[Comics]: Detective Comics #58, [untitled]

Publication date: December, 1941.
Author: Bob Kane

It's been a long time since we've had an issue where they forgot to put a title in the opening crawl, but rest assured: this is indeed about "the strange, almost ludicrous figure of the Penguin--the umbrella man!"

I have generally enjoyed the Penguin. He's one of Batman's sillier villains, a short, waddling man with a beakish nose and a penchant for tuxedos. In fact, in the way his absurd physical attributes match his moniker, the Penguin hearkens back to the old Dick Tracy villains, and the corresponding notion that crime should be colorful (and ugly). What makes the Penguin work is not his stories (can you name one? I can't, outside of the execrable Tim Burton movie), or even his array of weaponized umbrellas (although that was what I loved about him as a child).

No, the Penguin gets by on his attitude. He comports himself with the kind of dignity only given to people who actually use the word "comport". The tuxedo, the self-confidence bordering on arrogance, the breezy sense of violent whimsy--the man has style. It's that peculiar mix of dignity and absurdity that makes him a compelling character and a very fun villain to watch.

Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, of course, have no dignity whatsoever:

Privately shattered by the boy's critique, the "Grrrrrreat" Bustolli ended his art career and found new work as a cereal mascot in a tiger costume.

Knowing that no school would take an unofficially adopted ward, Bruce has brought Dick here in an attempt to educate him. But Bruce only actually knows one lesson: the importance of money, something he demonstrates to the kid by showing him two paintings (by "Watteau") collectively worth half a million dollars. Also admiring the paintings is a peculiar fellow in a tuxedo and top hat, carrying an umbrella. In his stature and coloring, he closely resembles a nearby penguin on a pedestal--which is either a rather boring sculpture, or an animal that has escaped from the zoo for an afternoon of culture.

"Bruce, are you high right now? Because--"

"I am so high."

"Because I am totally high."

Suddenly--or as the comic puts it:

The Watteau paintings have been stolen! Nobody can leave until everybody has been searched!

All fall under the questioning gaze and curious, tender hands of the museum guards--even Bruce Wayne, who, as a member of the ruling class, is usually above such petty suspicions. Even the man in the tuxedo has to open his umbrella, complaining good-naturedly about bad luck.

Consider this hypothetical: let's say you have successfully absconded with two paintings worth half a million dollars. What do you do next? Sell them, of course. Ah, but you (probably) do not cut half so ridiculous a figure as the Penguin. He doesn't need money; what he needs is respect.

"If he turns out to be a Jehovah's Witness, then you can drill him."

The boss of these thugs, by the way, is known only as "Boss", either because the writers were lazy, or because he's actually Bruce Springsteen. (What? He obviously grew old and left his music career to become a time-traveling gangster. It could happen!)

Anyway, once Penguin pulls the purloined paintings out of his pumbrella (mmm, alliteration), he immediately earns the undying respect of Old Man Springsteen and his goons (drums and base guitar, respectively). Penguin uses his ingenuity to plan heists, the goons carry them out, and Bob's your father's brother, leaving the newspapers just spinning and montaging into one another with curiosity.

Obviously Bruce Wayne never fights crime unless it's right in front of his nose, so the comic does the narrative equivalent of buying a vowel--it arranges yet another convenient coincidence.

"Fatty"? Jeez, Bruce. Didn't your mother ever teach you--oh. Oh man. I'm so sorry. I--I didn't think.

The lights go out, and when they come back on, the diamond is gone. Bruce starts to notice a pattern:

"I mean, I would like to investigate these crimes, but it's happy hour at that awesome dive bar tonight. Two for one beers! My hands are tied."

Later, the Penguin gets into an argument with "The Boss" about money (after all, royalties on "Born to Run" won't start rolling in for another 34 years). And let this be a lesson to you, children: never argue money with friends. Especially when your friend has an umbrella machine gun. Even after murdering the Boss, however, the Penguin possesses a perfectly polite panache: "If none of you lads objects--I'm your new boss!" The (pr)E Street Band is... surprisingly okay with that.

That night, Bruce Wayne enjoys happy hour at a scuzzy bar on the waterfront. He's in disguise, of course, mostly because society is not yet ready for a man's man who prefers the appletini. Also because he's eavesdropping on a few of Penguin's thugs, who, like most thugs, have an otherwise rare, unfortunate condition known as Exposition Tourette's. It's actually quite sad--they can't help but tell each other the broad details of a plan they already know. For just a dollar a day, you can help these poor goons buy the medicine they need. Call 1-800-HENCHMEN! Operators are standing by.

"You're drunk!"

"You're drunk!"

"I'm twelve years old!"

"Then you're under arrest for underage intoxication!"

