Out of curiosity, what was Batman doing during this time in his Bruce Wayne persona when, well, he wasn't doing Batman? Was he just a socialite living on inherited money? Was there already something similar at Wayne Industries or did he just attend social events or play golf?

Thank you!!! I had always assumed that Bruce Wayne doing some kind of business activity was a relatively modern addition to the lore.

I found another one!

In World’s Finest #58 (1952), Bruce has to go to a meeting of the board of the International Chemical Company, where he is a trustee. Again, bananashenanigans ensue as one of the trustees is injured during a tour of the chemical plant. On awakening, he finds out he’ll be bedridden for the rest of his life, and he vows to kill all the other trustees.

The story is called “The Murder of Bruce Wayne” and it was reprinted in Batman #233.

You might notice a pattern. They only show Bruce getting involved in business meetings if it will somehow signal the start of a Batman adventure.

Detective Comics #301 to #305
March 1962 to July 1962


Detective Comics #301
March 1962
"The Condemned Batman"

I guess this one's OK. I've not thought much of it in the past, but I like it more after reading it again after a few years, and then skimming it again to make a few notes for this commentary.

Before we get to the Batman story, let's discuss the editorial changes among the back-up features. Aquaman is no longer in Detective Comics. His feature ran from Detective Comics #293 to #300. The King of the Seas has his own comic now, he's a member of the Justice League, and he is also appearing in World's Finest. One suspects that DC put him in Detective Comics for a few months just to promote the new Aquaman comic.

Meanwhile, the Martian Manhunter is still in Detective Comics, but his stories have expanded from 7 pages to 12. So it's just Batman and the Martian Manhunter now.

"The Condemned Batman" starts with Batman and Robin as they pursue some generic Gotham City gangsters into a factory that manufactures synthetic gems. One of the crooks pushes Batman into a room, I guess it's a lab or something, and Batman is struck by a ray that causes drastic changes in his physical and biological structure and bodily functions. Most strikingly, he is now magenta-colored and breathes methane. Batman realizes that normal Earth atmosphere will kill him rather quickly!

Gotham's scientific community rallies pretty quickly and supplies Batman with a hovering dome with a methane atmosphere. He can sit back in comfort and fly the thing around, and it's very conveniently equipped with very long-armed claws that he can use to reach out and grab criminals.

Gotham boss Brains Beldon comes up with a plan to stage an attack on Methane Batman and try to shatter the hovering dome thingie, killing Batman when the methane dissipates. But there's more to the plan than that. Beldon is pretty sure that the GCPD will turn up in force to help Batman, leaving the rest of Gotham undefended. So the rest of Beldon's gang robs an armored car simultaneously with the attack on methane Batman.

It all works out in the end. While the robbers are trying to get away with the loot, Methane Batman (who has escaped the criminals trying to shatter the dome) shows up. The bad guys mess with the controls at the Gotham Dam to slow Batman down while he tries to save outlying areas of the city from a devastating flood. He has to get out of the dome despite the danger that Earth's atmosphere will kill him. The heat flowing off Batman destroys the controls and that somehow stops the flooding. And then he gets tangled in some wires and electrocuted or something and he's cured from being colored magenta, breathing methane and emitting great waves of heat.

With all this crap going on in Gotham City on such a regular basis, I have no idea how Robin ever gets his homework done.


Detective Comics #302
April 1962
"The Bronze Menace"

Batwoman guest stars!

Criminals are escaping! They commit crimes and are evading the law! Gordon and the GCPD can't figure out how they are getting past the roadblocks and police surveillance. So Batman is called in to help.

Also, Gotham has been hit with a bunch of art thefts. A very clever gang of thieves are targeting museums and private art collections, and leaving almost no trace of how they are doing it. These art crooks seem to be particularly interested in the trendy bronze statues of an eccentric sculptor named Vulcan. He's like a stereotypical wacky artist from a 1960s sitcom, played by Victor Buono or Severn Darden, with a beret and a smock and a scarf and bristling with pretentiousness. And it seems there's been a bronze statue by Vulcan missing after every one of the recent art heists.

