Super Stuff in the Bronze Age: August 2021

Thursday, August 26, 2021

Batman Trading Card Stories #2 : To The Batcave!

One of the first Batman trading cards I ever owned was this one - “Black Bat” set # 38 - of the Dynamic Duo posing outside the entrance to the Batcave from within Wayne Manor. This is interesting because:

The Batcave entrance had been replaced by an elevator in the comics two years earlier in 1964
Access to the Batcave was by a sliding bookcase to the famed Batpoles in the current TV series
The Batman trading card shows a laboratory room beyond - not stairs, nor a cave nor steps to a cave
It asks the question "Why are they in costume within Wayne Manor?"

As previously mentioned on this blog, Norman Saunders usually (but not always) painted the trading cards based on pencil drawings supplied by Bob Powell. Saunders then included additional details not present in Powell’s pencils, so the paintings were always likely to have some deviation from comics canon.

I thought I’d take a deep dive into the history of the grandfather clock as the entrance to the Batcave, and see if I could locate any earlier material that might have inspired the specific elements of the painting by Norman Saunders.

The text on the back of the card by Larry Ivie gave no clue, so I decided to go back to the beginning, to the first time that the Batcave’s origin was documented in the Batman "dailies" on October 29, 1943, in a strip entitled "The Bat Cave!”.

As you can see, the entrance to the cave in this strip was by a sliding bookcase.

However, that same year 1943, the first Batman & Robin movie serial was released, which featured a large grandfather clock as the entrance to the cave from within Wayne Manor. Bob Kane was so taken by the idea that he passed it on to writer Bill Finger for subsequent incorporation into the comic. [Interestingly, the conceit of a large grandfather clock covering the entrance of a secret room was lifted from the 1920s silent film “The Mark of Zorro”.]

Note that in the 1943 serial, the clock is about 8’ tall, and the dynamic duo squeeze through the front of the clock, past the pendulum to gain access. The clock appears to be in the library.

The serial also features a sequence when Batman and Robin enter the manor in costume, and the pass through the clock to the Batcave beyond.

And furthermore, the serial featured a crime lab for the first time.

It was five years later that the clock was incorporated into DC canon in 1948’s Batman #48 “1,000 Secrets of the Batcave”. (Editor Jack Schiff, Artist Sheldon Moldoff, Writer Bill Finger) when burglar Wolf Brando enters Wayne Manor and accidentally stumbles against the clock, triggering a switch that opens the clock and reveals the Batcave beyond.

The clock was then to be featured in 25 stories across the next 19 years across the three comics Batman, Detective and World’s Finest, even past the time when until Julie Schwartz took over Batman and Detective Comics editorship in 1964 and replaced the stairs with an elevator.

What emerges within those comic stories are two distinct versions of the clock:

1. A clock around 6’ in height which swings open (usually hinged on the left hand side to the wall) to reveal a flight of descending stairs in the subsequent panel

2. A much larger clock - presumably 8’ in height and wider - which enables our heroes to open the glass front and pass through (generally run through) the clock onto the stairs beyond.

Regardless of the design of the clock, all comics and the 1943 movie serial showed an immediate drop to the stairs beyond.

But the subsequent 1949 Batman & Robin movie serial starring Robert Lowrey had no stairs beyond the large grandfather lock.

Throughout these comic stories, our heroes never go through the clock in costume, with one partial exception, which I cover below.

Bill Finger was to write the majority (13) of the Batman stories featuring the grandfather clock (closely followed by Edmond Hamilton with a tally of 9 tales) , but the decisions on how the clock was portrayed fell to the artists themselves.

If the stories were drawn by Sheldon Moldoff , the clock was depicted as about 6’ tall and swung out to reveal the entrance to the Batcave ; if drawn by Dick Sprang (the “good” Bob Kane ghost), the clock was much larger with a door on the front that our heroes passed through.

Looking at the list of stories, the appearance of the clock seemed to almost alternate between issues. In Batman #110, in the same issue, Sprang and Moldoff draw the clock completely differently in subsequent stories. Editor Jack Schiff did not seem to care about lack of continuity, despite editing all three comics featuring Batman during the entire period.

List of all stories with the grandfather clock

Although Jack Schiff was editor of World’s Finest during this entire period, it was not until World’s Finest #109 in 1960 that the clock appeared in a story drawn by an artist other than Sheldon Moldoff or Dick Sprang. (Neither Jerry Robinson nor Lew Sayre Schwartz ever drew the clock, for example). World’s Finest #109 was drawn by Curt Swan and written by Jerry Coleman. In this story (Street date 3/3/60), “The Bewitched Batman” , Robin and Superman in costume walk through the larger clock onto the stairs beyond, and being the only instance of costumed heroes using the entrance.

