“BUT TODAY, AT LAST THEY WILL BELONG!“ THAT THE BATMAN MAY LIVE
Chris Buse (RIP)
Almost exactly two years prior to the Batman television show airing its pilot on ABC, a two-parter with, at that time, famous comedian and impressionist Frank Gorshin cast as The Riddler, another show aired its 19th episode on the very same network. Its dizzying cold open feels as creepy today as it must have to viewers back then. This was too scary for little kids for sure, and perhaps for older kids as well. Even for the adults, who had tuned in to this genre show that came with a pedigree. Its showrunner, not a title used in those days, was writer-producer Joseph Stefano who had found fame after he had adopted the novel Psycho for famous Hollywood director Alfred Hitchcock, making several changes to the story in his screenplay. With some cachet of his own now, he devised a show similar in tone to another show, The Twilight Zone, the allegorical science-fiction series originated by famous TV playwright Rod Serling. The show was The Outer Limits, the original series, which ran on The Alphabet Network for two seasons from 1963 to 1965. But Stefano“s was a much darker show. Shot in black and white for budget reasons, and because color TV wasn“t really a thing yet, this limitation became one of its strengths. There was a noirish, grimy look to each episode that was almost tactile, like we were not only peering in on the very private nightmare of some random stranger, but like the show itself was reaching into our subconscious to reveal to us and others what our dreams were made of. As with this episode, which was of sound at first. A bizarre, frightening shriek, one which only a mad creature would ever produce, or an animal that was not of this Earth. And there it was, tiny, unearthly white and hairy, but so big in the frame, that we needed a moment to adjust our vision. But as a hand reached out to pick up this strange beast, and we got our bearings, there was something else. We were in a narrow storeroom of some kind, its walls very close, so close that this only added to a nauseating sense of anxiety that hit us deep in our stomach. As the camera panned, we became aware of the four men in the room. Two of these men wore black suits. The other two, younger and rougher, were stripped down to their pants. This was clearly some sort of ritual of initiation, as the oldest man in the room, the one who now cuddled the strange animal, asked one of the half-naked man to lie down on the table, face down. We saw that he did this, a frenzied look on his face, his naked back glistening from the sweat of fear and anticipation. The other man, taller than he, also stripped down to his slacks, his colleague perhaps, had assured him with a slight, brief nod that this was okay, he was there to look out for him. Then, as the camera tightened on his sweaty, contorted face, the man on the table let loose a wild scream. The man holding the animal had stepped behind him and he had done something to him. Seconds later he was off the table and on the floor. His whole naked upper body now wet with transpiration, his back leaned against one of the close walls. And from his lips came a laugh that was as eerie as his scream. But now there was a manic excitement in his sweaty face. Seconds later, the opening titles came on. Stark white letters against a black background, accompanied by the haunting theme courtesy of composer Dominic Frontiere. Then there was this disembodied voice which informed us with cold efficiency that no, there was nothing wrong with our television sets. They were in control now, whoever they were. This message from the clinically detached sounding voice did precious little to dispel our fears or to at least alleviate them. Especially in light of these shocking images in the cold open we had just witnessed, and for which we still lacked any real context, but which felt so compelling, and so strangely suggestive that we were spellbound and just needed to know more. Right after the episode“s title had been on the screen for just seconds, the usual voice-over narration kicked in, performed by the same voice, which belonged to unseen radio, movie and television actor Vic Perrin. A black car arrived near the waterfront at what looked like Army barracks, long since abandoned. There were the two shirtless men we had seen earlier. They were now fully dressed, but not in suits, but their clothes were those of workers or perhaps even drifters, and now there was a third man with them. And we knew the driver who now emerged from the dark sedan just like these men did. He had been in the cold open. Wordless, with the same hurried expression on his oily face as before, he was leading them to one of the dilapidated buildings. And there was Perrin, the efficient announcer, simply known as the Control Voice, who was also the narrator, albeit slightly more sardonic in tone, who revealed what was hidden beneath the surface and what we needed to learn about the three characters: “You do not know these men. You may have looked at them, but you did not see them. They are newspaper blowing down a gutter on a windy night. For reasons both sociological and psychological these three have never joined or been invited to join society. They“ve never experienced love or friendship, or formed any lasting or constructive relationship, but today, at last, they will become part of something. They will belong.”“ And with these words spoken, the narrator had our attention. Were we, as science fiction fans and fans of the four color-world as presented in comic books, not like these men? Outsiders with no connection to our peers who simply were not into the stuff we were in, and even more so, found it laughable at best?