Guess what! It's not a coincidence! Batman notices that the bronze statue of Commodore Barnes (founder of the Gotham Yacht Club) looks just like Eddie Ruff, one of the missing convicts, but it looks like somebody added a moustache and a beard and a big dumb naval hat from the 1800s.

So they suspect Vulcan is in on the thefts. It seems that he has some kind of process that turns you to bronze temporarily. Vulcan is helping the crooks escape because as bronze statues, they can lie low for a few days hibernating and not be detected. And he is simultaneously placing them in the midst of art collections so that they can steal the best items when they awaken.

Batman and Robin go to Vulcan's studio, but they are discovered, and Vulcan turns them into bronze statues! But Batwoman has meanwhile been watching the yacht club (because that's where the latest Vulcan statue was unveiled) and she sees a man with a strange device outside the club. So she follows him and eventually sees under a street light that it's Vulcan! She tracks him to the studio just in time to see Batman and Rpbin turned into statues. Batwoman changes Batman and Robin back to their human forms and then turns the device on Vulcan and his thugs and turns them into bronze statues as they wait for the police.

It's an OK story. I always like it when Batwoman shows up. And the eccentric sculptor was cracking me up. He's not really a sculptor. He's just another crooked Gotham City scientist who can turn people to bronze. He's just pretending to be a sculptor, basing his performance on crazy artists from 1960s sitcoms.

Detective Comics #303
May 1962
"Murder in Skyland"

I really love "Murder in Skyland"! It’s got a lot in common with "Peril at Playground Isle" from Detective Comics #264. It's a theme park on an island and the guy who owns it is murdered just before it opens and everybody who knew the dead guy is a suspect!

But Skyland is a space theme park and it's built on a floating platform that's filled with helium! You get to it by helicopter, but when Batman and Robin are called in because owner Wally Dodd has been found dead (and possibly murdered!), they flutter over with the whirly-bats.

So extra points for using the whirly-bats!

Among the major attractions of Skyland are the special globes that mimic the atmosphere and surface conditions of the other planets in the solar system. You put on a special suit and go inside the Pluto exhibit, for example, and you experience low gravity and freezing temperatures way below zero. And Wally Dodd died from the low temperatures when his suit malfunctioned. But was it an accident? Or was it sabotage?

Skyland is also home to robots of giant beasts that might inhabit other planets, as well as costumes based on what aliens might look like. You can also see various outlandish devices and vehicles that might be used on other planets, like space tanks and air cars and a monorail.

As you might expect, it's very much like the Jetsons at times.

So there's a lot of running around, and looking for clues, and finding that the surveillance cameras were turned off, and meeting the suspects, and being chased by monster robots run amuck, and murder attempts where the killer is dressed as an alien, and all sorts of fun stuff like that.

The murderer turns out to be nightclub owner Al Bates, who loaned lots of money to Paul Dodd, the murder victim's nephew and heir. The younger Dodd had certainly looked very guilty earlier in the story, with his massive gambling debts and his sweating and his tugging at his collar. But Bates is the guilty party, expecting a big payoff because Paul Dodd had signed away half his inheritance to Bates to cover his debts.

When he's discovered, Bates tries to escape by dressing as an alien to get past security. He hopes they'll think he's one of the employees going home after work. Bates smashes the helicopter and one of the whirly-bats, and he uses the other whirly-bat to try to get away. Batman and Robin grab some experimental "flying belts" from one of the exhibits and quickly apprehend Bates in mid-air.

Paul Dodd promises to clean up his act and run Skyland safely and honestly as a tribute to his uncle.

Skyland was never heard from again. I assume it was just not feasible, an easy target for Gotham City psychos or just too expensive to operate once the novelty had worn off.

It's probably grounded in a vacant lot near Gotham City's famous Abandoned Amusement Park District.

I've been wondering if Wally and Paul Dodd were possibly related to Wesley Dodds, the Golden Age Sandman. Wes's last name is usually given as "Dodds," but I think it was written as "Dodd" a few times, so maybe there's a connection.

