BATMAN: THE CHALLENGE OF THE 1950s
By Hoosier X
1955 to 1959

In the 1950s, Batman (along with the rest of the comic-book world, and media in general) found himself coping with a changing society, changing technology, and economic pressure to continue to appeal to youthful audiences. The Caped Crusader had survived the costumed-adventurer purge of the late 1940s and the early 1950s, and he stood tall at the top of the super-hero heap, with only Superman above him on the pinnacle. But as the 1950s progressed and became the 1960s, Superman thrived, held aloft by a Superman series on television, maintaining his series in Superman and Action, continuing the tales of his adventures as a boy (in two comics!) and expanding his media presence as his pal Jimmy Olsen and his girlfriend Lois Lane got their own comics. The Man of Steel also appeared with Batman in team-up stories in World’s Finest. Batman, still a powerful force, seemed to be stagnating, with adventures appearing only in World’s Finest, his eponymous title and Detective Comics. As a matter of fact, one might say he was losing ground as sidekick Robin no longer appeared in his solo series in Star-Spangled Comics, a monthly slot he had held for almost five years, from #65 to #130 (1947 to 1952).

A commonly told story of Batman in the 1950s goes something like this: With sales going down, editor Jack Schiff was pressured to inject fantastic elements into the Batman stories. It was believed that the kids of the 1950s, with a steady diet of movie and TV genres culled from the media menu, would be more likely to find the Batman comics appealing if they included more of the elements of popular films and TV programs. Science fiction was considered an especially fruitful draw for the comic-book demographic. That’s why the Martian Manhunter was added to Detective Comics in 1955. And that’s why Batman had so many adventures where he had to outwit random aliens, conquer giant monsters and cope with many strange transformations.
Jack Schiff did what he was told, and ruined Batman with a steady procession of dumb-looking green or blue aliens, out-of-place monsters from Grade-Z creature features, and stories where he turned into a zebra or a baby or a mummy or an Indian chief (or whatever).

The prime mover of these suggestions is said to be Mort Weisinger, another editor at DC, the guy who oversaw the Superman titles that were grabbing all the gory in the super-hero game in the 1950s. He also told Jack Schiff to copy all the great ideas that had made Superman great. Superman had Supergirl; Batman should have Batwoman. Superboy had Krypto; Batman would have Ace the Bat-Hound. Superman had Mr. Mxyztplk; Batman would have Bat-Mite.

And so Jack Schiff drove Batman into the ground. By 1964, Batman was on the verge of cancellation. At the last minute, the suits called in Julius Schwartz and Carmine Infantino to save the day! Just ask them!

There’s probably some truth in there but it’s clear that there’s also some silly nonsense involved in that interpretation. In this two-part essay, I’ll be sorting through the facts to try to prove that the conventional wisdom is so blatantly simplified that it veers into deception. Part One will cover the 1950s with a focus on 1956 to 1959. Part Two will focus on 1959 to 1964.

Jack Schiff Meets The Bat-Fifties
Jack Schiff edited a lot of comics for DC. Super-hero comics, humor comics, western comics, mystery comics, science fiction comics. One would suspect that the publishers thought he did a pretty good job as an editor when you consider that he did it for 25 years.

Jack Schiff was born in Brooklyn in 1909 and attended Cornell University. (My online research didn’t turn up any evidence that he graduated.) He started writing for Dc Comics in 1941. His credits include a couple of Joker stories and a great early Catwoman story from Batman #15, “Your Face Is Your Fortune.” It’s Catwoman’s sixth appearance, and it’s the first time Catwoman met Bruce Wayne as a civilian and not in his Batman identity. They begin a relationship, but a mistrustful Catwoman disguises herself as Bruce’s regular girlfriend Linda Page and he confides to her that he’s only dating Catwoman to get her to go straight. Complications ensue.

Schiff was promoted to editor in 1943 and was assigned to some of DC’s biggest titles.

