By Edmond Hamilton, Bill Finger, Jerry Coleman, Curt Swan, Dick Sprang, Stan Kaye, Sheldon Moldoff, Charles Paris, Ray Burnley & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-7780-2 (TPB/Digital edition)
This year marks Batman’s 85th Anniversary and we’ll be covering many old and new books about the Dark Knight over the year. However, the Gotham Guardian’s impact has been far ranging and sustained, so let’s also take a look at his part in reshaping Superman and other heroes too…
Some things were just meant to be: bacon & eggs, rhubarb & custard, chalk & cheese…
Both initially debuting as driven loners, after settling into their respective pioneering superhero niches, Superman and Batman ultimately worked together as the “World’s Finest” team for decades. They were friends as well as colleagues and their pairing made sound financial sense since DC’s top heroes (in effect, the company’s only costumed stars) could cross-pollinate and, more importantly, cross-sell their combined readerships.
This most inevitable of Paladin Pairings first occurred on the Superman radio show in 1945, and in comics the pair only briefly met whilst on a Justice Society of America adventure in All-Star Comics #36 (August/September 1947) – and even there they missed each other in the general gaudy hubbub…
Of course, they had shared the covers of World’s Finest Comics from the outset, but never crossed paths inside; sticking firmly to their specified solo adventures. For us pictorial continuity buffs, the climactic real first time was in the pages of Superman’s own bi-monthly comic (issue #76, May/June 1952), but the real birth of their partnership came in World’s Finest Comics #71 cover-dated July/August 1954 and making 2024 their official 70th Anniversary. (Yay, Teams!)
In 1952, pulp science fiction author Edmond Hamilton had been tasked with revealing how Man of Steel and Caped Crusader first met and accidentally uncovered each other’s costumed identities – whilst sharing a cabin on an overbooked cruise liner. Although an average crime-stopper yarn, it was the start of a phenomenon. Of course you’ll need to revisit the previous volume for that and other early team up tales…
With dwindling page counts, rising costs but a proven readership and after years of co-starring but never mingling, World’s Finest Comics #71 had presented Superman and Batman in the first of their official shared cases. A huge hit, the innovative partnership was one of the few superhero success stories of the 1950s and this second stunning compendium of Silver Age solid gold spans July/August 1958 to March 1961: re-presenting the lead stories from World’s Finest Comics #95-116. The astounding archive of adventure opens with a Hamilton, Dick Sprang & Ray Burnley yarn pitting the temporarily equally multi-powered and alien-entranced champions against each other in ‘The Battle of the Super-Heroes’.
A magical succession of magnificent and light-heartedly whacky classics began in WFC #96 with Hamilton’s ‘The Super-Foes from Planet X’, wherein indolent and effete aliens dispatch fantastic monsters to battle the titanic trio for the best possible reasons…
Bill Finger took over scripting with #97, incomprehensibly turning the Man of Steel on his greatest friends in ‘The Day Superman Betrayed Batman’, after which ‘The Menace of the Moonman!’ pits the heroes against a deranged hyper-powered astronaut. Then, ‘Batman’s Super-Spending Spree!’ baffles his close friends before Lex Luthor devilishly traps Superman in the newly-recovered “Bottle City of Kandor” to become ‘The Dictator of Krypton City’ – all breathtaking epics beautifully limned by Sprang & Kaye.
Sprang inked himself in rocket-paced super-crime thriller ‘The Menace of the Atom-Master’ whereas it took Curt Swan, Burnley, Sprang & Sheldon Moldoff to properly unveil the titanic tragedy of ‘The Caveman from Krypton’ in #102. Sprang & Moldoff then unveiled ‘The Secret of the Sorcerer’s Treasure’, depicting a couple of treasure hunters driven mad by the tempting power of freshly unearthed magical artefacts, after which Luthor came to regret using a hostage Batwoman to facilitate ‘The Plot to Destroy Superman!’…
After a metamorphosis which turned Clark Kent into ‘The Alien Superman’ proved not at all what it seemed to be, ‘The Duplicate Man’ in WF #106 sees the ultimate downfall of a villain who develops an almost unbeatable crime tool. He’s followed by ‘The Secret of the Time-Creature’ who encompassed centuries and resulted in one of Finger’s very best detective thrillers to baffle but never stump the Cape & Cowl Crusaders…
Jerry Coleman assumed the writer’s role with ‘The Star Creatures’ (art by Sprang & Stan Kaye); the tale of an extraterrestrial moviemaker whose deadly props were stolen by Earth crooks. Stellar cover artist Curt Swan (with Stan Kaye inking) finally made the move to interior illustrator for ‘The Bewitched Batman’, detailing a tense race against time to save the Gotham Guardian from an ancient curse, before ‘The Alien who Doomed Robin’ (Sprang & Moldoff) sees a symbiotic link between monster marauder and Boy Wonder leave the senior heroes apparently helpless – at least for a little while…
Finger, Sprang & Moldoff toured ‘Superman’s Secret Kingdom’ (#111, August 1960) in a compelling lost world yarn wherein a cataclysmic holocaust deprives the Man of Steel of his memory, necessitating Batman and Robin seeking to cure him at all costs…
The next issue – by Coleman, Sprang & Moldoff – delivered a unique and tragic warning in ‘The Menace of Superman’s Pet’ as a phenomenally cute teddy bear from space proves to be an unbelievably dangerous menace and unforgettable true friend. Bring tissues, you big babies…
In an era when disturbing or terrifying menaces were frowned upon, many tales featured intellectual dilemmas and unavoidably irritating pests to torment our heroes. Both Gotham Guardian and Man of Steel had their own magical 5th dimensional gadflies and it was therefore only a matter of time until ‘Bat-Mite Meets Mr. Mxyzptlk’: a madcap duel to determine whose hero was best with America caught in the metamorphic middle.
WF #114 saw Superman, Batman & Robin shanghaied to distant world Zoron with their abilities are reversed as ‘Captives of the Space Globes’. Nevertheless, justice is still served in the end, after which ‘The Curse that Doomed Superman’ sees the Action Ace consistently outfoxed by a scurrilous Swami with the Darknight Detective helpless to assist him…
Swan & Kaye return for #116’s thrilling monster mash ‘The Creature from Beyond’ to wrap up this volume with a criminal alien out-powering Superman whilst concealing an incredible secret…
Here are gloriously clever yet uncomplicated tales whose dazzling style still inform if not dictate the manner of DC’s modern TV animations – like the fabulous Batman: The Brave and the Bold – and the contents of this titanic tome are a veritable feast of witty, charming thrillers packing as much punch and wonder now as they always have.
© 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961 2018 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.