Stacy comes immediately to mind) have whittled away at any credibility the current regime might have had. It's telling that when it comes time for their heroes to hit the big screen, it's the 1960s and 70s incarnations they turn to. End of speech.

Jack: "Aerial Ace?" "Sherlock of the Skies?" "Pinioned Policeman?" This first Hawkman tale in Detective Comics (at least in the '70s) is standard fare, with corny quips by E. Nelson Bridwell and uninspired art by Dillin and Giella. I had forgotten that Hawkman was from another planet and could talk to the animals (or at least the birds) like Dr. Doolittle. Dick Dillin drew the Justice League of America from 1968 to 1980, basically the entire time I was reading the favorite comic of my youth.

Batman #245 (October 1972)

"The Bruce Wayne Murder Case!"

Story by Denny O'Neil

Art by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano

Warring political bosses Bilker and Harvey argue over a newspaper headline that accuses Harvey of murdering Bruce Wayne. Batman visits Bilker, who shows him a handwritten letter from Wayne accusing Harvey of planning his murder. Batman goes to the home of Osgood Peabody, who designed a computer that can replicate anyone's handwriting. Peabody nearly electrocutes Batman and escapes; he goes to the docks for safe passage but is double-crossed by Harvey, only to be saved by Batman's timely intervention. As the story ends, another headline announces that Bruce Wayne has been found alive, having survived the plane crash in South America.

Jack: So ends this multi-issue arc that began with Batman faking Bruce Wayne's death in order to free himself to go after Ra's Al Ghul. O'Neil had good intentions, but this doesn't hold together as well as it should. Frankly, I had forgotten that Bruce Wayne was supposed to be dead.

PE: Another ho-hum tale of Gotham grift and corruption. Since this was about the time Watergate hit, we should settle in for quite a few stories along this line. As long as they're illustrated by Neal Adams, I think we'll be okay. I do think the long and drawn out "death of Bruce Wayne" was one of those stories that got out of control and O'Neil had written himself into a corner. He got out of it with one quick expository panel, the capper to this story.

Jack: I don't think his heart was in this one, but even an average Neal Adams effort is awfully good!

PE: Well, it's tough to follow up that incredible job last issue and Adams is back to drawing petty criminals rather than menaces to mankind. I'm still bewildered that, with a stellar rogue's gallery available, Schwartz kept the stop sign in cement. Nothing but all-too-mortal thieves and crooked cops. What are comic books for, anyway? I've a feeling that Roy Thomas was smart enough not to have the same kind of policy running over at Marvel. Probably one of the main reasons why the competition ate up more of the market as the 70s lingered on.

"Who Stole the Gift from Nowhere!"

Story by Elliot Maggin

Art by Irv Novick and Dick Giordano

An anonymous gift of fifty thousand dollars to the Hudson University library fund has been stolen, and student Luke Graham is wrongly accused! Robin finds the real thief and Graham confesses to having been the anonymous donor--he comes from a rich family but wanted to be accepted as one of the guys.

Jack: I liked this story, even with the occasional "dig" or pair of striped bell bottoms. Maggin is showing promise as a Robin writer, at least in comparison to some of the dreck we've seen in past issues.

PE: It's the same ol' Robin detritus to me. Saving grace is that it only clocks in at nine pages. Well, that and it's not drawn by Frank Robbins. I confess to docking these points based on the hip lingo. There's a definite Gil Kane vibe to this art and I may be wrong but Luke Graham kinda reminds me of Roy Thomas.

Batman in the 1970s Part 19: July and August 1972

by Peter Enfantino &

Jack Seabrook

Detective Comics #425 (July 1972)

"The Stage is Set . . . for Murder!"

Story by Denny O'Neil

Art by Irv Novick & Dick Giordano

Someone is making a statement about the acting of Barry Johnstone. The Shakespeare in the Park lead actor has a critic in his audience who wouldn't mind seeing Barry doing an imitation of Poor Yorick but The Batman is backstage to make sure that doesn't happen. A full roster of suspects confounds The Batman for a bit but thanks to a little "handiwork," The Dark Knight is able to deduce just exactly who the culprit is.

Jack: What a great Berni Wrightson cover! The inside art doesn’t hold a candle to it.

PE: Not even close. Novick and Giordano usually do a passable job on Batman's art but here it looks like they took the month off. Our lead character doesn't have the usual flair (his cape just dangles in most panels rather than the billow we've come to expect). The story's a dud as well. I've never been a fan of four-color whodunits. There's not enough time to establish the characters. O'Neil starts the story off with a list of the five "suspicious characters" but there was only one that seemed to be the likely varmint and I was dead on. The major thing that bugs me about this yarn is the introduction of the House of Mystery element. Why have the bad guy dress as a ghostly carriage driver? It lasts for one scene and plays no part in the drama. I suspect that Bernie Wrightson came up with a very cool cover and editor Schwartz ordered O'Neil to write a story around that illo.

