Retro Comics are Awesome

A general discussion forum, plus hauls and silly games.
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Re: Retro Comics are Awesome

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World's Finest Comics #39
March-April 1949

The Conquest of Batman's Identity!
Mystery writer J. J. Jason is bored, and to provide himself a challenge, he determines to find out Batman's secret identity, and he gives himself 30 days to do it. He goes to see Commissioner Gordon (who once again has brown hair... Gordon's hair color changes back and forth every other issue it seems) and demands police protection, claiming his life is under threat. Gordon summons Batman, and Jason starts his data gathering by timing the arrival of the Batmobile, and then contriving a reason to be taken to the Batcave. He gets some dirt under his fingernails for analysis. When he is taken home with Batman acting as bodyguard, he manages to get Batman's height and weight, and to snag a bit of Batman's cape. All of this information is analyzed, leading Jason to the correct deduction that Bruce Wayne is the most likely suspect.

But by this time, Batman has worked out what's going on and confronts Jason before leaving. The story ups the ante a bit by having a bullet cut Batman's cheek (11th instance of Batman being shot), leaving a very visible wound. When Jason turns up at Wayne mansion the following day to confront Bruce with his evidence, Bruce has prepared by having someone else appear as Batman, and here's where things get a bit too tidy, as the writers try to figure a way to get Bruce out of the corner they've written the character into. The solution is a deaf and blind man in the Batman costume, with Bruce using ventriloquism to throw Batman's voice, convincing Jason that he's wrong. Weak ending aside, I did enjoy the story, but there have been more than a few "secret ID exposed" stories lately. As a variation on that theme, this one's not bad.
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Re: Retro Comics are Awesome

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Batman #52
April-May 1949

The Man with the Automatic Brain!
"Do you remember Alfred..." is an odd way to begin any Batman story, but I think the last time we saw him may have been "The Case of Batman II", two years earlier in Batman #40, and Alfred's solo feature ended with "Elusive London Eddie" in Batman #36, August-September 1946. Poor Alfred's been absent from the series for two years. He's back to play a critical role in this story as he's blamed by a Gotham detective for the murder of Bruce Wayne, who fell to his death from a luxury yacht while Vicki Vale caught it all on film.

Bruce isn't dead, of course (though Alfred's trouble with the law is real enough). It was all a scheme to protect Batman's identity from the Thinker and his giant "automatic brain/thinking machines" (computers, before they became commonplace), housed inside giant busts of historical figures like Edgar Allen Poe or Lucrezia Borgia. A dying thug had just enough of a conscience to warn Batman, so he fakes dying as Bruce Wayne and then goes overtime as Batman to shut down the Thinker. Meanwhile some crooks bust out of prison and thanks to Alfred's tall tales, they take him along. In the end Alfred gets in on the action as the thinker's machines are destroyed. Bruce Wayne will miraculously turn up alive on an island, and Alfred will be exonerated. It's nice to see Alfred back, and nice to see Vicki as well, though her only role in the story is to snap the photo as Bruce falls into the ocean.

Batman and the Vikings!
These stories have long since settled into a pattern as Bruce and Dick discover a historic riddle they can't solve, and get Carter Nichols to send them back in time. It's a bit bizarre this time as a Viking carving is found with a man who looks like Bruce, and who is listed as a coward. Bruce can't let it go, so back he and Dick go to Norway in the year 990, where they quickly learn about and rescue Bruce's double, Olaf Erickson, who has genuinely been branded a coward. Bruce rescues him from prison, secretly switches places with him, passes an ordeal of courage while posing as him, and then goes along as Batman on a voyage to Vinland (America) to fight Skrellings (Indians) where Olaf finally finds his courage and gets his commemorative carving made as Batman and Robin return to the present day, to find the rest of the carving telling the rest of the story.
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Re: Retro Comics are Awesome

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Batman #52 concluded

The Happy Victims!
Ha! Ha! Ha! You dare insult me... ME! Ha! Ha! Ha!
J-Joker, I don't like the sound of your laugh! You-you wouldn't k-kill me, would you...? Not a guy with your sense o' humor!


For the first time in years, we get a glimpse of the killer the Joker used to be, as he cheats in a game of cards, his opponent calls him on it, and then begs the Joker not to kill him when the Joker is insulted. The gangster claims the Joker's sense of humor makes it fun to be robbed by him, which inspires the Joker's new idea... funny robberies. The Joker starts robbing people in ways that make them laugh at the same time, so they refuse to press charges. The Joker loves the headlines he's getting, and Bruce decides that maybe he'd like the Joker to rob him. He should have explained the plan to Dick, who in fairness should also have realized that this was a ploy so Batman could trail the Joker to his hideout. Now he has to rescue Robin as well and both have to escape a death trap in the form of a collapsing house of giant cards. The Joker had promised his "victims" to return double what he stole if they'd laugh at his antics when he robbed them, but he cheats them of course. Batman and Robin capture him outside Wayne Mansion before he can drench the house in paint.

