Superman: Dark Knight Over Metropolis

For most of the company's history, DC Comics' two top heroes, Superman and Batman, have teamed up on a regular basis in a shared title.  However, there was a relatively brief period in the wake of the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths revamp of Superman in John Byrne's The Man of Steel mini-series, when DC's official editorial stance was that the Man of Tomorrow and the Dark Knight should, by virtue of their differing personalities and methods of operation, have a more adversarial relationship.  Man of Steel #3 depicted the "first" meeting of the two in the new continuity and served to solidify the new status quo in the Superman/Batman relationship.  However, blame for the dissolution of that long running friendship and partnership cannot be laid solely at the feet of Byrne.  Hints of the new direction could be seen as early as the final issue of World's Finest Comics (#323 cover dated January 1986), which ended with the former "World's Finest Duo" parting on somewhat less than congenial terms.
Due for release later this month, the trade paperback collection Dark Knight Over Metropolis collects two meetings of the erstwhile "World's Finest Duo" from this period.  The earliest of these, and the one from which this volume's Art Adams drawn cover is taken, is "Skeeter", written by Byrne with pencils by Adams inked by Dick Giordano, from Action Comics Annual #1, which came out during Action's brief stint as a Superman team-up book.  The story has Batman reluctantly calling on Superman for help when he confronts a situation he is forced to concede that he cannot handle by himself; vampires overrunning a small Louisiana town.
The core of the book is "Dark Knight Over Metropolis", three part story that ran through the trio of Superman titles cover dated June 1990.  The first installment in Superman #44 is written and penciled by Jerry Ordway with inks by Dennis Janke. Part two from The Adventures of Superman #467 is written and penciled by Dan Jurgens and inked by Art Thibert.  Roger Stern wrote Action Comics #654's conclusion with art by Bob McLeod and Brett Breeding.  Investigating a mysterious death in his hometown of Gotham lands the Dark Knight in Superman's territory and smack dab in the middle of the Man of Steel's ongoing plotlines.  In between following up leads to the case that brought him to Metropolis, Batman aids Superman in protecting Clark Kent's Daily Planet colleague Cat Grant from attacks by such second rate villains as Chiller and Shockwave (Where, you almost have to wonder, was Bolt?) when Grant is targeted for death by the organized crime outfit Intergang after daring to agree to testify against former Galaxy Communications chief and Intergang operative Morgan Edge.
Also stated to included in the collection are the issues of Action and Adventures that immediately precede the "Dark Knight Over Metropolis" story.  While the events of Action  #653 are a direct prelude to those issues, Adventures of Superman #466 contains only a few panels directly pertaining to the Intergang sub-plot.  The issue's main story is most notable for being the debut of Hank Henshaw, who would go on to infamy as the Cyborg Superman in the post Doomsday "Reign of the Superman" epic.
The ending of "Dark Knight Over Metropolis", does contain, as the Collected Editions blog states, "...an important event in post-Crisis continuity."  It also serves to wrap up a dangling plot thread dating all the way back to Superman #2.  Furthermore, that aforementioned "important event" signaled the beginning of the softening of relations between DC's two top crime fighters.  Eventually, the two would again become good friends and even come to have shared adventures in a communal title.  However, in the post Man of Steel continuity, instead of being presented with that friendship as a predetermined fact, readers got to see it grow and evolve over time.  "Dark Knight Over Metropolis" signalled the true beginning of that evolution.
I  would definitely recommend that you read these  stories. However, I suspect that if you're willing to do a little digging through back issue boxes you might be able to pick up the individual issues for  somewhat less than the cost of the upcoming trade paperback.

Somedays You Just Can't Get Rid of A Ben---Affleck Cast as Batman

In many of the negative reviews that I read of this summer's attempted blockbuster Superman movie, The Man of Steel, and I read many, quite a few of the reviewers expressed a quaint, faint hope that already scheduled sequel would be better.  However, I'm certain that with the latest casting news concerning said sequel, quite a few of them have abandoned even that small hope.

If you don't know what I'm referring to, I hope you're sitting down, because I'm about to break the news to you that Ben Affleck has been chosen to play Batman.

Now, to be fair, Affleck could end up defying the expectations of everyone  on Earth except Kevin Smith and NOT totally suck as Batman.  There are those out here in cyberspace who are quick remind of 1989.  Back then, fandom assembled was simply aghast over the revelation that Michael Keaton, an actor who, despite an acclaimed dramatic turn in Clean and Sober, was known primarily as a comedian, had  been chosen to play their beloved Dark Knight.  The detractors feared a return of the dreaded "camp" of the reviled 1960s TV show.  Most of these doubters soon changed their tune upon actually viewing the film.  Keaton aquitted himself quite well as the Caped Crusader.  Although, in my opinion, he did a better job out of costume as Bruce Wayne than as Batman. Of course, the fact that he could hardly move in that suit didn't help matters.  Likewise, I understand that their was some objection in the ranks of fandom to Heath Ledger playing the Joker in The Dark Knight, a performance that has gone on to be acknowledged as one of the highlights of the late actor's all too brief career.  And absolutely nobody thought David Hasselhoff was right to play Nick Fury, and...well, in that case they were right and the less said about that travesty, the better.

To those who take such a wait and see stance, the universal response, which I echo here, has been, "You have seen Daredevil, right?" Granted, the casting of Affleck was only one of that movies many flaws, but I think it proved that Ben should probably avoid attempting to play leather clad urban vigilantes in the future.  Ah, well, you know what they say about those who will not learn from the mistakes of the past.

After seeing Daredevil, I often remarked that the scenes of Affleck running in that film reminded me of Adam West as Batman.  Maybe that's the point in making Affleck Batman.  Perhaps his performance in MOS II will be a tribute to West's Caped Crusader.  Of course, he'll have to put on a few pounds to get that paunch West had that spilled over the top of his utility belt.  For an actor as dedicated to his craft as Affleck is, though, that should be no problem.

OK, well, I'm all snarked out for now on this subject.  I'd love to hear your opinions about the whole affair.

THE GLORY DAYS OF THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD: Bob Haney, Jim Aparo, Murray Boltinoff and B&B #'s 98-131 (Conclusion)

(For the edification of those who may have missed my last post, I shall reiterate the explanation and history of this two-part series of posts as it appeared previously: The following long--for a blog post, at least--piece was written a couple of years ago for Jim Main's fanzine Comic Fan.  Shortly after I submitted it, however, Jim decided to suspend publication of CF in order to concentrate on comic books.  Thus, other than the select few trusted friends whom I sent copies to for proofreading and kibitzing, this masterpiece of comics history and journalism has gone regrettably unread.  Until now, that is.  Due to the aforementioned length of the article, I found a natural breakpoint about halfway through and split it up into two posts.  Part one can be read by going here.)

