I'm not so sure that Jason Todd was all that hated by the fans.  I know he was hated by Jim Starlin who freely admitted that he wanted to kill Robin from the start of his run.  This admission has made me suspect that DC wasn't really deluged with letters claiming they couldn't stand the new Robin, but used that claim as an excuse to have their Kill/Save Robin Contest.  The letter pages at the time didn't really seem to have a lot of complaints against Jason Todd though I suppose it could be that Denny O Neil simply refrained from publishing those letters (this was around the same time that Mike Carlin refused to publish any negative letters about the Big Barda porn issue over in Action Comics in spite of it being pretty clear that he had received a lot of those, as per Shaxper's excellent post-Crisis Superman thread so there may have been a similar mentality if not policy over at the Bat-offices).

My feeling is that Starlin hated Robin, wanted him dead, and to achieve this, made the kid so unlikable that he could present a "do you really want a character like this being Robin" case to Denny O Neil who agreed to the 1-800-Kill-Robin stunt.  I don't recall there being anything really offensive about him during Max Allan Collins run or rather, anything offensive that wasn't dealt with early on by Collins.  It kind of bothers me that Starlin adopted a sort of "I was just fixing a problem the previous guy created" attitude when in fact, if the fans really did hate Robin, it's because Starlin wanted them to.

I read Batman #400 this afternoon. Doug Moench's last issue. Great Sienkiewicz cover! And art by so many of the greats, like Perez, Adams, Steacy, Bolland, etc.

Lots and lots of villains! The whole Rogues Gallery shows up!

This is one of the few Ra's al Ghul appearances that I like.



And I just read Detective Comics #567, the last issue edited by Len Wein. This rather strange issue was written by Harlan Ellison. I remember buying it when it first came out and liking it a lot! I met Harlan Ellison years later. I was at a comic book shop in Los Angeles where Neil Gaiman was signing things and Ellison was one of the "other guys" also signing things. I was in line for Gaiman and standing next to Ellison's table and we started talking about Gaiman, and he praised Gaiman's work. I didn't realize who I was talking to. Finally I took a closer look at his tag, and I suddenly realized I was talking to Harlan Ellison, who was there largely ignored as he was pushing his latest comic book project.

I almost said "Harlan Ellison! I heard you were a total a-hole!"

I wish I had Detective Comics #567 with me! I would LOVE to have that signed.

Anyway, we talked about Dangerous Visions and the issue of the Hulk that he wrote in the early 1970s. (I had completely forgotten about his Star Trek episode.) He was very nice and polite though he did get a little grumpy about how Roy Thomas had rewritten a lot of his Hulk story.

So that's the time I met Harlan Ellison.

Detective #567 has the last Green Arrow story and it's not that good. Near the end of the Green Arrow's run in Detective, I was actually starting to like it. But the last couple of stories were kind of disappointing and it ends rather abruptly.

Now that the continuity isn't running from Detective into Batman and back again, I won't be reading Batman for awhile. So only about 400 issues to go on Detective Comics!

I continue to get farther and farther ahead of myself. I read Detective Comics #575 last night. This is the first part of Batman: Year Two. Year Two has never been among my favorite Batman stories, so I haven't read it for a long time. I was so unimpressed when it first came out that I missed Part Four and even though I bought the next two issues before dropping Detective Comics for a while, I made no effort to find Part Four until five or six years ago when I decided to fill in the blanks in my Detective Comics collection between the Barr/Davis/Neary issues and Knightfall.

It almost seems new to me, really. I'll have more comments after I've read the whole thing.



I've already made a few comments here and there as I've been reading through these issues, so I'll just try to say a few words about a few highlights that I missed.

Batman #392 is a major issue for me. The DC Universe is now decorated with red skies and disasters as the Crisis on Infinite Earths continues and approaches its conclusion. But life goes on for our heroes. With the red skies in the background, Batman, Catwoman, Robin, Nocturna and Night Slayer (and probably Bullock) all converge on the lighthouse - it's been separated from the mainland by an earthquake because of course it has! - and the Nocturna storyline comes to an end as Nocturna is stabbed by Night Slayer. She is still alive, but for how long? Robin puts her wounded body into her magic star-covered balloon and she floats away, taking the Bronze Age with her.

Yes. For me, this is the official end of the Bronze Age.

Shaxper makes the point that the soft reboot for Batman is already in place, and I can see his point, but the end of Nocturna ties up all the important threads of the Moench run, and so for me this is the place to drive in the post wit a sign saying "Whatever you call the period after the Bronze Age begins in the next issue."



