Batman 1978

Pin-up from Batman Family.

Comics weren't doing so well in the later 1970s. At a convention just after the bicentennial, a young Dave Olbrich approached Marv Wolfman and asked what he could do to break into comics. "Don't," said Wolfman. "In 5 years there isn't going to be any comics."

Wolfman was wrong of course - in the early 80s, the industry was booming  - but at the time, it was a reasonable view; all signs pointed to imminent collapse. At DC this was especially true. 1978 was the year of the DC Implosion, with cancellation of almost half the company's titles and mass layoffs.

Much to the Joker's delight, this spread some (mild) chaos in the titles Batman appeared in.

All-Star Comics folded, and the JSA wandered between the worlds before settling in Adventure Comics, as we'll see in 1979.

Power Girl landed in Showcase.

And the Huntress followed in Black Canary's footsteps and went over to Earth-1.

They teased her doing so for a few months before she finally introduced herself. (EDIT: I'm told this is not the Huntress but Catwoman, which would indeed make sense, given that she's walking around with a cat and all. I could have sworn something indicated elsewhere that this was the Huntress, despite that detail, but now I can find no corroboration of this.)

FURTHER EDIT: Yep, I was 100% wrong. Here's Selina Kyle introducing herself to Bruce Wayne in Batman #308. (She's removed the flower from her hat and changed coats, but it's the same person.)

In other media, DC was doing pretty well. Richard Donner's Superman was huge, the Wonder Woman TV show was a genuine pop culture landmark of the era, and the various Batman animated series were all flying high. But the comics were a different story.

WORLD'S FINEST COMICS

(Issues 248 - 253)

Writers: Bob Haney, E. Nelson Bridwell, Gerry Conway, Steve Ditko. Artists: Kurt Schaffenberger, Frank Chiaramonte, Don Newton, Steve Dikto, George Tuska, Vince Colletta, Tex Blaisdell.

In a face-saving move of sorts, DC expanded some of its titles to Dollar Comics as it slashed production elsewhere. World's Finest began featuring the adventures of Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Green Arrow, and The Creeper (written and drawn by Steve Ditko) alongside Superman and Batman. The Creeper ones are cool if you like Ditko (and I run hot or cold on him)

The Wonder Woman stories are actually pretty good. This splash makes it seem as if this is some lurid-race-panic affair, and while it's hardly that at all in the reading, I wouldn't fault you for raising an eyebrow.

The Superman and Batman stories (alas, no Jrs.) are almost all Silver Age throwbacks in conception and execution.

Superman vet Kurt Schaffenberger joined the fold, and while this art looks beautiful to my eyes now, it was very anachronistic for 1978. Comic book art (as Kirby was finding over at Marvel) was moving in an entirely different direction.

Like the Batman can even feel his skull at this point!

Some of the stories are actually pretty surreal. (Though "surreal" and "Silver Age throwback" are interchangeable.)

I am a sucker for any neutron bomb reference. They are fewer and further between than you'd think.

And speaking of weapons of mass destruction: Jon Rambo?

The Marvel family kept trying to find a place in DC's line-up to thrive in the 70s. I'm not sure they ever really succeeded. (Actually, excepting Alan Moore's Marvelman, I'm not sure they ever really clicked anywhere other than the original Whiz Comics from the 40s and 50s.)

They do have a villain named Captain Nazi, though.

JLA
(Issues 151 - 161)

Writer: Gerry Conway. Artists: Dick Dillin, Frank McLaughlin, George Tuska

Most of the year falls into this pattern:

Another team meeting.

The women discuss gender roles.

The Atom agonizes over his impending nuptials.

Red Tornado finds time for a self-pitying remark.

Green Arrow gives "that speech" again.

And then this happens.

Rinse wash repeat.

The year's cross-over event has the feel of any bloated variety show or fundraiser from the late 70s or early 80s.

I've said it before, but why DC felt it needed to have a yearly multiverse-threatening crisis that also reintroduced some new arrangement of forgotten or rebooted superheroes is beyond me. There's tradition, and then there's stuff like this, where everyone just goes through the motion in the name of it and draws no reinvigoration.

It does give the Batman the occasion to reflect on the child he never had:

BATMAN FAMILY

(Issues 15 - 20)

Writers: Bob Rozakis, Gerry Conway, Denny O'Neil, Paul Levitz, David Reed. Artists: Lee Elias, Joe Giella, Don Heck, John Celardo, Jim Aparo, Bob Wiacek, Vince Colletta, Michael Golden, Craig Russell, Juan Ortiz, Joe Staton, Bob Layton.

