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Post by MDG on Aug 31, 2016 13:24:41 GMT -5
It seems Alfred's main functions were to have someone for Batman to explain things to so readers knew what he was thinking and to impersonate Batman once in a while.
I think he made cocoa, too.
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Aug 31, 2016 14:36:31 GMT -5
Someone had to polish the giant copper penny. That was a 2 day job
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 31, 2016 15:49:35 GMT -5
I don't know Hoosier, Alfred hardly did much of anything to warrant appearing regularly. As a reader then, I didn't notice when he was missing. Just figured he had a bunch of rooms to dust. Or out walking Ace The Bat Hound.Guess since the stories were so plot heavy and relatively short, to waste a panel or two just to stick in Alfred saying "Dinner is ready" was a waste of space
But there were those Batman II and Robin II tales he was writing in his spare time that I recall. Not that he really participated within those stories but he was the author. I've heard of those Batman II and Robin II stories, probably from Michael Fleisher's Batman encyclopedia, but I've never read one. I have a feeling they are wonderful, in their way. Ish, I'm guessing you rolled your eyes a lot when you saw them on the spinner racks. |
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Post by Action Ace on Aug 31, 2016 19:04:54 GMT -5
Someone had to polish the giant copper penny. That was a 2 day job How long does it take to dust the T-Rex? Perhaps his good friend Superman lets him borrow a couple of Superman robots every week. |
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Post by foxley on Aug 31, 2016 19:16:04 GMT -5
Thanks, Action Ace! I also found the index for Alfred for the same period: Alfred Pennyworth appearancesIt looks like Gordon appeared more often than I realized. Although an awful lot of these are stories where he was in one or two panels. As for Alfred, he does go long periods of time where he doesn't appear that much. He only appeared three times in 1958, for example. According to the index, he didn't appear in Detective Comics at all from Detective Comics #249 to #304! (I have #304. Alfred is in two panels and has one word balloon. He runs into the Bat-Cave (where Bruce and Dick are hanging out in their street clothes) and he tells them that Matt Hagen has escaped from prison!) He is appearing in the Batman comic pretty regularly in that period, according to the index. Fifteen times in a period of four and a half years. Michael Fleisher notes that in the period covered by his Batman encyclopedia Gordon appeared in more stories than anyone except Batman and Robin, but that the majority of these appearances were minor (a few panels). As Gordon remained a regular after Robin left the Batcave, I suspect that these days he would be second only to Batman himself in terms of appearances in the Bat-books. |
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Post by chadwilliam on Aug 31, 2016 19:41:14 GMT -5
It seems Alfred's main functions were to have someone for Batman to explain things to so readers knew what he was thinking and to impersonate Batman once in a while. I think he made cocoa, too.
Strangely enough, Alfred was almost certainly introduced to provide some comic relief - hence his chubby original appearance and clutziness. In a way, that's still his function - only he's now meant to provide wit as opposed to slapstick.
Cocoa aside, I believe Robin was the one introduced to have Batman explain things to (and also sometimes impersonate Batman).
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Post by Action Ace on Aug 31, 2016 21:42:18 GMT -5
I was looking over the comics for the X Years Ago Threads and wanted to give one a special salute. HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY GAGGY!  |
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 31, 2016 22:52:42 GMT -5
I was looking over the comics for the X Years Ago Threads and wanted to give one a special salute. HAPPY 50TH BIRTHDAY GAGGY! Fifty years YOUNG! Not to curse ourselves. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Aug 31, 2016 22:58:35 GMT -5
It seems Alfred's main functions were to have someone for Batman to explain things to so readers knew what he was thinking and to impersonate Batman once in a while. I think he made cocoa, too.
Strangely enough, Alfred was almost certainly introduced to provide some comic relief - hence his chubby original appearance and clutziness. In a way, that's still his function - only he's now meant to provide wit as opposed to slapstick.
Cocoa aside, I believe Robin was the one introduced to have Batman explain things to (and also sometimes impersonate Batman).