When regular people and well-intentioned parents thought of comic books, most of them viewed these books as silly, well beneath further considerations. These were for children and readers of low intellect who struggled when having to read a regular book. And for the stories themselves, these were as basic and simplistic as they needed to be for younger readers. The authors, if one could even call them that, of these stories put forth simple, conventional tales of good versus evil that came with an elementary view of the world and of society. The good guys (and gals) were attractive and mostly wealthy, the bad guys were strange and foreign. All in all, comics seemed harmless. Still, as a parent, you needed to keep an eye on the reading material of your kids. Surely by the 1960s, anything the books put on display was toned down considerably. Gone was the parade of scantily dressed, beautiful jungle girls, presented as if forever cast in their anatomically impossible cheesecake poses. And gone were the violence, the gore and the blood that had been the main attraction, it seemed, of the war and horror types of comics. But, well-intentioned, responsible parents did notice something else. It had not escaped their attention, that the superheroes had made a comeback. And as these new characters proliferated the comics, dressed in the most borderline bizarre get-ups, silly really, if you took a closer look, with this, the books put their focus on the human anatomy. While the costumes were already drawn like they were just painted onto the body of the wearer, there would suddenly be a scene that depicted one of the heroes, a young man at that, changing from his civilian identity into his outlandish, seemingly incredibly tight and somewhat effeminate superhero outfit, all the while his upper body was fully exposed to the eyes of the readers. Yes, there was an air of impropriety that came with this, since readers, mostly children and adolescents, mostly boys (unless a girl happened to pick up a comic book of the superhero variety), were invited to stare at this well-nigh nude character who was presented to them in a lurid manner. While this seemed innocent enough, it could not be healthy for young children all the same. And the character was clearly a teenager with raging hormones, who was very much interested in getting dates. Even with the Comics Code Authority, having been established in 1955, comics still had the potential to give any young reader a multitude of wrong ideas. A book, as colorful and inconspicuous as The Avengers, one of the comics you might pick up for your kids from a supermarket when shopping for groceries, might feature a blonde temptress who, either by magic or by way of her very impressive looks, or a combination thereof, had no problem to turn gullible men into her slaves, for what purposes ever. When she comes to a disgraced inventor to involve him in one of her nefarious schemes, the next time you see this fella, he has stripped off his business suit, and down to only his boxer-briefs, he patiently awaits what she and her colorfully garbed cohorts had in store, while he is strapped into a futuristic-looking machine designed to build up his body like in those ads that also appeared regularly in these types of books. It was in this series, that when the publisher, like the owner of a sports team, did not like the results, a new line-up was devised for this supposed super-team of Earth“s Mightiest Heroes, that now not only included not one, but three former criminals, and one of which was a sexily drawn dark-haired woman who pranced around in front of the men in not much more than her red bathing suit while she pined for The Sentinel of Liberty who in turn had a penchant for adventuring with boys less than half his age. And even though, in the same issue, a character named Hawkeye, originally and ostensibly introduced as a bad guy, could be seen as clamoring for the affection of another criminal, a female Soviet spy no less, also wearing a bathing suit, albeit with a full-body fishnet suit underneath, just a few issues later he would profess his interest in this attractive addition to the team. The woman, who was clearly of Eastern-European stock, which was to mean that her morals were not free from reproach, maybe sensing all this heavily charged attention, from the hero Hawkeye and the impressed and impressionable readers alike, immediately changed up her costume into an even skimpier two-piece ensemble, and of course she commanded the splash page for the next issue. And there were other women in these comics, always young and beautiful and always dressed in the latest fashion. What kind of image was this sending? All in all, wasn“t it best to have your kids read a real book, or even better, encourage an interest in sports in them? This way they would find news friends and meet children who had long since outgrown these silly books. In the least, you better educated your kids that if they were seen with this type of books, a comic, how poorly this would reflect on them. People who had perhaps considered this cute when the child was maybe five years old, would just as easily forgo any such notions if they saw you with comic books when you were in your teens. By still ostentatiously brandishing your interest in masked vigilantes, your child had to be aware that this was seen as odd, and that you opened yourself up to ridicule. Reading a comic book in as public a place like your school, was like they were holding up a sign that read “Kick me!”“ Now why would you do that?