Which doesn't mean that I don't like the last few stories by Moench. Tom Mandrake and Gene Colan are still on the art. Paul Gulacy provides a great change-of-pace two-parter in Batman. There's a wacky Batman/Catwoman/Green Arrow/Black Canary team-up that's a lot of fun. (I missed Detective Comics #559 in the 1980s and didn't read it until years later. It's great fun! The Black Canary costume is still an insult to the senses, but I love it when Ollie calls Bruce "Bat-Fascist!" (Not because I agree. But because Ollie is such an ass.) We have some interesting one-shot stories from Moench (like the one where Julia write a news story about a tree for the Gotham Gazette). The Film Freak three-parter, which I love, mostly for the Bullock/Robin team, but also for the Julia-in-the-shower scene.

And through most of this period, I actually liked the Green Arrow back-up series! Unfortunately it ends rather abruptly. This time around, I was growing rather fond of Onyx.



There's a four-part Two-Face story running through both Batman and Detective. It's one of the better Two-Face stories just for being a little more complex than usual. Moench is really taking advantage of the space he gets in two comics. (And it's appropriate for a Two-Face story to be spread out over TWO issues each in Two different comics. I've been wondering if this was intentional.)



But all good things must come to an end and that includes the Moench run. Batman gets a note warning "Know Your Foes" in Detective Comics #566, and so we get a very nicely drawn (Gene Colan art) walk through memory lane as Batman and Robin review their computer files to try to decipher the cryptic note. (It turns out that Ra's al Ghul is behind it, and it refers to all Batman's foes as Ra's springs them all from prison or Arkham Asylum in the classic Batman #400. (One of my favorite anniversary issues EVER! Right up there with Superman #400, which came out two years previously).)

And Dennis O'Neil is waiting in the wings to take over as editor.



I read Detective Comics #568 a few nights ago and it's one I don't remember from the 1980s. I don't think I've read it since I bought it back in 1986. Written by Joey Cavalieri with art by Klaus Janson, it features the Penguin, and it's not a bad Penguin tale. I like the way Janson draws the Penguin. But I think it gets lost in the shuffle because it's between the Moench run and the Barr/Davis/Neary issues. Also, there were a lot of good Penguin stories in this period, from Moench's story where Batman tracks Penguin to the Antarctic, to "Fire and Ice" and "The Penguin Affair," both in 1990.



Next up, the first of the Barr/Davis/Neary issues! And they start with a two-issue storyline featuring the Catwoman and the Joker!

As much as I love this run overall, I'm actually not much of a fan of this particular story.

(But I love Straight Line, Joker's weird henchman! If I was writing Batman, I would bring Straight Line back SO FAST!)

There's a couple of reason I don't like this one. Yes, the art is beautiful. Yes, the actual plot and the writing are very good. But I don't like the way they just so carelessly turned Catwoman into a villain again with some sort of super-scientific devise. Years of character growth were destroyed in just a few panels. On one hand, I understand why they might have decided that writing a good version of Catwoman was a bit of a drag. But I would have preferred some other solution. This seems like the easy way out.

But it didn't really matter because Catwoman was about to be totally revamped for the post-Bronze Age anyway.

The other thing that I don't like is not only more than a little disturbing, it also completely ruins this story. Batman threatens an effeminate club owner, saying he'll frame the guy if he won't tell him where the Joker is. He'll get sent to be prison, where he'll be raped repeatedly by the rest of the inmates because he's so handsome. Ha ha, Batman. That is hilarious. NOT. The look of glee on Batman's face as he gets in Profile's face and says "You'll be popular in prison. real popular" actually kind of turns my stomach. This scene was a BIG MISTAKE. Was joking about prison rape acceptable in the late 1980s?

There is just no way that this is acceptable behavior for Batman.

Fortunately, it gets a lot better very fast!



Detective Comics #571 is one of my favorite Scarecrow stories. The only two Scarecrow stories I like better are his two Golden Age appearances.



Detective Comics #572 is the 50th anniversary issue of the first issue of Detective Comics #1 back in March 1937. Guest heroes and guest artists galore! Batman, Robin, the Elongated Man, Slam Bradley … and a surprise guest! Art by Alan Davis, Paul Neary, Terry Beatty, Dick Giordano, Carmine Infantino, and E.R. Cruz. And DICK SPRANG! Another awesome anniversary issue!

When I read this for the first time in 1987, it was probably the very first time I ever heard of Slam Bradley. Now in 2018, I know quite a bit more about Slam, and reading this story for the first time in a few years, I was rather touched at the reference to Shorty, Slam's partner for about a million issues of Detective Comics in the old days. The door to the office says "Bradly and Morgan" and Slam is reading Shorty's obituary. A very nice touch.



