Detective Comics 404

When it comes to storytelling, it’s hard to go wrong with a plot involving a “cursed” film production.

Other than the fact that some people believe this is a real thing (see Poltergeist), it’s just inherently entertaining. We savor the idea of someone’s spirit’s having been disturbed or angered by the perceived audacity of a filmmaker who wants to explore a story that is apparently better left alone. Superstitions like this one fascinate us because they ostensibly indicate the influence of mysterious forces that somehow manipulate the world as we know it and imbue it with a species of logic that we can never possibly understand. They let us peek behind the curtain, but we only see shadowed figures moving about, and their movements are inscrutable.

This idea predates the invention of film. After all, who can forget the taboo of saying Macbeth in a theater? It’s just that movies are now an indispensable aspect of our culture and are, as such, always in the public consciousness. I have no idea where this idea first showed up, but the first time I encountered it was, like so many things, in an episode of Scooby-Doo. It’s been ages since I’ve seen it, and all I can remember about it is that a monstrous gorilla was trying to wreck a movie. I don’t recall what was supposed to have pissed the gorilla off, but, as with all Scooby-Doo episodes, it turned out that there was an ulterior motive and that the gorilla was just used to distract people from what was really going on. It was disappointing, if predictable, when the gorilla was unmasked as the stuntman or something, but it was undeniably interesting before the “reveal.”

In Detective Comics #404, “Ghost of the Killer Skies,” Bruce Wayne is in Spain overseeing the production of a film that he is helping finance. (We accept this premise because Bruce has an insane amount of money and probably gets bored from time to time.) It becomes clear right off the bat (no pun intended) that things are not going as planned when a plane being used in the movie crashes into the side of a mountain and bursts into flames. Batman (for reasons that are not entirely clear) witnesses the crash and pulls the pilot out of the fiery wreckage, only to find that he has been strangled.

The director, Anson (I assume this is his surname, as it is the only name he is ever given), and the cameraman, Gavin, quickly arrive on the scene, and, regarding the burning plane and dead pilot, the former remarks that there has been “nothing but trouble since [they] started.”

“Props,” he continues, “are missing…film-stock catches fire…sound tracks get accidentally erased…and now this.” (You know: the kinds of things that directors get upset about.) Having changed back into his civilian identity, Bruce proposes that a meeting be called to assess the situation and see what steps can be taken to get things back on track.

The film, tentatively titled The Hammer of Hell, concerns German pilot Baron Hans von Hammer (known to Silver-Age DC fans as Enemy Ace). Over budget and facing competition from similar productions, Anson considers abandoning the film, but Bruce maintains that it’s a unique story that needs to be told.

During the meeting, Heinrich Franz, the film’s “technical expert,” shows up, suggesting that the film should be shelved, as he believes von Hammer’s ghost is plaguing its production. Bruce goes back to his hotel to do some research and finds that Franz is a dead ringer for von Hammer. Donning his costume, he heads to the set under the cloak of darkness to investigate and finds a group of men trying to destroy the planes with dynamite.

After dispatching the perpetrators, Batman realizes that Gavin is behind the sabotage attempt and confronts him in his trailer, revealing that he knows a rival film company paid him off.  Suddenly, shots ring out, and Anson collapses in the doorway, claiming that the ghost of von Hammer fired on him. Gavin absconds, but Batman subdues him just in time to hear the roar of plane engines. Turning around, the Dark Knight finds the “ghost” holding him at gunpoint.

It comes as no surprise that the mastermind behind the attacks is Franz. A descendant of von Hammer, he believes that the film is an insult to the memory of his ancestor. Rather than shoot Batman outright, Franz agrees to engage in an aerial dogfight with him. It becomes clear in short order that Franz is the superior pilot (coupled with the fact that he has a Luger), but Batman relies on his instincts and quick thinking. Leaping from his plane, the Caped Crusader latches on to the wing of Franz’s craft and attempts to wrench the gun from his foe’s grasp. The struggle concludes when Franz’s scarf gets snagged in the propeller, and he falls to his death.

Batman lands and ruminates on how the love of war, with which Franz was clearly inflicted, is a destructive thing indeed.

