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Well, after getting only the slightest taste of what’s to come with DC’s new Absolute Comics imprint in last week’s DC All-In, we are getting the first official title this week with Absolute Batman.
Which is smart, of course, since of The Big Three at DC (Batman, Superman, and Swamp Thing Wonder Woman), Batman is the easiest sell. Much like the Black Label imprint, kicked off by a Batman mini (goosed a bit by some small controversy) grab the fans with the Caped Crusader, then once you have their eyeballs, try to sell ’em on, like, Absolute Elongated Man or whatever.
Demand is sky-high for Absolute Batman #1, so much so that even the exorbitant number I ordered has me thinking “wellll, should have ordered more, maybe.” I haven’t had quite as many queries into the following Superman and Wonder Woman launches, though I did have my fair share of “add all Absolute titles to my pull list, please” so I guess that counts.
As to the book itself, without getting into spoilers I’ll say the comic is fine, a drastically different Batman with many of the key aspects of the character altered or gone entirely. Advanced publicity was heavy on this Batman having no money, no butler, no Batcave, etc., but there is at least one other change to the core concept I wasn’t expecting, and I’m hoping it’s not just a set-up for…how can I say thins, pushing that core concept back into place in an issue or two. Ugh, I know, that makes no sense to you right now, assuming you’re reading this before getting your filthy mitts on the comic, but you should get what I mean once you cast your peepers upon it.
Much internet hay has been made about Batman’s…physique (much like that first Black Label book, har har) and in context it looks perfectly fine. It’s an exaggerated superhero body, just like how Mom used to make, and it gives a little bit of a goofy vibe to a comic that potentially could be too dark given the general tone and setting.
(Speaking of which, it was noted by writer Scott Snyder that this version of Earth was centered around “Darkseid energy” versus the “Superman energy” of Earth…One, or Prime, or whatever the mainline DC Universe is set. This seems like one of the very few explicit references to the conceit set up in Doomsday Clock #12, where the DC Universe centers itself, and rebuilds itself as required, around Superman.)
And despite the “no butler” thing, Alfred is in the book, setting up what I think will be quite a different professional relationship between him and Bruce Wayne. There’s also this other thing, where…well, I was kind of hoping they’d not introduce that already, letting the series settle a bit before bringing this in. I guess that was too much to hope given everything. Not that I don’t think it’ll be interesting.
It’s a very dense book, lots of pages full of panels and text, which still flows smoothly and never feels cramped. This 48 page first issue is going to give way to the standard 32 page format with #2, with no attendant drop in priceHopefully the storytelling will continue at this level and keeping giving folks their money’s worth.
It’s a compelling start, I’ll give it that. And yes, it’s “dark,” though oppressively so. The tone may work for Batman, and we’ll just have to see how well this new dark Absolute Universe fits with the upcoming Superman and Wonder Woman titles.
Anyway, this publisher can’t be thrilled about the new line.
So the last time I was talking about the whole “Does Commissioner Gordon Know?” thing, I brought it up in the context of the Batman: Arkham Knight video game that’s like, nearly a decade old at this point but I’m still trying to plow through it after an extended break.
Specifically (again, SPOILERS for the game) Gordon removes Batman’s mask, revealing Bruce Wayne beneath. I thought this was the initial reveal to Gordon, and wondered about the lack of depiction of his reaction. Over on Bluesky, Steven K noted to me that Gordon had known Batman’s secret ID prior to this in the game. Now, in my defense, I did have, as I told you all last time, there was a four year gap in my playing of Arkham Knight, so it’s not surprising if I didn’t remember that.
Given the nature of video games, I can’t exactly rewind and rewatch those moments. I could hie myself hither to YouTube where I’m sure the whole story has been stitched together into a standalone “movie,” but I’m trying to avoid Arkham Knight content there ’til I have more the game completed.
Anyway, back to the comics, where apparently there are a lot more instances of suggestions re: Gordon’s knowledge than I was recalling. Supposedly there are a few in Scott Snyder’s New 52 Batman run, and boy howdy I don’t know if I’m ready to reread all that. I may crowdsource that bit and ask you folks to point me in the right direction there.
