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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 1, 2015 22:41:16 GMT -5
OK, I give up on Barry Allen for now... I just don't like him that much when he's not fighting Grodd  Instead, a bit further along in the Silver Age...  Detective Comics #359 Fox/Infantino/Greene 'Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl' Dr. Barbara Gordon makes a 'Batgirl' outfit for a masquerade party, and ends up trying to save Bruce Wayne from a shakedown by Killer Moth. Of course, Batman has to save her in the end... allowing Moth to escape. She decides she likes being Batgirl, and ends up first messing up Batman and Robin's plans, then bailing them out. Back home, Commissioner Gordon tells his daughter how she ought to be more like Batgirl. Notes: -- While the usual 60s comic book sexism is pretty rampant here, at least Batgirl does some useful stuff.. even if every time she does so Batman says some variant of 'I coulda done that!' -- I had no idea pre-crisis Barbara Gordon was so old... she's got to be in her mid-20s anyway.. make the whole Batgirl-Robin couple thing pretty weird -- I could have done without the last page at home with dad... which is the usual silver age DC hero-in-civilian-id-ironically-interacts-with-signifigant-other.. only with her dad. - Love that Killer Moth's henchmen are Larva and Pupa... way to stick in some science! There's also a book auction reference  -- A little heavy on the bad puns.. is that the TV shows influence, or did the comic do it first? I'd say this is the best 60s DC origin story there is.. no nonsense science or ridiculous co-incidences, just a smart, adventurous woman who has an oppertunity and seizes it. Rating: B+ Historical Signifigance: A (1st Barbara Gordon Batgirl) |
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rossn
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Post by rossn on Sept 2, 2015 6:23:41 GMT -5
OK, I give up on Barry Allen for now... I just don't like him that much when he's not fighting Grodd Instead, a bit further along in the Silver Age... Detective Comics #359 Robbins/Kane/Anderson 'Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl' Dr. Barbara Gordon makes a 'Batgirl' outfit for a masquerade party, and ends up trying to save Bruce Wayne from a shakedown by Killer Moth. Of course, Batman has to save her in the end... allowing Moth to escape. She decides she likes being Batgirl, and ends up first messing up Batman and Robin's plans, then bailing them out. Back home, Commissioner Gordon tells his daughter how she ought to be more like Batgirl. Notes: -- While the usual 60s comic book sexism is pretty rampant here, at least Batgirl does some useful stuff.. even if every time she does so Batman says some variant of 'I coulda done that!' -- I had no idea pre-crisis Barbara Gordon was so old... she's got to be in her mid-20s anyway.. make the whole Batgirl-Robin couple thing pretty weird -- I could have done without the last page at home with dad... which is the usual silver age DC hero-in-civilian-id-ironically-interacts-with-signifigant-other.. only with her dad. - Love that Killer Moth's henchmen are Larva and Pupa... way to stick in some science! There's also a book auction reference -- A little heavy on the bad puns.. is that the TV shows influence, or did the comic do it first? I'd say this is the best 60s DC origin story there is.. no nonsense science or ridiculous co-incidences, just a smart, adventurous woman who has an oppertunity and seizes it. Rating: B+ Historical Signifigance: A (1st Barbara Gordon Batgirl) I just read the Batgirl Showcase book and loved it, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you make of the rest of them. Really enjoying this thread btw, even if most of the comics are ones I've never read - most of my Silver Age interest has been in Superman, Supergirl, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and the Legion. Being much too young for the actual Silver Age those Showcase books are a godsend! |
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
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Post by shaxper on Sept 2, 2015 8:19:45 GMT -5