Written by Denny O’Neil and illustrated by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano, “Ghost of the Killer Skies” is really a love letter to the Enemy Ace stories of Joe Kubert and Robert Kanigher and is frequently considered a classic in Batman’s canon. Adams’ dynamic storytelling and photorealistic renderings give the story a cinematic feel (appropriately enough) that synthesizes the essence of its source material and pushes it to levels never believed possible. Bear in mind that while Adams’ art still impresses us today, when it was new it was nothing short of revolutionary. The amount of detail he packs into each panel is staggering, and the characters seem so real that they virtually leap off the page. No other artist could have done this story justice.

This story has been reprinted in numerous places, including Batman Illustrated by Neal Adams volume 2, The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, and Showcase Presents: Batman volume 5.

Batman 246

Criminals always seem to want to mess with the Batman.

His reputation as a crime-fighter, peerless detective, and guardian of Gotham City makes him the frequent target of oddball schemes, cooked up by criminals with varying agendas, designed to test his patience, resourcefulness, and mettle. As far as crooks are concerned, defeating—or perhaps even killing—the Dark Knight is the ultimate goal, and the more ingenious the means by which they achieve it, the better. Torment him before you deal the killing blow; make him pay for his one-man crusade against Gotham’s underworld.

Illustrated by the team of Irv Novick, Dick Dillin, and Dick Giordano, Batman #246 (1972), “How Many Ways Can a Robin Die?” is a full-length tale that sees the Caped Crusader pushed almost to the breaking point by an elusive criminal who clearly understands Batman’s capabilities and exploits them for his own purposes.

Our story opens with Batman returning home after the successful completion of a case. He is perplexed by the sudden appearance of the Bat signal, which is originating from somewhere on the other side of the city rather than from police headquarters.

When he arrives at the source, he finds Robin tied to the tower on the top of a high building. As Batman tries to sort the situation out while climbing the ladder to rescue his ward, an arrow flies past him and right into the Boy Wonder’s chest. His body plummets to the roof as Batman looks for cover in case the shooter plans to fire again. Tracing the arrow’s origin to a vent, he finds that it was activated remotely and investigating Robin’s body finds that his captured ally is merely a dummy. A note bound to the arrow’s shaft informs the Dark Knight that a similar incident will occur the following evening.

Worried that the real Robin could be mixed up in all of this, Batman rushes to a phone and is dismayed to discover that his landlady has not seen him in twenty-four hours. He proceeds to check around, and finds that none of Dick’s friends have seen him lately either. The potential for Robin’s actual death has, at this point, become very real, and Batman knows that he must play along with the perpetrator.

Having figured out the location of the next “murder” (thanks to a clue intentionally left by the attacker), Batman takes the Bat copter to a charity event, where the main attraction is a magician who calls himself Chandra (?!) the Magnificent. During his act, he stabs Robin with a sword but manages to elude the Caped Crusader with his conjurer’s trickery. It comes as little surprise that this Robin is also a dummy. A note impaled on the sword tells Batman that another such incident will take place the following night.

Again working out the clue, Batman makes his way to the fog-shrouded wharf. He has no sooner arrived than Robin is thrown from the dock with a block of cement tied to his ankles. Batman suspects that it’s just another dummy, but he realizes that he can’t take that chance. He dives into the water and finds that this Robin is not the real deal, either. This time there is no clue, but assessing the events leads Batman to the right conclusion.

The next night in St. Elmo’s graveyard (what is it with Batman and graveyards?), the Caped Crusader finds an open mausoleum, wherein another Robin effigy has been hanged. A barred door slams behind him as he studies the dummy, and by now, our hero has reached his wit’s end. He manages to escape and, suspecting a connection between all of the “murders,” calls the warden of Gotham State Prison. It turns out that a mass murderer that Batman sent "up the river" was recently released on a technicality, and Batman knows that he must be the one behind all of this.

