Back Issue #73 by TwoMorrows Publishing

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Edited by MICHAEL EURY, BACK ISSUE magazine celebrates comic books of the 1970s, 1980s, and today through recurring (and rotating) departments like “Pro2Pro” (dialogue between professionals), “BackStage Pass” (behind-the-scenes of comicsbased media), “Greatest Stories Never Told” (spotlighting unrealized comics series or stories), and more!

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“Tabloids and Treasuries,” spotlighting every all-new tabloid from the 1970s. Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man, The Bible, Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles, The Wizard of Oz, even the PAUL DINI/ALEX ROSS World’s Greatest Super-Heroes editions! Commentary and art by ADAMS, GARCIA-LOPEZ, GRELL, KIRBY, KUBERT, MAYER, ROMITA SR., TOTH, and more. Wraparound cover by ALEX ROSS!

“Superman in the Bronze Age”! JULIUS SCHWARTZ, CURT SWAN, Superman Family, World of Krypton miniseries, and ALAN MOORE’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?”, art & comments by ADAMS, ANDERSON, CARDY, CHAYKIN, PAUL KUPPERBERG, OKSNER, O’NEIL, PASKO, ROZAKIS, SAVIUK, and more. Cover by GARCÍA-LÓPEZ and SCOTT WILLIAMS! Edited by MICHAEL EURY.

“British Invasion” issue! History of Marvel UK, Beatles in comics, DC’s ‘80s British talent pool, V for Vendetta, Excalibur, Marshal Law, Doctor Who, “Pro2Pro” interview with PETER MILLIGAN & BRENDAN McCARTHY, plus BERGER, BOLLAND, DAVIS, GIBBONS, STAN LEE, LLOYD, MOORE, DEZ SKINN, and others. Fold-out triptych cover by RON WILSON and DAVE HUNT of Marvel UK’s rare 1970s “Quadra-Poster”!

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“Bronze Age Backup Series”! Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Black Canary, Metamorpho, GOODWIN and SIMONSON’s Manhunter, PASKO and GIFFEN’s Dr. Fate, “Whatever Happened To…?”, Nemesis, Rose and the Thorn, Seven Soldiers of Victory, art and commentary by CARY BURKETT, JOHN CALNAN, DICK GIORDANO, MIKE GRELL, ELLIOT S! MAGGIN, DAN SPIEGLE, cover by GRELL and JOE RUBINSTEIN.

“Bronze Age B-Teams”! Defenders issue-byissue overview, Champions, Guardians of the Galaxy, Inhumans, PETER DAVID’s X-Factor, Teen Titans West, Legion of Substitute Heroes, an all-star chatfest of Doom Patrol interviews, plus art and commentary by ROSS ANDRU, SAL BUSCEMA, KEITH GIFFEN, TONY ISABELLA, PAUL KUPPERBERG, ERIK LARSEN, GEORGE PÉREZ, BOB ROZAKIS, cover by KEVIN NOWLAN.

“Bronze Age Team-Ups”! Marvel Team-Up and Two-in-One, Super-Villain Team-Up, CLAREMONT and SIMONSON’s X-Men/New Teen Titans, DC Comics Presents, SuperTeam Family, HANEY and APARO’s Batman of Earth-B(&B), Superman/Captain Marvel smackdowns, plus art and commentary by BUCKLER, ENGLEHART, GARCÍA-LÓPEZ, GIFFEN, LEVITZ, WEIN, and a classic GIL KANE cover inked anew by TERRY AUSTIN.

“Heroes Out of Time!” Batman: Gotham by Gaslight with MIGNOLA, WAID, and AUGUSTYN, Booster Gold with JURGENS, X-Men: Days of Future Past with CHRIS CLAREMONT, Bill & Ted with EVAN DORKIN, interview with P. CRAIG RUSSELL, “Pro2Pro” with Time Masters’ BOB WAYNE and LEWIS SHINER, Karate Kid, New Mutants: Asgardian Wars, and Kang. Mignola cover.

“1970s and ‘80s Legion of Super-Heroes!” LEVITZ interview, the Legion’s Honored Dead, the Cosmic Boy miniseries, a Time Trapper history, the New Adventures of Superboy, Legion fantasy cover gallery by JOHN WATSON, plus BATES, COCKRUM, CONWAY, COLON, GIFFEN, GRELL, JANES, KUPPERBERG, LaROCQUE, LIGHTLE, SCHAFFENBERGER, SHERMAN, STATON, SWAN, WAID, & more! COCKRUM cover!

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“Incredible Hulk in the Bronze Age!” Looks into Hulk’s mind, his role as a team player, his TV show and cartoon, merchandising, Hulk newspaper strip, Teen Hulk, villain history of the Abomination, art and artifacts by SAL BUSCEMA, JOHN BYRNE, PETER DAVID, KENNETH JOHNSON, BILL MANTLO, AL MILGROM, EARL NOREM, ROGER STERN, HERB TRIMPE, LEN WEIN, new cover by TRIMPE and GERHARD!

“Tryouts, One-Shots, & One-Hit Wonders”! Marvel Premiere, Marvel Spotlight, Marvel Feature, Strange Tales, Showcase, First Issue Special, New Talent Showcase, DC’s Dick Tracy tabloid, Sherlock Holmes, Marvel’s Generic Comic Books, Bat-Squad, Crusader, & Swashbuckler, with BRUNNER, CARDY, COLAN, FRADON, GRELL, PLOOG, TRIMPE, and an ARTHUR ADAMS “Clea” cover!

“Robots” issue! Cyborg, Metal Men, Robotman, Red Tornado, Mister Atom, the Vision, Jocasta, Shogun Warriors, and Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, plus the legacy of Brainiac! Featuring the riveting work of DARROW, GERBER, INFANTINO, PAUL KUPPERBERG, MILLER, MOENCH, PEREZ, SIMONSON, STATON, THOMAS, WOLFMAN, and more, behind a Metal Men cover by MICHAEL ALLRED.

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Volume 1, Number 73 July 2014 Celebrating the Best Comics of the '70s, '80s, '90s, and Beyond!

Comics’ Bronze Age and Beyond!

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Eury PUBLISHER John Morrow DESIGNER Rich Fowlks COVER ARTISTS Alan Davis and Mark Farmer (art from the collection of Eric Delos Santos)

COVER COLORIST Glenn Whitmore COVER DESIGNER Michael Kronenberg

BACK SEAT DRIVER: Editorial by Michael Eury . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 Fantasy Batman team-ups in “The B&Bs We Didn’t See”

PROOFREADER Rob Smentek

FLASHBACK: Taking Wing: Nightwing Moves Out from Under Batman’s Shadow . . . . .5 New Teen Titans scribe Marv Wolfman discusses Dick Grayson’s maturation Bob McLeod Nigel McMillan Al Milgrom Doug Moench Aidan M. Mohan Michael Netzer Denny O’Neil Martin Pasko Ross Pearsall Alfred Pennyworth Mike Pigott Shannon E. Riley Bob Rozakis Eric Delos Santos Anthony Snyder Bryan D. Stroud John Trumbull Randall Wiggins Marv Wolfman Philip Youngman

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PRINCE STREET NEWS: Dick Grayson: Fashion Victim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 Holy Haberdashery! Peeking into the Boy/Teen Wonder’s closet CHECKLIST: Batgirl in the Bronze Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 From Dominoed Daredoll to information broker, issue by issue BRING ON THE BAD GUYS: A History of the Man-Bat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 Friend or foe? Creators from Adams to Rozakis discuss Kirk Langstrom WHAT THE--?!: It Came from the Fifth Dimension: Bat-Mite! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25 The life and times of Batman’s most annoying sidekick FLASHBACK: Bronze Age Batmobiles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29 What would Batman do without his wheels? FLASHBACK: Batman and the Outsiders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33 Heroes old and new joined the Gotham Guardian to form one of DC’s most durable teams PRO2PRO: Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 Chatting with the writer/artist duo of one of the best Bat-runs of the ’80s BEYOND CAPES: Commissioner Gordon in the Bronze Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 The evolution of Gotham’s top cop FLASHBACK: The Final Days of World’s Finest Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64 The last years of this long-running series splintered the Batman/Superman team OFF MY CHEST: Carrie Kelley: The Female Wonder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 An analysis of the Girl Robin from Frank Miller’s Dark Knight INTERVIEW: Jeph Loeb: Batman’s Mouthpiece . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73 A sequel to the Long Halloween feature from BACK ISSUE #60 BACK TALK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76 Reader comments about BI #68 and more BACK ISSUE™ is published 8 times a year by TwoMorrows Publishing, 10407 Bedfordtown Drive, Raleigh, NC 27614. Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief. John Morrow, Publisher. Editorial Office: BACK ISSUE, c/o Michael Eury, Editor-in-Chief, 118 Edgewood Avenue NE, Concord, NC 28025. Email: euryman@gmail.com. Six-issue subscriptions: $67 Standard US, $85 Canada, $104 Elsewhere. Please send subscription orders and funds to TwoMorrows, NOT to the editorial office. Cover art by Alan Davis and Mark Farmer. Batman, Robin, Batgirl, and related characters TM & © DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. All characters are © their respective companies. All material © their creators unless otherwise noted. All editorial matter © 2014 Michael Eury and TwoMorrows Publishing, except Prince Street News © 2014 Karl Heitmueller, Jr. BACK ISSUE is a TM of TwoMorrows Publishing. ISSN 1932-6904. Printed in China. FIRST PRINTING.

Batman’s Partners Issue

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Detail from the cover of Batman and the Outsiders #1. TM & © DC Comics.

