My Silver Age reread has now reached the books cover-dated June of 1968 (I’ve still got some earlier stuff to blog about though). Batman’s New Look is about to transition to a a New New Look.
The New Look was DC’s attempt to juice sales of Batman and Detective Comics by getting away from science fiction (well, mostly) in favor of mysteries and mundane but cunning schemers. I anticipated the success of the Batman TV show would sweep it away but it didn’t. The Bat-books rolled into 1967 with only occasional bursts of TV-style camp but they lost some of its mojo when Carmine Infantino left (though I suspect the shake-up coming in a few months would have happened anyway).
As I’ve written in some of those past posts, rereading 1950s and early 1960s Bat-tales before starting this era made me much more appreciative of the New Look and what a breath of fresh air it was. Thinking about that, I realized that while I thought New Look stories okay at the time they came out I really disliked them in reprint.
I read quite a number in reprint in the various Super-Spectaculars and other reprint comics of the 1970s and they always seemed bland. Nowhere near as intense as the Bronze Age stuff after the Dark Knight got seriously Darker, nor as stylized as Dick Sprang’s earlier art or as quirky as the best of the 1950s stories. Yet at the same time it was hard for me to define exactly what was missing.
Reading Detective Comics #374 nailed it for me. Gardner Fox and Gil Kane gave us “Hunt for a Robin Killer” in which for once the Infantino cover is not a fake-out — yes, Robin’s alive but the villain beat him hard enough to put him in hospital. Bats identifies the attacker as a heavyweight boxer with a score to settle but Commissioner Gordon gives him an airtight alibi. In the classic tradition of airtight alibis this proves a trick and Batman finally settles things.
That’s the intensity I missed in the stories where Sheldon Moldoff and Infantino were the artists. I also love that Robin getting unmasked turns out to be no big deal.
“Batman’s Gangland Guardians” by Fox and Chic Stone in Batman #201 (Infantino cover) doesn’t have the same energy but it’s nevertheless a lot of fun. More fun because knowing what’s ahead, it looks like a last hurrah for the villains of the New Look era.
Take a look at the line-up alongside the Big Three. Roy Reynolds the Getaway Genius. The Cluemaster. Johnny Witts, whose angle was to think one step ahead of his opponents, then counter their move before they made it. All introduced in the past few years. Plus the Mad Hatter in his first New Look appearance.
The premise is that a West Coast crime syndicate moving in on Gotham is so slick they’re setting up booby-traps at their crime scenes that Batman will walk right into. And sure enough he does.
A story where Batman walks into trap after trap, oblivious, isn’t one I can swallow. His villains’ reaction, though, I can buy: not only would they miss matching wits with Bats, it’s obvious the syndicate won’t tolerate lone wolves like them. Save Batman, they save themselves. 
After the syndicate goes down we learn Mister Esper, another villain of the era, was behind the whole operation. He and all the other crooks are ready for another shot at the Masked Manhunter. None of them realized it was their swan song as serious players.
Roy Reynolds had one more clash with Batman. Witts shows up once more, in an issue of Super-Friends. The Cluemaster is better known as a D-list joke and the failed father to Stephanie Brown. The original, Lewis Carroll-styled Mad Hatter murders the one here off-panel. Mr. Esper had a run-in with the Bronze Age Teen Titans [correction: Mr. Esper has “another crack at Batman” in Batman #209]. And then they were in limbo. But hey, at least in #201 they had a blast.
Fox and Stone’s “Gateway to Death” in Batman #202 is a fair story about a trio of music-hall performers using their skills for crime (atypically and annoyingly, Fox never explains how the stage magician pulls off his wizardry). What makes it worth mentioning here is that the final page harks back way beyond the New Look, all the way to the Golden Age. When Alfred heard about the robberies earlier in the story, he fainted, gasping out a cryptic clue. At the end of the story we learn why.
This is more or less the Golden Age origin of Alfred: son of Thomas Wayne’s butler, gave up domestic service for the stage, then his dying father begged him to return to Wayne Manor and wait on Bruce to honor the family tradition. The Earth-One Alfred, according to his origin in Batman #110, was more conventional: he applied for a job with Bruce Wayne, got it, eventually learned who he was really working for. The sudden swing back to the Golden Age backstory surprises me. And was “Jarvis” meant as an Easter egg reference to the Avengers’ butler?
