I just typed a rather lengthy response which got deleted due to a 'Bad Gateway' message.  Oh well.  To summarize:

It's always going to be issue 27 of Tec which stands out as the most important issue of the title and yet I've always felt that by also getting the spotlight on the centennial issues of the series, Batman's sort of blowing out the candles on somebody else's cake.  It's something that bugs me when I'm looking for things to be bugged about, I guess.

But it got me to thinking about the first issue of Detective Comics and how issue 700 offered this Graham Nolan penciled homage to that cover.




Then I took a look at 2011's Detective 1 and can't help but suspect that the artist had at least some familiarity with the original.



Something about the placement of The Joker's head coupled with his nose and eyebrows has me suspecting that 2011's cover was somewhat influenced by 1937's.  

For the record ... Hoosier X, I wasn't a fan of the New52 Detective Comics at all. I tried my best to enjoy it and sad to say that this book didn't hold me any interest in me at all.

I finished New 52 Detective Comics just a little bit ago.

And I'm think I'm done reading Detective Comics for a while. Rebirth Detective Comics is still very recent and I don't really like it in general, so I'm not really eager to keep going right now. Maybe I'll feel differently in a few weeks.

I started my Detective Comics Reading Project late in the summer of 2017 with Detective Comics #390. And so, for over a year, I've read all the Detective Comics of the 1970s, the 1980, the 1990s, the 2000s, right up to the end of the New 52 in 2016.

That's every issue of Detective Comics from #390 to #881, and then the New 52 Detective Comics from #1 to #52. That incudes two issues of Detective Comics numbered #0 and also the Forever Evil issues of #23.1 to #23.4. So it's more than 540 consecutive issues of Detective Comics.

And that doesn't include all the cross-over issues! Like for Knightfall and Prodigal and Death of the Family. Or that period in the 1980s when the continuity ran directly from Batman to Detective and back again. That lasted from about Batman #340 to #400, so it's another 60 issues.

Also, a lot of annuals!

When last I posted, I mentioned Robin War. It's a very good basic idea behind it. There's a social movement in Gotham City. Hundreds of teens as fighting crime in the streets dressed in their own customized variants of the Robin costume. This totally sounds like something that would happen in Gotham City. It is a weird town.

But the premise of the Robin War is that Court of Owls are manipulating the media, the city council, the public and the Robins for their own nefarious purposes. It's just too much. I really can't stand the Court of Owls. They work in the Gotham TV series because that show is just so bad that the Court of Owls is just one of a dozen bad ideas in any given episode. And Talon kind of grew on me in Birds of Prey. But otherwise, the Court of Owls are just super-annoying, too powerful and too annoying, and their presence in Gotham makes Batman look like a blind and easily manipulated fool in a bat costume.

And the ending of the Robin War is a diversion off into another whole other storyline.

There is so much not to like in the Robin War.

But there are also scenes here and there with the real Robins (Dick, Tim, Jason and Damian) interacting with hundreds of wannabe Robins that are pretty good.

I doubt there are enough good moments to recommend this to anyone who doesn't like the Court of Owls.

After the Robin War, New 52 Detective Comics just sort of strolls out not with a band but a whimper.



Detective Comics #48 to #50 involves Gordon (as Batman) trying to stop a particularly convoluted serial killer case. The killer dresses up his victim as historical figures who are depicted in Gotham statues, like George Washington and Joan of Arc, and leaves their bodies laying around the city with a carefully selected bone missing. Nice art. It's not dull. It's just not quite Batman.

And then Detective #51 and #52 take Gordon (and his batsuit) to Afghanistan to help his Marine buddies stop the minions of Amen-Set from killing everybody. Again, nice art. But not quite Batman.

It's been fun spending more than a year reading hundreds and hundreds and issues of Batman! Since I started this project, I've collected enough back issues that I now have every issue of Detective Comics from #285 to the present except #298. So maybe in a few months, I'll start over again and read from #285 on! All the way to the present! That's more than 700 issues!

Maps is one of the things I liked about the Robin War.

I mentioned on another thread that I ordered Detective Comics #298 off eBay. I got it a week before Christmas but I've been too busy to sit down and write about it. You know, the usual holiday stuff. Like when the people you live with drop off five extra foster cats on the day before they go on vacation for a week! There were already four dogs, four permanent cats and four other foster cats! I was taking care of quite a menagerie from December 26 to January 2! (But it was an emergency, so I was OK with it. And they are very sweet cats.)

My copy of Detective Comics #298 is pretty beat up, with a spine split up to the bottom staple, wrinkled corners, little rips here and there. But it's all there, no coupons out, cover and centerfold are both attached. The real defect is how much writing is on it. Somebody blocked out Robin's eye and drew zebra stripes on the Detective Comics logo. (And wrote his name on the inside front cover. "Paul.")

Which doesn't really bother me that much. I don't mind a comic book with a little character as long as it's all there and everything is attached and doesn't smell like kitty litter. (Thanks for that, at least, Paul.)

So I now have every issue of Detective Comics from #285 ...



... to #995!

That's more than 700 consecutive issues!

Detective Comics #298 is notable for several reasons. It's the first appearance of the second Clayface! Good old Matt Hagen. This period of Batman is notable for random aliens, weird transformations, Bat-Mite, Batwoman, Bat-Girl (eventually) and a whole battalion of bizarre one- (or two-) shot villains. The Joker showed up here and there. However, there were two villains introduced in this period who actually experienced a little growth and could actually be said to have had story arcs of their own. One is Catman (whose first appearance is a year away) and Matt Hagen, the second Clayface!

Detective Comics #298 - dated December 1961 - is also the first issue that cost twelve cents! I know A LOT of people from the generation before mine who explicitly remember dropping comics when they went to twelve cents. "IT'S OUTRAGEOUS! COMICS SHOULD COST A DIME!"