Looks more like Miller to me than Starlin. Early Miller, that is, not angry-big-hands Miller of the years to come. Not that I'm in any way suggesting Starlin isn't his own man, artwise. (And this pre-dates Miller - you never hear much about Miller's art being Starlin-esque, but maybe I'll throw that out there now and see what happens.)

The last year of Batman Family is chockful of good stuff. And a whole lot of Man-Bat. And if those two things aren't mutually exclusive for you, you're in even better shape. Some familiar faces return:

 

 

and Batgirl and the Huntress (who gets a back-up along the way) prove they're definitely in the Bat-clan:

Starting with cover date January 1979 (on sale fall 1978) Batman Family was folded into:

DETECTIVE COMICS

(Issues 475 - 486)

Writers: Steve Englehart, Len Wein, Denny O'Neil. Artists: Marshall Rogers, Terry Austin, Jim Starlin, Dick Giordano, Don Newton, David Hunt

Saleswise, Detective Comics was actually the Bat-title on the chopping block, but DC figured it couldn't exactly cancel the series from whose title it derived its initials. So the better-selling Batman Family was folded into it.

That all happened in cover-date 1979, though, so we'll see those next time. This year starts off with perhaps the most well-regarded Joker story of the '70s outside of "The Joker's Five Way Revenge" (back in Batman 251.)

It's a decent two-parter, definitely. People have been telling me for years that Sam Hamm's script for Batman (1989) drew heavily on this for inspiration, but I didn't really see anything in it that wasn't in a dozen other Batman stories (prior to 1978) I can think of. Still pretty good, though.

Steve Englehart was hired by Jenette Kahn to write Marvel-style stories for JLA and Batman, and he certainly does so here, weaving in multi-issue sub-plots with haunted bosses and a girlfriend who guesses the Batman's secret identity. This latter story ends with a Bat-break-up and informs the last page of the Joker two-parter, which comes up often in any discussion of the period.

Otherwise, there's a throwback to "The House that Haunted Batman" from Detective Comics #408 (way back in 1971) and the return of (an all-new) Clayface.

As mentioned elsewhere, I've been playing Lego Batman concurrent to writing all these blogs, on the Hemingway / Wall of Sound principle that things buried in the mix but inaudible/ not discussed add dimensions to the work above the water line. And I feel the need to give a shout-out to Lego Clayface here, as once you unlock him, he makes everything so much easier!

THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD

(Issues 139 - 145)

Writers: Bob Haney, Cary Burkett. Artist: Jim Aparo

This year's stretch of team-ups includes Hawkman, Wonder Woman, Black Canary, Aquaman, the Creeper, Green Arrow, and the Phantom Stranger. A pretty familiar line-up at this point, isn't it? Compare it to the variety in Marvel Two in One or Marvel Team-Up of the same few years.

Going through the motions, more or less.

Some cool art as always.

Get a job, sir.

BATMAN

(Issues 295 - 306)

Writers: Gerry Conway, David Reed. Artists: Michael Golden, Sal Amendola, Rich Buckler, Vince Colletta, John Calnan, Dick Giordano, Walt Simonson, Tex Blaisdell

Meh. Nothing really jumps out as particularly worthy of discussion. Feels like a placeholder year for the line.

The David Reed-penned stories are all perfectly acceptable - so are the Conway ones, for that matter - but I've already forgotten what they were about. I look at the covers and images and remember taking them in, but nothing stuck.

I did bring you back a couple of souvenirs, though:

AND THE BEST BATMAN STORY

OF 1978 IS...

Note: as with a few other entries to this "Best of..." feature, this one might not be the actual best story of the year.

from Batman Family #18.

We begin with the above - frogmen on the Potomac, advancing menacingly on the Pentagon! Which is, apparently, remarkably easy.

Keep in mind: Barbara Gordon is a congresswoman.

Thank God, though, that her date has chosen this Makeout Point to park, as it allows her to espy the would-be terrorists.

I won't draw it out. The set-up is what blows my mind, there, above. 

If it ended there - Batgirl on this inexplicable date who just happens to thwart a would-be assault on an undefended Pentagon - it'd be chuckleworthy but not showcased. What brings it to the next level is the sudden appearance of:

The Pentagon, you see, was built to harness the mystical powers of the earth. (This might explain the intermittent blood sacrifice the State Department feels obliged to ritually enact once every generation - got to keep The Old Ones happy.)

Madame Zodiac feels obliged to let the Pentagon's engineers off the hook, there.

It all goes pretty much as you might expect. I enjoyed this callback to the meteor shower at story's end:

And that's all she wrote. Only one of these left! How did we get here so fast? See you next time for the last year of the Batman's swinging seventies adventures.