I read Detective Comics #275 a few days ago, but I haven’t had any time to make any comments about it. I really like this one, so the Batman story is going to get a longer review than some of the other stories. This is the infamous “Zebra Batman” adventure. It’s pretty dumb but I love it.

The Martian Manhunter story is a lot of fun too, and it’s notable for the return of Diane Meade. She appeared in #246 and then disappeared for a while. But now she’s back, and Captain Harding wants her to partner up with Detective John Jones for a while. Which makes it kind of hard for Jones to keep his identity a secret. Meade immediately notices that Jones disappears when the Martian Manhunter shows up to help. And she just starts calling him Martian Manhunter to his face, not the least bit concerned about whether her suspicions are true, or how it would look to the people around them, or whether or not Jones might have a good reason to keep his martial identity a secret.

Oh boy! Anyway, through a very contrived and not the least bit convincing series of circumstances, Jones convinces everybody that he’s not really the Martian Manhunter.

This story should be a little more famous because of a hilarious panel where there’s a woman who drove onto a drawbridge as it was rising up, and now her car is perched on the edge, about to fall into the river. The Manhunter makes himself very large and stretches himself over the gap so that the woman in the automobile can drive to safety down his backside. She’s driving over his butt! It is hilarious!

Before I move on to the Batman story in Detective Comics #276, I want to talk about the back-ups. Just a little.

I don't have too much to say about the Martian Manhunter. I noted that Diane Meade returned to the series (after an absence of 30 issues) in #275. But then she disappears for a few issues and doesn't return until #282. I thought she was in the series a little more regularly than that.

And then in Detective #277, one of the few costumed villains from the Martian Manhunter series appears. It's Mr. Moth! He wears a purple dress suit and wears a moth mask and commits moth-themed crimes somehow.

I have a bit more to say about Roy Raymond. The Roy Raymond series followed the same formula - without much variation - for a very long time. Roy and his assistant Karen are faced with some outrageous claim, usually put forward by someone who want to get on Roy's TV show "Impossible - But True!" And since this is the DC Universe, a lot of outrageous things are not just possible; some of them are downright commonplace! Roy has to pay close attention and note when the claimant messes up.

A couple of examples ... Roy and Karen go to an island where a modern Medusa is turning people to stone. They see some very life-like statues. There's even a dog that's been turned to stone! But Roy sees a pile of empty dog food cans behind a rock and realizes that you don't need to feed a dog who has been turned to stone. So he knows that the Medusa is an elaborate hoax to keep people off the island because reasons.

And then there's the time Roy and Karen went to England and wandered through the mist into a valley where it was the 1100s and they found a castle that was populated with a Norman court and lords and ladies and a full retinue of medieval characters. Roy and Karen are invited to the feast where they are serving meat and potatoes, and Roy knows they haven't gone back in time because they didn't have potatoes in Europe in the 1100s. Potatoes came from the Americas and weren't introduced to Europe until the 1500s. And it turns out that one of Roy's friends engineered the hoax with the help of a movie crew that just happened to be filming on location nearby. Just a harmless little prank.

But I've noticed that as the 1950s ended, Roy faced a few challenges that weren't hoaxes! Or the truth turned out to be even more unbelievable than the hoax that was being used to trick Roy. And I came across four Roy Raymond stories in a row (Detective Comics #276 to #279) with outlandish outcomes. The focus moves from Roy figuring out the mundane solution to Roy figuring out what is going on, and he's not the least bit hesitant about coming up with an impossible solution if that's what fits the facts.

#276 features "The Great Space Hoax." Roy and Karen are taken onto a spaceship by a man who shoves Roy's skepticism in his face in nearly every panel. "Look, Roy! A spaceship! Can it be real? Are we really flying through space? Or is it a hoax?" They even land on another planet and get out to see the alien race that lives there! Roy figures out what's going on. The spaceship is real. The space trip was real. The aliens are real. But the man who took them on the space trip is ... an alien! He's not a human who has figured out space travel. He comes from an alien race that watches Roy's show and he made a bet with one of the other aliens that he could prank Roy Raymond.

But he obviously doesn't watch the show enough! Because you can't prank Roy Raymond!

(And the way Roy figured it out ... it was hot on the spaceship and the pilot wasn't sweating. So he must have been wearing a mask. And the only reason to wear a mask is that he's trying to conceal the fact that he's an alien!) 