Detective Comics #304
June 1962
"The Return of Clay-Face"

Writer: Bill Finger
Penciller: Sheldon Moldoff
Inker: Charles Paris

In Detective Comics #304, Clay-Face returns! And this reflects a big change in the editorial policy of Detective Comics because it has been a very long time since a villain returned for an appearance in Detective Comics. For eight years or so, Batman has been facing one-time costumed villains, aliens who never return, generic Gotham City gangsters, crooked Gotham scientists and various monsters … and nobody has made a return engagement in Detective Comics. The Joker has been appearing fairly regularly in Batman, but he hasn’t appeared in Detective Comics since #193 in 1953. Some of the villains who appeared once in the last eight years will return soon (like Dr. Double X, who appeared in #261 and will soon return in #316). But nobody has returned in Detective Comics since Catwoman made her last 1950s appearance in Detective Comics #211 in 1954.

I guess somebody thought Matt Hagen as Clay-Face was a pretty big deal! Because here he is again, just six months after his big debut in #298!

So Matt Hagen has escaped from prison! And he goes to the secret grotto with the magic clay to renew his shape-changing power! He turns into a shark so he can swim back to Gotham City, and his new plan is already forming. He only has 48 hours before the magic wears off, so he doesn't waste any time. As soon as he gets to shore, he robs the paymaster at a shipyard and walks away with $60,00.

Batman and Robin just happen to be passing by. Somehow. Complete coincidence, I guess. Batman lassos Hagen with a bat-rope, but Matt Hagen is Clay-Face! He turns into a giant, spinning top and tries to smash Batman against a wall! It doesn't quite work as Batman manages to release the rope at just the right time and goes flying across the dock and through a very narrow opening in a wire fence. While he's getting out of the bay, Clay-Face turns into Pegasus and flies away with the loot.

A week passes. Bruce Wayne is apparently taking a break from searching for Clay-Face as he's now hanging out at the exclusive Gotham City establishment known as the Pharaoh Club. It's not a nightclub, it's a gentlemen's club, Bruce Wayne occasionally goes to "the club" in the older Batman stories, and as I understand these types of clubs, you are only supposed to belong to a single club. So I guess Bruce belongs to the Pharaoh Club. Numerous Batman villains started out as people that Bruce knew at "the club." The Cavalier in the 1940s. in just a few issues, Catman will show up, and he's somebody that Bruce knows from the club. And in the 1970s, there will be a man named Anthony Lupus who turns out to be a werewolf.

The club is always a place to go to find trouble.

Bruce's friend Professor Colton stops by and says his friend John Royce will be coming around. Royce is from England, but as he's been introduced by a member of the club, he's allowed to hang around. But, actually, Royce is Clay-Face! He's hoping to overhear something that will help him steal something valuable. He finds out that a member named Phipps is going to have a Rembrandt painting delivered to his house. So he goes to the house, knocks Phipps unconscious, takes his place and takes the Rembrandt.

But Bruce Wayne realizes that Phipps is an impostor because Phipps says he has to cancel an appointment because of a toothache. But Phipps has false teeth!

Phipps must be Clay-Face!

Bruce becomes Batman and tries to stop him, but Clay-Face turns into a giant locust and flies away with the Rembrandt.

Batman is suspicious of Royce, so he goes to his house and finds him tied up there. After he leaves, Batman belatedly realizes that Royce is a phony because he says "radio" instead of "wireless," so he can't be English. So Royce must be Clay-Face!

Later they find Professor Colton chained to a pipe in his basement laboratory. He's some kind of chemist and, in addition to masquerading as Colton at the Pharaoh Club, Clay-Face is trying to get Colton to create a synthetic version of the magic clay from the grotto, and he's left behind a sample of the protoplasm. (I guess that means he left him a sample of the magic clay.)

Batman and Robin go back to Royce’s house to confront Clay-Face but he turns into a giant purple bat. However, Batman has used the protoplasm from the magic clay to create a freeze gun that paralyzes Matt Hagen, and he's petrified as a bat for a few hours until the magic clay wears off. Matt Hagen is taken into custody as Robin exclaims that they now have a weapon that neutralizes Clay-Face's power so he's no longer a threat. But Batman says that the freeze gun can only work that one time because they've used up all the necessary protoplasm to make the gun work.

I suspect that means that we will see more Clay-Face!

Detective Comics #305
July 1962
"Targets of the Alien Z-Ray"

This is another story that I read a long time ago and didn't like it, but I’m finding a little more to like in it as I read it a little more carefully and take notes.

