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What was the Silver Age stuff like? Was it kinda campy, like Marvel/the TV show? Or did that come after the TV show?

As far as I can recall, the comics in the years prior to the TV show tended to be utterly bizzare thanks to the nutering given by the comics Code and the writters not having a clue how to write a crazed psychotic vigilanti under the new rules (lots of Batman Vs. Wacky aliens stuff and trying to look as hetrosexual as a man in tights who hangs round with a young boy can).

When the TV show took of they did indeed jump on the wacky camp bandwagon (though I've no idea if they managed it as well as the show did), but I think they had a big decamping just before the show was cancelled. Shoving Dick off to collage, moving Bruce to a Penthouse ect.

Yeah, Denny O'Neal is given a lot of the credit for taking Batman back to the more serious, basicaly establishing the "Darknight Detective" interpretation in the stories he did with Neal Adams at the start of the 1970s. I believe there's an essay or two in the original "Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told" TPB about the progression of the character, if I can turn it up. It was just out and about the other week...

Marvellous - no need for big research, LKW, though thanks for the thought - mainly wanted to confirm DC's Silver Age stuff wasn't of a radically different tone to Marvel's Cheers all

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
mainly wanted to confirm DC's Silver Age stuff wasn't of a radically different tone to Marvel's Cheers all

Lies!

Everything DC have ever produced has been DARK and EDGY and COOL and STUFF LIKE THAT.

Whereas all Marvel have EVER done is produce CHEESEY stuff that's POPULIST and lacking ARTISTIC SOUL.

Or something. I'm not sure. Read Nextwave. Boom.

When you read Miracleman.

I have, somewhere in my loft, a couple of Silver Age Batman and JLA issues (including the introduction of Red Tornado!). I wouldn't say they're camp as such; junior sidekicks had been a vogue for quite a while, right back into the Golden Age, and were meant to show a fostering-type relationship with a mentor and his ward. OK, the dialogue was pure hyperbole and often very cheesy, like the plots. The villains were either a man in a suit with some kind of super weapon or else an alien thing from beyond the stars who had a weird name (they even had a starfish alien called Starro, for 'ecks sake!).

Used to watch the Batman episodes on TV with much more open eyes, though. It was wild and funny, although 'camp' was not a word bandied around at that time in the UK. Plots were flimsy, special effects silly etc and a lot like the comics, but some of the guest actors were brilliant and, as the villains, they ironically saved the play.

It's worth remembering that, although we think of the above as typical of the Silver Age, there were still heroes and their stories which were dark and, sometimes, downright brutal. Some of the Green Arrow and Green Lantern stuff was pretty powerful, especially when it got round the Code by addressing social problems like drug use. Psychological themes explored in Spiderman and Doctor Strange were not to be sniffed at.

*Love you Brendocon, especially when you wear those tights*

Pre 70's stuff was aweful. Basically The Batman TV show and Batman fighting alien invasions, camp lines etc

Denny O'Neill (He of Green Lantern/Green Arrow fame) took a lot of credit for making Batman great again.

As a writer he made the stories about Batman as a "grim avenger of the night", a Detective first, a loner and a violent vigilante, made Dick Grason grow up somewhat.

O'Neil also returned The Joker to insane, mass murderer status (Rather than a campy dickhead with weird crimes) and introduced Ra's al Ghoul as a villian when was every bit a made for The Batman. Of course it never got as dark as the Post Millar Batman but it was probably the most realistic comic book DC has in the 70's when it was still clearly for 'Kids only'.

As the editor he was the man who decided that Batman should be somewhat disturbed, a Gothan legend and brought Frank Millar on to work his magic, but I suspose thats the start of the modern age.

If you want to try out Silver age Batman I recomend getting "Tales of the Demon" tpb which contains the first Dennis O'Neill and Neil Adam's Ra's al Ghoul stories.
I suspose Batman in the 70's is fine for taster but doesn't have much in the way of complete stories (Lots of first parts).

Originally posted by Jetfire
If you want to try out Silver age Batman I recomend getting "Tales of the Demon" tpb which contains the first Dennis O'Neill and Neil Adam's Ra's al Ghoul stories.

Oh, I'm more comparing him (and most other US comic material of the period) unfavourably to the Spider... Which seems like a more than fair call. You can tell why the 1950s/60s/70s spawned a bunch of insane, evil British comic writers, and on the other side of the Atlantic... well, Chris Claremont and Scott Lobdell...

Originally posted by Cliffjumper
When you read Miracleman.

Touché, you bastard.

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