Is it just me, or this is issue vacillating wildly between the evocative--

And the ridiculous?

You don't know want to know the context for this picture. Suffice to say, that was the ugliest painting I have ever seen in my life, and Batman's true victory today was ruining it.

But perhaps this wild contrast in tones is to a purpose: the examination of contrasting identities. Batman stories (and this comes from both noirs and gothics) are often about twins--Bruce Wayne and his secret identity, Batman (Order) and Joker (Chaos), Bruce Wayne and Ra's al Ghoul, and of course both sides of Two-Face, just to name a few--and here we have yet another. Today it's a question of couth.

This is why Freestyle Jousting never caught on.

During this confrontation, each panel represents the duality at play here visually. Not only are the characters here placed on either side of the frame, facing each other and isolated from any potential background (assuming that's not just a case of artistic laziness), but their figures convey contrasting attitudes quite nicely. Batman is in motion, ready for action, charging ahead! Penguin is calm, stationary, ready to defend himself but not concerned about it either. And look at the way Penguin is bound by the lines of the panel, whereas Batman breaks out of it (his foot and cape poking out into the previous panel).

Penguin frames the conflict as the old mind/body divide--Batman's muscles versus his intellect. That's true, as far as it goes, but I think both visually and in terms of what happens in this "fight", there's a deeper layer here. To me, it's about investment. Batman is in the moment, physically present, fully engaged in both the battle and the narrative framework in which it exists. Penguin, on the other hand, is detached, above it all, observing even as he participates. His reaction to poisoning Batman with a spray of noxious green gas from his trick umbrella is completely out of sync--barely even looking at the man he's trying to kill, Penguin is still continuing the previous conversation, concluding that Batman would never make a good partner in crime... not because Batman is too moral, but because he wouldn't "appreciate the beauty" of a good theft.

Appreciation; observation; a detached, ironic point of view. Everything's a joke to him. Penguin is only an "intellectual" for show, quoting Keats to his thugs and telling them he's going home to "browse through Shakespeare". The man's a proto-hipster, embracing the top hat and tails because they set him apart from everyone else. (Look at him! He's never not smoking!)

Why an umbrella? Why not a cane, a much more traditional "rich man" accessory? Because an open umbrella in the rain closes you off from the world. Because it isolates you.

After rescuing his henchmen and successfully completing the theft, Penguin exits, stage left--but first he smashes the burglar alarm, leaving the unconscious, gassed Batman for the police to find. 

Shockingly, the comic actually follows through on its own continuity--where previous issues would have had the police arresting him, now they're just questioning him in his new role as an honorary member of the department.

Note the curtains opening--we're about to see a very clever little show.

Mr. Boniface, in a genuinely surprising and interesting twist, is actually the Penguin himself! According to "Mr. Boniface" (whose nose is so large it looks like he has a BONer In the middle oF his fACE), Batman has been threatening him for weeks, demanding protection money and bragging that his pseudo-police status meant he was above the law.

"Officers, I ask you--is the proud, erect nose of a liar?"

Batman is still too hazy from that poison gas to do what he'd normally do in this situation, ie., bribe the cops to look the other way. (Wayne's annual contributions to the Policeman's Ball are the only things keeping Grayson away from Child Services.) In the absence of a counter-argument, the police are convinced that Batman should be taken in, because all crime is handled on a plutocratic basis--rich man beats dude in ridiculous costume any day. (Saves tons on paperwork.)

But the Penguin's perfidious plot is not quite plenary:

I'm surprised accidents like this don't happen more often, given that Gotham appears to have no roads, street signs, or distinguishing features.

A dazed Batman stumbles from the wreckage, to be swooped up by Penguin's thugs. Later, Batman is subjected to a full-on gloating session. Penguin wants nothing from him except an audience. Neck wattles all a-quiver with self satisfaction, Penguin explains each step of his plan: stealing a valuable idol from himself, framing Batman for the crime in order to draw suspicion away from him, and then helping Batman "escape" from the cops so as to solidify any questions of the caped crusader's guilt. Batman realizes that he looks guilty if he stays here, but will get shot if he leaves. Based on past results, I'd go with leaving, given that the police in Gotham couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat. Batman chooses a different strategy, however.

I think half the reason Batman is alive right now is so that he can admire those umbrellas.

While Penguin goes over his prize collection with all the zeal of a fetishist ("Hmm! Got this one in Spain! Hmm!" he burbles), Batman is busy tapping a Morse code message out over his foot phone. Robin, dressed and ready for action upon hearing of the accusations against Batman over the phone, receives the call on his "telephone belt", and decides to rush to his aid. At last, an excuse not to do that homework.

Soon enough, Penguin's doorbell rings. "It's a telegram messenger!" comes the call from outside.

