The Bat-Man: First Knight #3

[metadronos]

In these excerpts from the concluding issue of this mini, Rabbi Cohen receives help not only from his friend the Bat-Man, but also from a fellow Jew of a rather different profession.


As Jakob Cohen returns from dinner with two of his congregants, he encounters some thugs about to set fire to his synagogue. (This, despite the setting [1939], isn't motivated by antisemitism. Rather, it's part of the Big Bad's plan to take over Gotham by torching as much of it as possible, while eliminating those who could stand in his way.) Just then the thugs hear a warning shot.





In the previous issue, Bat-Man had told Maxie that if he wanted his brothel to remain open, he'd better provide security for Rabbi Cohen's synagogue. Note that Bat-Man hadn't specified Maxie had to do so personally, but rather send some of his men. Seems Kirschbaum nonetheless must've nonetheless felt an obligation to help one of his people. Why? The next scene with them sheds some light.





At the story's end, Bat-Man, having defeated the villain (in true early Golden Age fashion, by not killing him but not trying to save him either), drops in on his clergy confidant.








The rabbi's quote "In a place..." is a paraphrase of Hillel's words in the Talmud, Pirkei Avot 2:5: "In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man."

Although I've chosen, for personal and timely reasons, to focus on the scenes with Rabbi Cohen, and thus have barely touched on the main plot and characters, I strongly recommend reading The Bat-Man: First Knight in its entirety. It honours the legacy of Finger's and Kane's early pulp/noir Batman tales while grounding this story more firmly in its local and international context historically.

Comments

[huntleyhaverstock]

Dan Jurgens seems to have stepped up his writing game from “respectable” to “why is it so dusty in here,” and I salute him for it.