Now let's take a closer look at some of the individual stories that made the Haney/Boltinoff/Aparo B&B era so great. 

THE GLORY DAYS OF THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD: Bob Haney, Jim Aparo, Murray Boltinoff and B&B #'s 98-131 (Part One)

(The following long--for a blog post, at least--piece was written a couple of years ago for Jim Main's fanzine Comic Fan.  Shortly after I submitted it, however, Jim decided to suspend publication of CF in order to concentrate on comic books.  Thus, other than the select few trusted friends whom I sent copies to for proofreading and kibitzing, this masterpiece of comics history and journalism has gone regrettably unread.  Until now, that is.  Due to the aforementioned length of the article, I found a natural breakpoint about halfway through and split it up into two posts.  The conclusion will appear here in a day or so.)

In the December 2004 edition of BACK ISSUE magazine, editor Michael Eury called THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD (B&B) the most influential comic book put out by DC during the Silver and Bronze Ages. While Eury admits that his claim may be somewhat overblown, the evidence that he offers to support his theorem, in the form of a listing of important characters and concepts that first saw the light of day in B&B, is nonetheless compelling.

Focus On Batgirl: Batgirl #1--Must There Be A Batgirl?

This is not going to be a review so much as a dismissal of this comic. I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about the artistic merits of Batgirl #1.  It's basically a fairly good comic.  The art by Ardian Syaf is nice.  The foreshortening on Batgirl's leg on the splash page looks a little off to me, but otherwise it's a lovely looking book.  It's also well written, but then I'd expect no less from Gail Simone, although this really isn't her best work.  

The biggest flaw of this comic, as far as I'm concerned, is that it fails to make a compelling case for why there needs to be a Batgirl in the DC Universe and why it needs to be Barbara Gordon.  Given the controversy surrounding Barbara Gordon's return to action, I really think that this is something they needed to do.  This story, in fact, accomplishes just the opposite, pointing out why it was a mistake to bring back the Barbara Gordon version of Batgirl.
I can understand DC's reasoning for reinstating Barbara as Batgirl, though I can't say that I agree with it.  Much like they did a few years ago with Supergirl, following several not all that successful attempts to introduce a new version of the character, they finally decided to go back to the original.  Then there's the company's perhaps somewhat fanciful notion that the new 52 will bring in readers outside of their core demographic of middle aged fanboys.  To that larger public, due to the 60's Batman TV series and, to a lesser extent, recent animated outings Batman: The Animated Series and The Batman, Barbara Gordon is Batgirl and Batgirl is Barbara Gordon.  However, the fact remains that Barbara Gordon as Oracle was a unique and interesting character who filled a niche within the DC Universe at large, not just the Batman titles, while Barbara Gordon as Batgirl is just another chick in a batsuit, especially in the current DCU.
Simone even refers to this in the story when someone that Batgirl has just rescued says, "Bless you, Batwoman."  Maybe that was meant to be a joke, but to me it just serves to underscore the redundancy of Batgirl in a world where you've got not just Batwoman, but the Huntress, not to mention Batman himself as well as Robin, Red Robin and Nightwing.
Compounding the problem is that the characterization of Batgirl in this first issue seems to be picking up the doubt plagued and uncertain heroine from 1988's Batgirl Special.  She freezes, flashing back to the Joker's shooting her, when a gun is pointed at her right where the Clown Prince of Crime's bullet landed.  This is certainly understandable given what Barbara's gone through, but not the kind of behavior you want in a costumed crimefighter.
This review is a tad less than timely.  The second issue of this series is due to hit comic shops today.  I'll be heading over to the Laughing Ogre shortly after I post this.  I'm going to get the new issues of Action Comics and OMAC, but I'll be giving Batgirl #2 a pass.   As I said at the outset, overall the first issue is a decent enough comic, but one that ultimately fails to justify its own existence, at least to my satisfaction. 

Focus On Batgirl: "The Last Batgirl Story" (Batgirl Special #1; 1988)

The decision to retire Batgirl seems to have been made as early as 1985.  Her brief appearance in Crisis On Infinite Earths #4 shows her questioning her own role as a hero even as she watches Supergirl save a plane load of people from the encroaching anti-matter cloud.  This portrayal was taken to the extreme in the Batgirl Special that formally ended her crimefighting career, for the time being at least.   When writer Barbara Randall named this story "The Last Batgirl Story" she wasn't kidding around.  The last page of the story is followed by a house ad for The Killing Joke, the Alan Moore penned tale that left Barbara Gordon in a wheelchair for the next twenty-three years and paved the way for her career as Oracle.
"The Last Batgirl Story" opens with a flashback to Batgirl's encounter with a hired killer known as Cormorant.  It was Cormorant's attempt on her life that forced Barbara to confront her own mortality and realize that she could get killed playing super-hero, bringing on the self-doubt and uncertainty that plagued her.  Flashing forward to the present, a man is murdered in the Gotham City Library where Barbara works and she becomes convinced, on the flimsiest of evidence, that Cormorant is the killer. Her obscession with Cormorant blinds her to mounting evidence that the real murderer is a female serial killer, dubbed "Slash" by the media, who is targeting men who've committed crimes against women.  At the same time, she's afraid to confront Cormorant.  Meanwhile, childhood friend Marcy, having deduced that Barbara is Batgirl, shows up hoping to convince Babs to hang up the cape.  She agrees to do so, but only after closing the books on the Cormorant case.
When she finally does confront her nemesis, she's about to get herself killed for real when Slash shows up because Cormorant just happened to be next on her list of intended victims.  Batgirl is reduced to little more than a spectator as Slash and Cormorant, with an assist from Cormorant's abused spouse, take each other out.  Nonetheless, Cormorant is finally captured and Barbara keeps her promise to retire from crimefighting.
The reason I didn't enjoy this story has little to do with its actual quality.  It's well written and features nice early work by artist Barry Kitson. (from a survey of Kitson's credits at the Comic Book Data Base, it appears that this was his first work in American comics.)   My problem is with the portrayal of the title character.  Batgirl is shown as confused, willfully blind, inept and ultimately useless.  If the intent was to make the reader agree with Barbara's decision to stop being Batgirl, then it was successful.  The Batgirl of this story isn't the type of super-hero I really care to read about, and Barbara did herself, Gotham and comics readers a favor by packing it in. 

