Detective Comics 419

People are willing to go to great lengths to keep their darkest secrets.

In Charlotte Bronte’s classic novel Jane Eyre, the titular character takes a job as a governess in an eerie manor, Thornfield Hall, which is made even eerier by a strange presence in the attic. It turns out to be a madwoman named Bertha Mason, the first wife of Jane’s betrothed and master of Thornfield, Edward Rochester, a fact that only comes out during their wedding ceremony. The cause of Bertha’s insanity is unclear, though it is explored in Jean Rhys’ intertextual novel Wide Sargasso Sea (for those of you who appreciate recommendations for further reading). This is perhaps the best-known example of someone’s trying to hide an undesirable family member from the eyes of the world, but we find this sort of thing in numerous stories.

In The Goonies, for instance, the Fratellis lock their disfigured brother in the basement of their hideout. In Rumiko Takahashi’s manga Mermaid Forest, a girl named Towa who is believed to have died from illness but was actually cursed by mermaid’s blood is imprisoned in a cage in the basement by her sister. In both of these examples, the siblings’ afflictions were not inherent but were, rather, caused by external circumstances, but this is certainly not always the case. Most people find locking someone away preferable to murdering him or her, but is it really more humane? Is life always better than death?

The cover of Detective Comics #419 is arguably one of the most striking in the comic’s history. Illustrated by Neal Adams, it practically begs to be read. Who would kill someone by tying a bunch of statuettes of Batman to him and throwing him into the harbor? It’s a bizarre tableau, to be sure, one that demands explanation.

Our story opens with the police’s discovery of just such a body. Commissioner Gordon summons Batman and fills him in on the details of the case. Batman recognizes the corpse as that of Jacky Mutell, a known smuggler. The thirteen statues that weighed him down were carved from solid gold, making things even more mysterious.

As the Dark Knight begins his investigation, we are introduced to a man-child named Paddy, whose lot in life involves being locked in a cellar, where he passes the time by carving statues of Batman, whom he admires. It seems very likely that the statues tied to Mutell were his carvings, but is he connected to the murder? Would a devotee of the Caped Crusader take a man’s life?

When Batman reaches the area where Mutell lived, he finds a street fair going on. A man named Liam McCourt tells him that the festivities are being held to raise money to buy a new organ for the church. Batman immediately notices a table where golden statues in his likeness are being sold. When he asks the seller where they came from, a nearby youth offers to show Batman and leads him down an alley. Sensing an ambush, the Dark Knight forces the boy ahead of him and then commences to take out his would-be assailants. One of them knocks him out from behind, however, and they carry his limp form to the harbor.

It comes as little surprise that Batman was, in fact, faking his injury, having anticipated the blow, and dispatches the crooks, leaving one conscious for questioning. The man tells him that he and his associates are smugglers who were supposed to pick up a shipment of gold. Before he can reveal the name of his boss, a bullet silences him, which, Batman observes, could have come from anywhere. He calls the commissioner from a payphone, and the police come arrest the men and find the gold.

Posing as an inebriated partier, Batman discovers that the gold was merely a red herring and that the real crime taking place is drug dealing. He tails one of the dealers to the ring-leader’s house and, bursting through the door, confronts Liam McCourt. The criminal holds his wrists out to give himself up, but as Batman approaches, a cage, triggered by a plate in the floor, falls from the ceiling.

With Batman trapped, McCourt brings Paddy out from his hiding place, explaining that the cage was designed to keep his son, whom he considers a disgrace, from being discovered. Recognizing his offspring’s one talent, McCourt had him carve the statues to alert the police to the possibility of smuggling, so that they would focus their attention on that rather than on his illicit dealings. Mutell, one of his henchmen, had betrayed him and met his end in the river.

As McCourt prepares to shoot Batman, Paddy grabs him from behind and subdues him, giving the Caped Crusader the opportunity to reach through the bars and knock them both out. We can only assume that he managed to find a way out of the cage, as the story ends there.

I must admit that “Secret of the Slaying Statues” doesn’t quite deliver. The artwork, by Irv Novick and Dick Giordano, is really effective, but the story could have been better. Perhaps my expectations were unreasonable, but I imagined something involving several murders in which the statues played a key part taking place over a series of weeks. I mean, it’s not a bad story, per se, but it doesn’t make the best use of its concept, which is really quite intriguing. I certainly would have liked to have learned more about Paddy, which would have made him a more sympathetic character.

In any event, it’s a respectable-enough story, but it probably would have benefited from having more room for development than its seventeen pages. It has never been reprinted, but, if you’re inclined, you can add a copy in reasonable condition to your collection for about twenty bucks.  