Adam West as Bruce Wayne/Batman in the movie ‘Batman’, 1966. (Photo by Silver Screen Collection/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
There was much more. The comparatively long time the camera spent on the exposed flesh of the men, all oily from the sweat of their excitement, the long, knowing glances passed between them, Plannetta“s mannerism, all this was not even subtext. All this was heavily coded as gay. And regular viewers of this series knew, if they paid attention to the credits, that the German-born director Gerd Oswald, who had directed a number of films, played loose and fast with overtly homo-/erotic references. Here now, while he helmed an episode of mere genre television, on its surface a heady mix of an alien invasion plot that involved mind control and disenfranchised young men, he gave this story the look, and almost the feel, of a homoerotic underground flick, much in the vain of Kenneth Anger“s “Scorpio Rising”“, but fused with Oswald“s own sensibilities, and Stefano“s, to create a piece of television unlike anything else you“d ever seen, at least on a mainstream outlet like ABC. From older comics, the type EC Comics had published, readers knew that comic books had once been daring, but sadly were not allowed to be any longer. This was a powerful tale about outsiders and friendship. And the episode came with a message that could also be found in Finney“s book and in Don Siegel“s movie, rather than in Heinlein“s novel, and which had much more heft and resonance at this juncture in time. Trust no one! Not even, or especially, any figure of authority. A holy mantra that would be become much more pronounced as the 60s went on. But was this not how you already felt about your parents and your teachers who told you that comic books were utter trash? And did you not carry on with your love for these characters and their stories despite being ostracized for it? And did you not long for a friendship with people who were like you? When you wrote a letter to the letters page of your favorite comic series, editors published your full address so that you could be contacted by other readers. Or you could take the initiative to contact others who had written in. This was how the first fan clubs had gotten started, and how fanzines had sprung up as early as the late 1940s. While your parents or your teachers looked down on your hobby, you could always tell them about this one reader from Pittsburgh who now was writing for DC Comics despite still being a teenager, and that this Jim Shooter earned the cash to support his family. Would they have believed you? It was also lost on the older generation, that comic book fans had discovered that they were much more open to alternative lifestyles. Sure, you“d heard the rumors that Batman and Robin had once stood accused of promoting a way of life many considered the wish dream of homosexuals living together. But even if they were? What did it matter or change? You liked drawings of sexy girls. And you did not want to be shamed for it. What if another person liked something else about these books? After all, weren“t these all about fantasies, and weren“t the superheroes themselves outsiders? There would be no gatekeeping in comics or fandom. There couldn“t be. What if the only other comic book fan in your vicinity was gay? There was no chance that your parents would let you travel to another town, across the state line even, if this was the location of another comic book fan who identified as straight. You were all outsiders who shared the same passion. You all wanted to belong. And what about The Caped Crusader? Now under the stewardship of Julius Schwartz, gone were the goofier elements that had proliferated in the Batman books. But so were the female characters such as The Batwoman and her niece, who had adopted the identity of Bat-Girl upon discovering her aunt“s secret. There were rumors that the Batman books had been close to getting cancelled, but that he had pulled a last-minute rescue like Batman always did. He was now back on top it seemed, courtesy of new artist Carmine Infantino who had ushered in what was called “The New Look”“, and who had imbued The Dark Knight with renewed sense of vibrant urgency, with innovative cover layouts and his interior art that was as strikingly dynamic as usually. Batman and Robin now both lived in a world gone mod. Still, not only did Superman and Superboy sell more issues on a monthly basis than both main Batman books, but so did Superman“s Girl Friend and his Pal Jimmy Olsen. In fact, Lois Lane, placed third on the annual sales chart for 1965, sold near twice as many books than Detective Comics did, a title that ranked far lower. And not even Batman came close to what Lois Lane was doing in sales. Comic Fans weren“t digging the Dynamic Duo. Then, surprising everybody, but his biggest allies i.e. his fans, Batman pulled a stunt like he did in his books. He became the biggest hero.
