Comic Book Confidential Issue # 2

Felicitations, Four-Color Fiends!

Remember back in December when I said that Detective # 450 was probably the first comic book I ever owned?  Well, I lied.  Not a deliberate fib to conceal the real truth that my first comic was actually an issue of Little Lulu but because I picked the wrong one to start writing about.

Y'see, at the tail end of last year I started thinking about my favorite superheroes and why I like them.  This inspired me to dig out my old comic collection to try and pinpoint the very first titles that my parents bought for me.  Now keep in mind, I would have gotten these back when I was only about four years old, so it definitely predates the whole self-aware, allowance-allocation phase of my existence.  

Unfortunately a few of those impressionable early issues have vanished, probably because they disintegrated after years of reading and re-reading them.  Regardless, I did my best to salvage and then inventory what I had left.  This, in turn, helped me to remember several key books that had long since vanished into oblivion.

By the time I was done, I had a rough list of about twenty individual comics.  I then went about cataloging each book's release date which eventually inspired this "Comic Book Confidential" series.  That's all well and good, but for some inexplicable reason, when it came time to write about my very first comic book, I inexplicably started with the wrong issue.  Detective #450 was originally published in August of 1975.  The book I'm about to talk about was published a full year earlier, in August of 1974.

I'm speaking, of course, of Batman # 257.

     
Sadly, this was one of those books that fell victim to childhood attrition, forcing me to re-acquire it last year while on vaycay in Salem, Massachusetts.  Even though I paid a helluva lot more then the original cover price, it was worth every penny.  

This was a actually a really cool run of issues.  From # 254 all the way up to # 262, the good folks at DC gave fans a twenty-page original story plus eighty bonus pages of classic reprints.  All of this for the low, low price of fifty or sixty beans.

The really great thing about these prototypical trade paperbacks is that they were compiled with a specific "theme" in mind.  For example, this one was billed as "Tales of Comedy and Tragedy".  And let me tell ya folks, they ain't whistlin' dixie.  One story might be incredible frivolous, bordering on stupid and the next would be positively gut-wrenching.  For an impressionable l'il shaver such as myself, it made for some pretty schizophrenic reading.

They don't make 'em like this anymore, kiddies.

This issue kicks off with what the cover describes as a "Penguin thriller".  Now, if that sounds like an oxymoron, I'm actually kinda with you.  In fact, up until recently I always thought that the Penguin was a useless one-percenter with a fetish for pelicans and a chronic case of gout.  But then I started playing Batman: Arkham City recently and realized that, in the right hands, any villain can be bad-ass, even someone as supremely lame as the Penguin.

The story begins with King Peeble (?) IV, the "twelve year old ruler of the kingdom of Swawak" arriving at Hudson University for a visit.  Ace college student and arrested-development superhero Dick Grayson is assigned to the unenviable task of taking this unctuous brat on a walkabout.  Looking like a pastier version of Hadji from Jonny Quest, this twerp quickly tells Dick to go pound sand right in the middle of his tour.

"Who cares?  I want to see 'malt shops' where the 'cats and chicks hang out' - just like in the American films!  I am interested in 'Sock Hops' and 'Beach Blanket Bingo'!"

Just as Dick is about to break the awkward news that Annette Funicello is dead, a flock of seagulls (?) decides to reference a different American movie by going all Hitchcockian on the crowd.  While Dick switches into his Robin-flavored Underoos, a helicopter suddenly appears from out of nowhere and snatches up the pint-size royal pain in the ass.  Fortunately, the Teen Wonder manages to capture and interrogate one of the kidnappers.

"Yeah, I'll tell ya, why not?" says the crook.

I guess with all that rampant individualism in the Late Sixties, it was hard to find loyal hired goons back then.  Almost immediately this mook starts squawking like a boiled canary.

"A lard-legged dude named Forster Aptenodytes payed us to put the snatch on the snot."

Welp, I suppose it's a better gig then putting snot in the snatch.  Ewwwwwww.

Armed with this convenient tidbit of info, Dick Grayson races back in the Batcave in his camper van / shaggin' wagon.  After a quick chin-wag, Robin's "guardian and mentor" recognizes "Forster Aptenodytes" as the scientific name "Aptenodytes Fosteri": the Emperor Penguin!

WORLD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE, bitches!

We then switch back to the Penguin's hideout where he's chiding King Weenus not to touch his "private pet", I.E. a fully-grown Emperor Penguin who seems to have a diaperless run of the place.  We soon learn that ol' Pengy is trying to ransom the little shit back to the Prime Minister of Swawak in exchange for dictatorial powers over the country.  Seems legit.

