Of course, this is source material for the Nolanverse movies but it's also fascinating in that it represents Steve Englehart's progression as a comics writer. Recognised as someone who took superheroes on a journey- albeit "strange" ones, as we saw last time- this was Englehart's first major work for DC, alongside a year of giant JLA adventures, which paid homage to the sci-fi roots of the book. In Detective Comics, Englehart fused the Golden Age and the "Popcrime" era of the mid-Sixties , while focusing on a new love interest for Bruce Wayne.
Silver St. Cloud is a bit Farrah Fawcett, a bit Marilyn Monroe. Her relationship with Bruce Wayne is quite clearly sexual and passionate. She's an events organiser so she is part of the Gothan elite but she's not a Lois Lane knockoff like snooping Vicki Vale or a Bad Girl like Selina Kyle- or an exotic vamp like Talia, a modern Fah Lo Suee.
We don't even get to see her first appearance in this edition. Instead, it opens with
Battle Of The Thinking Machines: this is a highly stylised adventure which recalls the Super Friends comic. The stars of Detective's back-up features- JLA lesser lights Atom, Black Canary, Elongated Man and Green Arrow- take on the campy Calculator. With its disco fashions, sound effects and technophobia, it's a quirky example of Bronze Age DC but really unlike the rest of the collection.
Omitting the Simonson two-parter, starring the grotesque Dr. Phosphorus ( and Silver) is frustrating because the Rozakis and O'Neil stories which bookend this volume are irrelevant, really. The New Batman Era begins with-
The Dead Yet Live: While the story opens with the crooked politicos of the Tobacconists Club. Batman is a weird figure of the dark, a winged avenger in a pulp novel- landscape of poisonous snakes and distorted monster-men. Bruce and Alfred are captured by an obscure 1940s nemesis, yet, despite the Fu Manchu trappings, Hugo Strange plans to sell the secret of Batman's identity in a very "corporate America" move. It requires suspension of disbelief that a bespectacled nut with no super-powers could abduct and overcome the Caped Crusader- even if he does have radiation poisoning.
I Am The Batman: Silver and Dick help to free Bruce from the Gothic Graytowers Clinic and Hugo Strange is beaten to death by Rupert Thorne's thugs: a brutal and contemporary note to the pulp elements and the larger than life theatrics. Robin's ripped vest foreshadows his first Nightwing costume (which in itself echoes both his circus background and the Seventies machismo of Iron Fist or the Falcon)
The Malay Penguin: this was my introduction to the Englehart/Rogers team, bought I think in East Kilbride one Saturday. Gotham City is a foggy dreamscape where Higo Strange's corpse is dumped into the river in a barrel- a very Prohibition Era note. Elsewhere, the Dynamic Duo foil the "fowl" play of Cooblepot in what is a 1977 version of a 1966 Bat-episode. It's highly stylised, down to the strip cartoon image of Hugo Strange's ghost.
The Deadshot Ricochet: another historical Bat-Villain (from 1950) is revived here- one who'd go on to be a movie star. Nowadays, I find the faceless design a bit silly but as the original Deadshot resembled The King, it's fairly understandable.
There are cameos for Duela Dent and Donna Troy ( who reminds me of Carly Simon here) but I particularly like the affectionate sparring of Bruce and Dick.
There's love for Dick Sprang in the final confrontation on a giant typewriter plot but the big shock is Silver recognising Bruce as Batman as she trashes DC's secret ID conventions.
The Laughing Fish: this was my third and final 'Tec, having got the first Dr. Phosphorus story out of sequence (70s-style) in Baird's in Strathaven. I think this Joker comic was, like the Penguin issue from RS McColl's in East Kilbride. The story represents the ultimate confrontation of id and ego- very Englehart. There is a clever plotting parallel from Stainless Steve as Silver flees from Bruce while Thorne flees from Hugo's ghost. The macabre nature of the Joker, with his grisly gas - and the random murder of one of his own goons -is especially chilling here.
Sign of the Joker: O'Hara from tv makes an appearance (!) as the Joker kills another victim with a Joker-ized pussycat (!) Ghosts are real as Hugo's spectre attacks Thorne. The Joker makes a reference to Kiss and is struck by lightning in the climax of the story. The comic ends with a symbolic sunrise as Silver confronts Bat-Bruce to end their relationship.
The Coming of Clayface III: A bereft and angry Bats confronts a new Clayface- a tragic monster who has been mutated by a blood sample from the second, better-known, shapechanger Clayface. This is a horror movie pastiche from Swamp Thing creator Len Wein, who also wrote the Neal Adams/ Anthony Romulus story. I wonder exactly how much of an influence this was on Gruenwald's Waxman story for Marvel?
If A Man Be Made of Clay: Clayface escapes in the end of this tale which owes a great deal to Mystery of the Wax Museum and the 1968 Dennis Waterman tv thriller Eve in Journey to the Unknown. There's an interlude with a character who is probably Catwoman but weraing leopard-skin doesn't seem in character for her.
Ticket to Tragedy: this story is from 1979 and is disconnected to the others. Batman's vow to assist Alfred's surgeon cousin leads into a dull murder mystery featuring a fancy dress party on a train. A character named Greeny Velvet would give away that we're reading a Denny O'Neil story.
The hardback graphic novel edition ends with the Golden Age debut of Hugo Strange. Englehart literally quotes from it but wisely avoids the pulpy excesses of the whipping scene. It's the usual cocktail of crude cartooning and Expressionist movie borrowings.
How does this storied run stand up, forty years on? Like another brief run of 'Tec I enjoyed ( Barr and Davis), it's a departure in design and aesthetic. Ultimately, though, I don't think Englehart had enough apace and time to develop Bruce Wayne terribly far as a character. I liked Bruce's relationships with Dick Grayson and Alfred. I imagine the lady in the animal print coat was meant to be Selina but I don't know if it was Englehart or Wein who was bringing her on stage. Batman on the rebound would have been intriguing. The doomed love affair with Silver is picked up in the 21st century Dark Detective miniseries but duty and pity derail it again.
Dick Grayson begins an abortive journey into adulthood after the Teen Wonder days of the early 70s. That transformation will finally take place in Wolfman and Perez's Titans book. Englehart's Robin is a likeable character and his villains all have potency and presence.
While the pulp roots of the Darknight Detective were undoubtedly on show here, with a Batman bedevilled by crooked politicians and mad science, this arc is also a prism to view the Adam West Batman. Somehow, at the end of 2014, I managed to miss the publication of Batman '66 The Lost Episode. "The Two-Way Crimes of Two-Face" is a Harlan Ellison teleplay adapted by Len Wein and Jose Luis Garcia Lopez with class and style.
Two-Face wasn't around in the 1966-67 era of Batman comics but here his scarred side is coloured green as it was in the Forties. The schooner from the famed Neal Adams story seems to have its origins in this script. I loved this comic- although it was faithful to the tone of the tv show, it it didn't seem to have the tongue in cheek quality and plays it relatively straight. Just a delight.
I wish all modern Batman comics were like this, instead of the face -eating, child-slaying horror shows we do get.
Coming soon: more Doctor Who, Captain Britain and Dracula.
All images presumed copyright of their respective owners
No comments:
Post a Comment