How the Zebra Got His Stripes

Overheard at the Bronx Zoo on August 28, 2010:

Husband: "Zebras!" (reads sign) "This says why they have stripes."
Wife: "They mixed a horse with...something. A donkey or something. What does it say?"
Husband: "The stripes help them avoid predators, when the herd runs they look like a blur and lions get confused."
Wife: "But HOW did they get the stripes?"
Husband: (quieter - this wasn't on the sign) "I think they just...evolved that way."
Wife: (pauses - she's not buying it) "I think they mixed a horse and a donkey."

Ooh, Bat-Baby, I Love Your Way

From a deleted chapter of Batman's Black Casebook (and also from Batman 147, cover dated May 1962), I share with you the joy of...

Batman Becomes Bat-Baby

It's the Silver Age in Gotham City, so all the set-up you need will be right there in the first panel...

"Nails Finney" sounds more like a nemesis for Encyclopedia Brown than for Batman, but defeating Nails and recovering the gems isn't really the point of the story, as you've probably already figured out.

A renegade scientist! Framed for murder, now he prowls the badlands. An outlaw hunting outlaws, a bounty hunter, a Renegade.

Oh no! While I was reminiscing about bad '90s syndicated dramas (can you believe that ran for five years?), Garth was giving Batman an eerie bath! What will it do to him? You may be surprised! Unless you looked at the cover or the splash-page to this story. Then you know exactly what's going to happen.

*Gulp* Given the normal course of Silver Age logic, I'm kind of amazed the machine didn't somehow shrink his clothes along with him. So kudos to you, Bill Finger, uncredited writer of this story we think. Oh, and in case you were wondering, Nails, Renegade and the gang got away while Robin was gulping. 

"I dreamed it, but I never dared hope!"

"And this picture of Batwoman getting out of a car with no underwear on. Printing it pierces my heart with agony, but the public must know!"

So Baldy McPipe up there prints the photos, and the citizens of Gotham moan about poor Batman's career being over while Nails and Renegade gloat about turning Batman into a laughing stock.

Meanwhile, in the Wayne mansion...

Here's our first look at the rejuvenated Batman sans costume. Not creepy in the slightest. Robin the High-Waisted Wonder looks like he's coming up with a brilliant idea, but I assure you he isn't. He's just wondering when they started printing telephone books in hardcover.

"And my adult-sized head!"

Are you sure you're still thinking like an adult, Bruce? Because that is some twisted logic right there. If somebody calls you something insulting, you prove them wrong by dressing like that something? By that logic, I would have spent most of college dressed like a Queen. (Even more than I already did.) I think he just wants to justify wearing his OshKosh Bat'Gosh overalls. Giant Bobble-Head Robin is stunned. (Or possibly turned-on by Bat-Baby's luscious lips. But let's go with stunned.) It may work, though. Batman's whole schtick is to strike terror into the hearts of evil-doers, and Bat-Baby would certainly scare the hell out of me.

So Bat-Baby and Robin go on patrol. They don't find Nails, but they do stumble across three generic bandits making a getaway on a rooftop. Bat-Baby's short legs can't climb the fire escape fast enough, so he hitches a ride on a giant promotional helium-filled tire balloon, conveniently tethered nearby.

The whole "Batman's strength in Bat-Baby's tight little package" thing works for him, and he captures the criminals.

The Gotham Gazette runs it as a human interest piece, but the City News is unimpressed. "Meh. I guess he did all right. Superbaby would have done better."

It wouldn't be a DC Comics Silver Age story without the risk of secret identity exposure, so...

Turning off all the lights and staying quiet until she goes away is far too simple. Instead, Alfred lets her in and tells her Mawster Bruce is in the library.

Although it's not mentioned in this story, Kathy Kane is secretly the superheroine Batwoman, and describing her as walking "gaily" may be foreshadowing, forty-five years in advance. (But probably not.) Anyway, Kathy doesn't bother to take the two extra steps required to confirm Bruce's infidelity, since we all know shadows are always exactly what they appear to be. Instead, she gets pissed and storms out.

Yeah, your cousin. That'll ease all her worries, and replace them with a fresh set of worries.

Later, Commissioner Gordon tells Bat-Baby and Robin that local fence Swap Smith is pulling lots of cash together, presumably to buy Nails' stolen gems. Luckily, the Gotham City Department of Parks and Recreation decided that across the street from a shady pawn shop was the perfect place for a playground.

It's extremely popular with parents, who can leave their kids here unattended while they hock their wedding rings for grocery money. Be sure not to miss the World's Largest Swingset. With only two swings, there's plenty of room for your child, and no need at all for another child to wander dangerously into his path.

I include this panel for two reasons. To show Batman on roller skates, and to illustrate how in the Silver Age only criminals and renegades and pawn-shop proprietors smoked cigarettes. Innocent background folks and conscience-plagued newspaper editors, like all good-hearted people, smoked pipes.