Finally, the day arrived, the day when others would join you and you would finally belong. People would no longer look down on you. They would open their eyes and finally realize what you and the other kids who were like you, had always known. That comic books were not just for little kids. In the hand of the right creators, these were not only about people in costumes fighting each other, but they showed you what kind of problems you might face as an adult and how to best tackle them. And if you could tell a story as weird and adult as “The Invisibles”“ on public broadcast, and in an idiosyncratic manner as Gerd Oswald had, you most certainly could do this with a guy dressed up in a costume that came with a cowl and a cape. Or so you thought. Nobody would view you as a weirdo now simply because you happened to enjoy stories about costumed characters liked The Avengers or Batman. After an ad campaign which had put his image nearly everywhere it seemed, the Batman television show was set to premier on the same network as The Outer Limits which by then sadly had been cancelled. But there was a connection to “The Invisibles”“. Neil Hamilton, who had given a great, at times even frightening performance in that episode when he had portrayed a politician mind-controlled by the aliens, was set to play Batman“s ally within the Gotham City Police Department, Commissioner James Gordon. This bode well. Clearly, you could not have suspected then what was to come, for the Batman show and for Hamilton. The date was January 12, 1966. However, what producer William Dozier and writer Lorenzo Semple Jr. came up with was what neither you nor any other Batman fan could have envisioned in a fever dream. Any hope you might have had to let your parents, or any of the other kids at your school, who were not into comics, realize just how cool and serious The Caped Crusader truly was, were dashed hopelessly within minutes. From the show“s opening at the Gotham City World“s Fair, too easily identifiable as stock footage since the colors felt washed out when compared to the way too colorful visuals of the show itself, to the first interior shots, which even to a child betrayed that these were filmed on a soundstage, dressed up with cheap looking, poorly matching props, to the dialogue with its overblown campy delivery, this was not a good show. Batman deserved better. The lack of care put into this show was visible throughout. There were even xenophobic stereotypes on display, in how a foreign nation and its customs were presented as a wild mix of Eastern European and Indian cultures, because, frankly, nobody seemed to care. At this point, just minutes into the episode, you had to ask yourself who this was even for. There was Hamilton alright, but in yet another groan inducing scene, in which the entire top brass of the police embarrassed themselves, with every one of these senior police officers starring helpless at the glow in dark Bat Phone like a forlorn lover would, hoping against hope for a call from his ex-girlfriend who months ago had put forward the suggestion that maybe they should entertain the idea of being open to seeing other people. Then we got our introduction to the alter-egos of our heroes as they rushed to hidden entrance of the Batcave, as clearly marked by a label as were each of the poles on which they now rode all the way into their secret hideout. Yes, Robin“s pole was marked with a sign that read “Dick”“, and if that did not sum it up perfectly for you, they still had more. There were the cartoony credit sequence and the ditzy theme song of course, let alone our first shots of the Dynamic Duo in their costumes which seemed like they“d been repurposed from a recent masquerade ball. The Riddler, played by comedian Frank Gorshin with a lot of zest that sometimes hinted at a darker, maniacal undertone, remained one of the few highlights. Then there was Batman, in full costume mind you, in a mod club, telling the waiter that he “shouldn“t wish to attract attention.”“ What a gag! And it got worse. The Batman even danced! Sure, Adam West was likeable enough as The Caped Crusader, and to a lesser degree, so was Burt Ward. And the bright, psychedelic feel of the swinging 60s that permeated every scene was something else, but simply wrong. As were the animated sound effects. Worst of all, your parents now thought Batman was a total loser.
