BATMAN #260 & DETECTIVE COMICS #457

"THIS ONE'LL KILL YOU, BATMAN!"
Story: Denny O'Neil | Art: Irv Novick & Dick Giordano | Editing: Julius Schwartz

I don't know if it was an official mandate or an unspoken rule, but for whatever reason, it seems as if Denny O'Neil was the only Bat-writer allowed to use the classic rogues' gallery for a few years in the seventies (or perhaps he was, for reasons unknown, the only writer interested in them). Following the status quo reset in 1969's "One Bullet Too Many", Frank Robbins never touched any of those villains. Nor did Archie Goodwin in his year as editor and writer of DETECTIVE COMICS. But, with Neal Adams, O'Neil reintroduced Two-Face and the Joker to Batman's world, and with Irv Novick, he brought back Catwoman and Penguin.

Mind you, I can only speak to goings-on in the core Bat-titles, BATMAN and DETECTIVE COMICS, from this period. If the classic adversaries popped up in THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD or anyplace else, I wouldn't know about it. But even when the Joker gets his very own ongoing series in mid-1975 -- first issue cover dated three months after this one -- it is O'Neil who handles writing chores initially before handing the series off to others.

Yes, I did just say this issue was published in early '75. We're jumping back a ways to look at a story published during the "Bat Murderer" storyline we looked at last week, and then below we will skip ahead a full year to an issue published nine months after "Bat-Murderer" ended. Got it?

So -- "This One'll Kill You, Batman!" sees the Joker break out of Arkham Asylum, poisoning Batman in the process with a drug that causes the Caped Crusader to break out in fits of laughter at the slightest humorous provocation. Batman chases Joker around the world to London in search of an antidote, and eventually he defeats his foe and becomes his usual grim self once more.

On its own, the story is fine... O'Neil comes up with a fairly original plot for the Joker, and Novick draws some really creepy images of Batman yukking it up at the most inopportune moments. Yet somehow, reading this one as a sequel of sorts to "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge!", it doesn't nearly live up to the precedent set by its predecessor. I guess the best word I can come up with for this one is "pedestrian". It's not bad, but it's just not terribly engrossing either.

A few notes before we move on: One, the Joker is not a homicidal maniac here. He kills one guard during his escape from Arkham, leaving the rest unconscious. He kills one man after escaping, but it's one of only two doctors in the world who can prepare an antidote for Batman. And he prepares to kill the second doctor in London. That's it. Body count: two. And remember that in the previous "Five-Way Revenge", Joker was concerned only with killing the members of his old gang. No one else died at his hands there. Compare this with the Joker of a few decades later, who goes on grisly and indiscriminate killing sprees every time he escapes. This is a Joker I'm much more comfortable reading about.

Two, Arkham is stated to be located in "Arkham, New England". This actually fits with a previous note in "Five-Way Revenge", which said the Joker had broken out of a mental facility "upstate". At this point in continuity, Arkham is not in or even around Gotham. It's in another city, quite a drive away. And it's named after the city where it's located, not after its founder.

And three (though given the subject matter of this note, it probably should've been number two): O'Neil throws in a neat bit during Joker's escape where Batman is saved from a beating by -- Two-Face! The villain tosses his coin and gets a positive result, so he steps in to aid his enemy. We also learn that it was another flip of the coin which led Two-Face to send an anonymous tip to Batman about Joker's escape attempt, explaining why the Masked Manhunter is at this upstate asylum in the first place as the story begins. As a fan of Two-Face, I like this little character development-rich cameo.

And now, as promised, we leap ahead a year to a far superior story from the pages of DETECTIVE COMICS...

"THERE IS NO HOPE IN CRIME ALLEY!"
Story by: Denny O'Neil | Art by: Dick Giordano | Edited by: Julius Schwartz

This is yet another story reprinted in THE GREATEST BATMAN STORIES EVER TOLD, and with good reason. Here, Denny O'Neil is (mostly) at the top of his game, introducing to Batman's mythos an idea which has remained constant ever since -- Batman's tradition of visiting the place where his parents were murdered every year on the anniversary of their deaths.

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"Twenty-one years ago, this neighborhood was the dwelling place of the rich and soon-to-be rich... a place of gourmet restaurants and fashionable theaters... of elegant women and suave men...

But the dry rot of time set in, and the laughter stopped and the lights dimmed, and those elegant women and suave men sought their pleasures elsewhere... and now, only the forlorn and the desperate walk these streets...

For one night, two brutal slayings occurred signaling the beginning of the end... the area known as Park Row acquired a new name--Crime Alley... and--there is no hope in Crime Alley!"

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The story is short and sweet, clocking in at a mere twelve pages... but it doesn't need to be any longer. Years later, when the producers BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES adapted this idea into the episode "Appointment in Crime Alley", they had to add in a plot to firebomb Gotham's slums in order to fill their allotted runtime -- and while I like that episode just fine, I enjoy O'Neil's original story more.

It begins with Batman skipping out on tracking down some international jewel smugglers to go on his mysterious pilgrimage -- a mission so secret that not even Alfred knows where he goes on this night each year. The Caped Crusader then makes his way through Crime Alley, stopping various petty crimes, in search of a woman named Leslie Thompkins. He eventually finds her and they have a little chat about whether or not there actually is hope in Crime Alley. Then Batman heads home, where Alfred finds him the next morning, asleep in his easy chair, a smile on his face.

Of course Batman fans know that in the post-CRISIS continuity, Leslie Thompkins (eventually renamed to Tompkins) found and helped to raise young Bruce Wayne following his parents' murder, becoming one of his confidantes -- but here she's completely in the dark as to his secret, and is simply the woman who gave him a shoulder to cry on in the aftermath of that tragic moment. Batman visits her every years, but she's unsure why. I actually kind of like this idea better -- it adds some degree of pathos to the entire scenario that's absent if Leslie knows Batman is that boy who she comforted all those years ago.

Alfred not knowing where Batman goes on this night may raise some eyebrows, however -- but again, this is pre-CRISIS, where he wasn't the Wayne family butler. He came to serve Bruce after he had grown to adulthood (and even after he'd taken in Dick Grayson as his ward). While it may still seem a bit off that he's never come to learn the date that Thomas and Martha Wayne were killed, it's not terribly egregious when one considers that fact.

Before we wrap up, I'll add that Dick Giordano, providing pencils and inks here, does a great job. He may not be a Neal Adams, Irv Novick, or Jim Aparo, but he's inked the best and they've rubbed off on him. He turns in a great effort, though I have always had a bit of a problem with the way he draws Batman's cowl. He often renders it entirely in solid black (i.e., omitting the contour lines around the nose), making it look completely flat, like a straight vertical line down the front of Batman's face, even when occasionally drawing prominent nostrils behind it from certain angles. It just looks a little weird to me, and it's something I've noticed anytime he goes solo drawing the character. But overall, it's a minor complaint when he handles everything else so well.

And that's that! One mediocre outing and one stellar one, both from the mind of Denny O'Neil. Next week, a new writer appears for a legendary run, as Steve Englehart introduces Batman (and his readers) to Doctor Phosphorous.