 Justice League of America #6 I LOVE some of these early covers! And this one even actually happened in the comic. Plot: The League members are all having bad luck, seemingly caused by 'classic' superstitions... Wonder Woman has a black cat cross her path, Green Lantern spills salt, etc. Professor Amos Fortune, however, knows exactly why... he's discovered that people have luck glands, and he can stimulate them, giving himself good luck, while giving the Justice League bad. The League come together for their Monthly meeting (since no emergencies have come up), and find that they've all been having bad luck, but they dismiss it. They have some mail (2 letters.... in a MONTH), and they decide to go help the people.. one looking for treasure, and the other a museum burgular. In both cases, they have random bad luck at first, and Prof. Fortune swoops in to reap the rewards, but the League overcomes at the end. Fortune is confused by this, and decides he must capture the JLA to figure out what's going on. He determines that over time the good luck gland makes up for the jolt to the bad luck gland he gave them, so he straps them to a giant wheel, which will somehow destroy their luck glands. Sadly for him... Martians don't have them... J'onn's bad luck was just a co-incidence! He escapes and frees the others. The End! Analysis: Very good (if every silver age-y) story... it does stick with the formula, but he Prof. Fortune is a great bad guy, so that's OK... this is pre-Royal Flush Gang, obviously. No pretense of Superman and Batman this time.. they're mentioned on the roll call, but that's it. I frankly prefer that... call them reserves or whatever. They 'letters from people in need' thing gets used for the Titans later... but in the meantime someone realized about scale... the Titans got BAGS of letters.. the JLA gets 2 in a month. I guess they're not too famous yet. It was pretty cool to think of superheroes making housecalls though, and they say in the story (or rather, Wonder Woman does) that they answer such things all the time. Ahh... such a more innocent time. Also, I LOVE Prof. Fortune's luck mumu... classic. Story: B+ Significance: A- (1st Prof. Fortune, 1st JLA without a token Superman and Batman appearance) Just read this issue tonight on a whim and was surprised by how much I loved it. I'm at work right now and not able to look up the artist, but some of those faces were visually astonishing, and each managed to convey a completely different personality even while the writing was generally flat on characterization. Wonder Woman's emotions were delightfully big -- expressing surprise and even disappointment with wide eyes and the slight tilt of the mouth, while J'Onn Jonez had a hardened exterior, Barry Allen always looked overly alert, Green Arrow looked youthful and relaxed, and Green Lantern always looked severe. Also, it's rare to find riddles in a Silver Age DC book that actually end up having reasonable solutions at the close. This book contained two -- the riddle about the inheritance, and the question of why it mattered that humans had two "luck glands" instead of just one. A nicely done story, considering the trappings of the era. Lots of fun, for sure. |
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Post by MDG on Sept 2, 2015 10:16:13 GMT -5
Just read this issue tonight on a whim and was surprised by how much I loved it. I'm at work right now and not able to look up the artist, but some of those faces were visually astonishing, and each managed to convey a completely different personality even while the writing was generally flat on characterization. Wonder Woman's emotions were delightfully big -- expressing surprise and even disappointment with wide eyes and the slight tilt of the mouth, while J'Onn Jonez had a hardened exterior, Barry Allen always looked overly alert, Green Arrow looked youthful and relaxed, and Green Lantern always looked severe. Art on the first 70 or so JLAs is by Mike Sekowsky who sometimes gets a bad rap from fans, but who did a great job on the series (even with the sometimes-clunky Bernie Sachs inking). |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 2, 2015 13:15:06 GMT -5
I just read the Batgirl Showcase book and loved it, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you make of the rest of them. Really enjoying this thread btw, even if most of the comics are ones I've never read - most of my Silver Age interest has been in Superman, Supergirl, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen and the Legion. Being much too young for the actual Silver Age those Showcase books are a godsend! I agree! Most of this thread is from Showcases... I have about 10 of them I swap back and forth between... the Flash and JLA I went crazy and got Omnibuses for. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 2, 2015 13:19:12 GMT -5
I apparently only mentioned the cover in my review, but I agree with you, Shax, on the JLA art... that was definitely my favorite of the early ones. The best part was the spliting up the team thing actually made sense for once!
