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Post by RedKing on Feb 15, 2005 0:07:31 GMT -8
Picked up this hardcover gem last weekend and hooboy !What a read!This is the first 10 Batman stories from Detective Comics May 1939-April 1941,it's great stuff!! It's also radically different than the Batman we know today,particularly the first year before Robin was introduced to lighten the tone up a great deal! First off,there is no Batcave,no Alfred,not even an official Batmobile-Batman's car is just a souped up,but ordinary looking black(blue) roadser(though it is red in one issue).He does have the BatGyro,an early version of the Batplane and the Batarang from the second or third issues though.Also,and most shockingly there is no Gotham city-these early issues say they take place in Manhattan!And Batman is wanted by the police,there's definately no batsignal!Batman also uses a gun occasionally and has no qualms about killing villians-one henchman is looking for the Batman out of a window and Bats swings down and breaks the guy's neck!Alot of villians also met with those "accidental" deaths like falling off of things during fights,etc.,which Batman always has a "serves him right" attitude towards.One cool 2 part story has Batman follow his fiancee Julie(she doesn't have a last name) to Europe where he tangles with a vampire and his werewolf minions! very cool stuff indeed!The stories before Robin shows up are very very dark,gritty and Gothic,and once Robin is introduced the tone lightens up considerably,Batman is even redesighned to the familiar almost all blue cape and cowl and smiling face used right up through the 60s and 70s(think the animated Batman from the openening credits of the Adam West TV show or the SUPERFRIENDS Batman-that's kinda what he looks like) the first year darker Batman has long horn like ears,an almost all black cape and cowl and for some reason his cape would actually open like bat wings.Ilike the first year solo Batman stories alot better,but they are all great! I also picked up the similar volume from Marvel for Spidey,but I haven't gotten to read it yet,I'm still finishing up Batman.
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Post by Torgaman on Feb 15, 2005 10:03:31 GMT -8
Bob Kane originally wanted to give Bats wings but it was the editor who told him to make it a cape because
Superman had a cape and was popular.The issue with the vampire was the last time Bats would use a gun as once again the editor who had a social conscious feared
kids would take to using guns to solve their problems if
they saw Batman use a gun.So afterwards Batman stopped using guns and eventually stopped taking life altogether.Had this version of Batman remained by the fifties no doubt he would have never survived the backlash created by the book SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT written by a psycho shrink that went by the name Dr Wertham.
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Post by Xenorama ™ on Feb 15, 2005 10:04:45 GMT -8
i've only read a few stories from this time period (notably the first one) and yeah, it's definately different in tone before Robin shows up.
however, i am glad Robin did, since that dark and grim sort of hero is not appealing to me much. one can be fine, but when bad writers think that's all people want...
which is a rant for another day, or see Chris' LJ entries on same!
i have the first two Marvel Essentials of Spider-man, which reprint ALL the Lee/Ditko stories, including the annuals, and i love those. possibly my favorite run in comics for Spider-man.
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Post by RedKing on Feb 16, 2005 23:24:08 GMT -8
I like Batman to be kind of dark and grim,it definately fits his character alot better than the 50s/60s version of Batman that most people assume Adam West invented,but he was pretty much like that already.Not that I don't like that version of Batman mind you-i grew up avidly watching the batman TV show every day after school.However,the "dark" hero has been done to death and so badly so many times in the past 15 years or so in comics and movies that it really hurts the few genuinelly good dark heroes that the persona works for like the Batman.As for Spidey-Barnes and Noble has 4 volumes of Masterpiece Editions and i plan on getting all of them when i can.I absolutely love the original Lee/Ditko stuff-it was such great writing,especially for that time period,it really changed comics.
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Post by Xenorama ™ on Feb 17, 2005 0:14:09 GMT -8
makes me wonder where Spidey would have gone, had Ditko not left the series and stayed on like Kirby did. Would Norman have been the Goblin? we will never know.
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