Unca Cheeks the Toy Wonder's Silver Age Comics Web Site!
(... void where prohibited by Commissioner Gordon)
PART 2
The
problem, of course, becomes crystalline in the glare of perfect 20/20 hindsight in attempting to shear away the character's "rougher" edges, and make him more
palatable to a "kiddie" audience (although, as any kid who's ever lived will
tell you... it's the "darker" stuff out there in the literary sagebrush -- vampires;
pirates; hard-bitten cowboy drifters; etc. -- that really fascinates
them the most, and compels them to part with their hard-won weekly stipend of
an allowance. Doubtless it was the same for you, if you'll only think
back on those days with the requisite measure of honesty.)... DC had planed
and planned the character into virtual cipherdom. By the time the bloom
had finally worn off the aforementioned "Bat-craze" rose, and the one-time television
phenomenon had shuffled off this mortal coil and into eternal syndication Valhalla...
the character was no longer much of a "dark night" anything.
Again it's not as if there weren't any worthwhile and/or memorable Batman stories being written at all. There were occasional gems scattered carelessly about in such uncharacteristic (at the time) venues as DC's "team-up" title, THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD, for instance [see accompanying covers, below].
Whenever out from under the stultifying shadow of Superman, the Batman seemed
to take on a new "life," however briefly. [It's worth noting here, by
the way, that the same held true -- by and large -- for the Caped Crusader's
frequent forays with DC's JUSTICE LEAGUE. Given
that he couldn't very well be expected to, say, punch his way through
a mountain range with his bare hands... the writer of said title [Gardner Fox,
to be precise] was forced to underscore the essentially cerebral nature of the
Batman's character even more than usual, just to keep him from being crushed
and forgotten in the spandexed mob.)
Fortunately for the Bat-franchise (as well as George Clooney's
film career) his greatest source of storytelling "strength" -- the finest rogues
gallery of costumed villains, quite simply, ever to grace the comics page --
remained ever vital and viable. There were even some intriguing newcomers
added to the mix, around this time.
Possibly the very best of these was the sultry villainess
known as "Poison Ivy" -- a woman who became so bored with continually
pulling off "perfect crimes' (so perfect, in fact, that no one -- at that point
-- even suspected she existed), she purposely stepped out from the shadows
of wealthy anonymity in order to engage the Batman in a deadly game of hound
and hare.
Slowly but surely -- as the (by now) decades-old formula of increasingly anemic
"mysteries" and Bat-Mite/Bat-Hound roundelays began to cause more and more readers
to drift away from the Bat-books, in search of something (anything) with
more "snap" to it than yet another didn't-I-read-this-last-month Penguin
story -- that ineffable air of quasi-supernatural brooding and menace began
to sneak its way back into the various Batman-related titles. One of the
very best of these was "Death Knocks Three Times for Batman and Robin."
The other truly notable "newcomer" to the Dark Knight's regular round of nemeses
(actually, he was more of a "revamp" of a villain who hadn't been seen in over
twenty years, at that point) was the macabre and unsettling Jonathan Crane...
a.k.a., the Scarecrow. A former psychology teacher who became enamored
with the mechanics of the human "fear" impulse, he robbed and murdered (in his
initial appearances, at any rate) in order to afford his insatiable appetite
for books... and chose his particular criminal cognomen because of how his fellow
faculty members had always ridiculed his shabby, unkempt appearance, referring
to him derisively as "... that scarecrow, Crane."
Over the years, the Scarecrow has proven one of the Batman's most durable --
and endlessly fascinating -- foemen.
[Insert Your Own Scholarly Notes Here at this point, if you'd
like. I've just always really liked this cover, is all. Migawd,
but I'm such a Bat-"fanboy". Thank God no one knows about the Underoos.]
The Silver Age BATMAN
PAGE ONE
PAGE THREE
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