Ah, the mysterious, looming Bat-Signal. What a fascination it held for readers.
Batman’s flashy-cool accoutrements — Batmobile, Batplane, Whirly Bats, the Batcave with its massive weird trophies, the ever-so-useful utility belt and especially the Bat-Signal — formed a serious part of his long-term appeal, I think.
Introduced in Detective Comics 60 (Feb. 1942), the Bat-Signal had, of course, been inspired by the Phantom Detective pulp magazine of the 1930s in which a red beacon atop a newspaper skyscraper was used to summon the crime-fighting Phantom. Batman editors Jack Schiff and Mort Weisinger had edited that magazine, and were well aware of the gimmick.
My only disappointment with Batman’s sales-boosting “New Look” in 1964 was the addition of a telephone “Hot Line” to Commissioner Gordon. I thought that undercut the importance of my beloved Bat-Signal.
When the TV show debuted as an instant hit in January 1966, I was pleased to see the producers had been smart enough to include both the Batphone and the Bat-Signal.
Here, in Batman 135 (Oct. 1960), we have one of those rare stories in which the Bat-Signal plays a central role. Criminals summon a super-powered sky creature to battle Batman and Robin using a sorcerer’s lantern as a sort of evil Bat-Signal.
The issue includes one of my favorite sub-series, Alfred’s fictional adventures of the second Batman and Robin team. Dick Grayson has become Batman II, and Bruce Wayne and Kathy Kane’s son has become an earnest, ginger-haired Robin whose inexperience drives the plot.
In the third story, gambling-ring gangster “Wheels” Foster becomes the Wheel, one of those costumed obsessives who were forever being inspired by Batman’s own costumed obsessiveness concerning bats. Like the sorcerer’s lantern, this satisfied the readers’ well-established taste for mirror-image reversal themes.
Meanwhile, that same month over in Detective Comics 284, Robin accuses Batman of being too negative, and he’s right.
Mark Engblom said: I loved the Bat-Signal, too...despite (even as a kid) wondering how Gotham City always seemed to have the optimal weather conditions for it to even show up (dense, low-hanging cloud cover). All kidding aside, besides being the coolest way to summon a hero, the Bat-Signal had a two-fold impact in that it not only got Bat-Man’s attention, but also served to remind the people of Gotham City of some powerful truths. To the law abiding citizens, it meant they were (literally) under the protection of the mysterious vigilante...and to the criminals, a powerful symbol that the Bat-Man is out there...somewhere!
ReplyDeleteDan Herrera said: I think the bat signal memorizes because of it's an ingenious inversion of the archetypal full moon that triggers the Wolfman's transformation. Instead of being a catalyst for the nature's random destruction like the full moon is, it's a symbol that evokes the possibility that a brave will and the want of justice can counter it.
ReplyDeleteMark Emery said: I LOVE this as these are the first two superhero comics I ever bought! Got them the same day, I was seven and have spent the last 10+ years selling almost my entire collection of 5k comics; have less than 100 yet still have these.....
ReplyDeleteBruce Kanin said: Over the years, live action versions of Batman have featured the Bat-Signal, and in almost every instance, it doesn't fail to thrill me.
ReplyDeleteCheryl Spoehr said: I always love your insightful and fun essays! I too missed the bat signal, and felt that the tv show was right to return it. I find more and more that even those who hate the Batman Adam West tv show owe a huge debit to it. Even if the magazine had not been cancelled...(and I know there is a huge argument over that prospect)..the "New Look" had killed off Alfred and replaced her with a kind of robotic "Aunt Harriet"... again, the A.H. on the show was way better, and they brought back Alfred! Think how much later ideas tied to Batman's NEED of Alfred, like the Gotham tv show. Very different Alfred, but he probably would not exist at all without the tv show. If you look at the series from New Look issue #1 on... Batman is stripped of all his mystique, only a "sports car Batmobile" and "Batcave" continuing... by 1970,even if Batman still was in print... I think it would have been more "Wildcat and Robin" with fist fights the whole purpose of the comic... then Robin would drop out a year later... and it would essentially be "Batman, that revenge seeking fighting man"... and forget deductions, forget intellectual usage....well, that is how I see it.....