Batman and Rpbin are chasing some crooks in a forest on the outskirts of Gotham. They run into some orange, wrinkly aliens. They look like dried apricots. Also, they run into some hilarious alien beasts! One of them is a giant purple insectoid creature, and the other one is a giant ape with a manatee's head.

The dried-apricot aliens have special ray guns, but these weapons don't seem to have any effect on the creatures at first. But the rays are sucking up the Z-force of the monsters. When they release the Z-force onto the intergalactic wheel of fortune that you see on the cover, the creature dies!

Then … the aliens turn the ray guns on Batman and Robin! Oh no! They will die when their Z-forces are fired onto the circular target thingie that the aliens used to kill the monsters!

But that doesn't happen. The aliens have landed on Earth and some creatures they were transporting escaped. The crooks found the ship unguarded and stole some necessary part. They were forcing the aliens to use the Z-ray on Batman and Robin by withholding the piece so the aliens couldn't leave until they killed Batman and Robin. But the aliens are good aliens. They had no intention of killing Batman and Robin. They were going along with the crooks until they could think of a way to trick them.

And it all worked out!

I find this to be a pretty weak entry but the alien monsters are very amusing. I also like the panel where the police show up, just in time to see our heroes running through the woods chased by a weird giant monster. One of the GCPD patrolmen is getting out of the squad car and saying something like, Glory Be! When they sent us out here to help Batman get those bank robbers, I never expected to see giant alien monsters!

I imagine the other policeman to be saying something like “Rookies! Hmph!”

Detective Comics #307
September 1962
"Alpha, the Experimental Man"

"Alpha, the Experimental Man" is very much a science fiction story, but it's not about whacky aliens and space adventures, it's about advanced robotics and artificial intelligence and what it means to be human. Batman would not look out-of-place in a modern story using these themes.

And if you used the same script and replaced Batwoman with Barbara Gordon as Bargirl and somehow got Carmine Infantino on the art, this would have fit in just fine as a New Look story.

Alpha is an artificial man, what we might now call an android (or perhaps a synthezoid if you're in a 1970s Marvel comics). But he is not fully formed and developed. He is like a child, and he needs education and training so he can handle it when the scientists finish the procedure that gives him his full powers some months down the road. Batman and Robin are called to train and educate Alpha. So there's a montage of weight training, acrobatics, language and multiplication tables.

Alpha is traveling with Batman and Robin when they come across some criminals, and they stop the Bat-Mobile to help with apprehending the bad guys. Alpha observes them, and he also meets Batwoman. Alpha wants to be more helpful to Batman and Robin. He also develops a big crush on Batwoman.

Alpha struggles with his feelings of impatience and immaturity. He wants to help now. He is chafing under the tutelage of Batman and Robin. He also wants to see Batwoman more, and he wants her to look on him as an equal instead of treating him like an immature being.

So he escapes from the Bat-Cave and breaks into the laboratory where he was created, where he subjects himself to the scientific procedure that will give him his full powers.

He's still lurking about the premises. Batman and Robin meet with the scientists, who tell them that Alpha is in great danger. His immature mind was supposed to grow and become more complicated and functional before he got the full treatment. He will not be able to cope with the changes and he will deteriorate and become erratic. There's a limited amount of time before the effect can be reversed. Batman and Robin promise to find him. Alpha wanders up to the open window just in time to hear the very end of the conversation, and it makes him paranoid, so he goes on a bit of a rampage.

During the search for Alpha, Batwoman wrecks her motorcycle and falls down a cliff where she manages to save herself by grabbing a crumbling ledge. Despite being a bit paranoid, Alpha trusts Batwoman, and he realizes that Batman and Robin were just trying to help. But he also realizes that it's his fault that Batwoman is in danger, so he stays and figures out how to save her instead of going back to the lab for the treatment that will save him. He helps Batwoman to safety just as the ledge crumbles, taking Alpha with it.

I like this one a lot better now than I did when I first read it.

Detective Comics #308
October 1962
"The Flame-Master"

Art by Dick Sprang!

It gets a lot of points for being set in the Southwest.