I’m inclined to believe that Curt Swan was influenced by Dick Sprang’s larger clock approach than with Sheldon Moldoff’s movable clock. [Sprang was a friend of Curt Swan , referring to him by first name only in an AlterEgo #107 interview]

Swan was to draw the clock twice more, in 1964 and 1965 (this time in stories written by Edmond Hamlilton) and in each appearance drew the clock as an 8’ tall clock, but variously had the clock swing or slide aside to reveal the stairs to the cave.

The final rendition of the clock was by Al Plastino (World’s Finest #165 - street Jan 26th 1967) showing a smaller 6’ clock being simply moved to the right.

By this time, Mort Weisinger had taken on editorship of World’s Finest, and seemed completely unaware that Julie Schwartz had replaced the grandfather clock with an elevator three years earlier back in 1964!

[Unlike Marvel of this period, editorships of DC comics were run like personal fiefdoms, which explains the lack of continuity between Batman/Detective, World’s Finest and Brave & Bold during the 1960s.]

So back to the Batman trading card origins: if there was any influences at all on Norman Saunders, it was the 1943 movie serial and the comics imagery of Dick Sprang. The 1943 movie serial was the only example of Batman and Robin in costume outside the clock in Wayne Manor. This scene was most likely the source of the idea for the trading card, but Saunders or Powell may have been influenced by Curt Swan’s rendition of Robin and Superman passing through the clock.

The 1949 movie serial however provided the concept that the clock led directly to the crime lab on the same level.

More recently, there has been much retconning of the grandfather clock’s importance in the Batman mythos, with the hands of the clock being set variously to 10:47pm or 10:48pm as the time of Bruce’s parents' death. ( Batman vol. 3, #69 (March 2019))

Thursday, August 19, 2021

Newsagents of the Past - By Ian Baker

Is there anything guaranteed to make the pulse quicken faster than the sight of an old newsagents, with the prospect of a spinner rack inside containing new American comics?

When I grew up, all newsagents looked like this photo from 1974, taken by Martin Hulbert and posted on the Memories of Bygone Portsmouth Facebook group. The shop in question was in St James Street, Portsmouth (close to the Dockyard), and is one of 100+ newsagents in Portsmouth in that period. Strangely, I cannot remember ever visiting the newsagents in the photo, an area redeveloped shortly after this photo was taken.

Where have the newsagents gone? When did they stop looking like the shop in the photo?

For a bit of time travel, take a look at this video from December 16th 1969, courtesy of BBC Archive. It's a clip from Tomorrow's World featuring James Burke. Freeze the video around the 40-second mark and look at the new comics in the rack on the wall. Takes you back, eh? I can make out both an ATOM and Captain Marvel.

James Burke - Tomorrow's World © BBC Archive

Here's the link to the video https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/1074333330269704193

Friday, August 6, 2021

Batman ‘66 trading card oddities #1 - "Out On A Limb"

A while back on this blog I argued that Norman Saunders brought a pulp cover sensibility to Batman within the paintings he made for the first 3 sets of Batman trading cards issued by Topps in 1966.

One of the less lurid, but memorable, cards for me was from the second series of cards - Red Bat #13A “Out On A Limb”.

[This is memorable because I first set my eyes on the original painting over 40 years ago, during a fly-drive holiday that my pal Geoff Cousins and I did in California in the summer of 1979. The small Bristol-board image was on display under glass at American Comic Book Company, 106 N Harbor Blvd, Fullerton, CA which was one of many stores which specialized in Comics-related magazines, pulps, adventure novels, gum cards in the Los Angeles area at that time. (A shop long since gone). It was around 11am on the morning of July 10th 1979.]

American Comic Book Company site in 2021

With regard to the production of the Batman cards, the arrangement was for Bob Powell to provide the pencil layouts that Norm Saunders would subsequently use as the basis for the finished paintings. This was similar to the previous freelance arrangement that Powell had with Topps in regard to the creation of 1961’s Civil War News trading card set and 1962’s Mars Attacks set. The difference with the Mars Attacks set was that Powell did the final pencil art based on early pencil roughs (“concept roughs”) developed by Wally Wood; Norman Saunders then did the final painted art.

However, in the case of the painting of “Out on A Limb”, the image is a rendition based on the cover of the cover of DC comic Batman #57 (Feb/March 1950, on sale Dec 9th 1949), originally drawn by Win Mortimer. (J. Winslow Mortimer).

So how did the selection of this cover come about?

Bob Powell had never worked for DC. During the early 1960s Powell did draw a handful of stories for Marvel Comics featuring the superheroes Daredevil, Giant-Man, the Hulk and the Human Torch, his last comics pencilling work being for Marvel on Daredevil #11 cover dated Dec 1965.

