Detective Comics #323 to #325
January 1964 to March 1964

I'm getting very close to the end of the Jack Schiff issues of Detective Comics. I started with Detective Comics #244. Schiff had been the editor of the Batman comics for quite a while at that point, and that was a little bit before the era where it was random aliens, big dumb monsters and weird transformations every issue. But we've been through all the Detective issues of the sci-fi era, up to #326.

(And please note: I have only been reading Detective Comics. I have not been reading or reviewing the Batman comic or World's Finest.)

There are a handful of bad issues, but I find most of them to be entertaining at least, and an awful lot of them are solid Silver Age storytelling. It's actually one of my favorite Batman runs. And I certainly like it more than the New Look.

I'm not going to write any thorough summations of these last few issues of the Schiff era. I'm a bit weary from the holidays and I'm ready to be dome with this part of my project to read all the issues of Detective Comics from #244 to the present (which may be Detective Comics #1100 by the time I'm done). I'm going to summarize the plots very briefly and mention one crazy thing that makes the comic worthwhile.

I'll probably take a little break from Detective Comics. But I'll get back to reading Detective in a few weeks. I'll probably start the "New Look" by mid-January.



Detective Comics #323
January 1964
"The Zodiac Master"

I'm not a big fan of this one. The villain isn't very good. He's not even silly enough to be entertaining. He's the Zodiac Master! He can see the future! He warns that a ship is going to meet ill fortune ... and it runs aground! Then he predicts a plane crash, but this time he stops the plane from taking off by pulling one of the patches off his dumb suit (which is covered with Zodiac signs) and throws it at the plane. It turns into a ram's head (it's Aries the Ram) and disables the plane.

Now that he has a reputation, he forms a criminal operation that attracts the Gotham Underworld by predicting the success of the crimes they are planning. And charging for it! It's a huge scam, of course. Batman and Robin figure it out and put the Zodiac Master out of business.

He kind of reminds me of Planet-Master, except it's the Zodiac, and he also kind of reminds me of Mr. Polka-Dot because he's pulling things off his dumb suit and throwing them at people.

It seems to me that he's encroaching on Calendar Man's territory a little bit. I could see a story where the Zodiac Master returns, and Calendar Man is not having it! Zodiac Master is not even in the same league, so it would just be the first few pages of a story that's mostly about Calendar Man's latest overly complicated scheme. The Zodiac Master is either killed or left for the police by about Page 6.



Detective Comics #324
February 1964
"Menace of the Robot Brain"

I love this one! I mean, it doesn't make any sense or anything. I love the crazy plot and also the crazy Gotham City architecture. (The weird house is in a secluded valley in a forested area near Gotham, but I consider it fair game because it's in the Gotham Metropolitan Area.)

So there's these guys who commit crimes and then end up wandering around in the city with no memory of committing any crimes. They have no prior criminal record. They are security guards or bank employees with good records. Because it's Gotham, Batman is inclined to believe that they have no memory of robbing the bank or stealing the payroll or whatever.

But Batman and Robin soon become suspicious of a balding man with glasses and a waxed mustache. He was seen photographing all the accused men soon before the robberies. He is a crooked Gotham City scientist named Ernet LaRue and he has developed a camera-sized device that puts you in a trance and forces you to do his bidding.

Batman and Robin track him to a bizarre house with a robot brain sticking out of the roof. They sneak into the house through the robot's mouth and find that the computer brain houses a bunch of booby traps and secret passage and things. How will they ever get out of this! As there's only a few pages left, they don't really have that much trouble.

It's hilarious! 

Detective Comics #325
March 1964
"The Strange Lives of the Cat-Man"

The fantastic conclusion of the three-part Cat-Man story arc that started in Detective Comics #311 and continued in #318!

Cat-Man survived the perils of an underwater river in his first appearance and then he survived the explosion when his boat ran into a buoy in Detective #318. He has now discovered that he has extra lives because the cloth he used to make his costume is magic! He purchased a sacred statue of a panther, and any cloth used to wrap the relic will give the wearer a total of nine lives if the cloth is made into a costume (though I suppose it would work if the cloth was made into a regular shirt or a scarf or socks).

So Cat-Man is getting very reckless with his lives in his latest series of escapades. He jumps off a cliff to escape capture by Batman, and the magic of the cloth floats him away from the rocks and deposits him on the beach. He runs away from laughing. And he traps Batman and Robin in a ring of fire and he jeers at them as he sacrifices another life when he runs through the fire.

Batwoman joins in. She still has her Catwoman costume from the adventure in Detective #318. (She has a trophy room (just like Batman) in the secret cave under Kathy Kane's house, the Catwoman costume is one of the objects.) It's made from the same cloth as the Cat-Man's costume, and Batwoman deduces that the nine lives are distributed among the two costumes. So Batwoman puts on the costume and starts acting recklessly to use up some of the lives! She drives over a cliff. She runs through the fire to rescue Batman and Robin. 

I lost count of how many lives were used. I think everybody lost count. Cat-Man was being particularly careless. Batwoman (in the Catwoman costume) confronts Cat-Man and tells him that she's pretty sure all the lives have been used. So he's a little less reckless and ends up getting captured.

This one is so crazy and entertaining. It's a fine conclusion to the Cat-Man story arc. And it's one of the better Batwoman appearances.

Cat-Man doesn't appear again until The Freedom Fighters #10 in 1977!