Whatever this show intended to be; this was absolutely not what Batman was like. On that night, after the episode had aired, there had to have been audible sighs of exasperation and resignation from fans of these characters who thought the show was okay, but felt like they urgently needed a shower. There were also those fans who downright hated the TV version of Batman, longtime readers who were simply appalled that the producers of the show had turned their beloved hero into a total laughingstock under glaring lights and for a whole nation to see. He was akin to Adam, cast out from a safe paradise a four-colored world afforded him, cast out into a harsh world, oblivious to the fact that he was naked. These days, there are many outlets for any such fans to vent their anger and their bitter disappointment. They can take to any form of social media, even start their own YouTube channel, to let everybody hear what they thought about this injustice that was done to their beloved Batman. The manner in which the hero was offered up for ridicule while he was made to prance around, to enlist cheap laughter from a callous audience whose members, like the makers of the show, simply did not get this character, and who had no idea how cool he could be if treated right. Back then, you could write letters to fanzines like Batmania that had had just started up two years earlier. And that was what they did. To let their fellow fans know how they felt about seeing their Batman getting co-opted by the mainstream who could not understand his true potential. Michael Uslan, fifteen at that time and many years later an executive producer on all of the modern live action Batman movies to date, movies that are definitely more in line with who most people envision when they think of Batman today, had this to say: “I was horrified when I realized that the world was laughing at Batman. Not with him. At him.”“ Chuck Dixon, who was twelve when the first episode of the Batman television show aired, and who would not only go on to become a Batman writer, but who Bat-Fans know as the man who co-created the character Bane, even got into a fight with some poor fellow at his school who happened to be wearing an Adam West Batman t-shirt, and who thought that NOW Batman was cool. As Dixon would later explain: “I took it all very personally, that Wednesday night when the series premiere broke my heart. That wasn“t MY Batman. Hell, my parents were laughing at the show. Laughing at Batman.”“ And then there came the Batman merchandise. The cheap looking, fully poseable action figures, the wallets and notebooks. And how about a Batman radio or the 45 RPM from Wonderland Records, so you could listen to the theme song ad nauseam. There was no item, so it would seem, that wasn“t suitable to have a Batman logo slapped onto it. Even a young Frank Zappa got in on it when he wrote and arranged a song called “Boy Wonder, I Love You”“, performed by Burt Ward, of course. Holy cacophony, Batman! Well, at least there was Julie Newmar as The Catwoman, clad in a skintight leather-look catsuit, what else, to give Batman fans a reason to tune in, and there was the car. The Batmobile did look awesome. But most importantly, what about the comic books? How would the books do now that the show was on the air? Would The Cape Crusader go on to sell less copies than an upbeat, red-haired student by the name of Archie Andrews? Lo, in the annual sales statistic for the year 1966, The Batman was on top, selling twice as many units on average per month and more importantly, for the first time ever, The Dark Knight moved more issues than The Man of Tomorrow. Holy, Batman! And the same for the next year, with Detective Comics charting even higher than it had in the previous year. Then something else happened. While Batman still retained the number one spot, the number of units sold on average per month dropped by well-nigh 100,000 issues. And that was not all. The average number of all comics sold in a given month in total feel by around 30,000. Comics were losing readers.
And once the Batman show returned after a movie shot on the quick during the off-season, that offered more insults to any true fan of the characters, its ratings began to slip. Some drastic changes needed to be made for its third season or it would be curtains soon. Almost on the very same day four years before the first comic book convention, that attracted a few hundred attendees, and the first women dressed up as comic book character, for fun and to promote the books these appeared in, The Catwoman made her presence known on television. The version as played by Newmar in the first two season (and slightly toned down for the movie in which the character was portrayed by Lee Meriwether), was playful, sexy and wild in a style comics dared not copy. Her Catwoman would slink and bend her body in suggestive ways some viewers never even knew were possible, while she made double-entendres that were fairly obvious, and if younger audiences didn“t readily catch their meaning, her body language told the whole tale. And when The Catwoman imagined a life with Batman, her idea about what to do with Robin was as simple and straightforward as befitted her character: why, let“s kill him, of course! Why wouldn“t you just as easily add another female character to the show, but not just as a guest star? That is how Batgirl entered the series for its third season, which saw its airtime cut from two shows per week to just one. And contrary to what some folks think, and even while producer William Dozier had some input, it was in the comic books where the character made her first appearance. Yet to re-capture the stellar ratings the show had seen in its first season, the TV version of Batgirl needed to be what her comic counterpart could never be, namely sex on two legs. While Batgirl, as envisioned by Carmine Infantino, was already a very statuesque, gorgeous redhead, a lot of thinking (perhaps over-thinking) went into the design of her costume. As TV Guide described it to their readers in an article in 1967, accompanied by a full-body shot of the actress cast in the role, in her Batgirl costume, of course: “Miss Craig wears her own feminine version of the Batman garb [”¦] It“s an eye-boggler, composed of a rubberized purple material. It is tight-fitting where it is most effective on a healthy girl. With her other assets, Yvonne Craig [”¦] moves with uncommon grace and fluidity.”