Batman Says Hi!

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Reading icon_uk's post here: Robin's Worst Week! made me think about this story, so I dug it out, thought I'd share. The pages have not held up particularly well, so I tried to lighten the pics somewhat. Wish the scans were better.

It's from World's Finest 271, a novel-length story that celebrated 200 WF team-ups of Batman and Superman (and Robin, but mathematically always your '2 Favorite Heroes!'). The story tried to do almost the impossible* and include every time Batman and Superman and sometimes Robin ever met in all comics and in their very first meeting ever, on the Superman radio show in 1945. The radio show was very popular and was the original source of the concept of Kryptonite. It's a radio story where Robin gets doctored up by Superman (who IS a doctor, after all) that is referenced here.

The story is by Roy Thomas, art by Rich Buckler and Frank McLaughlin. It's 48 pages long, and I've included about 12 pages worth here. It's never been reprinted in the United States. From 1981.

Superman Question, completely unrelated to this story. Can anyone tell me some time when Clark and/or Superman went evil? Not 'Hulk Smash Evil' but Machiavellian evil?

* I was just saying that I thought I was perhaps tiring of origin stories? Even when it's a good one, like bluefall's post of Catwoman's Moench's post-ZH retcon here? And it's just now occurring to me that possibly, my feeling tired of the idea of origin story may be related to reading and cropping and scanning a mostly cractacular novel-length retelling of every Superman Batman original team-up ever.

----------------------

Clark can't sleep. He's plagued by bad dreams, so he watches a little television, sees a problem in Gotham.

My favorite in the whole deal: the first panel, below. No, Batman! HI right back at YOU! (Look at him!)


Batman: uncomfortable with Superman's sexuality or coming on to him?


I think it might be because Batman is holding you down, Superman.


Batman does some not very good smack talking:



Aw! Supes used his superbreath to blow Batman onto a comfy couch!

Supes blacks out! Dreams...

Of washing Robin.

Then they use the phone book!

To find a wax museum!

Where the dummies aren't actually made out of wax at ALL!

Punning ensues. Punning and fighting.

Then Superman has to take Batman someplace more private.

Batman reminds Supes that 'Dreams aren't obliged to be historically valid, friend!' And they decide to explore the next umpteen pages reminiscing about all the times Batman and Superman (and sometimes Robin) all met each other in the past, then forgetting about said meetings.

Professor Nichols, time travel, robots--it's all there. Here is a sampling of the crackier panels:













Um... Okay, Superman.

Cut to more fighting. Batman taunts!





Batman's dialogue in this story entertains me very much.



And then Batman must whisk Superman away to somewhere private. His apartment.



Yes, Superman. We're glad Batman didn't have to carry you over the threshold, too. More reminiscing! Lois put-downs, which those boys just used to love to do.









Then another Superman shows up.


It doesn't make much sense, but the story does, finally end.


And that's what friends are for. Yay, Superman! Yay, Batman! The end.

Comments

[vignettelante.insanejournal.com]

Heh, the dialogue is pretty fantastic.

"You were too busy--hating."

Thanks for sharing :o

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Thanks for appreciating it with me:)

Also, 'The world's TOO SMALL for that kind of thinking, fella. In times like this, it's TEAMWORK that counts.'

Okay, Batman. Okay.

[superfan1.insanejournal.com]

Because lana nobody can stare at bruce ass except for clark and you how how competitive he is with his man. Lol love how batman pressing more about superman dream. :)

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Heh:) Yes:) And LOL on the dream, too. What? I mean he's a detective, but... does Superman do this often? Dream Interpretation with Bruce? That can't be good.

Paging Dr. Freud Batman...

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Buttler, you are not helping my slashy-subtext-context-for-most this-World's Finest Comic.

Oh, wait. Maybe you are...

[buttler.insanejournal.com]

I wonder what happened to my comment. Looks like it disappeared. Weird.

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Oh, God! Buttler I am so sorry! I'm sending you a private message to say the same thing I'm saying here. I meant to delete my comment and change it to this:

Buttler, you are not helping my slashy-subtext-context-for-most this-World's Finest Comic.

Oh, wait. Maybe you are...

To:

Buttler, THIS are not helping my slashy-subtext-context-for-most this-World's Finest Comic.

Oh, wait. Maybe THIS are...

New words capped for difference, as those two tiny words are SO important. Because my OCD specificness of response was kicking in. Also, two cocktails. Because it IS Friday night. Instead of editing mine though, I hit the button on yours instead of the button on mine. I'm so sorry! And also, am definitely backing away from the keyboard until tomorrow morning. I'm so sorry! I swear to stop editing myself so hard, especially when I hit the wrong damn button. Sorry.

