June 1938: A Superman for the Underdog

On the newsstands in May 1938, browsers had their choice of Tarzan in Comics on Parade, Popeye in King Comics, daredevil aviator Captai...

Tuesday, January 1, 2002

January 1962: A Bit of a Stretch


When I first met him, Batman was as familiar with alien landscapes as he was with the dark alleys of Gotham City.

“When the Justice League of America was founded in 1960, who would have thought that Batman had more experience with alien races than Superman and Green Lantern combined?” wrote comics historian Anthony Durso. “From 1960 to 1964, Batman and Robin had close encounters with alien life (or in some cases supposed alien life) 27 times! Holy extraterrestrial, Batman!”

In Prey of the Alien Hunters (Detective Comics 299 (Jan. 1962), Batman and Robin are patrolling a Gotham City jewelry exchange when, within only two panels, they are teleported via polka-dotted beams to a “weird, unknown world.” 

There, they find themselves in an interplanetary “Most Dangerous Game,” being stalked by alien hunters who can elongate their limbs, project “magnetic rays” and deploy rainbow-colored “stun spheres.”

Artist Jim Mooney puts the Dynamic Duo through some colorful ordeals with extraterrestrial dinosaurs and whatnot, and Batman ultimately teams up with the hunters to overthrow the planet’s overlord, Kaale.

The story ends with the Masked Manhunter intoning a ringing defense of freedom without even being returned to Earth. Presumably he and Robin eventually got there.

Rounding out the issue were stories about the Martian Manhunter protecting a beautiful spy and Aquaman guarding an old sea captain’s self-esteem. 

Moving over from Adventure Comics, Aquaman and Aqualad replaced the Roy Raymond TV Detective feature that had ended seven issues before. 

The last page of this Aquaman adventure included a house ad announcing the start of the Aquaman comic book. After 21 years, he’d finally landed his own title.

5 comments:

  1. Vincent Mariani wrote:
    You might say that the Batman writers of the period were just "filling space."

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bob Doncaster wrote:
    These stories alienated some readers.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Salvatore Marlow wrote:
    27 times! Batman met up with aliens 27 times, I’m kind of curious if any of them returned to DC. I assume they they were one and done. The 1950s early 60s Batman was definitely not the dark knight.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Bruce Kanin wrote:
    When I was a kid, I loved the sci-fi Batman. I can still re-read those stories with a certain fondness. It's like a lot of Superman Silver Age stories that are hokey, but I still love them.
    However, sci-fi Batman isn't "my" Batman. The only version of the character I truly like is "THE Batman", i.e., a guy forever scarred by the brutal murder of his parents who is then hellbent on eradicating bad guys, so much so that he comes within an inch of killing or maiming them.
    "Good ol' Batman" ... feh. THE Batman. Yeah

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ellis Rose wrote:
    It was the late 50s and early 60s. In addition to the "ugly American", these stories exemplified the "ugly Earthling" trope that our Western values were, well, "universal."

    ReplyDelete