ReplyDeleteRobert S. Childers said: And Green Arrow, of course, had his Arrow Signal. The villain Killer Moth, who echoed Batman in a number of ways, had his own signal as well.
ReplyDeletePaul Zuckerman said: I'm with you guys, Cheryl and Dan — while I generally was happy with the New Look, i felt that a lot of Batman's mystique was watered down in the happening, and the loss of the classic Batmobile, the Bat-signal (ok, not gone for good, but rarely used) and the stairway behind the grandfather clock all was part of that. And Alfred, of course. I even wrote a letter to DC in 1966 bemoaning the loss of that atmosphere. I should dig it up one of these days...
ReplyDeleteHappily, all that stuff was brought back.
Jim Vlcko wrote:
ReplyDeleteThe bat-phone worked better on TV than in the comics. Adam West got to quip, 'Yes, commissioner, we'll be right over' in his overly-serious voice. It added to the comedy of the series. In the comics, Batman would never agree to a bat-phone that could likely be traced.
I replied:
You make an excellent point, though the phone DID come from the comics. In the TV series, the phone also let Commissioner Gordon make those wonderfully grave and pompous statements about what a breathtakingly great guy Batman was.
Jim Vlcko wrote:
ReplyDeleteI agree the various bat-gimmicks helped the character's popularity. The bat-rope on the TV show where B & R conversed while pretending to climb a wall were especially funny.
Ian Sheridan Forrest wrote:
ReplyDeleteNegative Batman, Mirror Batman, Rainbow Batman, Radioactive Alien Batman, etc. Almost as many transformations as Jimmy Olsen.
Not to mention those pesky aliens or magical creatures.
Richard Meyer wrote:
ReplyDeleteI always liked the way the word balloons describe utterly fantastic events with such nonchalance.
I replied:
DC's characters must have been numb to fantastic events after a while.
Paul Zuckerman wrote:
ReplyDeleteThere was a 1950s story about the bat signal and how it was instrumental in several cases that are shown. One of those many untold tales story that was so popular in Batman then.
While I generally liked the New Look, I concur with you completely about replacing the Bat Signal with the hot line, which, did make more sense, in a lot of ways. I mean, how often do you happen to look out the window in your mansion to see a giant flashlight in the sky? And, how strong was that light anyway? It could be seen for miles around in any direction! But no matter--it was a great graphic sight and as such the phone might have been OK on TV, but just didn't cut it in the comics. I also disliked the other modernization that was introduced in that story--replacing the grandfather clock and the long winding stairway with an elevator, and dumping the classic 50s Batmobile for a boring new Batmobile that looked too small!
Philip Rushton wrote:
ReplyDeleteThough I liked Carmine Infantino's 'New Look' artwork I must admit that I preferred the Jack Schiff Batman - especially those stories that were scripted by Bill Finger.
I replied:
Philip Rushton Yes, we gained something from the New Look, but we lost something too. That point is often overlooked.
ReplyDeleteLarry Eischen wrote:
Negative Batman always saw the downside of everything.
ReplyDeletePhilip Rushton wrote:
Schwartz probably aimed at slightly older readers but the earlier Batman stories had a naive charm that always appealed to me as a kid in the same way that Captain Marvel comics might have done if they were still being published.
I replied:
Well put, Philip. All we seem to hear is mockery of this era of Batman, but it was sweet and entertaining. Absurd? Well, ALL versions of Batman are absurd. That's not something to worry about.
Joseph Lenius wrote:
ReplyDeleteI've always said Batman should have a more positive attitude. And Dick should wear pants.
Mark Emery wrote:
ReplyDeleteI bought these two together when I was 7 in Fort Wayne IN; they were the first two super hero comics I ever purchased (I still have them) after buying Harvey comics for a year+ beforehand. Not long afterward I bought JLA #2...
I replied:
The first comics you bought are always magical.
Mark Davis wrote:
ReplyDeleteBest blog out there. This may be the greatest comic book ad I’ve ever seen!
ReplyDeleteCliff Heeley wrote:
Everything that I loved about 'My' Batman..... 🤔😇
Bruce Kanin:
ReplyDeleteOne might think that in this day & age, Commissioner Gordon would simply text Batman when he's needed, but I'll take the Bat-Signal any day over "modern technology".