Alfred has his own series within the Batman comic book for a short time, I think early- or mid-1940s. They are four-page strips where Alfred overhears something sinister and starts sleuthing and it turns out it was something quite innocent ... but then he stumbles across a real crime! I've only read three or four of them. But I love coming across them every once in a while. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 1, 2016 8:30:47 GMT -5
I pulled out Batman #185 because "Robin Dies at Dawn!" is reprinted here and I wanted to take another look at it. I haven't read it for a while. I still haven't gotten around to it. Batman #185 is an 80-Page Giant, so it's a bunch of reprints. Many of these all-reprint issues centered around a theme, and for this issue, the theme is Robin, so many of the stories are about Robin being a dick, or Batman being a dick to Robin. Of course, there's always a completely sensible and not at all contrived reason for being a dick, revealed at the end of the story. As I was flipping through #185, I noticed a story that I remember as being particularly stupid. This would be "Robin's New Boss!" from Batman #137. This is so bad I don't even have a joke for how bad it is. I thought this was awful when I first read it in the 1990s and it is NOT one of the old Batman stories that I've come to appreciate over the years. If Ish wanted to prove that Jack Schiff was a terrible editor and that everybody who worked on Batman from 1957 to 1964 was an irredeemable hack, "Robin's New Boss!" would be Exhibit A. A new super-hero shows up in Gotham City, and he's known as Marvel Man! And he jets around town in a super-advanced crime-fighting car and uses his superior science to fight crime. He's rather smug about being a scientist who fights crime but never resorts to fisticuffs. Robin abandons Batman to run around with Marvel Man. Batman is very sad. His heart just isn't in crime-fighting anymore, and the generic fedora-wearing bad guys notice! So bananashenanigans ensue for a few pages. Finally we find out that Marvel Man is blackmailing Robin into helping him (I forget why, even though I just read it last night) and the big surprise revelation is that Marvel Man is ... one of those cookie-cutter aliens that Ish was complaining about. He looks like a humanoid moth larvae. Yeah. So dumb. I won't be defending this one. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 1, 2016 8:46:08 GMT -5
Robin's New Boss-that came out a bit before my time. Must have read the reprint as well but my mind automatically hit the delete button. No plans to refresh those particular memory cells with a re-reading. If you say it sucks, it must really suck
The interesting thing about Robin Dies At Dawn was that, besides being a two-parter in the same issue, the first story in the same book actually serves as a prologue. I no longer own my old Batman's but you can look it up at GCD or something. Batman fights some foe named Ant-Man (take that Mr. Pym) , Elements of that story are important to Robin Dies At Dawn but you can still read and enjoy the two stories separately.
Continuity between stories such as this was rare at DC back then
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Post by Hoosier X on Sept 1, 2016 8:59:30 GMT -5
Robin's New Boss-that came out a bit before my time. Must have read the reprint as well but my mind automatically hit the delete button. No plans to refresh those particular memory cells with a re-reading. If you say it sucks, it must really suck The interesting thing about Robin Dies At Dawn was that, besides being a two-parter in the same issue, the first story in the same book actually serves as a prologue. I no longer own my old Batman's but you can look it up at GCD or something. Batman fights some foe named Ant-Man (take that Mr. Pym) , Elements of that story are important to Robin Dies At Dawn but you can still read and enjoy the two stories separately. Continuity between stories such as this was rare at DC back then Batman #185 reprints the Ant-Man story as well as "Robin Dies at Dawn!" On the cover, they call the whole saga a "book-length novel."  |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 1, 2016 9:06:12 GMT -5
Robin's New Boss-that came out a bit before my time. Must have read the reprint as well but my mind automatically hit the delete button. No plans to refresh those particular memory cells with a re-reading. If you say it sucks, it must really suck The interesting thing about Robin Dies At Dawn was that, besides being a two-parter in the same issue, the first story in the same book actually serves as a prologue. I no longer own my old Batman's but you can look it up at GCD or something. Batman fights some foe named Ant-Man (take that Mr. Pym) , Elements of that story are important to Robin Dies At Dawn but you can still read and enjoy the two stories separately. Continuity between stories such as this was rare at DC back then Batman #185 reprints the Ant-Man story as well as "Robin Dies at Dawn!" On the cover, they call the whole saga a "book-length novel." Interesting. As you see on the original cover, they don't |
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Post by Prince Hal on Sept 1, 2016 10:54:42 GMT -5
Someone had to polish the giant copper penny. That was a 2 day job "Sorry, Mawster Bruce. I was down in the Batcave, 'polishing the penny.'" |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 1, 2016 12:29:48 GMT -5
Someone had to polish the giant copper penny. That was a 2 day job "Sorry, Mawster Bruce. I was down in the Batcave, 'polishing the penny.'" Is that what the kids are calling it these days? |
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