Batman and Robin are chasing some guy who they think is hiding out in a circus. He escapes and they chase him into an ancient pueblo. They track him to a magic Indian room that has a lot of symbols on the wall and a broken glass globe that - they quickly surmise - releases a gas that gives you the power of the elements.

So they chase the Flame-Master around for 13 pages and he changes from fire to water to earth to air and finally Batman uses the other gas globe from the magic Indian room to get the same powers and defeat the Flame-Master.

Not quite a classic of the Schiff era, but I liked it OK.

(Note: These comments on #308 are mostly cut-and-pasted from a CCF post from 2017.)

Detective Comics #309
November 1962
"The Mystery of the Mardi Gras Murders"

I actually really like the story in #309.

Batman and Robin are attending Gotham City’s famous annual Mardi Gras event that was never mentioned again. And some crook is running around and murdering people!

Vicki Vale shows up after not being around for four years. (Batman even mentions that she was on assignment in Europe.) One of her random photos of the crowd turns out to have a clue!

There's all sorts of neat attractions at the Mardi Gras event, like the dinosaur rides. And a float with a giant statue of a samurai warrior.

Three people are killed before Batman finds out who the murderer is. Batman is voted the king of the event, and Batwoman is voted the queen, even though she wasn't actually involved until the last page. And then Batman suggests Vicki Vale should be the co-queen along with Batwoman, because of Vicki's role in photographing the first clue. As you can guess, Vicki and Batwoman are real thrilled about that!

There's not really that much to talk about. I think maybe you have to be there.

Detective Comics #310
December 1962
"Bat-Mite's Super-Circus"

Oh boy! Bat-Mite shows up again, just as Batman and Robin are about to capture three fleeing Gotham City gangsters. Their names are Tate, Graff and Dorn and they are pretty generic. But that's all about to change as Bat-Mite decides to give them super-powers! Now they are generic Gotham City gangsters with super-powers!

One of them has stretchy powers. He’s called Rubberman. He has reddish hair and a purple suit, so not only does he look like Ralph Dibny as the Elongated Man (as Prince Hal has pointed out), he also looks kind of like Jimmy Olsen as Elastic Lad.

Another of the crooks gets great strength and Bat-Mite provides him with a leopard-skin suit. So he looks like Flex Mentallo. His name is Strongman.

The third guy develops super-tough skin, rolls himself up in a ball and launches himself through the air at great speeds. He's called the Human Cannonball. He's actually kind of scary despite how silly-looking he is.

Batman and Robin are having a little more trouble than usual because of the unexpected events. Bat-Mite is ecstatic! He gets to see his heroes in action, struggling with a new problem. He's hopping for joy when he hits head on the plank on a pirate ship. And somehow, hitting his head causes him to lose his powers.

So Bat-Mite turns visible involuntarily and doesn't realize he has lost his powers. When he sees that Batman and Robin are actually in trouble, Bat-Mite tries to help and … nothing happens. Oops.

Batman, Robin and Bat-Mite are captured and thrown into a well and the bad guys leave, chortling in an evil manner. But they escape pretty easily. Bat-Mite is very light, so Batman just throws him out of the well and he goes and gets a rope.

Batman defeats the bad guys by using their powers against them. He ducks just as Strongman is swinging and his fist hits a rubber foam cushion that bounces back and thus he knocks himself unconscious. Batman lures Rubberman through a doorway so that when he stretches, he hits his head on the top of the doorway and is knocked out. The fight with the Human Cannonball is pretty good, successfully utilizing all the visual delights of a dockyard, with the wharfs and the buildings and the ships. Batman and Robin don't defeat him. Bat-Mite gets his powers back and just uses his magic to turn the Human Cannonball back into a generic Gotham City gangster.

Batman and Robin realize that Bat-Mite got his powers back several pages ago and waited a while before using them. Batman and Robin are like, "Man! You really are just a huge a-hole, aren't you?" and Bat-Mite quickly teleports back to his home dimension.

I find this one hilarious.

Detective Comics #312 to #315
February 1963 to May 1963

I think they were on a roll here. Detective Comics #311 to #326 is just one very entertaining story after another. Some of them are better than others, sure, but we get some good super-villain stories, some pretty cool examinations of Gotham City cultures and subcultures, some science-tinged stories, a couple of whacky, over-the-top (but still fun!) science fiction tales with aliens and spaceships, some solve-the-mystery tales, and a Tarzan homage (or parody) that makes me laugh almost as much as MAD Magazine's Melvin of the Apes.

