Thursday, October 27, 2016

Halloween Special: How Batman Got His Groove Back: "THE Batman Returns!"

Art by Neal Adams
The Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder are flabbergasted as criminals they encounter react in terror to their mere presence, the way such fiends did in the early days of their crime-fighting careers!
Have criminals once more become "a superstitious, cowardly lot"?
An anonymous call to the Mantled Manhunter inviting him to discover the answer may hold the key...
Written by Frank Robbins, penciled by Bob Brown, and inked by Joe Giella, this tale from DC's Detective Comics #389 (1969) began the deliberate attempt to restore Batman to the Dark Knight of the 1940s!
From this point onward, both the writers and artists worked towards restoring the "creature of the night" motif that had disappeared in the late 1940s.
(Neal Adams had begun to do that on covers, but, once this story was published, he was able to go all-out on stories as well, with other artists like Irv Novick following suit!)
Considering how this tale changed the orientation of the character (and actually gave an explanation for his alteration of Method of Operation, restoring the bat as a symbol of avenging justice), it's odd this tale had never been reprinted in the US until 2006...and only in black and white!
Bonus: the cover from a Swedish reprint...
...taken from the story itself (as shown HERE!)
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Please Support Hero Histories
Visit Amazon and Order...
featuring the tale we'll be running...but in black and white!

Wednesday, October 26, 2016

Halloween Special: How Batman Got His Groove Back "From BRIGHT Knight to DARK Knight!"

In 1969, the Batman TV series had been cancelled...
...and Bat-titles' sales were dropping!
The "camp" approach had been phased out of the comics, but Batman was, at this point, just another costumed character.
While artists like Neal Adams and Irv Novick had been incorporating "darker" bat-imagery into the art, the writing hadn't reflected what they were trying to do, staying with the "costumed detective" plots of the pre-tv stories of the early 1960s.
Until this story...
Will Batman Bite the Bait?
Will the Scarecrow Use Batman's Own Motif to Destroy Him?
For the Astounding Answer to These and Other Questions...
One Hint...the Scariest is Yet to Come!
Written by Frank Robbins, penciled by Bob Brown, and inked by Joe Giella, this tale from DC's Detective Comics #389 (1969) began a deliberate attempt to restore Batman to the Dark Knight of the 1940s!
Please Support Hero Histories
Visit Amazon and Order...
featuring the tale we'll be running...but in black and white!

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Halloween Special: How Batman Got His Groove Back!

How did Batman go from...
...the campy Bright Knight to...
...the terrifying Dark Knight in 1968-69?
(We don't normally do entries on the "big-name" DC and Marvel characters, but this particular story hasn't been seen in color since its' initial publication, and it is horror/terror-themed, so we decided to make an exception.)
Please Support Hero Histories
Visit Amazon and Order...
featuring the tale we'll be running...but in black and white!