The Best Cover You've Never Seen--Detective Comics #503 (1981

Pencils and inks by Jim Starlin.

Manic Monday--Who's Cowardly Now?

"I am Batman!! I am the greatest crimefighter ever! I can take down Superman or Darkseid, if pressed!!! I---"

"Good gosh, that guy's using real bullets!!

"Well, maybe I'll just cower back here and let Robin deal with him, while I practice my menacing-looking cape moves! Yeah, that's the ticket!"

Be safe out there, Batman!

From Detective Comics #44 (1940)

Manic Monday--Great Moments In Overly-Specific Yearbook Predictions!

Spoiler alert: Ginny Jenkins does not marry Batman. Although she pretended to be Bruce Wayne's wife about a year prior to this. And in this issue, she's dating a masseuse who dresses up like Batman to thwart a the evil owner of a food magazine who extorts money from gourmet restaurants by altering their ingredients so the recipes come out bad. DC, man...

From Detective Comics #391 (1969)

Funeral For A Crummy Friend!

Did you ever have one of those days where you woke up at your own funeral?

Batman has...and it turns out that everyone he knows is a jerk!!

No, Robin, you're thinking of Superman and Supergirl...

Oh, it was no dream...it was the work of Batman's greatest villain:

Uhhh...Dr Tzin-Tzin? Really?

Ah, well, at least you're not really dead...

From Detective Comics #408 (1971)

Friday Night Fights--Bat-Samurai Style!!

Time once again for a moment of incredible badassery in this week's Friday Night Fights.

Batman is in Japan, cleaning up a Yakuza clan, because Batman...

Unfortunately, Tsunetomo, one of the sensei who taught young Bruce Wayne how to fight, is serving this clan...

Uh-oh...Anakin vs. Obi-Wan time!

KWUD!

Spacebooger loves him some shirtless Batman action!!

Samurai Batman is from Detective Comics Annual #3 (1990), by Archie Goodwin, Dan Jurgens (breakdowns) & Bob Giordano (finishes).

Now is the time for you to go and vote for my fight. Why? Shirtless Batman with a sword, my friends. Shirtless Batman with a sword. So go vote!!

Right Up Gotham's Alley

This map appeared in this week's Detective Comics #40:

Wow. That's one hell of an alley...

Yes, yes, I know--"Crime Alley" could refer to an entire neighborhood, not just one particular alley. A pretty big neighborhood, by the looks of that map...

Or maybe this is proof of The Busiek Hypothesis--DC Earth is bigger than our Earth, in order to accommodate all those extra cities. Obviously, not only is the planet bigger, but the alleys are, as well...

Frank Robbins' Batman--Straight. Up. Bad-Ass.

We've had the Frank Robbins discussion before, and I'm certain we'll have the Frank Robbins discussion again.

But let's be very clear--his Batman was hardcore.

Batman has managed to worm his way into the lair of Conway Treach, a scum who is killing off wealthy Gotham gamblers, yet making their deaths appear to be irrefutable suicides...

Damn, that page is soooooo good...

Anyway, it turns out that Batman had deduced that Treach's gun was rigged, with a "trick cylinder-latch" that blocked the firing pin when Treach used it, so he was never in danger. So neither one of them was really in danger of buying the farm during Russian roulette.

Still, Frank Robbins' Batman? Straight baller, is all I'm saying.

Detective Comics #426 (1972) was written, drawn and inked by Frank Robbins.

How Bruce Wayne Can Afford All Those Wonderful Toys

In pursuit of a man who is apparently killing wealthy compulsive gamblers, Bruce Wayne boards an off-shore gambling yacht in a new disguise--John T. Hazard! (Of course, Frank Robbins wrote and drew the Johnny Hazard comic strip for over 3 decades...a guy's allowed to hat tip himself!!)

But he's not just there to play--Batman John T. Hazard is there to win!!

Now, I know what you're saying--there's no system that can beat roulette.