I included this panel simply because it's awesome. Feel free to copy it and use it somewhere out of context; it's even funnier that way.

Having been kicked full-force in the chest by the power of a 220-pound man concentrated into toddler-sized feet, this was, unsurprisingly, the final appearance of Garth the renegade scientist. So let's pause here to reflect on the fact that the man invented a machine that could reduce you in age while keeping your mental faculties, physical strength, and agility intact, and rather than selling it and becoming fabulously wealthy, he used it as a back-up plan in case his gem heist went awry. I guess that's why they called him...renegade.

Either that word balloon is pointing to the wrong person, or Robin is being unusually pessimistic. Also, what's with the wooden slide in the storage warehouse? Wouldn't that make getting crates up to the second floor unnecessarily difficult?

What kind of warehouse is this, anyway, that has fully-stacked bookcases, hobby-horses and massive harps lying around, unpackaged? Oh, right, it's a Silver Age Gotham City warehouse, I forgot. There's probably a thirty-foot high working typewriter and a robot gorilla around somewhere too.

That was your costume? I thought you were just glad to see me. 

"Ha ha! Oh, Batman, you're a riot! I love it when you describe something as it literally happened but phrase it like you've made a joke! So, uh, hey, just asking, but, why are you still wearing the plastic costume?"

Conversation Killer

From IDW's Star Trek: Leonard McCoy, Frontier Doctor 4, cover dated July 2010:

So that's what they meant by "to boldly go..."

3-G Redubbed (4)

It's an all Luann freak-out week in Apartment 3-G! I was providing links to the originals before, but the Houston Chronicle seems to no longer be hosting old comics archives. Sadness! If somebody knows of a place to link to the originals, let me know.

5/13/07

5/14/07

5/15/07

5/16/07

5/17/07

5/18/07

5/19/07

Why Is the Doctor Killing That Hideous Creature, Exactly?

In case you're curious about the name of this blog, the panel in question comes from TV Comic 800, cover dated April 15th, 1967. TV Comic published the first adventures of the Doctor in comic strip form, starting not too long after the show itself began. The comic's writers didn't always have the greatest familiarity with the actual show they were adapting, and so the Doctor's personality tended to vary widely from story to story.

I plan to talk more about Doctor Who's comic appearances in the future, particularly his long run in TV Comic. But for now, suffice it so say that the comic strip Doctor - or Dr. Who, as he was usually called - was quite a bit more bloodthirsty than his TV counterpart. In this story, Dr. Who and his grandchildren, John and Gillian (oh, I'll get to them eventually), are being menaced by the Master of Spiders, who is sicking one of his giant pets on them.

 

Gillian freaks out, and the Doctor happily obliges her with his brand-spanking-new ray gun, which he's been itching to try out.

No clever escape plan, no marveling at the infinite diversity of the universe, no steely-eyed resolve to never, ever, ever use a gun. Just a gleeful "Die, hideous creature... die!", a dead-eye ZAP to the abdomen, and an ex-spider.

Oh, but it doesn't end there. Dr. Who and his grandchildren wade through rivers of blood before the story ends! The Master of Spiders comes for the trio from inside his robot spider, but he's no match for the Doctor's ray gun of death!

Him, Doctor. You've also destroyed him - the guy inside. But he was a bad guy, so whatever.

Ok, you've taken out the baddie, and he can no longer use his sonic device to mind control the giant spiders, who are native to this uninhabited world. They can go back to their natural spidery ways. Happy ending, hooray! Back to the TARDIS, John and Gillian, double food machine pills for everyone! Oh, wait, before we go...

 ...let's just kill all the spiders first, ok? I mean, I know they're unintelligent arachnids and nothing in this whole adventure was their fault - in fact, they were innocent victims - but come on, they're SPIDERS!

So, yeah. It's not like the TV Doctor doesn't kill his enemies - he does, a lot. Way more than the modern series would have you believe, and he often shows no remorse whatsoever. But he's never quite as gleeful - or thorough - about it as he is in these early comics. And I find that strangely delightful. So when I created a blog highlighting the things I find funny about comics and Doctor Who, "Die, hideous creature... die!" seemed to sum it all up perfectly.

Ha! Ha! We just killed an entire species! Ha! Ha!

A Theater Degree Is Not Useless

Here's miniature superhero the Atom, in deadly peril. A villain has ironed his body out until he's paper-thin, and the energies released have given the villain the ability to see the future. The Atom has figured out that these energies are only released when the Atom is tired, and fatigue is caused by lactic acid, and adrenaline will counteract the lactic acid, removing the villain's precognitive abilities. It's science! But how can he get his adrenaline pumping?

Sense memory to the rescue!

The villain comes back to investigate, the Atom escapes, beats him up, and un-irons himself.

And that's how the Actors Studio saved the world.

Images from the black-and-white collection Showcase Presents the Atom. They originally appeared (in color) in The Atom issue 16, December 1964-January 1965.