SPECIAL THANKS Neal Adams Frankie Addiego Mike W. Barr Al Bigley Dave Billman Norm Breyfogle Jonathan Brown Kurt Busiek Gerry Conway DC Comics Alan Davis Jose Delbo Chuck Dixon Michael Golden Grand Comic-Book Database Karl Heitmueller, Jr. Heritage Comics Auctions Ilke Hincer Jeph Loeb Andy Mangels

To commemorate the Darknight Detective’s 75th anniversary, this issue we take a look at Batman’s partners. Although he began as a loner in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939), Batman has seldom worked solo, despite the hundreds of “solo” stories told about him. Be it Commissioner Gordon, or Robin, or Alfred, or Superman, or Batgirl, or the Justice League, or the Outsiders, or more recently a network of brooding confederates—or even his Batmobile or utility belt!— Batman has almost always depended upon a helper in his crimefighting crusade. No comic book (or spin-off animated TV show) exemplified Batman’s penchant for partners more than The Brave and the Bold. That long-running

Batman team-up comic has been spotlighted several times in BACK ISSUE, most recently in #66 (you’re probably still snickering at its “Prince Street News” cartoon by Karl Heitmueller, Jr., “Rejected Team-Ups from The Brave and the Bold”), and you can bet we’ll revisit it again (“Batman’s Weirdest TeamUps” leads off our forthcoming “Weird Issue,” BACK ISSUE #78). Naturally, we can’t allow a “Batman’s Partners” edition to pass without a nod to The Brave and the Bold. With your friendly neighborhood Euryman being one of the biggest B&B fans around, please allow me to consider that series’ missed opportunities in a feature I just have to call…

Michael Eury

All art and characters TM & © DC Comics, except Tarzan TM & © ERB.

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BATMAN AND ADAM STRANGE Instead of the head-scratching combo of Green Arrow and the Manhunter from Mars as the first team-up in The Brave and the Bold #50 (Oct.–Nov. 1963), what if B&B scribe Bob Haney had instead paired Batman and Adam Strange? This was during the waning months of Bat-editor Jack Schiff’s tenure, when science fiction was common in the Gotham Guardian’s milieu, and Adam Strange was still a DC headliner in his Mystery in Space series. Had Carmine Infantino, Adam Strange’s artist, been drafted for this inaugural team-up, before he delineated editor Julie Schwartz’s “New Look” Batman a few months later, one wonders, would he have drawn Batman in the Bob Kane house style of the day or begin to imprint his own take on the character? (By the time Adam Strange finally made it into B&B in 1970’s issue #90, the spaceman’s star had faded in the DC Universe—he was appearing in reprints in Strange Adventures—and his Zeta Beam usurped his own importance in the team-up, providing a plot device for Haney to allow Batman to foresee his own death. Adam Strange returned as a Batman co-star 100 issues later, in #190, in 1982. And an interesting bit of trivia: Before he initiated Batman’s “New Look” in 1964, artist Carmine Infantino drew Batman—and the rest of the Justice League of America—alongside Adam Strange in the landmark tale “The Planet That Came to a Standstill!,” in 1962’s Mystery in Space #75.)

BATMAN AND CAVE CARSON The teaming of the costumed hero who operates from a cave and the explorer who enjoyed “Adventures Inside Earth” seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it? Cave Carson’s second failed B&B tryout appearance occurred just over a year before the title switched to its team-up format and by then had been branded a dud by DC. Still, it’s too bad that B&B editor George Kashdan didn’t call Bob Haney into his office with the pitch, “Let’s give Cave Carson one last shot by teaming him with Batman”…

BATMAN AND SUPERMAN’S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN Silver Age Superman editor Mort Weisinger notoriously erected barbed wire around his Kryptonian camp and resisted his characters’ appearances in other DC magazines, with a few exceptions like JLA being beyond his control. A rare non-Weisinger Superman family outing during this era was B&B #63’s Supergirl/Wonder Woman team-up in late 1965. But wouldn’t it have been fun to see the Daily Planet’s frecklefaced cub reporter, long the star of his own popular title, rubbing elbows with Batman in B&B? Haney never wrote a werewolf tale in Brave and Bold: A Wolfman (Olsen) sighting in Gotham City would have definitely been worth flashing the Bat-Signal over—and this issue would have been deliciously penciled by Curt Swan, who never drew a B&B tale! (After Weisinger’s retirement, Superman family members began to creep into B&B team-ups with Batman: Supergirl in #147 and 160, Superman—with an Olsen cameo—in #150, Lois Lane and Metallo in #175, the Legion of Super-Heroes in #179, Rose and the Thorn in #188 and 189, and Superboy—with a Superman cameo—in #192. And, of course, as Superman’s bud, Jimmy occasionally popped into Weisingeredited World’s Finest Comics stories co-starring Superman and Batman, even forming a partnership with Robin; while Olsen didn’t know Superman’s Clark Kent identity, he was privy to Batman and Robin’s alter egos. Batman was also seen in a handful of Jimmy Olsen issues over the years. My personal favorite is the Cary Bates/Pete Costanza story “Jimmy Olsen, Boy Wonder!,” from 1968’s Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #111, where Olsen swaps places with Robin to try to fool Batman.)

contrast to B&B’s Batman, a team player through and through. The adaptable Batman was poised to tackle any DP enemy, from the realitybased General Immortus to the outlandish Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man. Plus: a Batman adventure rendered by Doom Patrol artist Bruno Premiani—imagine that! (Batman, along with a host of other DC heroes du jour including Super-Hip [!], made cameos at the wedding of Elasti-Girl and Mento in 1966’s Doom Patrol #104.)

BATMAN AND THE CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN The Challengers of the Unknown—four fantastic voyagers living on borrowed time—were, like the Doom Patrol, dependable Silver Age B-listers, appearing in a long-running series that was, at best, a modest success. For most of their career, the Challs kept the rest of the DC Universe at arm’s length, although during the ’60s they did cross over with the Doom Patrol and DC’s aquatic C-listers, the Sea Devils, then with Swamp Thing and Deadman in the ’70s, as well as a legion of Showcase stars in that tryout title’s 100th issue. For the lion’s share of DC’s superhero fans of the Silver and Bronze Ages— overwhelmingly boys and male teens—Challengers of the Unknown was a title to ignore, lumped into a category of non-buys including Wonder Woman, Tomahawk, and Girls’ Love Stories. But the Challs’ globetrotting exploits seemed ripe for a shared adventure with Haney’s Batman, who traversed deserts and mountains as easily as he did the urban jungle of Gotham City. While a Batman/Challengers of the Unknown team-up might’ve increased the latter’s profile had it occurred during the heyday of Batmania, my preference would’ve been to see this team-up in the early 1970s, when the Challengers were stumbling in and out of print; this “revival” might have attracted more attention from readers previously disinterested in the Challs. Plotmaster Haney no doubt would have delivered a pulse-pounding page-turner, and with pencils by Challs illustrator-turned-Batman artist Bob Brown—inked by the incomparable Nick Cardy—this team-up had potential.

BATMAN AND TARZAN Jim Aparo’s third Batman team-up (Batman and Metamorpho in B&B #101) hit the stands the same month of DC’s first issue of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan (#207, Apr. 1972), written/rendered/edited by the remarkable Joe Kubert. Kubert’s Tarzan was heavily promoted, at least in its earliest days, and for a while ERB’s Ape Man appeared alongside DC’s superheroes as Mego action figures, on a 7-11 Slurpee trading cup, and in an Aurora “Comic Scenes” model kit. It’s unfortunate that DC didn’t contract with ERB for a team-up in B&B. There was no environment into which Haney and Aparo would not take their Batman, and regarding Bruce Wayne’s and Lord Greystoke’s different time periods … let’s not forget that Haney paired Batman with Sgt. Rock, the Unknown Soldier, and Kamandi! A Kubert-drawn Batman/Tarzan B&B cover would’ve attracted many DC superhero readers to DC’s Tarzan, and interiors illustrated by Aparo would’ve returned that artist to the jungle, a milieu he expertly illustrated during his stint on Charlton Comics’ The Phantom. This was a team-up that fans were asking for: In the lettercol of B&B #113, editor Murray Boltinoff dismissed several readers’ requests for a Batman/Tarzan story due to licensing restrictions (hey, that didn’t deter DC from teaming Batman and Condé Nast’s The Shadow—twice!). (The Caped Crusader and the Lord of the Jungle eventually met in 2000 in the DC/Dark Horse crossover Batman/Tarzan: Claws of the Catwoman.)

BATMAN AND THE DOOM PATROL

BATMAN AND THE MANHUNTER FROM MARS

B&B’s Bob Haney is footnoted as co-creator of DC’s “World’s Strangest Heroes,” but as Doom Patrol creator and guiding light Arnold Drake stated in his interview in BACK ISSUE #65, Haney’s contributions were minimal. Nevertheless, Haney had a familiarity with these oddball characters, and the DP’s non-stop bickering would have offered an interesting

As noted earlier, J’onn J’onzz was half of the (peculiar) very first B&B team-up in 1963, with Green Arrow, and a year later returned to join forces with the Flash. Yet he never appeared with Batman during the Gotham Guardian’s long run as the baron of Brave and Bold. Our favorite Martian had left Earth during the late Silver and early Bronze Ages, but would that have mattered to continuity-blind writer

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Batman, The Brave and the Bold, and Super-Team Family TM & © DC Comics. Mars Attacks! TM & © Topps. Richie Rich TM & © Harvey. Captain America TM & © Marvel.

Bob Haney? (Besides, Denny O’Neil brought back DC’s Ol’ Greenskin in 1972 for a Superman team-up in World’s Finest Comics #212.) The notion of a Masked Manhunter/Martian Manhunter mystery drawn by Jim Aparo boggles the mind… (Outside of Justice League adventures, these heroes finally teamed up just a few years ago on television and in comics in Batman: The Brave and the Bold.)

It’s unlikely that even zany Haney could partner his not-quite-Dark Knight and the lighthearted Big Red Cheese, but the more realistic take on Captain Marvel certainly invited a Brave and Bold outing with Batman. Too bad it didn’t happen! (Readers’ glimpses at Captain Marvel as drawn by Jim Aparo were relegated to random covers and contents pages, most notably on World’s Finest.)