“ While a number of young models and attractive ingenues proliferated on the show, they were but hanger-ons, associated with the colorful villains, alas mostly pure eye-candy and devoid of much that resembled a personality. On top of being alluring, her Batgirl needed to possess a natural charm, lest she was as swiftly forgotten as this crush of female guest stars. Yvonne Craig“s wit and immediate likeability worked wonders in helping her to define a version of the character that made Batgirl look competent despite the visual image that was ostensibly devised to intensify her sex appeal and thus, to lure male viewers back to the show. Clearly, her sexuality as Batgirl was way less aggressive and threatening as this was the case when it came in the package that was Julie Newmar“s Catwoman. And there was no need, since Batgirl was a do-gooder. That she was less upfront, made her much more irresistible. When Yvonne Craig, to promote her addition to the TV series, was asked to hit the late night talk-show circuit, in full costume, naturally, and with her cowl mask and her red wig on, unsuspecting viewers realized that they had never known that right could be so wrong. She was a good sport about it, while audiences saw how through her person a comic book character was made flesh and blood as a roleplay fetish fantasy. Chances are, that it was during this promotional tour de force, that viewers saw her for the first time in her enticing getup, created whole cloth from pure male wish dreams, were they to happen upon The Merv Griffin Show before the premiere of the third season of the Batman TV show. What they saw was surely something else. Even though Craig had a blast seemingly, the comedian and his team used the opportunity to full effect. Whereas Adam West and Leonard Nimoy had appeared in their regular clothes, she was not only shown in the usual seat reserved for the guests, but also as she was lounging on a sofa backstage, her legs stretched out, her upper body raised up, her mouth formed to a perfect o-shape, a come hither look on her semi-concealed face with the live audience and cameras ever so present. Craig“s performance was reduced to that of a rubber play doll come to life. With all of this going on, her trim, athletic physique was sheathed in a metallic purple stretch suit that was so tight that it seemed as if her body had been molded into the skintight material. What she was now, was an extremely sexualized image that got imprinted right onto the mind of every adolescent comic fan across the country and across time. Boys came into manhood just by looking at her dressed like that. During the third season of the Batman television show, the producers and directors would of course find many ways and opportunities to present her in perilous situations, tied up at that, fully aware that this added to the stimulation her tightly clad figure already provided for. There was even an episode on which The Caped Crusader, the Boy Wonder, and of course the Domino Daredoll were entangled so very tightly in each other“s limbs in what by all intents and purposes was a human knot, that any further bonds were made redundant, yet Batgirl very much needed to be placed right between the colorfully-garbed bodies of her two male co-stars. And while most of the touching was probably in the script, some just wasn“t.
Clearly Batgirl made an impression on every male on the show. Other than Burt Ward, who had run into trouble early on, when the Catholic Legion of Decency had raised their concerns with the network, that perhaps Robin was a bit too blessed in the Boy Wonder department, Neil Hamilton, who had played a US Senator controlled by an alien crab on The Outer Limits, and who was Commissioner Gordon on this show, seized his moment at the tail-end of the show. Playing a cop, the actor may have thought that he was entitled to cop a feel when, on the episode “Louie“s Lethal Lilac Time”“, during a standoff between Gotham“s Finest and the villain of the week, comedian Milton Berle“s second appearance on the Batman show, he exhibited some unwanted touchy-feely towards Craig“s Batgirl. With his arm around her, Neil Hamilton“s groping grip found Craig“s slim waist, the outline of his heavily fondling fingers, tugged under her golden cape, not only visible, but betraying the intensity he used to press his grubby pointers against her midriff. The whole affair made even more sordid by both, him playing the father to her alter ego on the show, and the nearly forty years in age which separated him from Craig. Despite clearly being made uncomfortable by this uninvited attention, always the pro who by all accounts she was, Craig still stayed in character throughout this encounter of the too close a kind with her TV Dad, knowing full well, since budgets for the show were getting slashed daily by now, a new set-up for this scene would mean things needed to get cut elsewhere. However, in the greater scheme of things, her efforts proved in vain. Less than two month later, Batman danced his last Batusi, albeit not before the producers found reasons to display her character being strapped to a suspiciously phallic looking rocket. As the show got cancelled, most kids just shrugged and moved on. But what about the true fans, and what about the sales numbers for their hero? While for two years, Batman had remained on top, for the last year of the show“s run, it was once again The Man of Steel who took the crown. And the runner-up was not his ally from Gotham, but the aforementioned student named Archie. Detective Comics, Batman“s second main title, took an even deeper plunge. More seriously though, while the overall sales numbers remained stable, Batman“s publisher, DC Comics, was now facing a much more severe threat to its bottom line than a fleeting look at the annual sales per comic book on average across the entire industry would bear out. Not quite yet cracking the top ten, Marvel comics was in striking distance to achieve just that. With two books higher in the sales chart for 1968 than not only Detective Comics, but their flagship team book Justice League of America, this was reason enough for concern at DC. Though Archie Comics had placed two books in the top ten, and Gold Key“s Tarzan was blocking The Amazing Spider-Man“s way into this much vaunted club, not one of these three titles was a superhero comic. And right beneath Detective Comics, only on position twenty, its old home before the Bat-Craze had started, there were two Marvel books, Daredevil and Thor, which outsold their other main team book, The Brave and the Bold. Whereas just a year ago, Batman was the title that could even beat The Man of Steel, in comics, The Flash was perhaps the fastest man alive, but he wasn“t selling fast enough not to get trounced by even a second-tier title like Tales to Astonish. If this was the Age of the Superheroes, it looked more and more like it would also be the Age of Marvel Comics. And if you asked the readers, the true fans, some of which were reading comics even though they had graduated high school and had moved on to college, this sounded about right. Marvel, who had established itself as the upstart, the wide-eyed, bushy tailed underdog to DC“s white shirt and tie affair, had become culturally much more significant by the end of the 1960s. They were the Pepsi to DC“s Coca Cola. So much so, that an old stalwart like Batman nearly fell out of the top ten the next year. Like only a few years earlier, when the new editor for the Batman books, Julius Schwartz had found The Caped Crusader on life support, but barely alive, a drastic change was needed. And such came to pass.