Actually, earlier Thursday evening I reread, for the first time in probably decades, the initial appearance of Batman (or “The Bat-Man”) in Detective Comics #27 from 1939. Featuring the work of Bill Finger and, uh, what’shisname, “Rob’t Kane” it says here, we get the crude beginnings of the property that will eventually peak with this. The story involves Commissioner Gordon and his friend, lackadaisical wealthy socialite Bruce Wayne, and a series of murders being investigated by the mysterous Bat-Man. At the end of the story, Gordon ponders
But of course at the end of the story, we get the big reveal:
And it’s really hard to imagine a time when we didn’t know Bruce Wayne was Batman. Well, I mean, sure, this debut adventure ain’t exactly a brain-twister, and it’s pretty obvious Bruce is going to be revealed as being this costumed vigilante. Still, it’s neat to think at least for a few pages, like Commissioner Gordon above, we didn’t know that Bruce and Batman were the same person.
Now let’s jump ahead a few decades to Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #125, cover dated January 2000, by Greg Rucka, Rick Burchett and James Hodgkins. We’re nearing the end of the lengthy “No Man’s Land” storyline here, where Gotham, cut off from the rest of the country following an immense earthquake, has descended into even more lawlessness than usual. This event is mostly noted for the debuts of the Cassandra Cain version of Batgirl and the mainstream DC Universe version of Harley Quinn. But on top of that, I especially remember this particular sequence, where Batman tries to regain Gordon’s trust following some acrimony between the two over the course of the previous months:
Well, that’s a lot to chew on, certainly. I really think this as close as we come in regular DC continuity (post-Crisis, pre-Flashpoint) of nailing down the specific ambiguity (how’s that for a phrase) of Gordon vis-à-vis Batman’s secret identity. Maybe he knows, maybe he has his suspicions, maybe he could find out if he really wanted to.
If DC Comics came to me and said “okay, you’re in charge of Batman now,” the first thing I’d do, after publishing a new version of this story, is nail down this as absolutely the status quo of Gordon’s relationship with Batman. Gordon probably knows, but refused to confirm his suspicions for plausible deniability. How well that would hold up in court, even superhero comic book court, I have no idea, but it’s that fine line that keeps Gordon from busting into Wayne Manor and arresting Bruce Wayne for illegal vigilantism.
And I like that. I like that in the superhero genre, where the instinct is to pull more people in on the secret, there’s one guy who honestly just doesn’t want to know, at least for sure.
As I stated above, I’ve been informed that there may be more to this in the New 52 era of Batman, and hopefully I can track down some of this instances in the near future. There may be also some bit of business in Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, which would bookend nicely with the bits of Miller’s Batman: Year One I discussed last time. And yes, I know about the sequence in one of the animated shows where Gordon finds out and raids the Batcave…should probably mention that as well.
It looks like I have a little more research to do, and if you have any suggestions, feel free to let me know!
So I am a sporadic video game player, with a probably soon-to-be-supplanted modern system at home, and a variety of games. Having grown up in what was basically the Golden Age of Gaming, I have lots of Atari 2600 games converted to my system (including the excellent documentary/game collection Atari 50th Anniversary), as well as several compilations of arcade games of my youth (gotta play my Dig-Dug.
But the other genre of game I love is “open world,” where to at least some extent you are given free reign of the playing field to adventure and explore as you please, without necessarily having to play the game’s story as scripted (though of course you have to sometimes to get into new areas and acquire new tools and skills). Red Dead Redemption I and II and the various Grand Theft Autos are prime examples of this.
Another good example would be the Batman: Arkham series of games…Arkham Asylum and Arkham City I’ve both played and enjoyed on a previous system, and there’s Arkham Knight which I have for my current console. They all feature relatively good-sized maps (the first game concentrating on the asylum’s massive grounds, and the latter two in Gotham, or portions thereof), and plenty of opportunity flip around rooftop to rooftop both causing and stopping mayhem in equal measure.
