In 1965, the ad below informed DC readers Batman was getting a New Look (more discussion of the look here).
The New Look got the Bat-books away from the science fiction stories and alien invaders of the early 1960s to give us Batman as detective, Batman battling cunning criminals, and all with better writing and art. I would say editor Julius Schwartz and his stable of talent succeeded at shaking Gotham City up. And while they frequently made nudge-nudge references to the Adam West TV show, by and large they avoided going campy.
(Art by Chic Stone)
By 1969, the show was off the air and comics readers were retroactively loathing the connection between the books they love and the camp on the screen. Judging from the letters to the editor quoted in Twomorrows’ Batcave Companion, that unfairly included the New Look: for god’s sake, can’t we get away from these crappy, campy stories and back to the old, eerie guy of the Golden Age, the one called The Batman (yes, that was a huge sticking point back for some fans back in the day).
I’m honestly not sure how the letter writers knew the difference. As I’ve mentioned before, DC didn’t reprint any of the Golden Age Batman stuff in their annuals and there were no apps or Batman Omnibuses to read. Does this mean the writers were older fans? Or that they’d scrounged Golden Age back issues in a comics store somewhere?
Either way, Schwartz listened and Batman began to change. By the end of 1969 Batman will have had a soft reboot but even before that we’re seeing changes. For example reprinting some of the Golden Age, such as Batman’s debut story to mark his 30th anniversary (cover by Irv Novick).
Rather than just go with a reprint, Mike Friedrich and Bob Brown give us a modern-day retelling as well, “The Cry of the Night Is … Sudden Death!” And I do like that opening image!
In another example of comics’ enthusiasm for relevance, the prime suspect is a cynical left-winger who assumes Batman’s just a jackbooted thug for the man.
I really like the detail that both Dick and Bruce listen to Janis Joplin. I’m not sure why. I also like Dick’s outrage that the snot-nosed punk dare step to the Caped Crusader.
Much like the recent dispute between protesters and campus authorities in Amazing Spider-Man, it turns out both sides are partially right, partially wrong. Comics will take this even-handed thread-the-needle approach a lot in the next few years. It’s still way better than the last heavily relevant Bat-story.
Mel Lambert is only one of the radicals cropping up in comics. They’re everywhere! Even alien planets, as Gil Kane shows in Green Lantern #69, which I blogged about Monday.
And Atlantis, where the regent Aquaman appointed while he was on the Search for Mera has become a petty tyrant.
(No, I don’t know why the image of Jim Aparo’s art I got off the DC app is black and white).
Batman #213 (cover by Bill Draut) shows there’s more interest in reprinting Golden Age stuff, as this one gives us Alfred’s 1940s debut along with the usual assortment of 1950s and early 1960s stories.
E. Nelson Bridwell and Ross Andru retell the origin of Robin rather than reprint it outright. This enables them to add scenes such as Bruce unmasking to Dick and applying for guardianship. Given Bridwell’s eye for continuity I’m surprised he didn’t explain Aunt Harriet (i.e., why didn’t she take custody of Dick?). I’m guessing now that she’d left the series, even a continuity nerd such as Bridwell didn’t care.
Bridwell also incorporates the Harvey Harris story. And Andru shows Bruce with his Golden Age pipe-smoking habit.
Then there’s Detective Comics #389 (cover by Neal Adams), in which Frank Robbins and Bob Brown pit the Dynamic Duo against “Batman’s Evil Eye.”
What’s interesting about it is the meta-commentary about whether the Darknight Detective still has his Golden Age strike-fear-into-their-hearts mojo.
Here too.
And here’s an interesting scene in which Batman shows himself as interested in reforming criminals as battling them. Though of course in the Scarecrow’s case he’s not going straight.
One change that doesn’t relate to the New Look becoming the Old Look is the style of storytelling. While Gardner Fox and John Broome gave the New Look plenty of mystery stories, they’re Batman stories first, mysteries second. The mysteries of 1969 feel more like Batman’s wandered into an Ellery Queen-style puzzle — I can’t pin down exactly what the difference is, but I think it’s there.
First there’s Detective #384, where Fox and Brown give us “Whatever Will Happen to Heiress Heloise?” Who is not the “she” on the Irv Novick cover — that refers to Batgirl getting to fly solo in the backup feature.
In the story, Batman and Robin protect the eponymous heiress from a killer, then discover it’s an actor hired to impersonate Heloise. Only even after the truth comes out, someone’s trying to kill her; if the heiress’ money isn’t the reason for the attempts, what is?
In Detective #386 (Novick cover again), Frank Robbins and Bob Brown spin a tale about a “Stand-in For Murder” — forget the cover, we have not only Bruce Wayne in this story but two, count ’em two Bruce impersonators.
One’s a professional Bruce has begun hiring whenever he has to be Batman and Bruce Wayne at the same time; the guy accepts Bruce’s explanation that the public appearances he has to make as head of Wayne Enterprises are just soooo boring he doesn’t want to go. I like that idea but it doesn’t work out so well for the stand-in — a guy with a score against Bruce murders the impersonator and takes his place. It’s ends up too convoluted but I applaud the effort.
Batman #211 gives us the Robbins and Novick (who also does the cover) tale “Batman’s Big Blow-Off,” a secret identity yarn that works some twists on that time-worn genre.
A local muckracking magazine identifies four possible identities for Batman. Bruce is less worried about himself than the other three — what if some thug decides one of them is the real deal and kills him? His solution is to unmask as Howard Heyes, legendary billionaire recluse (Howard Hughes’ transformation into a recluse spawned endless fictional knockoffs — Diamonds Are Forever, for example). Heyes is fine with helping Batman out until he sees all the adulation the Caped Crusader is getting after he unmasked. He’d like some of that himself — hmm, now that everyone “knows” he’s Batman, all he has to do is get the real Bat out of the way …
For extra interest, the editor of the paper responsible is clearly drawn to show he’s a radical type who wants to stick it to the establishment.
Bigger changes are in store but even if I’d been reading comics in 1969, I wouldn’t have known that.
I had a reprint (from the ’90s Silver Age Classics series) of the first issue of the “New Look” era and loved it. Probably read that a million times. And I adored the Adam West series (in syndication). As a kid, I took the TV show deathly seriously, and it worked on the surface level as an action show. And as an adult it works as fun camp. I think there’s a weird cognitive dissonance when fans grow up and turn on the thing they loved as children. Suddenly the TV series was embarrassing– for a certain demographic or of defensive nerd, anyway. But then that became received fan wisdom.
I believe that “Cry of Night” story is reprinted in Detective #627, which features a couple other modern reworkings of the Case of the Chemical Syndicate.