Focus On Batgirl: "Enter Batgirl; Exit Penguin"

You might say that Batgirl is the Cousin Oliver of the DC Universe.  You might say so, that is, if you're an incurable smart-ass with a freakishly extensive knowledge of old TV shows.  If you're me, in other words, and thank whatever gods you may worship that you're not.  In the mid-60's, the Batman TV series kicked off a phenomenon that came to be called "Batmania", bringing renewed interest and popularity to DC's Batman comics and rescuing them from the brink of cancellation.  However, as it embarked on a third season, the TV series itself teetered on the edge of that very precipice.  So they did what many ailing series did in their waning years, they added a new character, just as, several years later, Robbie Rist as Cousin Oliver joined the cast of The Brady Bunch in its final season. Though, and I promise this is my final Cousin Oliver reference for this post, I never understood just who that character was meant to appeal to, the logic of bringing in Batgirl is inescapable.  The girls in the audience got a role model to identify with, and the boys didn't have to wait for a Catwoman appearance to have a spandex clad hottie to ogle.
"Enter Batgirl; Exit Penguin", Batman's third season premiere, opens to a typical day in Gotham City, as the Dynamic Duo return from rounding up Catwoman yet again and change back to their civilian identities of Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson for a night at the opera with Commissioner Gordon, Chief O'Hara and the Commissioner's daughter, Barbara.  The TV show, by the way, actually bothered to come up with an explanation for why we hadn't seen or heard of Barbara Gordon before this.  It seems that she'd been off at college for the past four years.  She must have taken some time off after high school, as Yvonne Craig, the actress portraying Barbara, was thirty years old at the time.
Next we meet Barbara herself, heading home from her job at the Gotham Public Library to prepare herself for the aforementioned night at the opera when she is kidnapped by the Penguin and held captive in an empty apartment right next to her very own.  The Penguin's latest somewhat ill thought out scheme is to force Barbara to marry him, thus making him the police commissioner's son-in-law and thus, or so he believes, above the law.
Pengy  sends two of his henchmen out to snatch a minister to perform the ritual, and they happen to find pick one who happens to be having tea with Batman's butler Alfred, who tells the goons that he's the minister and gets nabbed in the real reverend's place.  Alfred is locked in the bedroom of the vacant apartment, where he sees Barbara climbing out the window in order to go back to her place and change to Batgirl, thus learning her secret identity.
Summoned by an emergency signal activated through a switch hidden in Alfred's belt buckle, the Dynamic Duo arrive on the scene and are just as surprised as the Penguin and his gang when a third caped crime fighter shows up.  Penguin and his henchmen are seemingly defeated, after which Batgirl disappears.  However, Penguin recovers and overcomes Batman and Robin, then packs up the Caped Crusaders, Alfred, and a dummy that they take for an unconscious Barbara Gordon and head off for their alternate hideout.
To make a long story short, if it isn't already too late, Barbara breaks out the Batgirl-cycle, trails the bad guys to their new lair, frees Batman and Robin and helps them defeat Penguin and swears Alfred to secrecy regarding her secret identity.
Despite the bad rap it has among comics fans for making a laughing stock out of their beloved hero, viewed objectively, Batman is actually a really well done TV show, and "Enter Batgirl; Exit Penguin" is one of its better episodes.  Due to declining ratings, the series, which had aired twice a week, was cut back to one episode a week for its final season, yet this episode delivers just as much fun and excitement as a typical two-parter, without all the extraneous silliness.  The highlight of the half-hour, as it should be, is Yvonne Craig's performance as Batgirl.  She perfectly portrays a young, sexy female crime fighter who does what she does not because of some trauma in her childhood, but because it's fun.  Lou Grant would hate her, because, by God, she's got some spunk.  Burgess Meredith's typically over the top performance as the Penguin, a role he seems to have been born to play, is also worth mentioning, and Commissioner Gordon's love and concern for his daughter give Neil Hamilton something other to play than a confused and buffoonish caricature.
The addition of Batgirl may not have saved Batman from its eventual cancellation, but creatively, she was quite a shot in the arm for the series.  

'Tec Support: "The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl!" (Focus On Batgirl)

Created by a trio of comics legends, editor Julius Schwartz, writer Gardner Fox and artist Carmine Infantino, at the behest of Batman TV series producer William Dozier, who was looking for a female character to appeal to that segment of the TV audience, the new--and "real", as we're told in a caption--Batgirl (there had been a previous character called Bat-Girl in the late 50's and early 60's) met the comics reading public in the January 1967 issue of Detective Comics, #359, in a story entitled "The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl!"   The introduction of Batgirl, incidentally, was not the first change made in the comics to accomodate the TV series.  One of Schwartz's first moves on assuming editorship of the Batman books was to kill off Bruce Wayne's butler, Alfred.  However, he and Fox were compelled to bring the character back to life when the producers wanted to include him in the show.
The story moves quickly, giving us just a two panel introduction to Barbara Gordon, the previously unseen and unmentioned librarian daughter of Gotham City Police Commissioner James Gordon, before she dons her Batgirl costume and is off to the Policeman's Masqerade Ball.  Setting off  for the ball, Barbara thinks that "...tonight will be the highlight of my life!"  She's right, of course, but not quite in the way she was thinking of.  A funny thing happens on the way to the party, when she sees Killer Moth's minions attempting to put the snatch on "...Daddy's millionaire friend" Bruce Wayne.  Proving that "clothes make the woman," she leaps into action to save Wayne, allowing the millionaire to slip away and change to Batman.  The Caped Crusader ends up having to rescue Batgirl while Killer Moth escapes. Her costume messed up in the fight, Batgirl tells Batman she won't be going to the masqerade after all, but holds back on telling him her name, despite thinking to herself that this might be both Batgirl's "...debut and farewell appearance..."
She soon finds, however, that after her brush with crimefighting, the fast paced life of the librarian just doesn't thrill her the way it used to.  Then one night, Barbara goes to deliver a rare book to Bruce Wayne and sees him apparently murdered by Killer Moth.  She once again goes into action as Batgirl, but soon learns that her interference has spoiled the Dynamic Duo's plans to follow Killer Moth back to his hideout.  Nonetheless, it turns out, somewhat predictably, I'll admit, that despite her initial blunder, it is Batgirl whose nick of time arrival at Killer Moth's lair serves to save Batman and Robin's bacon and capture the villain.
If, as the conventional wisdom among comics fans holds, the intentionally campy tone of the TV series had infected the comics, it is not much in evidence in this issue.  True, Killer Moth, with his themed henchmen Larva and Pupa, is a silly villain, and Robin spouts a couple of truly dreadful puns, while, at one point, daring to criticize Batgirl's "terrible puns."  For the most part, however, "The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl!" is a fairly straightforward, serious minded adventure story, thanks to Fox's fast-paced and witty script and Infantino's suitably dark and moody artwork.
Quite a few of the "important" stories of the Silver Age--the first appearance of the Teen Titans springs to mind--are worth reading only for their significance to comics history.  Detective #359 is not one of those issues, though.  "The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl!" stands on its own, aside from its place in history, as an entertaining and fun Batman story.
In a future post, I'll take a look at Batgirl's second first appearance, in the third season premiere of the Batman TV show.