In any case, I love this run! From Dr. Double X to the Terrible Trio to the Batman-Genie to the staggering menace of the baby-chicken people!

So let's begin! The wonderment awaits!

Detective Comics #312
February 1963
"The Secret of Clayface's Power"

Look at that cover! It's so AWESOME I can barely cope with it! Clayface is fighting Batman, who has just stumbled into the magic grotto and now has acquired the Clayface powers! And look at poor Robin! He's helpless because he's so SHOCKED at how awesome this issue is, and he's been shoved into a corner from which he may never escape!

The story pretty much fulfills the promise of the cover. After a jailbreak and another Clayface crime spree, Batman tracks Matt Hagen to the magic grotto just as Hagen is about to get another dose and, during the struggle, they both fall in the grotto! So we then get several pages of Batman and Clayface turning into polar bears and elephants and things and fighting each other! (The way Batman defeats Clayface is wonderfully dumb.)

One of the great things about this story is that Batman getting Clayface's powers is poetic justice because earlier in the story, Clayface had robbed a bank while using his shapeshifting powers to masquerade as Batman! Ah, the comic-book irony, the comic-book irony …

Detective Comics #313
March 1963
"The Mystery of the $1,000,000 Treasure Hunt"

In this story we find out that generic Gotham City gangsters can be playful and madcap, especially after they are dead.

Batman and Robin respond to a tip that something is going to happen at the Store-All Warehouse. They rush to the scene to find two gangs competing to get something out of a large, ornate cuckoo clock! There's also a weird trap involved as steel bands spring out and entrap one of the crooks.

Upon searching the pockets of the generic Gotham City gangsters, they discover some legal papers, including the last will and testament of Boss Elliot Madden. It seems that Madden was lost at sea and is presumed dead. But he was a fun-loving sort, and he left a series of clues that will lead to a million-dollar fortune made up of his ill-gotten gains. But there's a catch … each of the crimes has been equipped with a life-threatening trap!

Well, now Batman has joined with the Gotham Underworld in the race to figure out the clues and get the money. It's very perilous. Robin gets trapped in a giant milk bottle, for example. That kind of Gotham City peril. It's not any less perilous just because it's silly and funny.

(Batman saves Robin from the peril of the milk-bottle trap, by the way. In case you were wondering.)

In the last trap, Batman is caught in a rocket-powered cage and it transports him to Madden's hide-out. You see, Boss Madden wasn't really dead! I bet you're surprised! What a card! It was all a trick to lure Batman to the final trap and put him at Madden's mercy! There wasn’t any treasure per se, but as Madden explains, Batman himself is the treasure! He expects to collect a million dollars from the Gotham Underworld from some hood eager for the privilege of killing Batman!

But two can play at this game! It wasn't really Batman! The Caped Crusader suspected that Madden was still alive because of his speech patterns. It seems that Batman was suspicious because the initial phone call included Madden's catchphrase "Understand?" at the end of every other sentence. So Batman used a Batman robot to set off the final trap! Ha ha, Boss Madden! You're going to jail for being less than half as clever as you think you are!

The costumed villains are great (well, some of them), but I really like these issues where the generic Gotham City gangsters are matching wits with Batman, and Batman can just basically chill because they aren't really much of a challenge.

Detective Comics #314
April 1963
"Murder in Movieland"

This is your basic "Movie actor based on famous horror-film star goes a little mad and starts killing people at the studio who he believes have wronged him" plot. Like the original Clayface stories way back in Detective Comics #40 and #49.

The actor's name is Roger Carlyle, he's the star of such Monarch Studios hits as "The Wrecker," and he was in an accident that may have given him brain damage. He is acting erratically and scaring everybody. The studio heads want him to take some time off, but he gets paranoid and thinks they are forcing him to retire and starts making threats.

And then the studio heads start dying!

But is it really him? There are a few clues that make Batman wonder if one of the studio heads is framing Carlyle because he wants to get rid of the other moguls and take control the studio himself.