Writer Alvin Schwartz praised Schiff’s skills as an editor: “I worked for Schiff for years. I found him intelligent, caring, fair and literate ̶ a combination which Mort Weisinger, who took over from Schiff, was thoroughly lacking. Schiff could write as well … Schiff was not easy to work with in the sense that he wouldn’t swallow a bad plot. But he could plot himself and I remember with pleasure some of the plotting sessions we had.”

As an editor, Schiff worked on the following titles from 1943 to 1967:
Action Comics (1943 to 1948)
Adventure Comics (1943 to 1953)
The Adventures of Alan Ladd (1949 to 1951)
Aquaman (1962)
Batman (1943 to 1964)
Big Town (1951)
Blackhawk (1957 to 1964)
Boy Commandos (1943 to 1949)
The Brave and the Bold (1960 to 1962)
Buzzy (1944 to 1949)
The Challengers of the Unknown (1958 to 1962)
Dale Evans Comics (1948 to 1952)
A Date with Judy (1947 to 1949)
Detective Comics (1943 to 1964)
Feature Films (1950)
Frontier Fighters (1955 to 1956)
Gang Busters (1947 to 1958)
House of Mystery (1951 t0 1962, 1964 to 1967)
House of Secrets (1956 to 1962, 1964 to 1967)
Leading Comics (1943 to 1945)
More Fun Comics (1943 to 1946)
Mr. District Attorney (1948 to 1959)
My Greatest Adventure (1956 to 1962)
Mystery in Space (1964 to 1966)
Real Fact Comics (1946 to 1949)
Rip Hunter – Time Master (1961 to 1962)
Showcase (1956 to 1961)
Star-Spangled Comics (1943 to 1952)
Strange Adventures (1964 to 1967)
Superboy (1949 to 1955)
Superman (1943 to 1948)
Tales of the Unexpected (1956 to 1962, 1964 to 1967)
Tomahawk (1950 t0 1962)
Western Comics (1948 to 1953)
World’s Finest Comics (1942 to 1964)

Surviving the Atomic Age
DC Comics, like any media company in any dynamic era, examined its product as the 1940s became the 1950s, and took a look at the sales and the audience and especially at what the other guys were doing. One very early reaction to the changing times – the challenge of the 1950a, as I call it – can be seen in Detective Comics #153 (cover-dated November 1949) with the debut of a feature titled “Impossible – But True!”
It’s about a TV show called “Impossible – But True!” The host of the show is a clean-cut, suit-wearing man who smokes a pipe. He’s Roy Raymond, TV Detective. His assistant is a pretty and very capable blonde named Karen Duncan, who always wears the same red dress. Roy presents strange phenomena on the show, and he and Karen must face people with extraordinary claims who want to be on the show. So every month we get six to eight pages of Roy and Karen debunking various frauds, con artists and hoaxers.

So one way that DC confronted the challenge of the 1950s involved creating a strip based on the new media Frankenstein-monster known as television! The name of the strip was changed from “Impossible – But True!’ to “Roy Raymond, TV Detective.” The strip started in #153 in 1949 and lasted until #292 (skipping #212 for some reason), a total of 139 installments.

Roy Raymond, TV Detective, replaced Slam Bradley, who had been in Detective Comics since the first issue in 1937. Not only did Slam precede Batman by more than two years, he also pre-dated Superman in Action Comics! Slam, a lowly private eye with no powers and no colorful costume, had punched his way to the solution for 152 issues! But his longevity couldn’t save him and he had to retire from slamming things to make room for a TV-show host.

A look at the other features in Detective Comics offers a little more insight into how the company coped with the changing times. When Roy Raymond first appeared, he shared Detective with Batman (of course), Robotman and Pow-Wow Smith, Indian Detective.

Robotman held on to his short feature for a very long time. He started in Star-Spangled Comics #7 in 1942 and appeared monthly until #82 in 1948. He didn’t miss a month before popping up in Detective Comics #138, sharing the book with Batman, Slam Bradley and the Boy Commandos. Robotman lasted until Detective #202 in 1953. He was replaced by Mysto the Magician Detective! (We’ll get back to Mysto in a moment.)