The next issue has "The Plundering Plant," about a guy who shows up with a glass container with a magic root in it. It was created by a sorcerer hundreds of years ago. If you open the vent, air and water in the atmosphere causes the root to branch out very quickly. If you close the vent, it cuts off the growing plant and it withers and dies. But a crook steals the vial from the studio and uses it to create a quick-growing branch that crushes the wall of a bank and he steals a bunch of money. But the cops are there and while he's trying to escape, he drops the vial. So there's no closing the vent to stop the root from growing and the plant quickly engulfs the building. Roy is on the scene very quickly and they smother the root with a barrel of mercury. 

So there's no hoax. Just an out-of-control magic plant that is quickly stopped with plant-killing mercury. Go, Roy!

Then in #278's "The Fifth Dimension Trap," Roy is examining some inventions for the show. First there's an inventor urging Roy to test his smoke-bomb pellet. Roy says he'll test it later. Then some of the technicians at Roy's studio have developed a new transistor spotlight! It's portable and produces twice the light at half the cost!

Then, Roy's old pal Professor Jayson shows up with an amazing device! It's not for the show ... he just wants to show it to Roy. It creates a portal to another dimension! The Fifth Dimension! So Roy and Karen go through the portal to investigate the dimension. It's not a hoax! But ... they run into some sinister humanoids who are criminals from the Fifth Dimension! They want to steal the portal-creating device so they can go to other dimensions and steal valuable articles and then escape back to the Fifth Dimension.

This is actually not the kind of thing that worries Roy too much. He still has the smoke-bomb pellet in his pocket! So he tosses it and Roy and Karen escape back to their own dimension under the cover of the smoke. When the extra-dimensional criminals can see again, they try to follow through the portal but Roy has been thinking ahead and he flashes the transistor spotlight at them, and it hurts their eyes and they flee back to their home. So YAY for fast-thinking Roy Raymond! 

And then in #279, there's a real sorcerer's stone that summons a gray blobby monster, and a misanthropic hermit archaeologist gets hold of the magic stone and summons the monster and is wreaking havoc, and Roy figures out how to stop it. So no hoax! A real monster from a real sorcerer's stone that is dropped in the ocean at the end because it's too powerful. 

Coming up next: The Return of Bat-Mite! One of my favorite Batman stories! 

OK.

We're getting to the looney stuff now.

I mean, yeah, sure, we've seen some really looney stuff since Detective Comics #251. Like the Creature from Planet X. And Batman captured by aliens for the Space Olympics. And Zebra-Man! I like that story, but it's pretty looney. And then there's Bat-Mite and everybody bending over backwards to convince the generic Gotham City gangsters that they are hallucinating because of the lead in the paint at the Gotham Coliseum.

But it's about to get relentless! And not just looney, but very silly at times. Very very silly.

The accusation against Jack Schiff as editor in the late 1950s and 1960s is that he inundated Batman with too much over-the-top science fiction and aliens and giant monsters and plus Batman was always turning into a mermaid or a beast or a giant or a caveman or whatever. Oh, and Batman turned out to be a robot. A LOT! 

Yeah. That happened.

And I defend an awful lot of these stories because they're just so darned entertaining. I mean, looking back at the last ten issues or so, we've got "The Zebra Batman" and "The Return of Bat-Mite" and the one with the giant green alien, and these are all good stories. As a matter of fact, my least favorite of these stories is "The Hermit of Mystery Island," and that doesn't have any fantastic story elements at all. I think I would like it better if the hermit's curse was real!

When I was working on my Detective Comics collection, there was a period where I was working on the New Look and the 1970s, but I kept dipping into the early 1960s because I love those stories. I think I had most of the stories from #311 to #326 long before I had more than 20 New Look issues. Included among those Jack Schiff stories at the very end of his editorship are all three issues of the Catman story arc, the return of Dr. Double X, the one where Batman is turned into a genie, and the villainy of Dr. No-Face! And also, one of the Matt Hagen Clayface stories.

There was even one crazy over-the-top alien abduction story, the infamous "Captives of the Alien Circus!" But that's such a great story! i love it! It is magical and hilarious! 

So I used to wonder if the criticisms of Jack Schiff's editorial addiction to "too much crazy sci-fi" wasn't just a little bit exaggerated.

But a few years passed, and I started getting more and more of the Jack Schiff issues. And as I got into the 280s, I realized that WOW there are a lot of damn goofy stories here. And it's always aliens! I would look at the covers, and sometimes it's obvious that it's aliens. And other times, you couldn't tell for sure ... but it was probably aliens. And then I'd read the story ... and it would be aliens.

