BATMAN #299 and down (reviews by Hoosier X)BATMAN #256
"The Catwoman’s Circus Caper!"
May/June 1974
Story: Denny O’Neil
Art: Irv Novick and Dick Giordano
Editor: Julius Schwartz
I got this digitally through Comixology a few months ago. Only 99 cents!
I hadn't originally intended to review any digital comics. But I bought #252, #255 and #256 digitally within the last few months, and there are several reasons why it seems fortuitous to go ahead and review them just as if I had the physical comics. The last comic I reviewed was #257, so these three comics fit very snugly into the space between #257 and the next issue of Batman I own, #251.
Also, there's so many good stories here! Not just great ones, but even a few vital ones! Like where the giant penny and the robot dinosaur come from! #255 features some great Neal Adams art as Batman fights another menace that (secretly) is a member of his men's club. But this time, it's a werewolf. The same issue also has the story from Star-Spangled Comics where Robin fights Crazy-Quilt! And a really wonderfully dumb Outsider story! Batman #252 features a key story of the Spook! I love the Spook's appearances in Detective and I didn't know that there was a story in Batman that gave away most of his secrets until I got #252 a few weeks ago. (No, this story doesn't have any explanation that really makes a whole lot of sense of the Spook. But we don't love the Spook because he makes any sense, do we?)
Batman #256 opens with a Catwoman story titled "Catwoman's Circus Caper!" It's not one of the better Catwoman stories. Writer Dennis O'Neil would write a much better Catwoman story a little more than a year later, in Batman #266.
I like it anyway. It's a change of pace for Catwoman. She's maintaining a low profile, masquerading as a tamer of the big cats. Batman has no idea that she's anywhere around. He's at the circus to investigate a murder. Somebody tampered with the trapeze and one of the performers fell to his death. It's a suspicious murder that cuts a little too close to home for Robin, so he goes to the circus to investigate, and Batman can't be far behind.
They stumble on to Catwoman in the midst of her heist. She was trying to capture the white tigers so they wouldn't have to suffer the humiliation of having to perform. They mix it up for a few pages and Catwoman is finally apprehended. (There's some nice art from Irv Novick here.) I'm not sure but I think this might be the first story where Catwoman's animal-rights-activist nature peeks through. She's not stealing a cat-shaped diamond or robbing the receipts at an exclusive cat show. She's not stealing the tigers; she's liberating them. (I could be totally wrong about this. Feel free to point out a story from the 1940s that I never heard of.)
As for the murder, Catwoman didn't do it. The two trapeze artists were brothers, and one of them killed his own brother because he was in love with the wild-cat tamer (Catwoman in disguise) and thought that she loved the other one. She just can't help but cause trouble even when she doesn't mean to. It’s a good examination of Selina Kyle's tragic nature.
She's wearing that weird blue outfit with the big red mask. I'm so glad she changed back to the purple and green, but I don't mind seeing this odd suit from time to time.
"Dinosaur Island!"
From Batman #35 (June/July 1946)
Writer: Bill Finger
Artist: Paul Cooper and Ray Burnley
Editor: Jack Schiff
And then there's a bunch of reprints, including "Dinosaur Island!' Batman and Robin are chased around at an amusement park by robot dinosaurs and cavemen! It's supposed to be all in fun, for charity, but one of the men involved in management or finance (or something) at the park decides to turn it into a deadly game! (He has a weird motive; he's going to kill Batman and Robin and then go to Gotham and form an underworld organization of some kind. (It's called a "crime combine" at one point.) Dude, you're getting ahead of yourself! Form the crime combine first! If you can kill Batman and Robin by yourself, you don't need a crime combine!)
The art is really wild. It doesn't look like the 1940s Batman artists I'm familiar with. The Grand Comics Database says it's Paul Cooper, inked by Ray Burnley. I don't know a thing about this Cooper guy, but a lot of the inking does look to my inexpert eye like Burnley. But I think some of it looks a bit like the work of Fletcher Hanks – all those crazy dinosaurs, the thick inking, the bizarre anatomy in places, especially after they get to the island. The villain looks a bit like some of the Hanks villains I've seen. And that awkward portable control box he carries on his chest, it looks a bit like something Hanks would come up with.
