Batman #345 (March 1982)



"Calling Doctor Death!"

Script: Gerry Conway
Pencils: Gene Colan
Inks: Klaus Janson
Colors: Adrienne Roy
Letters: Ben Oda

Grade: n/a (only looking at Robin's depiction in this story)

Editor Dick Giordano has the Bat Office where he wants it now. Robin is back with Batman, astounding artists Gene Colan and Don Newton are now aboard on these titles, and (as of this issue) Batman and Detective Comics begin crossing over, providing an ongoing bi-weekly Batman saga. It's truly an exceptional era for Batman comics but, tempted as I am to discuss that further, the focus here is on Robin. If you'd like my thoughts on this issue in general, I reviewed it a very long time ago for The Complete Batman: 1979-2011, though I enjoyed it less at the time than I do now in hindsight.

Anyway, it's fascinating that Gerry Conway is writing both Batman and Detective Comics at this point, and yet his treatment of Robin in the two titles is very different. in Detective Comics #511 last month, Robin was the bright-eyed, somewhat incompetent sidekick who even got sidelined for the climactic battle. But Batman #344 set Dick up to be an equal partner to Batman, and this issue works hard to reinforce that idea:



Whereas, in Detective #511, Dick was wholly ignorant of things occurring beneath the surface and needed Batman to explain them to him, he's the first to notice the threat here



and takes the lead without asking Batman's permission:



Batman even goes on to describe a source they'll use as being "our informer" and not "my informer" this time around.

In fact, the true inner conflict in this issue is Dick's, tirelessly fighting against his own inevitable death by poison while trying to keep a stiff upper lip so that Bruce doesn't worry:



In the climactic battle, they fight as equals, even while Robin is sick out of his mind, and Colan gives us far more panels of Dick fighting, struggling against his own weakness. That the two are both defeated by the end (just in time for a cliffhanger) is never presented as being Robin's fault, either. They were just overpowered despite a valiant effort.


Heck, just compare Newton's wide-eyed depiction of Dick in last month's issue of Detective with Colan's "cool" depiction here.

Newton:




Colan:




This Robin is older, more mature, and more independent.

I wonder if Conway scripted Detective #511 prior to Batman #344 for some reason, and changed his mind about how to depict Robin (or got an edict from Giordano) between scripting the two stories.


And while we're looking at Dick and new romantic interest Dala, let's consider how all of this does and does not align with what is happening in the pages of New Teen Titans right now. Wolfman has held off on lending any real characterization nor introspection to Dick in the pages of New Teen Titans since he unexpectedly departed (or was booted from) the Bat titles immediately after The Lazarus Affair. Back then, Wolfman was carefully sewing discord between Batman and Robin that would justify Dick forging a new life away from Gotham with the Titans, but that clearly got blocked, the Lazarus Affair's epilogue forcing a reconciliation between the two that was abrupt and unearned, and Wolfman literally never characterizing Robin nor discussing his relationship with Batman since (when he had given SO much attention to it in the first few issues of New Teen Titans). As a result, beyond the fact that Dick is implied to be living in Titans Tower in one title and at the Wayne penthouse in another, there is no blatant conflict between the two titles. Theoretically, Dick may have stopped living at Titans Tower when he started travelling with Hill's Circus a few months back, and he could be commuting to New York to fight with the Titans by day, and then coming back to Gotham to fight with Batman by night. He has no job and hasn't resumed college yet, after all.

it's a stretch (or, rather, a series of stretches), but it's possible.

Furthermore, he is free to be dating Dala right now because this exchange just happened between him and Starfire in New Teen Titans #16 last month:




On a more unintentional level though, how weird that Dick is going back to college at Gotham U at the same time that Raven had decided to begin attending Manhattan College. Were New Teen Titans and the Batman titles more aligned, you'd expect Dick to attend alongside her or to at least discuss their shared journey. Weirder still, Raven is the mysterious, foreign woman on campus in the pages of New Teen Titans:



while Dala is the mysterious, foreign woman on campus in the pages of Batman and 'Tec:



And, much as Raven was recently using her powers to manipulate Wally West's feelings for her in the pages of NTT, we're about to have some serious questions about this:




I doubt any of these similarities was intended, but Conway had an insane workload at this point and had to have been thinking/writing as quickly as possible. It sure seems like, whether or not he was going to acknowledge the book in his Batman and 'Tec stories, Conway was very aware of what was happening in the pages of NTT and was unintentionally influenced by it. Dala truly seems like a more foreboding version of Raven.