So after #276, we're on the edge of the abyss, teetering precariously, about to tumble into the period where even I find it hard to defend a lot of these stories! 

In the next few days, I'm going to write up summaries for the next two issues, Detective #277 and #278. They are a little lackluster. (Although I enjoyed #278 a lot more reading it a few days ago than I did when I first got it a few years ago. And then I'm going to have a longer review for #279 because I love that story despite how silly it is. It's so over the top that it's almost like a parody of crazy Batman stories. (Just like "Captives of the Alien Circus" in #326 with its weird baby-chicken aliens.)

And then ... yeah, 12 or 13 issues where you can hardly believe what you're seeing every issue. I'm not really dreading it because they are still fun to read. They are easy to make fun of. And there aren't very many of them that I've read more than once. So it's all very fresh. (And #286 guest-stars Batwoman, so that one is pretty cool. It has a villain called Star Man! Is he an alien? Yeah. He is.)

So prepare yourself! For the Schiff Hall of Shame!    

Detective Comics #277
March 1960

"The Jigsaw Menace from Space"
Penciller: Sheldon Moldoff
Inker: Charles Paris

I used to think "The Jigsaw Menace from Space" was near the bottom of the barrel of the Jack Schiff era. But reading it again after several years, I find myself liking it a little bit.

Batman and Robin are on their regular patrol when they see a spaceship crashing in the distance. They speed to the wreck where they find a yellow-skinned alien with huge, sharp cheekbones! The alien is wounded from the wreck but he is able to tell them that he is an explorer, and he was transporting a large beast called a kraal back to his home planet. The kraal is a bizarre composite of three jagged-shaped monsters that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. When they separate, each of the monsters has its own scary power ... The orange one shoots electricity. The green one absorbs heat and creates winter wherever it goes. The purple one absorbs water and gets bigger and bigger as it absorbs more water ... so keep it away from the ocean!

However, the alien is not quite able to complete his explanation before he passes out. Batman and Robin take him to a doctor, who says he'll be OK in a few hours. (Gotham City physicians are familiar with many kinds of human and not-quite-human physiologies. Especially in 1960!) So Batman and Robin run around the countryside, encountering the various avatars of the kraal, and eventually they gather them in one place and get them back together ... which, as Batman guessed, renders them powerless.

The yelow-skinned alien with the gigantic cheekbones recovers and thanks them for corralling the kraal and takes off back to his home planet.

What I like about this one is the alien explorer who collects biological specimens for the furtherance of science on his home planet. He's not trying to conquer the Earth or steal our resources or anything sinister. He's just had a little technical malfunction and accidentally crashes on Earth where his looney weird monster escapes. I like the way that the writer (Mike's Amazing World has no writer credit for this story) is mixing it up a bit and finding several ways to get the alien menace to Earth.

And I also like the way that the three component kraal monsters all calm down when they are placed together in a heap. They look like a bunch of happy sleeping kittens in a pile in a cardboard box lined with a blanket.




Detective Comics #278
April 1960

"The Man Who Became a Giant"
Penciller: Sheldon Moldoff
Inker: Charles Paris

Here's another one that I liked a lot more reading it this week than when I first read it a few years ago. That outfit is so silly! He's running around in his underpants and a shirt that looks like it shrank in the laundry! The in-story explanation is that it's made from stretchable fibers, and he's stretched them to their limits!

Again, Mike's Amazing World of Comics doesn't have a writer credit for this story.

Steve Cordon is a young scientist working on a growth hormone. He breaks some flasks and gets a cut on his finger while cleaning up and now he's tearing doors off cars and breaking steering wheels and growing to twelve feet before your eyes!

His fiancée Laura says she'll stand by him in this time of trouble, but the growth hormone seems to be affecting his mind. His boss, Professor Simms, says he'll need to study him before he can come up with a cure. A local circus owner shows up and wants to make him into a sideshow attraction called The Titanic Man.

It all gets to be a bit much for Steve, so he bashes a hole in the wall and starts roaming the countryside around Gotham City.

Steve runs into a rural kid who is fishing. The kid isn't scared of him, just a little curious, but he doesn't run screaming in fear. Steve realizes that maybe people don't see him as a horrible monster. He calms down and goes back to the city to talk with Professor Simms about a possible cure.

However, it seems that the serum that increased his strength also improved his hearing, and he hears Professor Simms talking with one of the members of what turns out to be a gang of generic Gotham City gangsters. Simms has developed a growth serum, but he hired Steve because he also needs a serum for strength! And once he gets the secret from Steve, Simms is going to inject the serums into his little gang and create a crime army of giant thugs to do his bidding!

