By 1963, the Batman titles were dancing on the edge of oblivion.
Clearly, putting the Masked Manhunter in a science-fiction milieu had failed to grab readers---which vindicated Bat-editor Jack Schiff, who had argued, insightfully, that SF ran contrary to the core concept of the Batman as a sleuth who operated from the shadows. As a “reward” for his literary instincts having been proved right, Schiff was removed as editor of Batman and Detective Comics at the beginning of 1964.
The brass at National Periodical Publications at least had the awareness that a drastic overhaul was needed, if DC was to avoid the embarrassment of cancelling the two titles headlined by its second-most-well-known character. Up against it, they turned to an editor who had demonstrated the ability to draw large numbers of fans by modernising old formats---Julius Schwartz. In light of Schwartz's impressive successes with the revivals of the Flash, Green Lantern, and the Atom, and the creation of the Justice League of America, it was expected that he would work his magic yet again on Batman and Detective Comics.
As reported in Les Daniels’ Batman: the Complete History, Schwartz was reluctant to take the job. “I took over Batman, which I didn’t want to do, but they said I had to because the magazine was doing badly,” said Schwartz. “I wouldn’t say they were going to kill it, but it was certainly being discussed.”
To be sure, there has been some debate over whether the axe was ready to fall. The Batcave Companion, by Michael Eury and Michael Kronenberg (Twomorrows Publishing, 2009), includes a 2007 interview between Eury and DC artist Carmine Infantino. Infantino related that he was present at the editorial conference which assigned the mission of renovating Batman to Schwartz. According to Infantino, editorial director Irwin Donenfeld told them, “The Batman books are dying and you two have six months to save them, or, very simply, it’s over.”
But somebody who wasn’t at that meeting, Jack Schiff, had told Overstreet Price Guide, in that 1983 interview, that there was never any serious consideration of cancelling Batman.
Logically, checking the sales figures for 1963 would provide a hint. But for some reason, DC released its 1963 Statements of Ownership without sales figures. So there is no way to readily determine how much sales on Batman and Detective Comics had slipped from the previous year.
There’s another factor to consider, which I’ll get to in a moment.
The first step Schwartz took in creating what would be called the “New Look” Batman was an obvious one: there would be no more stories involving aliens, outer space, bug-eyed monsters, or freakish transformations. Schwartz then banned all of the Bat-hangers-on. Gone were Batwoman, Bat-Girl, Bat-Mite, and Ace, the Bat-Hound (though the intrepid pooch managed a cameo in a 1964 World’s Finest tale).
Emphasis would return to the concept of Batman as a detective---a hero who relied on logic, modern forensic techniques, and a store of esoteric knowledge to solve mysteries and track criminals. His opponents would not be bizarre costumed villains, but crime bosses with a special talent or gimmick which elevated them beyond the reach of regular police, but still within the realm of real-world sensibilities.
In keeping with the new theme, Schwartz called for artistic changes. To ring in the New Look and to give it a fresh appearance as far from the old Bob Kane style as possible, Schwartz drafted Carmine Infantino. The scratchy lines and sharp edges of Infantino’s pencils were polished by the inks of Joe Giella and Sid Greene, resulting in a sleeker, more dynamic Caped Crusader. Gotham City became a cosmopolitan city, providing the perfect backdrop for the realism that Schwartz was shooting for. As with Curt Swan's work over in the Superman titles, Infantino's work added a gravitas to the Batman stories, carrying a story which might otherwise not work as well.
There’s some static about exactly who---Schwartz or Irwin Donenfeld---fingered Infantino as the illustrator to restore Batman’s credibility. But either way, Infantino was immediately relieved of all his regular DC art assignments, except for The Flash, to make him available for Detective Comics.
The sudden restructuring of Infantino’s assignments shows an urgency in the effort to put Batman back on his feet. And that suggests that the possibility of cancelling the Bat-books was a real one, indeed, and a humiliation that DC hoped mightily to avoid.
Infantino did roughly every other Batman story in Detective Comics. The others, as well as all of the art in Batman, continued to be drawn by Shelly Moldoff. But no longer was Moldoff required to mimic Bob Kane. Once he was freed of that constraint, and ably assisted by Giella and Greene, his own style proved to be more fluid and lifelike. No-one would ever mistake him for Alex Ross, but his night scenes were skillful enough to restore a sense of mystery to the series, particularly in his use of shadows.
