As any reader of WOM knows by now, there no are lengths that the keeper of the Mysterious Mansion will go through in the search for monsters wherever they may be. As you will see, even the Caped Crusader has battled his fair share of beasts and nefarious non-humans.
In this issue of BATMAN #5 from DC Comics way back in the Spring of 1941 our hero and the Boy Wonder are transported to Fairyland by a scientist who needs their help in rescuing his daughter who has become trapped there. When they arrive to said abode, they are met by all sorts of obstacles: a witch, a man of fire and a man of ice, a cyclops, a giant and of course, a dragon. We know how these stories turn out, but the fun of reading them is half the ride!
The script is by Bill Finger, the cover and story pencils are by Bob Kane, inks are by Jerry Robinson and background inks and lettering are by George Roussos.
Thanks for spotlighting this story. It goes to prove that even in the early days of "Hardboiled Batman" his creators liked to put him in a lot of wild, colorful fantasy-situations. Shows you how much Stephen King knew about the BATMAN strip!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, Gene. Yes, I seem to remember that he wrote a piece some time ago on why he liked Batman over Superman.
ReplyDeleteJust to provide a little extra context, in a special essay King wrote about preferring Batman because he was more realistic than Superman. But King was born in 1947, so he probably wouldn't have been reading Batman comics before the middle fifties. Maybe Batman didn't fly, but by that time he was facing bizarre SF-criminals like Mister Zero, even if all the alien menaces didn't come along right away.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the further elucidation, Gene!
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