BATMAN AND MON-EL

BATMAN AND THE NEW TEEN TITANS

Readers asked for it: In B&B #109’s “Brave and Bold Mailbag,” from 1973, editor Murray Boltinoff wrote, “All of a sudden, there’s a countrywide campaign to co-star Batman with Mon-[E]l of the Legion of Super-Heroes.” Seven readers’ names were listed asking for this team-up, with the editor replying, “Try it, you’ll like it, so maybe we will one of these days!” At the time Boltinoff was editor of Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes, so Legionnaire Mon-El—Superboy’s one-time “big brother” who was in protective custody in the Phantom Zone during Batman’s era—would’ve been readily available for a team-up. What if a temporary rift in the Zone allowed, say, Kryptonian baddie Jax-Ur to escape while Superman and Supergirl were off-world? What if he wreaked havoc in Gotham City instead of Metropolis? Batman would’ve turned to Mon-El for help, freeing him from the Phantom Zone to become a super-ally. It would’ve been fun to see Haney trip (and maybe stumble) through Superman mythology, and to see Aparo draw Mon-El.

The Teen Titans were familiar Batman teammates in B&B, working with him in issues #83, 94, 102, and 149. (The TTs actually got their start in Brave and Bold, launching in 1964 as a Kid Flash, Aqualad, and Robin team-up, then appearing for the first time under the “Teen Titans” logo in #60, with Wonder Girl joining the group.) With Batman’s protégé Robin being the Titans’ leader, it was only natural that the Boy/Teen Wonder’s young allies would sometimes be called into action with his masked mentor. The creative team of Marv Wolfman and George Pérez rebooted the Titans in 1980, and after a slow start revved up the momentum to make The New Teen Titans DC’s bestselling title. It didn’t take long for “Brave & Bold Mailbag” letter writers to beg for a Batman/NTT team-up. B&B editor Dick Giordano announced in the lettercol of #187 (June 1982) that the New Teen Titans were that month’s “highest vote-grabber” in a readers’ poll. But before long, The Brave and the Bold reached its expiration date, ending with issue #200 (July 1983), without the New TTs appearing alongside the Caped Crusader. True, Batman and the Titans ultimately shared adventures—the Jim Aparo-drawn Batman and the Outsiders #5 (Dec. 1983) was part of a New Teen Titans crossover—but a single Wolfman/Aparo Batman/NTT team-up under the B&B banner was another missed opportunity.

BATMAN AND CLARK KENT While we’re fantasizing of team-ups pairing Batman with members of the Superman family, try this one on for size: Clark Kent, on investigative assignment for the Daily Planet, crosses paths with the Darknight Detective, on a crime case that turns out to be connected to Kent’s. Idea king Haney no doubt could have concocted such a tale, and having Kent stay in his civilian guise throughout the case would have differentiated it from a standard World’s Finest Comics issue.

BATMAN AND SHAZAM! DC’s holiday gift to comics fans in December 1972 was the return of the original Captain Marvel (along with the entire Marvel Family) in Shazam! #1 (Feb. 1973). At first, the tone of the stories replicated the whimsical series of the Golden Age, but by 1978 sagging sales forced a short-lived modernization of Shazam! under the pencil of Alan Weiss (and later, Don Newton).

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It’s time to bring my daydreaming to an end and allow our examinations of Batman’s other partners to begin. But in the meantime, if you’re a team-up fan, I highly recommend Ross Pearsall’s blog, Super-Team Family: The Lost Issues! (originally The Brave and the Bold: The Lost Issues!). Each day Ross reveals a new fantasy cover for a team-up comic book that never happened, mixing and matching DC and Marvel characters as well as characters from other publishers and media. Make a daily stop at braveandboldlost.blogspot.com, or look for it on Facebook! And courtesy of Ross himself, here’s a sampling of the type of fantasy team-ups you can expect on his blog…

Andy Mangels

While music-industry legend Dick Clark was officially titled “America’s oldest teenager,” close behind him was one of comicdom’s first youthful sidekicks: Dick Grayson debuted as Robin, “the Boy Wonder,” in Detective Comics #38 (Apr. 1940). For over 50 years, Robin would stay under the shadow of Batman’s cape, until a pair of star creators made a bold decision to shake the status quo of one of DC Comics’ most iconic characters to its very foundation. Robin was the creation of Bob Kane and Bill Finger, along with illustrator Jerry Robinson, and his story was not dissimilar to the (Bat)man who would become his dark mentor. Dick Grayson was the son of John and Mary Grayson, a pair of circus aerialist acrobats known as “the Flying Graysons.” After a mob boss caused the death of Dick’s parents, the angry youngster was adopted as the ward of Bruce Wayne, who trained him as a youthful sidekick to fight crime. The pair of Batman and Robin proved immensely popular— especially with young readers—and the “Dynamic Duo” fought crime by each others’ side for several decades in the pages of comic books, and in newspaper strips, a radio series, and a pair of movie serials. Robin also proved popular enough to star in his own solo stories in Star Spangled Comics from 1947 to 1952. While Batman joined the super-team Justice League of America in 1960, Robin had to wait a few more years to found his own group. A “junior Justice League” debuted in The Brave and the Bold #54 (July 1964), as Robin teamed with Aqualad and Kid Flash. The debut proved popular enough that a group name was soon coined, and the Teen Titans—now including Wonder Girl—debuted in The Brave and the Bold #60 (July 1965), before moving to their own series with the Teen Titans #1 (Feb. 1966).

FROM BOY TO TEEN WONDER Oddly, even as he captained a group called “teens,” Robin wouldn’t move from the sobriquet “Boy Wonder” to “Teen Wonder” until the April 1970 issue of Detective Comics, #398. By then, it was clear that Batman’s ward was growing up. Grayson had already left Wayne Manor and enrolled at Hudson University in Batman #217 (Dec. 1969), though he still wore his brightly colored uniform to fight crime. By that time, the American public already viewed Robin in a different light, influenced mostly by the popular live-action Batman primetime TV series (1966–1968)—wherein actor Burt Ward filled the red tunic, green briefs, and domino mask of Robin— and the Filmation animated series The New Adventures

There Shall Come a Titan! A Golden and Bronze Age merger: Nightwing— as drawn by George Pérez, borrowed from the cover of Tales of the Teen Titans #44 (July 1984)—pops out of the Bob Kane/Jerry Robinson cover of Detective Comics #38 (Apr. 1940), the issue where Robin debuted. TM & © DC Comics.

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Robin No More (left) Model sheets for Nightwing, by George Pérez. (right) Dick and fleet-footed friend Wally West leave their sidekick identities behind on Pérez’s cover to New Teen Titans #39 (Feb. 1984). TM & © DC Comics.

of Batman (1968–1969). As the 1970s progressed, Robin remained a popular element of National Periodical Publications/DC Comics licensing, and he regularly starred on Saturday mornings on HannaBarbara’s many iterations of Super Friends (1973–1986). Unfortunately, the Teen Titans comic ended in early 1973, with a brief revival from 1976–1978, and as a solo character, Robin made only irregular comic appearances. Writers didn’t seem to know quite what to do with the young man who still fought crime in bare legs and pixie boots. Robin’s fate changed substantially in mid-1980, when writer Marv Wolfman and artist George Pérez began work on the revamped series The New Teen Titans, which was previewed in DC Comics Presents #26 (Oct. 1980) before its own debut issue the following month. In addition to their newly created characters Cyborg, Raven, and Starfire, Wolfman and Pérez included Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, and Beast Boy (now renamed “Changeling”).

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“I think the feeling was right from day one that I wanted to use a couple of the old characters, and introduce brand-new ones,” says Wolfman. “But if you’re going to use some of the old characters, to me, that was Robin and Wonder Girl.” Wolfman had previously written Wonder Girl in the original Teen Titans run, where he gave her a real name and background. “But Robin was always the team leader, and he was the one grounded with the DC Universe, as far as I was concerned.” In addition to being the Titans’ leader, Wolfman considered Dick the team’s tactician. “He was the one who could see what was happening and analyze.” Gone were the character elements that Wolfman says had no part in the modern DC Universe. “I didn’t want him to be the little jerky Robin, the Boy Wonder, anymore. By 1980, that sort of stereotype should have long gone away. It was a very silly 1940s/1950s concept to me, which no longer had any validity. I just didn’t see any reason that Robin should still be the kid that was spouting those stupid puns. It was fine for the ’50s, but this was 1980.” While acknowledging the minor character growth that had happened in the previous decades of comic marv wolfman stories themselves, Wolfman says, “I think that a lot of people still saw him in a very different light, and I wanted to very clearly show him as more adult. He was the person who could figure out what was going on at any given point, he understood everything, and because he didn’t have the powers, he had to be the team leader in my mind.” Pérez, meanwhile, saw Grayson in a literally older light, basing his face on that of 1960s Robin actor Burt Ward.

GROWING UP As The New Teen Titans progressed, readers saw that Wolfman and Pérez were really taking the “kid” gloves off of the characters, and darkening up their universe. Cyborg was missing most of his human parts, Starfire was essentially the end result of rape and slavery, and Raven was literally the daughter of a demon. “I started as a DC fan,” admits Wolfman. “I loved the DC sense of plotting, and the stories that DC gave, but I very quickly became a Marvel fan as well. I liked their older approach to stories, the much more angst type of characters with problems, dealing with the real world. I liked the fact that the Marvel characters existed in the real world, while the DC characters were existing at that point in Metropolis and Gotham City and Star City.” For the Titans series, Wolfman eschewed the fictional locales and placed the characters in New York City, an arena which held both promise and threat. “I think they were the only [DC] characters at the time who were in a real city. The darkness comes from the fact that I was trying to push away from the light that DC was; I wanted to show that DC had great characters, but they didn’t have to be rooted in that old style. My own style, which is pretty amorphous, it stretches in a thousand different places. At Marvel, I was doing both [Tomb of] Dracula and Nova and everything in between; Dracula was on the older side, Nova was on the younger side. The Titans were like DC’s Fantastic Four. They were a family, and we needed to push them into places that DC characters weren’t going. george pérez We needed to raise the stakes a lot more. That was my general attitude; the sense of importance to the characters had to matter, because if they didn’t, if it was so fantasy-driven, then the readers wouldn’t see themselves caring about those type of stories. The characters had to be more grown up, the leaders had to be more grown up than with the Titans before. In the old days, the readership was eight to 14, and by the time of the Titans they already were in their 20s, and now close to their 40s, so if the audience is older, you should be writing for an older audience.” Wolfman looks at the evolution of the Titans growing up as really kicking into gear with New Teen Titans issue #18’s Russian Starfire story (Apr. 1982). “This is about a man seeking his fiancé to kill her, because she’s spreading a disease. That is not a light story. That’s one of the darkest stories that we ever did. That was rooted in a very real situation of a character who has to make a hard decision that’s going to tear him apart, and the Titans are not the good guys in that issue. The Titans are, in fact, trying to stop him from doing exactly the right thing.” The moral quandaries the characters faced continued the following year as the team helped street runaways, and dealt with a new character named Vigilante who used lethal force to stop villains.