Officially, the "New Look" Batman debuted in Detective Comics # 327 (May, 1964), in the story "The Mystery of the Menacing Mask". This was an eclectic crime drama drafted by John Broome, and rendered by Infantino and Giella.
It would be difficult for to-day's comics reader to fully appreciate what a thrilling thing the debut of the "New Look" Batman was to a reader of that day. To-day, significant events are presented in hyperbole plastered across the covers: "After this issue, one Avenger will never fight, again!"; "The all-new, all-powerful Wombat-Man!" However, it is noteworthy that cover of Detective Comics # 327 announced the New Look in one small banner reading "Introducing a 'New Look' Batman and Robin . . . ."
And, unlike now, in those long-ago days, there were no mechanisms in place for the fans to communicate "inside information" to each other---fanzines were nascent; there were no trade magazines and no Internet comics fora (for that matter, no Internet)---so word of upcoming changes didn't leak out.
So the changes to the Batman presented in Detective Comics # 327 came as a real surprise. At least they did to me.
The art of "The Mystery of the Menacing Mask" grabbed me from the get-go. Of course, in those days, I had no idea who the artists were (and in truth, it hadn't been that long since I realised that there were talents behind the stories I had been reading), but I saw that the art in this story was richer, more realistic---and to a youngster like me, "neater".
Interestingly, the plot of this "debut" story engendered as much curiosity in me as excitement. Even when viewed among the New Look stories that came later, "The Mystery of the Menacing Mask" read as an odd duck.
Except for the Dynamic Duo themselves, their secret identities of Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, and the Batcave, none of the regular trappings of a Batman story were present. No Alfred, no Commissioner Gordon, no Bat-signal, no Batmobile. And the setting for most of the story was DC's version of Greenwich Village---Gotham Village. To a boy raised in mid-western Ohio, Greenwich/Gotham Village was as alien to me as the landscape of Rann. Not to mention the incongruous panel showing Batman holding a handgun on a gang of defeated crooks to keep them at bay (which Julius Schwartz admitted later was a major mistake, stemming from his unfamiliarity with the character).
To my unseasoned eye, the story just didn't "read" quite right. Kind of like when one reads one of those late-'40's Doc Savage stories which were actually written as standard detective adventures, with Doc substituted as the main character after the fact. Still, it was a huge leap in sophistication over “The Alien Boss of Gotham City”.
The principal change “The Mystery of the Menacing Mask” brought to the fictional conceit of the series was the addition of the yellow ellipse around Batman’s bat-emblem. This was Schwartz's idea. Unlike his revivals of the Flash, GL, and the Atom, where he was free to completely re-write the characters and change their costumes, Batman was one of DC's icons, and Schwartz was not permitted to significantly tinker with the Masked Manhunter's basic appearance. The addition of the yellow ellipse was the one visual change he could get away with.
In the chapter covering the New Look Batman in Tales of the Dark Knight; Batman's First Fifty Years: 1939-1989 by Mark Cotta Vaz (Ballentine Books, 1989), the author provides the following commentary, punctuated by a comment from Julius Schwartz himself:
The crowning touch [of the New Look], and Schwartz's own editorial signature, was his enclosing the black bat image on Batman's chest in a yellow moon.
Schwartz had always been as precise as a diamond cutter at reviving and updating the careers of old, out-of-work crime fighters. One of his own successful superhero reclamation efforts was the Flash, whom he outfitted with a new identity, origin, and costume. But there were some built-in restrictions on how far and fast he could play with the Batman mythos.
"With the Flash there was a whole new generation [who hadn't read the long-gone Golden Age-era Flash], so I could do anything I wanted," Schwartz explains. "But I couldn't take over a continuing series like Batman and say, 'Hey! We've got to change the uniform.' It just wouldn't work."
Though the yellow oval appeared in that first New Look Batman tale and was the hallmark of the change in direction, it was curiously downplayed. On the cover of Detective Comics # 327, the images of Batman were arranged so that his insignia was not visible and no reference within the story was made to the change. It was just there.
The next Schwartz-edited Bat-tale---"The Two-Way Gem Caper", from Batman # 164 (Jun., 1964)---was when the New Look really took off. This was the story which instituted the majority of updates to the Batman mythos. Bruce Wayne presented them to Dick Grayson at the same time that they were unveiled to the reader: the elevator to the Batcave replacing the old winding staircase; the new Italian-sports-car convertible Batmobile, replacing the old bubble-top sedan model; the new moveable cave wall entrance to the Batcave; and the Hotline.
