Bat Lash Day!

Nick Cardy was born on this date in 1920. Cardy worked tirelessly for DC Comics and made his mark on Aquaman, Teen Titans among other titles. He was DC's go-to cover artist in the early Bronze Age and created some stunningly fine images. He worked with Sergio Aragones on Bat Lash, a different kind of western hero. 

Bat Lash and I chanced upon the DC Universe at almost the same moment. Not that I actually read any Bat Lash comics, but I did see in the DC books I found here and there a fascinating ad which told that Bat Lash was at once a most mysterious and most disruptive desperado and called into question whether he would "Save the west? Or ruin it!" The ad (drawn by Joe Orlando I assume) set into my imagination what the dangerously named "Bat Lash" must be.

It turns out I was mistaken, but it would be many years before I was disabused of the errors of my imagination.

My first Bat Lash story was not really one at all. Bat Lash debuted as did so many DC characters in the fabled pages of Showcase. Showcase became a long running title reaching its one hundredth issue and in that very special edition drawn by an exuberant Joe Staton, the many characters from its pages were jammed together into a wild and raucous adventure which blended times and genres to utterly entertaining effect. I like to consider this comic almost like the zero issue for Crisis on Infinite Earths which did the same thing a decade or so later.

In his brief appearance we see Bat Lash putting the moves on the lovely Angel of Angel and the Ape fame. So, I immediately realized that Bat was only dangerous if you were an unsuspecting damsel. And he wore a flower, that didn't make sense.

I ran across a few more Bat Lash tales here and there in the pages of Jonah Hex and whatnot, but I never took the chance to read the original run until it was reprinted some years ago in the much-missed Showcase editions. Here in glorious black and white was the saga I'd been teased to read so many decades before. And despite not being what I expected, it was still a ton of fun.

The Bat Lash of the early episodes is an unabashed womanizer and is so confirmed in his selfishness that he's hard to root for at times. He's not especially trustworthy, even to those who appear to have earned some measure of trust.

But somehow Aragones, O'Neil and Cardy find a way to keep Bat just above water in terms of our admiration. He's not good, but he's not exactly bad. He's a cad but not a villain, though we wonder from moment to moment when he might let us down.

The stories are light and frothy and that keeps the reader from investing too deeply in the antics. They have that same tone as comedies of the silent era which thrust the hero into all sorts of dangerous situations but never allow him to come to real threat since we know it will come out in the end. That's the one of Bat Lash, danger and death loom but he is immune.

But these lightly toned episodes give way in the end as the origins of Bat Lash are more seriously explored.

We learn that Bat Lash is a man who has lost most that meant much to him. He is a man who has no home and who has taken vengeance on those who robbed him of it. We learn he has a sister who has suffered as much as he has and a love who has done likewise. They have not become rogues but have taken their misfortune and made lives with a positive character.

This makes Bat Lash feel more pathetic than he has in earlier stories. Bat Lash had that devil-may-care attitude which made him impervious and he was a dashing hero, but now we learn he is a tragic figure filled with regrets and remorse.

He even has a brother who has been lost in the most baroque of ways. Their meeting is a stranger event in the story and takes the series into a strange place just before it finds its somewhat abrupt ending.

Bat Lash lingers on in the DC Universe, a part of the western landscape and he shows up in some entertaining yarns after his initial run, but despite some fine craftsmanship the magic has slipped away somewhat. The wacky nature of the early tales has been lost a bit and he feels more conventional somehow.

I always wanted to read about Bat Lash, and I finally got to do it. He was everything I imagined and nothing I imagined.

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Bat Lash - The Ruination Of The West!

Bat Lash and I chanced upon the DC Universe at almost the same moment. Not that I actually read any Bat Lash comics, but I did see in the DC books I found here and there a fascinating ad which told that Bat Lash was at once a most mysterious and most disruptive desperado and called into question whether he would "Save the west? Or ruin it!. The ad (drawn by Joe Orlando I assume) set into my imagination what the dangerously named "Bat Lash" must be.

It turns out I was mistaken, but it would be many years before I was disabused of the errors of my imagination.

