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...

...Tune In TOMORROW!

Same Bat-Blog!

Same Bat-Time!

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!

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Showcase Presents

Batman

Vol 4

featuring the tale we'll be running...but in black and white!

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?

Find out tomorrow as we unearth the hidden tale that most Bat-fans don't know about!

(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...

Showcase Presents

Batman

Vol 4

featuring the tale we'll be running...but in black and white!

Reading Room PLASTIC MAN "Dirty Devices of Dr Dome" Part 3 (Conclusion)

When Last We Left the Original Stretchable Sleuth...

It seems there's a lot of people who would wish harm upon happy-go-lucky Plastic Man!

Super villains like Dr Dome and Professor X!

The elitist (and extremely rich) Mrs DeLute and her butler Fawnish!

The arrogant (and inept) police Captain McSniffe!

And the conflicted daughter of Dr Dome, Lynx, who both loves our Stretchable Slacker and continually tries to kill him!

With this set-up in place, the title ran nine more issues.
Arnold Drake would remain as writer for the entire series.
Win Mortimer would take over interior art from 2-7, with Jack Sparling finishing the series from 7-10.
Carmine Infantino and Joe Orlando would contribute covers.
This being the 1960s, Plas would battle both mod-dressed characters and gorillas!
After an issue presenting three different origin tales, Plas' pliable pappy, the Golden Age (Quality Comics) Plastic Man appeared along with sidekick Woozy Winks!
There was a campy cross-over with Batman in Brave and Bold.
Then he disappeared for several years before being revived as an amnesiac involved in a romance with a villainess.
But that's a story for another time.
Speaking of stories, I believed this tale had never been reprinted, but it appeared in DC's Plastic Man 80-Page Giant (2004), which reprinted several of Plas' "famous firsts".
The rest of the 1960s series has not been reprinted, and we may present them here...

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Jack Cole and Plastic Man:

Forms Stretched to their Limits

by Art Spiegelman and Chip Kidd

Reading Room PLASTIC MAN "Dirty Devices of Dr Dome" Part 2

When Last We Left the Stretchable Slacker of the Sixties...

Professor X (not the bald, wheelchair-bound leader of the X-Men) is sent by Dr Dome to destroy Plas (and his best friend, the rather straight-laced Gordon [Gordy] Trueblood) before they can interfere with his newest plan to rule the world...

So, a super-hero sitcom!
Apparently inspired by the success of TV's Batman, writer Arnold Drake and artist Gil Kane went the "camp" route with a semi-serious/semi-humorous approach.
Looking back 50 years, I can see why they tried it, but I can also see why it failed as compared to Jack Cole's classic strip.
The big difference is that Cole's stories, though humorous, actually made sense!
This tale, though fun, doesn't hang together logically, ruining the counterpoint of the humor.
The story serves the jokes, not vice-versa!

Be here tomorrow for the...weird...finale!

Please Support Hero Histories

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Jack Cole and Plastic Man:

Forms Stretched to their Limits

by Art Spiegelman and Chip Kidd

Reading Room PLASTIC MAN "Dirty Devices of Dr Dome" Part 1

Here's a bit of comic book history...

...which tells you it's a chapter in comic book history on its' own splash page!

In 1966, DC Comics decided to revive one of the many characters it had purchased from the now-defunct Quality Comics line.
Next to Blackhawk (which DC had kept going as an ongoing title from the demise of Quality onward), the most successful character had been Plastic Man, who headlined Police Comics as well as his own book for over 15 years!
The problem was that the character, under creator/writer/artist Jack Cole, was so unique, that finding someone to carry it onward in an equally-quirky manner was difficult.
DC gave it a shot anyway, with writer Arnold Drake and artist Gil Kane.
Ironically, both of them were also pioneers of the comics medium, being the writer of the first graphic novel (It Rhymes with Lust [1950]) and writer/artist of the second graphic novel (BlackMark [1971]), respectively!
Yet, on this project, they don't quite gel, though they both do their damnedest!

Please Support Hero Histories

Visit Amazon and Order...

Jack Cole and Plastic Man:

Forms Stretched to their Limits

by Art Spiegelman and Chip Kidd