Welcome to the five hundred and seventh in a series of examinations of comic book legends and whether they are true or false. Click here for an archive of the first five hundred (I actually haven't been able to update it in a while). This week, in a Carmine Infantino-themed week, did Batman nearly start wielding guns during the 1960s? Was the Elongated Man created because Julie Schwartz didn't know that DC owned Plastic Man? Did Carmine Infantino come up with the idea for Barry Allen teaming up with the Golden Age Flash?
Let's begin!
NOTE: The column is on three pages, a page for each legend. There's a little "next" button on the top of the page and the bottom of the page to take you to the next page (and you can navigate between each page by just clicking on the little 1, 2 and 3 on the top and the bottom, as well).
COMIC LEGEND: Carmine Infantino wanted Batman to start carrying guns again during the "New Look" era.
STATUS: I'm Going With True
In 1964, Julius Schwartz and Carmine Infantino were called in to revamp the Batman titles because of the flagging sales on the books. They both recalled that they were actually told that they had six months to raise sales or the Batman titles would be canceled (in an old Comic Book Legends Revealed, I expressed my doubts about whether that was actually true).
It certainly made sense at the time to bring in the editor of the Flash and Green Lantern, two successfully rebooted superhero titles for DC at the time, as well as the artist of the Flash. By 1962, the Flash was outselling Detective Comics and was rivaling Batman in sales. We don't have 1963 or 1964 sales numbers, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Flash passed Batman in sales in 1963. So it made a lot of sense to bring Schwartz and Infantino in.
They did, indeed, raise sales on the Batman titles, especially Detective Comics, which is the book Infantino took over. Schwartz's main changes in the Bat-books was to go to a slightly more traditional superhero style of stories (as opposed to the more Superman "monster of the month" style stories that previous editor, Jack Schiff, was employing).
Of course, a more obvious change was that Schwartz had Batman now have a yellow oval behind the bat logo on his chest.
That was one of Schwartz's very first ideas when he took over the book.
Infantino, though, had another change in mind.
In his book, Carmine Infantino: Penciler Publisher Provocateur, Jim Amash discussed that point in time with Infantino:
Infantino: So we went back to Julie's office, and then I said, "Now what do we do?" He said, "What do you want to do with Batman?" I said, "He's very cartoon-like. I just want to bulk him up. He's not the Flash, Julie." He said, "I understand. Do what you want with him, except add the circle on the chest." I said, "And I want to put the guns back on." Julie said, "No guns."
Amash: Why did you want to do that?"
Infantino: I thought they looked good on him. It would have been different, but Julie didn't like it. He didn't want to havve problems with the Comics Code.
Here's the fascinating thing, though. In Infantino's very first issue of Batman, Detective Comics #327, Batman does, in fact, brandish a gun!
Amash asked Infantino about this and he did not recall it, and of course, the writer, John Broome, has passed on (as have Infantino and Schwartz), so we'll never know for sure, but I really wonder if the comic wasn't edited after Infantino initially drew it to add the "Batman took a gun from a bad guy" caption, because it sure doesn't look like that's what is happening, does it? It looks like Infantino got his wish for the first issue and then Schwartz changed his mind.
Either way, it sure does make you wonder what could have been - what a dramatic change to Batman's history THAT would have been!
Check out my latest TV Legends Revealed at Spinoff Online: Did Arrow nearly feature the Blue Beetle taking over Queen Consolidated instead of the Atom?
On the next page, would Elongated Man not even exist if Julie Schwartz had known that DC owned Plastic Man?
COMIC LEGEND: Julius Schwartz wouldn't have created the Elongated Man if he had known that DC owned the rights to Plastic Man.
STATUS: I'm Going With False
Flash #112 introduced the Elongated Man, a new hero in town who seems to steal the Flash's thunder...
The Flash comes to believe that the Elongated Man is secretly a crook. In the end, though, he learns that this new hero has been FRAMED for some crimes...
They team-up and stop the REAL bad guys and they end the story as friends...
There is a famous story that Julius Schwartz said that he only came up with the idea for Elongated Man because he didn't know that DC had the rights to Plastic Man. If he had known, he would have just used Plastic Man (DC had purchased most of Quality Comics characters, including Plastic Man, when Quality went out of business in 1956).
However, I think that Schwartz's story has been misconstrued a bit over the years.
Schwartz's recollection of it came years later, when he noted that he didn't know (or that he had forgotten) that DC had the rights to Plastic Man when he came up with Elongated Man. He did note that perhaps he would have named Elongated Man Plastic Man, but that is just an after-the-fact commentary.
