I started collecting comics in 1989, the year Tim Burton’s Batman came out.
Prior to seeing the film, Batman was a character in which I had virtually zero interest. As such, as I was trying out various titles to determine which ones I liked, I never even entertained the idea of picking up Batman or Detective Comics.
This seems surprising now, but my conception of the Caped Crusader was, at that time, based on his characterization on Super Friends, a show I had watched religiously as a youth. In the show, he was always teamed up with Robin and seemed to be nothing more than a guy in a bat costume with reasonable detective skills, a belt full of gadgets to extricate him from almost any conceivable situation, and several bat-themed vehicles. I’m willing to bet that the words, “To the Batcopter!” appeared in every episode. What a freaking snore.
Of course, this “Batman” was just a modified version of the one from the campy 1960s live-action television show. No one told Hanna-Barbera that he had changed as the ‘70s dawned. Or maybe the studio just didn’t care.
Anyway, I went to see Burton’s movie, for some reason, and suddenly Batman became very interesting. (The fact that the movie also failed to depict Batman properly is beside the point.) I realized that I had been misinformed and immediately started buying both of his monthly books and began picking up the graphic novels and trades that were available at the time (The Killing Joke, Gotham by Gaslight, A Death in the Family, et al.).
For Christmas that year, my parents bought me The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, a collection of yarns that spanned Batman’s career from 1939 to 1983. It was my first exposure to Neal Adams and Jim Aparo, who became immediate favorites. In the back, there were short biographies of the artists and writers featured in the book, surrounded by pictures of various covers. A few of these covers got my attention, particularly Batman #227, which sports an awesome illustration by Adams. A small cutline underneath told me that it had been published in 1970. Even though I knew nothing about the inside, I realized that I had to find a copy.
In those days, the Internet didn’t exist, or at least not as we know it today. If you wanted to find back issues, you had to look through the ads in Comics Buyer’s Guide, check the bins in numerous comic shops, and frequent trade shows and conventions. It was hard slog, as they say. After a few years of diligent searching, I had just about given up on finding a copy.
But then, in ’95 or ’96 (I can’t recall which) I went to a trade show in Atlanta and dug a copy out of one of the longboxes (a really nice one, too). I can’t remember how much I paid for it ($20?), but it wasn’t much, especially for something I’d been desperately looking for.
Last year I discovered that it’s currently one of the hottest Batman back issues around. It seems that everyone likes the cover, which is an homage (not a swipe) to Detective Comics #31 (I think we can all agree that Adams’ is better). I had it signed at Dragon*Con last year, effectively increasing its awesomeness by 1000% (or something).
Now that I’ve thoroughly bored you with the story of my personal connection with the issue, let’s examine the issue itself.
“The Demon of Gothos Mansion” is similar in some ways to “The Secret of the Waiting Graves” (from Detective Comics #395). As the title suggests, it’s a gothic tale, complete with all the trappings you’d expect to see: an eerie-looking manor house surrounded by dark forest, a damsel in distress, a dangerous madman, a healthy dose of the supernatural, and an ancient evil.
Alfred’s niece Daphne, first introduced in Batman #216 (one issue before the start of Batman’s Bronze Age), has taken a job as a tutor in an unnamed location, presumably somewhere in Britain. A letter she sends to her uncle suggests that something is amiss, and Alfred asks Bruce to investigate.
Batman discovers that Daphne’s employer, Clifton Heathrow, is planning to resurrect a demon called Ballk by sacrificing her. He has dressed her in a gown identical to one worn by a woman in a painting hanging in the tower where she is imprisoned. The woman, who also looks remarkably similar to Alfred’s niece, was sacrificed by Heathrow’s family centuries before for the same purpose and now supposedly wanders the manor and its grounds as a ghost.
It turns out that Daphne was born on exactly the right date (October 31) and at exactly the right time (midnight) to be the perfect offering for the demon. It’s pretty corny, I must admit, but I can’t get enough of stuff like this.
Batman gets captured by Heathrow but manages to escape the fate the madman planned for him. He encounters a woman he believes to be Daphne, but she is, rather, the ghost alluded to earlier, although she does appear to possess some level of corporeality. For unknown reasons, the Dark Knight is overwhelmed with feelings of love for her. She leads him to the chapel where the ritual is taking place, and, just before entering, he asks her to wait for him, to which she agrees.
The Caped Crusader, naturally, succeeds in stopping the ceremony and frees Daphne. Heathrow, his plans thwarted and abandoned by the other members of the coven, suffers a heart attack.
When Batman goes to look for the spectral woman, he finds her in the forest. She explains that his defeating the coven has freed her of her curse, and she vanishes. Batman, overcome with emotion, weeps as he looks upon her portrait, which hangs on a nearby tree.
Irv Novick and Dick Giordano really undid themselves here. Giordano, who worked with Adams extensively throughout the Seventies, managed to absorb a certain amount of his partner’s innovative, dynamic style and carried it over into his own work, as well as the work of those he inked, which created a desirable uniformity in the art of the Batman titles of the time. Novick, already a noteworthy artist prior to Adams’ arrival at DC, took his work to another level during this period, and you can really see it in this issue.
This book is quite pricey these days, but if you don’t mind black-and-white reprints, you can find it in the recently published Showcase Presents Batman Volume 5.
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