The fourth feature in Detective when Roy Raymond started represented another genre that dominated the 1950s – the Western! Somebody said, “Come up with a Western detective!” And the result was Pow-Wow Smith, Indian Lawman. I haven’t read many Pow-Wow Smith stories. A modern-day lawman in Red Deer Valley in an unnamed western state, Pow-Wow Smith keeps the peace and solves mysteries. I guess.

The Indian Detective started just a few issues before Roy Raymond and wasn’t booted out of Detective Comics until #202, the same issue as Robotman’s dismissal. But whereas Robotman retired, Pow-Wow Smith moved to another comic book for a respectable run in Western Comics #43 to #85.

Detective Comics had two new features as of #203. Captain Compass had navigated through a number of perilous adventures for a few years in Star-Spangled Comics #83 to #130 before taking a year off (except for one appearance in World’s Finest #63) and then sailing over to Detective Comics for his grand return in #203. Captain Compass had extensive maritime experience and he eventually found employment as an investigator for shipping crimes. His comic book series is about his various exploits on ships, in harbors, along the waterfront and wherever else maritime mysteries need to be solved. His last issue in Detective Comics was #224.

Returning to Mysto the Magician Detective (and I know you’re squirming in your seat from excitement!), we find a short-lived series about a magician who solved mysteries. He lasted from Detective Comics #203 to #212. He wasn’t replaced. Detective Comics now featured only three headline characters, Batman, Roy Raymond and Captain Compass.

(If you want to see a Mysto adventure, check out Detective Comics #421. Of course, it’s almost fifty years old and it might be kind of expensive. But it’s not as expensive as Detective #205!)

Which brings us to 1955 and the Martian Manhunter! Detective Comics #225 comes out and there’s no more Captain Compass! Instead we get “The Strange Experiment of Dr. Erdel” in which J’onn J’onzz is accidentally transported to Earth and masquerades as a human so he can be a policeman.

The Martian Manhunter adds a note of blatant science fiction to Detective Comics, although it should be noted that the series has very little actual science backing it up. The Manhunter is from Mars and he has great powers that include great strength, telepathy, flight, shape-changing, super-breath and pretty much whatever he needs for a story. He doesn’t reveal himself to the humans for a very long time. He assumes the identity of John Jones and performs his super-feats in secret, not revealing the existence of his Martian self.

(Many people consider this the real start of the Silver Age because of how important the Manhunter is to DC in this period, mostly because he’s one of the founding members of the Justice League of America. The Flash doesn’t show up for a few months. And while the Flash is appearing sporadically in Showcase until he gets his own title in 1959, the Manhunter is showing up every month in Detective. The Flash gets all the glory. But the Manhunter was doing the work!)

(Batwoman also predates Flash, but we won’t get into that until later.)

The other anthology title that concerns us in any discussion of Batman in the 1950s is World’s Finest Comics. The Superman/Batman team-ups in World’s Finest lasted so long, way into the 1980s (except for period in the early 1970s when WF was a Superman team-up title), that DC fans can be forgiven for forgetting that, until 1954, World’s Finest featured (among other things) a Superman story and a separate Batman story every month.
They ain’t throwaway stories either! The first appearance of Jonathan Crane – the Scarecrow himself! – was in WF #3! The iconic giant penny in the Bat-Cave provided the centerpiece for one of the theme crimes of “The Penny Plunderers!” in WF #30. And Luthor and the Toyman made significant appearances in World’s Finest Comics.

World’s Finest Comics faced the challenge of the 1950s with some creative rearrangement of its super-hero properties. In 1954, rising costs persuaded DC to reduce the number of features from four to three. At that point, it was Superman, Batman, Green Arrow and Tomahawk. But comic book editors are tricksy! They combined the Superman and Batman features to form the Superman/Batman team-ups starting with WF #70 and kept Green Arrow and Tomahawk! With four major characters, it looked like World’s Finest still had four features! And the greatest friendship in super-hero comics (at least until the 1980s) was formed!