'Tec Support: Detective Comics #1

Detective Comics #1 is, if not the worst Batman comic ever, at the very least the worst that I have ever had the deep misfortune to have read.  From the laughably bad narrative captions on the first page to the repulsive image on the final page, the combination of idiotic plot, bad writing and poor art make reading this book a painful experience.
Writer/artist Tony Daniel's misguided attempt at writing a tough guy internal monologue for Batman goes awry almost immediately, lapsing into unintentional self-parody with this groaner, "His modus operandi changes with the wind....
"...and it's been windy in Gotham City."
Later, Batman delivers this gem, "I've always been in Gotham.  I AM Gotham."  That's actually presented as dialogue, yet Commissioner Gordon, to whom he is speaking, surprisingly neither bursts out laughing nor backs away slowly from the sort of madman who would say something insane like that.
Daniel even dishes up tired cliches such as "I own the night," and even has Batman actually think at one point, "I'm Batman."  Thanks for telling us, Tony, as if by that point in the story we hadn't already figured it out for ourselves.
Why not "I'm the Goddamned Batman?"  After all, it seems as if Daniel is trying to imitate Frank Miller, but the only Miller Batman comics he's actually read are All-Star Batman and Robin or maybe Spawn/Batman.  At least All-Star can be read as Miller parodying the very type of Batman story he himself inspired with  The Dark Knight Returns, which actually makes it somewhat less unbearably awful, but there is no hint of irony whatsoever in Daniel's deep purple prose.
Truthfully, the art isn't completely awful.  The biggest flaw is that familiar characters are rendered virtually unrecognizable.  Commissioner Gordon looks like he's wearing a bad wig and fake moustache, while Harvey Bullock doesn't even look human.
The issue ends with the introduction of a mysterious new villain called the Dollmaker, but, as you've probably guessed, I shall not be coming back for future issues to discover what his invariably lame criminal scheme might be.

'Tec Support: The Seeds of "Knightfall"--Detective Comics #480

While notable for being one of the first two Batman stories drawn by the late Don Newton (Batman #305 hit the stands that same month), "The Perfect Fighting Machine" from Detective Comics #480 is, in truth, an entertaining but rather unremarkable tale.  According to writer Dennis  O'Neil, however, this obscure little story helped spawn one of the biggest event story lines of the 1990's.  Within the pages of 'Tec #480 lie the seeds of "Knightfall."
But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let me tell you about the story first.
The tale begins in medias res, with Batman already locked in a life or death struggle with a silent, hulking brute who appears to be kicking the living crap out of him.  As he's getting tossed around, Bats thinks, "He's creaming me...and I don't even know his name!"  As the taciturn killer is strangling him, Batman decides it's a good time to try and make friends.  He chokes out the words, "Wh-Who are you?", cuing the inevitable flashback.
In the next panel, we are taken back in time six weeks to find a homely, fat schlub being harassed by a trio of young punks who break his calculator and make him drop his ice cream cone.  Slinking away in tears, he is befriended by a stranger identifying himself as Ivan Angst, who offers to buy the poor kid a new ice cream cone.  Angst is soon revealed to the reader as the leader of a terrorist organization known as Mercenaries, Incorporated, whom Batman has been after for several weeks.
While Batman is bedridden with a fever of 104 degrees, Angst, with all purpose mad scientist Dr. Moon, begins the process of transforming the poor nerd he befriended into a the "perfect fighting machine" of the story's title through a series of surgeries and hormone treatments which render him super strong, nearly invulnerable, and unable to feel pain.  Moon later refers to him as a "gork," which, the doctor explains, is "...medical slang for a living, breathing vegetable!" Angst has plans to create an army of such perfect soldiers. When the process is complete, he decides to test his prototype against the "perfect opponent," the Batman, and issues a challenge to the Caped Crusader via a classified ad in the Gotham newspaper.  Despite not being fully recovered from his illness, Batman accepts the challenge, and the story shifts back to the present where Batman is still struggling to survive the relentless onslaught of Angst's perfect soldier.
Just as he's about to deliver the killing blow, the would be assassin falters and collapses.  Moon declares, "As I feared! The strain was too great! His whole system is collapsing! Not being able to feel pain, he didn't realize anything was wrong--until it was too late!"  The dying giant turns to the one man he believed to be his friend, Ivan Angst.  But Angst, calling him "...an experiment--that failed!", refuses.  Enraged, the "gork" turns on Angst as the cowardly Dr. Moon flees.  Batman attempts to pull him off Angst, but he fails.  The "perfect fighting machine" kills Angst before dieing himself, with neither Batman nor the reader ever having learned his name.
Back in 1993, while the "Knightfall" story line was running in Batman and Detective Comics, Dennis O'Neil, then editor of the Batman titles, and Julius Schwartz, editor of 'Tec at the time #480 was published, were in Columbus as guests at the annual SF con Marcon.  They also did a signing at the now out of business local comics shop Central City Comics that Saturday.  I got my friend Dave Alkire to give me a ride out to the shop, and gave him my copy (I've long since aquired another) of 'Tec #480 so he'd have something for O'Neil and Schwartz to sign.  When Dave handed O'Neil the book, the writer told us a little story about it.

Denny hadn't felt that the seventeen pages allotted to him for this story had given him sufficient space to fully explore the premise.  Thus, he eventually returned to the idea, reworking it and expanding it.  This new story was called "Venom," which appeared as issues #16-20 of Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight in 1991.
"Venom," of course, introduced the titular strength enhancing drug, which was later used by the villain Bane, the prime mover behind the events of "Knightfall."  This story eventually gave us Jean-Paul Valley, a.k.a. Azrael, as the replacement Batman after Bane break's Bruce Wayne's back.
So, "The Perfect Fighting Machine," a little known seventeen page story from the late 70's, is indirectly responsible for giving us not only this:

...but this, as well:

Furthermore, the success of "Knightfall" may have had a hand in inspiring such later abominations as "Emerald Twilight," the story that introduced Kyle Rayner as the new Green Lantern even as it transformed Hal Jordan in a cosmic powered mass murderer. (The latter is  the abominable part.  I actually liked Kyle as GL.)