I love the way the first story starts. Who doesn't love 1961 Batman? (Actually, a lot of people don't love the Jack Schiff era.)

Batman and Robin are accepting a satchel containing $100,000. They are at the estate of a noted philanthropist and the money is for the Police Relief Fund.

And the press is there! The reporters are scribbling in heir notepads, with big cards marked "PRESS" in their hat bands, and the photographers are recording the moment for posterity ... because everybody will want to see this!

I can just see it, all across early-1960s Gotham City, moms and dads waving the Gazette, yelling at the little ones: "Hey! Turn off the Twilight Zone and come see this photo of Batman and Robin accepting a  bag of money from an old man with a moustache!"

Well, as the Dynamic Duo are taking the bag, a weird, muddy-looking figure attacks and turns into a giant python and then a buzz saw (to cut the bat-rope) and then turns into an eagle and flies away with the money!

Batman and Robin conclude that the weird figure is a human with shape-changing powers and not a bizarre creature or an alien because it stole money, and only a human would need money.

And the boys in the Gotham press quickly dub the new menace "Clayface"! So Clayface it is!

It turns out Clayface is some random dude named Matt Hagen. The story reveals very little about Hagen's background. He's just a regular guy who laughs at all the suckers who work for a living. He's making his fortune the EASY way … by skin diving and searching for sunken ships full of gold in the waters near Gotham City.

He didn't find any gold. He found a secret grotto! (Which I'm very surprised has never been shown to be connected to the massive collection of caverns and hollows to which the Bat-cave belongs.) And there's a bubbling pool of thick liquid that bestows shape-changing powers on anyone who bathes in it.

And that's how Matt Hagen got the power of Clayface!

Clayface finds out the shape-changing powers only last for 48 hours and he starts planning a little more carefully after he almost gets caught by Batman when his powers are running down. He uses the money collected from his early crimes to form a gang. (Because he's a Gotham criminal.) And he uses his shape-changing powers to hide his identity. But he doesn't change his features so he looks like a different human. He just changes his head so he looks like a weird frog-monster wearing a suit. And one of the fedora-wearing Gotham gangsters think it's going to be weird working for somebody who changes his face like that. I'm thinking this guy must be new to Gotham if he thinks THIS is weird. The other members of the gang probably put Kansas City Red through some sort of embarrassing and dangerous Gotham City gangster initiation ceremony later that night.

After another successful crime, Batman and Robin find some clay on the ground and they analyze it and find out where that kind of clay can be found in the Gotham area. Robin comments on the irony of bringing down CLAYface with some CLAY from a crime scene. Somehow Batman doesn't slap him silly.

So they track Clayface to his hideout and round up the gang and Clayface turns into a scaly, orange, horned beast to fight them off. But just when we think we're about to see Batman and Robin skewered by Clayface, time runs out and he turns back to Matt Hagen and is apprehended.

Later, in his prison cell, Hagen vows that he will escape and find the grotto again and this time he will be unbeatable!

The Matt Hagen version of Clayface appeared several more times in the early 1960s, including a battle with the Joker in "The Great Clayface-Joker Feud" in Batman #159, dated November 1963. This wondrous tale also features Batwoman and Bat-Girl and is one of the highlights of Batman in the Silver Age. Clayface also appeared in a couple of issues of World's Finest in 1964, including a team-up with Brainiac.

Then he disappeared for ten years before appearing a few times in the Bronze Age. 

This splash page is from one of his 1960s appearances. It was not unknown for a Clayface story to go a little off the rails.

Since it's a 1961 issue of Detective Comics, that means there's some backup stories! We get The Martian Manhunter and Aquaman!

In the J'onn J'onzz story, there's this washed-up impersonator trying to make a comeback by impersonating the Martian Manhunter onstage before a live audience. I guess there's supposed to be some theatrical special effects to duplicate the Manhunter's powers, which include stretching, super-breath, turning intangible and growing very large so that cars can drive over his butt.

J'onn J'onzz is there to watch the act, but the comeback is hampered by complications. The entertainer sprains his ankle and so the real Martian Manhunter takes his place and goes onstage and pretends his REAL powers are special effects. And then generic comic-book bad guys wearing suits and fedoras try to rob the show (it's an outdoor charity bazaar) and J'onn J'onzz must stop them without revealing that he really has powers!

So, yeah, some silly 1961 Martian Manhunter stuff. None of the supporting cast is here. Zook wouldn't be introduced for a year. There's no pretty patrolwoman Diane Meade throwing herself off a cliff or comandeering a runaway rollercoaster or trying to stop a stampeding rhinoceros or any of that Diane Meade stuff. There's no Captain Harding sitting at his desk and dreaming of the 2-for-1 submarine sandwich lunch special across the street in the courthouse cafeteria. It's just not a Martian Manhunter story without a scene where Captain Harding looks like he is stuck in his chair.

The Aquaman story is a seven-page 1961 Aquaman story. So, nice Nick Cardy art. And Aqualad. And Topo. The octopuses save the day. The story … well, there's these two small nations trying to sign a peace treaty and mysterious ships from the sea are interfering. Something like that. Maybe they're Communists? I don't know. I'd have to read it again to clarify. 

I watched The Lego Batman Movie last night.

When it first came out, two or three people told me it was really good, but they were all unreliable witnesses who like a lot of stuff that I think is borderline garbage (at best).

So I didn't rush out to see it.

But I finally got around to it last night … and it was wonderful!

If I had known it was the best Batman movie since the Batman 1966 feature film, I would have seen it long ago!

I think I know the reason that nobody I can trust told me that it's great. Nobody I can trust saw it!