Let's all just take a moment to admire that. "Sssppllff!" What a fantastic sound effect.

In the ensuing battle, Batman is able to free himself from his ropes using some broken glass on the floor. ("I've got to cut these cords--and quickly!" he exclaims to no one in particular. It would appear that Exposition Tourette's is catching.) Batman and Robin make quick work of the goons, but they've lost the war--Penguin holds them at bay with an umbrella while he phones the police.

(It occurs to me that Penguin could actually, randomly, use a completely normal umbrella to scare somebody into doing what he wants. You'd never know!)

Our heroes decide that they'd rather not have to punch their way through the entire Gotham Police Department--oh, they could do it, it's just that their fists would get tired eventually--and so make their way out the back. Batman is pissed enough to make punny ultimatums.

Get it? The bird is ready for a "coup", aka "coop", which is where you keep birds, albeit not penguins? Okay, so it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Batman and Robin disguise themselves as a couple of street people, begging for alms outside Penguin's mansion. After several nights of this, our heroes catch Penguin and his gang heading out on a job. As it turns out, they're pulling the old "Red-Headed League" trick. If you haven't read this original Sherlock Holmes story, give it a shot here. As a detective Batman owes a good deal to Holmes, although Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories had fewer homicidal clowns.

At any rate, the "Red-Headed League" trick is where you gain entry by subterfuge to an (otherwise innocuous) underground location which happens to share a back wall with your real target--in this case, the Diamond Exchange vault--and then drill or dig through, a little bit at a time. Holmes elected to surprise the villains at the other end of their tunnel, but Batman and Robin have been dicking (and Brucing!) around, and are too late to do anything but the most dramatic possible entrance.

Robin: "Actually I haven't jumped through the window yet, Batman. First I have to tie my shoe."

While Batman and Robin beat up Penguin's thugs in revenge for the framing, the Penguin, caught in the brazen act of open and unequivocal theft, undergoes a remarkable transformation. First he levels his umbrella at our heroes, snarling (no more pretense of good humor) and--for the first time--breaking through the panel border. He's had enough, and is now taking an active, interested role in the proceedings. Then he's seen by the police spraying deadly acid into the face of one of his henchmen:

Ouch. That's probably not covered under medical, I don't think.

Look at that panel, contrasted with Penguin's previous images. Rather than restrained, he's drawn with action lines; he's leaning forward, looming over the rest of the figures, indicating his complicity and responsibility for setting all this into motion; he's finally been caught openly committing a crime, as indicated by the police observers--who, it should be noted, are the first people besides his thugs to name him as the Penguin. He's no longer separated from his actions or the situation they have caused, but overlaps and is overlapped by them--integrated visually and thus metaphorically into the situation, and no longer reacting like anything but a villain.

Finally, he makes a run for it:

Awesome.

Look, he's lost his top hat on the way--his respectability, his safer identity as Boniface. Penguins, of course, don't wear top hats, and the art does a lovely job of showing that Penguin has now stepped fully into his iconic persona. The umbrella is no longer a symbol of isolation, but firmly of violence and crime, a reputation he carries with him going forward. A downward sloping roof, but the rise of a villain.

Fittingly, Penguin makes a run for the el-train--trains, of course, being a traditional symbol of change and freedom. The climactic fight plays out largely in symbolic terms--Batman throws a punch, Penguin loses hold of his umbrella (which we'll see in a moment was full of diamonds), and the exchange leaves both men affected in opposite ways by the rumbling trains:

I'm beginning to think that he thinks real penguins actually say "hee hee".

Batman is alive but shaken thanks to the train passing over him--a fitting conclusion to an adventure in which the cops' newfound trust in him was sorely tested. If nothing else, this was a story about Batman's vulnerability to forces larger or smarter than him, from Penguin's plan which our hero barely guessed at, to the poison gas that left him virtually helpless and the acid he and Robin barely escaped, to actually being taken in by the police as a thief. There's a wider world out there, and Batman's ability to change it is not unlimited. After all, Penguin gets away, scot free.

If there's a reason why Batman has the best and most interesting rogue's gallery of any major superhero, I think it has its origins in stories like this, or the recent introduction of Scarecrow. In contrast to Spiderman, or Superman, these early Batman stories are often not about Batman, but instead use Batman as a force of nature, or an iconic symbol, against which to measure deeper, richer characters such as Scarecrow, the Joker, and now the Penguin.

