Detective Comics #287 to #291January 1961 to May 1961
There's a couple of stories in this batch that I do not like very much. Despite my love for this era in general, there's a few here and there that I find unimaginative and even kind of dull. It doesn't bother me very much if the stories are merely kind of stupid. Give me some customs of the Gotham Underworld! Let’s see another variation on the "crooked Gotham City scientist" genre. More earthworm-headed aliens please!
I almost decided not to write summaries for a couple of these. You can tell they're hokey and bad just from the covers. But, to tell the truth, I can always find some reason to type out the briefest of summaries. In Detective #288, for example, the final panel is actually HILARIOUS. In a bad way, of course. But in order to get it, you have to know a little bit about what happened. So I just shrug my shoulders and start summarizing the plot with an eye toward the briefest brevity possible that doesn’t preclude comprehension.
Even Detective Comics #287 deserves a few paragraphs! So brace yourselves for the mind-numbing mystery of "The Raven and the Wasp"!
Detective Comics #287January 1961
"The Raven and the Wasp"
OK. So there's a couple of new super-villains running around Gotham. They are called the Raven and the Wasp. They have advanced technology! But they are operating separately. And they are stealing weird stuff. Like one of them tears apart a steel motor shaft on a cargo ship and makes off with a piston. And the other one steals a gear!
So … maybe they are crooked Gotham City scientists who are rivals and having a weird contest?
Or perhaps it's ALIENS! I'm not saying it's ALIENS! But maybe it's ALIENS!
Batman and Robin capture the Wasp pretty early on and it turns out that … he's a generic Gotham City gangster who recently broke out of prison. How did he get the weird costume and the electric ray gun? He's not talking. He's not saying a word.
So Batman dresses up as the Wasp and they quickly find out that … IT'S ALIENS!
Classic misdirection! The Raven and the Wasp are just cheap Gotham street hoodlums but they are being equipped by rival aliens who can't leave their spaceships because Earth's gravity is too strong. Or something. And they are after the piston and the gear (and a fireplace poker) because they are made from an exotic metal that looks just like iron. The metal came from a meteor that was mined on Earth like ordinary iron and turned into the objects. The aliens are collecting this metal because it can somehow give them SUPER-HYPMOTIZING POWERS. (Or something like that. I keep forgetting the details every time I look up from the page to type.)
Oh dear. I've now looked at this story enough times that I'm developing a certain fondness for it.
Detective Comics #288
February 1961
"The Menace of the Multiple Creature"
I don't much like this one either. There is no writer listed for the previous story at Mike's Amazing World. But "The Menace of the Multiple Creature" is credited to Bill Finger. And it sure looks like a Bill Finger story! I guess he wrote a bad one from time to time. I think this one would have worked a lot better (for me anyway) if it had been set near Gotham City. Instead it's set on "a secluded island resort" where Bruce and Dick are enjoying a rare vacation.
This is a weird "island resort" as it also seems to have a chemical plant. Because there's a pool of chemicals on the surface that have leaked from pipes coming from the chemical plant. And lightning strikes the pool of chemicals. And so the multiple creature is born!
It's called the multiple creature because it has the power to evolve to a new form within seconds when it is faced with a new challenge. So it can fly or it has armor or, like on the cover, it can turn into a giant lobster with the face of a fox-like animal of some kind.
So Bruce and Dick cut their vacation short to put on their bat-clothes and fight this weird beast.
One Bill Finger trademark is the inclusion of regular people who get entangled in the adventure. For example, "The Captive Planet," from Detective Comics #256, where several ordinary Gothamites get dragged along with Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson for an outer space adventure.
In "The Menace of the Multiple Creature," there are several spots in the narrative where the focus moves to the effects on other people on the island. There's an unnamed movie star, very much an Errol Flynn type, who is now confined to a wheelchair, living in a mansion on the island, dreaming of his glory days and very depressed because they are long past. The monster chases Batman to the mansion and the actor helps Batman escape the beast, using a bow and arrow, and a shield, and other movie props he has around the house. The actor regains his self-confidence and wants to contribute to society again.
Then there's some bad guys on the island, robbing the bank in the resort town. They escape in a blimp. There's no way anybody could chase them to the mainland and they are sure they will land and escape pretty easily. The boss's name is Stokes and he's getting pretty gloaty about his great plan. But then they run into the flying version of the multiple monster. It is a very irritable creature so it shoots at the blimp with projectiles from its wings, and the blimp crashes. Batman and Robin round up the thieves before pursuing the monster again.
And then there's the town government. Most of the officials are away at a political dinner, so the highest-ranking official is a very nervous town clerk named Mr. Stamm. He's not sure he's really qualified to organize the town's efforts to help Batman cope with the challenges of the monster. But there's a girl in the office, Miss Todd, who believes in Mr. Stamm. And with a little support from Batman, Stamm finds the confidence to get the town organized to drive the monster to a location where Batman can electrocute the creature and turn it back into a pool of chemicals.
