I started reading comic books when I was about seven years old (1956). It began with Walt Disney comics–Uncle Scrooge was a favorite–then moved to Superman comic books, and sometime in 1957 I discovered Batman comic books.
The Batman comics in the late 1950s intrigued me because they had mystery elements. Batman and Robin were detectives investigating crimes. Sure, the crimes were exotic with criminals like The Joker, The Riddler, and other flamboyant characters pulling off incredible capers. But I loved the crime solving elements of these stories.
So when I saw this volume of Batman comics from the time period I started reading comics, I had to buy it! This volume reprints classic Batman and Robin stories from Batman, Detective Comics and World’s Finest Comics published between 1950 and 1958–a prime time period for me.
Most of the stories are great Dick Sprang renditions as written by the prolific Bill Finger. There are some classics here, including the story of the 1950’s Batmobile, the origin of the Batcave, tales of the Bat Signal, as well as Two-Face, The Joker, and other notable villains.
Are you a Batman fan? Did you read these comic books way back when? GRADE: A
Batman Annual #1 (Summer 1961)
“How to be Batman” (Detective Comics #190, December 1952 – Origins of Batman and Robin retold)
“The Strange Costumes of Batman” (Detective Comics #165, November 1950)
“Untold Tales of the Bat-Signal” (Detective Comics #164, October 1950)
“The Origin of the Bat-Cave” (Detective Comics #205, March 1954)
“Batman’s Electronic Crime-File” (Detective Comics #229, March 1956)
“Thrilling Escapes of Batman and Robin” (Detective Comics #221, July, 1955)
“The Amazing Inventions of Batman” (Batman #109, August 1957)
Batman Annual #2 (Winter 1961)
“The Underseas Batman” (Batman #86, September 1954)
“The Lord of Batmanor” (Detective Comics #198, August 1953)
“Batman, Indian Chief” (Batman #86, September 1954)
“The Jungle Batman” (Batman #72, August/September 1952)
“When Batman was Robin” (Detective Comics #226, December 1955)
“Batman the Magician” (Detective Comics #207, May 1954)
“Batman – The Superman of Planet X” (Batman #113, February 1958)
Batman Annual #3 (Summer 1962)
“The Mad Hatter of Gotham City” (Detective Comics #230, April 1956)
“The Human Firefly” (Detective Comics #184, February 1952)
“The Mental Giant of Gotham City (Detective Comics #217, March 1955)
“The Joker’s Aces” (World’s Finest Comics #59 (July-August 1952)
“The Gorilla Boss of Gotham City” (Batman #75, February-March 1953)
“The New Crimes of Two-Face” (Batman #68, December 1951-January 1952)
“The Mysterious Mirror Man” (Detective Comics #213, November 1954)
What’s interesting about the cover is the name Bob Kane is missing! Kane was notorious for taking credit for everything related to Batman whether he had anything to do with it or not! Often he did not do the work! I read Batman and Superman when I was a kid, but sporadically! When I had a dime, I was more likely to buy candy or Coke or ice cream cones or trading cards!
Bob, that’s a good point! Bob Kane put his name on every Batman item imaginable!
Sorry, the Batman of the 50s left me cold. They were far too juvenile for this juvenile. I’d almost rather be seen reading a LOIS LANE comic book (well, I said ALMOST). It was only until the 80s or so that Batman became interesting, and the current Batman is aces in my book.
Jerry, I’m a fan of the nourish Batman of today. But my little kid mind in the late 1950s thought Batman was aces!
Nope. I did read them at times, but I was never a big Batman fan.
Jeff, I stopped reading Batman in the late 1960s when the TV show affected the comic book with silliness.
I think I had all those Annuals as a kid. I’d probably have bought the book had I known about it when it was published. There was a similar BATMAN IN THE FIFTIES collection a couple of years ago. I like the wacky late ’50s, early ’60s Batman. I know I’m in the minority, but I detest the grotesque, pretentious Frank Miller/Alan Moore versions.
Fred, many people find the Miller/Moore Batman abhorrent.
I’ve always considered Miller vastly overrated! I was in an apa with him in the seventies, when he was a teenager, and he did great illos and short comics in ditto. He was dubbed The Ditto Master!
Bob, but Miller has a vast following in Graphic Novels Land.
As a girl kid, I didn’t read super hero comics. I was a fan of the Archie comics and had a subscription to the short lived Brenda Starr comics.
Maggie, believe it or not, I did also read ARCHIE comics and BRENDA STARR and LOIS LANE.
Archie comics were very good in the early years, into the seventies! I read some recent ones and they sucked eggs!
Bob, I agree with you on the older ARCHIE comics. Classics! The issues from later years drifted into mediocrity.
In 1958, the only evidence of me to be found would be in my mother’s ovaries. However, I did enjoy reading 1950s reprints of mostly horror comics in early ’70s Marvel and DC comics wholly or partly devoted to reprints, and what EC reprints in book form I might sporadically find in public libraries…while also reading early ’70s Batman and WEREWOLF-BY- NIGHT comics which might carry reprinted stories, if less often than the horror issues did. I did buy a couple/few of the enormous/LIFE Magazine-sized DC reprints of 1940s BATMAN and WHIZ COMICS (for Captain Marvel and Ibis the Invincible etc al.). I liked most of what I saw of Batman in various media when I was 8-10yo.
Todd, same here. I have a number of coffee table books of comics from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. Pure nostalgia.
I remember reading these as a kid. Each of the annuals had a theme — the first one was all of Batman’s crime-fighting “secrets,” the second was all the different action heroes he portrayed, the third was a villains compilation. Credits weren’t applied back then, but Edmond Hamilton had at least one story in each annual, and one (“The Lord of Batmanor”) a collaboration with Leigh Brackett.
I read ALL the 50s and early 60s comics — Batman, Lois Lane, Millie the Model, Rawhide Kid, Sgt. Rock, Richie Rich — because someone would loan my grandfather a carton at a time. No continuing stories, so it didn’t matter what order you read them in. Kids’ heaven.
Jeff, Kids’ Heaven is right! I read plenty of DC comics back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Around the mid-1960s I switched ACE Doubles and other paperbacks and fewer and fewer comic books.
I read pnly some Micky Mouse and Dagobert Duck comics at the house of my parents’ friend – he bought them for his granddaughter.
Batman, Superman etc were not for me!
But in 1962 on the way from the railway station to university I saw Mad Magazine in the same store that had Astounding – and I spent much of my pocket money on the,!
Later for a few years there also was a German edition of MAD – published just for me!
Wolf, I was an occasional MAD reader in the 1960s and 1970s. I loved anything drawn by Wallace Wood!
I’ve given up following “classic” (my era of classic) superhero comics reprint books, and sold most of them. However, I’ll have to take a look at this one since, eons ago, doing my zine for the comics fanzine mailing APA-5, I did a short feature titled “Sprang Is Sprung”, since at that time fans were researching who did what in the pre-Marvel no credits era, and somebody had discovered that Dick Sprang as the very identifiable stylist who did the best Batman work for DC. For me, Sprang was THE Batman artist. Just as Jesse Marsh was THE Tarzan artist and, of course Carl Barks THE duck artist, though they were never credited in the mags. Also, coincidentally, the APA-5 roster included Frank Miller, then a kid in high school!
Art
Art, I agree with you on Dick Sprang. His BATMAN is the one I most identify with.