We get a mix of old and current Joker in this story, and I really think we miss out because the writers don't showcase his more dangerous side very often, but maybe they really felt they couldn't at this point. Robin really has a brain freeze not to realize what Bruce was up to. Alfred doesn't get it either. Not too bright, fellows.
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Detective Comics #146
April 1949

Three's a Crime!
It's another "crime based around a theme" storyline as Carl Cave decides that three is his lucky number, and he bases his criminal career around threes. For a while he attracts a gang and pulls off a few successful jobs, but in the end he's captured. There's not a lot to say about this one. It's the type of story usually reserved for one of Batman's costumed villains, so at least we avoid another Joker or Penguin appearance here.

Detective Comics #147
May 1949

Tiger Shark!
There's a new menace in Gotham in the form of Tiger Shark, and this ocean-based crook has apparently killed Batman and Robin as the story opens. We don't often get an in media res story, but this one opens with the newspapers reporting the bad news and then the narrative goes back to show exactly how Batman and Robin got to that point, trapped under the sea in a bathysphere with the oxygen line cut, a trap they narrowly escape. Tiger Shark operates around the Gotham waterfront and escapes via submarine, so Batman enlists the aid of oceanographer and engineer Dr. Gaige to build a "sub-batmarine" to pursue Tiger Shark to his hidden underwater base. It's no surprise to learn at the end of the story that Dr. Gaige is actually Tiger Shark.

This is the 350th Batman story.
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World's Finest Comics #40
May-June 1949

4 Killers Against Fate!
The Electric Chair... the gas chamber... the gallows... the firing squad... these are the paths that confront four ruthless slayers...

Jumpy Peters, Sailor Roggs, Careful Kyle and Angles Manson are all facing capital punishment in less than two weeks. While in court to testify against their old gang leader, Mason goes for a guard's gun, because they all have nothing to lose. They escape and go on the run, with the police and Batman hot on their trail. "You can't escape fate" is the theme of this story, as during the pursuit, three of the men ultimately die in exactly the way they were supposed to be executed. Only Jumpy is captured, and faces the firing squad, begging for his life. Dick wonders about all this, and Bruce says he's not superstitious, but sometimes he wonders....
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Batman #53
June-July 1949

This issue is tonally all over the place, with a crazy Joker story, a retro crime story, and the type of fantasy Batman story I wouldn't expect to see until the silver age.

A Hairpin, a Hoe, a Hacksaw, a Hole in the Ground!
The Joker has all the money and jewels he could want, but he's still not happy. He decides he wants to be the foremost authority on comedy. He commits some seemingly senseless crimes, robbing people of (as the story title indicates) a hairpin, a hacksaw, a hoe and a hole in the ground in the form of a golf hole. Adam West style bat-deduction makes another appearance as Bruce works out that the first two letters of each item spell out HA HA HO HO, the Joker's laugh. Somehow all of this means that the Joker is going to rob a visiting Maharajah as he plays golf. I just have to say, if I were Bruce Wayne and my life consisted of having to jump through hoops set by the Joker, I'd find another line of work. This is a really contrived plot, even for a Joker story. The only really good bit is when the Joker starts to unmask Batman, but decides not to because he enjoys the battle of wits.

The Portrait of Doom!
This feels like a throwback to the early days of the series, with a brutal murder and hints of the supernatural, though in the end there is a normal explanation. Famed Gotham painter Marlin has painted a portrait of Frank Fabian, artists model. Fabian wants the painting, but Marlin had already promised it to a rich collector. Enraged, Fabian stabs Marlin and dumps his body in Gotham bay, but not before Marlin denounces him and warns that the portrait will reveal the truth. A single panel shows the not yet dead Marlin struggling to reach the pier. Meanwhile his wife reports the murder to the police, but they have no evidence. Fabian exults to himself that he's gotten away with the crime, but just as Marlin warned, his portrait begins to change. Night after night, the expression grows crueler. Batman is watching Fabian and his house, and discovers (as he suspected) that Marlin's wife has been the one making the changes to the portrait. There was a single throwaway line in the first panel mentioning that she could paint, so this is the payoff. Batman tricks Fabian into confessing to the murder and captures him. This is the best story of the issue, though that's not difficult considering the competition.

Batman Under the Sea!
Batman becomes a merman... or does he? While chasing a crook out into Gotham bay, Batman's boat is hit with a shell. He tricks Robin into taking the only good life jacket and then goes down with the boat, only to wake and find himself among mermen and mermaids, and he himself has a tail. Even more than the Martians coming to him for help in fighting crime, this is a bizarrely silly story. Bat-merman fights crime under the sea, falls in love with mermaid Theta, nearly drowns in an oxygen pocket, and then wakes up to find himself in the hospital, wondering if it was real or if he dreamed it all. Even when he captures the crook he was after at the beginning of the story, it still doesn't answer his questions. This was a strange one.
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Detective Comics #148
June 1949

The Experiment of Professor Zero!
I remember once seeing a fragment of a black and white movie where some mad scientist had shrunk a group of people down to about six inches high, and he suffocated one of them with a handkerchief or something. I can't remember the name of the movie, and I'm sure it's hardly the only one of its kind, but this story brought it to mind, because Batman and Robin are both shrunk by a mad scientist, Professor Zero. The story has the interesting distinction of being narrated in the first person by Batman, as he reads it out of his journal (and all the caption boxes are in cursive rather than the typical print) and recalls the many dangers they faced at that size, like being tied in a burlap sack and tossed in the ocean to drown by the sadistic Zero, or almost being stepped on, or nearly being shot at point black range by a shotgun that is the size of a cannon. Zero accidentally shoots himself when Batman throws some salt in front of a fan and it gets in his eyes (even blinded, I'm not sure how his aim was that bad), and while it turns out that there is no antidote, the effect was only temporary.