GIMMICK CRACK CORN AND I DON’T CARE
When you compare the comics of the 1940s to those of the 1950s, you’ll notice the ding-dangy gimmick covers. In the 1940s, comic covers offered up symbolic representations of the stories inside or exciting actions scenes or, if it was winter, Batman, Robin and Superman making a snowman.

By the 1950s, everybody had seen enough of covers like this. It became important to attract readers by depicting something crazy from the story … and then to browbeat the writers to JUST DO IT!

They were still doing it in the 1960s. Silver Age DC is famous for insane things on the covers, like the Justice League of America floating away because gravity failed. Or the Flash gaining 1,000 pounds as he takes a few steps. Or Wonder Woman fighting her own robot self!

These gimmick covers (and the accompanying stories) can be seen in the Batman comics as well. The cover of Batman #72 features “The Jungle Batman” with Batman and Robin playing Tarzan and fighting a panther. Bruce Wayne is somehow the mayor of Gotham City in Detective #179 in 1952. The cover for Batman #79 teases the prospective reader with “The Bride of Batman” as Vicki Vale scolds Batman for not showering his soon-to-be wife with the proper attention. In Batman #86, Batman is somehow an Indian chief.

Elements of science fiction start popping up on some of these gimmick covers. As early as Batman #59 (1950), the cover depicts Batman and Robin in a Batman spacecraft flying past the moon. The story is titled “Batman in the Future.”

In 1952, Batman and Robin meet “The Robot Cop of Gotham City” (Batman #70). Eventually Batman robots start popping up on a regular basis: “The Batman Machine (1955); “Batman’s Robot Twin” (1957); and the Batman Robot (1960). There’s even a Robin Robot in Detective Comics # 290 in 1961.

Looking at the early 1950s, the sci-fi gimmicks haven’t taken over yet, and most of them at this point seem like sensible if outlandish technological developments. Like the Crime Predictor in Batman #77. Criminals use it to predict the death of Batman and Robin! (And as in many of these stories (but not all of them!), the gimmick on the cover turns out to be a fake or a hoax.)

Then there’s “The Brain that Ruled Gotham” in Detective Comics #210 (1954). I’ve never read it. The cover shows a brain floating in a tank and it uses its overpowering mental powers to command Batman to pick up a handgun and shoot himself! Robin can’t help because he’s being grabbed by a generic, fedora-wearing Gotham gangster. I want to read it so bad!

An early foray into science fiction appeared in Batman #26. The cover depicts Batman, Robin and Alfred on a snowmobile! And it’s a Bat-snowmobile! This may not seen notable, but this issue was published in 1945, very early in the development of the snowmobile. Batman always kept up with the latest technology.

Inside we find “In the Year 3000,” a story set far in the future when peaceful Earthlings face an invasion from Saturn! The people of Earth discover old films of Batman and Robin, and a man named Brane takes up the Batman identity to inspire 30th-century Earthlings to fight back against the invaders. At the end, Brane reveals that, per the customs of the time, his name is a contraction for Bruce Wayne, and he is named after an illustrious ancestor. Except for appearing in some 1000-year-old films, the 20th century Batman and Robin don’t show up in this story.

A character very much like Brane shows up in “The Lost Legion of Space” in Batman #67 (1951) and again in “The Batman of Tomorrow” in Detective Comics #216 (1955). His name is Brane Taylor, and in these two stories, the Batman of the 20th century actually meets his futuristic counterpart.

The editorial team for the Batman comics experimented with fantastic themes and outlandish gimmicks very early on. As the 1950s rolled along, the science fiction influence became a little more prominent and a little more audacious. Batman #104 (1956) featured “The Creature from 20,000 Fathoms.” It’s not the first time Batman fought a giant monster, but it’s probably the first time that a Batman story so blatantly displayed its monster-movie roots.

The elements which made Jack Schiff famous (or infamous) seemed to proliferate in the next few months. After the giant monster in Batman #104, Batman had to cope with a few of the famed strange transformation. The comic-book world gazed in wild-eyed wonder at “The Rainbow Batman” in Detective Comics #241 and soon marveled at the Gotham-crushing menace of “The Giant Batman” (not for the last time!) in Detective Comics #243.

