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This would be the fourth installment of the Batman Chronicles. I did a review for Superman Chronicles but if you haven’t read it (shame on you), the Chronicles series reprints the Batman and Superman stories in chronilogical order from their very first appearances. This collection reprints Detective Comics #’s 51 through 56, Batman #’s 6 and 7 and World’s Finest Comics #’s 2 and 3. The early Batman’s are much different from what we are used to. It is still a much darker title than early Superman but the big difference are the amount of fatalities. Usually Batman and Robin will fight some criminals and they’d end up dead, either by shooting themselves or falling from a great height. Now, another note on early Batman titles. The Batman comics were released bi-monthly and featured 4 stories. Detective Comics was not solely dedicated to Batman. He was the main star and on the cover, but featured 3 other stories featuring other characters. That’s about it, let’s see how the early Batman fared.
-Detective Comics #51- This is the Case of the Mystery Carnival. Bruce and Dick go to a carnival (no, that’s not weird at all) and there’s foul dealings afoot. Col. Dawes, who runs the place, is missing and replaced by a man pretending to be him. Batman and Robin investigate and find a criminal gang running the show. They fight them, go through all the amusement park gags (funny mirrors, rollercoasters) until Batman and Robin are victorious!
-Detective Comics #52- This is a mystery tale of an ancient ring of Genghis Khan winding up in criminal hands. Batman and Robin investigate to get this ring back and avenge the murder of the man who unwittingly bought the box. Not too much going on here.
-Detective Comics #53- This was a rather odd tale where someone tells Bruce that Gotham has no heart. So Batman arranges for an understudy to become the star of a show when her parents stop in for a visit. He manages to pull this off, knock off some criminals in the process, and show his friend that Gotham has a heart.
-Detective Comics #54- This was a good one where Batman and Robin battle a troop of water pirates. The pirates have been stealing cargo from many ships and the police can’t find them. Batman and Robin discover their secret hideout and Batman must defeat a man with a hook. You know they win in the end but Batman actually gets captured and thrown in an icebox and must escape. This one showed some blood, too. The man with the hook sliced Batman’s chest open before finally being defeated.
-Detective Comics #55- A Russian has stolen American inventions that allows him to mind-control an army of his own all in the name of throwing down American Imperialism. Batman and Robin must stop him, his troops and the dirigible from hell. The cover date is September 1941, which was right in the midst of the Second World War but before the US officially entered the war.
-Detective Comics #56- This was a unique one. Batman and Robin are on vacation and visit a ghost town. Its weird where a billionaire and ward go to vacation. There’s a crazy old guy talking about a weird stone figure. When the stone figure falls, it seemingly comes to life and threatens the town! Of course, not all is at is seems. It seems the crazy old man has found a silver mine that he wants to keep hidden from everyone and uses circus folk to keep it hidden. Batman and Robin save the day, however.
-Batman #6- There were four stories here and they are as follows. First, Batman must solve the mystery of criminals being released from prison only to work for a known gangster. It seems that a gang member is working from the inside and Batman finally figures it out. The second one was an interesting one where a crazy clockmaker wants to kill some people who are killing time. Bruce Wayne is even on the list. Batman gets to the bottom of the clockmaker and learns his strings were pulled by someone wanting full control of a clock company. The clockmaker still must be stopped from blowing up the town. The third story is one where Bruce’s love interest says her father is in trouble. It seems that his partner wants control of his oil plant and will even kill him to get it. Batman and Robin head down to Texas and stop the gangsters from taking control of the oil rigs. The final tale features Batman and Robin stopping a troop of gangsters and crooked politicians running a small section of town and cops called it the suicide beat. One father is happy his son is now a cop and then gets killed on suicide beat. The son takes over that beat and when Batman and Robin arrive on the scene, the crooked politicans reign of terror is almost over.
-Batman #7- This is another collection of four stories. The first has the Joker reappearing on the scene and getting an army of criminals to assist him in stealing diamonds and money. Batman and Robin are first tricked by a group of cronies wearing Joker masks but after a Joker riddle (hmm, sounds like an idea for another villain) they manage to stop his plot to steal $10,000 and Joker gets thrown off a train. Will he cheat death again? I think you can answer that. The second and third stories weren’t too well, the second one deals with a mage called Granda and his two, “Hindu Giants,” and some crime that Batman and Robin stop, and the third deals with Batman and Robin stopping a criminal from trying to blackmail a lumberjack and his company. It leads to love between the adopted brother and the sister of the murdered father who owned the company. The fourth story was actually interesting, dealing with Bruce Wayne being framed for murder and Robin trying to clear his name. He breaks Bruce out of prison so Bruce can become Batman and after a Gordon admonishing Batman, Bruce is found innocent. Two good stories and two pretty average ones make this an ok issue.
-World’s Finest #2- This is a pure gang tale. Bruce knows the new DA who plans on busting up the rackets plaguing the city. The gangs get word of this and vow to take him out. One gang member shows and then a rival gang shows up. Batman and Robin show up and find this DA is dead! They also find one of the members but he’s amnesiac and can’t tell who shot him. They go after the other gang and after dispatching of them the amnesiac recovers him memory and blurts out that he shot the DA. That was a pretty good twist at the end and I enjoyed this story. It also featured a great Batman line. He was talking to a woman and when she asked him something he replied with, “just like a woman, always asking questions. Be patient.” I love the 40’s.
-World’s Finest #3- This is a classic for any Batman fan. This is the introduction of Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow. He starts out as a psychology teacher who everything thinks is a bit too weird. All he cares about are books and his peers laugh at him for not having money. He goes a little insane, decides to get money by wearing a scarecrow outfit (since he’s dubbed the scarecrow by everyone at work), and terrorizes the city. Batman and Robin investigate the mystery of the Scarecrow, discover his identity and take him down. He isn’t killed like many other villains of the era, no, he’s sent to jail. Good introduction of Scarecrow, though a Scarecrow Year One would be awesome in showing how he got that way.
-The Bottom Line- It’s interesting reading these stories side by side with the Superman Chronicles. I think, on the whole, the Batman stories were more well-written and even a bit darker. Superman was super powerful so there was never a threat (at this point in the 40’s) but Batman was just human and could often be knocked out. You would sometimes even see Batman not stopping a criminal from falling or dying. Of course, this stuff is over 60 years old and the storytelling and styles were radically different. Stories were shorter, phrases or common vernacular then may seem corny now, but a good story is a good story no matter what year the comic was written. This collection featured some of the better stories seen in Batman chronicles, especially the introduction of the Scarecrow. This is a collection to be picked up.
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