Jack: This is an average story by Denny O’Neil. I wonder if he was cutting corners by using so much dialogue by “William Shakespeare, Esq.”

PE: In stark contrast to the Ra's al Ghul storyline running at the same time in the Batman title, here in Detective we get one-and-dones and the stories suffer for being so brief. As I noted above, if you want a successful whodunit, you gotta know the whos. We know nothing about the possible motives the other "suspects" may have for the simple reason that we aren't given any information to work with. Without that, the "whodunit" becomes a "Whocares."

Jack: Though Julius Schwartz writes (on the letters page) that reader reaction to Frank Robbins’s art has been 75% positive, he does publish a letter by Lori Mead of Phoenix, Arizona, who comments that Robbins not only didn’t go “to drawing school” but he “didn’t even graduate from finger-painting!” It appears that people in Arizona do not appreciate the Robbins touch.

PE: I suspect that it's not only Arizona that has high standards for adults who run around in tights. 

"Open-and-Shut Case!"

Story by Frank Robbins

Art by Don Heck

Jason Bard's old war buddy Matthew Clay has escaped from a "private sanitarium" and Jason wants to find Matt before he hurts someone or someone hurts Matt. Jason stumbles into the office of the psychiatrist that sent Clay to the nuthouse mere seconds after Matt has murdered the doctor. Or did he? Batgirl's favorite private dick aims to find his screwy buddy and ask him some pertinent questions. Good luck with that, Jason Bard!

Don Heck's idea of a crazed Vietnam vet.

PE: Why is it that DC has cut out the reprints but Jason Bard's first solo adventure feels just like one of those stuffy old 1954 stories starring Harry "Winkie" Winklebean, Private Sea Captain Detective? Bard has always come off to me as a rip-off of Matt Murdock (sans blindness and tights, plus gimpy leg and sexy superhero girlfriend) and failed to elicit one iota of excitement as a supporting character in the Batgirl back-ups. Why editor Schwartz thought readers would eat up tales that centered around him is beyond my powers of ESP. This story's yawn-inducing and not very well told. Matt Clay's psychiatrist, the doc who had him committed, just happens to have his office in the same building as Jason Bard's? Hmmm, that's quite a coincidence, wouldn't you say? The reason Robbins's story doesn't work is the same reason O'Neil's doesn't: brevity and a lack of good suspects. In this case, Robbins only introduces one other character in the entire story so if Clay's not the killer then it must be the other.

Jack: The crack team of Robbins and Heck makes us suffer through nine pages of Jason Bard, private eye. I am not looking forward to a long run for this series.

PE: Well, we did get that Wrightson cover so I guess we shouldn't complain too loudly.

Batman #243 (August 1972)

"The Lazarus Pit!"

Story by Denny O'Neil

Art by Neal Adams

Now that Batman has saved the life of Ra’s Al Ghul’s assassin Ling, Ling’s loyalties are divided and he and Batman must fight to the death. Batman uses his Judo skills to win the battle; sparing Ling’s life once again puts the man wholly in his debt. Ling, Dr. Blaine, and Batman—disguised as Matches Malone—fly by private jet to Switzerland, where they have a run in with Ubu and Talia at the airport. Batman meets international ski champion Molly Post, who bears a grudge against Ra’s Al Ghul, and the foursome travel by jet ski to Ra’s’s mountain chalet. After Dr. Blaine uses some scientific know-how and quick thinking to disarm a bunker filled with machine guns, they enter the chalet. Batman subdues Ubu and Talia greets him with a kiss. She shows him her father’s dead body and they prepare to leave, but after Batman is gone the body of Ra’s Al Ghul is revived by being dunked in a pit of bubbling liquid.

Jack: Boy, it seems like a long time since we’ve been treated to a full-length Batman story illustrated by Neal Adams! He does not disappoint, as this is an exciting and suspenseful tale that is a treat for the eyes.

Molly? Or Jill St. John?

PE: The mental and physical chess match between Batman and Ra's Al Ghul is finally drawing me in. Having not read this arc (or any other Ra's story) growing up, I have not one clue where it's leading me. The Lazarus Pit itself is a bizarre plot device (is the concept crossing over into that quasi-supernatural realm that Bats enters now and then or is there a perfectly rational explanation for raising the dead?) and I can't wait to see what O'Neil has up his sleeve. I do know that this particular set of stories is held up as a pinnacle of Batman in the 1970s. Michael Eury in The Batcave Companion (Twomorrows, 2009) calls Ra's "Batman's deadliest enemy."The change in format from 52 to 36 pages certainly helps the title in two ways: Jack and I no longer have to read those crappy reprints (at least for now) and the extended story page count from 13 to 20 pages certainly expands the canvass. Now we can have a little more back story for these nameless underworld thugs we're saddled with each month. If this issue is any indication, it's also opened the door for multi-issue arcs, something heretofore almost unheard of in the pages of Detective and Batman. So a major DC bungle (the 52-page experiment) may turn out for the best.

