Images from a New Jersey Comicon (NJ Comic Expo, Teaneck NJ)

"Some days you can't get rid of a bomb!"

The Dynamic Duo and the Jaunty Jew

Ready to take off aboard the Batcopter!

With artist and DC VP/Art Director, Mark Chiarello

Mark Chiarello, Captain Action Enterprises' Ed Catto, and cartoonist/letterer Rick Parker

And speaking of Captain Action

Writer and one-time DC Comics' production manager, Bob Rozakis

Lee Meriwether, Catwoman in the 1966 BATMAN movie, autographs the Batcopter from the same film

My pal (and collaborator) Jim Beard, editor of Sequential Arts' GOTHAM CITY 14 MILES, to which I contributed an essay

Golden Age great and DONDI creator, the inimitable Irwin Hasen

Artist and one-time DC production artist, Steve Manion, with Papercutz editor/publisher Jim Salicrup, and Una McGurk

"Rest easy, citizens!"

He's the Goddamned Batman!

I was recently asked by my buddy Jim Beard to contribute to Gotham City 14 Miles, a book of essays on Batman he is editing for the Sequart Research & Literacy Organization (to be published in July 2010). My subject was the lasting effects of the 1960s Batman TV show on the character and on pop culture. The first section thereof is below:

“Some Days You Just Can't Get Rid of a Bomb”:
The Legacy of Batman

© respective copyright holders

“Oh, my.”
Leonard Goldenson, ABC Television President, in response
to the pitch for the Batman television show

When that first episode of Batman aired on January 12, 1966, I was ten and one-half years old. I was already a hardcore comic book reader and something of an accumulator, if not quite yet a collector, of as many comics as I could lay my hands on.

I was the audience for that show, eager, no dying to see another of my four-color heroes come to life on the TV screen, like The Adventures of Superman, the 104-episodes of which originally aired between 1952 and 1958 and continued on and on in daytime syndication during my childhood on New York’s WPIX-TV, Channel 11.

Pow! Zap ! Bam!

Yes, I recognized they were making fun of Batman, but so what? Grown-ups always made fun of comic books. My father, himself a reader of Doc Savage, the Shadow, Conan, and G-8 and His Battle Aces in the pages of the ten-cent pulp magazines of the 1930s, who brought home the 1960s Ace Books editions of the Tarzan novels with the gorgeous Frank Frazetta covers for his sons to read, who nurtured the creative instinct in the three of us, all of whom went into some sort of creative field, my father, who must have understood the appeal and certainly never discouraged our interest in comic books, nonetheless called the four-color pamphlets my older brother and I separately hoarded by the hundreds “Popeyes,” as in Popeye the Sailor Man, whose name became the noun for all comic books. “You left a pile of your Popeyes in the car,” he would say. “When you’re finished reading your Popeyes, would you take out the garbage?” Most adults just called them “funny books.”

And even in the ghetto of Pop Culture, comic books were the lowest of the kid stuff. Dangerous, even, if the doomsayers of the 1950s witch-hunts against the evils of comic books and their damaging effect on young minds were to be believed. And even if not dangerous, certainly disposable. To modern collectors in their Mylar bags sealed between slabs of plastic, the notion that a comic book was rolled up and stuck in the back pocket of an eleven year-olds jeans before and after being read (repeatedly, and by many kids) is sacrilegious, but that was exactly what we did. That issue of Spider-Man I romped around with in my back pocket in 1964 is worth hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars today, but back then, it was the center of my universe and, until I learned better a couple of years later, I ran around with it, or another one like it, rolled up in my pocket, where I could bring it out any time to read again. A copy of a Flash Annual from around the same period will forever carry the grit of New York’s Reis Park beach sand ground into its square-bound spine from that summer when it was the comic book I could not go anywhere without.

Pow! Zap! Bam!

Comics did not get respect before Batman and, aside from the recognition of comics during the run of the show, was no better off after than before. Respect was too much to ask of a funny book. The comics had been effectively neutered by the 1950s and were unlikely to feature anything capable of offending anybody (although there’s always someone to be offended by anything), but Senator Kefauver’s Congressional hearings into the link between comics, juvenile delinquency, and childhood emotional problems were only a decade in the past. These hearings were inconclusive and came up with no result other than the creation of the industry’s self-policing agency, the Comics Code Authority of America. The bad taste had nonetheless been left behind in everybody’s mouth and, in their memory of the hearings, comics had been officially stamped “garbage” by the U.S. government. What other proof did they need?

When it came to picking from this heap, Hollywood had not always approached it with such trepidation. In the 1940s, superheroes were successful on the radio (Superman on a three-times a week program on the Mutual Network) as well as on the big screen as serialized adventures, 10 or 12 15-minute weekly shorts, each with a cliffhanger ending to draw the kids back to the theater to see how the hero gets out of this one! Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, Captain America, Blackhawk, and others from the comics were made into serials, while a series of Superman cartoon shorts produced by the Fleischer Studios (creators of Popeye and Betty Boop before the Man of Steel) for Paramount are still considered classics of animation. The Adventures of Superman starring George Reeves was, despite, the nostalgic chuckles it elicits today, a very faithful and, for the most part, straight adaptation of the Superman then in the comic books, scaled down from his skyscraper-lifting level of four-color power to a syndicated TV program’s budget. But, of course, the program was produced by DC Comics, its stories overseen by comic book editors-turned-producers Whitney Ellsworth and Mort Weisinger. They were company men playing with company toys and they were very careful not to break anything.

The one thing all of the above have in common is that they were created as and always intended to be for kids. Serials were shown on Saturday mornings, along with cartoons and other kid stuff. The Adventures of Superman radio program ran for 11-years in a late afternoon timeslot. The Adventures of Superman TV show, though its first two seasons, in black and white, are darker and more serious than the later color seasons, was always a kids show, right down to its sponsorship by Kellogg’s cereals.

Comics only started getting into on-screen trouble when someone decided to do a TV show for grown-ups without first getting over their embarrassment at what they were doing.

One always has to start from the premise that the people adapting comics to the screen, big or little, do not have any respect for the material, certainly not then and, comics overall public relations progress to the contrary, not still.