Well. That's JUST what Gotham needs!

Steve confronts Simms with what he's just heard, but Simms knows he has leverage over Steve. Simms would need Steve's serum so he could study and come up with a cure for Steve! And Steve wants to be cured! He wants to marry Laura and have a normal life! So he gives SImms the serum and then the gang gasses him and traps him in a garage.

Batman and Robin show up later and figure out what's going on. Simms has had time to inject several of his gangsters with the serum, so he calls out and three giant Gotham City gangsters appear and grab 'em! But they work with Steve to escape from the garage and manage to defeat Simms and his giant thugs.

The story ends with Steve back to normal (he's even back to wearing orange checkered suits) and about to marry Laura.

No aliens! The main plot certainly owes a lot to The Amazing Colossal Man, but I like what they add to it to make it more of a Batman story. The scheming Professor Simms reminds me of a cut-rate Hugo Strange, and creating an army of giant gangsters is a bit of a throwback to the Hugo Strange story in Batman #1.

So not that bad, really.

Detective Comics #279
May 1960

"The Creatures that Stalked Batman"
Writer: Bill FInger
Penciller: Sheldon Moldoff
Inker: Charles Paris

I really shouldn't like this one as much as I do. Because IT'S ALIENS! And a couple of seriously goofy-looking aliens as well. A robot! And a big dorky, pink-skinned beast with patches of orange fur and some kind of electronic brain sticking out of the top of his skull. He looks like The Leader mutated Snaggletooth with radiation in one of his schemes against the Hulk.

But it's a fairly well-crafted Bill Finger story, within the limitations of the era. The robot and the monster are another good example (like the alien explorer in #277) of the writer using a little variety in finding ways for Batman and Robin to run into aliens almost every month. And I love the character design on these two! They just don't care what you think! Such simplicity and elegance despite how silly they look. They wouldn’t look out-of-place landing in Jellystone Park and mixing it up with Yogi and Boo-Boo and Ranger Smith in an old Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

I should note that Batman and Robin never appear as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson in this story. These names are never mentioned. Alfred doesn't appear (he was missing a lot of the time in the stories of 1960) and Commissioner Gordon is also a no-show.

The story begins with Batman and Robin discovering a break-in at Professor Martin's laboratory. And they find the scientist unconscious on the floor. They take him to Gotham Hospital and are informed that he'll be in a coma for at least 24 hours.

On the way back to the crime scene to look for more clues, they hear about a disturbance at the corner of Foster and Benson. Apparently some strange creatures are blocking the street, but they aren't doing anything menacing or violent. Batman and Robin head for the scene.

That's where they find the robot and the large, pink-skinned monster. The police have cordoned off the street and are holding back the onlookers. As soon as he sees Batman, the pink-skinned creature reacts, rushing through the barricades and chasing Batman. The Caped Crusader barely escapes into a manhole.

Batman thinks that the robot is controlling the monster with electronic signals, so Batman and Robin sneak up on the robot and the alien, and wrap the robot in aluminum foil to cut off the signals. It works! The robot is immobilized and the creature stands confused and motiveless, with no idea what to do.

However, some generic Gotham City gangsters are robbing the box office at the Alaska Exhibit across the street. Yes, literally across the street. They are walking about ten feet from the robot wrapped in aluminum foil and the confused ten-foot Snaggletooth monster, crossing over to the giant igloo to steal the receipts for the show.

Batman and Robin leave the alien creatures for a moment to round up the criminals. When they turn back to deal with the weird monsters, they find that the robot has freed himself from the aluminum foil! However, they are no longer attacking Batman! They retreat, staying far enough away from Batman and Robin that they can't be apprehended, carefully avoiding conflict.

Batman and Robin return to the Bat-Cave to plot their next move … and the robot and the creature are soon there! The robot explains that his name is Ardello, and he's the chief of robot detectives in another dimension. The inhabitants of that dimension use robot police for conditions that are harmful to the life forms of that dimension. The giant, pink-skinned creature is an electronic bloodhound. He doesn't track scents; he tracks brain waves! And that's how they found the Bat-Cave!

They were chasing Batman because someone dressed in a bat-costume had entered their dimension and stolen a valuable matter-transforming ray. But when Ardello saw Batman and Robin chasing down the crooks at the Alaska Exhibit, he realized that they were lawmen like himself, and he deduced there was some kind of mistake, and so they stopped pursuing him.