Like the Bat-merman story, this was just strange, and doesn't really fit the character. It's an attempt at horror like the early vampire story, or Hugo Strange's giants, but it just doesn't quite work in the same way as those earlier stories.

Detective Comics #149
July 1949

The Sound-Effect Crimes!
And because we haven't seen him since, oh, a month or two ago, the Joker is back again. I think, if my count is correct, that this is the 41st Joker story of the 1940s. Only the Penguin comes close to that many appearances. The writers occasionally do something different with the character, but this story falls into the more formulaic "wacky crime theme" category, as the Joker uses sound effects to commit crimes. There are some fun puns, and a nice reference to Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds" radio production (here referred to as "The Great Martian Radio Hoax") so the story once again shows some pop culture influences that inspired it, but at this point it takes more than that to make a Joker appearance worthwhile.
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World's Finest Comics #41
July-August 1949

The Man with the Fatal Hands!
I don't believe in the supernatural. - Batman, the guy who fought vampires and werewolves in some of his earliest adventures.

I think the writers were on a horror movie kick, because we're back to a story that reads like it was inspired by some 40s b-movie premise. Edgar Albrek, the nephew of Bruce's acquaintance Charles Albrek, has returned from an African hunting trip, claiming to have had a hand transplant after a hunting accident. And what's more, his new hands have a mind of their own, and make him attack people. What is supposed to be a weird, creepy concept is actually more humorous than anything, especially with Edgar constantly protesting that the hands are making him do it and he'll... try... to... control... them. The whole thing is a plot by Edgar to kill his uncle Charles, and Batman's worked it all out well before the story ends, setting a trap to get the goods on Edgar.
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Batman #54
August-September 1949

The Treasure Hunter!
Someone is stealing oddities like toothpicks and buttons, but they're rare items like gold toothpicks and rare campaign buttons. It's the Treasure Hunter, a masked bandit. Nothing all that special here, except a clue indicates that the Treasure Hunter is a member of a club that Bruce Wayne belongs to, so we get to see more of Bruce in action as himself. This brings the Cavalier to mind, because Mortimer Drake was also a member of the same club as Bruce, and in many ways this is a repeat of the Cavalier's story and m.o., condensed into a single issue tale. The story turns into a hunt for the guilty member, but after a few plot twists, the villain turns out to be the club steward, jealous of all the rich collectors in the club.

The Door Without a Key!
Bruce and Dick are hiking in the Everglades and get lost. They happen across a location they recognize, where they were hunting the Dan Morgan gang in a previous case. Continuing to try and find their way out of the Everglades, they happen across a "spanish castle" and stop for directions. The owner, Paul Delion, says his ancestor brought it over in 1513. The most intriguing thing in the castle is a gold door, which Delion insists must never be opened. But when he disappears inside, Batman and Robin follow and discover a hidden village and a "spring of immortality"... along with Dan Morgan and his gang, hiding out here for years.

This is, of course, a "Fountain of Youth" story, and naturally the Fountain is real, and Delion's ancestors are still alive. The catch is that the water only gives someone immortality in the hidden valley. One step outside, and the individual will age in an instant. Morgan tries to trick Robin into drinking some of the water, but it's the Morgan gang who fall into their own trap at the end, drinking from a canteen containing water from the fountain, tricked by Delion's ancestor. When Batman and Robin leave the swamp, they find the Morgan gang dead, and an aerial sweep with the Batplane reveals that the castle and village have vanished. In a final twist, not hard to see coming, Delion's ancestor (who tricked Dan Morgan) is Ponce Deleon.

I enjoy these supernatural Batman stories (this one reminded me of "Secret of the Waiting Graves" from January 1970), and while the writers could have had Batman meet Ponce DeLeon via time travel, this was a much more interesting approach to take, pitting modern gangsters against an ancient Spanish explorer, with Batman himself doing very little to actually move the plot.
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Batman #54 concluded

The Amazing Masquerade!
John Foster kills George Hudson, architect and designer, for the purpose of gaining access to homes of the rich and robbing them. Foster so closely resembles Hudson that he takes over his life, fooling Hudson's butler, chauffeur, and fooling Bruce Wayne, who hired Hudson to design a mountain home for him. But Hudson's fiance is not so easily fooled, and the more time Bruce spends around Foster, the more he begins to suspect the truth. Bruce turns the tables by disguising himself as Hudson and so freaking Foster out that Foster confesses to his crime within earshot of Gordon. If you can go along with the idea that two people can look so identical that no one can tell them apart, it's a solid crime story for Batman, though if Bruce wasn't having a cottage built by Hudson, would he ever have stumbled on to the crime?
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