I replied:
Even though they already had the "Bat-Phone," I was gald the TV series kept the oh-so-romantic Bat Signal.
Bob Bailey:
ReplyDeleteGood issue. I see you caught Dick Dillin and Shelly Moldoff doing that cover. Good article.
ReplyDeleteJohnny Williams:
Dan, ‘This’ was the Batman I ‘cut my baby teeth on’ metaphorically speaking of course. I for one have never disparaged this era of ‘The Dark Knight Detective’s’ career, nor would I ever, for this is where I came in.
As a kid I loved those weird menaces that ‘The Dynamic Duo’ faced on the regular; not only in the pages of Batman, but also in Detective, and especially in World’s Finest, where it almost seemed that the presence of their ‘alien’ crime-fighting buddy Superman gave some sort of strange agency towards even more bizarre foes.
As for the gimmicks, they were part and parcel of the overall charm and appeal of the stories. Without the giant penny, the T-Rex robot, their ubiquitous utility belts and of course the Bat-Signal, a great deal of the fun would have been lost.
Eventually, sadly, a large portion of a certain kind of Bat-Fun Was lost anyway; first to the ‘New Look,' then to a more gritty realism, and finally worse of all, to a type of unrelenting darkness and cynicism which became pervasive throughout the world of The Bat. More’s the pity, that.
Mark Engblom:
ReplyDeleteInteresting to learn about the Phantom’s red beacon, but even though it preceded the Bat-Signal, it was the latter that managed to embed itself in the pop cultural firmament.
Perfectly tuned to Batman’s eerie vibe, the signal seemed to be a science fictional echo of the “summoning runes” used by ancient and/or primitive mystics to call forth demons…which, again, seems fitting for Batman. To get even more “mystical”, the common view of the signal shining up from Gotham’s skyline always felt less like a single man (Commissioner Gordon) summoning Batman than it did the *city itself* calling forth its patron protector.
Which made it easier to overlook the fact of Gotham’s perpetually dense, low-hanging cloud cover.😉
Dan Hagen:
it also amplified Batman's sheer presence. One guy in a cape and mask can only do so much, but a spotlight looming over an entire city is something else again.
ReplyDeleteCheryl Spoehr:
I always thought of the "Sons of" Batman, the Challengers, etc. as "real," just somewhere different then the regular stories. I was too young to think of "Alternative Earths."
Paul Zuckerman:
ReplyDeleteThe Bat Signal! Sigh! My main demerit, as it were, for the New Look was the modernization that removed some of the more, um, gothic, aspects of the character. Let's say more colorful things. Julie made it clear that the old characters weren't gone as such but just were going to be downplayed, and that included some of the aspects of the pre-New Look (Old Look? :)) and that included the Bat-Signal, but there were a couple of stories where it would appear. But there were other changes that I didn't care for. The elevator, of course, was more practical and up-to-date then the winding staircase to the cave, but it just didn't have the atmosphere. And I guess Batman thought twice about it after the elevator attacked him in one story!
The Bat Cave itself seemed to lose most of the famous trophies in this period. Off hand, I can't recall a single story that featured the giant penny, the dinosaur or the Joker's playing card. In fact, did Batman even have his trophies on display? I think the only place where the "old" Batman was on display was in the Superman team-ups in WF, where Mort Weisinger seemed more comfortable with the old look -- even bringing in the second Clayface and Bat Mite's only appearances.
But what really, really upset me was the replacement of the Batmobile. Infantino's sleek sporty car just didn't have the heft of the old one. And how would he fit not only the whirly bats but an entire crime lab in the back? The old Batmobile was a CAR! Big, blue, and a presence on the street. And I have two of them-well models of them-in my living room. I also have the one from the TV show, which was impressive as well-but none of that Infantino model. Sorry, Carmine, but you can't always hit a bullseye!
I even wrote a letter to DC making these points--my only 1960s DC letter (I wrote several in the 70s and 80s that got published even!). Used to have the form response but I seem to have lost that somehow. Still have my blue postcard from Marvel for my one letter to them-allegedly signed by Stan & Jack but probably signed by Fabulous Flo! I panned whatever comic I was writing about but the response was enthusiastic mid 60s Marvel!
Art Cloos:
ReplyDeleteExcellent as always, Dan. You really rock!