Detective Comics #396

Detective Comics #396 (On Sale: December 23, 1969) has a cover by Neal Adams.

This issue begins with Batman in "The Brain-Pickers" by Frank Robbins, Bob Brown and Joe Giella. Wall Street wiz-kid Rory Bell makes the cover of Now! Magazine and the notice of Bruce Wayne and three thugs led by a guy named Sharf. Bell rides around on his motorcycle and radio-phones in his orders to his broker and girl friend, Nan Owens.

Sharf has a buddy who works at the garage where Bell keeps his bike and has had his helmet bugged, so that when he places an order Sharf and his buddies will be able to "share in the wealth." Their plan goes south when they find out Bell phones in his orders in code.

As it ends up Nan is Bruce's broker as well and Bruce calls in to see how "the street" is reacting to Wayne Enterprises proposed merger with Seven-Star Pictures. Nan mentions how Bell has bought in for a "big slice" and how others are following his lead. Meantime, Sharf and his buddies waylay Bell on his bike and say they are going to hold him up in a motel room for a few days and make all the same trades as he does to get rich quick.

Bell tells them it doesn't work that way, that if he can't ride his bike he can't figure out what to trade, so the thugs agree to just follow him by car. Bell's first order is to sell Wayne Enterprises which forces Nan to Call Bruce to try and soften the blow on "the street." Eventually Bruce figures out that Bell's orders are really a code for where he located and as Batman Bruce goes to intercept him.

At a gas station Batman confronts the thugs and has to use the remote-control features of the new Batmobile to foil the thug's plans. All in all a pretty stupid story. I remember liking Robbins' run on Batman, so either it gets a lot better or I didn't have very good taste in writing back then.

Much better written by Frank Robbins is the back-up Batgirl story, "The Orchid-Crusher," drawn by Gil Kane and Murphy Anderson. The Orchid-Killer is murdering one redhead after another and Barbara Gordon is even dreaming that as Batgirl she is a victim of the killer. She learns that the last victim had registered at a computer dating service when she finds a book with the woman's dating card used as a bookmark. She tracks down the last borrower of the book, but he has moved out of his apartment. Barbara immediately rents the apartment and also joins the computer dating service. She has to brush off Jason Bard's advances as she waits for the trap she is setting to be sprung.

She does get a date through the service, a mousy looking man named Max Tournov, but he seems harmless, till he buys her an orchid and then tries to kiss her. She sends him over her shoulder and he responds by crushing he orchid and running off. As Batgirl Barbara gives chase, but loses him. As she frantically searches, she is pulled into a dark alley by an unseen figure who says, "A red-headed Batgirl will do for now!"

The filler story is "The Master of Mind Over Matter" from Strange Adventures #26 by Jack Miller, Gil Kane and John Giunta. This is a tight little story about a psychiatrist and amateur magician named Blake, whom the police asked to report on the sudden death of a magician named Elmo the Great, since the man had been investigating Elmo for a while. It seemed Elmo could do miraculous things: levitate people, turn water into wine, etc. Blake was present when Elmo suddenly died. In his report he tells the police that he believes an alien creature had entered Elmo's body and was the source of his amazing powers. The police scoff at such nonsense and leave. Blake then reveals that he knows what he says to be true because when Elmo died the creature entered his own body.

Edited by Julius Schwartz.

Justice League of America #78

Justice League of America #78 (On Sale: December 11, 1969) has a more than slightly misleading, though nicely-drawn cover by Gil Kane.

We begin with "The Coming of the Doomsters" by Denny O'Neil, Dick Dillin and Joe Giella. In Star City Green Arrow assists a night watchman at a factory on the docks shooting it out with a group of armed thugs, using a Flare Arrow to throw some light on the situation. When the arrow hits the water it erupts in flames and Arrow signals for some JLA assistance. Answering the call is Green Lantern and Superman who make quick work of the flames now threatening the city. Once the fire is out they disburse, not hearing the plea of the watchman to talk about something that the watchman says may hold the key to the future of the entire human race.

Green Lantern and Superman take Green Arrow to, well, to New York (not called by name of course) to the top of the building which houses DC Comics (also not called by name of course) to show him the Thanagarian relativity beam system (think Star Trek-like transporter device) which the JLA has installed there. Superman explains that since their headquarters was compromised by the Joker in Justice League of America #777, they have built a new headquarters and Green Arrow in now standing in the doorway. The transporter energizes and Green Arrow is teleported to the new JLA satellite headquarters 23,300 miles above New York in a geosynchronous orbit, where the rest of the team is waiting for him.

The JLA are to appear at a charity event that night and down earthside the watchman is making his way toward it when he is the victim of a drive-by shooting. He avoids the gunfire though and returns his own, blowing out a car tire and sending the car into a pole. When the thugs extract themselves from the wrecked car, the watchman is gone, but they now think they know where he is going and their conversation makes it clear that they are not from Earth.

Meanwhile, at the charity event the JLA are introducing the crowd to Black Canary when the watchman arrives, followed closely by the two goons from the car. Canary attacks using her judo and Green Lantern protects her from the goons' alien weapons. As the thugs go down Superman jumps on their bodies shielding everyone from the self-destruct blast of the thugs, now revealed as androids of some sort. The watchman grabs the alien weapons and he and the JLA retire to a more private facility, their orbiting headquarters.

The watchman explains how he was hired on by the new factory in town and was assaulted by the amount of pollution the thing put out. When he asked workers what they were producing, no one seemed to know. The watchman soon realized that the product the factory was making was pollution and he stole some papers proving it. Some "men" from the factory chased him and that is where Green Arrow found him. The watchman introduces himself as Greg Sanders, who used to go by the name of the Vigilante, but gave up that life years ago. Now of course, since the Vigilante from the Golden Age was from Earth 2, this is actually the first appearance of this character. So, not only has Denny O'Neil given us the new JLA headquarters this issue, he has introduced a new DC character as well.