My first Bat Lash story was not really one at all. Bat Lash debuted as did so many DC characters in the fabled pages of Showcase. Showcase became a long running title reaching its one hundredth issue and in that very special edition drawn by an exuberant Joe Staton, the many characters from its pages were jammed together into a wild and raucous adventure which blended times and genres to utterly entertaining effect. I like to consider this comic almost like the zero issue for Crisis on Infinite Earths which did the same thing a decade or so later.

In his brief appearance we see Bat Lash putting the moves on the lovely Angel of Angel and the Ape fame. So I immediately realized that Bat was only dangerous if you were an unsuspecting damsel. And he wore a flower, that didn't make sense.

I ran across a few more Bat Lash tales here and there in the pages of Jonah Hex and whatnot, but I never took the chance to read the original run until it was reprinted some years ago in the much missed Showcase editions. Here in glorious black and white was the saga I'd been teased to read so many decades before. And despite not being what I expected, it was still a ton of fun.

The Bat Lash of the early episodes is an unabashed womanizer and is so confirmed in his selfishness that he's hard to root for at times. He's not especially trustworthy, even to those who appear to have earned some measure of trust.

But somehow Aragones, O'Neil and Cardy find a way to keep Bat just above water in terms of our admiration. He's not good, but he's not exactly bad. He's a cad but not a villain, though we wonder from moment to moment when he might let us down.

The stories are light and frothy and that keeps the reader from investing too deeply in the antics. They have that same tone as comedies of the silent era which thrust the hero into all sorts of dangerous situations but never allow him to come to real threat since we know it will come out in the end. That's the one of Bat Lash, danger and death loom but he is immune.

But these lightly toned episodes give way in the end as the origins of Bat Lash are more seriously explored.

We learn that Bat Lash is a man who has lost most that meant much to him. He is a man who has no home and who has taken vengeance on those who robbed him of it. We learn he has a sister who has suffered as much as he has and a love who has done likewise. They have not become rogues but have taken their misfortune and made lives with a positive character.

This makes Bat Lash feel more pathetic than he has in earlier stories. Bat Lash had that devil-may-care attitude which made him impervious and he was a dashing hero, but now we learn he is a tragic figure filled with regrets and remorse.

He even has a brother who has been lost in the most baroque of ways. Their meeting is a stranger event in the story and takes the series into a strange place just before it finds its somewhat abrupt ending.

Bat Lash lingers on in the DC Universe, a part of the western landscape and he shows up in some entertaining yarns after his initial run, but despite some fine craftsmanship the magic has slipped away somewhat. The wacky nature of the early tales has been lost a bit and he feels more conventional somehow.

I always wanted to read about Bat Lash and I finally got to do it. He was everything I imagined and nothing I imagined, a great great find.

Addendum: Just noticed that this is the 4000th post here at the Dojo. Sheesh that sounds like a lot. Thanks to all who happen by, it is muc appreciated.

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Bat Lash!

I just finished the Bat Lash Showcase volume. I've had a hankerin' to read these vintage DC western stories almost from the time I started reading comics. I saw the mysterious ad that announced the beginning of this series, but I'll confess that when I finally saw some issues the character there didn't seem much like the ad. He looked sleek, debonair, and handsome. And of course he was.

How else could he look rendered by Nick Cardy. I'm not sure how Sergio Aragones wrote these issues, but I'm guessing he wrote by drawing the panels which Cardy then rendered in detail over Aragones' roughs. I have no other notion save that the early stories don't really feel like raw Cardy to me.

The episodic nature of the series makes it a neat one-off charm. You can read any of the early issues of Bat Lash and not need another. That's true save for the final two issues of the first run which gives his "origin" and then follows up with another story tied to that first story. Otherwise, Bat Lash is a classic western type, the charming rogue who roams the West seeking gold and romance, if not true love.

He is a man rootless and at times bewilderingly callous to those around him. Just when you think his own personal interests will rule the day though he does something mildly heroic that keeps the hope alive that this rogue at heart might still be a good guy. He's not so much a "good guy" though in these stories as merely a "better guy" than most of the others. There are some selfless souls in these tales, and they offer an interesting counterpoint to Bat Lash's life choices.

By the end of the this jagged saga, it's clear that Bat Lash will never ever really be happy, but he will never be glum either. He lives in the moment, but that's almost to spare him from his past.

Good reading. Recommended.

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