I was playing Arkham Knight a while back, and got stuck at a particular part of the game, one that, despite several replays, I just couldn’t get through. Specifically, the tank-drone assault on the GCPD which you have to fight from within your Batmobile. Now, while having the ability to drive the Batmobile (or at least this weird tank-version of it) can be fun, the game-specific missions involving the vehicle can be a real slog. Especially when you’d rather be ziplining your way through the Gotham skyline.
Being frustrated at the game, I decided to put it aside for a while and play other things, letting it rest while I thought occasionally about alternative strategies.
Well, I finally returned to it, figuring a year or so off may have recharged my enthusiasm for the game, and started it up again, determined to finish what I had left behind…which is when I noted the last save on the game, the last time I played it, was in mid-2020.
To paraphrase an example I presented on social media when I discussed this there, that’s like if I got stuck on Pitfall II on the 2600 before I started high school, put it aside, then got back to it as I was preparing to enter college.
But you may be pleased to know that, having returned to Arkham Knight, I finally figured out a strategy to get through that sticking point and moved onward in the game’s plot. In fact, I got to one of the major endpoints of the game…not the endpoint, there’s still plenty of game to go, but it was definitely a wrap-up to one of the main storylines. [SPOILERS] at this point, where during the ending of this particular plot, Batman’s identity is revealed to all.
How it’s revealed is interesting, in that Commissioner Gordon is the one forced to pull off Batman’s mask. The interesting bit is that we don’t really get Gordon’s reaction to the revelation, at least not so far as I’ve seen in the game. (Maybe there’s more when the main plot resumes.) We do get lots of reactions from the street thugs Batman’s monitoring equipment catches (lots of amusing comments like “the mystique is gone” and “I can beat up that rich boy anyday” and so on). My favorite reaction is from one of Batman’s police allies, who tells him “Bruce Wayne, huh? All the same to you, I’ll stick with ‘Batman.'”
And to finally get this back to comic books, this got me to thinking about the status of whether or not Commissioner Gordon knows Bruce Wayne is Batman. In this age where heroes are revealing their identities left and right to allies and loved ones…well, maybe not that often, but secret I.D.s in comics are a little less cut ‘n’ dried nowadays. (Especially in TV shows, where I.D.s would get revealed right away and suddenly the superhero has a support team of friends, coworkers and family.)
There are two pretty famous examples of Gordon vis-à-vis Batman’s identity. One of the most famous ones is from Batman #407, part four of “Year One” by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli which Batman out of costume rescues Gordon’s son.
Batman is basically face-to-face with Gordon, unmasked, but Gordon does give him this out:
As I recall (I don’t have the specific reference in front of me) it was Miller’s intention to leave it ambiguous as to whether or not Gordon is in on the secret.
Now usually Batman comics are written as if the secret is not shared, and that’s the general status quo for the characters. But there’s an event a few years later where the amnbiguity is brought to the forefront yet again, and I’ll discuss that later in the week.
So there’s a new Batman cartoon, showing on Amazon Prime instead of Max for reasons that I’m sure make sense to Warner Brothers (I’m guessing $$$). Regardless of its streaming home, the series is a lot of fun, moody and exciting and well-acted.
In this age of Too Much TV, it’s nice that series have scaled back their season lengths, and Batman Caped Crusader‘s first (and hopefully not last) season runs a tight ten episodes.
It’s a period piece, set in the 1940s-ish, and as a result sometimes the cityscapes don’t look all that much different from those in the 1990s Batman: The Animated Series, with its “timeless” retro-setting with occasional modern tech. Producer Bruce Timm was involved with both iterations, so there are some “DC Animated Universe” house style similarities, but Caped Crusader is a little more free with a variety of ethnicities and body shapes.
Batman himself resembles the earliest incarnations of the character, all grey and back with smaller black gloves. Alfred isn’t the familiar slim interpretation but rather the plus-size version from the Golden Age. However, characters from comics published in later years appear in the cast, such as Barbara Gordon (first appearing in the 1960s), Harvey Bullock (the ’70s) and Flass (the ’80s).