Despite all that, I still like "The Perfect Fighting Machine."  In fact, I like it even more knowing the unheralded role it played in comics history.  I say "unheralded" because, other than hearing it from Dennis O'Neil himself, I've never come across this info in any comics magazine or on the web.  For all I know, I may be first person, even after all this time, to write about this. 
That's kind of cool, actually, if it's true.

'Tec Support: Batman Meets Zatanna (Sort Of) In Detective Comics #336

I had a great idea for commemorating DC Comics' 75th anniversary.  I would spotlight selected issues of their longest running title and the comic from which the company takes its name: Detective Comics.  Unfortunately, DC's 75th anniversary was last year and I just had that idea about a week ago.  Still, that's really no reason to let a semi-decent idea go to waste, is it?  Of course not.  Thus, I'm kicking off my new feature "'Tec Support" with a look at the Batman story in Detective Comics #336, "Batman's Bewitched Nightmare",  written by Gardner Fox and drawn by Bob Kane and Joe Giella, which was reprinted back in 2004 in the trade paperback collection Zatanna's Search, re-presenting the earliest appearances of DC's premier sorceress. 
In the Batman story, the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder are in pursuit of a gang of bank robbers who are under the seemingly magical protection of an old woman who appears to be a witch.  She even flies around Gotham on a broom.  The witch, in turn, is an agent of Batman's mysterious foe who calls himself the Outsider.  The Outsider would later be revealed to be Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred, who had been killed off when editor Julius Schwartz took over the Bat titles and brought back to life as the Outsider with weird powers and a grudge against his former friend and employer.

A couple of years later, in Justice League of America #51, Zatanna finally locates her missing father Zatara with the help of magically created duplicates of all the super-heroes she'd encountered during the course of her quest: Hawkman, the Atom, Green Lantern, the Elongated Man and Batman.  When Zatanna gathers the real heroes together to tell them about her adventure, Batman points out that, as far as he knows, he's never met Zatanna before.  She then reveals that the witch he'd encountered earlier had been her in disguise and controlled by the Outsider.
One thing I wondered when I read Zatanna's Search is whether Gardner Fox originally intended the Detective Comics story to be part of the Zatanna story line when he wrote it, or if he retconned it in when he wrote the JLA story in order to get Batman into that story.  To me, the latter scenario seems more likely.
First of all, there's absolutely nothing in the earlier story to suggest that the witch is Zatanna.  In fact, there are quite a few things in the story that argue against it being her.  For one thing, the witch does not speak her spells backward, which is the trademark of the Zatara family.  Furthermore, the story seems to establish that the witch is not a real magical being at all, but that her seemingly magical powers come from her special broom given to her by the Outsider.

Secondly, the JLA issue was published in 1967 when ABC's Batman TV series with Adam West was the most popular show on the tube.  DC probably wanted to get as much Batman product out as possible and the idea of putting out an issue of JLA without Batman in it must have been unthinkable.  Note also the prominence of Batman on the cover and the blurb which exaggerates his role in the story.
"Batman's Bewitched Nightmare", since it includes the Outsider, also represents another compromise Fox was forced to make because of the TV show.  Since the show's producers were going to use Alfred, Fox was instructed to bring the character back.  Thus, he abandoned his original plans for the identity of the Outsider, which, as far as I know, remain unknown to this day, and used him as the vehicle for Alfred's resurrection. 

Damn You, Grant Morrison!

You really know how to push my buttons, don't you, Mr. Morrison?

I was originally planning to stop buying Batman, Incorporated after the conclusion of the initial two issue adventure with Mr. Unknown in Japan.  The first two issues have been pretty decent, but not quite good enough to make this a "must read" title.

Then I came to the final page of issue #2.  It's a preview of what's in store for #3 and it shows Batman fighting a gorilla. 

Yep, you read that right...

Batman.  A gorilla.  Grant Morrison. Right there you have three of my most favorite things in comics.

If that isn't the recipe for a great story, I don't know what is.

You've got my four bucks for another couple of months, DC.  

Don't let me down.

Christmas With The Caped Crusader: Epilogue

Before we move on, I want to address a couple of the comments on my "Christmas With The Caped Crusader" series.  The first is on my piece about Batman and the Outsiders #19:

...I'm a little surprised you went with this one as part of your "Christmas with the Caped Crusader" series, since the story is primarily about Geo-Force. It does, however, reinforce the fact that Mike Barr does indeed love Christmas stories.

First off, I really like Batman's role in this story, even though it is rather small, at least in terms of on-panel time.  He goes off and does what he does best, gathering evidence against Raeburn, while Superman does what he does best, charge in throwing punches without thinking.  I especially liked his admonition to Geo-Force, "When the system works, use it, Geo-Force!  When it doesn't--or it can't--that's what we're for!"  That little bit of dialogue nicely sums up the Batman's philosophy, and I like the way this issue emphasizes his roles as detective and mentor to the Outsiders.

As for this being more Geo-Force's story than Batman's, I will remind you that I also included in the series "The Man Who Murdered Santa Claus" from Justice League of America #110, which focuses mainly on John Stewart and Red Tornado.  Furthermore, it can be argued that the real star of "Wanted: Santa Claus--Dead or Alive!" is Boomer Katz, and that Batman #309's "Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas" is actually Kathy Crawford's story.  And BATO #31 is all about Looker, which is just the way she likes it.

Then there's this observation tacked on to the item about BATO #8:

I've always seen BATO as a natural progression from The Brave and the Bold. Both featured Batman in a team-up situation and both featured the artwork of Jim Aparo.

A good point, and made even stronger when you consider that BATO writer Mike W. Barr wrote more issues of The Brave and the Bold than anybody other than Bob Haney.  BATO also maintained a link with B&B by including Metamorpho, one of Batman's most frequent B&B co-stars, on the team. That's another reason I've always thought Green Arrow should have been an Outsider.  The Emerald Archer appeared in B&B, with or without Batman, more than any hero other than the Caped Crusader himself.  The real reason I think GA should have been in BATO is that  he was the one who was always carping about how the JLA was getting too focused on the cosmic stuff and forgetting about ordinary people.  So, when Batman quit the League after they refused to get involved in the war in Markovia, Ollie really should have stood up and followed Bats into the teleporter. 

