Batman: 1972

Image from here.

 Let's just dive right in.

WORLD'S FINEST

(issues 211, 215)

Writers: Denny O'Neil, Bob Haney. Artist: Dick Dillin

As in 1971, Batman only appears in 2 of the year's World's Finest stories, and one of them is this "What if / Elseworlds" saga imagining a world with "the Super-Sons."

The identities of the Super-Moms are kept secret.

 Kind of silly. I like the sideburns everyone has, though. (Even Alfred's in on the act.) 

Although we saw Superman dramatically destroying his super-robot-duplicates last year, apparently he kept one or two of them around.

 The panel on the right is Batman shrinking down to visit Kandor. I've always loved the idea of Kandor, the bottled-city, and the endless angst of Superman's inability to restore them to their proper size. It's a bit like Reed Richards' decades-long failure to restore Ben Grimm's humanity, despite routinely designing devices that dismantle seemingly much more difficult problems.

JLA

(issues 96 - 103)

Writers: Mike Friedrich, Len Wein. Artist: Dick Dillin

 Another less-than-stellar year for DC's premier super-team. Things get started with the latest threat from "the most dangerous villain we've ever faced," which prompts Hawkman to get the team to revisit how they came together in the first place, Golden Girls style. For an entire issue.

"Dewey Cox needs to think about his entire life before he plays..."

 I mean, it's not the first or only time this sort of thing happened in comics of the era, but it's not handled very well. Naturally, it revives their fighting spirit, and the good guys prevail. They receive some help from a Golden Age DC hero named Sargon, and one of his old adventures is reprinted.

 Issues 100-102 are devoted to the annual JLA/ JSA cross-over. I'm a fan of these crossovers in theory, but so far in the 70s, they've been big duds. Harmless enough but kind of a slog to get through.

This year's crossover involves the Seven Soldiers of Victory:

I don't know much about these guys. I've been meaning to read Grant Morrison's ambitious mega-series with the characters for years but never have.

The story occasions some fun absurdities.

 Issue 103 features two things worth mentioning. One, the appearance of several characters dressed as Marvel heroes at a Halloween parade:

And two, the in-story appearance of Mike Friedrich, Glynis and Len Wein, and a few other folks writing or editing for DC at the time:

DC later established "Earth Prime" (i.e. our own world, where we write and read superhero comics) as an official dimension in their pre-Crisis multiverse, which allowed for such shenanigans to metastasize. (This is probably the only alternate earth I was happy to see eradicated by Crisis.) So, I guess the folks we're seeing here are only their Earth 1 equivalents? If so, are there Earth 2, Earth X, etc. equivalents? I'm being serious, here - is it not possible, now, to do a legitimate series in New 52 history with Mike Friedrich et al.? I mean, it's possible without any sort of precedent, of course, I'm just saying: it doesn't really work or serve much point here, but one could at least point to it as "These characters existed in 2-dimensional reality as much as any other DC creation."

The story (yet to be covered) that establishes Earth Prime is written by Cary Bates and Elliot Maggin. And Grant Morrison appears in Animal Man. That's three more. I should pitch this to DC: The League of DC Writers Who Have Appeared in Their Own Stories. (I'll work on it.)

THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD

(issues 100 - 104)

Writer: Bob Haney. Artists: Jim Aparo, Bob Brown

Batman's compatriots this time around include Green Arrow, Black Canary, Robin, Metamorpho, the Teen Titans, the Metal Men, and Deadman.

I love how Batman is just walking around, scoping out the babes. Minis were likely a shock to the system, though, it's understandable.

The issue with Green Arrow and the Black Canary doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but there's some amusing sexism from Robin:

"Those legs --!!" Later he is confounded by women's lib.

I'm actually starting to enjoy Robin's one-man war both alongside and against the counter-culture in this stretch of the Batverse. Every year so far has seen him tousle with cultists, radicals, and political separatists.

The Teen Titans issue isn't especially good, but I've been getting a chuckle out of all the groovy lingo. A different kind of "lib" is explored in the Metal Men issue:

This is the real Relevance movement in comics!