There's also an absolutely bangin' servant girl drifting around in the background who apparently likes to cosplay as Barbara Eden in I Dream of Genie.  Man, this book sure wears it's influences on its sleeve.  Anyway, this thinly-veiled chick (pun not intended) offers a big clue to her identity when she intervenes on behalf of the boy and whispers to him:

"Do not worry!  I've had experience dealing with evil!"  Hmmmmmmm...

Fast forward two days later and our heroes are about to storm the back door of a castle.

"You're sure the King is being held in his own Palace?" the Teen Titan wonders out aloud.

"I'll give you big odds he is," the Dark Knight returns. "Remember...the Penguin's...particularly fond of Edgar Alan Poe's Purloined Letter, the story about a missing paper that's where the hero least expects it - right in plain sight!  Also, the castle is called 'Lu Dlom' in the native language - meaning approximately 'Roost of Wings'."

Um, okay.

En route to the summit we get yet another prime dollop of foreshadowing when Batman and Robin pass by an eagle's nest with three ropes dangling nearby.

"I don't know what that means," Batman says, "But it gives me a chill!"  Testify, brotha.      

At the apex of the battlements we get six glorious panels that act as a pleasant contrast to the past three awesome-yet-relentlessly-dark Chris Nolan Batman flicks:

Meanwhile, inside the palace, King Weeble makes the mistake of bellyachin' about the cold during the Penguin's all-you-can-hork seafood buffet.  Monsieur Cobblepot earns a few brownie points with the reader by coming up with the following vicious verbal smack-down:

"Silence, motor-mouth!  We like the cold!  Whine again and I'll feed you to the eels!"  

While the "anonymous" servant girl demands that the pint-sized monarch be given a blanket, Batman watches intently from the wings:

"Her movements - fluid as quicksilver...unmistakably graceful - and the voice...like sun-warmed honey!  It's her!"

Before the Penguin has a chance to perforate the mystery girl, the Batman and Robin swoop in and relieve the villain of his trademark pointy umbrella.  After making short work of the remaining henchmen, our heroes make the mistake of underestimating Penguin's unconventional pet, who knocks them both out with a perfidious peck from his poisonous poker.  Oh well, at least they weren't taken out by something really embarrassing.  Like Calendar Man, for example.    

Just before they're both hauled off, the servant girl rushes in to comfort the unconscious Dark Knight.

"Darling!  Darling!" she says, vainly trying to rouse him.

"You're fond of him, eh?" the Penguin cackles.  "Excellent!  You'll join him at the Eagle's Nest.  You'll all three swing, suffer...and scream!"

Our dauntless heroes wake up to find themselves suspended from the very same ropes we saw earlier in the story.  Naturally this turns out to be a classic, irrationally-complicated deathtrap.

"What's the Penguin's program?" Robin asks plaintively.

"Observe the nest below - the infant eagles," the servant girl says.  "Their mother will return..."

"And she'll think we're threatening her little ones!  She'll claw us to ribbons!" Batman quickly concludes.

And that's when the big secret is revealed: the servant girl is actually Talia al Ghul, daughter of Batman's legendary nemesis Ra's al Ghul.  In a shameful (but still welcome) script convenience, Talia admits that she was posing as a servant to "learn the state of Swawak's treasure".  So, not only is this chick smokin' hawt, she's also honest to a fault.  Honestly, I have no idea what Batman's problem is.  If I was him, I'd hit that quicker then a super-villain with a glass jaw.    

Thanks to some incredible acrobatics, Robin manages to swing up to a higher ledge.  Suspecting that his whole "execution by eagle" scheme probably wasn't very practical after all, the Penguin grabs an M-16 (!) from a nearby guard and prepares to go all Charles Whitman on our heroes.

But then King Peabo Bryson's testicles finally drop and he attacks the Penguin just as the monacled creep is about to get a bead.  And how does he do that you may ask?  Does he punch him in his pointy nose?  Kick him in the shins?  Punt him in the cubes?  Nope, he  BITES THE PENGUIN ON THE F#@&ING FLIPPER.

He then hops up on the ledge and threatens to huck himself over if Cobblepot makes one false move.  This results in an immediate stalemate since, without the kid's signature, the Penguin's power play is kaput.

Meanwhile Robin uses a well-placed rock to the thyroid to stun poor momma eagle.  After seeing this panel for the first time ever as a four year old kid, I distinctly remember fighting the irrational desire to form PETA.