These changes were timely and appropriate. In a matter of three pages, Batman and Robin had become modern and innovative.
The last of Schwartz’s revamps came in the third Batman story to appear under his direction---“Gotham Gang Line-Up”, from Detective Comics # 328 (Jun., 1964). To blunt the accusations of latent homosexuality in two men and a boy living together without female influence---made by the uninformed, of course; such a thing never occurred to the fans---Alfred Pennyworth was killed off. At the climax of this tale, a steam shovel operated by a member of the Tri-State Gang dropped a boulder over the heads of an unsuspecting Batman and Robin. Seeing this, Alfred shoved the Dynamic Duo out of danger. However, the loyal butler's effort put him beneath the falling rock and it crushed him.
The death of Alfred launched two new additions to the Batman mythos. First, in memory of their friend and confidant, Bruce Wayne established the charitable Alfred Foundation (which, upon Alfred's revival later, underwent a name-change to the Wayne Foundation). This rounded and deepened the character of Bruce Wayne. Now, more than a mere socialite, he was a businessman shown to have a CEO's interests and concerns. Wayne's work as an executive provided a plausible springboard for many cases.
Second, the hitherto unseen and unmentioned aunt of Dick Grayson, Harriet Cooper, took residence in Wayne Manor. As depicted, Aunt Harriet was warm-hearted, but overprotective; she arrived at Wayne Manor unannounced and insisted on remaining to take care of her "helpless boys".
Of all the different “eras” of the Batman, the New Look remains my favourite. The scripts provided by Gardner Fox and John Broome, while not scrimping on action, evoked the tone of a police procedural. Here was Batman, the professional sleuth, respected by the police department, the citizens of Gotham City, and, grudgingly, the underworld. There was more than one crime boss shown to regard Batman as someone to be avoided, rather than to attack or attempt to kill. These savvier crooks knew that they would lose going toe-to-toe with the Masked Manhunter. “Getaway Genius” Roy Reynolds and Johnny Witts, “the man who was always one step ahead of Batman”, were two examples of this.
Victor Iago, Mr. Incognito, and B. G. Hunter were other non-costumed criminals who demonstrated a capacity for intelligence which made them genuine challenges to the Dynamic Duo. In Batman # 167 (Nov., 1964), the Dynamic Duo tackled an international criminal combine known as “Hydra”, a year before Nick Fury ever heard the name. To keep the stories on the cutting edge, there was occasionally a smattering of science fiction, but never more than a half-step beyond what was currently possible. And one could count on Fox or Broome providing a footnote or two documenting the actual technology, discovery, or research upon which they based their story elements.
As it had been back in the '40's, the fact that Batman and Robin were detectives was underscored. Many a scene showed the pair in the Batcave, hunched over a lab table or relaxed in armchairs, capes and masks draped over the backs, while they discussed the salient points of their current case. One of the more welcome touches was the effort made to show Robin as a contributing member of the team, with his own flashes of insight or day-saving initiative, as opposed to the days when he was just a shill there to be impressed by his older partner.
Writer France Herron made his own contributions to the New Look Batman mythos. He established a new love interest for Bruce Wayne in the person of Gotham City policewoman Patricia Powell. Pretty, quick-witted, and very capable, Patricia seemed a good match for the socially conscious Wayne. But for some reason, she never took off with the readers, and she made only two appearances.
More successful was Herron’s creation of the Mystery Analysts of Gotham City. The Mystery Analyst tales were creatively crafted puzzlers which brought together the leading crime-solvers of Gotham. Although too often, but naturally, too much of the action and detection was handed over to the Batman (the book was, after all, titled Batman, and not The Adventures of Martin Tellman, Armchair Detective), still it was fun to see Commissioner Gordon out from behind his desk and showing his mettle. And it was a nice nod of continuity to the reader when, occasionally, we saw one of the members in a story outside of a Mystery Analyst tale, such as when Batman teamed up with private eye Hugh Rankin or when he turned to newspaperman Art Saddows for information. And, of course, District Attorney Danton would pop up in courtroom scenes every now and then. It gave the reader the feeling that these people really were part of the Batman's professional circle.
The New Look Batman was a badly needed shot of adrenaline. Julius Schwartz had restored the structural integrity of the Batman concept. In the letter columns, the readers overwhelmingly approved of the changes Schwartz had wrought. For the first time in years, there was genuine excitement in looking forward to the next issue.