They find Carliyle in the basement of his house cuffed to a pipe.

But it turns out that Carlyle really WAS behind all the murders! He was framing the guy that Batman was at first thinking was trying to frame Carlyle, and he used a pin and a piece of string to make it look like he had been locked in the basement.

SMART!

But not smart enough to fool Batman!

The best thing about this story is Gotham’s thriving movie-making industry! It's not Hollywood! It’s Gotham's famous Movieland! And this story makes great use of the studios, the sets and (especially) the Moby Dick robot on the cover.

Detective Comics #315
May 1963
"The Jungle Man of Gotham City"

Oh boy! You say you've never read this? Well, you're in for a TREAT if you find this somewhere and settle down with some Frostie's root beer and some Good and Plentys and a Snickers bar!

There's this Gotham City gangster named Eli Mattock, and he's no generic Gotham City gangster. He's just a bit too mean! I think all particularly sadistic Gotham City henchmen will end up working for either Eli Mattock or one of those crooked Gotham City scientists. (Some of those Gotham City scientists are also pretty mean.)

The story starts in Africa, where Mattock and his men have discovered a wild man, wearing a leopard skin and a headband, and speaking in broken English like a Bizarro or Superbaby or Wonder Tot. They call him Jungle Man. He was apparently raised by the animals, and he speaks their language.

Mattock has a plan. A very mean plan. He is a very bad person. One of his henchmen dresses up as Batman and torments Jungle Man relentlessly. He taunts him and he tricks him into getting caught in traps, and then he beats him up when Jungle Man can't defend himself.

And thus, Jungle Man learns to hate Batman! He calls him "Bad Man" and he wants to find him and punish him! (Which I think means he wants to have an elephant squish Batman and turn him into a chunky blue liquid.)

Mattock tells Jungle Man that Bad Man is his enemy too, and he persuades Jungle Man to come to Gotham City where he can get his revenge on Bad Man.

The first thing they do when they get to Gotham City is steal some animals from the zoo. They abscond with an elephant, a rhino, a lion and a large python. And they are all Jungle Man's buddies. They do everything Jungle Man asks without question.

So Mattock and his gang of mean degenerates take Jungle Man with them on a few criminal operations, and when Batman shows up, he finds himself being attacked by various jungle beasts and also by a wild jungle man who hates him for some reason.

It's hilarious. Sheldon Moldoff draws these animals with the fierce determination of a very disciplined third-grader drawing elephants and rhinos from memory. Moldoff is an unheralded genius. He seldom gets very much credit for his designs and his linework. Sure, his figures sometimes look like they were designed as cookie cutters, but I think he does that on purpose. He's drawing like Bob Kane, but he's drawing like good Bob Kane, as if Bob Kane has ever stuck to the drawing table for any length of time and tried to improve his style. Moldoff knew what he was doing, but it's so subtle that very few people ever seem to notice or appreciate Moldoff's Batman art.

Batman starts to figure out what's going on with Mattock and his mean gang. He guesses that Jungle Man might be a lost child who was raised by animals, and he gets the help of the police in finding out if anybody lost a child in Africa that matches the age and appearance of the wild man. And the Youngs show up. Their son Tommy went missing in Africa fifteen years ago. They have his birth certificate and his baby footprints. And it just so happens that during one of the encounters with Jungle Man, he ran across some soft tar and left his prints. They quickly check the prints and find that it's a match! Jungle Man is Tommy Young!

Tommy's parents also have Tommy's teddy bear, which comes in handy the next time Jungle Man is about to trample Batman with the elephant, the rhino and the lion. Batman waves the teddy bear around. Jungle Man is already having doubts because Batman has already shown himself to be more noble than Boss Mattock (for example, when he stopped some jail guards from firing on Jungle Man and the animals), but the teddy bear is the clincher. Tommy gives up his vendetta against Batman and is reunited with his parents. Boss Mattock and his gang are apprehended. The animals go back to the zoo. Tommy's parents immediately cut his hair, put him in a suit and send him to prep school,

I find it a mostly hilarious and somewhat thoughtful Tarzan commentary.

But it's too bad that Boss Mattock wasn't killed while trying to escape, trampled by the rhino in the confusion. He's just too mean!