This aspect of Ollie's character was nicely captured in the first episode of Cartoon Network's Justice League Unlimited series.  In fact, that series as a whole perfectly captured Green Arrow's character in every episode he appeared in.

Finally, I got a comment in person from Jonathon Riddle, who was disappointed that in my post on "Silent Night of the Batman" I failed to include any images of the Batman actually singing Christmas carols. Well, I'm going to rectify that error now:

Nice of them to include the words so that the readers can sing along with Batman.

Christmas With The Caped Crusader: ...And the Rest

Well, Christmas is almost behind us for another year. Beginning tomorrow, the stores will start putting out the Valentine's Day candy, or maybe even the Easter merch.  Before we move on to the next over hyped holiday, however, there are a few Batman Christmas tales in my stack of old comics that I haven't had a chance to get to yet.

Even though the words "Merry Christmas" appear on the cover, and the holiday gets a brief nod in the last few pages, Batman and the Outsiders #31 isn't much of a Christmas story, being mostly taken up with the final chapter of the four part "The Truth About Looker" storyline. This story introduces a new member to the team and paves the way for the departure of Batman in the following issue, after which the series' name would change to Adventures of the Outsiders.  The book, along with the direct market only Outsiders, became the third title in DC's so-called "hardcover/softcover" experiment, along with the Teen Titans and Legion of Super-Heroes titles, in which the contents of the direct market edition  were eventually reprinted in the newsstand title. 

"Favorite Things" in Legends of the Dark Knight #79 starts with Wayne Manor being robbed during a Christmas party. Among the items stolen are a beloved childhood toy of Bruce Wayne's, the last Christmas present his parents gave him before their murders, and Batman moves Heaven and Earth to recover it.  Invoking the memory of Bruce's parents is usually good for some easy sentiment, but Mark Millar's script fails to tug at the heart strings in the way he must have hoped it would.  The art, by Steve Yeowell with inks by Dick Giordano, is the main reason to give this story a look.  It's amazing, actually, how well their styles mesh.  

Speaking of sentiment, the only sentiment I expected from a story by Ed Brubaker was despair.  Have you read his Daredevil run?  If you thought Bendis' stories were too bleak, then skip Brubaker.  

He just continues to heap the troubles on poor Matt Murdock issue after issue, with no light or hope apparently on the horizon. It's enough to make you want to slit your freaking wrists after awhile.  That's why I was so surprised that I actually enjoyed the issues from 2001 collected recently as DC Comics Presents Batman #3.  Among them is Batman #598, "Santa Klaus Is Coming To Town," in which a  mind reading serial killer with a German accent dressed in a Santa suit passes out explosive presents to those who find themselves on his "naughty" list.  Brubaker has created a villain worthy of a semi-regular spot on the roster of Batman's Rogue's Gallery, and I hope he eventually returns. 

Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne's girlfriend refuses to let him ruin her holiday season and puts up a tree in Wayne Manor over his objections.   She eventually succeeds in getting him to lighten up for a little bit and celebrate with her. 

Finally, we have "Silent Knight," the lead story from last year's DC Universe Holiday Special '09.  In this wordless story by writer Jay Faerber and artist Peter Nguyen, the Batman pursues a gun-toting thief dressed as Santa to a warehouse where he discovers a whole gang of Santas. After he defeats their leader, the other Santas, rather than continue to fight, invite the Dark Knight to join them for some Christmas cookies and a cup of hot cocoa.  Had they been coerced into joining up with the lead Santa and were thanking Batman for rescuing them, or did they just realize the futility of putting up any more of a fight against the Caped Crusader?  Due to the lack of dialogue, this isn't really clear to me.

That's it for this year's Christmas celebration here at Gutter Talk.  Hope you had a wonderful holiday season. 

Christmas With The Caped Crusader: Batman and the Outsiders #19

Behind this wonderful Jim Aparo cover, one of the best in the entire run of Batman and the Outsiders, lies that series' second annual Christmas tale, "Who's Afraid of the Big Red 'S'?", guest-starring, as if it weren't obvious, Superman. 

As I've read through my collection of Batman holiday stories, I'm struck by how many of them involve attempted suicide, from "Silent Night of the Batman" to "Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas" in Batman  #309 to the tale under consideration on this Christmas Eve. I suppose it's because its an easy way to deliver a life affirming message for the holiday season by having the suicidal person discover a new reason to go on living.
In BATO #19, it is Denise Howard, a friend of Brion Markov, a.k.a. the Outsider Geo-Force, who decides to end her life after one of her professors denies her a scholarship because she declined his sexual advances.  After taking the pills, she calls Brion, who, as Geo-Force, gets her to a hospital then goes to get vengeance on Dean Raeburn, the professor who caused her despair. 
Another one of the Outsiders, Halo, was with him during the rescue, and after he flies off to find Raeburn, she flies to get help from the Batman. Batman, realizing that none of the Outsiders are strong enough to stop their most powerful member, calls in Superman.  This was before John Byrne's revamp of Superman in The Man of Steel when he and Batman were still friends.  I'm glad that over the years since their friendship has re-emerged and they even once again share a monthly title.
Supes catches up with Brion just as he's about to crush Raeburn's head and the two fight. This isn't as lopsided a match as you might think. Geo-Force uses his power to increase gravity to make the gravity around Superman equal to that of Krypton, thus taking away most of his super-strength.  Still, despite Geo-Force getting a few good licks in, Superman eventually prevails.
Then Batman shows up. While Superman and Geo-Force went at it, he'd been gathering affidavits from other women Raeburn had harrassed to use as evidence against him.  He might, after all, be able to dismiss one such claim as just Denise's word against his, but not a whole folder full.
The story ends on Christmas morning, with Brion at Denise's bedside in the hospital as she decides to give the whole living thing another shot.
This story, by the way, is a favorite of my sister Ann. Seems she doesn't really like Superman, and enjoyed seeing Geo-Force kick him around for a couple of panels.

Christmas With The Caped Crusader: Batman and the Outsiders #8

As I said in my last post, writer Mike W. Barr loves himself a good Batman Christmas story.  When he finally got his crack at being the regular writer on a Batman comic, Batman and the Outsiders, he quickly made the Christmas tale an annual tradition.  