Unfortunately, the fans’ runaway enthusiasm did not translate to runaway sales. The 1965 statements of ownership---twenty months after the debut of the New Look---showed Batman had an average total paid circulation of 453,745; Detective Comics, 304,414. Up from 1962, but not that up. Lois Lane was still kicking him around the block.
Still, Schwartz had done what he had been charged to do. The minor rise in sales was enough to pull Batman from the brink of cancellation, but little more. It would be the mid-season debut of a television show that once again turned the Masked Manhunter into a cash cow for DC---and ruined the New Look in the process.
Comments
I just reread the first three Outsider stories. They came out in a six month period, then stopped for almost a year before the Blockbuster/Outsider story. This makes me wonder if Schwartz and Fox planned to wrap it up fairly soon but couldn't think how to resolve it.
Herron did some neat New Look stories. "Two-Way Deathtrap" makes a lot of metacommentary about how stupid death traps are. It's not something I expect to find in the SIlver Age.
In the past we've talked about who the Outsider would otherwise have turned out to be. I was just reading this post on the Outsider stories, and one of the things I wondered is if the Outsider was originally meant to be Batman himself, sleepwalking under the influence of whatever it was that also gave him his Outsider powers.(1) The Blockbuster story excludes that, since a synopsis tells me in it Blockbuster attacks the Outsider while Batman is in a trap, but perhaps he was going to be something like the counterpart of Batman from a mirror or shadow universe,(2) or a second self who was somehow split off from him. His motivation could have been animus towards his alternative self, or an intention to replace him. The glove in the image from Detective Comics #340 could be Batman's, and the face could be a distorted Batman mask (or a distorted version of a distorted version of Batman's mask). Such a premise could have suggested the idea of using the revelation of his identity to bring back Alfred.
(1) Compare the cover story of Action Comics #409, but I should note that was Murray Boltinoff story, not a Julie Schwartz one.
(2) I was thinking of a mid-60s Mandrake story when I wrote this ("Return of the Mirror People"), but it probably started too close to the Outsider's debut appearance to have influenced it. The Mirror People were evil counterparts of the cast from a world that was entered through mirrors. They had appeared in Mandrake before, but back in 1944.
"The figures for Detective Comics in 1963 aren't publically available, but it wouldn't be untoward if Detective Comics suffered a similar decline in 1963. That would put it near or possibly even below that cancellation-at-200,000 benchmark that Pat cited."
CB, I respectfully disagree that another big drop in 1963 would not be untoward. Again, the decline in circulation in 1962 is easily understood. Comics increased in price by 20%. Since kids are largely on a fixed income (aka allowance), they spent about the same amount on comics as they had before, but this resulted in a decline of about 16% in average circulation. This was not spread out evenly; comics that appealed to young readers suffered the steepest decline, while war comics (for example), which tended to be read by older kids, suffered more modest dips.
But there is no reason to assume that the decline continued in 1963. By then the sticker shock had gone away. Obviously we don't have the circulation figures from DC (and especially the crucial titles of Batman and Detective), but looking at the titles from other publishers that did report circulation in both 1962 and 1963, most of them increased sales. The various Archie titles were up about 3%-6%, Sea Devils (the only DC comic to report in 1963) was off 1%, the Marvel titles had strong increases of over 20%, although their titles took big hits in 1962, so those increases mostly brought them back into line with their 1961 sales. The ACG line did suffer declines of 5-10%. No comic that reported for both years had anything like the 25% decline that would have been required for Detective to dip close to the cancellation level.
In 1964, we see more of the same; most comics reporting modest sales increases. Economically this makes some sense. A product which stays at the same price despite modest national inflation becomes moderately cheaper compared to other products which have had price increases. And demographics were working in the comics publishing industry's favor as well, as the largest segment of the baby boom population was coming into their comic-buying prime.
As further evidence, consider that the only titles DC canceled from 1962-64 were Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (an annual Christmas title) and the Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (a TV feature whose show had gone off the air in 1963).
Don't get me wrong; I bought initially the idea that Schiff was forced out due to lousy sales. It makes sense with adult eyes; Batman comics were pretty bad during the monsters, aliens, and weird transformations era. But there is less evidence that was apparent to the kids of the time. I suspect what really happened was that adult fandom, which was becoming influential, pressed for the change (in 1962, Batman received the Alley "Award" for Comic Most In Need of Improvement). DC management, seeing what Schwartz had done with the old All-American heroes, decided to give him a shot.
BTW, although the New Look did represent an improvement (particularly the covers), I remain of the opinion that the best resurrection of Batman by Schwartz was the one from 1968 on.