The people who make movies and television shows, who stage Broadway shows and publish literature are embarrassed by the source material, whether they will admit to it or not. They voice a love and admiration for this true American art form, but if what has hit the movie and television screens is the result of love, hate me, please. Even the best of them can not help metaphorically winking uncomfortably in acknowledgment of the source. The subtext may be Shakespearean in scope, but the brilliance is clad in primary colored spandex that overwhelms even the strongest message. (These same dramatists forgetting that Shakespeare himself was little more than a TV writer of his time, the legends and tales of the era serving as the source material for his plays, themselves pandering to the lowest common denominator in the cheap seats.)

But no message, as it turned out, would ever be stronger than this:

Pow! Zap! Bam!

It made the show. It was, the first time it hit the screen that January night in 1966, a self-announcing visual punch in the nose. It made mom and dad laugh. It was kitschy, campy, and in tune with the “pop art” movement popularized by such commercial artists as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, both influenced by comic art, Lichtenstein, indeed, lifting, without credit or remuneration, entire panels from romance and war comics to recreate as such paintings as "Drowning Girl" and, more to the point of Pow! Zap! Bam!, "Whaam!" Marvel Comics, which, under the creative direction of Stan Lee and his co-writing artist cohorts like Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Don Heck, and others, had bumped up the level of comic book sophistication with continuing stories and heavy doses of soap opera elements inflicted on superheroes whose secret identities lead less-than-perfect lives, even went so far as to change its corner symbol identifying their titles as “Marvel Pop Art Productions” for four or five months during 1965, riding the wave of a trend their existence helped to set rolling.

“Pow! Zap! Bam!” was brilliant, an inclusive nod to the source material. Sound effects have long been a vital part of the vocabulary of comics. A picture of a fist in the vicinity of a chin is only half the story. The “WHAM!” of the knock-out punch or the “whoosh!” of the fist sailing past its target tells the rest. Hand-lettered onamonapia was straight out of the newspaper comic strips and comic books the chuckling adults had read as children. It was self-referential and precious and it was exactly the right touch of gentle mockery to catapult Batman into a full-blown, two-year long bona fide fad.

The only problem was, even after Batman was gone from the airwaves, it left “Pow! Zap! Bam!” behind.

It's A Capes, Cowls & Costumes Friday. Read It...For The Children!

Over on Bookgasm.com, there's plenty more reading material to get excited about, including the latest installment of my own Capes, Cowls & Costumes. In this week's thrill-packed episode, I take a look at some widdle kiddie books for kids from tots to teens.

It's Yet Another Capes, Cowls & Costumes Friday

Over on Bookgasm.com, the latest bi-weekly installment of my Capes, Cows & Costumes column is up and ready to be read. This week, I look at some of the superhero junior novels on my bookshelf starring Superman, Batman, X-Men and Iron Man.

The Goddamned Batman, Part 2

Last week I ran Part I of this short story I wrote that appeared in The Further Adventures of Batman, Volume 3: Featuring Catwoman, edited by Martin H. Greenberg (Bantam, 1993. Here’s Part II:

CREATURES OF HABIT

© DC Comics

Selina Kyle was disturbed by the night’s encounter. Oh, not by her failure to steal the wealth of books and manuscripts that had been within her grasp. She was happy just to have the Eliot manuscript, which she now set in a place of honor on a display stand on the shelf of a bookcase in the den of her Gotham City penthouse apartment.

No, she thought as she walked over to curl into a large, cushioned chair facing the bookcase to admire her new prize. No, as far as she was concerned, she had fulfilled her mission. What was disturbing was Batman’s observation on her behavior.

“You’ve always been predictable, Selina.”

As the Joker sought out novelties and chaos; as the Riddler persisted in taunting Batman with clues to his plans disguised as riddles; as Two-Face based his crimes on his strange obsession with duality, so was Catwoman overly fond of items with cat-related motifs.

The only difference between them and her, of course, was that they were all quite insane.

So, yes, she allowed, in that way perhaps she was predictable. In some small measure. Selina absently stroked the silky fur of Cassie, the Persian that hopped up on her lap, lost in thought. Why did she confine her activities to such objets d’cat? Could it be that, like that ridiculous little Riddler, she had some sort of warped, subconscious ulterior motive?

“Nonsense,” she hissed. The Persian perked up its ears and blinked at her. A tortoise shell tabby and an orange tom leapt up to join the cat on her lap.

Criminals like Riddler and Two-Face acted as they did because they wanted Batman to catch them. They were psychotics and sociopaths whose obsessive behaviors were literal cries for capture and help. They were the ones who kept the padded cells of the Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane full and its psychiatric staff working overtime.

But Selina Kyle? She didn’t fit that description. She had been arrested any number of times in the course of her criminal career. On those few occasions the authorities had been able to hold her, she had undergone psychiatric evaluations, each one resulting in her being judged sane.

And yet...

There was no denying that Batman had known exactly where to find her tonight. Nor was there any denying the feelings that gripped her when he was near. She had always tried telling herself that her feelings for the Dark Knight were that of respect for a worthy adversary. But she was being honest with herself now, thoroughly analytical. And if the absolute truth were to be known, even to herself, she had to admit there was more to her emotions than respect.

Selina Kyle took pride in needing no man to make her life complete. In her former existence, before there was Catwoman to sustain her and make her whole, she had lived an empty life being used by any man who could pay the price for her services. But that was long ago and now she would as soon kill a man before she allowed him to touch her.

So it was certainly not a matter of need.

But want. Now that was an entirely different matter.

Could Batman be the one to make her forget the dirty, unwholesome touches of the strange men of her past?

Selina became aware of the low, pleasured rumble of feline contentment. But the cats stretched out on and about her were all asleep, silent.

The purrs were her own.

For Batman?

Selina sprang to her feet, startling and scattering the cats, more deeply troubled now than when she began dissecting her emotional state. She couldn’t believe what she was thinking. Since their very first encounter, Catwoman had always sought to triumph over Batman. To dominate him as she would dominate all men.

But now she was no longer sure. Now she didn’t know if she wanted to win out over him... or win him over.

This was going to require some very long, hard thought.

* * *

“Tell me, sir,” Alfred Pennyworth said. “Might I spend another hour in the kitchen preparing some other dish you can allow to grow cold while you ponder the mysteries of the universe?”