Interestingly, at least in the earlier episodes (I’ve only watched the first eight thus far) Batman’s attitude toward Alfred is…not quite the familial one we know. It’s more “master to servant,” Batman being more blunt with his commands and referring to Alfred by his last name “Pennyworth.” There is a moment in one episode where Alfred appears down for the count, and Batman, believing him to be dead or nearly so, declares “I can’t do this without you!” Whether that’s out of love for the person who was essentially his surrogate father, or or a more practical “I need you for my crimefighting support team!” is at least a little ambiguous.
There is a throughline in these episodes that appears to be leading to the introduction of a major Batman villain. Not the Joker, who thankfully hasn’t shown up in the episodes I’ve seen (despite a related character doing so). The Joker, like the Daleks in Doctor Who, can very easily overstay his welcome, though I feel this cartoon might give us an interesting interpretation of him. Depends on how interesting a job they do on the villain they are going to present at the end of the season. Presumably. Haven’t seen that episode yet.
Anyway, it’s a good program, slightly edgier than its Bat-cartoon predecessors. Not like the animated Harley Quinn-levels, but the language is just a tad saltier. Worth a watch, and at only ten half-hour episodes, it won’t take too much time for you to get through…says the guy who hasn’t watched the last two episodes yet.
Continuing our look at the final pre-reboot Superman stories of the 1980s that aren’t by people named “Moore” or “Gerber,” we now come to World’s Finest #323, cover date January 1986:
It’s by Joey Cavalieri, José Delbo and Alfredo Alcala, and it’s pretty safe to say here Alcala is the star of the show, with his inks applying some heavy texture to the events within:
And check out this swell pic of ol’ Supes himself:
Here’s a close-up, and please, try to avoid swooning:
Anyway, the story has to do with a magical darkness enveloping Metropolis and both Superman and Batman work their separate angles trying to solve this mystery. Of most import to the purpose of this issue, Superman finds himself overwhelmed by the mystical menaces that lurk within the shadows:
But things work out in the end, the bad guy (and bad wolves, no relation) are defeated. However, Batman has some words for his partner:
I mean, it’s only that the cover has the words “THE END” in big, bold letters, and shows Bats and Supes waving goodbye to each other, that we read “oh no, has the World’s Finest team broken up for good?” into this. On the face of it this isn’t a “we’re breaking up” speech, but a “c’mon man, get your act together” one.
However, this is the last issue, and this version of Superman is going away forever (while Batman, with minor adjustments afforded by Frank Miller’s work on the character, is Eternal) and thus it’s time to put a cap on this comic that’s run continuously since 1941:
The story gets a tiny bit metatextual in specifically referencing the real world passage of time in regards to the length of the series’ run. And it’s not a happy ending, in that our heroes’ partnership, while not necessarily dissolved, now has some points of contention in the mix. Which of course sets the groundwork for the New Status Quo being brought in by John Byrne for his revamping of the Superman franchise.
If this all sounds just a little familiar, it should because I discussed this very thing, like, two months ago. I feel justified in repeating myself in that DC is repeating itself as well, in that it had introduced a breaking of the Superman/Batman team (with events surrounding Batman and the Outsiders) and resolved it in an extra-sized World’s Finest #300.
We don’t get that resolution for this later iteration. The issue comes to an uneasy conclusion, “the battle’s done, and we kind of won” if you’ll forgive the quote from the musical Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode. And that tone continues for quite some time, emphasized specifically in Byrne’s version of the relationship, and it takes several years before the two are canonically friends again in current DC Comics.
Outside the aforementioned Moore and Gerber stories, this may be the only “regular DC pre-Crisis continuity” story that actually tries to…well, not so much “wrap things up” as “straight up end” its particular piece of the shared universe. It’s a slightly sour note made the more-so in that it’s a precursor to how things are going to be vis-à-vis the Superman and Batman team, at least for a while.
Okay, I don’t want to overload you with Byrne Superman Reboot talk, so I’ll probably stick to posting about that once or twice a week ’til I feel like I’ve said enough. But keep your comments and questions coming, since, as is my wont, I’ll probably spend some time responding to them in the near future.
