Nice work, as usual, shaxper !

And both you and Slam_Bradley are so right about Newton, who was so great on Charlton's Phantom book. But particularly ill-served by their muddy printing and lousy paper.

BTW, Shax, I'm thinking that Della Zigler (the name, the hats) is a tip o' the Harris hat to Bella Abzug, the famed NYC Congresswoman.



And also that Owlman writer Sergius in the lead story is a stand-in for himself, who at times at Charlton and elsewhere, used the pen name Sergius O'Shaughnessy. It makes me wonder if the three mugs are also based on comic book personalities.

Thanks for this. That gives me all the more reason to suspect Harris is setting Babs up to leave Capitol Hill. Babs is running against a real-world pro and looking bush-league in contrast.

Too bad, really. I loved Congresswoman Gordon.




I had a feeling Sergius was based on someone real, but when I decided it wasn't O'Neil himself, I stopped there. Thanks, once again!

Thanks! I'll have to check that out myself.

Detective Comics #488 (March 1980)



Well that cover scene didn't exactly make its way into this story. Batgirl and Robin actually appearing in the same story as Batman? It's not like the very title "Batman Family" suggests such a team-up (which has never yet occurred in 28 issues of publication). Fortunately, we will start seeing at least two of these three begin teaming up again next issue, but more on that later...


Batman: "The Spook's Death Sentence for Batman"

Script: Cary Burkett
Pencils: Don Newton
Inks: Dan Adkins
Colors: Adrienne Roy
Letters: Milt Snapinn

Grade: C-

Paul Levitz attempts to explain what the hell is going on with this feature in this issue's letter column, but it doesn't really explain anything:



So I guess we're eventually getting the conclusion of the storyline in which Kathy Kane was killed (it's already been three issues since the first half of that story saw print), but still no clear explanation as to what caused the delay, nor why O'Neil needs someone to cover for him on this feature while he covers for Wein on the core Batman title. It just doesn't make sense, especially since O'Neil does write another feature in this issue. Something else is going on behind the scenes -- perhaps a conflict between Levitz and O'Neil over the direction of this feature, as Levitz is clearly pushing his writers for more throwback, costumed villain adventures, and O'Neil is writing street-level pieces.

Burkett's story is passable. Nonsensical in so many respects,



(did he just think the words "ha, ha" to himself??)

but it holds together well enough for a DC book in 1980 that contains neither the word "Titans" nor "Legion" in its title. I do appreciate that Burkett makes efforts to set this within the continuity Len Wein is building in the core Batman title, giving both Lucius Fox and a reformed Selena Kyle cameos in the story that don't service the plot at all; they're just reminders of the characters and backdrop surrounding the Batman of 1980 that otherwise aren't getting referenced when O'Neil is at the keys. And Levitz gets his wish, as the costumed villain The Spook is at the center of this nonsensical plot.





Tales of Gotham: "The Last Duty!"

Script: Denny O'Neil
Pencils: Johnny Craig
Inks: Johnny Craig
Colors: Tatjana Wood
Letters: Milt Snapinn

Grade: A-

The first in a line of "Tales of Gotham" stories, I truly wonder if this wasn't intended by O'Neil to be the lead Batman feature for this issue, and Levitz threw a fit in response. It's the most street-level story I've ever seen O'Neil write, in which an ordinary beat cop finally gets to solve a real mystery on his final day before retirement.



It's an incredibly welcome change of pace, light-hearted, whimsical, and touching all at the same time, and yet it never references Batman nor Gotham. The story seems to make no effort to insert itself into this universe.

Instead, the whole thing feels more like O'Neil just read Will Eisner's A Contract with God and was inspired to write true-to-life characters and stories like the ones found in that volume. This story has the exact same kind of charm, really, and Johnny Craig gives the characters softer, more realistic (and perhaps endearing) features that compliment this tone well.



The plot itself? Unimportant. The mystery? Easy to solve. But the characterization and tone were everything. That seems to be a running theme with O'Neil's contributions to this volume as of late.



Batgirl: "The Leader of the Dark Lords"

Script: Jack C. Harris
Pencils: Jose Delbo
Inks: Frank Chiaramonte
Colors: Adrienne Roy
Letters: Ben Oda

Grade: D

I noted last issue that Levitz articulated a clear agenda to keep Robin young, inexperienced, and looking like a fool when compared to Batman. I wonder if a similar edict is now in place for Batgirl. She has lost her senate seat unceremoniously and off-panel between this and last issue



That senate seat being a tremendous sign of strength for the character, who was second to no one and called her own shots. Now we have a self-doubting heroine who lacks so much of the strength and confidence we'd seen when Elliot S. Maggin was writing this feature back in the early issues, and Jose Delbo's art truly isn't helping.

Take, for example, the culminating scene, in which Babs attempts to de-escalate a gang war. With the right art, this could have been a believable and powerful scene, but Delbo makes Babs look so awkward and so non-threatening that she seems utterly out of place among these gangsters and certainly less intimidating than them.