Bruce Wayne sat staring out the dining room window, chin resting on steepled fingertips, brow furrowed in deep ridges of thought. “No, Alfred,” he replied absently, eyes fixed on something beyond the dark of night outside the glass. “No, thank you. This is just fine.”

Alfred sighed softly to himself, his professional demeanor preventing him from too ostentatious a show of his displeasure. Mr. Wayne was, after all, the master of the house. And though Alfred had been hired long ago as the butler of the household by Wayne’s parents, and in spite of the fact that he had literally raised young Bruce from the time of Dr. and Mrs. Wayne’s deaths, the elderly British gentleman’s gentleman always insisted on maintaining the proper level of decorum.

Which was not, he admitted with no small amount of pride (but only to himself), the easiest of tasks.

Because how many men in his position were servant, confidante, friend, and provider of first aid to the Batman?

Alfred stepped to the table and removed the plate of cold, untouched food from in front of Wayne. “Am I to assume, sir, that something is troubling you?”

Bruce Wayne made a sound deep in his throat which Alfred interpreted as assent.

“Might I suggest speaking of it as a method of alleviating your concerns?”

Wayne looked at Alfred at last. “I’m sorry, Alfred. Did you say something?”

“Yes, sir,” the manservant said patiently. “I was asking if you might like to talk out your problem vis a vis, Catwoman.”

“Catwoman,” Wayne repeated. “Selina. I suppose I should be grateful no one was killed tonight. Considering the murderous crime spree she’s been on lately, that’s some consolation.”

“She is proving most vexing, yes, sir. But then, Miss Kyle is always a problem when she embarks on a rampage.”

“The woman’s insane, Alfred.”

“Yes, sir,” the butler replied dryly. “I accept the diagnosis from a man who wears leotards and a mask whilst leaping about the rooftops of the city in the dead of night.”

Wayne suppressed a smile at Alfred’s response. Sometimes, he thought, his old butler must have invented the fine art of sarcasm. “Point taken, friend, but you’ll have to admit that there’s a considerable difference between my motives and Selina’s.”

“Quite, sir. Flip sides of the same coin, as it were.”

Wayne had come to expect this reaction from Alfred. The older man was as close to family as he had known since the murder of his parents by a mugger when he was a youngster. He had always been there for Bruce Wayne when he needed him, to talk or be comforted, when he limped home in the dark of night and the aftermath of his self-appointed crusade against evil. But Alfred Pennyworth would never approve of the way he spent his nights. He would support Bruce as best he could, he would mend his wounds when the crusade turned bloody, but how was he to approve of any activity that saw Wayne putting his life on the line night after night?

What was he to do but hate any activity that threatened the young man he loved as dearly as his own flesh and blood? Even if that was an admission Alfred would never vocalize, not even under the threat of the most heinous torture. Because that, of course, would be a breech of the decorum he so valued.

“Whatever my reasons, Catwoman’s a criminal and a killer, and it’s up to me to stop her.”

“If you say so, sir. Although, sometimes I must wonder...” But Alfred’s voice trailed off and he shook his head as he started to turn with the dish in hand to leave the room.

“Wonder what?” Wayne asked.

Alfred stood with his back to Bruce Wayne for a long moment before turning back to his employer with a look of concern spread across his normally closed expression. “About Miss Kyle, sir. It would seem to me that she appears to prey on your mind far more than do other foes whenever you and she encounter one another.”

“Meaning...?”

“Meaning, sir, that you might wish to consider investigating your emotional state where Catwoman is concerned.”

Wayne laughed, or at least made a sound as close to a laugh as he could muster in light of Alfred’s words. “What are you saying, Alfred? That I’ve got feelings for the woman that are interfering with my work?”

“I merely think you have a tendency to... shall we say, obsess over Miss Kyle and her activities. Her crimes are terrible, to be sure, but no more, and certainly often less, than the acts of others, such as the Joker. Or Two-Face.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Alfred. Naturally, I’m going to think about her when she’s active. But I think about every criminal I go up against.”

Alfred nodded and his features settled back into their usual neutral repose. “If you say so, sir,” he said, but he allowed a hint of skepticism to creep into his voice. He wasn’t hiding anything from Bruce Wayne.

“I do,” Wayne asserted. But he heard his old friend’s doubt and it bothered him more than he was willing to admit. He was too tired to argue, though. And he had too much to think about.

Mostly about Catwoman.

“Will there be anything else, sir?” Alfred asked.

“No, thank you.”

“Than I shall clean up in the kitchen and be retiring.”

“Good night, Alfred,” Bruce Wayne said softly, turning his gaze back to the black stare of the window . Alfred was almost out of the dining room when Wayne called out to him, “Before you turn in, Alfred, could you fix me something to eat?”

Alfred looked down at the plate of cold food in his hand and shook his head.

“Certainly, sir,” he replied. “How silly of me not to have thought of that myself.”

More Batman: The Script

On Friday, I posted the art for an 8-page Batman story I wrote that appeared in Gotham Knights #29. This is the script that artist John Watkiss drew the story from. The illustration is by the talented Rick Burchett, a piece for a Batman reader that I edited.


Paul Kupperberg
GOTHAM KNIGHTS #29: BATMAN Black & White
"No Escape" (8 Pages)
© DC Comics

PAGE ONE

1. ONE-HALF PAGE SPLASH, VERTICAL PANEL.
NIGHT. The old, abandoned CIRCUS MIDWAY of THE HURLEY BROS. CIRCUS on a deserted waterfront section of GOTHAM CITY. The Circus was third-rate in its hay day, old and always kind of seedy, with a ferris wheel, merry-go-round, concessions and carnival games, a rotating roster of Big Top attractions, and an old fashioned sideshow with "freaks" and human oddities. Now, the attractions are boarded up, old posters featuring a variety of attractions and bizarre sideshow acts dark with age and peeling from walls. Darkened light fixtures dangle from poles and walls. Torn tent canvas, blackened with weathering and age, flaps in the wind. Litter blows across the gloomy, shadowed midway. This place was boarded up 10 years ago and has experienced a lot of abuse and vandalism since.
A TORN POSTER on a wall in the FOREGROUND FEATURES ESCAPE ARTIST "THE GREAT DODGE," hunched over, wrapped in thick chains secured with heavy padlocks, his hands chained in front of him, but smiling mysteriously out at the viewer (this is a take-off on a famous shot of HOUDINI, ATTACHED). In the poster, he's young, handsome, thick head of hair, muscular...but this is a 30 year old poster.
PROMINENT IN THE SCENE IS THE FERRIS WHEEL, as old and rusted as everything around it, half its cars missing, others hanging from the large, dark wheel. And, chained spread-eagle and upside down to the hub of the great wheel is BATMAN, his UTILITY BELT GONE.
(We won't see this amount of detail in this shot, but for the record...) BATMAN is PHYSICALLY CHAINED TO THE HUB by heavy-duty chains that crisscross his chest and wrap around him, held by many locks. His arms and legs are held by heavy iron, padlocked manacles, one chain to each limb, but NOT CHAINED TO THE FERRIS WHEEL ITSELF, but rather stretch off to attach to the wheel's support structure or some such: the whole idea behind this trap is that as the wheel begins to turn, twisting BATMAN'S torso, the chains hold his arms and legs stationary so that he'll be torn apart.

