gc8's Detective Comics #39 - The Horde of the Green Dragon review

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    Pretty Entertaining if You Can Look Beyond the Stereotyping

    Detective Comics #1 
    Detective Comics #1 
    Let's face it, for decades, Detective Comics were basically pretty heavy on racial stereotyping. Perhaps no group was more stereotyped in this title than Asians, and particularly East Asians, especially Chinese. All one needs to do is look at the cover of Detective Comics #1 to see that this was going on years before Batman joined the book's roster.

    So, since that would be my biggest criticism of this issue's story, 'The Horde of the Green Dragon', I'm going to cut the comic some slack - which should not be interpreted as an endorsement, merely an attempt to judge the book within it's own milieu.

    The setting here is Chinatown, (presumably in New York City, as the fictional Gotham hasn't been invented yet), and compared to some of the past issues set there, this one is probably a bit less objectionable in it's portrayal of ethnic Chinese (and Mongolians). At the very least, the issue seems to make a point that there are good people in Chinatown being victimized by the Tongs.

    Which brings me to the first thing I really like about this issue - we get another returning character, Wong, the unofficial 'mayor' of Chinatown. These recurring minor characters are one of the things that made the Batman stories some of the most interesting in comics during the Golden Age. It definitely adds an air of believability when characters exist longer than just for the issue they're needed for some plot point.

    But the best thing about this issue is that it is incredibly violent and action packed. From the very first page, people are getting hatcheted to the head. It also has a great two page fight scene between Batman and some bad guys that has very little dialog, and really well 'choreographed' (for lack of a better term) art. The mystery/detection elements are a little slight, and Robin pretty much gets away with disobeying direct orders, but overall this is one of the good ones from the Golden Age.

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