It's no coincidence, I think, that Batman's main villains have received less and less comeuppance for their crimes as we go along--the Joker is always "killed", whereas Scarecrow was jailed, and Penguin simply allowed to flee. The comic is learning, I think, that its villains are more interesting and attractive to the reader than Batman and Robin (as characters, not icons); that it's far easier to bring on recurring villains if you don't tie them up in narrative knots ("So, I know Joker was shot, stabbed, poisoned, drowned, and thrown into a volcano in his last appearance, but let's figure out a way to bring him back..."); and that the comic's moral constraints do not necessarily require crime to be punished. Judging by the statements and actions of the heroes--who we've seen time and time again as the arbiter's of each issue's moral lesson--Penguin's real crime was making life very inconvenient for Batman, not insurance fraud or the murder of the old crime Boss. Or even running away with a bunch of diamonds.

"Yes, he'll probably be back someday," agreed the others, as they all divided up the jewels amongst themselves. "For one thing, we never found his stolen diamonds." They all shared a significant glance.

[Comics]: Detective Comics #57, "Twenty-Four Hours to Live!"

Publication date: November, 1941
Author: Bob Kane

It's been a genre trope ever since the dawn of noir: the slow-acting poison. The dead man walking. And even before that, perhaps going back to the days of myth, when god and human alike were born with a foretold death sentence. We've all thought about it--what would we do if we knew that we were going to die, not years from now, but a month, a week, a day? From Ikiru to The Ring, from DOA to Crank, the idea of the death sentence has always fascinated both writers and audiences... perhaps because what we wish we would do in that situation is become truly free--from laws, from rules, from caution and restraint.

What would we say to those we care about? What would we do to those we hate? "You'll be dead tomorrow" is a blank check to whomever hears it, and whatever they spend that on will reveal who they are--or who they've always wanted to be.

Based on his actions, Jasper Sneed has always wanted to be an asshole.

"Damn you, disembodied voice!"

Sneed goes to his doctor, who tells him he's been dosed with enough Oriental poison to take down Gengis Khan. There's no cure, no pain, and he'll be dead in twenty-four hours, give or take the time Sneed spent reading old issues of Look Magazine in the waiting room.

Does he go to the police? Does he vow revenge on the man who killed him? Does he spend a last happy day at the amusement park?

No, he decides to fuck with his family for his own entertainment.

The butler's face betrayed no hint of emotion, but inside his heart fell; for years he had grown fonder of Mr. Sneed, and now he had made his move, putting all his love into three words. They had been so cruelly misinterpreted... "Yes sir," he said softly, putting on a brave face.

One by one the family is assembled, each of them the very epitome of spoiled, selfish hangers-on just waiting for Sneed to die so they can get a hold of his money. And they still come off better than him; they're just greedy, but Sneed's a sadist.

There's Sneed's sister, a dowager in a fur coat with a permanent sneer on her face; her well-dressed slut of a son (Sneed's nephew); and Sneed's niece, who dreams of singing in the opera.

Then there's Sneed's business partner, John Harvey, and Harvey's cousin (who bears the delightfully baroque name of Mosmer Clay), an undertaker. One fat and short, one tall and thin, they're like a nursery rhyme that's gone sour.

All five of them assemble in the living room, wondering what's going on. Jasper doesn't keep them in suspense for long. Admirably brief, given his short time left on this earth, Sneed tells them that one of them has poisoned him, and that he will have his revenge. Also, all of them will be getting some money.

What we have here is a variation on a plot structure we haven't seen in a while--the beloved murder mystery! ...with the victim still walking around, of course. And pissed.

These suspects:

Might all be victims by the time Sneed gets done with them. Who needs Batman? I'm gonna go get some popcorn.

Note that the bank manager is so shocked his bifocals are hovering in mid-air.

One million dollars in 1941, by the way, is about 14.6 million today, so maybe Stuttering Stanley there is just wondering how all that will fit in one little brown briefcase.

Armed with enough cash to buy a small country, Sneed decides to go shopping (but sadly, not at Tiny Nation Emporium, where if you buy Luxembourg today, they'll throw in Estonia for free!). He buys a car, a saw, and a screwdriver.

"What kind of shoddy workmanship is this? Serves me right for buying American."

Sneed pulls off the steering wheel, tossing it out of the car with barely-contained glee. Mosmer realizes there are no doorknobs on the doors... just in time to see Sneed jump out of the car and slam his own door shut. The deranged little man gives the car a good shove, laughing at how he was able to turn a car into a deathtrap with nothing but a saw and a few hours. The doors won't open, the car can't stop or turn, the windows are unbreakable, and the bright yellow vehicle runs right off the nearby pier and into the water, becoming a bright yellow tomb for the undertaker.

As Jasper crows over his victory, there are still eighteen hours remaining.