The Deadman story was kind of a dud, but I'm not a particular fan of the character. Why, you ask? Because he does this:

waaaaaay too much. (This is a favorite, though.)

BATMAN

(issues 238 - 246)

Writers: Denny O'Neil, Frank Robbins, Elliot Maggin.
Artists: Irv Novick, Neal Adams.

 

A pretty disappointing year for Batman. Not so much for the Robin back-ups, though. In addition to hi-jinks with Jesus Freaks (that's their in-story designation, not mine:)

"Behold the bad vibes that are the result!"

he dives feet-first into the race relations of the era with:

...

As if that wasn't enough, he finds himself drawn into a shadowy supernatural world of a mysterious beautiful stranger:

Did I mention this also involves a Cult of Cthulhu, as well? Robin leads an interesting life. Anyway, back to Batman. The primary storyline running through these issues is Batman's ongoing struggle with Ra's Al Ghul the revelation of his immortality, as well as his conflicted feelings for Ra's daughter Talia.

Something for the ladies...

As amusingly fetish-friendly as Batman is here, I've got to say, this whole Ra's Al Ghul / Talia stuff comes across as very forced. Very break-Worf's-arm syndrome. Ra's is in Batman's life for all of five minutes before they mutually declare, multiple times, the other to be his most dangerous foe. Hell, as we saw last time, Ra's is introduced knowing Batman's secret identity and having broken into the Batcave; no build-up, just wham, I am now one of your worthiest adversaries! I tend to resist when new characters are sold to me this way. To draw an X-Men parallel, I enjoyed both Mister Sinister and Apocalypse as new villains when they were introduced, but within only a few appearances, X-history was retconned to elevate them far past their station. I prefer to see characters and relationships develop more organically. Not necessarily decompressed over years, just not so contrived.

All in all, Ra's and Talia are much better represented in the Nolan movies. If that's your only exposure to those characters, you're better served in those than you would be by these.

DETECTIVE COMICS

(issues 419 - 430)

Writers: Denny O'Neil, Frank Robbins. 

Artists: Bob Brown, Don Heck, Irv Novick, Frank Robbins

Frank Robbins is the dominant presence on the book for these issues. I'm of two minds on the man's work. At times, I'm really blown away by his art:

Even if his Bruce Wayne looks a little too much like Peter Fonda.

and other times it just repels me. I experienced both in equal measure going through these issues. Sometimes the story is cartoonish enough where the art helps it along, but at other times, well...

His style is a bit too Mad magazine-y for this sort of thing.

As a result of this, this year of Detective Comics is more than a little uneven. Sadly, too, it sees the end of the Batgirl back-up, which I often enjoyed more than the main story.

So long, Batgirl. See you when we get to Batman Family (1975) I guess.

An uninteresting supporting character (Jason Kane) replaces her for a few issues, and then random reprints. Including this one with art from the incomparable Alex Toth:

AND THE GREATEST BATMAN STORY

OF 1972 IS...

actually a reprint issue that only features about 35% Batman content.

The Batman stories are fine slices of Silver Age mayhem.

A special Dog Star Prize to anyone who can tell me the last comic wherein superfolk had to navigate a super-sized pinball machine. You just don't see this sort of thing too much anymore. (Happy to be corrected, here, if anyone has a 21st century example.)

But it's the reprints of other characters that really entertained me. I only know the Doom Patrol from Morrison's famed run on the title, but I enjoyed their origin story enough -

By the way, this story (written by Arnold Drake) preceded Marvel's X-Men by more than a few months. Lots of parallels between the two set-ups. But that was the way things were done in the Silver Age.

- for me to break out one of the Doom Patrol Essentials I received years ago as a Christmas or birthday present. I doubt I'll cover it here on the blog, but rest assured, I'll be enjoying it.

And finally, this could be the best Aquaman splash page of all time:

 I can't claim to know anything about the character or his backstory. Like most folks of my generation, the Super-Friends cartoon is the only reason I know who he even is. Oh, I've read his character bio and seen him in plenty of things, but he just never clicked with me. This story didn't turn me into a huge fan or anything, but I was charmed by its goofy innocence. 

So endeth 1972. See you next time.