But before you call BS on this, perhaps you should read the caption more closely:

You see, back pre-1980s, there were an awful lot of bad roulette wheels out there--wear and other biases making making the outcome far less random. And many folks, with the aid of some pretty cool early computers, took advantage to make some huge bucks.This caused casinos to change the design of their wheels, to test and upgrade them regularly, and to try and ban electronic devices from roulette tables.

But of course, Bruce Wayne needs no such devices, for Batman is smarter than a 1970s computer!!

And that answers where he gets those marvelous toys. Batman needs a new Batmobile? Just break out the John T. Hazard tux, and watch out, Atlantic City!! [And no, there's no indication in the story that he ever gave back the "hundreds of thousands" he won that night...that probably went to pay for a new Bat-Copter...]

From Detective Comics #426 (1972)

So, What, Is Alfred Chopped Liver?

When you're going to commit suicide, you should make sure to leave as complete a note as possible...

I'll bet Alfred will be pretty chuffed that he was left off. Commissioner Gordon might me upset, as well.

I know, I know, thiat was a DC cover of the 1970s, so it was clearly a lie, right?

WRONG!

OK, OK, I know, you're saying that's just one of them there symbolic splash pages, right?

WRONG!

I guess you'll just have to tune in later today to find out...

The cover to Detective Comics #426 (1972) was by Mike Kaluta. The interior is by Frank Robbins.

Deep Thoughts Spawned By An Unlikely Street Sign

In yesterday's Detective Comics #900 #19 (sigh), Dick Grayson is leaving Gotham for his new haunts...

Now, that's kind of a ridiculous sign, as most highway signs aren't going to show you a city 800 miles away as the first and only stop on the interstate. If I trundled onto I-94, I'll see distance signs for Benton Harbor and Chicago, or Ann Arbor and Detroit, not New York City or Las Vegas.

Still, it does give us the first real chance in the nu52 to indulge my ridiculous obsession with DC Geography. (Although it is the second time we've been clued in by highway mileage signs while Dick trundlers by on a motorcycle. Is there some rule in the DC stylebook mandating this?)

Of course, we have usual fistful of caveats. A) Highway signs are only an approximation; B) It's driving miles, not as the crow flies; C) Highways, and indeed other "real" cities, may be substantially different in the DC Universe; and D) If the Busiek Hypothesis (that the DC Earth is larger in size than ours, to accommodate all those extra cities and such) then our speculation is really frakked.

Ah, but what's the point of being careful when you're a nerd? So, given that Gotham's ports mean she's on the water, probably on the East Coast (no matter how Nolan tried to trick us in The Dark Knight Rises). So, playing with Google Maps tells us...

Well, not all that much. Being approximately 800 driving miles from Chicago could place us anywhere from southern Delaware (820 miles) to most of New Jersey (Atlantic City--820 miles! Asbury Park--824 miles!!) to parts of Long Island to southwestern Connecticut (New Haven, at 864 miles, is problem as far as a reasonable interpretation of 800 miles will allow).

You could argue for parts of the Maryland coast--but Gotham sure doesn't feel Marylandish to me. Rhode Island and Massachusetts? Right out. (And no, nowhere along the Gulf coast is close to being 800ish miles to Chicago...

So along the Eastern seaboard, above the Mason-Dixon line? I guess we really didn't narrow it down very much at all, did we? Still, I'm going to go with Asbury Park, so we can get the Batman/Springsteen crossover we've all been waiting for.

Ah, well, keep your eyes opened for more clues...

Manic Monday--Be Careful Of What You Brag About

Comic companies sure choose the weirdest things to boast about sometimes. For example:

Say what?!?

Yes, they're actually proud of having the first comic book that cost a dollar each month. "Yay, look at us, we're charging two and a half times what regular comics cost!!"

Of course, back in 1980, they gave you a lot of extra content for the extra coin. Today, you're going to pay four times that dollar, for a third of the story pages.

So, I guess they really did have something to boast about. You rock on, 1980 Detective Comics. You rock on...

House ad from April 1980 issues of DC