And that's the story. It ends with a final montage panel of the actor, Stokes and Mr. Stamm all musing about how the adventure with Batman and the multiple monster changed their lives.
I think Finger usually did a better job of bringing it all together at the end. Although I must admit, I really like Moldoff’s cover! That bright yellow background! It looks like a cereal box!
Detective Comics #289March 1961
"The Bat-Mite Bandits"
I'm not real keen on this one either. I have had it for a long time. I must have bought it around 2012 or 2013. For a very long time, it was the only issue of Detective Comics that I had that was older than #300. Since then, I've read some of the other classic Bat-Mite stories, like "The Return of Bat-Mite" and "Batwoman's Publicity Agent" and "Bat-Mite Meets Bat-Girl," and "The Bat-Mite Bandits" suffers even worse in comparison.
Batman and Robin run into some crooks and have trouble apprehending them because they seem to have magical powers. They escape on a flying carpet during one caper, for example. Our heroes soon realize that Bat-Mite has returned, and this time he's helping the crooks!
What's going on? Bat-Mite has always been a force for good despite being rather undisciplined, chaotic and not always helpful.
Let's add "gullible" to the list. (Or maybe "naïve" if one is inclined to be kind.)
These generic Gotham City gangsters operate from an abandoned movie studio (in Gotham's abandoned movie studio district, just north of the abandoned amusement park district) and the boss dresses as a stereotypical movie director with jodhpurs and a beret. The gang has convinced Bat-Mite that they are making a tribute film for Batman and these capers are all staged. Bat-Mite believes that the people being robbed are in on it, and the stolen items will be returned.
Eventually Bat-Mite overhears the crooks bragging about how dumb Bat-Mite is and he realizes that he's been tricked by some not-so-slick operators. So the next time the crooks go on a job, they run into Batman and Robin, but this time Bat-Mite helps to round up the villains.
I guess it's not a bad idea. It's just somewhat lacking in the execution.
Detective Comics #290April 1961
"Robin's Robot"
I like this one quite a bit. It's a lot of fun. Profoundly silly. We get yet another crooked Gotham City scientist who really thinks he's going to outwit Batman and Robin.
"Gadgets" Blore and two of his henchmen are robbing the safe at the tractor factory. The henchmen are Hank and Red. Hank is a generic Gotham City gangster in a fedora and a purple suit. But Red … he's hilarious! He doesn't wear a hat! He has orange hair and he wears an orange checkered jacket and black pants, along with a black shirt and a blue tie. And he has gigantic shoulders!
"Gadgets" is breaking into the safe with a rather bulky ray machine; they call it an electric cannon and it's melting the door of the safe so they can get to the payroll. Most of Gadgets' devices are pretty big and bulky, so I'm sure Red's main duty is pushing these things into place with his big shoulders.
Batman and Robin catch up to Gadgets and his gang at the tractor factory. It's kind of a neat fight as both Batman and Robin are like "Wheeee! Tractors!" and they are riding around in the various farm vehicles as they try to round up the gang.
But Batman gets hit by the ray from the electric cannon! He turns red and he's dazed for a moment. Robin runs over to help him … and Red runs over to the cannon and aims the ray at Robin. But Robin turns green! They are oppositely charged, and if they get too close to each other, they will make each other explode! Or something.
Is this the end of the Batman and Robin team!?
The next day, Gadgets and his gang are using one of the inventions to attract an airplane to a remote field. Supposedly it will land and they can steal the uranium ore it is carrying. But Batman and Robin show up! Batman is still glowing red but Robin is normal. But … there's something odd going on. Robin is kind of clumsy and he falls in a shower of sparks! The crime is foiled but Gadgets surmises that Robin is a robot! And the real Robin is probably prowling around close by and controlling a mechanical version of himself.
At the next crime scene, Hank is hiding in the bushes. He sees Robin, still glowing green, and he grabs the control box away from him! Gadgets and his gang now control the Robin robot! Gadgets pulls the flesh-colored façade off the robot's face to show a metallic head. They fight off Batman and Robin and take the Robin robot with them to use it in their future crimes.
Which was not a good idea. Gadgets is just about to dismantle the Robin robot. He brags that he's going to rebuild the robot and improve it "beyond Batman's wildest dreams!" Batman and Robin enter the hide-out and are attacking Gadgets, but he's not worried … he has control of the Robin robot and he commands it to defend him fromm Batman and Robin.
But the robot attacks Gadgets instead! It turns out that the robot is actually Robin disguised as a robot version of himself! By grabbing the robot and taking it with him, they were actually leading the Dynamic Duo to the hideout! It was an elaborate ruse to find the hide-out and recover the loot and round up the gang.