Detective Comics 412

In my recent post about Detective Comics #408, I discussed how the Gothic elements found in Batman’s earliest Golden-Age stories had resurfaced at the beginning of the Bronze Age. This idea is again exemplified in the chilling pages of Detective Comics #412, where two knights, one medieval and one modern, do battle in “Legacy of Hate.”

Bruce receives a telegram from Lord Elwood Wayne, a distant relative who is on his deathbed. He requests Bruce’s presence at Waynemoor Castle in Northern England so that he can bequeath his inheritance, along with those of his other remaining relatives, in person rather than by way of a will. Bruce meets up with these other relatives on a rainy station platform: Wilhemina Wayne, from South Africa, Rev. Emelyn Wayne, a missionary in Asia, and Jeremy Wayne, from Australia.

A hearse shows up to take them to the castle, which, along with the rainfall, effectively sets the mood for the story. The driver is appropriately ghoulish, wearing a sinister expression and looking not unlike the Crypt Keeper or some other horror-comic “host.” As they approach the castle, he suggests that Waynemoor is haunted and, further, that the impending death of Lord Elwood is likely to awaken the vengeful ghost of the castle’s first lord, Harold, who died under mysterious circumstances and was never properly put to rest.

They are welcomed by Asquith, the direct descendant of Lord Harold’s retainer, who leads them to Elwood’s room, where he is being attended by his doctor. Barely clinging to life, Elwood tells them that they are each entitled to an equal share of the estate and that if any of them dies, the survivors will divide that share. Further, if they all die, the estate will go to his doctor. We’ve all seen this kind of set-up before, and we know, at least to some extent, what to expect.

Or do we?

Everyone retires except for Bruce and Wilhemina, who decide to have a drink. As Bruce decants the libations, Mina spots a frightening figure outside. Clad in chain mail and a knight’s helm, the phantom crusader is the very image of Lord Harold. Bruce dissembles, insisting that he saw nothing, and takes Mina to her room. After taking the time to calm her, he dons his costume to explore the castle as Batman.

As he walks the battlements, he hears Mina scream. Swinging through her window on his Batrope, he encounters the “ghost” they saw earlier. When he smacks Batman in the face with his gauntleted hand, it’s clear that he is no specter. Batman ripostes with a punch to the gut, which is, unfortunately, absorbed by the knight’s breastplate, and then his foe butts him in the torso with his helmet and escapes.

Mina, never having heard of Batman, is almost as unsettled by his appearance as she was by the knight’s. He explains that he wants to help her, and she gratefully accepts. They notice a battleax imbedded in the headboard of her bed, and Batman, having verified that “Harold,” as he expected, is not a ghost, tries to determine who might be inside the armor and why he or she would want Mina dead. The obvious conclusion is that it’s one of the other beneficiaries, wishing to claim her share of the estate. He begins to mentally run through the list of suspects but is interrupted by sounds of struggle in Jeremy’s room.

The brawny Australian explains that “Harold” attempted to murder him, but that Batman’s arrival scared him off. The Dark Knight returns to his room to make his bed appear slept in when he hears another scream from Mina. Bursting through her window, he finds her in front of the door; she claims that someone was trying to get in. Unbolting the door, Batman discovers muddy footprints leading inside and back out.

Following the trail to the moor, he gets stuck in the mire as the knight gallops out of the mists on a steed and thrusts his lance into Batman’s chest. Believing his pursuer dead, “Harold” turns to leave, exclaiming, “Now—my vengeance truly begins.” Batman recovers from the blow, having used a tree branch to shield himself from the lance’s point, and, now realizing who the knight really is, heads for the armory.

As Batman enters the chamber, the knight swings a morning star at him, but the Caped Crusader seizes him and throws him to the floor, knocking his helmet off. The mad eyes of Asquith regard him as the voice of the Lord Harold vibrates his vocal chords. He leads Batman to a hidden crypt, where Harold was entombed, and the Dark Knight beholds the words of the murdered lord, written on the wall, naming his killer: his jealous brother. Asquith claims that Harold’s soul can never rest as long as any of his brother’s descendants live. As he laments his failure to wipe out the remaining Waynes, Asquith is throttled by Harold’s spirit and dies.

The next day Batman learns that Asquith perished at the exact moment that the life left Lord Elwood’s body.

We hear a lot about curses and inherited evil and stuff like that, about how the soul of an ancestor can use his or her descendants to seek justice, and it’s certainly an interesting concept. It is well established in fiction that the primary reason behind hauntings is restless spirits, those who were murdered or otherwise died in unpleasant circumstances. There is often some sort of unresolved issue that must be addressed before the spirit can be freed, and this is certainly the case in Detective Comics #412.

