I'll never forget the first Batman comic strip by Marshall Rogers.
Marshall Rogers' version is "movie adjacent." Batman is new to Gotham City. He has recently defeated the Joker, but the Joker survived. Rogers introduces a new threat: the Catwoman. He also introduces District Attorney Harvey Dent, but the the Billy Dee Wiliams version from the movie; this one looks more the comic book version, pre-disfigurement. Unfortunately, Rogers stayed on the strip for only the first story (or "continuity" in comic strip circles). Then the strip was handed over to William Messner-Loebs, "Cinfa" (Carmine Infantino) and John Nyberg, and I stopped reading it. I have read the initial story many times over the years, but I have never read the rest of it... until now.
In the years since these strips first appeared, I have come to appreciate Carmine Infantino's art style, but I certainly did not like it 35 years ago. Even the most casual of reader must have noticed the difference, and I cannot imagine anyone who saw it as an improvement. I have recently been reading the earliest Golden Age comic book appearances of such villains as the Joker, Two Face and the Penguin, and William-Messner Loebs top-loads his plots with those three.
First up is the Penguin, which segues nicely into a prison riot story. The riot is master-minded by a prisoner who wears a red hood, and I'll bet you an guess who he turns out to be. Harvey Dent has been a background character from the beginning, but he moves into the foreground when the Joker comes to trial. Eventually the Joker is found not guilty by reason of insanity and sentenced to life in Arkham Asylum. A protester thinks Joker should have received the death penalty, and after the trial, outside the courthouse, the deranged man tries to kill him by throwing acid. It is actually the Batman who saves the Joker by tackling him, but the acid continues in its arc to Harvey Dent's wife. In saving his wife from the acid, Dent himself is scarred.
Harvey himself blames Batman rather than the man who actually threw the acid, but Alfred points out, "Mr. Dent provoked the sick man, played on the fears of other sick men... he abused his power as D.A. and now that abuse has marked him," and thus does the life of 2025 immitate the art of 1990. In this version of the story, Harvey Dent continues to be district attorney even after being scarred, while opperating as "Two Face" behind-the-scenes. He uses his political power to replace good cops and civil servants with his own hand-picked men (and again, that sounds awfully familiar today). Two Face ends up being sentenced to Arkham in a cell right next ot he Joker, which is fitting because that's where Harvey Dent sent him.
Next up is the origin of Robin, the Boy Wonder. This story was foreshadowed by posters that the circus, featuring "The Flying Graysons," was in town. Vicki Vale makes her first appearance since Marshall Rogers' "Catwoman" story. William Messner-Loebs likes to use the names of fellow comic book professionals as minor characters, I have noticed. For example, the owner of the circus is "Mike Gold." For some reason, WML changed the name of the gangster from "Boss Zucco" to "Giggles Nelson." I don't consider that an improvement, nor must WML because a couple of days later it was "Giggles Moran." Another change is that the circus owner wasn't being shaken down for "protection" money, but rather for gambling debts, which makes him much more complicit in the elder Graysons' deaths AFAIAC. Another change is that the "Robin" costume was the idea of Dick Grayson's parents, they just hadn't had the chance to debut it yet. Dick/Robin uses a unique method of determining Batman's identity I have not seen before.
NOTE: The Batmobile is voice-activated and fully self-driven. When Gotham City is shown from a window in Wayne Manor, it looks like Manhattan as seen from Long Island. Yet when the Batmobile races back home, it travels at 140 m.p.h. for "hours." Not only couldn't it have been traveling that fast the whole way, it must have gotten stuck in some serious traffic.
The Robin story leads directly into the Riddler one. It begins with what I see as some metatextual criticism of the whole "Riddler" concept. First, we have a bank teller reaction to one of Riddler's riddles: "That was a terrible riddle! More like a weak pun, or..." The "riddle" itself was: "How is a bank like an overweight coleslaw fiend?" (and I think we can all figure that one out). Second, Riddler is depicted as a loser because the police always figure out his clues and he always gets caught. This storyline also includes a giant typewriter prop.
The last continuity takes place mostly inside Arkham Asylum and features the Mad Hatter, giving him a new origin. Essentially he created a new kind of software and was forced out of the business (and into the asylum) by his partners. He uses incorporates this technology into hats which he uses to take over the facility. We see glimpses of all former villains, plus Clayface. At one point, the Hatter's hat "cures" the Joker. Knowledge of his crimes esentially drives him mad, but this plot point is not developed beyond that. There is a "Catwoman" in a single panel, but it doesn't appear to be the Marshall Rogers one. First, why would she be in Arkham? And second, she looks more like a member of Dell's "Fab Four" than any Catwoman we have ever seen. Two Face plays a major role in this story.
In the "old days," some newspaper readers took the paper only on weekdays, others on Sundays only, and others still all week long. It was incumbent on cartoonists to structure their strips in such a way that it could be followed by those who read only the weekdays, or only the Sundays, yet still be of interest to those who read seven days a week. Frequently, especially in the early days, cartoonists would write two different continuities or dedicate the Sunday strips to stand-alone gags. The best proponents of seven-day continuity were, in my experience, Chester Gould, Harold Gray and Milton Caniff. They would structure their stories in such a way that the week's payoff would alternate every other week between weekday and Sunday strips, so that all of their readers could experience the moments of highest drame and excitement.
The problem with the Batman strips under WML and "Cinfa" is the Sundays. The first half of the strip each week was a recap of the week's activity, then the second half progresses the story. But the Monday strip always recaps the Sunday action. It's possible this structure was imposed upon them by the syndicate, but it sure makes for choppy reading. Sometimes, when comic strips are collected and reprinted, they may be edited to remove such duplication. Generally speaking, among comic strip fans, the best collections are those which don't remove the duplication. But reading the Batman strip in collected format practically give the reader virtual whiplash. Eventually, for the last two continuities (beginning with #62), editor Rick Norwood began to edit the strips to eliminate duplication. the strips read much smoother at that point. Then, because he is a comic strip aficionado and a completist, he presented the edited strip in their entirety.
The strip came to an end in #65.DC pulled the plug because too few newspapers carried it to make the production costs worthwhile. "Batman" ran in Comics Revue from issue #41 through #67; #41-59 were complete; #60-65 were edited; #66-67 featured the outtakes.It's too bad this strip wasn't successful because, despite the daily/Sunday choppiness, it was a cromulent interpretation of the lore.
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