Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
(... my very favoritest hero...)
He really is, you know. "The Most Dangerous Man On the Planet,"
I mean.Superman called him that once,
in an issue of JLA, and -- good golly! -- Superman knows everything...!
He's also my very, very, very favorite fictional hero-type fellah of all time.
As for just exactly why some guy skulking about on nighttime rooftops -- tarted up like Mighty Mouse's twin brother gone horribly, horribly WRONG -- should get the nod over, say, James Bond, or Doc Savage, or Tarzan... welllllllll...
... I guess it'd just be simpler to show you, really
In the beginning... there were these Three Wise Men, okay?
Bob Kane; Bill Finger; and Jerry Robinson.
While the urban mythology of the day (as well as Mr. Kane himself) would have you believe that the creation of this singularly totemic character in the American massmind was a solo act... the actual truth -- as it has been (and continues to be, to this day) pieced together by the more conscientious historians within the field -- is a bit more complex, really.
During the short-lived "Batman" craze of the mid-to-late 60's -- back when Adam West and Burt Ward (TV's "Batman and Robin") were redefining the phrase "ham acting" twice each week on prime time network television -- DC Comics published a slew of reprinted material from the early days of the Batman canon [see accompanying cover, above]. All of the stories bore the large, distinctive signature "Bob Kane"; writer... artist... and (to hear him tell it, sometimes) the guy who stapled each and every comic individually, before shipping them out into the hinterlands.
However it is now taken as an article of faith that
many of the early, "classic" Batman stories were written by Bill Finger... andthat Jerry Robinson was the primary agent for the introduction of such pivotal
characters as Robin and the Joker into the Bat-mythos.
In his earliest, just-trying-the-cape-on-for-size days...
the Batman was nobody to mess around with. He toted a gun along with his
utility belt; threw yowling underworld gunsels over rooftops without so much
as a backwards glance; and -- in general -- was about seventy-gazillion times
scarier than the bad guys he routinely left trussed up like young tom turkeys
on the front steps of the Gotham City Police Department.
Say what you will about "vigilantism" this and "due process" that; this Batman -- just one step removed (if that) from such remorseless pulp characters as the Shadow and the Whistler -- was an exciting, vital character... about as far removed from, say, Superman as Jeffrey Dahmer is from Mariah Carey.
Unfortunately The Powers That Be over at DC weren't content to let matters rest comfortably (and sensibly) there; as the years ground on into decades, the once- "Darknight Detective" underwent a steady process of character erosion. The formerly unique- unto- himself Batman became steadily more and more like his blander chum from over Metropolis way, Superman a "Bat-Hound," where Superman had the trusty Krypto, the Super-Dog... an inquisitive female reporter "love interest"... even a pesky li'l extra-dimensional pest (tagged "Bat-Mite." God help us all.) to provide the echo to Superman's own "Mr. Mxyzptlk."
It's not that the ensuing stories were terrible, by any stretch of the imagination; frequently, they were ingenious and entertaining, as the Batman's stable of latter-day scriveners focused more intently on the "detective" aspect of the character. (Although -- as this and the next cover make manifest -- there most assuredly were some definite "lows" in the lore, at that point in time.)
But they weren't the Batman, you see.
The Silver Age BATMAN
PAGE TWO
PAGE THREE
"MORE COMIC BOOKS," YOU SAY...?
The DC Comics Sub-Directory
The Marvel Comics Sub-Directory
The Miscellaneous Comics Sub-Directory
The "Gotta Find That DC Character" Menu
The "Gotta Find That Marvel/Miscellaneous
Character" Menu