Do our actions really have that kind of power? Murderers always believe that they’ve gotten away with it, but have they really?

People commonly use murder as a means to get others out of their way because they cannot see any other option. In Greek mythology, we find that killing someone is the only way to truly remove him or her from the picture; whenever someone chickens out and doesn’t see it through, the victim always comes back to fulfill the dreaded prophecy.

But we also find that those who are wrongfully murdered refuse to keep quiet about it. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, for instance, the King’s ghost tells Hamlet that Claudius murdered him and demands vengeance. In “Legacy of Hate,” the restless spirit takes a more active role, possessing the body of Asquith (if we can accept such an explanation), believing he can trust no one else to avenge him. It is unclear at the end of the story whether or not the curse is broken, leaving Batman to ponder the true nature of the “haunting.”

Neal Adams provided an irresistible cover for this issue, appropriating the story’s splash page and giving it even greater dramatic flair. The art, by Bob Brown and Dick Giordano, makes good use of both the castle’s interior and exterior to frame the story and create a sense of unsettling wonder by blurring the lines between history and modern day.

As the plot summary can attest, writer Frank Robbins gave us another winner with this one. I'm sorry to say that it has not been reprinted at this point.

Detective Comics 403

In the landmark Batman #217 (December 1969), the issue that is recognized as having ushered in the Dark Knight’s Bronze Age, Bruce Wayne outlines his new strategies for dealing with crime, as well as his initiative for protecting the victims, who are all too often left out in the cold even when cases are successfully closed. The former is the bailiwick of Batman, while the latter is that of Bruce. Even though they are two sides of the same coin, the Caped Crusader and his civilian alter ego are distinct personas, and it is this duality that allows one to operate during the daylight hours and the other at night, thus doubling his effectiveness. (The question of when he’s supposed to sleep is addressed later on.)  

The “special assistance” initiative, sponsored by the Wayne Foundation, is dubbed V. I. P. (Victims, Inc. Program). It often serves a dual purpose, as the victims who come seeking Wayne’s help are also unwittingly apprising Batman of the injustices they’ve suffered. I’m sure that Bruce considered this when he established the program. After all, even though the Masked Man-hunter is usually several steps ahead of the criminals in Gotham (and elsewhere), he still appreciates the fact that getting the “inside scoop” from the horse’s mouths saves him a lot of footwork and the necessity of relying on his network of informants. 

As Detective Comics #403, “You Die by Mourning,” opens, a woman identifying herself as Mrs. Randall appeals to Bruce concerning the death of her husband, Laird. When he remarks that he was unaware of the incident, she tells him that his death hasn’t occurred yet, but it will soon. As she reaches into her purse to pull out a handkerchief, a pistol tumbles out onto the desktop. Startled, she turns and flees from the office, leaving a perplexed Bruce in her wake. 

That evening, Batman visits the home of the only Laird Randall in the phonebook and, peering through the window, finds the mysterious woman he encountered earlier (whose name, we discover, is Angie) looking happy as she gets ready for a costume party. Her husband, still very much alive, has dressed himself as the “Ghost of Dracula” (whatever that means), and despite the incident in Bruce’s office, things seem all right. We learn that they are headed to a party at a “haunted house,” having been invited by an unknown host. A horse-drawn carriage arrives to whisk them to the soiree, and even though Angie is initially unsettled, the couple soon begins to appreciate the romantic ride. 

Things turn sour when a car tears out of the woods and pursues the carriage. The coachman takes this opportunity to leap from the vehicle, as men in the car begin firing on it. Batman, who has been “stowing away” on the carriage’s underbelly, tosses a smoke grenade at the car, impairing the driver’s vision, causing him to crash into a tree. Batman climbs onto the horse’s back to calm the animal, bringing the carriage to a halt. The coachman, unnerved by the Dark Knight’s appearance, rushes back to the carriage, explaining to the Randalls that he panicked when the car began chasing them and promises to get them to the party. At this point, Batman rules Angie out as a suspect, since she had just as much to lose as her husband. 

Batman interrogates the men in the wrecked car and finds that they don’t know the name of their employer, as they received the down payment for the hit in the mail. They were supposed to receive the rest of the money at the “haunted house” because, as Batman deduces, the Randalls were never supposed to arrive. Knocking out the gunmen, he rushes to catch the coach, realizing that Laird and Angie are in terrible danger. 

