THE SECRET ORIGIN OF BATMAN

The Secret Origin of Batman is one of eight booklets packaged with
undoubtedly delicious candy and sold by the Leaf Candy Company as
“Comicbook Candy.” The 16-page booklets consists of  a cover, 14
pages of story and a back cover advertisement for a DC Super Heroes
Collector Album.  The miniature comics are 4-1/4" tall and 2-3/4"
wide.  Check out yesterday’s blog for a photo of the display box
from which this 1981 product was sold.  The Grand Comics Database
has indexed these booklets.  Because of that, we know a lot about
these booklets.  But not everything.

As with the Aquaman booklet, The Secret Origin of Batman cover is
a scene not found inside the booklet.  Dick Giordano confirmed that
he was the inker of this cover and suspects he penciled it from a
layout by Carmine Infantino.  Don Newton did the pencil art and the
GCD suggests Frank McLaughlin as the inker.  The writer of the tale
has not been identified at present.

The fast-paced origin starts with the Wayne Family walking through
that fateful alley.  Bruce watches his parents murdered by a mugger.
He vows to devote his life to fighting crime, trains for the job,
makes some of his wonderful toys, forms a secretive alliance with
Commissioner Gordon, builds his Batcave, takes in Dick Grayson and
trains him as his partner.

The writing is pedestrian.  The only lively lines are those taken
from previous versions of Batman’s origin.  The murders of Bruce’s
parents are shown directly, not soften by shadows as in many such
origin recaps.  It’s going to take a better comics detective than
me to figure out who wrote this one. 

Newton managed some good panels here and there, but the small size
of the pages worked against him.  That’s going to be the case with
all of these booklets.

Neither the letterer or colorist has been identified at this time.
The GCD opines Joe Orlando as the editor.  If anyone can name the
letterer and colorist and confirm Orlando as the editor, please do
so.  I’d love to be able to fill those information holes.

UPDATE: Anthony Tollin tells me is pretty certain that his wife Adrienne
Roy colored this Batman mini-comic.

Next up is the secret origin of the Flash and, now that I’ve gained
some breathing room on my schedule, there will be some additional
material as well.  See you tomorrow.

© 2012 Tony Isabella