I did want to cover a couple of other topics here, such as the fact I didn’t talk much — well, at all — about this year’s Free Comic Book Day. It’s not like I haven’t talked about before, and you can clickity-click that link to have my vast wisdom imparted upon you.
Like the last two or three years or however long it’s been, I can’t keep track, I’ll be posting the freebie tables in front of the store, instead of going through the trouble of rearranging the interior layout to make room for them. As you may recall, I started doing this post-COVID to reduce the number of bodies crammed into my little shop and hopefully lessen the risk of cooties exposure. Seems to have worked out great so far, since my creaky bones no longer have to strain at moving a ton of back issue boxes and heavy wooden tables in the shop, and having a huge crowd in front of the store around tables of free comics certainly grabs attention. And I certainly didn’t see any reduction of folks coming into the shop to take advantage of the sales.
So, yes, it still got a little crowded in the shop, but not nearly as much as if I was trying to have a big sale AND a freebie giveaway in the same space at the same time. It all works out.
I’m mostly ready to go…the bulk of the work occurs the night before and the morning of, so I just gotta get cracking soon as my doors close Friday evening. Plus I’m prepping other material to be given away, so that’ll probably take up my Friday afternoon. Oh, and I’m also taking in a large comics collection on Friday as well, from an out-of-town pal whose only opportunity to bring ’em by is that day, so I’ll probably be doing a little comics juggling over the next 24 hours. If the GUMBY OF SUCCESS was planning on making another visit to my store, now is the time!
Anyway, is this like the…23rd Free Comic Book Day? I mean, I guess it depends if you count that one year where it was called off due to COVID and the freebies were just sent out a few at a time to be given away each week. However you count it, I’ve worked ’em all, and look forward to doing it again this year!
• • •
They said it couldn’t be done, and yet Adam Farrar has done dood it:
an oral history of the 1990s Marvel UK comic book series
Blackwulf! (Here’s
Part Two and
Part Three.) It’s a whole lotta comics people in here talking, not just about
Blackwulf, but the ’90s comics business in general. And who better to speak about ’90s comics than the man who saw ’em in and escorted ’em out…yours truly, Michael Ricardo Anatoly Sterling. I’m mostly in the first part, with a brief cameo in the second, but you should overcome your disappointment at the lack of me in the third part and read it anyway, but it’s all great.
• • •
Mark Evanier is trying to set the visual record straight on comics legends Robert Kanigher and Bill Finger, in that a photo of the former keeps getting identified as the latter. So he’s
asked if comics folks would post this pic (leaving the file name unchanged, in case you decide to download it from here and post it yourself) to get those search engines to propagate the correct information:
Also the title of this very post is my attempt at getting some other Batman-related info scraped up and spread around.
Another big change to the Superman mythos made in John Byrne’s 1986 reboot mini-series Man of Steel was the bustin’ up of the long friendship between Supes and the Dark Knight his own self, Batman.
The two characters have been buddy/buddy for decades, almost from their very inception, as seen here on the cover of World’s Best Comics #1 from 1941:
This of course was the first issue of the series that would become known as World’s Finest starting with #2. And the early issues of the comic would feature covers pairing the two (along with Robin, usually) and showing them doing something fun, like, oh, I don’t know, fishing:
The team-ups were just on the covers, however, as Batman and Superman had separate stories inside, along with other characters and their own stories. Eventually the extra-sized comic reduced its page count, and instead of cutting either Superman or Batman out of the book, the two were squeezed together into one story (starting with issue #71). And aside from a brief stint of team-ups featuring Superman with other characters in the early ’70s, and the whole “Super Sons” thing, this was the Supes/Bats crimefighting pals team book ’til its end in 1986.
Except.
There was a short storyline in this series regarding a split between Batman and Superman, spiraling off from Batman’s resignation from the Justice League in Batman and the Outsiders #1:
This development gets followed up in World’s Finest #294 (1983) which presents further acrimony between the two old friends:
See, it says right there in the footnote, “see Batman and the Outsiders #1,” I didn’t lie to you.