1 LOGO: BATMAN BLACK & WHITE
2 TITLE: NO ESCAPE
3 BATMAN CAP: MAX DODGE said, “You get IN, there's a way OUT. It’s EASY, when you know HOW.”
4 BATMAN CAP: He also said, “Of all escape mechanisms, death is the most efficient.”
5 BATMAN CAP: Both quotes run through my mind, the only options of escape: success or DEATH.
6 BATMAN CAP: Max Dodge had taught me everything I know about escape.
7 CREDITS: PAUL KUPPERBERG + Writer
JOHN WATKISS + Artist
JACK MORELLI + Letterer
MARK CHIARELLO + Editor
BATMAN created by BOB KANE

2. CLOSER IN ON BATMAN, your basic grim and determined, so we can better see how he's chained up.

9 BATMAN CAP: He also created THIS gag.
10 BATMAN CAP: I was there. Watched him crack it a hundred times, step-by-step, as he did.

3. FROM BEHIND BATMAN'S HEAD, LOOKING OUT at the windswept, dark and gloomy deserted midway.

11 BATMAN CAP: A hundred times...EXCEPT for how to get out ALIVE.
12 BATMAN CAP: He kept that to himself.

# # #

PAGE TWO

1. FLASHBACK.
ESTABLISHING SHOT OF THE HURLEY BROS. CIRCUS MIDWAY, 15 YEARS EARLIER. There was life in the circus in those days, the midway alive with customers, the concessions and sideshows thriving. With the lights and the color and balloons and excitement, you almost don't see the flea-bitten tackiness of the place.

1 BATMAN CAP: Max Dodge kept a lot of secrets.
2 FROM BIG TOP: You Dodge?

2. FLASHBACK.
INSIDE THE BIG TOP, currently deserted between shows. In the middle of the ring stands MAX DODGE, a man a little older than the one in the poster on page 1, middle-aged, starting to get a little thick around the middle, hair thinning, and his overindulgence in alcohol starting to show on his face.
DODGE is wrapped up in a whole mess of chains, secured with padlocks, concentrating as he squirms to free himself. Standing outside the ring is a YOUNG (20ish) BRUCE WAYNE, wearing jeans, t-shirt, denim jacket and boots.

3 DODGE: You THINK?
4 BRUCE: I'm an admirer of your work and...
5 DODGE: I'm kind of TIED up here. Buzz off, willya?
6 BATMAN CAP: Houdini. Thaddeus Brown. Zatara. The Great Dodge!

3. FLASHBACK.
Still squirming, the chains are starting to slip a little from around DODGE as BRUCE looks on.

7 BATMAN CAP: Geniuses all. Except Dodge never broke out of the carny circuit.
8 BRUCE: I want to learn escape.
9 BRUCE: From you.

4. FLASHBACK.
The chains are slipping from DODGE'S shoulders as he squirms and contorts, except now he's laughing. BRUCE is totally serious.

10 DODGE: HAH! Dream on, junior. Kind’a idiot you think I am, give away everything I know for NOTHING?
11 BATMAN CAP: A monumental TALENT...housed in a MISERABLE human being.

5. FLASHBACK.
DODGE'S hand is slipping out of the chains now, reaching for the thick wad of $100 bills that BRUCE is offering to him. DODGE'S eyes are wide.

12 BRUCE: Not for nothing.
15 DODGE: >whew!< style="text-align: center;"># # #

PAGE THREE

1. FLASHBACK.
The chains are falling away from DODGE as he steps out of them, clutching the wad of bills in his fist. He's walking away from BRUCE.

1 DODGE: You'll get it. I think this calls for a DRINK.
2 DODGE: Bring those with you, willya, kid?
3 BATMAN CAP: I needed his knowledge, his skill.

2. BACK TO THE PRESENT, for a MEDIUM-SHOT of BATMAN chained to the ferris wheel.

4 BATMAN CAP: How does Dodge fit in with THIS?
5 BATMAN CAP: A TIP on a CRYSTAL METH LAB in the area...
6 BATMAN CAP: Ambushed at the gate...

3. PULL BACK, to show a VIDEO CAMERA MOUNTED on an old, leaning light pole, pointed at the ferris wheel and BATMAN.

7 BATMAN CAP: A lure to a DEATH TRAP.
8 BATMAN CAP: WHY go to the trouble...? Doesn't matter.
9 CAP: "Awake is he?"

4. CUT TO: an ESTABLISHING SHOT of the old, battered and weathered SIDESHOW TENT. There is light coming through the holes in the tent.

10 FROM TENT: Good!

5. CUT TO: INSIDE THE SIDESHOW TENT, still hung with banners, now faded and torn, featuring the array of oddities it used to house: the LIZARD MAN, THE INDIAN RUBBER MAN, FAT LADY, THE GORILLA-MAN, HALF-MAN/HALF-WOMAN, BEARDED LADY, etc.
Not much left inside, except for some shelves on the wall on which sit large jars containing an array of “oddities,” now just vague shadowy objects in murky liquid. Lots of dust and gloom...and THE RIDDLER, with a trio of HENCHMEN...and MAX DODGE, older than he looked in the flashback. He is a tired, defeated man, twitchy from too much drink and hard living, unshaven, his suit worn and way out of style.
RIDDLER is standing before a small TV sitting on an overturned bit of debris, showing the view of the video camera of BATMAN, chained to the ferris wheel. RIDDLER’S enjoying the scene as he reaches for a large, old fashioned gear level, jerry rigged inside the tent with a large cable snaking out of it. The HENCHMEN all have some heavy duty fire-power on hand, pointed at DODGE, who looks like he doesn’t want to be there.