Here's your original comment:

Bruce screwed all Clark's girlfriends, just because he could.

Why? He's the goddamn Batman.

And damn, I'm sorry.

[buttler.insanejournal.com]

No worries. I'm just glad the mystery was solved.

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Alright then. Thanks!

[superfan1.insanejournal.com]

Yeah batman can be a like that to clark, but he promise to change for the sake of their relationship.

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

I love you, Superfan1.

[superfan1.insanejournal.com]

Aw thanks! :)

[interrobamf.insanejournal.com]

Earth-2 Superman's "S" annoys me more than it has any right to do.

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Earth-2 Superman says he's sorry.

(E-2 has no 'S'?)

[khaosworks.insanejournal.com]

I actually am quite fond of this issue. I read and re-read it so many times as a kid.

I was 10 going on 11 when I picked it up and it was around this time that I actually started to realize that comics had a history stretching back for decades before I was born, and that Earth-1 and Earth-2 were metafictional constructs to explain the divide between the Golden and Silver Age. The hokey dialogue didn't bother the 10-year-old me but the history and the way Thomas pulled everything together fascinated me. It also fascinated me that there had been stuff like Superman radio plays. I think it was around this time I started to dig more and more into the Golden Age and falling in love with it.

America vs. The Justice Society and All-Star Squadron cemented my love for the Golden Age, and Roy Thomas' writing made me a pedant for continuity and a supporter for retconning in its original, purest form - fitting continuity in between the gaps to make history as consistent as possible rather than rewriting whole swathes of it and rejecting old versions.

My copy of WF #271 was lost in the depths of time for years, until I picked up a copy from Mile High a couple of years ago. It's one of my childhood treasures.

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

I'm fond of it, too! Nice recollections! I love comics and how we connect to them.

the history and the way Thomas pulled everything together fascinated me.

It's quite a history. And I really enjoyed reading Thomas's introduction on the interior cover. Very interesting and informative and full of love for the genre, writing them, and the characters in every form.

Very interesting point about the way continuity used to be done, and I agree that I prefer a story like this--cracky as it is, at times (and I mean that in a good way) to one writer's personal do-over.

[sistermagpie.insanejournal.com]

I can totally hear the guitar music playing as they fly away talking about what friends are for.

You know, for all the amazing Batman detective work, the way that he figures out that his right thumb has been taken over by a robot from the future hours before he's in danger of choking himself with it so he can turn it against its master or whatever, I think my favorite will forever be: "Because Clark wouldn't have known the right tire size for my bike unless he'd seen it outside with his X-ray vision."

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

You know, for all the amazing Batman detective work, the way that he figures out that his right thumb has been taken over by a robot from the future hours before he's in danger of choking himself with it so he can turn it against its master or whatever, I think my favorite will forever be: "Because Clark wouldn't have known the right tire size for my bike unless he'd seen it outside with his X-ray vision."
I know! That panel kills me.

I LOVE serious grown-up Batman remembering the time he rode his bike with Superboy.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

This is very interesting in the way that it plays mix-and-match with some 'first meetings', yet plays absolutely straight with others. For instance, this 'Atoman' is a dead ringer for 'Power Man' (no relation to the Marvel character) who made his one and only appearance in the story with the Kryptonite gun. In that story, he was a robot that Superman created and 'teamed up' with to keep Batman and Robin from being killed by Lex Luthor's destructive new invention. That's referenced here, where Batman says "you're a robot, all right!" but this story makes him an actual - and different - character, thereby paying homage to the earlier story without making it just a simple retelling. It's very nicely handled.

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Isn't it? It's like a primer on first meetings. I think some of the aspects --well, I don't know if the fake wax museum bit was from the radio show, but I think it might have been. The writer was able--you know, in pre-internet days--to get copies of some of the old Superman radio show.

At any rate, it's a lot of data to collate, he did a nice job, and I think Thomas might have gone on to run Marvel for a while after Stan Lee, because I think Wikipedia told me so. It also told me he worked for DC for 8 days before he got hired away by Marvel, to return to DC years later.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

Ah, yes - if I remember correctly, that was due to Mort Weisinger, who apparently was an absolutely terrible person to work under - Thomas took the job from Marvel because he just couldn't take Weisinger's BS anymore. Other Weisinger horror stories include that of Curt Swan, who got so fed up with him that he briefly had to quit comics altogether, due to the blinding headaches that were a result of their daily interactions, and some other guy whose name I forget who actually tried to throw Weisinger out of a window. Didio may be bad, but as far as I know, none of his employees have tried to throw him out a window.

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

This made me laugh.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

It's funny because it's true. Truth is stranger than fiction, as they say.