Batman guesses that some clever criminal had dressed himself as Batman in order to get into Professor Martin's lab, and then he had used Martin's dimension-hopping device to go to the other dimension, where he stole the ray. Using a few clues that they've gathered and there (hair in Professor Martin's grasp, a shoe print, his height), Batman and Robin help Ardello and the monster track the culprit to uptown Gotham and make short work of him.

Ardello thanks Batman and for their help and takes his creature and the matter-transformer ray back to his home dimension. Later, Professor Martin, fully recovered, tells Batman and Robin that he's going to destroy his dimensional travel machine. Batman thinks it's a good idea!

Goofy as hell, but inventive and fun. I've loved this story ever since I first read it in 2020. and I pull it out and read it every once in a while.

And I noticed something a bit odd about this issue of Detective Comics. The Martian Manhunter is the second story, and the Roy Raymond story is third and last. As far as I know, in every other issue where Batman, Roy Raymond and the Martian Manhunter were the only three features in the book (#225 to #292), the Roy Raymond story was second and the Martian Manhunter feature was always last. Just some trivia. I have no idea why they would change the order for just this one issue.

Detective Comics #280 to #285
June 1960 to November 1960



Detective Comics #280
June 1960
"The Menace of the Atomic Man"

There are no aliens. Still, this is very much influenced by science fiction movies of the time. It's about a mad scientist who has invented a special visor and helmet that messes with molecules and changes metal to glass or paper (or whatever) and atomizes objects whenever he wishes. He just has to take a moment to manipulate the controls on the visor and then he revels in the chaos while his little gang of generic Gotham City gangsters loots the exhibit or steals the box office receipts or pilfers the company safe.

It turns out that he is Paul Strobe, an electrical engineer who was embezzling from his company to fund his experiments. His three partners testified against him at the trial … and so did Batman! So now Strobe, as the Atomic Man, is going to destroy the businesses of his former partners … and he has a special fate in store for Batman!

Anyway, Batman and Robin face the Atomic Man several times. Finally, the Atomic Man enacts his scheme to ruin Batman. (He was saving it for last because he wanted to punish the men who testified against him in the order that they testified.) And he uses his power to power to make Batman's cowl transparent! Ha ha, Batman! Now everyone can see your face! Even though he has captured the Atomic Man, the Batman's career is over because the Atomic Man and all his crew know what Batman looks like under the cowl.

Except not quite.

Batman suspected the Atomic Man might do something like that, so he put on some make-up under his cowl and it's not his real face!

Ha ha, Atomic Man!

It's an OK story. Just another crooked Gotham City scientist getting in over his head just because he invented something.

Detective Comics #281
July 1960
"BATMAN IS A ROBOT AGAIN!"
(Actually, the title is "Batman, Robot.")

There are no aliens in this one.

But Batman is a robot!

Batman and Robin are after the Night Owl Gang, a band of crooks who wear owl masks to conceal their identities. Smart! But Batman discovers that the leaders of the gang are Wedge Dixon and Eddie Chill, and Dixon is soon caught by the police. The loot hasn't been recovered, but Dixon is going to be on trial … and Batman is going to be the main witness against him!

But Eddie Chill has a plan to help his partner in crime. The gang lures Batman to an abandoned mine. Batman suspects it's a trap, so he tells Robin to stay behind. And when Batman has gone very deep into the mine, it explodes! It was rigged by the Night Owl Gang!

And yet … Batman and Robin show up the next time the gang is committing a crime. But he's moving weird. And he seems to be following Robin's orders.

Chill deduces that Batman must be a robot. So when the trial starts and it's time for Batman's testimony, the defense lawyer demands that Batman be X-rayed! And the X-ray shows they, yes, this Batman testifying in court is a robot!

Robin tearfully tells the court that Batman died in the mine explosion! But Batman had a contingency plan (or something like that) to be replaced by a robot if anything happened and Robin has been following the plan because he's sure it’s what Batman would have wanted. So Wedge Dixon is set free.

But he's not free for long! Batman is OK! He survived the explosion! Batman and Robin track Dixon and Chill to where they've hidden the loot and the entire gang is apprehended. The Batman robot was just a ruse to fool the gang into thinking that Batman was dead. Dixon gets off scot-free for the crime he was on trial for, but he is implicated in other crimes.

Bill Finger wrote this story. It's kind of interesting that one of the leaders of the gang is Eddie Chill. He could be Joe Chill's brother. If he is, it seems strange that he never mentions that he might have any kind of a personal grudge against the costumed adventurer who got his brother killed.