Nothing could have prepared Batman fans for what they saw on the cover of the issue that hit the racks as 1969 came to a close. There he was, The Dark Knight as he should have been portrayed all along, not as a campy parody, but as dark and mysterious as he had once been right at his inception. And while he was front and center, one could not help but noticing a crying Alfred. Batman“s trusted butler looked as prim and proper as was his wont, but he was clearly dejected. And while Batman“s words, visualized in two speech bubbles, one of which was utterly angry in shape, its borders harshly jagged, were clearly directed at his British manservant, who, as rendered by artist Neal Adams, looked especially frail is if to mark the occasion, The Batman made his dire announcement to his fans as well. “Take a last look Alfred, then seal up the Batcave forever!”“, he growled behind gritted teeth. With this cover, which provided a depressing look of the fabled Batcave in a state of neglect like readers had never seen it, cobwebs and dust covering the Batmobile and even an empty Robin costume, longtime DC writer Frank Robbins gave fans but one bold promise: the days of the Batman television show were done. The Batman would live! Frank Robbins dared to do what the TV version of Catwoman wanted from Batman. Whereas he didn“t kill The Boy Wonder, he subjected him to fate perhaps worse than death. While a whole generation of his peers was on about “turn on, tune in and drop out”“ i.e. exploring alternative, rather than traditional ways of personal growth, the writer dared to send Robin off to college. Robbins, who had two children, understood. While his daughter was right at the age Robin was when he had entered Batman“s life, his son was getting ready for college. In order for there to be much needed growth, there had to be change. If Robin stayed on, he could not develop, and neither could The Batman. Too much was still connected with this optimistic kid in short pants readers had seen at Batman“s side for so many years, and the way the character was portrayed on the television show did not help matters either. Readers had grown up. And they had gotten tired of the same old dog and pony show, the tired act that was the Dynamic Duo. While Robin was whisked away, off to College in Batman No. 217, and into his own backup feature, The Batman realized that he had to let go of his own history. To shut off all the things that were connected to his appearances in other media, it not only seemed logical, but necessary, that the Batcave would be but one of the toys that needed to go into a box intended for storage. Established in 1943, in the movie serial starring Lewis Wilson as the titular character and Douglas Croft as his trusted sidekick, a 15-parter which some to this day believe was the inspiration for the television show, the cave itself was like some of the older comic books readers had moved beyond on their way to comics that felt more relevant to them now. Batman sensed what needed doing, as he explained to his butler: “We“re in grave danger of becoming”¦ outmoded! Obsolete dodos of the mod world outside!”“ While Robbins moved Batman deep into the heart of a Gotham City that felt gleaming and modern, very much like what writer John Broome and artist Carmine Infantino, by now the editorial director of National Comics i.e. DC Comics, had done at the behest of editor Julius Schwartz five years earlier, this was but a side-step. While in the issue that saw him and Alfred move out of Wayne Manor, Robbins re-established The Batman as a detective, this attempt at re-shaping The Cape Crusader was as short-lived as those of other writers at that time intent on modernizing DC characters that were seen as stale. The irony being, that the future of Batman didn“t lie with moving him into the here and now by divorcing him from his past, but in letting him re-connect with what had given him his raison d“être in the first place. Yet none of that could be found in the recent past, as readers discovered when Robert Kanigher took over the writing duties. In a story that finds The Dark Knight investigating a center for self-awareness that reads like a poor man“s stand-in for the Esalen Institute, this tale felt very much like it came out of the swinging 60s, replete with mini-skirted girls who wore go-go boots and espoused dialogue about being one with the universe. And Mike Friedrich“s stab at satirizing Marvel“s Spider-Man in the backup feature fell equally flat. The Batman“s future, for there to be one for the character, was right there in the pages of Detective Comics No. 27, his first apperance, or in No. 33, his origin tale. Batman had to become a creature of the night once again, black and terrible!