It's not likely that it's Hanks. He was active in 1939 to 1941 and as far as I know, there is no evidence that he ever drew comics after that. But he lived into the 1960s.
Anyway, Dinosaur Island is where Batman got the dinosaur robot for the Bat-Cave. He apparently got two dinosaur robots – a brontosaurus and a T. rex – and he used to put one on display and I guess he kept the other in a giant Bat-Cave storeroom. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, he switched them around a bit. (Batman #48 (1948) has the T. rex but Detective Comics #158 (1950) features the brontosaurus.) Eventually, the T. rex robot (apparently nicknamed Rexie by Robin) became a permanent fixture in the Bat-Cave. (I looked at a few databases and indexes while I was researching the stories in Batman #256 and one of them said that Rexie did not come from Dinosaur Island. Apparently there was at least one more Batman adventure featuring dinosaur robots. This particular index did not give any specific information about where such a story appeared. I figured the history of the Bat-Cave's dinosaur robots was a little more complicated that I had at first realized and probably deserves a post of its own.)
"The Penny Plunderers!"
From World’s Finest #30 (September/October 1947)
Writer: Bill Finger
Artist: Bob Kane and Ray Burnley
Editor: Jack Schiff
And then there's Joe Coyne!
Joe has had a rough time of it. And all his bad luck revolves around pennies! First he was a newsie and he sold newspapers for pennies. When he got a decent office job, he was fired for taking too many breaks to pitch pennies! And when desperation drove him to crime, he robbed a store that only had a few pennies in the cash register!
So in prison, he does what any criminal Gothamite would do in his situation. He will devote his life to crime and his theme crimes will all be about pennies and his crime symbol will be pennies!
So he dresses in a green striped suit with a red tie and assembles a crime gang and starts committing crimes that revolve around pennies. Like he robs a weird rich guy who collects antique piggy banks. And his gang goes to a stamp exhibition to steal a rare one-cent stamp. (And because it's an exhibition in Gotham, the centerpiece is a bunch of gigantic stamp-related objects, like a giant stamp, a giant pair of stamp tongs … and a giant penny! (This is where they got the giant penny for the Bat-Cave.)
And I forgot to mention that Joe Coyne's gang has a hide-out above a penny arcade.
So Batman and Robin and Joe Coyne and his gang mix it up for a few pages until Batman escapes from Joe's inescapable death trap … by using pennies! (He makes a battery out of a copper penny and a wartime zinc penny.)
Later, Joe can save himself with a phone call … but it takes a nickel and all he has is pennies!
Joe just can't get a break!
When Batman and Robin arrive, Joe just gives up. He is done! His crime symbol has betrayed him!
The final panel shows a newsboy selling his papers by blurting out the headline that Joe has been sentenced to death for murder! (He had one of the members of his gang killed for squealing!) And you can find out the details of the trial for only three pennies! Plus, he’s going to be executed by having pennies thrown at him from the top of the Gotham State Building! (Not really. The method of execution is not specified.)
There's a certain finality in that last panel. One of Batman's foes is actually going to die for his crimes! (And not be brought back to life like the Joker in "The Joker Walks the Last Mile!") I don't doubt that Joe Coyne was brought back in some manner fifty years later, but for Golden-, Silver- and Bronze Age Batman, this is it for Joe Coyne. His legacy will always be that giant 1947 wheat penny in the Bat-Cave.
"Brothers in Crime!"
From Batman #12 (August/September 1942)
Writer: Don Cameron
Artist: Jerry Robinson
Editor: Whitney Ellsworth
The theme for this issue is not technically items from the Bat-Cave; it's Batman's trophies! In "Brothers in Crime," Batman and Robin are looking at their Hall of Trophies, and it's not in the Bat-Cave! It seems to be in a secret wing of Wayne Manor. Or something. And Batman and Robin reminisce about some of the items before eventually going into a lengthy flashback that is the bulk of the story. It seems there's this bulletproof vest … and what a story it has!