Anyway, the two of them are at odds with each other for the next few issues, until this particular storyline comes to its conclusion at the end of the extra-sized anniversary issue #300 (1984):
And all was right with the world until 1986, when John Byrne presented his new status quo for the Superman/Batman relationship in Man of Steel #3:
In that preview article from Amazing Heroes #96, Byrne’s ideas on what the relationship between Superman and Batman are made clear:
And sure enough, in Man of Steel this new more adversarial interaction is revealed right out of the gate as Superman shows up in Gotham to take in this infamous vigilante:
Once Superman sees Batman in action over the course of the story, he softens his stance — i.e. he won’t immediately haul Bats off to the grey-bar hotel — but he’s still not entirely on board:
…leaving Batman with this wistful wink to the audience who just saw the Old Ways swept out the door for the Way Things Are Now:
And that was the status quo for…well, a little while, ’til, like all post-Crisis changes, folks started to turn things back to how they were in little ways. The UnCrisis-ening continues to this day, but this particular portrayal of the Superman/Batman relationship, coupled with what we saw between the two in Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, has had a little more staying power.
I mean, obviously not the “you’re a criminal who should be turned in” part, but definitely the emphasis on “our approaches to crimefighting are different” has remained to a far greater extent than it ever did in the older books. It was probably also an influence on Batman’s general gruffness and reluctance to open up to friendships and such in recent years, not to mention the idea of his having contingency plans to take down the whole Justice League, that sort of thing.
However, the Superman/Batman pairing is too strong an idea, with too much inertia behind it, for it to be forever relegated to “frenemies.” We’ve had multiple Superman/Batman team-up mini-series and regular series, certainly with an emphasis on their differences, but definitely having them as pals again. The current World’s Finest absolutely feels more like the original series with that name.
I appreciate Byrne’s point about Superman and Batman just being too different to be friends…but honestly, having them at such odds with each other was the aberration. It’s having them as friends that feels like the correct, logical, choice.
Last time, jmurphy brought up
“But the good news is that LCE #51 is being reprinted full size.”
And indeed they are! The Limited Collectors’ Edition #51 treasury edition from 1977 is coming to shelves in a facsimile edition next month, collecting together theh original Ra’s al Ghul saga by Denny O’Neil, Neal Adams. Irv Novick, and Dick Giordano.
The only image I can find on the distributor sites for this facsimile is the one I posted above, showing its original cover. I’m hoping the cover is reproduced authentically, and not “retouched” as they did with 2004 reprint of DC 100 Page Super Spectacular #6 (original / reprint). Or (ahem) “recolored” as some other Adams reprints have been.
I realize I’m probably worrying for nothing, as DC’s facsimile editions of late haven’t had that much after-the-fact fiddling and are presented more-or-less as originally printed. (Though to be fair I haven’t really taken that close a lot to see if the Golden Age facsimiles, like the Superman #1, are the redrawn versions that appeared in the early DC Archives).
The big change of course is getting the material on nice, white paper, versus the newsprint of the originals. Of course, yes, I’ve commented before about the dissonance about seeing work that originally lived on newprint suddenly being all bright and shiny, but having it on those nice, big treasury-sized pages will certainly be welcome and much easier on the ol’ eyeballs.
This will be, I think, DC’s first reprint of a treasury duplicating the original format, versus the treasury-sized hardcover edition they did of Superman Vs. Muhammad Ali (which is Peak Neal Adams Superman in my opinion). There was also a smaller “deluxe edition” hardcover published at the same time, with a new Adams cover and extra bonus material not included in the larger facsimile. I don’t know if the smaller book was given the “recoloring” treatment. Anyway, that story needs to be seen at full size, so I’m not sure why you’d want that “deluxe” version anyway.
But back to this Ra’s al Ghul treasury, which is probably about as good as this particular Bat-villain ever got in print form (outside the frankly demented and evil and great usage in the Batman Beyond cartoon). The treasury includes his first appearance and conflict with Batman, including the famed shirtless (but not cowlless) sword fight:
…and c’mon, if anything deserves to be reprinted on bigger than normal pages, it’s this.