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 3, 2015 22:38:17 GMT -5
 Detective 363 'The True-False Face of Batman' Fox/Infantino/Greene Plot: Much like last Batgirl story, we have Babs solving a crime by herself, only to get overwhelmed at the last minute while having Batman and Robin make the save. This time, though, one of the crooks gets away, and plants a bug on her. Luckily, Batman notices it and switches it to himself, while putting on an act of revealing his secret identity. In typical Silver Age fashion, he tells Batgirl exactly who he is, but does so with obvious make-up on, so she assumes it's a trick. The bad guys do to, I guess, since they don't reveal it to the world or anything as they hear it over the bug. Of course, these crooks are exchanging secret messages through library books, so they're easy prey for Gotham's librarian crime fighter! Batman and Robin hang in the library and ambush him when he arrives.. the end! Notes: -- They're using quite a strange mix of 'damsel in distress' and partner so far... I'm not sure I like it long term -- Oh, DC and your educational tibdits.... I wonder if they made her a librarian just so they could have and excuse to mention/show classic literature. I find that very amusing. -- Robin's mixture of awe and jealous is awesome -- I do wonder how many times they can hook crooks to the library -- We get another 1 page cameo with dad at the end... Rating: B History C- (2nd Batgirl) |
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rossn
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Post by rossn on Sept 4, 2015 4:44:30 GMT -5
-- They're using quite a strange mix of 'damsel in distress' and partner so far... I'm not sure I like it long term Me neither but it does sort of make sense in universe and out: In-universe: Babs is a novice hero. She's capable and very smart (though maybe not the outright genius she is portrayed Post-Crisis) but she's still learning the ropes. Out-of-universe: Babs is a novice hero and its not yet clear she'll be able to make it on her own, so better to have the established heroes around to persuade people to start reading. A nearly identical process happened a decade earlier where the early Supergirl stories in Action Comics were dominated by Superman before she started going solo. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 4, 2015 8:40:28 GMT -5
It's more the fact that Batman had to save her than his presence itself. Granted, they made a point to show she figured out the case herself, which was good, it was the fighting scenes that made me cringe just a little. The next one should be interesting... it's a World's Finest |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 6, 2015 22:52:58 GMT -5
 World's Finest #169 'The Supergirl/Batgirl Plot' Bates/Swan/Klein Plot: Supergirl and Batgirl team up outside Metropolis against a giant gaseous hand, and narrowly defeat it. They decide that Superman and Batman need to be taken down a couple pegs, so first they embarass them (Supergirl somehow steals Superman's powers, and Batgirl makes Batman beg a bad guy for mercy), then steal all their stuff. The World's finest team ends up on the side of the road in a beat up batmobile, when it's revealed that Batgirl and Supergirl are really Black Flame and Catwoman in disguise.. Supergirl and Batgirl were stuck in another dimension. Then the impostors turn out to be Bat Mite and Myzpltyk, who were betting on who'd figure it out. Bat Mite loses, but gets Myzpltyk to say his name backwards and sorta 'wins' All goes back to normal.. the end! Summary: wow, talk about Silver Age silliness! Still pretty fun, though, and the cover is amazingly cool. I wouldn't want to read alot of these, as they're almost self-parody, but once in a while is fun. Plot: B History B (first Supergirl/Batgirl team up) |
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Post by Cei-U! on Sept 7, 2015 7:58:55 GMT -5
One of my favorite WFs of that era, precisely because of all the "Silver Age silliness." I love that Mort Weisinger and his writers kept Bat-Mite part of the Bat-mythos for several years after Julius Schwartz took over the Bat-titles and dropped the Bat-Family characters. Also, Swan and Klein draw a great Batgirl.
Cei-U!
I summon the goofiness... or I would if the damned video ads didn't keep hanging my computer up! Grr!
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Post by Farrar on Sept 7, 2015 17:50:32 GMT -5
Detective Comics #359 Robbins/Kane/Anderson 'Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl' ... -- A little heavy on the bad puns.. is that the TV shows influence, or did the comic do it first? The tone was likely due to the TV show's influence. And speaking of the TV show's influence, Carmine Infantino (among others) has written that the Babs Gordon Batgirl was created at the request of the William Dozier and the TV producers, so that there would be a kick-ass female character who'd appear on a regular basis in the next season (fall of 1967). EDIT: btw, I think you may have copied/pasted the wrong credits into your excellent review. The Detective #359 Batgirl debut was written by Gardner Fox and illustrated by Infantino/Sid Greene. The famous cover's by the great team of Infantino-Murphy Anderson. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 7, 2015 21:23:28 GMT -5
I did... thought I had fixed that when I noticed it.. guess I didn't. Wikipedia says the comic and the TV versions of Batgirl were pretty simultaneous.. almost like the TV guys said 'we need a female Bat-character!' and the comics guys said 'great idea!' and thus Batgirl was born. It's too bad the TV people of today can have great synergy like that! |
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Post by chadwilliam on Sept 7, 2015 21:48:09 GMT -5
Wikipedia says the comic and the TV versions of Batgirl were pretty simultaneous.. almost like the TV guys said 'we need a female Bat-character!' and the comics guys said 'great idea!' and thus Batgirl was born. It's too bad the TV people of today can have great synergy like that! Actually, as close as the TV show debut was with the comic book one, Batgirl was introduced in the newspaper strip between those two events - so that's three separate mediums working in tandem with one another. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 7, 2015 22:04:35 GMT -5
Wow, that is pretty neat!
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