The dying man next sets his sights on his business partner, John Harvey. He visits "the hangout of a notorious criminal", which he knows about for some reason, and buys the man's goons away with a thousand dollar bill. Then he goes into the back room and pays the "notorious criminal" 100 grand to kill the partner--half now, half when it's done. Literally. He cuts the bills in half. What a dick.

"Well, uh, sure Mac, that's oddly specific but I'll do my best!

...

Hey Mac did you know your eye's gonna come out?"

Meanwhile, Lucille Sneed (the niece who wants to sing in the opera) is meeting with her good friend Linda Page and her boyfriend, Bruce Wayne, looking even more bored than usual. Which is hard to believe because Lucille's story boils down to "So my crazy uncle is dying and homicidal and probably crazy," which, I mean, it's no killer clown, but it beats the hell out of daytime TV.

Later, however, Batman rushes out to see if John Harvey knows anything about his business partner's newfound derangement. He arrives too late to catch Harvey, but not too late to scare the ever-loving shit out of some poor clerk:

"Let's go, Robin--I mean, uh, Santa's Helpful Elf... boy... uh... Oh, fuck it. I'm Batman. Look at the cape, moron."

Wow, I was so amused by the whole "I need a secret identity to protect my secret identity" thing that I completely missed Batman saying, "Let's go, Robin--I've got a hunch we're going to see some action." Let's see how the next scene plays with that in mind.

Okay, so the thugs get Harvey into the steel mill and immediately decide to tie him up. (Hm.) And apparently one of the gangsters is named Silky. (hmmmm) And they're going shove Harvey deep into this furnace, when suddenly:

"Like... in a good way?"

Surely they must be talking about shooting Batman with their guns--something nobody, gay or straight, could possibly want done to them.

...

The next words out of Batman's mouth are, I kid you not, "Ah! Very satisfying--very satisfying, indeed!" I give the hell up.

Anyway, after the... uh... "fight"... is over... Harvey, uh, wipes the sweat off his face and--okay skipping ahead some more. Some part of this story has to stop with the innuendos...

dammit comic! I am trying to give you the benefit of the doubt!

Sneed does this bizarre "seduction" process where first he gives the Amazingly-Still Man ten grand to "play a joke" for him, pretending to be a statue. Then he covers the ASM in bronze paint, so he'll really look like a statue, because the woman in question (Sneed's sister) collects statues. Then he's like, "So I'll give you another 50 grand if you kill her for me."

"Wink," added the human statue, his eyes glued open by the paint. "Salacious wink."

Mrs. Biggs receives her statue, and while Batman and Robin decide to go ask her about Sneed, she returns to her gallery to admire her present once again.

"As a man who seldom moves, I actually have very weak muscles, so it's going to take me like forever to beat you to death."

Luckily Robin bursts in and beats the ASM down. Meanwhile, Sneed is already on to other plans, throwing money around like it was paper or something. Oh well. Can't take it with you, can't leave it to a bunch of corpses, screw charity, let's go hire some more gangsters. Also he buys a golf course just to make sure it's empty that afternoon.

"I'd wait until tomorrow, but, you know, he'll be dead by then, so..."

Mrs. Biggs tries to warn her son, but the boy has perfected the art of not listening to her crap and so hangs up. Batman rushes off to save him.

Ten says it's the old "exploding golf ball" trick.

Before Stanley can give it a big ol' whack of a drive, Batman's silk rope pulls the club out of his hands. ("Comes in handy as a whip, too!" says Batman. Really.)

The thugs posing as club members descend on Batman and Robin and are defeated in comically easy fashion. Then Batman tosses the suspect golf ball onto the green to see what will happen (without even yelling "Fore!" Bad form, Batman):

Hah! You owe me ten bucks!

Batman's seen Sneed's goons try to throw his business partner in the furnace, club his sister to death, and blow up his nephew. Sneed is a dangerous man with a lot of money and nothing to lose. What should be done?

"And with that, my work here is done."

Sneed, nearing the end of his rope, is hounded at every turn by police cars. They've found the undertaker's body, they've got his description out over the radio ("wildeyed man carrying a bag full of money"), and now he can't even finish his vengeance by giving Lucille a throat spray full of acid. So not fair.

"Part of the black shadows?" Please. Batman's costume was designed with stealth in mind. Robin's, on the other hand, was designed to be visible by the cheap seats at the circus.

Batman and Robin wait all night long for Sneed to arrive, and then follow him upstairs to see where he's going. Sneed opens a door, enters... and confronts his killer!

Really? The butler did it? Really?

Batman stops Sneed before Jasper can put a bullet in the butler, and the last thing the poor, unfortunate, evil son of a bitch feels before he succumbs to the poison is Batman's fist in his face. Serves him right!

"Red Herring?!"