But then, Robin was back. But like Yvonne Craig“s Batgirl had been so many times during her only season on the Batman TV show, it was the Boy Wonder“s turn to be bound and helpless. He was a side character now, less so even, more a MacGuffin in nature. Necessary, but for plot conveniences. Thus, what to this day is considered a landmark issue among Batman fans in particular, and perhaps even to all comic fans generally, opened with a splash page that made Robin“s new role abundantly clear. On his return to the boarding house where he now resided as a student of Hudson University in his civilian identity, he found hidden assassins in wait who had him in their crossfire. The Boy Wonder never stood a chance. But alas, he was not dead, not yet, but he had been abducted. His diminished role getting reduced even further. He was but bait to challenge Batman, prompting a return of his former mentor to the Batcave. And so, began a tale that was unlike any Batman story fans had seen before, or if so, only in the late 1930s. On his return to his former home the detective found his sanctuary severely disturbed. While he was now returning to his very own origins, he had to content with a criminal who was very much of the present. A mastermind and the leader of an international terrorist organization of his own making, hell-bent on reshaping the world according to his image. Though Batman had not met the man, who had figured out his secret identity with ease, he knew he was responsible for a number of murders he had yet to solve, and now he also realized, that the mysterious young woman who had crossed his path before was this man“s daughter. With “Daughter of the Demon”“, The Batman, at long last, once again had become what seemed a thing of the past as well, hidden in storage, namely “that amazing weird figure of the night!”“ After they had given readers what in hindsight turned out to have been but a mere inkling of what came next, the new duo at the helm, brought together by many letters from fans and Julius Schwartz, Denny O“Neil and Neal Adams took the level of craft they had brought to their earlier showcase issue, Detective Comics No. 395 (1970), and cranked it all up to eleven. As Jenette Kahn would put it, who was twenty-eight when in 1976 she was made publisher of DC Comics: “When Batman #232 went on sale in April 1971, it was apparent that The Batman of old had not been merely been restored. He“d been revivified, and now had a future to live out more exciting and wider in scope than the challenges of the past.”“ And while it was true that The Batman had found his perhaps most competent foe in Ra“s Al Ghul, O“Neil and Adams not only told a tale that was intended to return The Dark Detective to his roots. After the villain had explained to Batman that his daughter shared Robin“s fate, the creative duo took readers on a tour across the world, while re-telling Batman“s origin story as if this were his first adventure. All this, while showing how menacing The Batman truly was, and how formidable. Still, O“Neil and Adams had more in store than the twist that came at the end of the tale. Now this was The Batman the television show had not presented. Here now finally was a yarn as complex and gritty as Stefano“s “The Invisibles”“, with an artist in Adams as stylish as Oswald to give the words a visual expression and representation. A tale finally good enough to show to your parents and to the nay-sayers and even to the cool kids at your school. This was as good in quality as any much-revered piece of literature, not a piece of trash as these people told you comics were. Now, finally, you had found a place to belong. But if you thought the twist at the end of Batman No. 232 was big, O“Neil and Adams had you thinking again. Whereas they attacked the silly elements that had crept into the proceedings, and with such vigor and a level of craft not many creatives had ever displayed when working on the Batman books, they did the utterly unexpected. They killed The Batman. To find out why they had to, and what happened next, be back here in seven days!
Author Profile
Chris Buse (RIP)
A comic book reader since 1972. When he is not reading or writing about the books he loves or is listening to The Twilight Sad, you can find Chris at his consulting company in Germany... drinking damn good coffee. Also a proud member of the ICC (International Comics Collective) Podcast with Al Mega and Dave Elliott.