So it really comes down to us determining whether we think that actually would have happened. So this is truly just a case of me having to make a judgment call.
As it was, Elongated Man was a one-off character who was never meant to recur. He turned out to be surprisingly popular with the fans, so they brought him back (and he then proved so popular that they eventually gave him his own feature in Detective Comics). It seems highly unlikely to me that Schwartz would have chosen this particular story to revive Plastic Man.
Carmine Infantino recalled to Jim Amash that Schwartz never actually mentioned Plastic Man at all at the time.
So I believe that even had Schwartz known that DC owned the rights, I don't think it would have affected the story much. After all, Mort Weisigner had already introduced ANOTHER elastic hero recently at the time (Jimmy Olsen's Elastic Lad), so it wasn't like it was out of the ordinary to have an elastic hero other than Plastic Man.
It's a close call, though!
Thanks to my buddy Kurt Mitchell for reminding me to make it clearer regarding Schwartz's claimed intention vis a vis Elongated Man/Plastic Man.
On the next page, did the Multiverse come about from Carmine Infantino trying to mess with Julie Schwartz?
COMIC LEGEND: Carmine Infantino came up with the idea for Barry Allen and Jay Garrick teaming up.
STATUS: I'm Going With True
Flash #123 is one of the most important comic books of the Silver Age, as it features a team-up of Barry Allen and the original Flash, Jay Garrick. It also boasts one of the most famous comic book covers of all-time.
This one issue introduced the concept of Earth 1 and Earth 2, which in turn set into motion the return of the Golden Age DC heroes.
That, in turn, began the creation of what is now known as the Multiverse.
And it all appears to have been the result of Carmine Infantino trying to mess with Julie Schwartz.
In The Flash Companion (by Keith Dallas), Infantino explained the origin of the issue:
Carmine Infantino: As time passed, [Flash editor] Julius Schwartz and I got a competition going. I tried to stump him by coming up with interesting covers that he wouldn't be able to write stories around. I was getting angry because Julie was "beating me"; he was coming up with stories for every cover I'm creating. We really had a competition going, so I said, "I'll fix this guy." And that's when I created the cover with the two Flashes [Flash #123, Sept. 1961], figuring there was no way he could create a story around that.
By the time I had gotten home, the rascal had solved it, and that really got me. But he beat me, in all fairness. And that issue was a good story, by the way.
Interviewer: You designed that cover figuring there was no way Julie would bring back the Golden Age Flash?
Infantino: That's why I did it! "He can't beat this! How is he going to bring the other Flash back?" The old Flash was done, finished. And then Julie goes ahead and creates the "Flash of Two Worlds" and it worked! It worked beautifully! That was all Julie. Very clever stuff.
Infantino gave a very similar interview to Bryan D. Stroud at the Silver Age Sage:
Prof: I read something somewhere, I don't know if it's true, that you were trying to stump Gardner Fox by coming up with the "Flash of Two Worlds" cover.
CI: That was Julie, not Fox. Yeah, because I'd do a cover, and dammit, they'd write the story around it, so I was getting very upset by this, so I said, "I'll fix you." I did a cover with some guy in the foreground and two Flashes running up, he's saying, "Help!" and they're both saying, "I'm coming!" So I put it on his desk and I said, "Here. Solve this!" and I walked out. By the time I got home my phone rang. He said, "We got it solved. I went through hell." I couldn't believe it. It was a great story, a terrific story.
Prof: Oh, yeah, and it started something big.
CI: Yeah, it was terrific. Julie was very sharp in that area. I always give him lots of credit.
Reader Fraser asked me about this one, because Infantino is not always the most reliable narrator. In this instance, I tend to believe him, since it clearly WAS a practice for creators like Infantino to occasionally do "challenge" covers.
For instance, the cover to Flash #113 (the introduction of the Trickster) is one such cover (Infantino once joked that it was meant to be a literal "cliffhanger" - to see how Schwartz and the writer would solve the cover)...
In addition, note that the actual story in the issue doesn't have much to do with the cover image. When it comes into play in the story, it seems like they're just trying to work the cover image into the comic, which supports the idea that the cover came first.
Finally, I have never seen Schwartz actually take credit for the idea behind "The Flash of Two Worlds," and Schwartz was not one to shy away from taking credit, so I'm willing to go with Infantino here.
Thanks for the suggestion, Fraser!