WHO IS DICK GRAYSON? By late 1982, The New Teen Titans was both a critical hit and a commercial one; it was DC’s top-selling book by far. But a storm of change was on the horizon, and Dick Grayson’s Robin was smack in the center of the maelstrom … even if it would take another year-plus to gather force. Following an astonishing story in which Grayson helps Donna Troy research her past—issue #38’s landmark “Who is Donna Troy?” (Jan. 1984)—he made a seemingly abrupt decision to retire from his mantle in issue #39 (Feb. 1984), alongside Wally West’s Kid Flash. “I’m done being Robin,” he declared, explaining that, “As long as I wear this same costume that I’ve worn since I was eight … I keep playing a role I’d long ago outgrown. What I am now is a person with responsibilities, not a happy-go-lucky kid partner … I have to become someone—an adult. Whoever Dick Grayson decides to be.” “The decision was foisted on us, in a way,” Wolfman reveals today. “What happened was, after we spent two-and-a-half years making Robin, or Dick Grayson, a very viable character, and his own character—which to me was vitally important—the Batman books decided they wanted Robin back. They wanted a kid hero again, and they not only wanted Robin back, they wanted to make him young again. We went through the roof, or at least I did, certainly, because Robin was one of my favorites. I suggested at that point, when the

I Did It My Way Nightwing makes his debut in Tales of the Teen Titans #44. By Wolfman and Pérez, with inks by Dick Giordano and Mike DeCarlo. TM & © DC Comics.

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Things were changing as the dawning of the Bronze Age commenced, signaling dramatic changes in the Batman mythos. The Camp days were at an end and the latest renaissance for the Dark Knight occurred at the hands of rising star artist Neal Adams, beginning with The Brave and the Bold. The stage was set, fandom responded, and soon Neal was called upon to do artwork for Batman in his own titles, including one of the most haunting tales in the pages of Detective Comics #395 (Jan. 1970), “Secret of the Waiting Graves.” This story cemented the return of the Darknight Detective, and with these changes perhaps some new antagonists were in order. The first major new character was Professor Kirk Langstrom, alias Man-Bat.

THE ORIGIN OF MAN-BAT “Challenge of the Man-Bat” was the introductory story for the character, published in Detective Comics #400 (June 1970), written by Frank Robbins, with art by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano. The readers are brought into the Gotham Museum of Natural History, where Professor Kirk Langstrom is working late on an exhibit. It turns out to be a pretense, however, as he is also in the midst of an experiment. Langstrom has been collecting gland extract from bats in an effort to gain their sonar capability. He has succeeded, but with some unanticipated side effects, such as a nearly intolerable sensitivity to light and sounds. Still, he is enthused at his breakthrough. As he’s about to leave, however, he begins to note unexpected physiological changes: his hands are growing claw-like and hairy. Alarmed, he locates a mirror and to his horror discovers that his features are now that of a bat, right down to the enormous ears on his head. His fevered mind races to grapple with the dilemma. An antidote must be found, but he will need time. He takes the precaution of sending his employer a telegram with the ruse that he must travel unexpectedly to Chicago. He then prepares to again work under cover of darkness. That same darkness, however, has provided a prime opportunity for a gang of thieves to strike at the museum with a gem exhibit as their target. The gang has perfected night-vision devices to aid them and they appear to be succeeding, even keeping the Batman at bay, when suddenly a nightmare apparition appears as a man-sized bat races toward the thieves to stop them in their tracks. Now fighting side by side, the Batman and the Man-Bat quickly subdue the criminals. When the Cowled Crusader sees his benefactor, he remarks that he’s even more of a bat than he is himself. Batman

Creatures of the Night Detail from Neal Adams’ iconic cover to Detective Comics #400 (June 1970), Man-Bat’s first appearance. TM & © DC Comics.

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Bryan Stroud

al plastino

commends his ally on his ability to see in the dark and on a truly awe-inspiring disguise, but Man-Bat reacts bitterly that he only wishes it were a disguise and then abruptly dashes away, leaving our hero to muse that he’d make a formidable friend … or foe. The closing panel poses that identical rhetorical question in regard to the future of Man-Bat. It is a theme that will reoccur in his continuing appearances. Neal Adams well recalls the genesis of Man-Bat: “It occurred to me that a Man-Bat story would be a good story, and I was going to present it to Julie [Schwartz, Batman editor]. So I wrote out a plot and I did a quick design, but I wasn’t ready to present it because I was in the middle of other deadlines. “One day Frank Robbins was in Julie’s office. I was standing over by Dick Giordano’s desk looking over at the two of them, [who were] frustrated,

going over plots. What generally happened with Julie was, a writer would come in, he’d have a plot, Julie wouldn’t like it, and they’d sit and talk about other plots. “It was clear that they were very frustrated and Julie turned to me and in his sarcastic way, which we all loved him for, said, ‘Got any ideas, Adams?’ And, of course, I knew they were talking about Batman, and I said, ‘Yeah.’ And Julie laughed at me, which was his way. I said, ‘No, Julie, I do have a pretty good one.’ He said, ‘What is it?’ I said, ‘Man-Bat.’ He said, ‘What?! What are you talking about?’ Now, this is the same Julie that came up with the idea to do Superman vs. Muhammad Ali. So I wouldn’t call that a thing to laugh about. But he did have his way. “Now, Frank was sparking to this immediately, because he hadn’t worked out his assignment yet, so any port in a storm,” Adams continues. “He said,

Gruesome Discovery (top left) Panel from Detective #400, where Langstrom discovers his shocking transformation. (bottom left) Al Plastino’s interpretation of Man-Bat’s origin, as seen in two Nov. 1970 dailies from the Batman comic strip. (right) Plastino’s roughs for preparing to draw Man-Bat. TM & © DC Comics.

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Top-Flight Artists (left) Splash to Man-Bat’s first Batman Family story, from issue #11. By Bob Rozakis, Marshall Rogers, and Tex Blaisdell. (right) Your friendly neighborhood editorin-chief went to Michael Golden to illo Man-Bat for the looseleaf version of Who’s Who he edited in the early 1990s. From issue #12 (Sept. 1991). TM & © DC Comics.

making Rebecca a planned pregnancy would have been an irresponsible act at best: What person in their right mind would think that they could be good parents if at any moment there was the threat that they could turn into those monstrosities without warning? But then, as I said, they weren’t necessarily in their right minds. “I could see a storyline in which Francine got pregnant without trying to, and there would be some question about the wisdom of taking the pregnancy to term. Maybe Kirk would do some research and suspect that the serum they’d taken to become the were-bats had caused some chromosomal damage, and we could get some drama out of their agony over whether the daughter would be born a ‘permanent’ were-bat or with some serious birth defect, and the debate over whether or not to abort would strain the marriage even further. That would have been far more interesting, not to mention dramatic, than the way the birth of the child was actually treated, but if anyone had tried to go in that direction, they wouldn’t have been able to get away with it.”

character, of course, but I think what has made it popular among two or three ‘generations’ of comics readers now is that it’s an example of a particularly appealing theme: empowerment through transformation. “The idea that characters who might otherwise be seen as deformed, handicapped, or in some other way ‘abnormal,’ turn out to be actually ‘superior’ because of their abnormality is an underpinning of all superhero fiction to some extent, of course. But when it’s brought into sharp focus and treated overtly, it’s particularly enticing to young people who get into comics.” Later incarnations of Man-Bat have shown an utterly subsumed creature, still concerned with his family, but apparently doomed to live out his days as a monster, and not even as the sympathetic monster traced back to his beginnings. Still, in whatever form he may take, the Man-Bat continues to fly high as a truly unforgettable character that has proven his staying power, holding readers fascination for over four decades with no end in sight.

FRIEND OR FOE?

This article is dedicated to the memory of Al Plastino.

As the decade rolled forward and Man-Bat became a routine visitor to the Batman title, things took another turn for the worse as Kirk could no longer control the transformations or himself. Man-Bat became an irrational, vengeful creature and Batman again found himself in the position of trying to save Kirk from himself and attempt to help restore the Langstrom family to normal. A series of conflicts and temporary resolutions continued in this vein in a handful of issues of Batman and Detective Comics in the early to mid-1980s. Regarding the enduring appeal of Man-Bat, Martin Pasko relates: “Well, in its design it’s a cool-looking

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BRYAN STROUD is a longtime fan of DC Comics, particularly the Silver and Bronze Ages. He has been contributing to the website of his lifelong best friend, Ron Daudt, for over a decade, doing reviews and interviews with creators, and has been fortunate enough to conduct over 80 to date at w w w. t h e s i l v e r l a n t e r n . c o m . Bryan co-authored the book Nick Cardy: Wit-Lash.

Dig That Crazy Elf! Detail from Bat-Mite’s entry in Who’s Who #2 (Apr. 1985). Art by Marshall Rogers. (background) Detective Comics #267 cover, introducing Bat-Mite. TM & © DC Comics.

Let’s just get this out of the way right up front: Bat-Mite is a ridiculous character. As Robin exclaims upon seeing him for the first time, he’s an “elf dressed in a crazy looking Batman costume!” But like the annoying kid brother who won’t go away, Bat-Mite has somehow become ingrained in my consciousness and has endeared himself to a generation of comic-book fans. Beyond a four-panel story by Stephen DeStefano in The Brave and the Bold #200 (July 1983), Bat-Mite only appeared once in a Bronze Age comic, in the six-page “Bat-Mite’s New York Adventure” in Detective Comics #482 (Feb.–Mar. 1979). Though he gained wider exposure with the animated 1977 Filmation series, The New Adventures of Batman, the question remains: How has Bat-Mite endured?