11 RIDDLER: Wouldn’t want him to MISS this, eh, Mr. Dodge?
12 DODGE: I...n- no, RIDDLER.
13 RIDDLER: Well, then, as you carny folk say...

6. CLOSE-UP OF RIDDLER’S HAND as it shoves the gear-level forward.

14 RIDDLER: ...Let’s get this show on the ROAD!
15 SFX: KLANK!

7. Smiling broadly and dusting his hands together in a gesture of a job well done, RIDDLER is turning to face the quivering, cowering DODGE.

16 RIDDLER: Power ON...’round and ‘round she GOES, where she stops...
17 RIDDLER: ...heh heh heh!...The Batman DROPS!
18 DODGE: I- I did like you asked, Riddler...did my part...

# # #

PAGE FOUR

1. RIDDLER, grinning maliciously, is shoving his face into DODGE’S, sending the old man recoiling, sweating in fear.

1 RIDDLER: Then TELL me, Dodge...if I dropped YOU and Batman from a roof at the SAME instant...
2 RIDDLER: ...WHO would hit the ground FIRST?
3 DODGE: ...I don’t...I don’t know...who?
4 RIDDLER: Who CARES?

2. RIDDLER is crouching down, looking happily at the TV screen at the image of BATMAN, chained and seemingly helpless.

5 RIDDLER: Still, you DO give good death trap...for an OLD RUMMY.
6 RIDDLER: Don’t you just LOVE the GESTALT of the MOMENT? What says DISMEMBERMENT better than a CIRCUS?
7 BATMAN CAP: It’s starting...

3. CUT TO: BATMAN, still in place, of course, but now the ferris wheel has started up, old and disused, creaking slowly into operation, starting to turn clockwise. With the chains attached to his arms and legs, holding them stationary while his torso begins to rotate with the ferris feel, he doesn’t have long before he’s torn apart.

8 BATMAN CAP: With my TORSO chained to the ROTATING hub...
9 BATMAN CAP: ...My arms and legs IMMOBILIZED, I’ve got maybe THREE minutes before I’m torn to pieces.

4. NARROW PANEL: On the open palm of BATMAN’S GLOVED HAND. His THUMB is crossed over the palm, pressing on the base of his pinky, which is forcing a small, flexible narrow strip of metal--a lock-pick--up from where it’s hidden in the seam of the glove, on the inside of the pinky finger.

10 BATMAN CAP: Time enough...provided the gag’s on the square.
11 BATMAN CAP: One PLUGGED LOCK and I was OUT of time, dead.
12 BATMAN CAP: Dodge, he never cheated.

5. NARROW PANEL: CLOSE-UP of the UPSIDE DOWN BATMAN, just a portion of his face, showing his concentration, biting the corner of his lip.

13 BATMAN CAP: No gaffed locks or tricked out boxes for him.

6. NARROW PANEL: back to BATMAN’S hand, maneuvering the lock-pick between his fingers, getting a better grip.

14 BATMAN CAP: “Nothing drives ‘em out of the tent faster,” he’d say...

7. FLASHBACK:
It’s still 15 YEARS AGO, out behind the midway, where the trailers the performers live in are parked. DODGE is sitting on the step outside his trailer, wearing a t-shirt and holding a bottle or bourbon, drinking while he watches BRUCE rehearse.
BRUCE is hanging from a gravity-boot-like set up, chained at the ankles, upside down, and wrapped in a straitMaxet, which he’s struggling mightily to wiggle out of. His head’s only a few inches off the ground in this gizmo.

15 DODGE: ...Then the rubes knowing you were never REALLY in danger.
16 DODGE: They wanna think you might DIE. CHEAT that and they’ll know.
17 BRUCE: Uhhnn...I think I’m STUCK, Max.

# # #

PAGE FIVE

1. FLASHBACK.
DODGE is standing now, leaning against one of the uprights of the gravity-boot-like thingie BRUCE is dangling from. He’s ignoring BRUCE, who’s struggling, twisting around at the end of the chains holding him up, raising the bottle to his lips.

1 DODGE: I don’t just DO escapes. I GIVE them escape.
2 BRUCE: Could you give ME a HAND?

2. FLASHBACK.
SAME AS ABOVE, except now DODGE is glancing down at the struggling, twisting BRUCE.

3 DODGE: Escape’s a TRICK...but never a CHEAT.
4 BRUCE: Max...?
5 DODGE: Done trying to do it YOUR way, kid?
6 BRUCE: >Sigh!< style="text-align: center;"># # #

PAGE SIX

1. CUT TO: DODGE, eyes riveted on the TV screen as he pushes forward, brushing past RIDDLER, who’s looking at the old man in surprise.

1 BATMAN CAP: I learned.
2 DODGE (small lettering): ...Can’t take the pain...
3 RIDDLER: What? Is he SUPPOSED to do that?
4 DODGE: Umm...INFLATABLE lining in the boot he deflated to give him SLACK to slip the chain.

2. RIDDLER is looking suspiciously at DODGE, who’s face is almost up against the TV SCREEN, watching it like he’s searching a crowd-shot for a familiar face. RIDDLER is reaching for a knob on the front of the set.

5 DODGE: Can I ZOOM IN...on his face, I mean.
6 RIDDLER: Something I should KNOW, Mr. Dodge?

3. TIGHT CLOSE-UP on DODGE’S EYE, wide and staring, with a CLOSE-UP of BATMAN’S inverted face reflected in it, still contorted in that grimace of pain.

7 RIDDLER (off): What’s the DIFFERENCE between ME and the LETTER “T”?
8 RIDDLER (off): I DON’T like being CROSSED!

4. RIDDLER has grabbed DODGE by the hair, yanking his head back, DODGE shouting out in pain.

9 DODGE: I WOULDN’T...
10 RIDDLER: Yes, you WOULD. But you SHOULDN’T.
11 RIDDLER: I told you--either Batman DIES...or YOU do.

