I believe that this is the first new "Goofiest Moments" entries in...oh...about six years. Fun!
Anyhow, in this feature, I examine the goofiest moments from a specific stretch of a particular comic book series.
This week, we look at the next ten issues of the Batman feature in Detective Comics #27-36, written by Bill Finger (#27-28, #35-36) and Gardner Fox (#29-34) and drawn by Bob Kane, with backgrounds by Sheldon Moldoff (#30-35) and Jerry Robinson (#36).
As always, this is all in good fun. I don’t mean any of this as a serious criticism of the comics in question. Not only were these writers certainly never imagining people still reading these comics decades after they were written, great comics often have goofy moments (Kirby/Lee’s Fantastic Four is one of the best comic book runs of all-time and there were TONS of goofy stuff in those 100 plus issues!).
NOT-SO HONORABLE MENTION
In Detective Comics #35, the bad guy turns out to be in disguise as a Chinese man. It's super-racist, so I didn't feel right including it on the list, but at the same time, it was also super goofy, so I figure I had to at least MENTION it...
HONORABLE MENTIONS
In Detective Comics #33, Batman defeats a villain who has a Dirigible of Death. Here's the thing, though, in the opening of the story, the bad guy kills THOUSANDS of people!!!
That's hilariously messed up. They get that a thousand people dying is a super huge deal, right?
We can't look at early issue of Detective Comics without noting that, yes, in Batman's first appearance, he wore purple gloves...
It likely was just a coloring mistake and they intended for him to actually not be wearing any gloves at all and they just colored his hands as if they were gloves, but either way, it looks ridiculous. After going to glove-less for the next issue, he went to the traditional gloves pretty soon afterwards. This would be higher except, like I said, I'm pretty sure it wasn't intentional.
In Detective Comics #31, Batman stops a young woman from killing a guy and then, hilariously enough, it's his fiancee!!
Yes, that is how Julie Madison, Bruce Wayne's fiancee, was introduced into the comics. "Oh, hey, it's that fiancee that I never mentioned before! Fancy meeting you here!"
Later on in that adventure, Bruce is just talking out loud to himself, you know, just the way that any normal person would...
Couldn't that have just been in a thought balloon? Now we know why he got a sidekick, he just really really needed someone to talk to!
Finally, before we get into the top ten, we look at what happened when Batman arrived at the home of the Mad Monk, the guy who hypnotized Julie. Why, what's that, an APE?!?
Nobody ever expects to suddenly be attacked by an ape.
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10. Fake News
In Detective Comics #33, Batman is trying to get a bead on the mysterious Scarlet Horde, who were behind the THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE who were murdered the other day (how come there's never been a Scarlet Horde memorial in Gotham City? THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE DIED!!) and luckily, the newspaper had an article about a guy who was let out of the insane asylum where he went to go work on his DEATH RAY.
Boy, newspapers sure come in handy!
9. The "Bat-Man"
When Batman debuted, he was called "Bat-Man." However, the quotes weren't quite so obtrusive as they were in his second appearance, where everyone used quotes like crazy. I think that Bill Finger might have believed that nicknames go in quotes. Or maybe that was just how people wrote stuff back in the day, I dunno, but either way, it looks hilariously absurd.
Even the newspaper is using quotes!!
8. Oh, Hey, He Has No Face. How Odd.
In Detective Comics #34, Bruce Wayne runs into a dude without a face. And you have to love Bruce's reaction...
"Oh, huh, that's interesting." How in the world is the guy TALKING?! Note, too, that the whole "no face" thing is never resolved in the story! It ends with Batman defeating the bad guy, but this dude just ends up without a face and that's just, like, his life from now on and everyone is somehow okay with this! He has not face!!!
7. Plug in the course for Hungary!
Batman's fiancee, Julie Madison, has been sent to Europe as part of some vampire deal and Batman flies his Bat-Plane to Europe to go get her back. When he rescues her at the end of the first part (she gets right back into danger in the next issue), Batman notes that he will just set his plane to go fly to Hungary.
What does that even mean in this context? Did he press the "Fly to Hungary" button? How does his plane work?!
6. No one is more discreet than Batman
After Batman figured out the headquarters of the Scarlet Horde (after that helpful hint about the crazy guy with the death ray), he has to make sure that he follows them discreetly, so he, of course, makes a big cloud of black smoke around his plane to obscure it.
Hilariously, enough, a henchmen on the next page says to his buddy, "Oh, hey, look, it's a black cloud. It must be about to rain." Dude, that's not how black clouds work! They're not just pitch black clouds of smoke that hover around you! This disguise is insane!
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5. Eh, why not come along to the crime scene?
Right from the start, Batman's adventures were goofy as heck. The very first page of Detective Comics #27 has Commissioner Gordon having Bruce Wayne over to hang out (they never really get into their relationship - they're good buddies, but WHY, exactly?) and then, when he gets a phone call about a murder, he just INVITES BRUCE ALONG!!
How does this make any sense? "Oh, hey, socialite guy, want to go check out a crime scene?" Not only that, but later on, as Bruce excuses himself (so he could turn into Batman and investigate further by himself), he excuses himself after first spilling his pipe ashes over the floor at the crime scene! I know he wants to seems aloof (and Gordon even notes how aloof he is later on in the issue), but that's takigng it a little too far, dude!
4. Bruce Wayne's doctor is a moron
In Detective Comics #29, Batman gets shot. Luckily for everyone involved, Bruce Wayne's family doctor is a moron who does not push much further into obviously sketchy injuries...
"You clearly didn't shoot yourself." "I do funny things sometimes." "THAT'S NOT AN ANSWER, BRUCE!"
3. Seems like the force was a bit excessive there.
Okay, to be fair, this jewelry thief does, in fact, come at Batman with a knife, so it's not like Batman was not provoked. However, it certainly seems like his first reaction should not be, you know, KICKING HIM OFF OF A ROOF TO HIS DEATH!!!
They confirm that he's dead later in the issue, by the way. Damn, Batman!
2. Batman's got a gun!
Detective Comics #35 has one of the greatest opening pages ever...
It has NOTHING to do with the story inside. Batman's just whammo, standing there with a gun. Absolutely no reason. Just chilling there with a pistol. Super bizarre.
1. Flower faces will haunt us in our dreams.
Okay, so the guy with no face reveals that his face was taken by a man named Duc d'Orterre, who now wants the man's fortune AND to marry the man's sister. Batman agrees to help stop him. Duc d'Orterre then stuns him and sends him into a death trap...a room filled with flowers with the faces of women on them!!
Here's the thing - they don't DO anything! They literally just help him escape (and then save the faceless guy, who is also a prisoner of the bad guy).
So, they serve no nefarious purpose AND they're never seen again. It is the most insane thing ever.
That's it for this look at the Goofiest Moments in the first ten Batman stories! Feel free to write to me at brianc@cbr.com if you have ideas for other batches of comic books that you'd like to see me feature a bunch of goofy moments from!