Detective Comics 398

Neal Adams gives us another compelling, if misleading, image for the cover of Detective Comics #398 (1970).

A “poison pen” letter is simply a vitriolic missive designed to upset or “call out” the recipient, but there is something poetic about the phrase that imbues it with the connotation of something darker. Sometimes word choice can make all the difference. The title of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Purloined Letter,” for example, has an undeniably sinister ring to it. “Purloined” simply means “stolen,” but Poe’s decision to use the former word rather than the latter gives the title a more mysterious feel, perhaps because “purloined” is a less-frequently used word (at least in modern terms).

If the meaning of a word is unknown to a reader, it’s easy enough for him or her to consult the dictionary (especially in 2013 when a computer or a phone with Internet access is seldom out of reach), but in the mid-nineteenth century it wasn’t quite so simple, and many readers probably wouldn’t have bothered with it anyway (there were more important things to worry about; say, staving off cholera). Poe is well-known for his turgid language, but despite this it seems likely that he didn’t select “purloined” over “stolen” without careful consideration. After all, the effectiveness of a title is often all a potential reader has to go on.

The alliteration in the title of Batman’s story in this issue is also effective in creating a kind of poetic quality that is both eerie and strangely beautiful.

The premise of “The Poison Pen Puzzle” is not an unfamiliar one. Someone has written a “fictional” book based on the lives of some of Hollywood’s elite. In the literary world, this is known as a roman a clef (The Devil Wears Prada and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas being prime examples). The names have been replaced, but the facts are unchanged. Truth, at times, is more interesting than fiction, and presenting truth in the guise of fiction is even better. It has, at times, gotten authors in trouble (in at least one case a libel suit was filed), but some stories beg to be told.

Bruce Wayne, on his way to Hollywood via airplane, winds up sitting next to Maxine Melanie, bestselling author of The In People of Out City, the scandalous book in question. Wayne is on his way to a meeting with Seven-Star Pics, a film studio with which Wayne Enterprises is slated to merge. Wayne has a low opinion of Melanie’s book and is shocked when he discovers that it’s been optioned for a movie by the very studio he’s planning to work with. When he arrives at the meeting, he angrily declares that the book is trash and threatens to renege on the merger if they don’t drop it.

When one of the board members asks Wayne if he’s actually read the book rather than just basing his opinion on hearsay, Wayne admits that he hasn’t and asks if a copy is available. They offer to let him read the publisher’s advance copy but find that it is missing. Wayne tells them that he will just drop by the local bookstore and pick one up. It just so happens that Melanie is signing books at the store. As Wayne looks on, an old woman breaks in line to ask for an autograph and gives Melanie her pen.

Suddenly, Melanie screams in pain and collapses, dropping the book. Wayne retrieves the volume and tries to return it to the old woman, but she grabs his hand and flips him onto the ground and then disappears. A doctor who happens to be in the store examines Melanie’s body and finds that she is dead. Wayne suggests that he look at her index finger, and he discovers a pin-prick. The pen that the old woman gave her had a tiny needle tipped with poison hidden near the nib. Wayne takes the dropped book and finds that it is an advance copy, assuming it’s the one the film company was sent. He returns to the Seven-Star offices and is told that a stenographer had taken their copy, effectively deepening the mystery.

The board is distressed upon Wayne’s arrival, not because of Melanie’s death but because Loren Melburn, one of their top actresses, has confessed to the murder. She, her husband Dorian Spence, and one Rod Drake (both of the men are also actors) were all characters in Melanie’s novel and are thus all suspects. Wayne realizes that Melburn couldn’t have been the old woman from the bookstore in disguise because she wouldn’t have possessed such great strength. As he runs the facts through his mind, another member of the board enters the room and reports that Spence has also confessed to the murder.

Wayne dons his Batman gear and heads to the police station, where Melburn and Spence are being held. Batman suggests that one is probably covering for the other, since a spouse cannot be forced to testify against his or her partner. He asks that they be released, as he is now on the case. Visiting them at their home, the Dark Knight attempts to return the advance copy of Melanie’s book to Melburn. She insists that she wouldn’t even touch it much less read it, and the fact that she doesn’t assault him when he tries to hand it to her absolves her as far as Batman is concerned. Spence, on the other hand, attacks him, flipping him as the “old woman” in the bookstore did. The Caped Crusader subdues him, pushing him into the unlit fireplace, and Spence demands that he leave before he kills him, just like he did Melanie.