Then things go completely Batshit™ nuts.  Somehow our heroes manage to climb the ropes and get back up over the parapet.  In all the excitement, King Peabody falls off the wall but manages to get a grip on a "slim gap in the stones".  Then Batman starts doing what he does best: kicking Herculean amounts of ass.  Just look at this panel.  LOOK AT IT!!!

Note: expert use of shit-baked Penguin in extreme foreground.  

Finally it comes down to a mano-a-mano melee between Batman and the Penguin.  Do I even need to show you how that plays out?  Yes, because it's a whole lungful of awesome.

The final four panels are kinda bittersweet.  In a classic scene that's been replayed many times in their troubled relationship, Talia goes to speak to Batman but he totally blows her off:

"You came to Swawak to commit a crime!  You didn't...and you helped us prevent greater crimes.  Maybe... just maybe you've earned your freedom.  Leave, Talia!  Because if I turn around and you're still here, I'll have to make a decision that could ruin me!  For both of our sakes, go!  Please!"

Whoa, heavy, man.

Then things get even more pimp.  King Pebbles offers the Dynamic Duo "rubies...diamonds...anything!" (translation: loose womens) but Batman turns him down in style:

"No, your young majesty...any reward would be either too much...or not enough!"      

Leaving Robin to ponder: 'Hey, one of those diamonds would probably pay for my books this semester, you jerkstore!'

Writer Dennis O'Neil's appropriately melancholy text in the final panel serves as the perfect capper for this tale of "Comedy and Tragedy":

I loved this story.  It taught me several important things, namely:

(1)  Comic book characters can age.  Robin's in university here, which is kinda neat from a continuity point of view.  Hmmmmm, I wonder if he takes all of his dirty laundry back to Alfred every weekend?
(2)  The Penguin was cool enough to warrant me asking for his Mego action figure.  Unfortunately a large part of me still thinks that he's kind of a sad f#@k.
(3)  Don't underestimate a homicidal Emperor Penguin.
(4)  In a related point, sometimes it's okay to kill an animal when it's trying to rip your face off.
(5)  Comic book -- punctuation...is not -- always entirely...accurate.
(5)  ME LIKES GURLZ.  I mean, c'mon, look at this babe:

To this day, the Irv Novick / Dick Giordano image of Batman is still iconic to me.  Yes, I understand why movie Batman is always dressed head-to-toe in black.  Real-life bats are black, all-black is bad-ass, colors photograph light...blah, blah, blah.  But once, just once, I wanna see a cinematic Batman in a dark blue cape, cowl, boots and gloves, with dark gray body armor and a dark yellow belt and chest insignia.

Frankly, Hollywood would be stupid not to pursue this.  Chris Nolan's Batman was so dark, they really need to lighten things up a bit.  Not Batman & Robin or Batman the Movie light.  I'm talking about tapping directly into an aspect of the character that hasn't been covered very much.  And by "very much" I mean not at all.

I'm telling you right now: get Benedict Cumberbatch into weight training, stick him in a dark blue and gray Batsuit and start filming The World's Greatest Detective right the eff now.

Call me, Hollywood.  I can help you make this happen...     

EPIC COSTUME  C'mon, guys, try it.  Just once for me...

FEATHERED FAIL-URE  "The Penguin has chosen an older, heavier female, as he often does, to guarantee a mating..."

Comic Book Confidential: Fabulous First Issue!

Excelsior, True Believers!

I'd like to say that my reading career got started with Shakespeare and Chaucer, but the first things I remember reading were comic books.  They were completely fascinating to me. 

And let me tell ya, even at a ripe young age of four, I had some pretty damned good taste.  As far as I know, Detective # 450 was the very first comic book I ever owned:

Granted, my copy isn't nearly in as a good a shape as this one.  The cover is hanging on for dear life, there's ball point pen marks tracing some of the lettering and many of the pages are dog-eared.  But considering that it's close to forty years old now, it's in remarkably good shape.

The book itself is fantastic.  Mercifully, it was written long after Batman had veered away from being jokey, prime-time zeitgeist fodder and back into The World's Greatest Detective.  The story kicks off in style with our hero grilling a sweaty, overweight mob boss named Harcourt about the assassination of a United States Senator.  During this scene we get one of the book's coolest lines:

Harcourt: "Y-you can't do this!  The Supreme Court says I have to be told of my rights first!"
Batman:  "True, the police can't interrogate you without counsel...that's one reason I'm not a policeman!"

Absolutely bad-ass.

The story proceeds with what appears to be a flashback.  Harcourt is seen hiring a master assassin named Jeremy Wormwood to procure Batman's cape and cowl, presumably just for bragging rights.