When I revised this article before posting it as an "Archive entry", I expanded on the issue of whether or not the oft-heard account that DC was close to cancelling the Bat-titles was accurate. I had not done that, but took it as gospel, when I first posted it on the old board back in '07. Not too long thereafter that, though, I heard from a couple of folks who raised the issue, as Pat did, that it was a myth. Pat makes an excellent point and I can't say he's wrong in his estimation of how the numbers worked. In fact, in Jack Schiff's 1983 Overstreet Price Guide inteview, he buttressed his statement that DC was not considering cancelling the bat-books by remarking: "All comics sales were bad across the board."
Which is precisely what Pat said, but Schiff didn't expound by examining the figures or analysing the subsequent sales growth, as Pat did. To me, that put Schiff's statement in the realm of opinion. An educated opinion of a subject-matter expert, to be sure, and not to be dismissed out of hand. But I also had references from equally expert individuals (Schwartz and Infantino) saying otherwise.
Pat's figure-based analysis makes a great deal of sense; it certainly adds a great deal of credibility to the no-cancellation-of-Batman camp. You are also correct, CK, when you state that Detective Comics sold considerably less than Batman. Looking at the Statements of Ownership for those two titles in 1960-2 and 1965 (DC did not release the average paid circulations for its titles in 1963-4), Detective Comics consistently sold 32-to-35% less than did Batman.
Now, in 1961, the average paid circulation for Detective Comics was 325,000. In 1962, it was 265,000. That's a drop of 60,000. That's a considerable decline. The figures for Detective Comics in 1963 aren't publically available, but it wouldn't be untoward if Detective Comics suffered a similar decline in 1963. That would put it near or possibly even below that cancellation-at-200,000 benchmark that Pat cited.
The Batman title, on the other hand, never got within 100,000 of that benchmark in the years that the figures are publically available. So Pat's argument with regard to Batman is much stronger.
As for Detective Comics, we don't know---I certainly don't---but it's within the realm of possibilty that the title was dancing awfully close to the axe.
Still, we have Infantino insisting that Irwin Donenfeld told him and Schwartz that "the Batman books are dying" and they were given a deadline of six months to save them. One wouldn't think Infantino would be mistaken about that, and there's no ostensible reason for him to lie about it. But he might have gotten it wrong honestly. It could be confabulation, or suggestive memory editing: he heard the story that the Bat-books were in danger of cancellation so often, he himself believed he remembered Donenfeld saying that.
Or Donenfeld might have actually told them that, to satisfy some agenda of his own.
And then there is the matter of why DC ordered the virtually overnight shake-up of editors and cleared most of Infantino's decks so he could go to work on Detective Comics. Clearly an effort to revive the Bat-titles, but was it because the titles were in extremis? The haste would suggest so, but it's only an implication, not evidence.
I tend to go along with Schwartz's own evaluation, that he wouldn't say that cancellation was iminent, but that it was being discussed.
The claim that Batman was about to be canceled in 1964 is a myth. Batman did decline in circulation badly in 1962, but so did most other DC titles, due to the price increase from 10 cents to 12 cents. If you look at the sales figures from 1965 compared to 1962 (both 1963 and 1964 sales are missing as you mentioned in the post), the rebound is nothing unusual. Batman was up about 11% over the three years' earlier period. But so was Superman and Superboy and the Flash. Lois Lane was up 13%, JLA up 14%, Jimmy Olsen up 18%, Action up 21% and Adventure Comics up 25%.
In 1962, sales of Batman averaged 405,000 copies. Back then DC canceled titles when they dropped below 200,000 copies per issue. So in order to make the argument that they were close to shuttering Batman, you have to not only argue that sales of his title collapsed from 1962-64, but that they skyrocketed up something like 150% following the restaffing of the editor's desk. See the problem?
The really drastic drop in circulation came from 1967-70, when sales of Batman simply collapsed, not just to the pre-Batmania levels, but well below them. I strongly suspect that around 1970 was when the title was nearly canceled as by then the numbers were definitely approaching the 200,000 level.
As for the Outsider, I am pretty sure that the intent was always there to make him Alfred. There was a strong clue in Detective #340, in which it was revealed that the Outsider had to touch an inanimate object in order to control it. But in that same issue he sends the Batcave elevator crashing down. Doesn't that indicate that the Outsider knows Batman's identity and has been in the elevator? I do suspect that the appearance of the TV show forced Schwartz to do the big reveal earlier than might have otherwise been the case, but I doubt Dozier cared; remember the number of people reading the comics was miniscule compared to those watching the show on ABC.