I try to formulate a theory. What I gather from your reviews is that Robin (and his dynamic with Batman) is depicted similar how at the time non-comics book readers probably imagined: the somewhat naive and immature kid and the wise mentor. And, from what I remember, not dissimilar from the depiction in the various cartoons at the time (SuperFriends, The New Adventures of Batman). So, perhaps they tried to appeal to the casual readers?  And from this perspective you can explain why they tried to establish an old-new status quo in the comics very similar to the cartoon and the old tv show (Batman and Robin living together in the Wayne Manor). So, Batman for longtime readers, Detective for the new/casual ones. If I remember correctly, even other characters who had various comics magazines tried this approach (But I'm not quite sure how a hypothetical casual comic reader would have known which comic was right for him/her...)

Edit: we could say that the Superman magazines had a similar approach: in the last two-three years before the reboot, Action Comics published stories accessible to  the casual reader (not multi part-stories, not references to the Superman's current continuity) and in Superman they continued the adventures of the regular in-continuity character.

It's just so odd to have two titles crossing over with each other and written by the same guy with such blatantly different depictions of the same character. Clearly, the purpose of having the titles cross over was to make readers buy both titles, so Conway had to assume readers would see both depictions of Robin. My guess is Conway (and perhaps Giordano) were testing the waters to see which treatment of Robin the fans liked better. I definitely agree that there is a push here for Batman and Robin to return to more familiar ground, so I guess the question is whether they go back to 1969 familiar ground or move that familiar relationship forward.

Detective Comics #513 (April 1982)



"...Is Better Than None"

Script: Gerry Conway
Pencils: Don Newton
Inks: Frank Chiaramonte
Colors: Adrienne Roy
Letters: Ben Oda

Grade: N/a (only looking at Robin and Batgirl's depictions in this story)

Let's see now. For three months after Robin's solo feature ended, we had a naive teen sidekick in the pages of Detective Comics and a mature equal partner in the pages of Batman. Now, this month, we have an entirely solo Robin caught up in his own events at Gotham University in the pages of 'Tec, and yet another variation of Robin here in the pages of Batman.

As the cover suggests, Robin plays a prominent role in this issue. In fact, much of the story is focused on his quest to find out what has happened to Batman (who has been captured by Two Face). But whereas this title previously took great pains to have Robin refer to him and Batman as "equals" and even had Dick take the lead in the previous adventure, determining the threat before Batman, leading the investigation, and kicking butt in the climactic battle even while stoically battling fast-acting poison, this Robin is clearly not on that level.

He's independent and capable, but hardly Batman's equal:



It's luck more than good detective work that finally gets him to Two-Face, and while he does kick butt in the battle that ensues, it's ultimately Batman who frees himself, Robin having contributed to this rescue in no way whatsoever.

But at least he gets to drive The Batmobile for the first time ever:



whereas he wasn't even along for the ride in the most recent issue of 'Tec:




Again, it seems that Conway is deliberately offering very different depictions of Dick and his relationship with Bruce in a concerted effort to gauge which version fans respond to most favorably.

of course, in the end, he'll just replace Dick as Robin anyway, and that decision has to be less than a year away since Jason Todd will be introduced in only eleven more months.


Important Details:

- Yet another new approach to characterizing Robin, in which he is independent and capable, but nowhere near Batman-level.

- Bruce makes the decision to return to Wayne Manor full time:



If there was any previous doubt that the reason for bringing Robin back into the Batman feature was to return to more familiar, pre-1970 ground, here's the final proof. It's classic Batman and Robin all over again, and the only question that remains is how that Robin will be characterized.



