BATMAN THE SILVER AGE OMNIBUS 2

 

 

Continuing our reading of Batman: The Silver Age Omnibus. The book collects Batman #101-116 and Detective Comics #233-257.  

Just one issue after Batman uncovered Kathy Kane’s secret life as Batwoman and bullied her to hang up her cape, the world’s greatest detective has to figure out another hero’s civilian identity. His own!

Written by Edmond Hamilton, “Batman and Robin’s Greatest Mystery” [Detective Comics #234; August, 1956] finds the dynamic duo losing their memories to a machine used on them by a criminal scientist. Our heroes must recover the memories to stop the scientist’s next and biggest crime. What I found most appealing was how Batman’s deductive logic mirrored what he had done in the Batman. I like a certain consistency in a character’s modus operandi. Of course, now that someone had uncovered Batman’s identity, he had no choice but to give up his career as a caped crusader.

What? That only applies to female crime-fighters? Goddess spare us from the patriarchy.

                                                                                       

Batman #102 [September, 1956] has three stories. Written by a not-yet-identified writer, “The House of Batman” is drawn by the team of Sheldon Moldoff and Charles Paris. It’s a weak effort in which a deceased millionaire leaves money for Gotham to build a downtown headquarters for Batman. Actually, the “deceased millionaire” is a criminal secretly using the house as his headquarters. What a dump plan. He was just begging to be caught.

Bill Finger’s “The Batman from Babylon” is drawn by Dick Sprang and Charles Paris. The synopsis:

When Brand Bartor is arrested for dressing in a Batman costume, the crook turns the tables on the Caped Crusader by implying Batman should be arrested for impersonating a Babylonian Batman!

We get some hypnotic time travel that never made sense to me even as a kid. It turns out Batman was that Babylonian Batman. A little bending of the truth and Batman is off the hook. It’s silly, but the art is sweet.

Finally, Bill Finger’s “The Caveman at Large” justifies the cover based on it when an amnesic actor finds is way into the Bat-Cave. Drawn by Moldoff and Paris, it’s another weak tale in a generally less than classic issue.

                                                                                

From Detective Comics #235 [September 1956], “The First Batman” by Bill Finger with artists Sheldon Moldoff and Stan Kaye was an early retconning of Bruce Wayne’s family history and, indeed, the origins of his Batman persona. It was based on a costume Thomas Wayne wore to a society masquerade ball. When, on that pivotal night as Bruce Wayne contemplated his own masquerade, the bat flew into his window and unknowingly triggered the future Batman’s memories of his dad  wearing the costume.

Wayne also learns Joe Chill wasn’t a trigger-happy stick-up robber. Chill’s murders of his parents were ordered by gangster Lew Moxon, seeking revenge for Thomas Wayne putting him in jail years earlier.
In a tight ten pages, Finger brought readers a recap of the birth of Batman, new details about past events and a satisfying ending.

What kind of man Thomas Wayne was has been retconned several other times in recent decades and sometimes in unsavory ways, but I think this first one got it right.  

                                                                                

Batman #103 [October 1956] had the usual three stories, two of them written by Batman co-creator Bill Finger. Drawn by Dick Sprang and Charles Paris, “The Broken Batman Trophies” is a weak six-page tale that telegraphs everything about itself by the middle of its second page. On a live TV show, Bruce Wayne gets a cut on his chin from a falling boom. Batman comes on to receive trophies from people he’s help but “accidentally” destroys them all. It’s mentioned on that second page that the camera will do a close-up on Batman when he’s handed the prizes. A child could figure out what Bats is up to and I’m certain of that because I was around four-and-a-half years old when I first read this story.

Arnold Drake wrote “The League of Ex-Convicts” with art by Sheldon Moldoff and Charles Paris. A reformed ex-con starts an employment agency for other reformed ex-cons. Three ex-cos get jobs, but each is framed for crimes on their jobs. I saw the conclusion coming a mile away. One of the people who hired them was doing the crimes, knowing the ex-cons would get the blame. Not a bad concept, but the eight-page length didn’t give us enough time with the accused men or to see how they suffered. I would love to give this premise the “book-length” story treatment.

Finger returns for the cover tale, also drawn by Moldoff and Paris. In “Bat-Hound, Movie Star,” Ace helps the Dynamic Duo track down a criminal and gets cast in a movie with the salaries of the crime-fighters going to charity. The earlier criminal escapes from jail, disguises himself and gets hired as the stunt coordinator with no background check in evidence. He rigs the stunts to kill the good guys. They don’t die and bring him to justice. Another story which  didn’t set well with my younger self because, for there to be any suspense, Batman had to do really dumb things..like not checking the contents of his utility belt. I hate it when smart characters do stupid stuff to advance the plot. You can see that goes back to my childhood. I was a clever lad.

                                                                              

Detective Comics #236 [October, 1956] has “The New Model Batman” by an unknown writer and drawn by Sheldon Moldoff. Moldoff also drew this cover. Which made me laugh here in 2023. I thought Batman got some of that crazy “War on Drugs” money and, much as all the police forces that got it, used it for weapons of war that were way more than needed.

Released from prison, scientist Wallace Waley vows vengeance on the man who put him there. I don’t think I have to say who that man is. He devises anti-Batman weapons and sells them to other criminals, reserving a super anti-Batman weapon for himself. These anti=Batman weapons include defenses against the bat-ropes, the Batmobile and presumably more than can be shown in a ten-page story. Batman comes up with ways to thwart them all. But our unknown writer disappoints us in a major way. The super-weapon, so often mentioned during the course of this story, becomes a super-stunt on page seven...and it ain’t all that super. Thumbs down on this one.

That’s all for this installment of our deep dive into Batman: The Silver Age Omnibus. Look for another installment soon.

© 2023 Tony Isabella