MuyJingo

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A gradual review of every issue of Batman and Detective Comics.

I have to travel constantly for my job, and often like to read comic or books while on the road. On planes especially. It has occurred to me that there are a lot of earlier Batman and DC comics that I haven't read, and so I now plan on reading every single Batman comic and every issue of Detective Comics. I'm hoping that it will give me a better understanding and knowledge of the character, and since I can update it as I go, it's something short to write about until I finish my revision of my Cap vs Batman blog.

Expect this page to be constantly updated.

Batman #1: I'm aware this is not the first appearance of Batman in comics, it's just what I happened to re-read first. I had read this before, so no big surprises here. It gives a brief telling of Batman's origin and then has a story with the Joker. What's most interesting about this is to witness the start of what became these two incredibly prominent, well developed characters. All the elements are there..Batman saving Joker, joker venom, a bit of detective work...and there are some plot details which have been updated in several other stories, such as Joker disguising himself as a cop which influenced The Dark Knight.

In the subsequent story we have Batman vs Dr Strange and his monsters. Two things stand out to me in this story, as we see Batman's knowledge and intellect on full display, however at the same time we see a Batman who doesn't mind killing as a way to solve a problem. He doesn't kill directly, but has no issue in allowing the "monsters" to kill each other and indirectly killing the two remaining despite having an antidote.. It's going to be interesting to see his evolution into a character for whom any death is needless and unacceptable.

The story with The Cat (who would later become Catwoman) isn't especially interesting. The main thing I observed is Batman allowing Robin to fight 4 men by himself. It was either a training exercise or Bruce was so confident in the training that he had given Dick that he genuinely had no need to fear for his safety. I refuse to believe the hokey in story reason that criminals are very scared without their guns.

The final story, The Return of the Joker doesn't really add much over the first story, although it shows the Joker's foresight and preparedness as well as his extensive knowledge of chemistry, something that later becomes a staple of the character.

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