5. CLOSE-UP OF DODGE, in the foreground, looking down in shame as the angry RIDDLER towers over him, looking down at DODGE with disdain.

12 RIDDLER: Some thanks I get for giving a broken down, drunken HAS-BEEN a LAST shot at glory!
13 DODGE (small lettering): Last shot...?

6. FLASHBACK.
Once again, 15 years ago, this time on the MIDWAY, DODGE, BRUCE and the CIRCUS MANAGER standing in front of the ferris wheel, talking.

14 DODGE: ...My last SHOT, Wally! I’ve been working on it for a YEAR!
15 MANAGER: I CAN’T, Max. There’s liability issues...
16 DODGE: That’s GARBAGE!

7. FLASHBACK.
TIGHT IN ON DODGE, surprised, is looking down at his hands, which are trembling, as MANAGER walks away. BRUCE is looking away from DODGE, embarrassed for the man.

17 MANAGER: You’re a DRUNK, Max. I let you try this stunt, I’d be as good as KILLING you.
18 DODGE: Bu- but...I NEED this...!
19 BATMAN CAP: Max Dodge had no chances left.

# # #

PAGE SEVEN

1. CUT TO: DODGE, in the present, looking down at his trembling hands, miserable, a man on the edge.

1 BATMAN CAP: He disappeared after that. The Wheel escape was never performed.
2 BATMAN CAP: Until tonight.
3 DODGE (small lettering): ...last shot...

2. DODGE is suddenly up on his feet, shouting out in determination as he races for the flap in the tent to escape. RIDDLER is looking after him, angry, signaling for his henchmen to get the escaping DODGE.

4 DODGE (burst): LAST SHOT!
5 RIDDLER: HEY!
6 RIDDLER: Don’t just STAND there, you dolts!

3. EXTERIOR OF THE SIDESHOW TENT as DODGE races from it, across the MIDWAY, towards the FERRIS WHEEL. The HENCHMEN are just emerging from the tent.

7 DODGE (burst): HUB LOCK’S GAFFED, KID! The HUB LOCK...!

4. Stumbling, almost falling over on his face, DODGE is racing around to the front of the ferris wheel, the HENCHMEN in hot pursuit, raising their guns.

8 DODGE (burst): SLIP THAT, CHAINS’LL GO SLACK...

5. DODGE is stopping, looking up at the ferris wheel in wide-eyed shock.

NO COPY

6. FROM DODGE’S POV: the chains that were holding BATMAN captive are there...but BATMAN ain’t! The chains are hanging loosely, still swinging on the turning wheel.

9 RIDDLER (off): Oh, Maxie! You PROMISED me ESCAPE-PROOF!

7. DODGE is whirling to face RIDDLER and the HENCHMEN, who have caught up with him. RIDDLER is pointing angrily at the frightened DODGE.

10 RIDDLER: So tell me...what’s DEADER than your CAREER?
11 RIDDLER: YOU are!

# # #

PAGE EIGHT

1. BIG PANEL, as BATMAN swings down the ferris wheel on one of the chains that had been holding his legs, swinging feet first into the HENCHMEN. But he’s not in time to save DODGE, as one of the HENCHMEN is getting off a shot that’s hitting DODGE, spinning him around. RIDDLER is starting to run.

1 BATMAN CAP: Dodge never would show me the BIG FINISH.
2 BATMAN CAP: It took me all these years to figure out WHY.
3 SFX: BLAMM!
4 DODGE (burst): Unnnghh!

2. The HENCHMEN down, BATMAN is throwing a BATARANG at the fleeing RIDDLER, taking the criminal down. DODGE is crumbled to the ground, clutching his chest.

5 BATMAN CAP: He didn’t HAVE one.
6 BATMAN CAP: He’d RIGGED it so that ONE lock, once opened, LOOSENED all the chains.

3. BATMAN is kneeling beside the downed DODGE, still holding his chest, clearly on the way out.

7 DODGE (weak): Cr- cracked it, huh, kid?
8 BATMAN: Finally. The more COMPLICATED the set-up, the EASIER the trick.
9 DODGE (weak): Never...could make it...work...

4. CLOSE ON DODGE, fading fast, while BATMAN leans in to talk to him, urgently.

10 DODGE (weak): ...had to...>koff!<...had to CHEAT it...
11 DODGE (weak): Hey...nice mask, kid...heh heh!...bu- but you STILL can’t t- take...the pain...
12 BATMAN: I make do, Max. Hold on, ambulance is on the way.

5. CLOSE-UP OF DODGE, head starting to slip to one side.

13 DODGE (weak): Heh! Like I always...said...“Of all...escape mechanisms, death... is the most efficient.”
14 BATMAN (off): You stole the line, Max. From Mencken.

6. SAME AS ABOVE, except now MAX’S head has sagged to one side, his eyes closed, dead.

15 DODGE (weak): ...yeah...another...ANOTHER...cheat...
16 BATMAN CAP: And then, on the midway, for the final time, Max Dodge slipped his bounds...

7. LONG-SHOT of BATMAN, kneeling over DODGE’S body on the midway, against the backdrop of the circus.

17 BATMAN CAP: ...And made good his ESCAPE.

--END--

More Batman

Same character as yesterday's entry, different medium. This is an 8-page back-up I wrote for Gotham Knights #29 (July 2002), part of the 'Batman Black & White' series of stories, edited by the wickedly talented Mark Chiarello (who's also a hell of a fine artist and one of the truly good guys; check out his book, Heroes of the Negro Leagues from Abrams whether you care about baseball or not) and drawn by John Watkiss (also wickedly talented and who also has some books to offer). This story, along with a couple of dozen others, can be had in Batman Black & White Volume 3. I recommend all three of the Black & White volumes, each one being chock full of stories by the greatest names in comic books from here and abroad. And me.

I thought that today I would run the finished story in all its black & white glory and, next time around, the script it was drawn from, your behind-the-scenes peek at how the sausge is made. By the way, the Ferris wheel gimmick? It was my son's idea, which he came up with in oh, about three seconds, when he came into my office and saw me slamming my head against the desk because I couldn't think of a Batman-worthy deathtrap. He was about six at the time.

As always, click on any image to see it at a readable size.