The Dark Knight determines that the killer, Emil Ravek, has returned to the location of his final crime before going to the slammer, the Waxworks Murder Museum, fittingly enough. This time, he has the real Robin bound and drugged and plans to behead him with the guillotine. (Why a real working guillotine would be in a wax museum is beyond me.) Batman pleads with the killer to revenge himself upon him rather than Robin, but Ravek explains that he’d rather see Batman suffer by witnessing his partner slain. Batman hurls a metal tray to stop the blade’s descent, but the criminal madman, undeterred, grabs an executioner’s axe from an exhibit with which to do the deed. Too slow to match the reflexes of his foe, however, Ravek falls onto the scales of a giant statue of Lady Justice, defeated.

Everything about this issue fits the idiom of Bronze-Age Batman perfectly. The artwork is dynamic, and there is an almost palpable air of mystery and menace permeating each page. I found the inclusion of the magician and the wax museum to be particularly effective, as, from a metaphorical standpoint, both involve illusion. Moreover, the “swords through the box” trick that Ravek performs on stage at the charity event perfectly parallels the coda of the story, which occurs in what is essentially a chamber of horrors.

Ravek himself is actually a fairly terrifying antagonist. When Batman finally confronts him at the museum, he is clad in executioner’s garb, and his hooded visage is frightening to behold. As I have pointed out before, Batman’s rogues’ gallery had not been “introduced” at this juncture, and villains, interesting though they might be, typically only lasted one issue (Dr. Darkk, original leader of the League of Assassins, being a notable exception).

As we have seen, Robin was not “eliminated” during the Bronze Age; he and Batman were merely separated for the most part, which allowed Batman to become a “darker” character and, at the same time, to give Dick an opportunity to make his own way in the world, to find his own identity (which he eventually did). In this issue, they don’t work as a team, and Robin is really little more than a plot device, which, as a non-fan of the Boy Wonder, suits me just fine.

The cover, by Dick Giodano (frequently misattributed to Neal Adams), is extremely effective, and I have no doubt that this comic flew off the racks. I’m sure that no one honestly believed that Robin perished in the issue, but an illustration like this one is always irresistible.

Definitely a cool issue.

Again, as if often the case with Bronze-Age books, a copy of the original will set you back a pretty penny (unless you get lucky in an eBay auction like I did), but you can find the story reprinted in Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told volume 2 and Showcase Presents: Robin the Boy Wonder volume 1.

Detective Comics 397

During the Bronze Age, many of DC’s comics split their page counts between two or more characters. This was particularly true in the case (no pun intended) of Detective Comics. It made sense in a way, though, because Detective was originally an anthology about various sleuthing types rather than a Batman title (just as Action Comics was not originally exclusively a Superman book). I don’t understand why DC didn’t just do away with Detective as a title when it rebooted its entire line in 2011, since it’s been just a Batman book pretty much since the late ‘80s, but whatever.  

The cover of Detective #397 clearly states that it features both Batman and Batgirl, so it should come as no surprise that almost a third of the book features no Batman whatsoever. Quite honestly, I almost never bother reading the non-Batman stories, as they focus on characters that don’t interest me and are frequently executed by second- or third-tier creative teams; I can’t help but think of these stories as filler. I mean, there may be Elongated Man fans out there, but I’ve never encountered one.

The reason I mention this is that many of the Batman stories of this period were short, typically fifteen pages or so. Modern comics, which are usually twenty-two pages, tend to have fewer captions and fewer panels per page because of the trend for stories to be spread out over several issues. In Bronze-Age stories, writers had less to work with, so they put in a lot of exposition to allow the stories to take place over several days. In other words, the immediacy that we associate with many modern comics didn’t exist because the stories would be over too quickly, leaving readers dissatisfied. The stories had to be broken up into chunks in order to keep the pace under control, with the gutters (space between panels) serving as literary speed bumps.

Maggie Thompson of Comics Buyer’s Guide (may its soul rest in peace) refers to these types of comics as “done in one,” though I don’t know whether or not she came up with the term. The idea is that a story is self-contained; it does not continue in the next issue. It exists within a bubble of sorts. Everything is resolved at the end. While references to the story may appear in future issues, it essentially stands on its own. There are, of course, a few exceptions to this standard, but they are just that, exceptions.

Despite what the cover of Detective #397 (illustrated by perennial favorite Neal Adams) might lead you to believe, the Batman story within, “Paint a Picture of Peril” (by Denny O’Neil, Adams, and Dick Giordano), is not about a man’s desire for a ghost but, rather, explores the potential for a jilted lover to go completely off the deep end.

