Detective Comics (Issue #359) - Comic Book Review

 Hey guys! How are you all doing today? Today I'm going to be doing a comic book review for you. I realized that aside from my overview of the Archie digests I haven't done a comic book review since my review of Batman #348. So naturally I picked another Batman comic. I don't know what to tell you guys, Batman is my favourite comic book hero of all time. Today I decided to go with a Silver Age delight with Barbara Gordon and Batgirl's debut in Detective Comics #359, published on November 29th, 1966 with a cover date of January 1967. So let's get into it.

In 1966 Batman starring Adam West as Bruce Wayne/Batman and Burt Ward as Dick Grayson/Robin was dominating the airwaves and had such an influence on the comics at the time that oftentimes you couldn't tell the difference between the two because their tone and the writing was similar on both. Even going as far as pressuring DC Comics to bring back Alfred Pennyworth, Bruce Wayne's butler and confidente, who had been killed off in 1965 in favour of Aunt Harriet, who had also made her way onto the TV show. 

In late 1966, editor Julius Schwartz, writer Gardner Fox, and artist Carmine Infantino created Batgirl, who later debuted in the premiere of the third season of the TV show after ratings had started to drop at the end of the second season. There had been a Bat-Girl in the comics before this, in the early 60s. That Bat-Girl had been Betty Kane, the niece of Batwoman a.k.a. Kathy Kane but Schwartz didn't like her apparently, and according to the DC Wiki page for this issue Schwartz, by editorial decree, ordered that all stories featuring the Betty Kane version of Bat-Girl be declared apocryphal or non-canon as we call it today. The new Batgirl was Barbara Gordon who was the daughter of Commissioner Gordon, Batman and Robin's biggest ally after Alfred. This character would appear in pretty much every version of Batman ever created, from the TV show, to the cartoons, to the comics, and...well not the live action movies, but we'll get into that at a later time.

Before I get to the issue itself, I just wanna give my opinion on the Batgirl thing. Every account I've seen on the DC Wiki, on Wikipedia and even in documentaries all say that the TV show writers created Batgirl but asked DC to develop the character in the comics before her debut on the show. However, I don't actually think that's very likely. Detective Comics #359 came out on November 29th, 1966 with a cover date of January 1967, as I said. The show was not even at the midway point of the second season yet at this point and Batgirl didn't debut on the show until the first episode of the third season. Almost a year after this issue was published. So, what I think happened is that the producers, and most likely ABC too, saw that the ratings were dropping in the second half of the season and they saw that the new Batgirl was popular in the comics, as she had her next appearances in issues of Batman and Detective Comics only four months after her debut in this issue, and decided to use her on the show rather than the generally accepted story of them creating the character for the show and asking DC to put her in the comics and develop her there first.

"The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl" is a pretty good story. Killer Moth isn't a villain that I'm super familiar with as he wasn't used very much in the 90s when I started reading comics, and his last appearance in modern comics was during Infinite Crisis in 2006, but in pretty much every comic book version of Barbara's Batgirl origin story, Killer Moth is the first villain that Batgirl fights. In fact, I don't even think Barbara's Batgirl origin has changed all that much in more than fifty years though it has certainly been expanded upon over the decades.

What I find interesting about this story is how incompetent Batman and Robin are compared to Batgirl. Even in the scene where Batgirl stumbles into Batman's plan to capture Killer Moth and ruins it. Obviously Batman couldn't've known that Batgirl would show up again, but he probably should've had that possibility accounted for just in case. But, the Silver Age Batman isn't as with it when it comes to contingencies and considering every possible outcome as the modern day comics version is. Of course you don't want your new character to look bad in their first appearance, and I think the way Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino handled Batgirl in this issue is the reason she's endured for over fifty-four years. It's the reason DC kept her around as Oracle for twenty-two years. And despite my disappointment with their decision, it's why DC chose to put her back in the Batgirl costume

Speaking of Carmine Infantino, aside from Dick Sprang, he is my favourite Batman artist of the Silver Age. Just the way his designs for Batman and Robin look are iconic and very much set the tone for the comics of the mid to late 60s. His art was so bright and colourful that it draws me in every time I read a comic that has his artwork in. Many modern day comic book artists use darker styles and that brighter, more cheerful look has faded over time and has now become synonomous with cheese, camp and ridiculousness. Which is unfortunate.

One of the reasons I like the Silver Age and the Bronze Age so much is that the stories are simple and entertaining, but they still have good character development, more so in the Bronze Age as that's when DC began making ongoing storylines after one shot stories had been the primary comic book storytelling method since the mid-30s. Also, during that era comics conveyed their point to the audience without going as convoluted and brutal as today's comic book stories can get. And that's not to say that modern comics are bad or worthless. They're just different but equally valuable in the way they inspire people who read them.

There's an Elongated Man story in here as well, but there's really not much to say about it. Outside of the TV show version on The Flash and reading Identity Crisis I'm not super familiar with the character and it's not the feature story, so there isn't much to it. It's good but I don't have anything to say about it. It was written by John Broome with art by Murphy Anderson. Broome helped to revamp Batman in 1964, along with Gardner Fox, Carmine Infantino and Murphy Anderson. Though Julius Schwartz, Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino are the ones who are talked about in the documentaries and books the most. 

Overall this was a great issue. Barbara Gordon is one of my favourite characters, whether she's Batgirl or Oracle. I just didn't like the direction they were taking her in back in 2011 with the start of the New 52. Not only did they take her out of the wheelchair and back into the Batgirl costume, but then they de-aged her to the point where it made no sense for her to have been both Batgirl and Oracle in the short amount of time the stories took place in or...that's a rant for another time. I have the facsimile edition of this issue and it's wonderful. It's also been in several collected editions, both trade paperback and hardcover, over the years too, so this is a very easy issue to find if you want to read it. 

That's gonna be it for me for today. I'll be back tomorrow with a movie review and then on Friday I'll have a review of The Invasion, the first book in the Animorphs series by K.A. Applegate ready to go up too. So until then have a wonderful evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care!