When the carriage pulls up to the house, the couple remarks that it appears abandoned, and the driver tells them that they are, in fact, the only “guests” and that he is the host.  He leads them inside the crumbling building at gunpoint and reveals himself as Van Paxton, the crooked owner of a rival paving firm. He had previously tried to strong-arm Laird into dropping out of the bidding for a lucrative contract, but the latter had refused. As he fires his pistol, a woman appears seemingly out of nowhere and dives in front of the bullet. 

It turns out that woman is Audrey, Angie’s twin sister and unhappy wife of Paxton. Batman shows up and subdues Paxton, revealing that he realized there had to be a twin since Angie was clearly unaware of her husband’s impending murder. It was Audrey who had appealed to V. I. P., posing as Laird’s “widow,” because even though she hadn’t spoken to Angie in years (due to her husband’s mob connections) she couldn’t bear the thought of Laird’s being killed. His plans foiled, Paxton attempts to escape but falls through the rotten floorboards and is strangled by his scarf. 

The case is solved, but Batman is left feeling dejected, as he failed to prevent Audrey’s death. 

Artistically, Detective #403 is a good representation of the change, still in its incipient stages, from the Silver Age to the Bronze. Bob Brown and Frank Giacoia do an adequate job in telling the story, and you can tell that they’ve taken a cue from Neal Adams and Dick Giordano in trying to give the art an updated look. DC had a “house style” during the Silver Age, based largely on Carmine Infantino and Curt Swan’s styles, and when someone is accustomed to drawing this way it can be a tough pattern to break. (Recall that Marvel’s management wanted everyone to draw like Jack Kirby during the same time. No offense to Kirby, but, thankfully, this likewise changed as it became clear that the 1970s was going to be a decade of “moving forward” for comics.)

 

The cover of this issue, brilliantly rendered by Adams (does this guy have an aptitude for composition, or what?), succeeds in summarizing its contents without giving away any of the plot. There is a very clear suggestion of malice on the part of the deceased woman’s spirit, which is, of course, in contrast to the story, but it encapsulates, at least on a metaphorical level, the anguish that Batman experiences at not having been able to save Audrey’s life. 

 

The impetus behind the Dark Knight’s actions has always been the pursuit of justice, and when it is not done it puts him right back in the alley with his parents’ bullet-riddled corpses: helpless, alone, tears streaming down his young face. He knows what it’s like to be a victim, and he doesn’t want anyone else to have to go through that.

 

This issue has only been reprinted once, in Showcase Presents: Batman volume 5, which is unfortunate because the story, by Frank Robbins, is very solid and, unlike many comic stories, leaves the reader with something to think about. I really wish DC would publish a monthly reprint title of Batman’s Bronze Age (like Marvel used to do with Spider-Man in Marvel Tales), but, unfortunately, the historically low sales of reprint books coupled with the proliferation of trade paperbacks, the preferred reprint vehicle, makes this unlikely.

Detective Comics 408

Batman has a relationship with the Gothic that goes all the way back to Detective Comics #29 (1939).  

Around that time, seminal horror films such as Frankenstein (and its sequels), Dracula, and the various adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories (The Black Cat) and poetry (The Raven), all of which have strong Gothic elements, were immensely popular at the box office. Horror as a distinct genre did not yet exist (the work of its practitioners at the time, which included such writers as H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, and August Derleth, was lumped into the category of “weird fiction”), but audiences clearly responded enthusiastically to its tropes. Terror is a powerful emotion, and filmmakers lined their pockets again and again by enticing moviegoers with the dark romances of nineteenth-century literature.

Horace Walpole’s novella The Castle of Otranto (1764) singlehandedly laid the groundwork for Gothic fiction (mystery, the supernatural, dark secrets, curses, svelte females in nightgowns), and authors have used its motifs in various ways ever since. The one thing that almost all Gothic stories share, however, is the building, be it manse, castle, or office block. The evil needs somewhere to set up shop, after all. In many stories, the building itself is a character (Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House being an excellent example), although the source of its sentience may be obscure. These things don’t always have to be explained, and it’s actually often more effective if they’re not. 

It makes perfect sense that comic-book writers would recognize the value of the Gothic, as well. 

As I’ve mentioned before, Batman was originally designed to be the antithesis of Superman. His early adventures pitted him against vampires, madmen, zombies, and other characters we associate with horror. Many of his cases took him away from Gotham City (even though “Gotham” is an alternate name for New York City, I’m sure the creators’ decision to use this name was no accident) to shadowy locations and cobwebby castles filled with hidden passageways, spooky statuary, and chandeliers dripping with the paraffin of blood-red candles. Like the winged mammal from which he took his name, Batman mostly stayed out of sight during the daylight hours. Unfortunately, this didn’t last long, and by the early 1940s his “dark avenger of the night” persona was scrapped. Thankfully, he regained it in 1970. 