Welcome back, Mr. Adams!

Jack: With the new 20 cent cover price and page count reduced to 36 comes another change: Batman is now published eight times a year rather than the ten we’ve been used to since we started our reviews with the January 1970 issue. Peter, what do you think of Robin’s brief appearance and of the whole Matches Malone disguise? So far, I don’t see the point, but maybe something’s coming next issue.

PE: Matches Malone is an embarrassingly silly disguise and the quicker he bites the dust the better. Love that "gruff tough henchman" voice Bats adopts for the Matches role.

Detective Comics #426 (August 1972)

"Killer's Roulette!"

Story and Art by Frank Robbins

Three noted Gotham-ites have committed suicide in three successive nights. Batman finds a few oddities about the crime scenes that have him convinced the men didn't take their own lives. All three men had heavy gambling debts s to follow up leads, he turns to his good friend, Bruce Wayne, and the two investigate the floating casino known as "The Fortune Wheel." There Bruce runs into Conway Treach, a man with a strange addiction: he loves to bet on Russian Roulette. The Batman plays along.

PE: It's hard to take Batman using the slang "bread" for money or calling a gossip columnist "Gingie-baby."  Just doesn't jibe with The Dark Knight I know. That gun in the splash looks awfully big. Looks like Robbins may have had a few problems with perspective. Our hero, as noted in the past, also looks like he could use a few meals as well.

That's a mighty large heater you've got there, Caped Crusader!

Jack: Oh no, another Frank Robbins story! Try as I may to be even-handed, I just can’t stand his art. Note that Batman goes undercover as “John T. Hazard,” and Robbins drew the Johnny Hazard comic strip for decades. I cannot figure out how Batman slips into his costume from his civvies in the space of about three seconds while Treach’s back is turned.

PE:  I would expect a boat called "The Fortune Wheel" to have a wheel but, no, this is a nice big yacht instead. And the ending is way too abrupt. Having laid out all those negatives, perhaps it's surprising that I actually enjoyed this story. It's got a harder edge than any of the Batman stories we've read in a while. The art still sucks big time (Conway Treach looks like a fat rat but then that may be the idea) but I can ignore things like that if I'm given a decent enough yarn to lose myself in. This is the best Frank Robbins has been able to conjure up since we began our journey.

Jack: I do like the cover, though, along with the one from last issue. I am a sucker for these “frame” covers.

A decent Robbins panel--notice the lack of people.

PE: I'm really surprised that the Comics Code, which supposedly existed to police the harmful aspects of comic books, didn't shut this one down quickly. The last two pages depicting Batman and Treach with guns to their heads, even with Frank Robbins's rubbery ink spots, are very stark and adult. There's nothing remotely funny book about them. Of course, in the end we find out Batman had rigged the gun so that it would not fire but we don't know that during the action. How this passed the censors, I don't know. Ostensibly, the Code Guardians were too busy looking for clandestine breasts in Peter Parker's hair that month.

Gingie-Baby? B-M?

"Trail of the Fadeaway Footprints!"

Story by Len Wein

Art by Dick Giordano

Ralph Dibney, The Elongated Man, and his wife Sue run out of gas in the middle of the desert. While looking for shelter, they stumble across a dying scuba diver.

PE: I always thought it funny that the villains would cry out "Oh no, it's The Elongated Man!" Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue like Spider-Man or The Hulk. "By jove, Claude, we've been found out by The Elongated Man!" I'd think most bad guys would have trouble pronouncing that word and eventually, after several stuttering foes ("You won't take me to prison, Elonja . . . Elongo . . . Rubber Man!"), our hero would effect a change: "Look out boys, it's Ralph Dibney!" Not quite the ring, I guess.

Jack: I was so pleased to see Elongated Man rather than Jason Bard that I did not mind that the story was kind of corny. I think this is the second time Len Wein has popped up in one of our Batman/Detective comics, and can I just say that Dick Giordano may be the unsung hero of the Batman in the 1970s blog? He draws very well and he inks just about everything and everybody.

PE: I don't normally have a problem with Dick Giordano but this strip cries out "Gil Kane" in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, the art's good enough. That panel of Ralph's eyeballs stretching out of the water to get a look at the bad guys is a corker! It beats the hell out of Batgirl, Robin, and Jason Bard though. From here on out, the Detective back-up will rotate between Bard, Ralph and Sue, Hawkman, Robin, and The Atom. Of the four, I'm most looking forward to The Hawkman stories. At least until I read them, that is.