As to the first item:
Look at that! Bob Kane just draws the coolest images. I love Joker's creepy hands. Oh and that's Catwoman on the ledge there.In the first story, Batman concocts a brilliant plan to abduct The Joker from the hospital where he's recovering from his self-inflicted stab wound and force him to get brain surgery so he can become a productive citizen!
However, Joker's boys have, in something that would never ever happen to today's genius-bordering-on-precognitive Batman, a better plan! They hold the surgeons working on Joker's wound at gunpoint to hurry them up, get him out of the hospital, and then use a fake Batman to distract the cops, eventually leading them to a barn where Fake Batman TOSSES A PITCHFORK through a boy in blue.
Ow.
Fake Batman is shortly thereafter blasted in the face with a Tommygun. Meanwhile, Joker's cronies secret him away into the back of a car while Catwoman spies on them, dressed up as an old lady selling gum(?). The real Batman appears and persuades Catwoman to help him stake out the Joker's castle as seen in the splash page there. Also, the Joker gang flies back to that particular castle in their very own hospital plane. At the castle, Catwoman is working both sides, trying to snags the same jewels Joker is planning on grabbing. Joker shows up while Catwoman is finessing them from their owner, and who is there to rescue Catwoman but Robin! Robin beats the stuffing out of Joker for a bit until he gets knocked in the face with a mace and nearly administered a "solution that will reduce you to nothingness within five minutes!" Then Batman and the Joker have a swashbucklin' swordfight until Bats knocks him out cold and Catwoman jumps into the ocean instead of going home in the previously mentioned awesome Batplane.
Pretty standard Batman story, but the New Yoik-dialect speaking gangsters having a great plan that Batman wasn't even a little prepared for was pretty refreshing compared these days where Batman literally killed the physical manifestation of evil in Final Crisis.
The second story uses the ol' Jekyl and Hyde trope for an antagonist. Mild mannered Adam Lamb is just a museum guard who likes to read a book called The Crime Master, but sometimes he becomes the evil Mister (wait for it) WOLF! As silly as that sounds, this story is actually pretty intense. Mr. Wolf takes a light night stroll in a park and just straight up bludgeons an innocent old man to death.
Check out the split background coloring in that first panel, and the dialogue! Wolf doesn't even care if you suspect anything, he just wants to kill you!
Our heroes finally run across Wolf when he puts together a gang for a bank job. The Dynamic Duo fails to thwart it and nearly gets run over in the process, but they manage to tail the gang to a pier, and obviously, they fight. This fight is pretty damn great though. Batman gets shot in the shoulder (again, in sharp contrast to today's Batman who has a bulletproof suit and is probably way too fast to ever get shot under normal circumstances) and Robin FLIPS THE FUCK OUT.
Look at that! He's throwing one guy while kicking another dude in the gut which causes that guy to elbow another guy in the face! After Robin soundly whoops the most of the gang, Batman crawls out of the water and tosses a smoke bomb so the duo can escape. AND THEN DICK GRAYSON, AGE 12 PERFORMS SURGERY ON BRUCE WAYNE TO REMOVE THE BULLET FROM HIS SHOULDER.
I think this is a good time for me to talk about the impression of Robin that I get from these books. In these first two issues, Robin seems to be a tiny version of Batman, just as good a fighter, just as insanely talented (I mean surgery come on), and Batman seems to recognize that. He gets to stake-out Joker by himself, he can fight on his own, he seems to get more independence. This is a stark contrast to how Robins tended to be treated by Bruce since Death In The Family, but I guess that version of Batman comes from the Year One post-Crisis thing. I sort of like this well-adjusted Bruce Wayne who smokes a pipe and isn't constantly afraid of having someone else killed.
And on that note, the way this issue ends is Batman fights Wolf and punches him down a flight of stairs where he breaks his neck. Oops.
In story #3, B&R have to take down a crime lord named Clubfoot, who has a meathook for a hand and a...club foot. Almost the entire story is a fight scene. Also, this issue contradicts the idea that Batman doesn't have superpowers because he punches a guy in the face and says "You didn't shave!" Batman's skin is so sensitive he can feel facial hair through his gloves. Anyway, Batman catches Clubfoot because he can't run up stairs faster than Bats. Surprise!