SILVER AGE BEGINNINGS Created by Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff, Bat-Mite made his first appearance in “Batman Meets Bat-Mite,” in Detective Comics #267 (May 1959). After having observed the Darknight Detective from his home in the fifth dimension, Bat-Mite appears in the Batcave and proclaims himself to be Batman’s biggest fan. Though rebuffed, Bat-Mite is single-minded in his desire to help Batman and Robin fight crime. As the Dynamic Duo leave the Batcave to go out on patrol, Bat-Mite follows and conjures up all sorts of mischief, almost causing Batman and Robin to lose the criminals they are trying to apprehend. At the end of the yarn, Batman insists that Bat-Mite return to his dimension. The imp agrees—but slyly hints at a return. Bat-Mite showed up three more times in Detective, most notably in “The Return of Bat-Mite” with special guest Batwoman in issue #276 (Feb. 1960). He then popped up in six issues of Batman, concluding with “The Bat-Mite Hero” in #161 (Feb. 1964). Our favorite imp also plagued the Superman/Batman team, partnering up with Mr. Mxyzptlk in World’s Finest Comics #113 (Nov. 1960) and 123 (Feb. 1962).

Shannon E. Riley

By late 1963, the Batman titles were facing flagging sales and purportedly, cancellation. It was a dire situation for one of DC’s biggest properties. Carmine Infantino summarized the dilemma for online magazine Dial B for Blog (www.dialbforblog.com): “The book was at 32 percent sales. Which is a heavy loss. [Batman creator] Bob Kane hadn’t even been doing the work—he was farming it out to others. He hadn’t touched the drawing for years. What he was turning in was too old-fashioned.” As DC publisher Irwin Donenfeld told Infantino and editor Julie Schwartz: “It’s this simple: Batman is dying. We’re giving you two guys six months to fix it. If not, it’s over.” In a last-ditch effort, Schwartz jettisoned many of the Darknight Detective’s supporting characters with Batman #164 (June 1964). This was the “New Look” Batman: gone were the aliens, dinosaurs, and crazy multi-colored Bat-costumes of the 1950s. Poor Bat-Mite just didn’t fit in anymore. He would make one last Silver Age appearance, again teaming with Mr. Mxyzptlk in “The Supergirl-Batgirl Plot!” from World’s Finest #169 (Sept. 1967), before seemingly returning to the fifth dimension for good … until TV came calling.

“STAY IN YOUR OWN WORLD AND OUT OF OUR HAIR!” It seems you can’t keep a good imp down. With the arrival of The New Adventures of Batman in 1977, Bat-Mite had returned. The 16-episode animated series featured the voices of Adam West and Burt Ward, reprising their star-making roles as Batman and Robin. Also featured were Batgirl and Catwoman, both voiced by Melendy Britt (who later went on to become the voice of She-Ra). In the premier episode, appropriately titled “The Pest,” Bat-Mite shows up once again to help apprehend the Joker. Frustrated by Bat-Mite’s continued interference, Batman retorts, “Don’t call us. We’ll call you.” Though the Joker is ultimately captured, it’s through no help from Bat-Mite, who fumbles and bumbles his way through the caper. Batman’s Partners Issue

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in which Bat-Mite is a figment of the psychotropic drug-addled Bob Overdog’s imagination. • Superman and Batman: World’s Funnest, a one-shot Elseworlds tale written by Evan Dorkin and released in 2000, where we see Bat-Mite battle Mr. Mxyzptlk and the two destroy the multiverse. • Grant Morrison’s epic “Batman R.I.P.” storyline from Batman #676–681 (June–Dec. 2008), in which Bat-Mite appears before Batman after he’s shot and suffers a heart attack. While Morrison shunned the humorous aspects of the Bat-Mite persona, the 2008 Batman: The Brave and the Bold animated series certainly didn’t. Voiced by the zany and eccentric Paul Ruebens (better known as Pee-wee Herman), Bat-Mite breaks the fourth wall, causes trouble for Batman, and makes fun of comic-book fans in four episodes, including “Legends of the Dark Mite,” “Emperor Joker,” and “Bat-Mite Presents: Batman’s Strangest Cases!” Bat-Mite appears in the Paul Dini-written final episode, “Mitefall,” and tries to make the show so bad it has to be canceled. “Oh, BTBATB! What was once so fresh has become formula,” laments the imp to the viewing audience. “It feels like only yesterday we learned the next Batman cartoon would be a lighter incarnation. Fanboys everywhere panicked! But it was for nothing, because what we got was a love letter to Silver Age comics!” Bat-Mite goes on to complain how the lighter approach has worn thin and longs for a darker incarnation of the Gotham Guardian. “You were great in your day, Campy Crusader, but now you’ve jumped the shark!” It’s a hilarious episode to end the series with—rife with in-jokes, references to previous episodes, voice actors, and storylines from the comics.

GONE FOR GOOD?

Rubbed the Wrong Way Bat-Mite’s demand, in this one-pager by Stephen DeStefano from The Brave and the Bold #200 (July 1983). TM & © DC Comics.

Of Golden’s art for the story, Rozakis recalls that the penciler “came in with a camera and a young boy—his nephew, if I recall correctly—who was about Bat-Mite’s size. We posed a bunch of photographs that he used as models for the art. I remember one in which I was holding the boy in the air about where Bat-Mite would be floating.” “Bat-Mite’s New York Adventure” was originally slated to run in Batman Family. But as Rozakis recounted in this issue’s Man-Bat article, after the DC Implosion of 1978, “the powers-that-be at Warner Publishing (which called the shots for DC at the time)” merged the struggling Detective Comics—from which the company took its name—with the better-selling Batman Family.

POST-CRISIS APPEARANCES Since the Rozakis and Golden Detective story and the DeStefano Brave and the Bold strip, Bat-Mite has made scant few comic-book appearances. Some highlights over the past several decades include: • The Alan Grant-scripted “Legend of the Dark Mite” from Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Oct. 1992), 28 • BACK ISSUE • Batman’s Partners Issue

I’d pretty much given up hope of a Bat-Mite appearance in any current publications, lamenting that I’d have to rely on his Silver and Bronze Age adventures to get my fix. There just doesn’t seem to be a place for Bat-Mite in DC Comics’ more serious-minded “New 52.” Really, though, if we can accept an alien from Krypton and a crimefighting orphan dressed as a giant bat, why not a magical imp from the fifth dimension? As this issue was going into production, I got a pleasant surprise. DC released its March 2014 solicitations and, lo and behold, there’s Bat-Mite in ScoobyDoo Team-Up #3. Does this foreshadow a full-fledged return? It remains to be seen, but so long as there are creators like Paul Dini, Grant Morrison, and Evan Dorkin continuing to produce animated series and monthly comics, it’s probably just a matter of time. After all, as Bob Rozakis succinctly notes, “I think fans just like entertaining stories and Bat-Mite tales [fall into] that category.” As to why Bat-Mite endures, for me and I’m sure for many BI readers, it’s about nostalgia: happy memories of simple stories and simpler times. And while we all like our Batman dark and brooding, there’s something to be said for a character that can poke fun at our comic-book heroes and their tropes. Ultimately, Bat-Mite is really making fun of us. A very special thank-you goes out to Andy Mangels for supplying this article’s amazing artwork, and to everyone’s favorite Answer Man, Bob Rozakis, for his Bat-Mite memories! SHANNON E. RILEY used to run around the house in a blue microfibre bathrobe, until his mom sucked up the tie with her vacuum cleaner. In his five-year-old mind, he was Batman. But he probably looked more like Bat-Mite.

Mike Pigott

Drive-By History From 100-Page Super Spectacular Batman #255 (Mar.–Apr. 1974), an illustrated history of Batman’s wheels. Special thanks to Al Bigley for reminding BI of this two-pager. (For loads of comics rarities, check out Al’s awesome blog: http://albigley-theblog.blogspot.com/). TM & © DC Comics.

Over the years, one of Batman’s most effective partners has not been another superhero, but a vehicle … his powerful, high-tech Batmobile, throughout its many incarnations. Due to the Batmobile’s high profile in TV and film interpretations of Batman, the car is almost as well known to the general public as its owner!

ORIGINS After using various anonymous roadsters in early issues of Detective Comics, Batman unveiled the first “real” Batmobile in Batman #5 (Spring 1941). This was a large sedan with a distinctive “Bat-head” battering ram over the grille, fared-in wheels, and a large “Bat-wing” dorsal fin. Depending on the artist, the 1940s Batmobile could range in appearance from a slightly modified 1941 Ford through to a heavily armored, almost tank-like vehicle with porthole windows. This design of Batmobile lasted for several years until it was destroyed in Detective Comics #156 (Feb. 1950), and replaced with the “Batmobile of 1950,” which Batman and Robin built themselves. This large, sleek car looked to be inspired by the contemporary Studebaker, but had a wraparound windscreen and roof-mounted light in addition to the traditional Bat-head battering ram and rear fin. It also featured radar and a full laboratory at the rear. Over the years, however, this streamlined design evolved into a very strange version, with slab sides, a clear dome canopy, and a Bat-fin mounted on the trunk. With Batman’s “New Look” in 1964, a smaller, more realistic Batmobile was introduced in Batman #164 (June 1964). This light,

open sports car was more like a Corvette or MGA, and instead of a heavy battering ram at the front had only a Bat-head painted on the hood. This agile little car did not last long, because when the Batman TV series made its debut in 1966, the George Barris-designed Batmobile from the show was soon carried over to the comics. The complex design of this car, with its strange angles and front and rear twin windshields, proved difficult for artists to draw, so simplified versions were used in the comics. The first type was a boxy convertible with a very angular Bat-shield on the grille, plus very large, sharp tailfins (Detective Comics #362). This design was later standardized as a modified version of the TV car, but with a more sloping nose, front air intakes, a painted Bat-logo on the nose, and faired-in headrests replacing the rear windscreens. This car remained in use until Batman closed up the Batcave at Wayne Manor and relocated to the Wayne Foundation building in late 1969.