As it turns out, the "butler" is actually Jasper's twin brother, Richard. They were both in love with the same woman, but she married Jasper (maybe he was less evil back then?) When Jasper ran a poor person down with his car and drove off (okay so maybe he wasn't less evil back then), Richard took his place and the terrible responsibility, to avoid disgracing the Jasper's wife, the woman he still loved. It was all for nothing, however--the wife died, there were allegations of abuse, and an upset Richard decided to get revenge. He tattooed love on the fingers of one hand and hate on the other, lifted some weights, and then broke out of jail to come poison Jasper, because, uh, I dunno. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Nothing, though, and I mean nothing fazes Batman. His response to this ridiculously convoluted backstory is literally "I suspected as much!" God damn.

One gets the sense that Batman doesn't really give a crap about Jasper, and even sympathizes with and admires Richard, but the law is the law is the law is the law, so Richard will be getting the chair for this.

Batman and Robin shrugged.

"Go for some ice cream?"

"Yeah, okay."

What a dark and twisted story this was. Probably the grimmest, gloomiest one yet. Batman saved some lives, sure, but otherwise he sort of just wandered through a maze of hate, deceit, and murderous intentions. I don't think this era's Batman is cut out to deal with this level of banal human evil.

I mean, look at them. At the dark (yet elegant) conclusion to this little tale of woe, Batman and Robin are just staring at each other in dumbfoundedness. They don't even know what to do with a criminal who sets out to commit murder, succeeds, and then kills himself in despair. There's no room for a goofy pair of two-fisted crimefighters in that scenario, no room at all.

This was a good and interesting story, but I think I need to go take a shower now. Maybe next week's will be lighter fare.

*checks* Oh hell yeah, it's about the Penguin! Awesome. Now I feel better. Tune in next time, boys and girls!

[Comics]: Detective Comics #56, "The Stone Idol"

Publication date: October, 1941.
Author: Bob Kane

There are those Batman stories out there which have a strong focus on psychological realism, telling stories about crimes and criminals which may be colorful, but are still grounded in the reality of the characters and of Gotham City.

And then there's this:

what is this I don't even

As our utterly ridiculous story opens, Bruce and Dick are on vacation, driving across America because, well, they're bored. Who could blame them? Crime in Gotham has gotten kind of stale of late, walking scarecrows notwithstanding. Plus it's not as though Dick goes to school or anything. That would require him to have been legally adopted, not just found at the circus. And I don't think we've ever actually seen Bruce work--not even "running Wayne Enterprises" kind of work. So he probably asked for some vacation time, and Commissioner Gordon's couch was kind enough to agree.

In this fashion our heroes happen to stumble blindly into yet another series of weird happenstances, like a proto-Scooby gang. (It's all part of the bat-thropic principle: Batman and Robin only drive through towns where weird crimes are occurring because otherwise it wouldn't be a story.)

This time it's what the narration calls a "ghost town", but I don't think those words mean what they think it means. For one thing they've decided that the town, formerly the bustling center of a thriving silver mining operation, is actually named "Ghost Gulch City", which, okay, but that's kind of pessimistic on the part of the town founders. For another thing, there are still people living in this ghost town. People with strange superstitions and an even stranger assortment of hats:

The bartender is wearing a baseball cap, I am not even kidding

Anyway, Beardy McForeshadowing turns out to be right. That night, while Bruce and Dick are "enjoying" the quaint local hospitality of an inn in a town where even the jobs factory has gone out of business, a terrible--excuse me, "turrible"--storm blows in. The rain puts a truck in danger as it washes out the mountain road; and a lightning bolt strikes at the feet of the giant stone idol which apparently has been on the mountain, worshipped by Native Americans, since... well, since before Beardy McForeshadowing could shave.

It hasn't rained in 2000 years? Okay now I know why everybody left.

"Mad Mack" crows over the fallen idol, immediately trying to use his newfound spiritual cache for evil purposes. "The stone idol's powerful--last night he upped and spoke to me--about you, Mr. Mayor. He said--" But before he can end that sentence with "He said you should give me all your fancy booze", the stone idol flashes and comes to life!

Worse, he's totally pissed:

A symbol of Native America, justly angry that his land has been stolen and filled with strip-mines and whorehouses? This looks like a job for Batman!

Everybody runs off, except for the Mayor, who decides to stand his ground. He's not leaving, goddammit. Not when being Mayor gives him two for one beers on weekends. Sadly, he is not smooshed by a giant stone fist; instead, the statue flashes again, and goes back to normal.

This story is even better if you imagine they're talking about a stoned, rampaging Billy Idol.

What we have here, fascinatingly, is a religious conflict. Even in the face of what some consider to be plain-sight miracles, the skeptic remains. Belief seems natural, given the evidence, but carries with it the price of leaving their home forever (or risk incurring the stone god's wrath).