I'll let you read it for yourself when you have a chance. It's a pretty good story, with several scenes about the drawbacks to being a criminal dumb enough to think that a bulletproof vest makes you invulnerable. Also, a lot of scenes where you sigh "The irony, the irony."
"The Thousand and One Trophies of Batman!"
From Detective Comics #158 (April 1950)
Writer: Edmond Hamilton
Artist: Bob Kane and Charles Paris
Editor: Jack Schiff
Did you know that Batman has his own personal Dr. Doom?
That's right! The villain in this wonderfully crazy story is called Dr. Doom, though instead of wearing a metal suit and a hooded, green torso dress, Batman's Dr. Doom looks like the crooked Southern sheriff from a 1930s movie.
As Batman and the GCPD close in and wreck his latest scheme, Dr. Doom jumps off the pier and sneaks around to the other side, where he climbs back up and hides in a mummy case he had been using in his latest smuggling scheme. Nobody notices. After they stop looking for him, Batman and Robin shrug their shoulders and ask if they can have the "empty" mummy case for their Hall of Trophies.
So that's how Dr. Doom ends up in the Bat-Cave!
He gets out of the case and starts running around in the Hall of Trophies. He is so happy! This is his moment to SHINE! He firmly etches his place in Batman history with the GLEE he emanates as he sets about his task to turn the Hall of Trophies into a series of death traps for Batman and Robin! (This includes the awesome scene in which he tries to squash Robin with the giant penny! And the scene where he attacks the Dynamic Duo with the brontosaurus robot is two pages!)
Just wait until you get to Dr. Doom's ironic demise! It's doubly ironic because he was musing about irony earlier in the story!
Another must-read story! Batman #256 is full of them. I may prefer Batman #257 by a hair but there's no denying that these stories about the Bat-Cave trophies are a lot more essential to the Batman legend than Ally Babble and "Rackety Rax Racket!"
"The Secret of Batman Island!"
From Batman #119 (October 1958)
Writer: Bill Finger
Artist: Sheldon Moldoff and Charles Paris
Editor: Jack Schiff
Another winner! There's this eccentric millionaire – he dresses like a non-crooked Southern sheriff from a 1930s movie – and he collects Batman memorabilia and he keeps it in a large building on an island in the bay, presumably Gotham Bay. He calls it Batman Island, and I like to think you can see it from the Staten Island ferry, close to the New Jersey coast.
He goes over to the city to film the Batman Museum and, guess what?! The Bat-Mobile zooms by! And guess what?! Batman and Robin are pursuing some jewel thieves! And guess what?! He films the pursuit as Batman and Robin proceed to catch the bad guys.
The bad guys are apprehended but the police have to let them go because they don't have any jewels on them. But the eccentric millionaire is happy because he has the biggest collection of Batman-in-action on film, yet he's never actually been lucky enough to film the Caped Crusader himself! So he's all chuffed as he goes back to Batman Island. He has no idea that he's about to have a very interesting evening.
The thieves find out about the film and they have to get it back because they realize it probably shows where they hid the jewels during the pursuit! So they follow the millionaire to Batman Island and start chasing him around the many many exhibits on the island. It's not as easy to get him as the bad guys thought it would be because he knows his way around the island and he knows how all the devices work. Our hero manages to activate his own Bat-Signal! Thus attracting Batman and Robin after Bruce and Dick see the signal from Wayne Manor.
Further Batman bananashenanigans ensue.
I love this story and I love the idea of Batman Island. Kids from Jersey City and Bayonne paddle over to the beach on Batman Island and smoke cigarettes and drink a few beers they acquired from Dad's secret garage cooler. Maybe there’s a big totem pole with an image of the Joker on top that gets pointed out to newcomers the first time they take the ferry. Jimmy Olsen shows up to write a feature about the island, accidently activates one of the exhibits and become giant marmot Jimmy.
The Rebirth Universe needs Batman Island!
And you, dear Batman fan, need to read Batman #256 and experience the WONDER for yourself.