BRONZE AGE As Batman returned to his dark and gritty roots in 1970, he moved away from showy Batmobiles to more realistic-looking cars. (Of course, that was when he drove at all; during this period he mainly seemed to swing around Gotham on his Bat-rope, like an urban Tarzan.) The first of the new-style Batmobiles was seen in Detective #394 (Dec. 1969). This was a futuristic, rear-engined coupe, similar to the concept cars of the era. It had two-way mirrored windows, a thick GT stripe along the top, and, rather unusually, a yellow Bat-shield on the roof! Batman’s Partners Issue

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(top left) The Neal Adams-designed car from Batman #400 was modelled by Corgi, but with odd proportions. (top right) Corgi's model of a Breyfogle-era Batmobile featured a heavily armored nose and large spoilers over the rear engine. (middle) Corgi's other version of Breyfogle's Batmobile featured a canopy that opened to reveal a detailed interior. (bottom) A Breyfogle Batmobile: Detective Comics #601. TM & © DC Comics.

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present day in 1/43, 1/24, and 1/18 scales, including several ancillary vehicles and villains’ cars. These were fully built models, not kits, and most of these versions had ever been replicated before. Models included the 1968 Batmobile in 1/43 and 1/24 scales, the smaller car featuring a pop-out chain slasher. Corgi’s models were, for the most part, very well made, although some were rather poorly proportioned, such as the 1970 Batmobile, which appeared much wider at the front than the rear. However, Corgi’s 1978 Batmobile was an excellent model, with an opening hood and a Batman figure at the wheel. There were two different versions of the futuristic Breyfogle-designed cars: one with a heavy Bat-shield on the front, and an opening rear-engine cover, plus another more streamlined version with a sliding canopy. Corgi also made the Subway Rocket from the Knightfall saga, which had an opening engine cover and rotating turbine. The range also included four 1/43 villain cars: the Jokermobile, the Catmobile, TwoFace’s car, and the obscure Killer Moth’s Mothmobile. Mattel’s Hot Wheels brand acquired the DC Comics license in 2006, and made a wide variety of Batman vehicles in different scales and price ranges, the majority of which were based on TV and movie versions. However, a few comic-related models were made in 1/50 scale, including a 1978 Batmobile that looked to be a scaled-down copy of the Corgi model. The most exciting recent development is the Batman Automobilia Collection, a fortnightly “partwork” published by Eaglemoss Publications of the UK. Each release includes a model Bat-vehicle and a slim magazine. All models are to a consistent 1/43 scale, and are made by leading manufacturer Ixo. The series includes a mixture of model Batmobiles from TV, film, cartoons, and comic books, presented in a clear case with a diorama and backdrop. There have been new interpretations of the 1968, 1970, 1978, and 1992 Batmobiles, plus the never-before-modeled 1969 and 1976 cars … and hopefully many more new items in future issues. Special thanks to Nigel McMillan for much of the photography. MIKE PIGOTT is a London-based freelance writer who specializes in diecast toys and model vehicles. His articles appear in every issue of Diecast Collector Magazine and Diecast Model World.

“To stop me, you’ll have to kill me.” It was with these words that Batman quit the Justice League of America and headed off for the small European nation of Markovia.

P h i l i p Yo u n g m a n

“NO TEAM BOOKS!”

Bye-Bye, Two-Bit Justice League

Barr had always been a fan of team books. As a reader, that is mike w. barr … writing them was an entirely different matter. All those What could possibly have led to the shock resignation characters to coordinate, remembering the different of one of the founding members of the JLA? To find the speech patterns, the creation of villains who could answer, we need to go back in time to late 1982. present a credible threat every month—who needed Readers have thrilled to the adventures of the that sort of headache? Darknight Detective teaming up alongside almost every However, any doubts he may have had were cast conceivable DC superhero for more than 120 issues of aside one afternoon in the office of editor Len Wein The Brave and the Bold (B&B). when he learned that B&B was indeed headed toward But the sand is running out, with #200 to be its cancellation, with plans to replace it with a new last. Batman is graduating to another book—only this book starring the Dark Knight. Perhaps lured by the time, he is going to lead his own team. opportunity to write an issue #1 of a Batman title, While perhaps to the relief of many, Batman and Barr found himself volunteering for the assignment. the Mystery Analysts of Gotham City never saw the light Not surprisingly, the reason for B&B’s cancellation of day, but what instead followed was Mike W. Barr’s was a financial one—what is surprising, however, is the creation of a “new group of heroes for our troubled creation of the replacement title was also. Barr explains: age”—the Outsiders. Batman’s Partners Issue

From Mike W. Barr (MWB) and Jim Aparo’s Batman and the Outsiders #1 (Aug. 1983): (left) its gripping cover, and (right) from the MWB files, a photocopy of the splash page’s original art. TM & © DC Comics.

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“One of DC’s foreign publishers—I believe it was in South America—was publishing Batman, Detective Comics, World’s Finest, and The Brave and the Bold under an umbrella title as a weekly Batman book. So when B&B was canceled, DC needed another Batman book.”

Marvelous Team-Up (left) A Halo/Ms. Marvel sketch done for Mike W. Barr by Dave Cockrum in 1985. From the MWB files. (right) This George Pérez sketch established the basic looks of siblings Terra and Geo-Force. Halo, Terra, and Geo-Force TM & © DC Comics. Ms. Marvel TM & © Marvel Characters, Inc.

a version of Siegel and Shuster’s Superman, a mainly physical character who wasn’t threateningly intelligent. “Halo (Gaby Doe/Violet Harper), I realized, years later, was another variation on a theme. Earlier I had created Arisia, a cute, teenaged girl who became a Green Lantern. Arisia was a kind of dry run for Halo. ENTER THE OUTSIDERS “I have always been fascinated by Japanese culture, Once it was decided the new book would feature a so Katana (Tatsu Yamashiro) seemed a natural team led by Batman, Barr set about creating outgrowth. I would not have expected that the lineup. “I had originally proposed that she would be merchandised more than Batman take a leave of absence from the any of the other new Outsiders.” JLA,” he tells BACK ISSUE. “I didn’t Barr continues, “Naming of think DC would let him resign, but characters is absolutely crucial. Halo editor Len Wein (who was also the was an ideal name; despite its JLA editor) thought it would be masculine ‘o’ ending, it sounded stronger to have him resign. He was feminine, it described her powers, right, and it was awfully good of him and it’s impossible to mispronounce. to give me that kind of latitude.” “Geo-Force was a little trickier. Barr began with two existing Len and I both thought of the name characters—Metamorpho and Black ‘Magman,’ playing on the word Lightning—who on the surface may ‘magma,’ but Len shook his head have seemed a strange fit. They did and said, ‘It sounds like a man who len wein have however have something in sells magazines.’ Neither of us were common with Batman—they had also 100% happy with “Geo-Force” when turned their backs on JLA membership. [Editor’s note: I submitted it, as it sounds a little clumsy, but I later Metamorpho said “no!” to the JLA in Justice League realized that sometimes names take on meanings of of America #42, while Black Lightning told them to their own. ‘The Punisher,’ for example, is an almost “forget it!” in JLA #173.] laughable name when taken literally, but due to the It was now time for Mike Barr to create some character it’s connected with it’s taken on a meaning new members: of its own over the years. By the way, Geo-Force’s alter “All three of the first wave probably came to me in ego of Brion Markov was named after Brian Bolland, a two-or-three day period of mad creation, though I the artist of Camelot 3000. I changed the spelling of do recall the exact moment I came up with the idea for the name, but it was always intended as a tribute to a Geo-Force (Prince Brion Markov). He was intended as friend and one of my favorite collaborators.

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“Katana was the biggest challenge of the three. I thought it was a perfect name for the character. Both a name and a proper noun describing her main weapon, it ended in a feminine ‘a,’ and it was also nearly impossible to mispronounce. But Len claimed he hated it, calling it ‘a terrible name,’ and he said he would think of another. I left the office, determined not to yield on this. And when I next saw Len, a couple of days later, he said, ‘I thought of the perfect name for the samurai—Katana!’ I cocked an eyebrow at him, skeptically—did I really have to remind him of our earlier conversation?—then he grinned, cueing me to the joke, and we both enjoyed a hearty laugh.” It all seemed perfect, except for one small hitch. As fate would have it, Geo-Force strongly resembled a character about to be introduced into The New Teen Titans—Terra. What could have spelled a very quick end to Geo-Force instead became a plot point. At the suggestion of then-Titans writer Marv Wolfman, Geo-Force and Terra became brother and sister. The team was in place, but who was to draw their adventures? It was never in doubt—the duties were to be given to veteran B&B artist Jim Aparo. “Jim was a little leery about the idea, but soon grew to love the new characters. His only advice to me was: ‘Let’s have plenty of the Batman in there.’ And I tried to oblige.” Given character outlines and a sketch of Terra and Geo-Force by George Pérez, Jim Aparo designed the look of each of the remaining characters inside of a week. The team was ready to meet the world. In B&B #200, readers finally saw the (sort of) team-up of the Bronze and Golden Age Batmans (also scripted by Barr), but an arguably even more important 16 pages followed. Tantalizingly, it introduced readers to this mix of familiar and brand-new characters—and the news that Batman was no longer part of the JLA. Their curiosity piqued, readers were primed for an ongoing series, and thankfully they wouldn’t have to wait long with Batman and the Outsiders #1 hitting the stands just one month later on May 19, 1983.

“A BUNCH OF OUTSIDERS LIKE US? IT MIGHT WORK…” Batman and the Outsiders opens on the familiar skyline of Gotham City. jim aparo We are in the Wayne Foundation Tower, the scene a farewell dinner Portrait by Michael Netzer. for Lucius Fox. However, what started as a simple business trip to the small European nation of Markovia would end in a revolution and Fox’s abduction.