Debate sweeps the "ghost" town--are they afraid of something that isn't real, as the Mayor claims? Or is the correct decision, both morally and pragmatically, for the townspeople to follow the edicts of their new divine leader? Devotion does not come without sacrifice, but disbelief in reality does not come without getting smooshed by a giant stone fist. Which path will the citizens of "Ghost Gulch City" choose?

Whoops, time's up.

This is so silly.

Aw, comic! You were doing so well. But here's where it all falls apart:

...

A walking, talking giant stone man? Okay, I can buy that. But flesh and blood servants? I call shenanigans.

Remember how I said Batman and Robin were driving around like a proto-Scooby gang? Yeah, more prophetic words have never been spoken (not even by Beardy McForeshadowing). Because those are clearly not statues, or even Native American ghosts. No, they are clearly criminal mugs who have never actually seen Native Americans but maybe read about them in a book once. That is why their costumes are "Fred Flintstone," "naked midget", and "caveman", respectively.

In fact, this is the exact same set-up countless episodes of Scooby Doo used in the late sixties and early seventies. You've got the vaguely exotic setting, the innocuous townspeople, the made-up legends, the historic wealth and present poverty, and the seemingly impossible supernatural figure whose sole desire is to scare people away. Based on the setting, I predict it's a gang of crooks who stumbled across a rich silver vein and wish to mine it themselves without the interference of the "ghost town" residents. If we're really lucky, there'll be Batman Snacks.

This is actually the same exact plot as the season 1 Scooby Doo episode, "Mine Your Own Business", where a mysterious figure named the "Miner 49er" scares everyone away from desert mining town "Gold City". That link there leads to the show, online. I'm gonna go watch it!

Man, I'd forgotten how cheesy and awesome that show was. (Isn't nostaliga great? Used to be better, though.)

Granted, part of the similarities between this comic and the Scooby Doo cartoon might be both works' adherence to even earlier Gothic traditions, going back to the mother of them all, Ann Radcliffe, whose novels made Gothicism morally palatable to the masses by giving them supernatural events which were later explained as trickery, allowing readers to have their self-righteous cake and eat it, too. We already know Batman draws on Gothic traditions, and usually at least pretends to take place in a world with crazy science but no actual horror elements. (Never mind the werewolves.) And it wouldn't surprise me if at least the tropes of Gothic fiction also filtered into a children's mystery show.

Of course, it might also be a case of direct influence--after all, somebody at Hanna Barbera was a Batman fan, since Batman and Robin made a couple of appearances during that "special guest" season of Scooby Doo.

But I digress (should be this blog's motto). What's important here is, now that we understand these are just criminals, Batman and Robin can safely combat the stone idol and his goons without getting into a religious war or perpetuating an ancient racial injustice. And get into it they do, in this fabulous splash panel:

Due to the size of the panel, you may not be able to read the "quips". FYI, it's all nonsensical sports metaphors.

Our heroes are doing well, up until there's another one of those flashes of light. The "servants" disappear, and the stone god returns to the chair he stole from the Lincoln Memorial. Their work apparently done, Batman and Robin hightail it out of there.

The townspeople, meanwhile, are standing around in a circle, jaws agape. Stone idols and vengeful ghosts are one thing--but masked crimefighters? Well, I never! (Apparently Batman's market penetration hasn't made it out to Bumfuck, Nowhere.) And the only one who actually likes them is the Mayor. "Whoever they were, they certainly have my respect! What fighters!" he says, with a look on his face that says he's thinking, "If I could just harness their power for eeeevil..."

While Bruce and Dick are getting undressed in their hotel room (no, not like that), Bruce pontificates a bit on the philosophical ramifications of the punching he just did.

"Perhaps... yes. Yes, I do have the sexiest chin."

Meanwhile, like any religion worth its salt, the Ghost Gulch Cult of the Stone Idol has decided that their god requires human sacrifice. And what better candidate than the Mayor, local heretic and encourager of masked fighters?

Oh, superstitious townsfolk. Is there any problem you can't solve?

The crazy mob is foiled, however, when Batman swings in, using his strength and acrobatic skill to... uh... whatever this is:

The Mayor is naturally speechless. For some moments in life, there are no words.

Batman lands, and after an awkward moment, lets go of the Mayor's, uh, Mayoral seat. No time for recriminations or sexual harassment accusations, however! There are fanatics about! They must be beaten with the chair leg of truth until they renounce their (literal) idolatry.

Apologies (and love) to Warren Ellis.