One thing I've noticed about the Batman stories from this era is that a lot of them have never been reprinted. Even "The Return of Bat-Mite" in Detective Comics #276 has never been reprinted! However, "Batman, Robot" was reprinted in Batman #182 in 1966. It was an 80-Page Giant and the theme was "The Strange Lives of Batman and Robin!"

Detective Comics #282
August 1960
"Batman's Interplanetary Rival"

This time it's definitely aliens! And they're pretty up front about it.

Batman and Robin are chasing some bandits on motorcycles when a weird, earthworm-headed alien offers to help catch the bad guys. He has a "force-pistol" that he uses to form a ring of electricity around the criminals. "Yow!" says one of the crooks.

Apparently it hurts a little.

The alien introduces himself as Tal-Dar, and he is the chief of the I.S.P., the Interplanetary Space Police. He's visiting Earth, and he is inviting Batman to join the organization when Earth develops space travel.

Tal-Dar cannot stay away from the cameras. He tells reporters that he's here to watch Batman and help him improve his crime-fighting abilities by teaching the methods used on Alcor, Tal-Dar's planet.

Batman and Robin do not fail to notice that Tal-Dar is something of a conceited butthole.

So Tal-Dar rides around with Batman and Robin in the Bat-Mobile while they are on patrol. He's actually a little bit inept, but he compensates with some highly advanced technology. When he gets in front of the cameras again, he takes credit for apprehending some criminals but doesn't mention that they initially almost escaped because of Tal-Dar"s clumsiness. "Boy, what a HAM!" muses Robin to himself.

Joe Hackett and his merry band of generic Gotham City gangsters take Tal-dar by surprise and kidnap him in order to get his force-pistol. Batman finds some mud and uses it to track the Hackett mob to a hunting lodge in the woods near Gotham City.

When Tal-Dar is rescued, he makes a shocking confession. He knows he's not really that great as a lawman, and his insecurity made him act like a butthole. They think he's really great on Alcor, and he's self-conscious about his weaknesses. Just as he's about to leave, there's a transmission from Alcor … the crook Zan-Rak has stolen the Star-Stone! It's the most important object on the planet!

Tal-Dar persuades Batman and Robin to go with him to Alcor to get the Star-Stone back. It’s a very important item that heals all sickness and it’s worth ONE BILLION GREDALS!

So they go to Alcor and have an adventure and they catch up with Zan-Rak and there's a scene where Batman pretends to be sick so that Tal-Dar has to step up and fight the bad guy and he retrieves the Star-Stone and now Tal-Dar is confident that he's more capable than he realized.

So it ends with Tal-Dar thanking Batman for giving him the ability to believe in himself!

It's another Bill Finger story! And … I have to admit. I rather like it this time around. I read it when I first got it a few years ago but I don't think I’ve read it since. Tal-Dar's insecurities and his transformation in the final pages are actually kind of inspiring, and also something you don't see in movie aliens of the time. I also like the audacity of Joe Hackett's gang! We want that advanced technology and we're going to have it! And then there's the last few pages, the bizarre adventure on Alcor, the planet of the earthworm-headed folk. There's just too much to like in this story!

Detective Comics #283
September 1960
"The Phantom of Gotham City"

There's a gang of crooks committing daring crimes all over the city. And one of the members of the gang can walk through walls! So he's being called the Phantom of Gotham City. Not only can he walk through walls, he also possesses the power to levitate large objects. The first time he tangles with Batman and Robin, he traps Batman under a giant gold cup and immobilizes Robin on a giant, spinning saucer. (They're at the Gotham Coliseum, where the Gotham Mining Association is about to open a gold exhibit, so there's a bunch of giant props for the exhibit. You cannot have an exposition in Gotham City without giant props. You would be laughed out of the city and quite possibly get death threats from the giant prop manufacturer's lobbyists.)

In a later encounter, Robin gets his foot stuck in the railroad track as the train is coming. The Phantom sees this and uses his powers to levitate the train over Robin's head, giving Batman a chance to get the Boy Wonder to safety.

This makes them wonder about the Phantom. Why would he do that? Why would he save someone who was trying to capture him?

I don't think it's so odd. Maybe he's not a complete monster. Maybe he doesn't want to face a murder rap for the death of a 12-year-old boy during the commission of a crime!

As the Phantom and his compatriots escape in a getaway car, Batman sees a cattail fall from the rear bumper, and the bismuth in this cattail leads Batman and Robin to a remote house on the Gotham moors.

