Talk about a study in contrasts.
The moody Carmine Infantino cover for Detective Comics 334 features Batman entering a darkened room where handguns are poised to finish him off. But flip to the splash page, drawn by Sheldon Moldoff, and you see a gangster in a grasshopper costume — silly-looking even by 1960s comic book standards — who is riding in the Bat-Boat and netting Robin out of the water like a flounder.
Something similar happens with Batman 168, out that same month. Infantino’s intriguing cover shows a muscled arm punching Batman out a building window. Inside, we learn the arm belongs to a deranged circus strongman. That's okay, but note how that cover idea let our imaginations play with possibilities.
With Batman’s New Look in full swing, the Masked Manhunter tackled a couple of Hulk-like enemies.
In Detective Comics 345 (Nov. 1965), chemist Mark Desmond became the Blockbuster, increasing his own size and strength at the price of his sanity. He was manipulated into committing crimes by his brother.
A similar but lesser-known character, Mr. Mammoth, was introduced a little earlier in Batman 168 (Dec. 1964).
Comics historian Michael L. Fleisher called him “a ‘fabulous strong man’ appearing with a local circus who, although he remains completely unaware of the cause of his strange affliction, becomes overwhelmed by an uncontrollable urge to fight and destroy whenever he hears the call-letter chimes of Gotham City radio station WGC, whose unique ‘vibrations’ somehow awaken a ‘deep-seated fighting emotion — or instinct’ lying dormant within his personality.”
Ed Herron’s story emphasizes Batman’s nobility. The Caped Crusader is trying to help the mentally ill Mr. Mammoth throughout, and only fights Mr. Mammoth to keep him from turning his anger on other people.
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