Win Mortimer, conversely, had only ever worked for DC up until this time, and there is no evidence that Mortimer or Powell knew each other, or that Win Mortimer had any involvement in the development of the Topps cards.

A clue to the answer may lie within the text on the back of the card itself, written by the mystery third collaborator with Powell and Saunders. The text reads:

“Vicky Vale will go anywhere to get a story. When the lovely lady of the press found out too much about the Comino Gang, Vicky was thrown off a cliff. She managed to grab a limb and hold onto it until Batman came to her aid with the Batcopter.”

This text is Interesting because:

(1) Vicki Vale does not feature in the Batman TV series at all, so mentioning her seems “off-message”

(2) Vicki Vale first appeared in Batman #81, on sale a full four years after the comic cover being copied was published. The woman on the cover is not Vicki Vale.

(3) The comic book on which the painting is based contains no story linked to the cover image.

(4) The Comino Gang mentioned in the text has never featured in any Batman story, with or without Vicki Vale. Nor has the “Camino” gang, as an alternative spelling.

(5) Batman is using the Batplane, not the Batcopter, to rescue Vicki (Let’s forget the likelihood of Batman and Vicki being smashed into the side of the hillside at 500 mph).

(6) "Vicki" is misspelled as "Vicky"

So who was the mystery writer? According to Alter Ego #152, Larry Ivie wrote the text for the Batman cards illustrated by Norm Saunders.

I understand that Larry Ivie was well known in the late 1950s/early 1960s comics community primarily as a comics fan, but in fact he latterly became a comics pro, writer and illustrator, although his mark on the industry consciousness has been faint. According to Roy Thomas, Ivie was famed in fandom for his big comic collection since the 1940s, and subsequently worked for Marvel, Charlton, Archie, DC , EC, Dell and Warren plus others over the years.

According to www.bailsproject.com, Ivie ghost-wrote some Batman stories at DC around 1965, and as per writer Sandy Plunkett in Alter Ego 152, Ivie also wrote the scripts for “mini-comics” featuring Batman that were included as premiums inside boxes of Pop Tarts in the US in 1966.

Ivie was engaged on these Batman comic projects at the same time that he was doing freelance work for Wally Wood at his studio. My guess is that based on Ivie’s concurrent Batman work and the common knowledge of Ivie as having a large DC comic collection, is that Wally Wood recommended Ivie to Topps to write the text on the trading cards.

Powell was suffering from health issues at this time, and Ivie may well have chosen the cover of Batman 57, not Powell. The reference to Vicki Vale and the Comino Gang may well have been that no-one was checking the card narrative against the TV series “bible”, and Ivie relied on his knowledge of past Batman comics to develop the text.

Ivie’s mention of “Batcopter” is interesting. Perhaps Ivie’s idea was to substitute the Batcopter for the plane but Saunders’ direction to use the Batman #57 cover as a template missed-out that suggestion.

Of course, this is all conjecture. I’m not aware of any detailed history of the development of the Batman cards (can anyone point me to one?), but I’m sure there are stories behind many of the cards. Certainly some of the “Black Bat“ set seem to have been painted by someone other than Norm Saunders, for example.

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

The Criminal as Anti-Hero in Comics by Ian Baker

I was watching Get Carter earlier this week - a film I had not watched for 25 years or so - and pondered that although the film (and the book on which it was based) were created in the time of the Bronze Age, that the concept of criminal as hero (existing in the genre "neo-noir") was not something that had figured in the comics I was reading at that time.

For those of you unfamiliar with the novel Get Carter (aka Jack’s Return Home) by Ted Lewis, or the satisfyingly faithful film adaptation directed by Mike Hodges (starring Michael Caine) the story revolves around a London gang enforcer returning to his hometown to discover who killed his brother, and exact retribution.

It’s a compelling story and has been hailed as a seminal “Brit-noir” classic, although if truth be told, the film shares elements with the 1961 film Blast of Silence (which starts with a train emerging from a tunnel into daylight) and ends on a very similar note as the credits roll.

Get Carter also shares many similarities in premise and execution with both the book and films of Richard Stark’s (pseudonym of Donald Westlake) The Hunter, in which the anti-hero Parker is on a personal mission to hunt down the fellow gangsters who betrayed him.

3 versions of The Hunter: Paperback © University of Chicago Press, Hardback with plates by Darwyn Cooke © PenguinRandomHouse, Comic Adaptation © IDW Publishing

My first exposure to this type of storytelling was around June 1st 1974 (the weekend incidentally following my first comic-con attendance in Emsworth) when my pal Geoff Cousins and I went to the Essoldo cinema in Albert Rd, Southsea to see The Outfit, a film adapted from an early Parker novel by Richard Stark. I remember being slightly confused that I was being asked to root for the bad guy.