Story #4 is pure old-comic awesome. The hook is that a professor has found a living prehistoric man in Africa and is bringing him back to Metropolis on a train to teach him to be a productive member of society. Batman jumps onto the train because he is apparently aware of the presence of a tribe of hostile African pygmies who are going to try to kill the professor and take the prehistoric man back. You're probably wondering: Why is there a TRAIN FROM AFRICA to AMERICA and why did the pygmies wait until they were in America to attack? The answer is who cares, old comics are awesome. After Batman dispatches the pygmies and makes fun of their height, the professor introduces the prehistoric man. He's a nine foot tall, living 2000 year old man who is worshipped as a god by the pygmies. And then two circus proprietors kill the professor and steal our prehistoric pal. Does this sound like it's going to turn into King Kong again to you? Well surprisingly it doesn't. Batman and Robin head to the circus to bust him out, but he flips out and kills one of the circus guys, and is finally pacified when Robin beans him in the head with a slingshot. He even namechecks David and Goliath as he does it.
And that's Batman #2. Already I'm starting to get into this! The Batman and Robin dynamic is so much different from how it is today, and all these crazy plots are actually really interesting when Batman tends to be such a serious and complex book these days. Tomorrow is Batman #3!
Pretty standard Batman story, but the New Yoik-dialect speaking gangsters having a great plan that Batman wasn't even a little prepared for was pretty refreshing compared these days where Batman literally killed the physical manifestation of evil in Final Crisis.
The second story uses the ol' Jekyl and Hyde trope for an antagonist. Mild mannered Adam Lamb is just a museum guard who likes to read a book called The Crime Master, but sometimes he becomes the evil Mister (wait for it) WOLF! As silly as that sounds, this story is actually pretty intense. Mr. Wolf takes a light night stroll in a park and just straight up bludgeons an innocent old man to death.
Check out the split background coloring in that first panel, and the dialogue! Wolf doesn't even care if you suspect anything, he just wants to kill you!Our heroes finally run across Wolf when he puts together a gang for a bank job. The Dynamic Duo fails to thwart it and nearly gets run over in the process, but they manage to tail the gang to a pier, and obviously, they fight. This fight is pretty damn great though. Batman gets shot in the shoulder (again, in sharp contrast to today's Batman who has a bulletproof suit and is probably way too fast to ever get shot under normal circumstances) and Robin FLIPS THE FUCK OUT.
Look at that! He's throwing one guy while kicking another dude in the gut which causes that guy to elbow another guy in the face! After Robin soundly whoops the most of the gang, Batman crawls out of the water and tosses a smoke bomb so the duo can escape. AND THEN DICK GRAYSON, AGE 12 PERFORMS SURGERY ON BRUCE WAYNE TO REMOVE THE BULLET FROM HIS SHOULDER.I think this is a good time for me to talk about the impression of Robin that I get from these books. In these first two issues, Robin seems to be a tiny version of Batman, just as good a fighter, just as insanely talented (I mean surgery come on), and Batman seems to recognize that. He gets to stake-out Joker by himself, he can fight on his own, he seems to get more independence. This is a stark contrast to how Robins tended to be treated by Bruce since Death In The Family, but I guess that version of Batman comes from the Year One post-Crisis thing. I sort of like this well-adjusted Bruce Wayne who smokes a pipe and isn't constantly afraid of having someone else killed.
And on that note, the way this issue ends is Batman fights Wolf and punches him down a flight of stairs where he breaks his neck. Oops.
In story #3, B&R have to take down a crime lord named Clubfoot, who has a meathook for a hand and a...club foot. Almost the entire story is a fight scene. Also, this issue contradicts the idea that Batman doesn't have superpowers because he punches a guy in the face and says "You didn't shave!" Batman's skin is so sensitive he can feel facial hair through his gloves. Anyway, Batman catches Clubfoot because he can't run up stairs faster than Bats. Surprise!
Story #4 is pure old-comic awesome. The hook is that a professor has found a living prehistoric man in Africa and is bringing him back to Metropolis on a train to teach him to be a productive member of society. Batman jumps onto the train because he is apparently aware of the presence of a tribe of hostile African pygmies who are going to try to kill the professor and take the prehistoric man back. You're probably wondering: Why is there a TRAIN FROM AFRICA to AMERICA and why did the pygmies wait until they were in America to attack? The answer is who cares, old comics are awesome. After Batman dispatches the pygmies and makes fun of their height, the professor introduces the prehistoric man. He's a nine foot tall, living 2000 year old man who is worshipped as a god by the pygmies. And then two circus proprietors kill the professor and steal our prehistoric pal. Does this sound like it's going to turn into King Kong again to you? Well surprisingly it doesn't. Batman and Robin head to the circus to bust him out, but he flips out and kills one of the circus guys, and is finally pacified when Robin beans him in the head with a slingshot. He even namechecks David and Goliath as he does it.
And that's Batman #2. Already I'm starting to get into this! The Batman and Robin dynamic is so much different from how it is today, and all these crazy plots are actually really interesting when Batman tends to be such a serious and complex book these days. Tomorrow is Batman #3!
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