Times A-Changin'

Detective Comics #306

That's right, folks. Not just robots, but INVISIBLE robots. I guess maybe I can see why Julius Schwartz, the editor I mentioned in the blurb for #251 and who removed some of the more awesomely corny characters from Detective Comics, might have wanted to change things up a bit. Between #300 ("The Bizarre Polka-Dot Man!) and #320 (Batman and Robin the Mummy Crime-Fighters!) you've got "Secrets of the Flying Bat-Cave", Batman fighting Moby Dick, Catman fighting Batman with a giant cat-bot-- and this guy, Professor Hugo, who wants to create an artificial moon in space. Apparently he's also a wizard, and he has 999 menaces other than the invisible robots. Kinda makes you wonder what exactly he was a professor of, doesn't it?

This issue was released in 1962, and things were about to change...

Detective Comics #327

Carmine Infantino. Honestly, I never saw what the big deal was until I looked at this cover beside the last. Sheldon Moldoff worked on Detective Comics for years predominantly as a "ghost artist" for Bob Kane. According to Moldoff, even DC didn't know he had

entered into this agreement with Kane. He emulated Kane's style and followed Kane's instructions. Several of the covers shown so far were drawn by him. And though the Silver Age of comics began in 1956 with the debut of Barry Allen as the Flash and Marvel's Fantastic Four #1, Detective Comics hadn't changed much since Batman's Debut -- certainly the scenarios were

more complex, the covers a bit more busy, more colorful, more flashy. But the basic graphic concepts were almost always the same -- Batman and Robin running, or fighting, or looking, with dismayed

faces, at the maniacal villain who had captured them.

This issue came out in 1964, and it was Batman's 300th issue anniversary. Sales of Detective Comics had reached an alarming low -- all of those goofy sci-fi stories, however fabulously strange they seem now, reflected a post-war boom culture that was slowly collapsing under the weight of first the Korean War and the Cold War, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the escalation of racial tensions, the arrival of the first American helicopters in Saigon and the start of the

Vietnam war. People felt that the world was going crazy -- though, of course, it always had been.

And even something small, like the cover of a comic book, had to reflect that cultural shift. Things didn't feel the

same, so they shouldn't look the same, either.

Which isn't to say that this was a dark story, naturally not. But it was very modern, featuring a redesigned Batmobile (a roadster!), a hipper looking Robin (though, sadly for him he still had both bare legs and fairy boots) and that beautiful, classic black-on-yellow bat symbol.

It's easy to see why, in late 1966, Carmine Infantino was given the task of redesigning all of DC's covers, and why Stan Lee, upon learning this, offered him $22,000 to move to Marvel. He stayed at DC, though -- they made him art director, editorial director, and, finally, publisher.

Detective Comics #385

You can just taste the 70's when you look at this cover. It's from March of 1969 -- two months before the Stonewall Riots, three months before Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Four months after Yale announced that it would begin admitting female students.

The Silver Age was dying. For all that happened in the 60's, comics remained escapist entertainment, comforting and naive. Heroes had been modern, of course, but also bold, and happy, and optimistic in a way that seemed increasingly out of touch with reality. JFK was dead and MLK after him. We had just elected Nixon, who was about as far from that Camelot fever-dream as possible, and the Black Panthers were making statements that were far from gentle admonition.

The world wasn't easily fixed by epic protest or brave revolution, and things were continuing on in much the way

they always had.

The art on this cover by Neal Adams is a hint at the new age Neal himself helped usher in.

Now, let's talk about Batgirl for a moment, because this is, after all, Detective Comics Presents Batman and Batgirl. Bat-Girl Batty Kane, who debuted in 1961 had been Batwoman's sidekick and niece, and the two of them had, naturally, been romantically infatuated with Robin and Batman. When Julius Schwartz took over as editor of the Batman titles, he removed them both. And in 1966, the new Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, arrived. She stumbled into Superhero-dom by wearing a feminized Batman costume to a masquerade ball -- presumably with the intention of annoying her dad, Commissioner Gordon -- and wound up saving Bruce Wayne from the fiendish Killer Moth. She was featured on the Batman television show where she was played by Yvonne Craig, and she was, generally speaking, absolutely fantastic.

Of course, her featured story in these issues revolved

around a man she wanted to date.

But still...

Next time! Comics "get real"...

Thanks to coverbrowser.com, dc.wikia.com, wikipedia.com and the fabulous "DC Comics Year By Year: A Visual Chronicle" by Alan Cowsill, Alex Irvine, Matther K. Manning, Michael McAvennie and Daniel Wallace with Alastair Dougall.