© DC Comics

The Goddamned Batman, Part 1

The first section of a short story I wrote that appeared in The Further Adventures of Batman, Volume 3: Featuring Catwoman, edited by Martin H. Greenberg (Bantam, 1993):

CREATURES OF HABIT

© DC Comics

She padded across the alleyway, shrouded in the protective darkness of night, picking her way over the city’s debris. From beyond the alley came the sounds of the city, the drone of car engines and the swish of their tires on the damp pavement, the murmur of a million voices, the muffled rumble of the subways filtering up from the tunnels below. The alley stank of the rotting discard overflowing the trash cans and dumpsters over which she stepped. Car exhaust, the mingled odor of exotic foods from street vendors, vapors from the sewers that flowed beneath the streets all assailed her sensitive nostrils.

Gotham City was all sounds and smells around her. She purred, content with the comfort derived from their presence.

Gotham was where she lived and where she prowled, the place that provided her with everything she needed to sustain her.

She leaped up onto the top of an open dumpster, balancing delicately on the edge. What she sought was nearby, would soon be hers. All she needed was a few moments alone to ferret it out. But she was accustomed to the solitude of her activities. She needed no one. She...

Froze.

A footstep scraped across the pavement behind her. Perched on the dumpsters edge, fur bristling, ears straining, nose twitching to catch scent of the source of the intruder.

“No, no, no,” came the soft spoken response to her alarm. “You’ve no need to be afraid, little pretty.”

The brown, matted cat turned her head to the sound of the voice and blinked large, glowing green eyes. There, at the mouth of the alley, stood a tall, slender figure. A human. The cat had been born of the streets, in a corner of an alley not unlike this one and had never lived among these beings, had seldom experienced anything but torment and abuse from them. She had rightly learned to fear them.

“I’ll be out of your way in just a moment,” the human whispered in reassurance, advancing slowly into the alley. “You have your work to do and I have mine.”

The cat sat, fur settling. She watched the human and purred. Humanity was the enemy, but this one... this one posed no threat. This one was a friend, indeed a kindred spirit. This one possessed the spirit and soul of the cat.

The woman paused before the watchful feline and extended a hand to be sniffed before gently scratching the creature’s head with a claw tipped leather glove. She was tall, lean and graceful, her sensuous form encased in a matte black leather bodysuit, its lines broken only by the small leather pouch hanging at the gentle swell of her hip, capped by a sleek mask that hid the upper half of her face, except for the startling, cat-like green eyes that peered out the mask’s eye slits below a pair of cat ears. A full, red lipped mouth set in a strong jaw turned up in a secret smile she shared briefly with the cat.

“This has been lovely, my dear,” Catwoman purred, withdrawing her hand. “But I really must be going.” She pointed into the air and the cat followed her hand with its wide eyed, glowing gaze. “Up there.”

The cat blinked as if in understanding and stood, stretching its thin little body as Catwoman leapt nimbly to the edge of the dumpster beside her. She settled on her haunches to watch her newfound friend.

Several feet over her head was the extension ladder of a fire escape. Catwoman’s eyes narrowed as she briefly judged the distance, then crouched and sprang upward, her gloved hands grasping the ladder’s lowest rung. She effortlessly swung her lower body up like a practiced gymnast on the parallel bars, landing with only the slightest rasp of shoe leather on rusted metal slats on the fire escape’s lower landing.

The cat peered up at her for a brief instant and, with a remorseful meow in farewell to the only human to ever treat her with kindness, she turned back to the contents of the dumpster to continue her search for the evening’s meal.

Above her, Catwoman was on a quest of her own. On the balls of her feet, she ascended the fire escape steps, her matte black leather outfit rendering her nearly invisible in the night against the brick of the building darkened by years of grimy Gotham air.

She stopped on the third landing, poised, listening to the sounds from the city below. Car horns blared. Voices rose and fell as citizens passed by the mouth of the alley. Somewhere in the distance, a police siren wailed mournfully on its mission of intervention in someone else’s misery. She didn’t care where it was headed as long as her work was uninterrupted.

Reaching into the pouch at her hip, Catwoman smiled her secret smile once again. How accommodating that the treasure she sought was held by one who made its acquisition by her so simple. Certainly, the window opening onto the fire escape where she stood was protected by an alarm. This she knew merely by looking at the grimy glass on which she could see etched the fine line of wire that was there to prevent its being broken by the crude method of entry commonly referred to as the “smash-and-grab.”

But Catwoman was far too subtle a professional to engage in so brutal and crass a practice. She pulled from her pouch a small plastic box with a single toggle switch on its face and, attached to its other side, a suction cup. The box was quickly affixed to the window pane, directly over the wire strip glued to the inside of the glass. The toggle switch was flicked on by a clawed fingertip and, within seconds, the box let out a single, gentle tone.

The alarm was deactivated. The wonders of modern electronics, she marveled, available to those who knew the correct wrong people. Catwoman knew them all.

Now her work was simple. From the pouch she produced a slender tool, the tip of which she applied to the glass. With a barely audible hiss, she traced a circle in the window pane with the glass cutter. A tap of her knuckle at the center of the circle sent the etched out glass to the floor inside the room with a crystalline tinkle. She reached through the hole left there, flicking open the simple latch holding the window closed.

Catwoman purred with delight as she slid open the window and stepped delicately inside. She closed the window behind her, disappearing into the dark office beyond the night.

A visit to this place the previous day in civilian garb and the guise of an interested customer had given Catwoman the layout of the office, so she had no need of a betraying light to guide her steps. She went straight for the wall on the far side of the office, snaking sensuously through the maze of office furniture and display showcases. Her goal was the large built-in, walk-in safe that dominated that wall. A Wm. Finger Deluxe Model M, Series A-1949. Installed here in the offices of the C. Paris Rare Book & Manuscript Co., her research told her, in October, 1952. Security technology had, of course, grown in leaps and bounds in the forty years since the safe’s installation, but the Model M was still regarded as a fine example of post World War II safe building. A solid box consisting of three layers of one-inch thick tempered steel plating, fireproof, bombproof, with inlaid door hinges and dead bolt locks and four separate tumbler mechanisms that made cracking the locks next to impossible for all but the most experienced safecracker or someone equipped with a good supply of explosives.

All in all, a most formidable and impressive box. Except for someone in possession of the combination.