A final thought on the transition ahead comes, oddly enough, from Flash. #180, “Attack of the Samuroids” (and Part Two the following issue) is quite simply one of the crappiest comics I’ve ever read. An evil Japanese warlord with an army of robots [correction: corpses converted to cyborgs] somehow proves a match for the Fastest Man Alive. We have painfully stereotypical Japanese dialog (“A-ha, I’ve had a brain typhoon!”) and a Japanese woman named “Tushi.”
The author? Frank Robbins, newly arrived at DC (he wrote one Lois Lane story before this) from years at his syndicated strip Johnny Hazard. He was a nightmare as Flash’s new writer, stuffing every script with campy dialog that would have had Adam West demanding rewrites. Even though Flash was my favorite childhood superhero I gave the Samuroid stories away as a tween — that’s how badly Robbins sucked. Ross Andru’s art didn’t help, though I rather like his cover here.
A few months from now, however, Robbins will be writing Batman and his work will be very different. And mercifully much better.
#SFWApro.
“And was “Jarvis” meant as an Easter egg reference to the Avengers’ butler?” Nope. “Jarvis” was mentioned as the name of Alfred’s father way back in Alfred’s first appearance, in Batman #16. Note that Alfred’s last name was Beagle at the time- Pennyworth came much later- so Jarvis must have been his father’s FIRST name. Jarvis Beagle. I suspect that there’s no direct connection with the name of the Avengers’ butler- Edwin Jarvis. I think Jarvis is just the sort of name that SOUNDS like a butler. And it’s similar to the name “Jeeves”, which was the name of possibly the most famous fictional manservant (though he was a valet, rather than a butler) prior to Alfred, from P.G. Wodehouse’s stories.
Thank you. Did not remember Jarvis name. But that shows they really did want to connect back to Alfred’s old origin.
Yeah, those quarter-century plus of Flash issues from roughly #175 to 200/5-ish, encompassing Infantino’s exit to the gradual introduction of 1970s mainstays Cary Bates (writer) and Irv Novick (penciller), are mainly a tough read.
The Robbins stinkers I recall include #183 (a sort-of tribute to noir and gangsters?) featuring a shades-wearing crook with a silenced pistol, also shown on the cover.
This run shares a problem with the Batman New Look (your “something missing”?), namely the absence of Rogues Gallery classics for long periods. Batman suffers to a slightly lesser extent.
As you point out, Fraser: Mister Esper, Roy Reynolds, Johnny Witts and Cluemaster are D-listers. It’s fine creating new characters, but what if they’re hopeless compared to Joker and Penguin?
Meanwhile, apart from Captain Cold in #193 or Trickster (a terrible Marvel-apeing tale I’ve mentioned before) in #177, Mirror Master, Cap. Boomerang, Heat Wave et al largely disappear from late 1960s Flash in favour of forgettable tales by the soon-to-depart Fox & Broome, Robbins and Kanigher.
The latter attempted a GL/GA-style relevance run that was ill suited to Flash.
The post-Gardner Fox era for JLA is going to be painful too.
I’m less bothered by the lack of Rogue’s Gallery in the New Look now that I’ve read so much 1940s and 1950s Batman — they didn’t use the big names as frequently as I assumed. I think it hurts Flash more. I wonder if part of that wasn’t backlash to the Batman TV show and a desire to look more serious and less comic book.
I don’t think the New Look Rogues are so much D-listers as one-shots (to the extent there’s a difference). The Getaway Genius’ gimmick, for instance, is clever (you can’t beat Batman so focus on escaping him) but it’s hard to use in multiple stories. As witness his second appearance has him playing supporting villain, forced to provide an escape route for the main crook in the story.
Then again, the Bronze Age villain the Spook was able to get several good stories out of a similar gimmick (pay me and I guarantee Batman won’t catch you).
The endless late 1960s efforts to make comics Relevant!!! were painful to read at the time and I doubt they’ll improve on rereading. I’ll be blogging about that soon.