The Youngest Outsider (top) Our pal Joe Staton—no stranger to DC heroines, most notably the Huntress and Power Girl—drew this Halo sketch for Mike W. Barr at a convention in Philadelphia in 1983. (bottom) The artistry of Jim Aparo, as seen on the splash to Batman and the Outsiders #4 (Nov. 1983). Both images from the MWB files. TM & © DC Comics.

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JOHN TRUMBULL: First, a little background on how you guys got together. How was Alan selected as Jim Aparo’s replacement artist on Batman and the Outsiders? ALAN DAVIS: I had penciled the first issue of an Aquaman miniseries for Dick Giordano. He phoned, said he liked what I had done, and offered me BATO. TRUMBULL: Were you two familiar with each other’s work before you started working together on BATO? MIKE W. BARR: I wasn’t really familiar with Alan’s work, but I quickly familiarized myself with Harry 20: On the High Rock and other series Alan drew [for 2000AD]. I don’t know if he was familiar with my work. DAVIS: Of course. I had followed BATO from the first issue. TRUMBULL: How did you two get the Detective Comics assignment? Did you submit a pitch or were you selected for it by editor Denny O’Neil? DAVIS: Mike asked me. That was all I knew. BARR: I actively campaigned for the ’Tec assignment, rather than waiting to be selected, as I had before (and which didn’t work out well). I recall trying—convincingly, I guess—to persuade DC to drop the plan of having Batman and ’Tec tell one long story, saying this wasn’t working, and it was driving away readers who didn’t like that approach, but it may have been that this decision may have been made in-house. With two separate creative teams, readers would be offered two choices. I suggested Alan as the penciler, and gave Denny a few copies of BATO. He agreed. I think we lured Alan away from some other assignment; if true, this gave me a great deal of satisfaction. DAVIS: I’m afraid I’ll have to let Mike down, because there wasn’t one. I had accepted a single annual from the X-office [Uncanny X-Men Annual #11, 1987] in anticipation of my run on BATO ending, then felt pretty bad when I discovered DC had miscalculated the length of [the] run and I had to tell Mike I couldn’t do the last two issues of BATO. I had enjoyed working with Mike and loved drawing Batman so I was very enthusiastic about Detective. BARR: Denny and I discussed the approach to the book, which I probably described as “classic Batman and

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J o h n Tr u m b u l l

In 1986, the DC Universe was being redefined in the wake of the crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths, and DC Comics was looking to reinvigorate its flagship characters. After years under the editorial watch of Len Wein, the Batman books were now under the stewardship of Denny O’Neil. And Detective Comics, the book that gave DC its name, received a new creative team fresh off a bestselling run on Batman and the Outsiders: writer Mike W. Barr and penciler Alan Davis. While Barr and Davis only stayed together on Detective for seven issues, they certainly didn’t waste any time. In these issues, Batman and Robin encountered the Joker, Catwoman, the Scarecrow, the Mad Hatter, new villain the Reaper, and several surprise guest-stars. Batman’s origins were redefined, a new Leslie Thompkins was introduced, and the book celebrated its 50th year of publication. For everyone who followed them on the Dark Knight, Barr and Davis cast a long (bat-shaped) shadow. This interview was conducted via email over the summer of 2013. – John Trumbull

Robin stories,” “classic” referring to the approach. We discussed strategies if this didn’t work, like guest-starring some of the Outsiders which, with the creative team of Barr and Davis, would have been a natural. Fortunately, we didn’t have to do any of that. The title was an instant hit, and quickly became DC’s bestselling Batman title, a stunt Alan and I had done with BATO a year or so earlier. In fact, the only acknowledgement of the Outsiders was in the Mad Hatter issue (#573), where we briefly used Warden Fisher, who had been introduced in BATO #4 (Nov. 1983). This certainly isn’t because I disliked the Outsiders; we just wanted Detective to sell on its own. TRUMBULL: How did you two typically work together? Was it full-script, Marvel-style, or somewhere in-between? BARR: Every issue of Detective—as well as every issue of BATO—was written full-script, with Alan understanding that he could change anything he wanted as long as the story was told. DAVIS: Always full-script. And I was grateful for that at the time because I had no training or experience so was learning on the job. As I have said on many occasions, I was very lucky because Mike is the most visual writer I have worked with. His panel descriptions are always on the money. I would sometimes try something different, but almost always quickly realized Mike’s staging was the best way. TRUMBULL: What do you feel you each bring to your collaboration, and what do you bring out in each other?

DAVIS: For my part, it was a steep learning curve. Thankfully, Mike was patient and generous with his knowledge and experience. BARR: I have worked with many, many great artists, and I feel the collaboration of Alan and myself really became an example of the end product being greater than the sum of its parts. Alan seemed to know what I was trying to bring out in the scripts, no matter how hamhandedly I might have written it, and did his best to improve on it. And his sense of humor is second to none. With most artists I indicate a humorous bit with the notation [humor], just to make sure they get it. I soon realized this wasn’t necessary with Alan—he always got it.

DETECTIVE #569: “CATCH AS CATSCAN” When the Joker learns about Catwoman fighting crime with Batman and Robin, he kidnaps her and brainwashes her into resuming her criminal career. BARR: Denny wanted me to come on the title with #568, which was a Legends crossover. But I begged off because Alan couldn’t start until #569, and I realized the only way to peak sales on a long-running title was for the new creative team to all come on in the same issue. “Start Collecting NOW!” TRUMBULL: How was it decided to make Catwoman a villain again? BARR: My first marching orders from Denny O’Neil were: A) Make Catwoman a villain again, and: B) Erase from her memory any knowledge of Batman’s secret identity. We decided a story using the Joker would be the best way to do this, as having Batman and Catwoman working together would drive him crazy (or crazier). And, since the Joker and Catwoman first appeared in Batman #1, it was also a very subtle tip to the readers that we were starting over again. TRUMBULL: Alan, how did you approach drawing Catwoman and the Joker? Did any particular artists influence you? DAVIS: No, I was following Mike’s direction. The only deliberate deviation on my part was to give Catwoman a sort of Gaucho culotte instead of a skirt—just to make her a little more modern and sleek. BARR: Alan’s Joker is one of the best versions. Someone referred to him as “a deranged praying mantis.” TRUMBULL: You had both done Batman by this point, but now he was joined by the Jason Todd Robin. How did you approach Jason, and how was he different from Dick Grayson? BARR: I never really saw him as any different than Dick Grayson. I believe it was later that his backstory would be rewritten to include

Two-Face, which was utilized in issues #579–580 [drawn by Jim Baikie after Davis’ departure]. DAVIS: Again, I was following Mike’s direction. No significant difference from the classic Dick Grayson; he was a young Jiminy Cricket. TRUMBULL: Commissioner Gordon is called “Captain” in your first two issues. Was this the original post-Crisis plan for the character, as he’s promoted to Captain at the end of Batman: Year One? BARR: I guess so. I was told to call him “Captain,” and obliged. TRUMBULL: How did you decide on using Dr. Moon as the agent to turn Selina Kyle evil again? BARR: We needed someone to do the dirty scientific work and I thought using Dr. Moon (who was created by editor O’Neil, of course), who already existed as a character, would root the book more deeply in the DCU than creating a new character. The comedy stylings he and the Joker exhibited on pages 18–20 were not plotted, they came to me as I wrote the script. I loved the idea of a Joker who would appreciate having a gag played on him, as a contrast to the relentlessly grim (and dull) mad killer Joker that had been prevalent in the Batman titles for years.

Holy No-No! (top) Jason Todd Robin gets a dressing-down after channeling the Burt Ward Robin in this hilarious sequence from Detective #569. (left) Mike W. Barr communicates with readers in the lettercol of Detective #569. TM & © DC Comics.

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BATMAN STORIES by MIKE W. BARR and ALAN DAVIS REPRINTS AND COLLECTED EDITIONS • Batman: Year Two trade paperback (1987) Detective Comics #575, “Chapter One: Fear the Reaper” • Stacked Deck: The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told, Expanded Edition (1990) Detective Comics #569, “Catch as Catscan” Detective Comics #570, “The Last Laugh!” • Batman: Year Two – Fear the Reaper trade paperback (Dec. 2002) Detective Comics #575, “Chapter One: Fear the Reaper” Batman: Full Circle

• Batman in the Eighties (2004) Detective Comics #571 “Fear for $ale” • Batman: Scarecrow Tales (Apr. 2005) Detective Comics #571 “Fear for $ale” • Batman: Fear (Jan. 2006) Detective Comics #571 “Fear for $ale” • Batman: Black and White, Vol. 3 (May 2007) Batman: Gotham Knights #25, “Last Call at McSurley’s” • Batman vs. the Scarecrow #1 (May 2008) Detective Comics #571 “Fear for $ale”

• Batman: Black and White, Vol. 3 (Sept. 2008) Batman: Gotham Knights #25, “Last Call at McSurley’s” • DC Retroactive: Batman – The ’80s #1 (Aug. 2011) Detective Comics #575, “Chapter One: Fear the Reaper” • Legends of the Dark Knight: Alan Davis vol. 1 (Feb. 2013) Reprints the entire Barr/Davis run in hardcover

WRAPPING UP TRUMBULL: Looking back, is there anything that you two would’ve done differently on Detective? BARR: Not for that first run, no. DAVIS: I wish I had been able to draw better. TRUMBULL: Were there any villains that you regret not getting to use? I personally would’ve loved a Barr/ Davis Riddler or Penguin story. BARR: Me, too. Had I continued on the book I would have tried to write stories for all the classic Batman villains. But “gang aft agley.” DAVIS: I snuck a couple of Bat-villain cameos into The Nail’s Arkham sequences. Classic versions of Penguin, Riddler, Two-Face, and Poison Ivy. So I know I definitely still have a fanboy itch to draw such iconic characters and I have no doubt Mike would do a great job on all of them. I’d just love to draw more classic Batman— Brave and Bold or World’s Finest were always favorites. TRUMBULL: Lastly, are there any upcoming projects you’d like to mention? BARR: I have recently written a three-part Legends of the Dark Knight story for DC Digital titled “Elements of Crime,” with art by Tom Lyle. If readers liked the Detective stories, they’ll like this. And I’ve written over 14 Star Wars eight-page stories for Titan Magazines. Otherwise, no. The business is in a very strange place nowadays. A few months ago I wrote query letters to every comics house I could think of—Avatar, Boom, Aspen, you name it—and received precisely three responses (from Valiant, Red Circle, and Image). I’m not looking to have my path strewn with rose petals, but you’d think a guy with my sales record could at least get his query letters answered, rather than ignored. But I’ve always spent too much time on the work and not enough time on office politics. [Author’s Note: If there are any BI readers who would like to get the entire Barr/Davis Detective run in a single hardcover, DC Comics’ 2013 Legends of the Dark Knight: Alan Davis vol. 1 is highly recommended. Other reprints of these stories are listed in the sidebar.]