Minor Details:

- For the second issue in a row, Babs Gordon makes a cameo appearance strictly as supporting cast for Commissioner Gordon:



Zero acknowledgement of her life outside of this feature nor even of the fact that she is Batgirl. It was odd enough when this happened in the pages of Detective Comics this month, but a little stranger still when she has a backup feature in this very book.



Batgirl: "Duel with Demons!"

Script: Cary Burkett
Pencils: José Delbo
Inks: Joe Giella
Colors: Tom Ziuko
Letters: Adam Kubert

Grade: C-

The letter column for this issue prints two letters in praise of Batgirl, one even asking to see her more often in the DC Universe, and yet offers no direct reply:



Instead, the column later ominously promises/warns that big changes are in store for Batgirl. Whether they meant that Burkett is cooking up a 4-part story starting next issue (his longest Batgirl tale yet), that Barbara Kesel will be replacing him as writer immediately after that, or that the Batgirl feature will be cancelled entirely two issues later, big changes most certainly are in store.

Whether the intention at the time was to embolden Burkett to take more risks with his stories (a massive four-parter beginning next issue) or to warn him that his time here was up immediately after that, Burkett clearly throws himself into this story more than he has for a long while now. We've got sweeping narration opening the story that we've never seen from him before, waxing prosaic (and failing) in the epic style of a Claremont, Moench, or McGregor:



as well as Batgirl continuing to place tremendous emphasis on symbolism. The once pragmatic crimefighter who recognized that her symbolic victories meant nothing compared to strong legislation now obsesses over the symbolism of taking down the Demons in front of as many onlookers as possible so that they can see good triumph over evil, and (odder yet) draws the following conclusion from the fact that a random bystander rescued her during a critical moment in which she could have been killed:



I know this all feels like heavy stuff to Burkett, but to me it feels like this is what you'd get if they started producing superhero shows for the Hallmark Channel.


Anyway, once again we have this odd phenomenon where Babs is back to kicking butt and taking names:



only to utterly f**k up a page later like a total rookie,



completely counterbalancing her accomplishments:




Burkett may be writing with more of his heart now, but there still seems to be some kind of edict in place where Batgirl is never allowed to come off looking as capable as Batman. Every accomplishment must be counterbalanced with a totally inexplicable rookie error.


You might think I'd be excited to see Burkett trying on this feature again, but it only makes me realize more clearly that the character he is writing is not the daring, resourceful, indefatigable "Dominoed Daredoll" we'd been rooting for since 1967. The Post-Crisis Batgirl special will attempt to attribute this change to Batgirl's near death at the hands of Cormorant way back at the start of Burkett's run in Detective Comics #491 and the trauma that followed, but Burkett had Batgirl triumphantly work through that trauma (again and again) and prove victorious, and these more recent blunders seem to have nothing to do with anxiety or self-doubt at all. Really, Cary Burkett crippled Batgirl nearly a full decade before Alan Moore, Len Wein, and The Joker did. Blame can also be attributed to editors Paul Levitz and Dick Giordano, who clearly wanted Babs Gordon taken down several pegs, but here, writing the character with a new sense of passion, Burkett still can't help but make the Darknight Damsel utterly trip over herself at least once per issue, making it truly hard to respect or care for the hero at all.

Batgirl has been dead for a long while now, systematically dismantled first by senselessly killing off her mentor, Kathy Kane, in Tec #485 without even giving the killer a motive, then by having her lose her reelection to congress (off-panel, nonetheless!) just prior to Tec #488, then by wiping her mind of Batman and Robin's identities (while they continued to know hers) in 'Tec #489, then by nearly killing her and turning her into a traumatized victim in 'Tec #491-502 (honesty, these were generally damn good stories, though), and then ditching any sense of past trauma and just generally painting her as an incompetent rookie in every depiction since.

I don't think I'll be missing this feature once it's finally cancelled.

Yes. Joey Cavalieri. One of my least favorite writers in all of comicdom.

I bought Brave and the Bold a lot of the time in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and I certainly have this one.

It’s been a while since I read it though and I don’t remember the story at all. The issues I remember from this time period are team-ups with The Metal Men, Rose and Thorn, Adam Strange ... and the return of Double X in a team-up with the Flash! (With some awful Infantino art!)