August 1961: A Plethora of Powers

Batman and Robin could corral not only costumed crooks, but also super-powered foes – and just about as easily.

The continued popularity of Superman probably had something to do with the proliferation of super-powered criminals and beasts who plagued Gotham City in the late 1950s and early 1960s. 

In Detective Comics 294 (Aug. 1961), an energy leak from a Gotham City scientist’s experimental device drove John Dolan insane while giving him the ability to change his own molecular structure by using a control belt. 

Dolan appears to be writer Bill Finger’s revamping of the concept of the earlier Atomic-Man. Engineer Paul Strobe had altered the molecular structure of objects by staring at them through special googles, while Dolan altered his own molecular structure.

Three years later, those same elemental transformation powers were reborn in a superhero, Metamorpho.

But Batman got ’em first. When a device designed to trap Dolan accidently explodes, Batman gains the same powers, and employs them in a plan to defeat the Elemental Man.

This became a typical pattern for these stories. When he encountered super-powered foes, the Masked Manhunter sometimes helpfully gained the same powers himself. That also happened with Zebra-Man and the Flame-Master. 

This house ad from the first Batman Annual shows that in same month, in World’s Finest 119, Superman, Batman and Robin were seemingly under the thumb of a new superhero called Tigerman. However, the character turns out to be a hoax the heroes have dreamed up to outfox the criminal Purple Legion.

Meanwhile, in Batman 141, a humiliated super-criminal called the Moth vows revenge against Bat-Girl (Betty Kane). Oddly enough, another lepidopteran-inspired villain, the Killer Moth, would become the first opponent of the next Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, in Detective Comics 359 (Jan. 1967).