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

© Topps and possibly Estate of Norman Saunders. Who knows?

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).   

© DC comics

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.

© Alter Ego #152

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.

© DC comics - a panel from one of the Pop-Tart comic inserts written by Larry Ivie

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.