Before the depunchgramming can begin, however, the stone man in the stone loincloth decides to join the fight. He grabs Robin ("He's got Robin!" Batman helpfully exclaims) and does his flashy-light trick, leaving the stone idol back in his chair and Robin nowhere to be found. Get this statue a show in Vegas, please.

Naturally, the fastest way to Angry Batman is through hurting or kidnapping Robin. So he grabs a giant ax-looking thing (from, I dunno, hammerspace?) and tries his Batman-est to beat the stone bastard to death with it. And he bursts open like a pinata, and out comes Robin, covered in candy! Yay!

No, wait, I think that was a dream I had once. Yeah. No, in the comic, it doesn't work. Batman's axythingy just breaks some of the stone off, nothing actually happens. Clearly Batman was not expecting this, and it is breaking his poor little Bat-Brain:

When asked later, after the murder-spree, one prominent psychologist traced Batman's psychotic break back to this very moment.

Batman and the Mayor literally topple the idol (heavy-handed, much?), and underneath they find a "yawning cavern". Batman wastes no time diving in, and finds--exactly what I predicted. A mine, and a mechanical apparatus which replaces the statue's chair with an identical, empty one under the cover of the flashing light. Also, goons!

Remembering that the townspeople around here were ignorant of his persona, Batman helpfully added, "And then I'll tear off your head and fuck the neck hole."

The key difference between Robin and a damsel in distress is that Robin is smart enough to kick the man next to him and try to escape. Oh, and that it's politically correct to show this in a comic book:

Good Lord! He just smacked the Japan out of that kid!

Meanwhile:

Sometimes my jokes just seem unnecessary.

The mine car picks up Batman, and Batman leans out of it and picks up Robin, and the two barrel on through the mine like... like dudes in a barrel? I don't know.

The mine cart takes him right to the boss of the level, the giant stone idol himself. To be honest the story and I have kind of checked out, so I'm just gonna gloss over the rest of this. There's a fight, they talk about stuff... about cooking, apparently? At least I think they're comparing recipes.

Guys, guys. There's no need to fight! You both make the best knuckle sandwich.

Batman knocks the stone dude back into a load-bearing beam, and the mine shaft starts collapsing around them. Batman and Robin survive by hiding under their mine cart, but the stone idol is crushed. When our heroes emerge from the pile of rubble ("like two human moles", claims the comic--Narrator, this isn't the adventures of Mole-Man, come on), they find Mad Mack, dying.

"The mine was mine! Get it? Ha ha!"

Why does nobody confess in this comic until they're dying? Batman never interrogates anybody, he just asks politely if they'll tell him now that there's no point in keeping secrets. World's laziest detective.

Mack explains a truly ridiculous series of events: after he found the silver vein, a traveling circus happened to come to town, walk up to him, and ask for work. They painted the strong man to look like a stone statue, and dressed some of them up as the idol's servants (although that dude in a caveman outfit looked like that when he arrived, so clearly Mad Mack got lazy at some point). Then they used flashlight powder to blind on-lookers for a minute while the elevator switched the real statue for the strong man. His plan was to scare the townspeople off, but he whipped them into a religious fervor instead, and this is where Batman and Robin came in.

"It would have worked, too, if it weren't for those meddling crime fighters, and that mangy Mayor!"

Ironically, Mad Mack's injuries were survivable--it's the Creeper that gets him.

Mack actually dies apologizing for his greed, but really, this is the same problem I had with that Scooby Doo episode (which ended with the Miner 49-er going to jail)--there's no law against dressing up and yelling scary stuff. Speech intended to harm somebody is troublesome, but speech intended to get people to leave, there's nothing wrong with that, legally or morally. Mad Mack's crime was theft--of the silver lode, from the rest of the town--but his scheme to accomplish that theft didn't actually hurt anybody. In fact Batman and Robin threw the first punches. This is one story where our "heroes" aren't that much less morally at fault than the supposed "villain", who gets over-punished for his deeds.

Not as much as the strong man, though. Buried under the cave-in without even getting mentioned again. Harsh.

Well, time for Batman and Robin to hit the road. A new day is dawning, and they must away, ere the sun turns them into a little pile of ash. (No wait, that's vampires. Never mind.) But they do have to go and continue their "vacation". There are more mysteries to be solved! Screw Gotham, let's hit the road, man. Burn a trail through this crazy country they call America.

 

A grateful person, anyway.

Batman never knew it, but for a brief time after he and Robin left, the townspeople of Ghost Gulch formed a religion around his worship. They fashioned crude costumes for themselves, night after night re-enacting the great fight between the stone idol and the masked warriors. The strong among them fought for the right to play the man in the dark cape, and the town fop always portrayed the wonderful boy who fought at his side. This state of affairs lasted about three and a half weeks, until they realized that they were all incredibly rich, and had no further need for silly cults.