But there's a twist! The phantom is an alien! I bet you didn't see that coming!

The gangsters are working for a crooked Gotham scientist named Carter Wede. He was experimenting with an interdimensional probe of some kind and he somehow transported an alien into his laboratory!

It's another earthworm-headed alien! But his skin is yellow instead of orange. And his eyes are oval instead of triangular. And he has antennae instead of pointy ears. (All these alien stories are pushing Sheldon Moldoff's alien-designing skills to unprecedented heights!)

In the flashback, Wede tells the alien (whose name is Pol) that his device can't send him back. He needs money to keep experimenting until he can find a method to send Pol back to his home dimension. And so Pol is forced to work with Wede and his gang of crooks as he uses his powers in a series of thefts to get more money to help fund Wede's further experiments in extradimensional travel.

So you see, Pol is caught up in the scheme because he wants to go home. And he saved Robin from the train because he's a decent sort, forced to commit crimes but not particularly comfortable with causing a death.

Wede tells Pol to kill Batman and Robin, but he refuses. He would rather be stuck on Earth than kill anybody at the request of scum like Carter Wede. Batman and Robin quickly round up Wede and his gang. And, just as Batman guessed, Wede was lying to Pol. He always had the ability to send the alien back to his home dimension.

I don't hate this one, but I'm not a big fan. But WOW these criminally inclined Gotham scientists! What a bunch of jerks! Gotham City needs to regulate this kind of thing.

Detective Comics #284
October 1960
"The Negative Batman"

"The Negative Batman" is a very bland story from an era known for metal-stealing aliens, mermaid Batmans, Bat-Baby, giants in underpants and whatever other foolishness was clowning around in the Schiff era.

However, there's no aliens involved! We've got another crooked Gotham scientist. Hal Durgin has developed an atomic camera. His explanation makes no sense, but it basically shrinks objects and somehow hides them in his camera. Like, for example, a truck delivering valuable furs. Then the film is projected in a special room at the hide-out, allowing the gang to steal the furs from the truck. Then the atomic camera shrinks the truck again and it is deposited on a lonely street on Gotham. Any people involved are knocked unconscious by the experience.

During a confrontation with Batman, Durgin tries to photograph Batman with his atomic camera, but Robin interferes, and Durgin moves away before the process is completed. And so Batman becomes a black and white negative image.

And somehow they figure out how to fix it and then Durgin and his gang are apprehended.

The story is notable for a scene at the Gotham Museum's outdoor exhibition of imitation dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures. It's a bunch of robots of prehistoric land animals. Like a stegosaurus, a triceratops, a mammoth and so on. Durgin projects a live elephant into their midst with his atomic camera, to cause a distraction. Oh boy!

There are a lot of dinosaur robots in the Gotham City area! Batman has a robot Tyrannosaurus rex (the one that’s usually on display) and a brontosaurus (that is probably in storage). And I'm wondering if the original owners noticed they were missing because Gotham City has so many of them!

The elephant rampaging through the exhibit and fighting the dinosaur robots is the artistic highlight of the issue. Moldoff is doing a great job here!

I would also like to note that neither Alfred or Commissioner Gordon is mentioned, and the secret identities of Batman and Robin are never alluded to.

Detective Comics #285
November 1960
"The Mystery of the Man-Beast"

Here's another one that I'm not too keen on. No aliens though. I guess cavemen were a thing in popular culture for a while, and this isn't the first time (nor the last) that Batman has a conflict with a caveman. (In the current Batman chronology, DC's most famous caveman (Vandal Savage) now owns Wayne Manor as well as the Bat-Cave!)

It reminds me of the plot of "The Return of the Ape Man," a Poverty Row horror film with Bela Lugosi and John Carradine. They find a caveman frozen in a block of ice and it goes on a rampage when the ice melts.

Batwoman guest stars in Detective Comics #285. The caveman is causing a ruckus on the top of a Gotham skyscraper hotel, and Batman and Robin are trying to figure out how to subdue him without hurting him. Batwoman shows up with a roast chicken! She veered off to the hotel restaurant and grabbed some food for the caveman, figuring he'd be hungry after fasting for several thousand years!

They are able to subdue him with gas and the caveman is taken to a specially prepared cell in the basement of the Gotham Museum.

But tragedy strikes the next day! Batman and Robin rush to the museum to find that the caveman has busted out and the body of Professor Lacy is stretched out by the cage. It sure looks like the caveman killed him.