The first year or so of the New Look in Batman and Detective stands as one of my all time favorite comic book runs. The "new" versions of Flash, Green Lantern, Atom etc were already in place when I started reading comics but with the New Look I was in on the ground floor. And although Moldoff's art benefited greatly from the fresh approach (and from Giella and Greene's inking), I would have preferred seeing Infantino take over the art chores completely on at least one of the titles.
As a side note, Gil Kane contributed a few outstanding covers during this period. And Joe Kubert did a couple of fill in issues . Much as I love Kubert, his Batman never worked for me.
Aug. 1964 Hawkman #4
Apr. 1965 Atom #19
Nov. 1965 Green Lantern #42
Jul. 1966 Detective Comics #355 (Elongated Man)
Dec. 1966 Justice League of America #51.
(I've omitted Detective Comics #336 from Dec 1964 , because it only retrospectively became a Zatanna story.)
The Outsider series ran as follows:
Oct. 1964 Detective Comics #334
Dec. 1964 Detective Comics #336
Apr. 1965 Detective Comics #340
Jan. 1966 Detective Comics #349
Aug. 1966 Detective Comics #356.
(Alfred's death had appeared in Detective Comics #328 in Apr. 1964.)
"And if I recall correctly, the Outsider pre-existed DC's decision to return Alfred, and Schwarz just grafted the resurrection onto his current villain, whose identity had yet to be revealed. But I could be mis-remembering -- Commander, do you know?"
Not much more than you, Cap. After consulting several on-line and hard-copy resources, here's what (little) I know.
The Outsider did, indeed, exist prior to DC's decision to resurrect Alfred, a requirement thrust upon them by William Dozier, producer of the Batman television show. That's evident in the timing: the first Outsider story---"The Man Who Stole from Batman", Detective Comics # 334 (Dec., 1964)---appeared seven months after Alfred's demise. At this stage, William Dozier had only begun to feel out the potential for a Batman television series. Without an actual product and a green light from one of the networks, Dozier wouldn't have been in a position to demand anything from DC.
And so many references attest to the fact that Julius Schwartz used the on-going mystery of the Outsider to shoehorn the return of Alfred, one can practically take that as judicial notice.
As to the matter of who the Outsider was supposed to be, before circumstances forced Schwartz to have him turn out to be Alfred, well, that's a matter of conjecture.
The letter column of Detective Comics # 344 (Oct., 1965) carried a letter from Mike Friedrich, of Castro Valley, California, in which he made these remarks:
Actually, I think you yourself don't know who [the Outsider] is; making up the rules as you go along, as it were. You should, however, make up your mind soon about his identity and instruct your writers accordingly . . . .
To this, Schwartz responded:
You hint at this point of the game we ourselves might not know who the Outsider is. No comment on that---but here's something to think about: maybe the Outsider himself doesn't know who he is!
Schwartz's reply was certainly equivocating. For something a little closer to definite, I turned to the trade mag Amazing Heroes. One of the features in Amazing Heroes # 113 (15 Mar 1987) was an interview between Rich Morrissey and Gardner Fox, recorded in 1976. About the originally intended identity of the Outsider, Fox said this:
"It's my belief that when we started the Outsider series, neither Julie or I had any idea who the Outsider would turn out to be."
Fox, of course, could speak for himself with authority. As to Schwartz's intentions, I find it hard to believe that he would have had a specific candidate in mind without bringing Fox---who had written all of the Outsider tales---in on it.
In that same interview, Fox also confirmed that Schwartz inserted Alfred into the Outsider storyline to satisfy Dozier's requirement to restore the loyal butler to the series.
My search for facts wasn't comprehensive; there might be a nugget of info still out there somewhere. But, right now, I go along with the idea that the Outsider's true identity was in a "to be determined" status, until Dozier forced DC to bring Alfred back. I also suspect that, if it hadn't been for the television programme, the on-going mystery of the Outsider wouldn't have been wrapped up as soon as it was (in Detective Comics # 356 [Oct., 1966]).
Without TV forcing his hand, Schwartz could have extended the Outsider storyline indefinitely, until he figured out just who he wanted him---or for that matter, her---to turn out to be.
...Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse is listed as " 1960-62 " so , two seasons worth of episodes , I would suppose .
Was there an agreement with DC that he could do such a blatant clone but it would stay outside of funnybook ?????????
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