I really like this Mad Hatter story. There's no need to get into the Mad Hatter's weird convoluted history (I like the idea that there are two Mad Hatters!) because this is a well-written, well-drawn addition to the Mad Hatter file.



This is also a pretty good one. It fleshes out the Leslie Thompkins character a lot. She's no longer an old lady who dresses like it's 1912 and carries the church money around at night in Crime Alley so she can be rolled by drug addicts. Now she runs a clinic and is a medical professional. The opening is interesting. You see a street scene, a thug is shooting a man and woman while their horrified son looks on. But the narrative doesn't go into the origin of Batman. the next few scenes show the deterioration of the neighborhood as it become Crime Alley, and the building at the site where the shooting took place has now become Leslie's clinic.

We're caught up now! Hopefully I'll be back in a few days with comments on Batman: Year Two.

I'm starting to think you're on to something.

Although I've quit reading all the Batman issues since I've left the Len Wein/Doug Moench era when the continuity was pretty tight between the books (my Batman collection for this era ends with #409 anyway), I picked out a few issues from the early Dennis O'Neil era to read. I read #401 (Magpie. Ugh.) and skipped the next few issues, and I also skipped Batman:Year One because it's never done much for me. But I did read the two-part story in #408 and #409 to jog my memory a little better about why I stopped reading it here.

These are the issues that tells the story of the NEW Jason Todd, the hubcap-stealing punk who lives by himself in an abandoned tenement building in Crime Alley.

It's not bad. Not bad at all. The conclusion has Ross Andru art! I had completely forgotten that.

And Jason has a lot of attitude, but he's more annoying than unlikeable. Although they are changing his background, his personality is actually pretty close to the way he was portrayed at the end of the Moench run.

So I think I quit reading it because they just changed so much, and now all those stories I loved from the 1980s didn't seem to exist anymore. Jason Todd's origin and background are a big part of what I liked about late Bronze Age Batman. And Moench left and O'Neil came on and they changed so much, and a lot of it seemed so arbitrary.

So it wasn't Jason Todd's personality I hated in the early days. That wasn't why I quit reading the Batman books.

So you may be right about Jim Starlin's sabotage. It's starting to seem very likely.

I don't have more than a handful of issues of Batman between #408 and the start of Knightfall, but I have all the issues of Detective Comics. I bought them bit by bit five or six years ago and I read them all as I got them. But this is the first time I've read these issues in an organized manner. So I'll keep an eye on the way Jason is portrayed and how he develops in the pages of Detective Comics as the 1980s turns into the 1990s.

I haven't read Detective Comics #580 yet but I'll probably read it and the next issue (it's a two-part Two-Face story) before I go to bed. I'm kind of looking forward to it. It's a rare Paul Sloane Two-Face story, and I kind of dig Paul Sloane. (Also I've only read the whole story once, back about 2011 or 2012 when I got the second part, 20 years after reading the first part.)

But I wanted to say a few words about Detective Comics #580 because back in 1987, it was the last issue I read for a while. After reading Detective sporadically from about #512 to #545 and then regularly for a while (I only missed two issues between #547 and #580), I gave up on Detective Comics. After Moench left, the Barr/Davis/Neary team had kept me interested for a while, but Year Two hadn't done a thing for me, and I guess I just wasn't feeling it after that. I also remember thinking that Paul Sloane was something of an affront to Two-Face!

(Paul Sloane has grown on me over the decades. There should be two Two-Faces! It's so obvious!)

A few years later, I had a roommate who had never read comics, but he was obsessed with the Michael Keaton Batman movie, and he started buying Batman and Detective Comics. So for a bit, I was reading his Batman comics some of the time. I remember the Mudpack series. And I also remember the three-parter with the Dick Sprang covers! After he moved out, I bought my own copies of that storyline with the Dick Sprang covers. I had to have those!

And because I was still buying a few comics, I was at the newsstand or the comic shop from time to time, and I started picking up the odd storyline here and there in both Batman and Detective. And I wasn't particularly excited about it.

Until Knightfall!

What is that … about seven years? Anyway, we're now getting into a bunch of issues of Detective Comics that I have not had for 20 or 30 years. I bought most of the issues from #580 to #660 in the 2010 to 2012 range, and aside from a few exceptions (like the Ventriloquist issues and the Penguin issues), I have not read these issues since I got them. For the most part, I'm not much enamored of this era … but I'm looking forward to giving these issues another chance.

But there's a lot to look forward to anyway! The first appearance of Scarface and the Ventriloquist is just around the corner! And very soon after that, one of my candidates for worst issue of Detective Comics ever!