On the cover, you’ll see Gadgets Blore in Robin's usual position in the corner box.
Detective Comics #291May 1961
"The Creature from the Bat-Cave"
I've had this one for four or five years and I vaguely remember the story basics. I'm pretty sure I haven't read it since I got it. I didn't think it was very good. For some reason, reading it now, I love it! There’s one particularly hilarious incident, but I also find the whole back story to be so chaotic, involving some capricious and completely irresponsible aliens, that I have to love the story, even if I feel sorry for the poor monster.
Batman and Robin are getting ready to go on patrol when they heard noises in one of the caverns that branch off from the main Bat-Cave. Batman guesses that it might be a limestone wall collapsing. They find a bright red spaceship in the rubble! It could have been trapped in the limestone for thousands of years, maybe even millions of years!
The hatch opens and a big, green, furry, one-eyed creature crawls out and starts chasing Batman and Robin around in the Bat-Cave. This whole scene is hilarious! The creature flips the giant penny at them! They are knocked unconscious, but when they recover, they are not hurt or anything because if you get hit with a manhole cover, it barely registers, and the giant penny is not really that much bigger than a manhole cover, and it's no big deal to get hit with a giant penny that only weighs 20,000 pounds or so.
And besides, Robin is pretty tough! Remember that time the bad guys hit him on the back of the head with a steam shovel and he only pretended to be unconscious as part of the plan?
When they wake up from being hit with the giant penny, the creature is gone!
They track the creature to a restaurant on the outskirts of town. It must be a steakhouse because there's a statue of a steer on the roof. The monster attacks the restaurant and Batman tries to stop it with a bulldozer but the monster cuts the bulldozer in half with a ray beam from his eye and Batman barely leaps to safety! The engine explodes and the entire area is covered with smoke. When it clears, the creature is gone and it appears that he dug a huge hole in the ground where the restaurant used to be.
Later, they hear that the creature tore up an oil tank and then dug a hole there too.
Batman and Robin go back to the Bat-Cave to investigate the spaceship. Batman finds a telepathy helmet that explains the creature and what he's doing when he digs those holes. The creature is a Rukk! The spaceship was sent out by the people from the planet known as Sharl. The fifth planet!
That must be Jupiter, says Batman.
The people of Sharl are a fun-loving, whimsical bunch. Every 100 years, they play a game, a sort of Solar System Treasure Hunt. Every participant uses a space-sling to hurl four small pyramids out among the planets of the solar system. Then they all send their Rukks to go and look for the pyramids. If your Rukk returns first with all four of your pyramids, YOU WIN!
There's also a warning from the people of Sharl … the Rukks are dangerous on the hunt! "If there are inhabitants on your planet, then the Rukk must be destroyed before it becomes a menace!" There’s a weapon that can destroy the Rukk, and Batman finds it in the glove compartment.
When he stops at the laboratory to tell the professor who has been helping them, a janitor overhears the story and rushes off to tell Gotham City gang boss Big Ed Bailey about the creature. Bailey realizes that if they can keep Batman from destroying the creature, then his gang can follow the creature back to the Bat-Cave when it has all the pyramids and is trying to get back to Sharl. They'll know where the Bat-Cave is, and they can learn Batman's secret identity?
So then the creature is digging a hole at a steel foundry and all the characters converge on the site. Big Ed Bailey's gang manages to interfere with Batman, and he can't destroy the creature. As a matter of fact, the weapon falls into a cauldron of molten steel!
The bad guys are rounded up but the Rukk escapes again. And he's heading for City Hospital! Batman has a sensor from the spaceship that shows where the last pyramid is buried, but he needs time to go into the hospital basement and dig it up, so Robin has to go and distract the creature. Fortunately, Robin is just out of reach in a whirly-bat! He buzzes around! There's a ship anchored nearby so Robin scoops up some life preservers and drops them on the creature's head! Then the monster's beam from his eye damages the whirly-bat and Robin barely escapes!
But Batman has found the last pyramid and he gives it to the creature, who goes to the spaceship (which has been towed into a field) and takes off for Sharl.
But Sharl isn't there anymore! Batman surmises from the information on the telepathy helmet that Sharl was between Mars and Jupiter and may well be the planet that is thought to have exploded and caused the asteroid belt. He thinks this is likely because the Sharlians referred to nine other planets, implying that there were ten planets when the spaceship was sent.
So the people of Sharl are long gone, and the Rukk is going to a planet that doesn't exist. When he reaches the asteroid belt, the ship will run out of fuel and the Rukk will be just another asteroid, floating in space forever. The poor creature was just doing his job and doesn't deserve such a fate.
The people of Sharl are very careless with their pets, and also very irresponsible with the lives of other beings in the solar system! It may have been karma that caused "the fifth planet" to explode!