Batman heads for Drake’s estate, which is right next door. Drake appears, his features hidden by a shadowy topiary, declaring his innocence. He apprises the Dark Knight of the fact that he overheard the couple having a heated exchange the night before the murder, during which Spence stated that Melanie deserved to be “stabbed with her own poison pen.” As Batman considers this, Drake steps from the darkness, but it is the image of Spence that is bathed in light.

He comes at Batman with a fireplace poker, but a hand reaches out to seize his arm. Suddenly there are two Spences. Batman strikes the one with the poker, and his mask falls off, revealing the face of Drake. He confesses that he fed Melanie information about Melburn and Spence in exchange for a promise of the lead in the movie version of The In People of Out City. He murdered her, in the guise of the old woman, because she had broken her word and cast another actor. The advance copy of the book he had given her to autograph was his only payment and her ultimate undoing.

The fact the “poison pen” in this story is an actual pen with, well, poison on it is an interesting twist, if a fairly obvious one. I can’t say that I was sorry to see Melanie bite the dust; her holier-than-thou attitude and insistence that her book was not a pile of crap while on the plane was rather annoying. And do we really need to pollute the cultural atmosphere with more celebrity gossip? Drake’s motive for offing her was kind of weak, if you ask me, even though I have read murder mysteries with weaker ones. How is doing her in going to fix anything? It reminds me of how some people sue for slander or libel. If they win, is the money going to change anything? Is it going to somehow un-print or un-speak the offending words? It’s a strange world.

Find this issue, if you’re so inclined, reprinted in Showcase Presents: Batman volume 5.

Detective Comics 410

Humankind has probably always had a fascination with the bizarre.

Of course, determining what is bizarre and what isn’t can be problematic. For example, some cultures (or even subcultures) believe that “decorating” the human body in various ways (lip discs, piercings, tattoos) is beautiful, whereas others consider this sort of thing tantamount to mutilation. It’s all related to cultural conditioning. No one is “right” or “wrong.” It is arguably this diversity of perception that makes humanity so interesting. It doesn’t change the fact, however, that encountering something beyond our narrow sphere of experience can trigger unwarranted judgment.

Robert Ripley made a fortune by traveling the world, finding “oddities” that he could feature in his Believe It Or Not! newspaper cartoons. (Readership is estimated to have been around eighty million.) Some of these features dealt with peculiar rituals performed by people living on the fringes of civilization, but many of them concerned deformities and “freaks of nature.” Ripley’s empire has gone on to encompass numerous books, television programs (who can forget Jack Palance’s breathy utterances echoing against stone walls as he guided viewers through a “haunted” castle or ossuary?), and popular museums. 

Let’s face it: There are a zillion things that can go wrong with the human body. It’s actually remarkable that more people aren’t born with something terribly wrong with them. Many afflictions aren’t immediately obvious, but some are, and it is these sorts of afflictions that can, through no fault of their own, cause problems for the afflicted. There is something in the human mind that “knows” what a human body is supposed to look like (whether this is innate or conditioned is debatable), and when one deviates from this standard, we are often repulsed. Revulsion, however, often realigns itself into morbid fascination. And where there is fascination, there is often money to be made.  

It wasn’t until the 1600s that a “freak of nature” was put on public display. Two of them, in fact: conjoined twins Lazarus and Joannes Baptista Colloredo. The latter’s torso was attached to the former’s, and though Joannes was capable of movement, he typically remained still, did not speak, and kept his eyes closed at all times. Lazarus orchestrated his own exhibitions all over Europe, making his living in this way.

A century later, Tsar Peter the Great displayed a collection of “human oddities.” P. T. Barnum’s famous nineteenth-century sideshows featured “freaks,” as well (he is, thankfully, reported to have paid them exceedingly well). Probably the most famous “freak” of all, Joseph Merrick, better known as the “Elephant Man,” unable to perform any other job due to his grotesque and debilitating condition, found livelihood during his short life by allowing himself to be exhibited for paying audiences.

