It’s been 55 years since the Joker (temporarily) bid adieu to the Batbooks — and it’s late writer John Broome’s birthday… The late ’60s were such an interesting time for Batman. After the cancellation of the Adam West TV show, DC’s editors, artists and writers — Neal Adams, Julius Schwartz and Frank Robbins among them — pushed the Caped Crusader back toward his mysterioso, Golden Age roots. The deal was sealed with October 1969’s Batman #217, in which Robin left for college, and the following month’s Detective Comics #395, which featured the gothic horror classic The Secret of the Waiting Graves — Denny O’Neil and Adams’ first collaboration. But the stories that led up to that point were still a mix of somewhat grounded crime stories and daffy tales that couldn’t quite shake the camp. One of the most memorable? The wonderfully silly Detective Comics #388, starring the Joker before he was shelved for four years (with a notable exception). “Public Luna-tic Number One!” by John Broome — born 111 years ago, on May 4, 1913 — Bob Brown and Joe Giella, is a 13-plus pager that trades on Moon Launch Mania. With Apollo 11’s historic landing less than three months away and the American public obsessed with the Space Race, the story, released 55 years ago this week, on April 29, 1969, features the Clown Prince of Crime trying to hoax the Dynamic Duo into thinking they’ve been stranded on the moon, where he plans to kill them by somehow frightening them to death. But Batman, using his encyclopedic knowledge of rock formations, deduces that he and the (still) Boy Wonder are on Earth and the Joker’s jig is up. The yarn features a wild-haired scientist’s anti-gravity device, a sound stage that presaged Capricorn One and enough hokey dialogue and set pieces to satisfy Lorenzo Semple Jr. Like so many DC Silver Age stories, it’s immensely entertaining if you roll with it — as you should — with the highlight a spectacular cover by Irv Novick that’s heavily influenced by Carmine Infantino’s classic Joker pin-up. Broome’s contributions to DC were vast; he co-created Green Lantern Hal Jordan, the GL Corps, Kid Flash and most of the Flash’s Rogues’ Gallery, among many others. He was also a prolific Bat-writer in the ’60s and this would be his last story...