The stolen paperwork includes a star map and Superman and Green Lantern head off to explore that end of the story. The rest of the JLA head off to the factory, except for Green Arrow who wants to have a "conversation" with the Star City City Manager, where it seems the City Manager knows the factory only makes pollution and doesn't care as it provides jobs and taxes and that is all that matters. He has Green Arrow thrown in jail Personal aside here: as the husband of an ex-City Manager, the person you might find with that sort of attitude would be a Mayor, i.e., a politician, not a City Manager, who is governed by a whole set of ethics that politicians know nothing of.

Meanwhile the rest of the JLA have made a quick stop at a western goods store and purchased the makings of a new Vigilante costume. Along with that and the alien guns, the Vigilante is back in business. While at the same time on the alien world pointing at by the stolen paperwork Green Lantern and Superman find a desolate destroyed ash-can of a planet where once a vibrant civilization existed.

At the factory the JLA and the Vigilante are confronted and eventually overwhelmed by the alien automatons. As we leave for the month they are being lowered into vats of bubbling, noxious death! This tale has been reprinted in Justice League of America Archives Vol. 9 HC and Showcase Presents:Justice League of America Vol. 4 TPB.

The back-up story is "The Man Who Hated Science!" by Jack Miller and John Giunta and reprinted from Mystery In Space #6.

Edited by Julius Schwartz.

Batman #219

Batman #219 (On Sale: December 4, 1969) has a nice cover by Neal Adams. This is the last issue to use this long-time logo.

We begin with our cover-story, "Death Casts the Deciding Vote" by Frank Robbins, Irv Novick and Dick Giordano. Bruce Wayne heads to the state capitol to find public funding for his Victims Inc, Program but when he reaches the governor's office he finds Senator Lincoln Webster already there. Webster is visiting on the sly and informs Bruce that a new anti-crime bill he is sponsoring will put V.I.P. out of business, but that there might be a federal "Health and Welfare" bill that some of Bruce's ideas might be tacked on to.

Webster invites Bruce to fly with him back to Washington, DC where he needs to be tomorrow to vote on his bill and promises to introduce Bruce tot he right people. Little do they know that they are being watched and followed as they leave the state house. They take a commuter flight back to DC but things go bad almost immediately.

Unbeknownst to Bruce and Webster, the plane has been hijacked. Bruce notices that the plane is flying in the wrong direction and breaks into the cockpit to see what is going on. There he is knocked out and hijackers tell the passengers that Bruce was a hijacker and that they are the FBI. Webster knows something is up, but does not want to reveal his identity. They put Bruce in a back room where he escapes and returns to the front of the plane as Batman. They threaten to kill Webster if Batman doesn't stop and he is also captured and thrown in with Bruce Wayne (Bruce used inflated Mae Wests to fill out his clothing when he changed into Batman garb).

The hijackers land the plane at an abandoned airfield. There they reveal that they are simply holding Webster until after the vote of his bill, so that it will fail. When they go to check on Batman, they find an unconscious Bruce Wayne and an open door where they assume Batman has escaped. They move Bruce back up with the passengers and he talks the Senator into faking a heart attack. Bruce convinces the hijackers to fly to a nearby medic. When they take off, batman pops up in the cockpit. The gunmen freak out and run back into the passenger area where Bruce gets the better of them. He then rushes to the cockpit where he deflates the Batman suit he had rigged with the wheels hydraulic mechanism and tells the pilots to head for DC.

As they approach DC for landing the wheels open and suck the Batman suit out of the plane, which is sort of what you see on the slightly misleading cover. Not a great story by any means, but also not what this issue is known for.

The back-up story is "The Silent Night of the Batman" by Mike Friedrich, Neal Adams and Dick Giordano. This is a beautifully done Christmas tale of a Christmas Eve which Batman spends singing Christmas carols with Commissioner Gordon and his men, while out across Gotham the spirit of Batman stops one crime after another. Sometimes it is a Batman toy, sometimes a blind man in a Batman costume, sometimes the shadow of a suspension bridge forming a Batman symbol. It is a classic tale like no other and has been reprinted in Limited Collectors' Edition C-43, Christmas with the Super-Heroes #1 and Batman Illustrated by Neal Adams Vol. 2 HC.

One more back-up before we go and that is "Time to Kill" by Henry Kuttner and John Giunta and reprinted from Phantom Stranger #5. This is a great little story about a rivalry between two scientists, a time machine and a murder that becomes a suicide. Henry Kuttner was a client of Julius Schwartz's, a science-fiction writer who only wrote 21 stories for DC comics. Twenty of them were written between 1944 and 1946 and all twenty were Green Lantern stories. This, his 21st and last story was written in 1953. Besides his work for DC, Kuttner also wrote for Fawcett, Ace and Avon Comics and worked for a while out of the Chesler Studio.

Kuttner was married to Catherine Louise Moore, also a writer and they co-authored a number of science-fiction novels together. Kuttner is the creator of Elak of Atlantis, an early sword and sorcery character. Ten of Kuttner's novels were published after his death in 1958. The Best of Henry Kuttner was published in 1987 and Catherine Lucille Moore and Henry Kuttner: A Marriage of Souls and Talent: A Working Bibliography was published in 1986.

Kuttner wrote under a number of pseudonyms including Lewis Padgett. One of his stories (co-written with his wife) was Mimsy Were the Borogoves which was adapted into the feature-length film The Last Mimzy.

Edited by Julius Schwartz.