In this way, attractions featuring people with unusual deformities and conditions became an integral part of traveling circuses. Tod Browning’s decision to cast actual sideshow performers (including Prince Randian, a man born without limbs) in his 1932 film Freaks resulted in major controversy, ruining his career and being largely forgotten until it was resurrected as a midnight movie in later decades. (In spite of this, it was selected for inclusion in the United States National Film Registry in 1994.)

Although they’re still around today, freak shows are far less popular than they once were. (Although much of TLC’s programming has arguably filled the gap.) Due to their longstanding affiliation, however, we will probably always associate circuses with sideshows and the archetypes that we connect with them, such as the “fat lady,” the “human skeleton,” and the “strong man.”

Which brings us, in a roundabout way, to Detective Comics #410 (1971) and its lead story, “A Vow from the Grave.”

Things open up in an undisclosed location, where Batman is pursuing Kano Wiggins, a convicted murderer who has escaped from prison. A furious storm rages as the Dark Knight follows him across dangerous terrain and onto a rope bridge, which Wiggins cuts upon reaching the far side. Batman’s reflexes prevent him from falling, but when he reaches solid ground the criminal draws a knife. The Caped Crusader’s superior fighting prowess overpowers Wiggins, but a huge fist, seemingly appearing out of nowhere, smashes into the back of his skull, allowing the killer to escape.

When he comes to, he finds a muscular man, the owner of the fist that knocked him out, towering over him. The man tries to attack him again, but Batman leaps onto his shoulders and subdues him with the sleeper-hold. Three people emerge from the bushes, amazed that “Goliath” has been defeated. Former members of a carnival sideshow, human skeleton Charley Bones, fat lady Maud, and mute, seal-limbed Flipper have, along with Goliath, been squatting in an abandoned house since the show went out of business. Accepting Charley’s explanation that Goliath meant no harm, Batman heads into the woods, attempting to pick up the killer’s trail.

He winds up at the house Charley described and, upon entering, is shocked to find Charley hanged from the ceiling. Goliath attempts to comfort Maud, but she won’t have any of it, declaring that she loved Charley. Wiggins is, of course, blamed, and Batman heads outside at the sound of a van cranking up. Thankfully, the engine doesn’t work, and Batman knocks Wiggins out and ties him up. As he carries the killer’s unconscious body back into the house, he informs Maud, now alone, that Wiggins is not responsible for Charley’s murder.

When he asks about Goliath and Flippy’s whereabouts, Maud remarks that she isn’t sure. Suddenly, Goliath hurls a heavy beam toward them from above. Batman explains that he knew Wiggins wasn’t the killer because the only person tall enough to have cut the rope that was used to hang Charley was Goliath. Climbing the ladder to the belfry, the Dark Knight finds Goliath holding Flippy by his shirt, preparing to drop him from the tower. He tells Batman that he must leap from the tower or he’ll drop Flippy. Batman agrees but secretly ties his Batrope to a beam before doing so.

Goliath tells Flippy that he doesn’t want to kill him but that he must because he witnessed the strong man’s murdering Charley. He needed to get him out of the way, he says, so that he could have Maud for himself. The Caped Crusader swings down to catch Flippy as Goliath releases him. Back on the ground floor, Goliath makes a move on Maud but she parries his advances. Batman appears, much to the strong man’s shock, but receives a powerful kick from Wiggins as he walks past his prone form. Goliath seizes him from behind and tries to break his neck, but Maud bites Goliath on the arm, allowing Batman to land a crushing blow.

Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams, and Dick Giordano deliver a compelling story here. Adams’ dynamic layouts and expressive characters, as usual, dazzle the reader and give the story gravitas. In the hands of another artist, it might have seemed somewhat silly.  The sylvan setting is typical of Batman’s stories of the period, and the architecture of the abandoned building is right in line with the Gothic leitmotif, as well.   

In Mail-Order Mysteries: Real Stuff from Old Comic Book Ads (which I highly recommend, by the way), Kirk Demarais showcases a book called Very Special People, which was sold through comic-book advertisements during the 1970s. He remarks that it’s a “stimulating” book, “until you matured enough to feel guilty for seeking this type of entertainment.” I’m not here to argue whether freak shows are humiliating or empowering, but I certainly think they provide fertile ground for some great stories.

You can find this story reprinted in several places, but your best bet is Batman Illustrated by Neal Adams volume 2 (now in paperback).