Someone, like Catwoman.

Once again, her acquaintance with the correct wrong people simplified Catwoman’s task. In this instance, it was Buddy Wexler, a small, round shouldered old man with a perpetual squint and a thorough knowledge of safes built in America during the last century. There was hardly a model he had not, at some point in his long career, gotten into before his retirement. And, being a professional of the highest caliber, Wexler always sought the simplest way through the steel and locks confronting him. In the case of the product of the Wm. Finger Co. constructed prior to 1969, that usually meant consulting the installation records copied late that same year from the company’s offices. Most people, Wexler told her, amused, never bother changing the combination set at the time of a safe’s installation, not even forty years later. It’s too much trouble to memorize new combinations, he assured her as he handed her a slip of paper on which a series of numbers had been written in exchange for a sum of cash.

The dial spun beneath her fingers, first right, then left, then right again. Then, a metallic click and the safe’s handle giving under a gentle push.

The safe door swung open and Catwoman laughed in delight.

Within the safe were shelves and on the shelves rested a wealth of paper rarities, the creme de la creme of the C. Paris Rare Book & Manuscript catalogue: a first edition of Miguel de Cervantes’ El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha from 1610; the original manuscript of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in Lewis Carroll’s own hand; a set of nine Shakespeare plays bound together and dated 1619, the first published collection of the Bard’s work printed four years before the almost as rare and more well known First Folio; first editions of Moby-Dick, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim’s Progress, and other rare volumes, many inscribed by the authors.

And the object of Catwoman’s excursion into the night: the original, handwritten manuscript of T.S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.

There were far more valuable items housed in the safe, items that Catwoman would take with her for sale and profit in the world’s extensive blackmarket in rarities and antiquities. But the Eliot manuscript, she reflected with emotion approaching ecstasy, as she lifted the leather folder containing the sheaf of papers, was for her own, private collection. If she left here tonight with only this in her possession, she would consider the night’s efforts an unqualified success. Little more than a bit of poetic doggerel, this lesser of the poet’s works was most famous for inspiring a long running Broadway musical, but it had as its theme that which was close to Catwoman’s heart.

Cats. Her life. Her pleasure and passion.

Her obsession!

“You’ve always been predictable, Selina,” a deep voice rumbled behind her.

Catwoman knew, even as she turned, with the manuscript clutched to her breast, whose voice it was.

He stood, framed in the doorway to the office, a tall, broad figure sheathed in shadowy gray and midnight blue. His face was hidden by a mask, pointed ears reminiscent of a bat’s head rising from its crown. Shining on his broad chest was a brilliant yellow oval in which was emblazoned a jet black emblem in the shape of a bat and, to complete the image, a billowing cape with a serrated edge hung from his imposing shoulders like batwings at rest.

“Hello, Batman,” she said, her voice as casual as someone meeting a friend on an afternoon stroll through the park. “Fancy meeting you here, of all places.”

“Not so very fancy at all,” he said, pointing a dark gloved finger at the leather folder in her grasp. “The auction tomorrow of the Eliot manuscript has been in all the newspapers. I knew it was only a matter of time before you tried for it.”

“But how could you have known I would try tonight?” she asked with a slow, sensuous shrug of her shoulders. Catwoman’s tongue flicked out, briefly touching her suddenly dry lips. But there was no fear or apprehension attached to the gesture. This was something else, something that always seemed to grip her when she was in the presence of this man.

It was Batman’s turn to shrug as he strode into the office, his hand held out as if to take the folder from her. “I’ve been keeping tabs on this place,” he said. “It was still in the safe this evening at closing time. Tonight was your last chance at it before it was shipped to the auction house tomorrow morning.

“Now, hand it over, Selina.”

Catwoman sighed. “You have no idea how you vex me, dear Batman. Don’t you find it astonishing how our paths are always crossing!”

Batman stopped within a yard of her. “No. As I said, you’re predictable.”

“Oh, no,” she cried in mock horror. “I’d hate to think that were so. But I do know what I can do to drive that silly notion out of your mind.” Now Catwoman laughed and her hand, which had been creeping towards the pouch at her hip as they spoke, came into plain view holding a Zippo cigarette lighter. She flicked it to life and the flame leapt up a full six inches to fill the dark office with flickering shadows.

“This,” she giggled with undisguised pleasure, “Is something you never predicted!”

Batman started in surprise as Catwoman spun and tossed the flaming lighter into the open safe. Into the midst of millions of dollars worth of old, dry and brittle paper.

Still laughing, Catwoman moved towards the window even as Batman sprung into the safe with a single leap. The lighter had bounced once on the floor inside the safe, the flame of the Zippo reaching for contents of the lowest shelf. The manufacturer of the lighter guaranteed its performance in even the stiff wind, so its brief flight from Catwoman’s hand to the safe didn’t dim the flame.

A leather bound book began to smolder. Batman grabbed for it, hearing as he did so the pounding of Catwoman’s heels on the floor and the crash of glass as she dove through the window. As he swept the burning book and flickering lighter up in his hands, the sound of the rasp of her soles on the metal rungs of the fire escape reached him. He rolled out of the safe, holding both sources of fire away from the rest of its precious contents, snapping shut the lighter and slapping the small fire licking at the pages of the burning book out against his chest.

He was back on his feet in seconds, heading for the shattered window and the pursuit of Catwoman. But she was gone, swallowed by the night. Along with the Eliot manuscript.

A cat with matted brown fur sat on the fire escape among the shards of broken window glass, looking expectantly up at Batman. His lips set in a hard, grim line, the Dark Knight peered into the alley below. Catwoman had escaped him again because he had again underestimated her cunning.

He routinely faced and overcame foes who were both stronger and smarter than she. He survived the treacherous nights of encounters with danger and death with physical prowess and wits sharpened to the pinnacle of human perfection, yet this one woman all too frequently bested him with little more than a look from those startling green eyes.

What was the answer?

The cat’s plaintive meow broke his train of thought and he sighed. Catwoman’s time would come, he knew. It always did and always would, as long as she remained the creature of habit she had always been. Batman turned from the window to place a call to Commission Gordon to report Catwoman’s success and his own failure.

The cat cocked her head to one side, waiting on the fire escape. She sensed this human might love cats almost as much as had the first one.