Our story opens the evening before Gotham’s annual Marine Festival charity event. Four men in wetsuits emerge from the harbor, intent on stealing a painting from the art exhibit. Batman shows up and takes one of the men out before another threatens to kill the hapless guard they had knocked out earlier. Having the Caped Crusader at a disadvantage, two of the men shoot him with harpoons, and he plunges into the water. Their mission accomplished, the frogmen dive back into the harbor and disappear.

As he often does, Batman was pretending to be more injured than he actually was, although he caught the point of one of the spears in the bicep, making it impossible for him to pursue the men. He does find, however, that the painting that was stolen was the least valuable in the collection, the image of a mermaid.

When he returns to the penthouse in his Bruce Wayne guise, he finds that the cleaning lady has left the television on, and, as he tends to his wound, he halfway listens to a documentary about the mysterious Orson Payne, whose opera-singer fiancée disappeared, the heartbreak of which compelled him to become a recluse. When the cleaning lady returns, she switches the set off, disgusted.

While underwater, Batman noticed that the nearby seaweed was glowing, indicating that a nuclear sub had been nearby. His arm healed well enough to investigate, he returns to the harbor with an undersea craft and follows the trail of radiation left in the sub’s wake. It leads him to Payne’s luxurious castle. Looking in the window, he finds the eccentric recluse talking to an array of artworks, all of which appear to be modeled after the same woman.

The Caped Crusader makes his presence known, and Payne, clearly insane, admits that he collects paintings and sculptures that resemble Caterina Valence, his lost love. He explains that he has to steal the artworks because the owners refuse to sell them. He takes a crossbow down from the wall and fires a bolt at Batman and then flees. Hidden from the Dark Knight’s view, Payne pulls a level that releases a trapdoor, and Batman falls into a pit. The madman then pulls another lever, which lowers a two-ton block of stone over the cavity, intending to drop it into the hole.

Thinking quickly, Batman escapes and finds that Payne, in his desperation, has gone completely mad. An apparition of Caterina appears, and he follows it off a high balcony. Batman manages to save him just in time and has him taken away to the state mental hospital.

The next morning, the cleaning lady finds Bruce watching a news report about Payne’s capture and turns the television off. A thought striking him, he asks her if she was once an opera singer, and she tells him that she was but gave it up because she was in a toxic relationship with, you guessed it, our art-loving madman.

The setup of this story works really well. Any time a crime is committed in which a thief purloins an object of ostensibly insignificant worth, the story always works well because it makes the reader question the nature of the concept of value. Why are gold and jewels, for example, so valuable? Because they’re shiny and rare. People like them, and they show status, which many find appealing. The mermaid painting, along with the other artworks, is priceless to Payne because he is fixated on an ideal that escaped him, that he drove away. He ascribes value to the images of Caterina to fill the void in his soul. Outside of the original owners, few people would find the pieces worthwhile. It’s something to consider.

It goes without saying that the art in this issue is fantastic. Adams, ever the versatile artist, masterfully captures both the menace of Payne and the quotidian interactions between Bruce and his cleaning lady. There has been a lot of discussion over whose inks worked best with Adams’ pencils, but I’ll forever be in the camp that prefers Giordano (no offense to Tom Palmer).

Like all of the issues of Batman and Detective that Adams illustrated during the Bronze Age, an original of this issue, especially in reasonable grade, will require a second mortgage, but, thankfully it can be found reprinted in Batman Illustrated by Neal Adams volume two (now in paperback) and the phonebook-sized yet economical Showcase Presents: Batman volume five.

Batman 267

There are few more iconic or compelling images than the Grim Reaper. Dating back to the fifteenth century, the cloaked skeleton, often wearing a devilish grin, automatically brings to mind death in general and graveyards and all the trappings that go along with them in a larger sense. 

The cover of Batman #267 (1975) uses the hooded personification of death to spectacular effect. The fact that the Reaper is larger than Batman is not only striking but also works on a metaphorical level. He is a giant that must be slain, and the Dark Knight may have to go into battle less well-equipped than his foe. The glowing invitation, being hurled like a shuriken, suggests the immediacy of the situation, the extreme danger, and the fact that Batman will have to be at the very top of his game to avoid a horrible fate. (Not bad for a “funny-book,” huh?)  