Detective Comics #251 (1957) offered up “The Alien Batman.” The cover shows Vicki Vale snagging a great scoop for her newspaper as she witnesses Batman greeting an alien coming out of a spaceship. Batman is removing his mask to reveal … the Caped Crusader is also an alien! (In the story, it turns out the Gotham Underworld has put together an elaborate ruse to discredit Batman by making the populace think he’s an alien. A lot of these end up with the gimmick exposed as a con or a ruse or a hoax.)

The very next issue depicts Batman and Robin in the monster-fighting business again, this time armed with only a motorboat, taking on “The Creature from the Green Lagoon!”

In 1958, Batman and Detective Comics start to look a lot more like the conventional wisdom’s Jack Schiff stereotype. Batman #113 features “The Batman-Superman of Planet X,” the famed tale of that distant world known as Zur-en-arrh. That same year, the Darkknight Detective became “The Merman Batman” and participated in a “Manhunt in Outer Space.” (This is also this time period where Mogo the Bat-Ape was introduced.)

Over in Detective, Batman faces “The Challenge of the Captive Planet” and is imprisoned by giant robots and participates in “The Olympic Games of Space.” Around the same time, Batman faced, for the first time, The Calendar Man (Detective Comics #259 (not particularly science fiction-y)) and Dr. Double X in Detective Comics #261 (very science fiction-y.)

It’s still not quite the monthly parade of alien invasions, big monsters and strange transformations of the conventional wisdom. We’ll have to wait for that! It’s wonderful and terrible! We’ll get to that in a second essay when we reach the spring of 1959 and … Bat-Mite!

BAT-FAMILY MATTERS
Let’s tackle the conventional wisdom again. One part of the 1950s Batman legend is that Mort Weisinger urged Jack Schiff to copy story elements that had succeeded in the Superman books. Like Supergirl! Batman needs a female counterpart!
Except … Batwoman first appeared in Detective Comics #233 in 1956 (two months before the Silver Age Flash) … and Supergirl first appeared in Action Comics #252 in 1959, three years later. (Not to mention all the other super-heroes with female counterparts, like Mary Marvel (1942), Bulletgirl (1941) and Hawkgirl, who appeared alongside the Golden Age Hawkman starting in 1941. Sometimes she was known as Hawkwoman.)

“What about Ace the Bat-Hound?” I hear you cry.

Krypto first appeared in the Superboy story in Adventure Comics #210, cover-dated March 1955. Ace the Bat-Hound first appeared in Batman #92, cover-dated June 1955, and Krypto’s second appearance occurred in Adventure Comics #214 the following month. You know what else appeared that month? Rex the Wonder Dog #22, edited by Julius Schwartz.

Maybe somebody was pressuring somebody to include more dogs in DC’s top-selling titles. But it’s not a particularly original idea. Besides, people love their dogs! It’s not some outlandish contrivance for Batman and Robin to have a dog. (Or Superboy either! Why wouldn’t they have dogs on Krypton?) In the climate of the time, it could be viewed as another gimmick, but not a particularly fanciful one.

And besides … stories with Ace the Bat-Hound are fun! I especially like the story that he narrates … and any story where Bat-Mite rides around on his back!

Speaking of Bat-Mite … he’s supposed to be a Bat-Mite counterpart to Superman’s Mr. Mxyzptlk, and the little imp might be a little harder to justify … for most people. Don’t worry, I have this all worked out!

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves! Bat-Mite is a 1959 creation, and a perfect centerpiece for the second part of this essay as Batman faces … The Challenge of the Mid-Silver Age!

We’re still not done with the conventional wisdom. Somewhere along the way, they were trying to save Batman, so it was suggested to editor Jack Schiff that he should insert more science fiction and more random aliens and more big monsters and more stories where Batman gets changed into a zebra or whatever. And Schiff was a good company man, so he did it. And the stories were so bad that sales plummeted and Batman was on the verge of being canceled. So Julius Schwartz and Carmine Infantino were called in and Sheldon Moldoff was told to draw less like Bob Kane and the publishers told them to save Batman!