Bruce Wayne’s Woe Another rarity from the Heritage archives: Davis/Farmer original cover art to a UK edition of Full Circle. TM & © DC Comics.

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JOHN TRUMBULL still thinks it’s really cool that’s he getting paid to write about Batman. Thanks to Mike W. Barr, Alan Davis, and Denny O’Neil for sharing their memories with him for BACK ISSUE.

Aidan M. Mohan

Commissioner James Gordon has been a part of the Batman family longer than any other character. It’s strange but true that the commissioner was in the books before Alfred, Robin, or even Batman’s origin! He appears alongside Bruce Wayne on the very first page of “The Case of the Chemical Crime Syndicate,” Batman’s debut tale in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939), and he’s been an integral part of the Bat-mythos ever since. However, there wasn’t always as much to the character as there is today, and that development came over time. At first, Gordon was a social friend of Bruce Wayne’s who would discuss his most unusual cases with him over dinner in a manner very similar to Lamont Cranston and Commissioner Weston’s “relationship” in The Shadow. With the advent of the ’40s came the first use of the Bat-Signal by Gordon to summon Batman in Detective Comics #60 (Feb. 1942), and then in the family-friendly ’50s Gordon and Alfred became the adopted uncles, of sorts, to the Batman family. And who can forget the comically ineffective Commissioner Gordon on the 1966 Batman TV show?

BATMAN’S “M”

He’s Got Batman’s Back Although their relationship has been contentious at times, Batman and Commissioner Gordon generally are the staunchest of allies. Original cover painting to Batman: Shadow of the Bat #49 (Apr. 1996), by the remarkable Brian Stelfreeze. Note that the art was flopped in the published version (inset), reversing the characters’ positions. Courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © DC Comics.

From a storytelling perspective, Gordon serves an absolutely vital role within the context of Batman. Bruce Wayne has no legitimate law enforcement ties of his own, and as a result, neither does Batman. Superheroes tend to be very reactionary characters, and without anything to react to there is nothing for them to do … and coincidence can only go so far. Spider-Man and Superman work at newspapers to hear news of crimes and accidents, The Shadow has a series of agents all around the city, and Sherlock Holmes has an open-door policy toward interesting cases. Commissioner Gordon serves the role of alerting Batman to the story and giving him valuable information about it. Basically, he’s Batman’s “M.” The genius of the Batman comic books of the ’70s ushered in by Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams, and company was the fact it was often either a gothic crime/horror tale or it was a globetrotting adventure. Those are two types of tales that a character like Batman can easily fit into. And how did Gordon fit into those stories? Well, the same way he fit into every other Batman story: to exposit information to Batman about the plot. From his initial appearance through to the beginning of the ’70s, Gordon was mostly a cipher … a very good cipher and sometimes a very interesting cipher, but a cipher nonetheless [see sidebar 1 for info about Gordon’s personal life—ed.]. What changed? How did the character of Commissioner Gordon get any meat on his bones? It started with the aforementioned mood change of the Batman books and Gotham City as a whole. Gotham was, in the ’50s and ’60s, a normal major metropolitan city … excluding, of course, the activities of the Dynamic Duo and their rogues’ gallery. Criminals Batman’s Partners Issue

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The 1980s were a pivotal decade for Batman, from seeing his former sidekick become the leader of DC Comics’ most popular team, to becoming an icon of the big screen all over again. One major shift during this time concerned his relationship with his most venerable, long-lived ally: Superman.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE WORLD’S FINEST DUO As DC’s two most prolific superheroes of all time, Superman and Batman have often crossed paths, though many have considered the concept of the two working together rather strange. “Pairing Superman and Batman made sense financially, since the two were DC’s most popular heroes,” wrote Les Daniels in his book DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World’s Favorite Comic Book Heroes. While Superman and Batman shared the covers of many issues of a series entitled World’s Finest [Comics, originally World’s Best]—which featured solo stories of each—according to Daniels, “production economics had shortened the page count and forced them to share the same story,” so in 1954, Superman and Batman became a regular team. DC Comics teamed the two icons for the first time in Superman #76 (May 1952). The two had shared many comic-book covers, and even a cameo in All-Star Comics #7 (Oct. 1941), but never officially teamed up in the comics, though they had on the Adventures of Superman radio series. Starting with issue #71 (July 1954), World’s Finest became a platform for Superman and Batman’s new joint adventures. Their stories often featured sci-fi themes, and at times they battled their more famous foes, such as Lex Luthor and the Joker. Occasionally new villains were introduced to challenge “Your Two Favorite Heroes—Together,” none more fondly remembered than the Composite Superman, first seen in World’s Finest #142 (June 1964); he was the Superman Museum janitor who gained the powers of the Legion of Super-Heroes, wore a half-Superman/ half-Batman costume, and made Superman, Batman, and Robin duck for cover. As the Bronze Age began in 1970, DC editor Julius Schwartz, who oversaw most of the titles in the Batman and Superman franchises, put the two heroes through some rather pivotal changes. Bruce Wayne moved from Wayne Manor to the Wayne Foundation penthouse, while Dick Grayson went to college, joining Batman sporadically, and enjoying a solo backup feature. Meanwhile, Clark Kent found a new vocation as a TV anchorman instead of a newspaper writer, while coping with a temporary reduction in his powers. By the end of 1970, World’s Finest became a team-up series, pairing Superman with various superheroes from the Flash to the (Western) Vigilante, paralleling the

The Superman/Batman Split Your two favorite heroes say goodbye to their partnership on the Denys Cowan/Dick Giordano cover of World’s Finest Comics #323 (Jan. 1986), the series’ last issue. TM & © DC Comics.

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Frankie Addiego

Batman team-up title The Brave and the Bold. Batman returned to the book every few issues, but the modernizations visited upon the characters in their own titles often seemed absent from World’s Finest. Case in point: issue #202 (May 1971, inset). Its Neal Adams/Dick Giordano cover depicted Superman strangling Batman, with a blurb promising that it was “Not an imaginary fight scene, nor a symbolic picture! Nor any other sort of cop-out!” Yet the “Superman” on the cover was, in reality, one of the Man of Steel’s many Superman robots. Murray Boltinoff took over as editor with World’s Finest #215 (Dec. 1972), which featured the permanent return of the Superman/Batman team to the title. Yet this issue had a distinct twist: Writer Bob Haney and penciler Dick Dillin introduced the rotating SuperSons feature, co-starring Superman and Batman’s teenage offspring. Their mothers were never revealed, and many fans scratched their heads in disbelief over how these previously unseen sons could exist—although sales increased on Super-Sons issues. (In 1980’s World’s Finest #263, the Super-Sons were revealed to be an elaborate computer simulation, and they sacrifice their lives during the course of the story— while cleaning up a continuity conundrum in the process.) Throughout the ’70s and early ’80s, World’s Finest soldiered on, through different editors and through a host of format changes from a traditional comic to a 100-Page Super Spectacular, back to the regular 32-page format, then to the giant-sized Dollar Comics format … before returning to the traditional format yet again. The Dollar Comics era [covered in BI #57—ed.] featured backups starring other superheroes such as Hawkman, Captain Marvel, Green Arrow, and Black Canary.

BEST FRIENDS FOREVER?? A new era for the Batman/Superman team in World’s Finest starts when the Composite Superman reappears in #283 (Sept. 1982), written by Cary Burkett and penciled by George Tuska. The story begins with the villain attacking each hero while disguised as the other, leading to a hostile confrontation between the real heroes Doug Moench, who would soon when an enraged Superman confronts doug moench continue on to be a prolific writer of Batman in the Batcave. The Composite Batman comics [see Commissioner Superman shows up in the cave to Gordon article—ed.]. Moench’s first challenge both heroes, which comes as a shock as they issue was #289 (Mar. 1983). He tells BACK ISSUE, believed him to be dead. “Doing an issue of World’s Finest becomes a frustrating Because the Composite Superman was imbued exercise in answering the question, ‘Why does with the powers of the Legion of Super-Heroes, Superman need Batman?’” Superman travels into the future to gather help from Moench’s two-parter in World’s Finest #290–291 that team. However, this Composite Superman was introduces a love interest for Batman named Yumiko, not the original, but a villain from the future known as who suspects that he and Bruce Wayne are one in the Xan, who is also known as the Amalgamax. The heroes same. Superman and Batman travel to a deep cavern (along with Legionnaires) thwart him in #284. to face Kryptonite-powered mutations. After the This two-parter served as a reminder of how an heroes return from their adventure, Superman and adversarial Superman and Batman relationship makes Batman play an identity-thrwarting ruse on Yumiko, a more dynamic mix than the two “best friends” we’d with Superman masquerading as Batman. seen over the decades. The following issue served as a summation of Several issues went by, with Superman and Batman Superman and Batman’s relationship up to this point. usually battling magic-based threats with other During a radio interview, Batman reacts negatively superheroes joining in, before a new writer signed on: to being called a “vigilante,” reminding listeners that Batman’s Partners Issue

The Grin and the Grim Gil Kane deftly delineates the differences in our heroes’ personalities on this cover to WFC #289 (Mar. 1983). Original cover art courtesy of Heritage Comics Auctions (www.ha.com). TM & © DC Comics.

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