We've gone from admiring Batgirl's strength to wondering who she thinks she is, lecturing rival gangs about how to keep the peace.


And really, Delbo's art gets far more awkward than that:




Let's draw a quick comparison between Giordano's art last issue and Delbo's this issue.

Giordano:




Delbo:



Definitely not helping Batgirl seem at all capable/powerful in this outing.

It may not be immediately apparent just how drastically Babs' depiction in this title has changed until you consider earlier stories like "Those Were The Bad Old Days" from Batman Family #10 published three years earlier. Say what you will about Bob Rozakis; he still seemed to understand the significance of powerful women in this title. Not only was Batgirl still a successful congresswoman who was feared by her corrupt colleagues, but that particular story teamed her up with Kathy Kane, the original Batwoman, and at the conclusion of their kick-ass mission, the two spent time just discussing themselves and each other. In a decade long before such things were commonplace in popular media, it was a conversation between two powerful independent women that never concerned itself with Batman, a villain at large, a romantic interest, nor any other male figure. Just two powerful women admiring each other long before the Bechdel Test had been invented.



Three years later, Kathy Kane has been unceremoniously killed off-panel and without explanation, the death serving no real purpose other than to have her removed, and the career that set Babs apart as a powerful woman has been unceremoniously destroyed off-panel and without explanation, its destruction also serving no real purpose other than to have it removed.

It truly seems like Levitz and his staff were explicitly trying to de-power the women in this title.


Anyway, despite everything else I resent about this story, the last panel undoes some of the damage, promising that Babs will spend the next two years fighting to regain her senate seat, and (perhaps even more exciting) promising that Batgirl and Robin are reuniting next issue!



So I'm not totally giving up on these features yet.



* Skipping the Elongated Man story, as it will not be a recurring feature in this title.



Robin: "The Great Campus Kidnap!"

Script: Jack C. Harris
Pencils: Kurt Schaffenberger
Inks: Vince Colletta
Colors: Gene D'Angelo
Letters: Ben Oda

Grade: D-


Hey kids! Having trouble paying for college?



Why not try hiring a bunch of thugs to kidnap the rich kids on campus? It's clearly the most logical solution to your problem, and what could possibly go wrong?

And Robin is known to police this campus too.




Harris really isn't trying on this feature, and it shows. The story is full of completely illogical WTF moments that genuinely hurt:



Has Harris ever actually been to a sports stadium before?? Locker rooms, concession stand supply rooms, conference rooms, management offices, there are literally hundreds of spaces big enough to stow a handful of prisoners, and the stadium only has ONE storage room?


Anyway, it's a totally forgettable story that somehow feels lamer than the Bob Rozakis outings, especially with the Levitz mandate to make it abundantly clear each issue how much Robin sucks compared to Batman:



and I guess we are completely ignoring the earlier Rozakis stories, as Dick has a completely new love interest who isn't Lori Elton:



not that she brings any characterization to the script at all. Just a convenient object of romantic desires to be placed in peril each issue, I suppose.


Minor Details:

- The one aspect of this story that was actually logical.



Back in Batman Family #1, Dick was throwing lassos around the top of the Washington Monument. Nice to finally see some realistic limits placed on his ability to throw heavy silk cable.


- Dick apparently has a van where he stores his equipment and Robin Cycle now:





In conclusion, while last issue was arguably the best Batman Family outing we've seen in a very long while, this one is almost a consistent disappointment from beginning to end. Tales of Gotham was the one exception. I look forward to more installments in that particular ongoing feature.

You're definitely helping make them more entertaining!

Back in the day a Batfamily $1 series would hit all the sweet spots for me. Multiple characters and stories for a buck and I am certainly on board. Budget and collection friendly as far as mom cared. Reality? Dagnabbitall I couldn't find ANY DC dollar comics on any kind of a regular basis. I owned 3 Batman, 2 War and a couple of the Disasters. I have no idea the peculiarities of distribution here in Phoenix but it was ugly. I could only find the Marvel b/w magazine's when I visited my grandparents in Payson. Seldom see Gold Key or Charlton unless it was at K-Mart or Warner Bros/Disney sometimes at a 7-11. DC dollar maybe an issue around every 3-4 months, and usually ONLY 1 issue and it varied each time as to what series.

Batfamily would have and should have been a favorite for my young eyes. Even though I am seeing from this thread that DC placed no or little effort into it. Seems to me in essence the higher ups figured the BAT name guaranteed sales. Placing lesser or cheaper creators meant more money in their pocket I would presume. Typical of much of the big business protocols, put as little in as you can for a larger return, knowing it won't last long. Minimal effort for your maximum return/gain.

I don't think DC wasn't putting effort into it. I think the larger problem was that some perceived the strengthening of the Batgirl and Robin characters as a threat to Batman's image and popularity. There is also a clear struggle between whether to take the Batman franchise as a whole into more serious, real-world grounded stories, or keep the brightly colored villains and hi-tech hijinks of earlier decades.

Lots and lots of creative tensions at play, but I don't think the problem was no one caring.