This tale, “Invitation to a Murder,” is penned by David V. Reed, chronicler of many of Batman’s Bronze-Age adventures. Having read quite a few of his stories, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect from this one. Opinions of Reed’s stories vary wildly, but the one thing I’m sure everyone can agree on is that he spins yarns that stretch the Caped Crusader’s detective skills to the limit. His stories are usually fairly implausible, and Batman’s ability to successfully close a case often relies heavily on chance, but they’re always entertaining and intriguing. 

Our tale opens with Commissioner Gordon’s receiving a mysterious glowing letter. It is, strangely enough, an invitation to a robbery at the Jewelers’ Exchange Building at midnight. Gordon, of course, immediately summons Batman. The glow, the Caped Crusader deduces, is attributable to a chemical the envelope has been soaked in, but it fails to elucidate the situation any. Gordon orders the building surrounded, but at the stroke of midnight the edifice bursts into flames.  

Fire-fighters rush to the scene, and when Batman scales the building to investigate, he finds them in the midst of a heist. Bursting through a window, the Dark Knight sets about apprehending the ersatz firemen but succumbs to smoke sprayed on him by one of the perpetrators, and they make a clean getaway.

The following night, Gordon receives another note. This one is an invitation to the airport to witness the landing of an experimental aircraft, after a thirty-three-hour flight around the globe. As soon as the plane touches down, a member of the service crew holds the pilot and copilot at gunpoint, demanding that they take the craft back into the air so he can hold them for a huge ransom. Batman, having boarded during a refueling stop, subdues two of the hijackers, but the third steals a parachute and jumps from the plane. 

Based on the clues he’s collected, and with Alfred’s help, Batman works out the criminal mastermind’s identity: a man known as Django (no, not the “unchained” one). When the Caped Crusader visits police headquarters to apprise Gordon of his conclusions, the commissioner hands him another luminescent invitation, this one to a rock festival at Gotham Palace, where the attendees will witness Batman’s execution.  

The Dark Knight shows up at the venue as Bruce Wayne and does a bit of schmoozing before donning his costume. Watching the concert from the catwalk, he quickly recognizes the disguised Django, based on his actions, and follows him off the stage. Confronted, he initially denies everything but drops the charade when Batman informs him that he has deactivated the explosive devices that he attached to the invitations of Waxey Kruger and Big Jim Cody, Gotham’s two top mobsters, who had attended the event to see the Batman expire. 

Django tears off his mask, holding aloft a pair of finger cymbals, which he claims will detonate a similar device that he planted on Batman during the fight in the burning building. He commands the Caped Crusader to remove his cowl so that he can learn his identity before he kills him but is shocked to see his own face underneath. (This mirrors a scene in Detective Comics #355, “Hate of the Hooded Hangman,” where the titular Hangman similarly finds his own visage when he removes Batman’s mask.)  Django clicks the cymbals together, but nothing happens, as Batman had defused the device a couple of nights before. Realizing he has been caught, he makes once last attempt at escape but finds himself no match for the Batman. 

His plan, it turns out, was to eliminate Batman, Kruger, and Cody all at one time so he could take over Gotham’s criminal underworld. With everything wrapped up, Gordon asks Batman how Django managed to plant the invitations, and Batman is forced to admit that he’s still trying to work that part out. 

The art chores for this story are handled by Ernie Chan and Dick Giordano. Both are talented artists, certainly, but I’m not sure that they work particularly well together, as their styles vary greatly. The art manages to tell the story effectively, and there are a few really nice panels, but there is nothing eye-popping here. Readers seeking dazzling illustrations should look elsewhere. 

I appreciate the fact that Reed manages to cover all the bases, as it were, explaining how Batman worked out the perpetrator’s identity and how he managed to deduce the significance of clues. Batman is frequently called the “World’s Greatest Detective,” and Reed’s stories certainly provide credence to his right to the title. Coincidence does play a part, but it’s up to Batman to determine how everything fits together. 

Overall, a good issue.