The first BATO holiday story appeared in the eighth issue and guest starred the Phantom Stranger.  Batman is investigating the connection between the kidnapping of an infant and an old man found in a catatonic state whose fingerprints were at the crime scene.  The Dark Knight has a thought, but is about to dismiss it as being too far out when the Stranger appears out of nowhere and tells Batman to follow his instincts.  Doing so, Batman checks the missing kids fingerprints and discovers that the old man and the child are one and the same.  Next, the same mysterious sudden aging affects an entire nursery school class.  Batman deduces that the phenomenon will strike next at Gotham Childrens' Hospital and has the Outsiders there on Christmas morning, ready for when trouble strikes. 
And strike it does, as a newborn baby suddenly starts threatening the doctor who delivers him, then transforms into the Phantom Stranger's old enemy Tannarak.  The Stranger, of course, appears to battle him, as do Batman and the Outsiders.
Ok, so what was going on was that body had been destroyed in his last fight with the Stranger, and Tannarak had been stealing life energy from children, causing the sudden aging, until he had enough to allow him to possess and transform a newborn baby.
Anyway, to keep the Outsiders busy while he and the Stranger fight, Tannarak makes all the babies in the maternity ward attack the heroes.  For a Christmas story, and, for that matter, for Batman and the Outsiders, this is a really bizarre story, filled with odd and disturbing imagery such as the floating baby with glowing red eyes who turns into Tannarak, and the Outsiders being attacked by a horde of killer babies.
Holidays are a time of reunions and this issue represents a reunion of both writer Barr and artist Jim Aparo with the Phantom Stranger.  The Stranger's own book had been one of Aparo's first assignments at DC Comics, and when the Stranger guest starred in The Brave and the Bold #98, editor Murray Boltinoff asked Aparo to draw that issue. Not long after that, Aparo became the regular artist on B&B, a job he held until the book's cancellation.  That led to his becoming co-creator and artist on BATO, and going on to be thought of as one of the premier all-time Batman artists.
Barr had written the Stranger's most recent solo series, which appeared in the back of Saga of the Swamp Thing. In fact, the previous battle between the Stranger and Tannarak that I referenced earlier occurred in Swamp Thing #5.
This is one of those "Christmas" stories that really has little to do with the holiday other than the time it takes places. In fact,  given the  supernatural nature of the guest star and the bizarre imagery I noted earlier,  this might really have been more suitable for a Halloween issue.

Christmas With The Caped Crusader: The Brave and the Bold #184

You know who loves Christmas even more than the Batman?

Mike W. Barr.

I'll bet he's got the biggest, most obnoxious outdoor light display in his neighborhood.  He certainly loves a good Batman Christmas story, and has written quite a few himself over the years.  Among the earliest of these is "The Batman's Last Christmas" in The Brave and the Bold #184, guest starring the Huntress and drawn by veteran B&B illustrator Jim Aparo.
This being the post-Haney B&B, the fact that Huntress lived on a different Earth from the Batman is actually accounted for.  Of course, given the nature of the pre-Crisis On Infinite Earths Huntress as the daughter of Earth-2's Batman, even Haney couldn't have just had her drop by without accounting for the dimensional difference.

With her parents, the Earth-2 Batman and Catwoman, gone, Helena Wayne, the Huntress, beams over to Earth-1 to spend the holidays with the only real family she has, her father's Earth-1 counterpart, whom she refers to affectionately as "Uncle Bruce."  She catches up with Batman just as he stumbles upon evidence that seems to suggest that his father, Dr. Thomas Wayne, had made payments to mobster "Spurs" Saunders to help Saunders establish his criminal empire.  Further investigation serves only to further incriminate Dr. Wayne, leading Batman to decide that his whole career as Batman has been a sham, since the parents whose deaths he's been avenging were seemingly just as bad as the criminals he fights. Thus, Bruce vows that "...It's time for the Batman to die!"
He tries to become the playboy he's always pretended to be, but his heart just isn't in it. Then he witnesses the Huntress save the life of a member of Saunders' mob who'd double crossed him.  The man had been Christmas shopping with his son, and Batman realizes that even though the guy was a crook, his son would have been traumatized by his murder. This leads him to further realize that his career as Batman has always been about more than just avenging his parents deaths. "...He (the Batman) exists to spare others the loss I felt when my parents died--a loss I felt even though they were also criminals." 
Newly re-inspired, Batman decides to discover the real truth about his parents.  Back at Wayne Manor a memory of his last Christmas with his parents causes him to remember a tell tale clue which leads him to the realization that it was actually his parents' accountant, Amos Randolph, pretending to be Dr. Wayne and embezzling his money, who had financed Saunders. Batman confronts the aging and bedridden accountant while Huntress tells Saunders that she knows the truth about his connection with Wayne and has turned the incriminating records over  to Commissioner Gordon.
Usually in Batman's Christmas stories, the Caped Crusader is simply a player in someone else's story; the instrument through which they learn a yuletide lesson.  In "The Batman's Last Christmas", however, its the Batman himself who learns a valuable lesson.  He tells Helena that she "helped give me back my faith and my cause. I couldn't ask for a better gift!"  Then, at his parents' graves, he rededicates himself to his war on crime.

Christmas With The Caped Crusader: "Wanted: Santa Claus--Dead or Alive!"

"Wanted: Santa Claus--Dead or Alive!", originally presented in 1979's Super-Star Holiday Special (DC Special Series #21), and subsequently reprinted many times, is, I believe (and please feel free to correct me if I am mistaken), the only collaboration between two of the men most responsible for shaping the character of the Batman as we understand him today, Dennis O'Neil and Frank Miller.  O'Neil, working primarily with artist Neal Adams in the early 1970's, helped to bring Batman back to his early 40's roots as a grim nocturnal vigilante in a rejection of the camp era of the 1960's epitomized by the Adam West TV show.  Miller refined that characterization during the 80's in story such as "Batman: Year One" and The Dark Knight Returns,  making the Dark Knight even darker and setting him on the road to becoming the obsessive near psychotic he has often been portrayed as in the last two decades
The story begins, as all good Batman Christmas stories do, on Christmas Eve as Batman notices that the Christmas star in a nativity display has been stolen, a detail that will, of course, become important later on.

However, Batman's got bigger fish to fry at the moment, like busting up an underworld holiday party to learn why mobster Matty Lasko has arranged for a boat to be waiting in Gotham Harbor that evening.  Lasko reveals that he did it as a favor for his former cell mate Boomer Katz.  Batman learns that Katz has taken a job as a department store Santa and disappointedly deduces that the supposedly rehabilitated ex-con plans to rob the establishment.
It turns out that Boomer is a reluctant participant in the robbery scheme, and turns on the gang of robbers just before Batman arrives. Batman rounds up most of the robbers, but one escapes, taking Boomer as a hostage. The light of a star shining through the hole in the aforementioned nativity display where its Christmas star had been, leads Batman to the hood and his prisoner. Its a Christmas miracle that gives Boomer Katz another chance to straighten his life out.
"Wanted: Santa Claus--Dead or Alive!" is actually pretty typical of Batman Christmas stories of the period and O'Neil's work with the character in general.  Its true significance lies in the fact that it was drawn by Frank Miller, in what was, in fact, his very first work on the Batman.  Miller's Batman stories range from the sublime ("Batman: Year One", The Dark Knight Returns) to the silly (Spawn/Batman, All-Star Batman and Robin) and it all started here.