The popularity of these types of films has persisted since Kubrick’s The Killing in 1956, through to the current day. Most notable in the 1960s was Point Blank, the first adaptation of Richard Stark’s The Hunter, the Parker debut starring Lee Marvin as Walker (the name substituted for Parker).

The protagonist of these films is usually a man untroubled by conventional morality, but works and acts within the bounds of his own code of conduct. A professional with survival skills, only in extremis is he driven by emotions of retribution or revenge. Unlike the purer motives of the Private Detective in fiction, he is only driven to right past wrongs where he has a personal stake in the outcome. Sometimes mistakenly categorized within the P.I. genre, in fact the neo-noir genre is a genre unto itself. The website The Violent World of Parker is a good starting point for a deeper dive into the books and films that inspire or are inspired by this genre, and is highly recommended.

So how has the neo-noir hero fared in comics?

It is fair to say that the image of the criminal anti-hero has been a creation of the movies which was then transplanted into comics ,and has been nurtured most recently by creators the likes of Ed Brubaker, Frank Miller, Max Allan Collins, Darwyn Cooke and others.

Crime comics were big in the 1940s and 1950s (Crime Does Not Pay, Justice Traps The Guilty, etc), with a clear mandate to show that criminal activity was a bad thing. Nonetheless, the tough material was squeezed out during the purge of comics in the late 1950s which feared glamorizing the criminal, leaving the likes of the anodyne DC’s Mr District Attorney to pick up the slack.

Mr District Attorney post-Frederic Wertham

In the next decade, Gil Kane independently published His Name Is... Savage #1 (June 1968), which had an image of Lee Marvin as Parker on the front cover, riffing on the Parker persona by making the lead an espionage agent, and jettisoning the criminal element of the character.

Crime stories resurfaced briefly in 1972 in Jack Kirby’s In The Days of the Mob (a look back at organized crime in the 1940s) , and DC introduced Jonah Hex - (All Star Western #10 Feb 1972) - a bounty hunter who worked outside the law - but this was the closest that DC would come to a criminal anti hero until Max Allan Collins wrote about a mob enforcer on The Road to Perdition in 1998 for Paradox Press (a DC imprint).

Over at Marvel, February 1974 saw the introduction of Frank Castle as the Punisher in the Amazing Spider-Man, and so the idea of a man who operates outside the law and adopts extreme tactics in pursuit of the unredeemable entered the MCU.

Pulp revivals of the likes of the Shadow in the late 1980’s started to introduce a more brutal modern interpretation of the anti-hero, but with a clear understanding that our protagonist was on the side of law-and-order.

Sin City from Frank Miller introduced a neo-noir world in April 1991, but no single protagonist who fit the professional thief mould.

It was Darwyn Cooke who finally brought the character of Parker (renamed “Stark”), the professional thief and hard man, into the original DC graphic novel Selina’s Last Score (2002), to be followed by a brief re-appearance in DC’s Solo (2004), Stark coming off the worse for wear following an altercation with Batman in the story Deja Vu.

Since then, several American and British comic book writers have created interesting work in the crime comics genre, sometimes incorporating noir themes and novelistic storytelling into realistic crime dramas and even into superhero comics. These writers include Brian Azzarello (100 Bullets, Jonny Double), Brian Michael Bendis (Sam and Twitch, Jinx, Powers, Alias), Ed Brubaker (Gotham Central, Criminal), Frank Miller, David Lapham, John Wagner (A History of Violence, Button Man), Chris Condon and Paul Grist, ably interpreteded by artists of the calibre of Sean Phillips and Jacob Phillips.

Their work has figured predominantly in independent comic magazines, and increasingly in original graphic novels (OGNs). Interestingly, Sean Phillips was commissioned to adapt the opening sequence of 1961's Blast of Silence into a short comic included with Criterion's DVD release of the film in 2008. Take a look at his blog for more information.

The pioneering work of Darwyn Cooke and IDW in 2009 of adapting the Parker novels directly to hardback OGNs has opened the gate for subsequent creators to bring these sorts of stories to a different audience than the average comic-book reader.

Those of you who have seen Get Carter may recall that the opening sequence of the train journey from London to Newcastle is a fascinating montage of the exterior of increasingly nondescript cities and empty farmland intercut with Carter enjoying the luxury of First Class travel on British Rail in 1970. Carter surveys his fellow travelers and notices that one passenger is reading the The Sun newspaper with the headline “Gaming Chiefs warn of Gang Wars” while a schoolboy reads a comic.

Name that comic - presumably 1970/1971 timeframe

Can anyone identify the comic?