Batman is a little suspicious. Over the course of the next few pages, a little legwork reveals that Professor Lacy had discovered that one of the museum assistants had been stealing gold relics and replacing them with gold-plated copies. Realizing that he had been found out, the assistant killed Lacy and released the caveman, hoping the murder would be blamed on the prehistoric man.

While they're searching for the caveman in the mountains near the Gotham Observatory, a mountain lion attacks Batwoman! The caveman has been lurking nearby, and he leaps to Batwoman's rescue. While they are rolling around on the ground, the mountain lion and the caveman roll over the edge of a cliff and fall into the gorge and are presumed dead.

I assume that the caveman survived and has been living in the mountains near the Gotham Observatory for all these decades. Perhaps he was healed by friendly aliens!

Detective Comics #286
December 1960
"The Doomed Batwoman"

I really like this one. I remember when I first got it two or three years ago. I was flipping through it late at night and thinking it looked pretty cool; Batwoman has a pretty large role as guest star; there's a fun scene at the circus; and the villain, Star-Man, is hilariously flamboyant and silly-looking. It's a very entertaining story at least.

Since then, I've read it a couple of times and … well, I still like it. But looking at it a little more objectively, it's fairly marginal.

It’s just so silly and scattered, and all the elements don't really come together the way they would in a well-crafted Bill Finger tale. (Mike's Amazing World of Comics doesn't have a writer credited.)

There's this magic belt, you see. An explorer found it in Tibet and donated it to the Gotham Museum. But the museum didn't think the belt was an important artifact, so they sold it to a curio shop.

Also, the belt was in three pieces. There was a strap and a buckle and a star emblem that was attached to the buckle. Somehow, these pieces have all become separated. Each of the pieces gives the bearer powers, and if all three pieces are brought together, the wearer becomes immortal.

Batman and Robin respond to a report of a break-in at the Gotham Museum. They find a villain calling himself Star-Man threatening one of the guards, asking him where the belt is. Star-Man is dressed in a delightful purple and white outfit, with a purple cape and a bright red star on his forehead. (This is the star emblem that's supposed to be attached to the buckle.) The guard says the belt was sold to a curio shop.

Star-Man manages to escape but not before trashing the display room by throwing around some very large and heavy statuary to stop Batman and Robin from following him.

The star gives him great strength, it seems.

Star-Man goes to the curio shop to get the belt … but alas for Star-Man … it was sold to a pretty young lady and she paid with cash, so 'no way to track her down.

But maybe you've read a few comics before in your life and you know what happens. Batwoman is in this comic! So is it possible that Kathy Kane is the pretty young lady who purchased the belt? Yes it is! She finds that the belt gives her great energy, and she wears the belt over her Batwoman costume as she performs at the Gotham City Charity Circus. As the event is televised, Star-Man sees her on TV and he rushes to the circus to get that belt!

It all just tumbles along from there. Batman and Robin are almost killed at the circus but everybody in the audience thinks it's part of the act. Star-Man steals the belt from Batwoman. This is bad for her! Stealing the belt leaves her very weak because she has become dependent on the energy from the belt. Batman, Robin and Batwoman find the original explorer, who tells them about the Tibetan legend about the belt. Each of the components gives you a super-power and wearing them all at once makes you immortal! (The legend is unclear about where the belt came from. The text doesn't say, but could the belt have been created by aliens!?) The buckle ended up in a buckle collection. There's this guy who manufactures buckles and he collects buckles and he keeps them at his buckle-manufacturing plant.

They go to the plant to get the buckle … but Star-Man is already there! He has combined the star and the buckle and now he has great strength and he can fly! He gets the drop on Batman and Robin and knocks them unconscious and ties them to a buckle-stamping machine that is going to turn them into buckles! (I guess.)

Batwoman shows up. I must have skipped over a few panels while writing the summary because, somehow, she has the belt again. The belt neutralizes Star-Man's powers. Batman manages to kick off his boot with such force that it flies up to the ceiling and busts a light. He uses a shard of glass to cut the ropes that are binding him to the buckle-stamping machine. Batman rushes to Batwoman's aid, removes the buckle and star from Star-Man's forehead (he has assembled the buckle and the star and taped it to his forehead), and assembles the belt with the buckle to put it around Batwoman's waist.

She is cured of the energy drain that was killing her. She also has powers and is now immortal. But it only works while you're wearing the belt. She thinks that such a powerful item should be destroyed!

And that’s where it ends. They don’t actually destroy it in the story.

Geez, I love this stuff!