With any luck this facsimile will do well enough to open up more reprints of DC’s treasuries (and spur Marvel along to do the same). It’s obvious why they started with this one (Batman drawn by Neal Adams, duh), but it’d be nice if they brought the Superman Vs. Wonder Woman story drawn by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez back into print — it did get a treasury-sized hardcover reprint a few years back, but man, it should always be available.
And personally I’d like some of those Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer treasuries just to get more Sheldon Mayer in my life. Not really holding my breath for this to happen, honestly.
I hope future treasury reprints, if any, will focus on the ones with new stories that have only appeared there, versus reprinting books that contain reprints themselves. Not to say that something like this Adams Batman collection isn’t worthwhile, and nice to have on Big Ol’ Pages, but I’d rather have any new material from these show up in its original dimensions rather than being shrunk down.
So I’m always processing back issues at the shop…I have enough old comics just sitting in the boxes in the back room that I can probably spend the remaining few years of my life just bagging and tagging funnybooks for sale. Usually it’s a pretty quick process and I don’t get held up on any single item, puzzling over what I’m going to price it. But once in a great while, I hit bit of a roadblock that’s got me wondering.
In this case, it’s a copy of Superman und Batman (or just Superman according to the indicia inside), a German comic published in 1968:
This issue features a fairly important story in comics history, the introduction of the modern version of Batgirl (Barbara Gordon). The original English edition was released with a cover date of January 1967 (so likely very late in 1966):
Most striking of course is the color change, from the dark background on the U.S. version, versus the bright white background on the German edition.
Pages inside are good ‘n’ bright. with all the text machine-relettered verus hand printing:
And here’s the back cover because what the heck, I scanned it so here you go:
The original sells for several thousand dollars in good shape. But what of the German reissue? I’ve sold lots of non-English translations of older American superhero comics over the years, and in general they’re priced relatively low to move as more novelties than anything else.
Now, comics in Spanish do well since I live in an era with many speakers of it. But the few German comics I’ve had sit around a bit, but this one may be the exception.
Now, the original Detective #359 can sell thousands of dollars, depending on condition of course. But a reprint of a (cough) “key” story released overseas? This is taking some research as to what the potential price would be, but it’s going to take a while. In the meantime, thought I’d show it to you, because it’s pretty neat!
Also, the title should more accurately be Superman und Batman und Flash, because between the stories featuring Supes and Bats was this Flash story:
“Hey Zack, what’s up.”
Just a very quick follow-up on last week’s postings about naughty words in comics…I of course found this panel almost too late to use, which I think you’re agree is perfect:
Found this while flipping through Pepe Moreno’s Batman: Digital Justice graphic novel. I’d posted it on the Twitters, and I felt like it’d been long enough since it was released that I had to explain, no, this was an actual thing that was officially released by DC and not an A.I.-generated abomination. It was a human-made abomination, thank you very much!
But I tease Batman: Digital Justice, which was hailed as a ground-breaking concept, and it was, in a way, in that computers are used in pretty much every level of comic book production. Only things don’t look quite so…computer-y nowadays. Unless they do so on purpose, natch. But Digital Justice was a leap beyond something like the computer-crafted comics Shatter, the look of which I think still holds up in its pixelated retro fashion.
It’s honestly been a while since I’ve read this, but I did read it…it came out in 1990, when you just had to slap a Bat-logo on something and people bought it. And people did buy this graphic novel by the truckload, at least at my former shop. In the decades since copies have popped up in collections now and again and the book is…not the easiest sell now. It’s not primitive-looking enough to be kitsch like Shatter, but just polished enough to look odd to the modern eye. I don’t know if the story itself holds up…Joker gets computerized something something and I’m sure every inch of this book is very much Of Its Time, but then you can say that about pretty much any Batman comic.
So share a kind thought for Batman: Digital Justice, one of the very few Bat-books that will probably not get reprinted anytime soon. But if you ever need a copy, thankfully they’re not hard to find.
Also, when I posted the above panel on Twitter, I thought for certain someone would respond with a certain other panel, but nobody did. Thus, it is up to me:
The circle is complete.
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