Several of Batman’s Bronze-Age stories take place in creepy residences, but Detective Comics #408, “The House That Haunted Batman,” puts an interesting spin on the concept. Writers Len Wein and Marv Wolfman immediately draw the reader into the story by “talking” directly to him, via the captions, as if he were the main character. This technique had been used in comics before, notably in Stan Lee and Bill Everett’s “Zombie” in Menace #5 (1953), and there are probably instances of it in earlier superhero comics, but, regardless of its originality or lack thereof, it elicits a visceral response from the reader because rather than just reading about Batman, he has become Batman. 

As in Batman #246 (see previous article), Robin has been kidnapped by an unknown party from Hudson University and is being used as bait for the Dark Knight. The story opens with Batman’s arrival at a “dusty old mansion” on the outskirts of Gotham City. What makes it particularly strange is that it wasn’t there last week. How the hell does a huge house just appear out of nowhere? You can be certain that the situation is only going to get weirder. 

Soon after entering, Batman finds his ward standing alone in a darkened corridor. The Boy Wonder collapses, and when the Caped Crusader catches him, Robin immediately decomposes into sand, which runs through Batman’s fingers. Before he can deal with this, Batman is compelled to rush up the stairs to locate the source of a piercing scream. It turns out to be a phonograph recording, but as he lifts the needle someone fires on him. Pursuing the assailant, Batman finds Robin holding the gun.

Falling backwards to avoid the bullets, the Dark Knight slips into a hidden chamber and complete darkness. When he lights a match, he beholds a bizarre scene: his own body in a coffin, surrounded by his friends and allies (Superman, Commissioner Gordon, Robin, et al.), who take turns proclaiming how Batman was a worthless, fraudulent crime fighter, which greatly upsets him. His match goes out, and when he manages to light another, he finds the deathly tableau gone and the walls closing in on him.  

At this juncture, the visions he has been experiencing fade away, and he finds himself trapped in a glass tube. Robin is likewise encapsulated nearby. On a monitor in front of them, Batman recognizes the face of Dr. Tzin-Tzin, the master illusionist, a villain he originally faced in Detective Comics #354 (1966). This is noteworthy because prior to this point in the Bronze Age, Batman had never encountered an established supervillain (though it’s arguable whether one previous appearance constitutes establishment). All of his foes were one-off criminals that met their ends at a given issue’s conclusion. The Joker, Two-Face, Catwoman, and the other members of his rogues’ gallery would not show up until later. (Tzin-Tzin appears again in Batman #s 284 and 285, but we’ll examine those issues in a future article, I’m sure.) 

In any event, Batman manages to escape and takes out the illusionist’s goons. Disgusted with whole situation and accepting the fact that none of his schemes have succeeded, Tzin-Tzin descends into the chamber, intending to take the Dark Knight out the old-fashioned way: with a bullet. Before he can fire his gun, however, Robin subdues him from behind. The reunited partners restrain their foe and take him to the Batmobile, but he distracts them with one final illusion and gets away. Then, without warning, the mysterious house bursts into flame. 

In Batman’s earliest Bronze-Age adventures, ghosts were, by all appearances, real, but as time went on the writers changed their minds about this and decided that the supernatural elements in the stories should be explained away in some fashion, perhaps to make things more believable (as if a man battling criminals in a bat suit is plausible). In the case of this story, Batman’s bizarre visions are illusions created by Tzin-Tzin, which is reasonable enough, although I personally have no problem with the idea of actual ghosts. I’m reminded of the fiction of American author Henry James (which was itself Gothic); some of his stories, such as The Turn of the Screw, feature spectres, but literary critics have suggested that they are either metaphorical or illusory. (Whatever, says I.)  

In any event, the “source” of the visions isn’t really important. What matters is that they are, by nature, Gothic. The house is labyrinthine, and the pervasive darkness operates as a disorienting, almost tangible, presence. The unsettling image of Batman’s corpse lying in a coffin and his subsequent “entombment” (Poe’s “The Premature Burial” comes to mind) are, arguably, about as Gothic as it gets. At one point, a suit of armor is even used as a shield (bear in mind that Walpole’s inspiration for Otranto was Medieval Romance). 

Neal Adams’ art in this issue is, of course, dynamic. That almost goes without saying.

 

Want this story? (The correct answer is “yes,” incidentally.) You can find it reprinted in Batman Illustrated by Neal Adams volume 2 (now in paperback) and Detective Comics #477. The first one is your best bet, really.