Tipped off by a clever riddle ("Where Beowulf and young Babe Ruth stand side-by-side with John Wilkes Booth, Batman will find a plot uncouth"), the Dark Knight swings his way sans Batmobile to Father Knickerbocker's Wax Museum.  Once there, he's lured into a steel re-enforced room with a 10,000 watt wax-and-flesh-melting bulb mounted in the ceiling overhead.  Via intercom, Wormwood orders Batman to surrender his cape and cowl.  Faced with what appears to be certain death, the Caped Crusader is forced to comply. 

Wormwood returns the prize to Harcourt, who makes the assassin undergo an ultraviolet ID scan to prove that he isn't the Batman in disguise.  As Harcourt pours a drink for the both of them, he manages to coax Wormwood into confessing his role in the Senator's murder.  After the retainer turns his back for a second, the cape and cowl suddenly springs to life.  After a brief but vicious fracas, the killer is soundly defeated.

After the Caped Crusader pummels Wormwood into submission, we get another great exchange:

Wormwood: I surrender.
Batman: We've already established that.  

Before the Caped Crusader vanishes from sight, Commissioner Gordon asks him if he could have escaped from Wormwood's "Death Trap" if he had to.

"That assassin's 'escape proof' masterpiece?  Actually, while all the molten wax in that room was soft, it was also heavy enough to fill the hand portion of my glove, which I could have knotted securely to make a kind of throwing hammer!  No matter what material the heat bulb was made out of, it certainly couldn't withstand both a battering and that extreme heat for long!"

Of course he would have escaped!  He's the goddamned Batman!
   
As if the story isn't awesome enough, the accompanying art was provided by the truly amazing Walter Simonson, who'd graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design just two years prior.  Walt would go on to provide some memorable art for both DC and Marvel throughout the Seventies and Eighties.  In fact, if not for Simonson's work on The Mighty Thor, I probably would never have given that character a second glance.

In addition to showing Batman as an "Avenging Creature of the Night" who's capable of three-dimensional thinking, "The Cape & Cowl Death Trap" also showcases his penchant for disguise.  Without a great deal of effort he's able to pass himself off as a dewy-looking, morbidly-obese mob boss.  Even though Batman isn't depicted as a black-clad, psychologically-damaged maniac with a bad case of adenoids, he's still more subtly bad-ass then any of his cinematic incarnations.  I'm still waiting patiently for this incarnation of Batman to come to the big screen.

In addition to "The Cape & Cowl Death Trap", Detective # 450 features a Robin solo story called "The Parking Lot Bandit".  What's kinda cool about this tale is that it features Dick Grayson as a Frosh at Hudson University trying to unravel the mystery of a serial purse-snatcher who uses the victim's stolen ID and keys to rob their homes.  The surprisingly sophisticated mystery plot by Bob Rozakis actually gives young readers an opportunity to play amateur sleuths.   Add in some tremendous art by Al Milgrom and a very young inker named Terry Austin and you've got a Robin story that isn't just filler.  

I'm a realist when it comes to stuff like this.  Even though I was technically in possession of this comic when I was only four years old, I can't be sure exactly when I read it and digested exactly what was going on.  But I'm also confident that kids can be pretty sharp and I eventually came to absorb this remarkable piece of pop art, even if it was by osmosis.

At the very least, I can say in all confidence that I'm not a Batman bandwagon jumper.  Apparently I've been a fan of his since I was four years old.

EPIC PANEL  This panel, from page eight of the comic, could very well be my all-time favorite image of THE BATMAN...

ROBIN THE BOY FAIL-URE Comics just haven't been the same since it became frowned upon to routinely pimp-slap your ward...

Ode To A Tech-Free Childhood

Hello, Virtual Play Palz!

I read recently that American kids spend almost eight hours a day watching T.V., playing videogames, surfing the net, and presumably typing 'LOL' a hundred times in a row.  I find this statistic to be supremely troubling.

But before I start getting all self-righteous ("Too Late, Gramps!"), I must confess that we really didn't have the sort of sophisticated and compulsively addictive diversions that wee ones now have access to.  If I'd been born in the past, say, twenty years, I'd probably be checking new texts every ten seconds like a rat on cocaine as well.

Nowadays kids have all kinds of cool shit at their disposal: streaming video, smart phones, iPads, and Blu-Ray players.  Cripes, even their friggin' eyewear will soon become leet.

Just as an example, look at how far video games have come.  Here's a dragon as depicted in last year's The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim:

And here's a dragon from the Atari video game Adventure from 1979:

In the immortal words of Thor, God of Thunder: "Verily, I shit thee not." 