I look at the timeline … or maybe it’s more accurate to say I try to figure out the timeline … and I wonder when they decided that Jack Schiff should start including so much science fiction. Was it 1944 when “The Year 3000” first appeared? Maybe it was 1950, when “Batman in the Future” decorated the cover of Batman #59. Or maybe it was 1954 when a brain floating in a tank menaced Gotham City. Or maybe the following year when the Martian Manhunter made his debut.

Or how about late 1957 thorough 1958, when Batman became the hero of Zur-en-arhh, led a “Manhunt in Space,” developed gills, fought accusations he was an alien, faced “The Creature from the Green Lagoon,” defeated giant robots, represented Earth in the outer Space Olympics and matched wits with the inter-dimensional personality of Dr. Double X.

That actually sounds like a relevant time period. So some time in 1957, somebody told Jack Schiff that he had to bring in more science fiction to increase sales on Batman and Detective Comics. And if sales didn’t increase, he would be relieved of his duties on Batman and Detective, and the two titles might be canceled!

And so Batman limped along from 1957 to 1964 and DC instituted “The New Look.” Because that’s how comic book publishing works. Jack Schiff had almost seven years to improve sales on Batman, but eventually DC was forced to bring in Julius Schwartz.
I am dubious.

It looks to me like Jack Schiff’s focus on science fiction and monsters and gimmick-y versions of Batman proved successful for a while. DC would have brought on Julius Schwartz and the New Look (or something like it) a lot sooner if Batman and Detective were on the verge of failing for a seven-year period.

The 1950s ended and the 1960s started, and society had changed. By 1963 and 1964, the formula was not working so well. DC looked at the numbers on the Superman titles and their mouths started watering (again!) and they started thinking about the money they could make if their Number Two property (Batman!) could do nearly as well …

But let’s save something for Part Two …

Great, great, great review and research shaxper ! I'm looking forward to read the rest of this thred.

By the way, do you know that Gran...

Uh, never mind...

Sometimes, violence is the best and only solution.

Boo, I went to DC Universe Infinite in hopes of reading said issue and found it not there.

Looks like it arrives on July 20th.

This is an unknown era for me. I had 2 small paperback books as a child, yellowed and falling apart of earlier serious Batman stories and I carried those books on every family trip for reading. I have a few of the 80 page Giant which may have a few of these wild and bizarre stories and I really want more but cost prohibits such delight.

So following this thread will deliver some grand fun for me as you hit all the lows and highlights. As a kid before becoming a teen, this is exactly what I envisioned for Batty Man and his young bird brained partner as adventurers. Getting to solve crimes while experiencing mysteries and unknown dangers. All with a grin enjoying the thrills and chills, living life to its fullest.

This would have been MUST read material for me if I was only able to have been buying at the time. Of course it is simplistic and silly since it was aimed for kids but man how cool are the covers and blurbs driving young readers to pester their parents into buying? I wish the comics of today had more sense of fun inside and instead of all the dang heroic posed covers there was more of this zany insane covers. Posed covers look great bagged and boarded while never being read but I adore a cover that makes we WANT AND NEED to read the comic book!

Bring on the BATTYNESS!!!

Really, really looking forward to this.  

As evidence that Batman wasn't simply blindly following the lead of Superman at this time but was instead pretty innovative in his own right, none other than Bill Finger and Jack Kirby would team-up three years later to bring us "The Green Arrows of the World" in Adventure Comics 250.  Of course, a sequel to "The Batmen of All Nations!" would follow before then in World's Finest 89 suggesting that if you're going to gauge the effectiveness of the stories here by how often DC would revisit what's being established during this period, then we're off to a great start.

I have read “The Batmen of All Nations,” but it was a few years ago when I got The Black Casebook from the library. So it’s not very fresh in my memory.

But I’m sure I would give it higher than a C+!