Christmas With The Caped Crusader: The Brave and the Bold #148

In our celebration of Batman Christmas tales, we're still stuck in 1978 for the moment.  That's okay with me. 1979 was one of the worst years of my life, but that's not a tale for this blog. 

Today we're going to examine The Brave and the Bold #148, starring Batman and Plastic Man in "The Night the Mob Stole Xmas!" (I know there's usually a dash in there between the "X" and the "mas", but that's the way it was punctuated in the book, so that's the way I'm doing it here.)  Like all the the majority of issues of B&B, this one was written by Bob Haney, but the art chores are handled a little differently this time out.  Regular B&B artist Jim Aparo was usually a one man band, penciling, inking and even lettering the entire story every issue.  In #148, however, he inks over the pencils of Joe Staton.  I assume he did the letters as well, as they look the same as they do in every other issue. 

This unusual distribution of duties allowed Aparo time to adjust to the book's new publishing schedule.  In 1978, after thirty-three years, B&B finally became a monthly comic. The choice of Joe Staton to help out with this issue was probably because, if I'm remembering right, he was drawing a Plastic Man feature in Adventure Comics at the time.
But the Plastic Man who appears in this story is the Plas of Bob Haney's B&B, and is quite a different character than the one Joe was drawing over in Adventure.  Many characters tended to act a little differently when they entered Haney's corner of the DC Universe than they did anywhere else, but Plastic Man was the most extreme example.  Rather than the light hearted, happy-go-lucky adventurer he was in his solo stories, in B&B, Plas was, to be honest, a bit of a whiner, given to bemoaning his status as a "freak."  Thus, when Batman encounters Plas, reduced to working as a street corner Santa, Plastic Man tells the Caped Crusader how things have gone downhill since they last met in B&B #123.  "...Cheap carnivals I quit because I hated being a freak," he moans, "But I guess I'm doomed to play only phony roles...like this!" (Wait, is Plas saying Santa isn't real?)  Batman stammers out a few reassuring words, tosses a coin in Plas' pot, tells him to try to have a Merry Christmas, then goes off to continue pursuing the cigarette smugglers, or "buttleggers", that he's been on the trail of .
The next morning, Batman drives by "Lacey's" department store to discover that their world famous Christmas display has been stolen.  Not only that, but the thieves also also kidnapped Plastic Man. Fortunately, Plas was able to leave a clue for Batman, and the Dark Knight soon finds himself on the trail of a convoy of semis headed for Florida.
Its soon revealed that the Lacey's display was stolen to serve as decorations at a Christmas party thrown by supposedly dieing mob boss Big Jake Doyle , coincidentally, the head of the "buttlegging" ring, ostensibly to make peace with his rivals before he passes on.  Of course, Doyle isn't dieing after all and the party was just a ruse to get all his competitors in one place so he can rub them out.  Fortunately, Bats and Plas are on hand to prevent the carnage, arrest Doyle, and get the Lacey's display back to Gotham in time for Christmas Eve.
While many of the Batman Christmas stories I've read feature some sort of life affirming message about the meaning of the season, Bob Haney wasn't really much of a sentimentalist. This is pretty much a typical Haney B&B story featuring Batman and his co-star du jour taking on a group of fairly generic mobsters.
Fortunately, Plastic Man's moaning is kept to a minimum, and there are some pretty clever uses of his powers, making this my favorite of Haney's B&B stories with the character.

Christmas With The Caped Crusader: Batman #309

In December 1978, DC Comics was filled with the holiday spirit, despite having just canceled nearly half its line only a couple of months earlier in the infamous DC Implosion.  A house ad touted a quartet of holiday themed issues.  Among them were Green Lantern #113, Superman #333, and two Batman stories, The Brave and the Bold #148 and Batman #309.  I'll look at the B&B story next time, but right now let's examine "Have Yourself A Deadly Little Christmas" by Len Wein, John Calnan and Frank McLaughlin from Batman #309.
I mentioned in my piece on "The Silent Night of the Batman" how that story set the tone for many of the Batman Christmas tales that followed, and echoes of the earlier story can definitely be seen here.
Batman drops by police headquarters on Christmas Eve to exchange gifts with Commissioner Gordon, but there's no time to stand around and sing carols this night.  Batman soon finds himself on the phone talking to a young girl named Kathy Crawford who is attempting suicide. She's taken some sleeping pills and called the police just to have someone to talk to in her final moments.  She quickly hangs up on Batman, but fortunately she was on the line long enough for the call to be traced.  Batman rushes off to try to find her before its too late.
When he arrives at Kathy's apartment, Batman finds the door smashed in and the girl missing.  Earlier that evening, Batman's old foe the Blockbuster had witnessed Kathy's purse being stolen.  Confronting her assailants, Blockbuster recovered her purse and set out to return it to her.  Arriving at her apartment just as Kathy passes out, the brute carried her off to seek help. 

However, Blockbuster refuses to take Kathy to a hospital, as his muddled mind associates hospitals with S.T.A.R. Labs, where he was apparently subjected to painful experiments, presumably in a previous issue.  In fact, he becomes quite violent when anyone mentions the word "hospital."  This, of course, leads to a fight when the Batman finds him, which eventually spills onto the frozen Gotham River.  As the two fight, the ice cracks, endangering the already near death Kathy.  Blockbuster sacrifices himself to save the girl, disappearing, and presumably drowning, in the icy waters. Kathy is taken to  a hospital and, inspired by Blockbuster's sacrifice, decides to give life another chance.

This story is, unfortunately, marred by pretty poor art.  Calnan's figures are stiff and blocky, and his angles and perspective  seem a little skewed at times. I have, however, seen Calnan's art look worse in other Batman stories. I assume inker McLaughlin smoothed over some of the rougher edges.  The cover by Jim Aparo is not one of his better jobs.  It kind of looks a bit rushed, to be honest. 
Still, despite the complaints about the art, and  though its not as inspiring as it tries to be, "Have Yourself A Deadly Little Christmas" is, all in all, a pretty decent entry in the annals of Batman holiday tales.