And I had to wait ten or eleven years before I encountered technology like that.  When I was really young, like seven or eight, this was my idea of a video game...

And for comparison's sake, here's what a hockey player looks like in NHL 13: 

And here's what that same player looked like in Mattel Electronics Hockey (magnified 300%):

That's right, kids!  Imagine not being able to tell the difference between Sidney Crosby and a friggin' price sticker?

Despite our clearly primitive graphics capabilities, I still had the best childhood you could ever imagine.  Any given day during the summer was a new and exciting adventure.  First off, you'd get up at the crack of dawn and watch Star Blazers while eating a mixing bowl filled with cereal...  

  

Nutritious breakfast consumed, you'd hop on your bike and pedal furiously down to your best buddy's place.  In fact, the better part of your day would be spent astride your one-speed crotch rocket.  Often we'd ape adult behavior by selecting a destination and pedaling there at a drunkenly neglegent rate (sans helmet, natch!).  Once we got there, we'd deploy our kick stands and "hang out" (I.E. loiter), leaning on our seats like motorbike-riding teenagers and taking care not to stray too far from our "rides" lest we invite a case of "Grand Theft Bike".

Then we'd pester the bejesus out of some poor shop-keep, buying penny candy in batches of one or blowing our wads on one of these lurid and colorful titles:

 
En route back home we'd encounter the neighborhood spoiled rich kid who's parents could afford to buy him a Green Machine or Big Wheel.  This moron would brag that he'd be doing a "crazy jump" in the dirt lot across the street from our apartment building at 2 pm so we'd "better be there" 'cuz it's "gonna be just like Evel Knievel".

So naturally we'd all show up at the appointed time to gawk and make fun of this dumb f#@k as he tried in vain to pedal up a flimsy plywood ramp on a plastic bike.  Fast forward a few months later and Richy Rich would still be trying to kill himself for the sake of some "respek", perhaps this time astride a heavy, oversized motocross bike that would flip him off into the woods after he invariably lost his balance half way up the ramp.

Later that same afternoon a rumor would begin to circulate that THE ASSHOLE KIDS WHO LIVED UP ON THE HILL had greviously insulted someone's neighborhood / mom / bike and challenged us to a rock fight a 4 pm sharp.  Speaking of sharp, the traditional arena for this tilt was the empty lot (hey, what can I say, we had a lot of lots back then) at the bottom of THE HILL behind our apartment, which was nicely stockpiled with shale, I.E. the WMD's of the Grade Two-set:

Mercifully there was also several large boulders to take cover behind so this often went on like a protracted, low-rent version of laser tag until the first kid got clipped and the battle was decided.  Even these early experiences served to delineate a clear line in the sand between childhood fantasy and painful adult reality.  

FANTASY: "My newly acquired Spider-Man web shooters will surely be the deciding factor in the coming battle!"    

  

REALITY: "Ze web shooters, zey do NOTHINK!!!"

Knowing full well that we still had at least three solid hours of daylight left, we'd scrarf our dinners down like pythons eating a capybara.  We were soon back outside again, either leading a platoon of stormtroopers in a futile search for droids or creating our very own Sim City for a fleet of dinkies:

Which brings me to a quick aside.  One time while me and my buddies were playing dinkies, the resident ruffian Alan came along and kicked apart all of our painstakingly elaborate civic planning.  That particular day I'd spent most of the morning reading Batman comic books, so I decided to do what Batman does to every villain: I stood and tried to punch the bully square in the mush with a haymaker.  Unfortunately my quarry ducked and I ended up punching the brick wall that he was standing behind.  Yowtch!    

Then, just before dusk you and your team of pint-sized Steve Irwins would catch a grass snake, sparking off a heated U.N. style debate about which lucky big game hunter would be allowed to take it home.  One time when I was the "winner" I had to spend hours lobbying to keep the beast in my room.  Eventually my poor long-suffering mother let me seal it up in a disused aquarium with an entire set of encyclopedias holding the lid down.  The next morning my room stunk like the gorilla cage at Granby Zoo after a week-long maintenance strike.

Yeah, it goes without saying that releasing the snake back into his natural habitat was my first action item in that particular day.

Honestly, every summer day would be like that: a constant rinse, wash and repeat of outdoor adventures.  I know that kids today posses vastly superior diversions but frankly I'd never trade it for my own low-tech childhood.

EPIC   Go ahead...live the adventure that is, um...Adventure.

FAIL   And we wonder why there's a health epeidemic in North America.