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.
I know it’s crooked. Best pic I could find.
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 starring the Caped Crusader.
His previous Gotham go-around was published nearly a year-and-a-half earlier, while the TV show was still on the air, so I suppose there’s an outside chance that editor Schwartz had the script sitting in a drawer somewhere while he waited for just the right time to publish it. It would account for the tonal shift from most other Batman stories that ran near the end of the 1960s. (Or maybe Broome simply got the assignment because he was available.)
Broome’s previous issue, coincidentally featuring Neal Adams’ first straight-up Batman cover.
More significantly, it would be (almost) the last story featuring the slap-happy trickster version of the Joker before O’Neil and Adams revived him as a stone-cold homicidal maniac in 1973’s all-time classic Batman #251. (The Joker did make one other important appearance later in 1969 — in Justice League of America #77, by O’Neil and Dick Dillin, where, in disguise, he convinces Snapper Carr to betray the World’s Greatest Super-Heroes, compromising the location of their Secret Sanctuary. But really, the Joker here could have been any baddie in disguise. In any event, the next issue began the famed Satellite Era.)
By the time Detective Comics #388 was published, Broome and his wife had long before moved to Paris. Despite his considerable contributions to DC dating back to the Golden Age, he was among the long-time writers swept out over time by the publisher in part because they began seeking better working conditions, including health insurance. Broome was best known for his work on The Flash and Green Lantern and turned in a few more of those stories there before moving on with his life abroad, including teaching English in Japan. He in died in 1999 of a heart attack, at the age of 85, while swimming in a hotel pool in Thailand during a vacation with his wife.
But he left a lasting legacy and went out with one moonshot of a Batman story.
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MORE
— 13 Classic DC COMICS Characters Co-Created by JOHN BROOME. Click here.
— 13 Reasons BATMAN Artist BOB BROWN Deserves More Credit. Click here.
May 4, 2024
Oh, that looks fun! I’d never seen the Moon story before! Yes, it has the ring and feel of the 66 series (and the Filmation cartoon later in the decade!
May 5, 2024
I remember this issue mainly as being the first 15¢ issue in Detective. There was a half page letter from the editorial staff explaining why they had to raise the cover price 3¢. Ah, those were the days.
May 7, 2024
The Joker would have one last Silver Age appearance in Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen #125.
December 1969.
In “Superman’s Saddest day”.
It’s only a brief Joker appearance along with Batman.