I’ve been thinking further about
Batman 181.
It seemed from that cover that DC really was making a big deal about Poison Ivy, but she only popped up again in #183, the next regular issue of Batman (#182 was an annual) and she was not cover-featured. Instead we saw the famous fake Batman watching his show on TV, unaware that he was wearing the old Bat-symbol on his chest.
The next time PI pops up is five years later in Lois Lane, according to the infallible Mike’s Amazing. (He is, you know.)
I wonder if Ivy had originally been slated for the cover of #183, because she was featured in the first story in the issue; in
Batman, the cover had usually been from the lead story since the old three stories-to-a-book days, when that practice was not always the rule. It was also unheard of that two straight issues would feature the same villain in what was essentially a continued story. I wonder if she was being primed as a future star and these two issues were meant to promote her in this unprecedented way.
What changed this? I’m thinking that the high ratings of the TV show, which may have been available as they were preparing 183, made a cover capitalizing on the TV show more appealing.
That cover story was written by Gardner Fox, who was used to Schwartz’s notorious command: “Here’s a cover. Write a story to fit it.” I wonder if that happened here.
It also interrupted a nice run by Bob Kanigher, who was dashing off quite a nice little string of stories that included the Rocketeers, Victor Iago, and Death-Man in addition to the Poison Ivy “saga.” (Which had to remind older readers of Kanigher’s Rose and the Thorn, I’m sure.)
At first I thought that Poison Ivy got caught in between the New Look and the camp TV Batman eras and Schwartz abandoned her when it became clear that the Batman title had better start featuring the TV villains. However, when you check the ensuing
Batman and
Detective issues, there are not as many overt links to the TV show as I presumed there would be. Batgirl is the most obvious, but she preceded the TV version by almost a year. The Joker only pops up a couple of times, the Penguin and Catwoman once each.
Actually, like the TV show, the comics were introducing various villains of the month like the Spark-Spangled See-Through Man, the Cluemaster, the Spellbinder and the Hooded Hangman. However, by no means were these titles reduced to a procession of campy villains issue after issue. The mystery element was still being played up as it had when Schwartz took over the Bat-books.
Surprising, especially because the urban myth would have you believe that the camp approach took hold of the
Batman titles by the throat. It was actually nearly non-existent in Batman and Detective. Even when Batman loomed large in many of the other titles, either overly played up on covers (
JLA;
WF) or wedged in (e.g.
Jerry Lewis, Aquaman, Blackhawk), the camp element was not very pronounced.
Oh, there were a few “POW! BAM!” covers, notably
JLA 46,
but not nearly as many as you’d think. Even when Batman took over
Brave and the Bold, nearly every cover played it straight. (The Bat-Hulk team-up with Metamorpho is the notable exception.)
Maybe the camp style that DC gets criticized for exploiting and overdoing during the Batman TV show years is more urban myth than reality. Now, I am going just by covers, I agree, and I know that there were different-sized dollops of camp in places like the
Teen Titans and
Blackhawk, and when you add to that the conscious attempt to imitate Marvel in some titles, the corniness did get ratcheted up, but overall, I think it was not as bad at DC as we tend to remember.
At DC, the camp stuff was far less an influence than it was at places like MLJ and other companies that jumped on the bandwagon, which went for the fad tooth and claw.
