Reviewing 1983's Batman #366 — the first pre-Crisis appearance of Jason Todd as Robin

Batman #366 was written by Doug Moench, and edited by Nicola Cuti and the legendary Len Wein. Don Newton, Adrienne Roy, and Alfredo Alcala rounded out the art team with John Costanza handling the lettering duties.

The year 1983 brought about young Jason Todd’s debut as Robin. In fact, it was Batman #366 that featured the first appearance of Jason Todd in the Robin suit. Let’s see how Jason does his first time out in the field.

cover art by Walt Simonson and Anthony Tollin

We open the issue with the ominous title of “The Joker Is Wild!” and right away I’m getting a vibe of things to come in the following years ahead. Jason’s at home alone at Wayne Manor and boredom’s starting to set in so he begins to explore his surroundings. Now I’ve seen two different copies of this issue over the years and for the life of me I’d bet that Jason’s hair color is blonde. There are other versions that feature him with red hair in some panels. Either way, there appears to have been a lack of consistency. (Then again, maybe I just got a bad copy.)

Don Newton and Alfredo Alcala art

Anyway, we cut to Central America where we see the Joker fuming over his recent altercation with Batman. It quickly comes to light that the Joker is planning an assassination of a General named Diaz. We then cut to Batman with Vicki Vale in tow in the middle of the jungle. They’re picked up by some locals who question the Dark Knight in regards to his identity. There’s much going on in this issue but to make things a little more concise, we learn that Batman’s in pursuit of the Joker to foil his assassination attempt of General Diaz. Alfred Pennyworth has a fateful meeting with his daughter Julia, and Commissioner Gordon’s been in a coma where he’s visited by his daughter, Barbara.

Batman is able to thwart the attempt on General Diaz’s life and pursues the Joker to a site of ancient ruins. Joker’s about to cut down the Batman with some machine gunfire. At this moment Jason Todd (as Robin) swoops in and kicks the Joker, causing the clown to drop his weapon. The Joker is incensed and screams in anger that he’ll kill Robin. I found this scene to foreshadow events that would occur quite a bit some years later. Robin fields the Joker to Batman who quickly incapacitates the criminal. The issue ends with Batman giving the new Robin a verbal chastising.

I wasn’t too keen on the dialogue in this issue, and the execution of Jason Todd’s debut as Robin was handled poorly at best. From the get-go, we find out that Jason dyed his hair black to look like his predecessor, Dick Grayson. Already, it feels like Jason’s being set up to fail in the long term. In fact, you could’ve just cued up the Joker right then and there and given him a crowbar to put Jason out of the reader’s misery. 

There wasn’t really a shred of originality to the Jason Todd character when he was initially presented. This issue pretty much sank any chances of the Jason Todd character getting over with the audience in a long-term setting. Even though Jason arguably saved Batman’s life, Jason’s efforts were immediately dismissed by his mentor. In a sense, Jason’s career as Robin was over before it could really begin, and the frustration and aggravation that he would be known for would come into play sooner rather than later. The decade of the 1980’s served as a time when more rebellious characters would come to light in comics. Jason Todd could be looked at as a forebearer in this regard, however he’d later but snuffed out for a time afterwards. This issue is important for its historical significance alone in the Robin franchise. It serves as a precursor of the events to follow in the Batman mythos.

-Deron Murphree

Deron Murphree is a sucker for the more forgotten heroes and villains of DC Comics. He is an advocate for Jason Todd and Earth's True Green Lantern, Guy Gardner. Deron's new website is currently still under construction but you can follow him on Twitter @DeronMurphree or you can message him care of this website.

Batman Returns 25th anniversary -- what a great film!

June 19th, 2017 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of Batman Returns (directed by Tim Burton, starring Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito and Michelle Pfeiffer). Since Batman Returns is easily one of my favorite superhero films ever, I felt it would be a missed opportunity if I didn't take a few minutes out of my day to write about it in some capacity or another.

I lived through 1989's Batmania (a direct result of the hype building around Burton's first Batman film) and was fortunate enough to have experienced it first-hand. I remember the excitement of seeing the movie at the drive-in with my dad and cousin during opening week. I remember all of the t-shirts, merchandising promos, the Taco Bell tie-ins and Diet Coke commercials. I remember seeing teens getting the Batman emblem shaved into the sides of their head. I also remember being too young (and thus having no real money to my name) and not being able to partake in any of it. [Let's not break out the violins, yet. I was actually a very spoiled child and had more G.I. Joe, Super Powers Collection and Masters of the Universe action figures and playsets than anyone else in my neighborhood. I'm sure I also owned a few Official Batman Movie t-shirts and other apparel by that point, as well.]

With the announcement of the NEW Batman film sequel launching on June 19th, 1992 I resolved that this time it was going to be DIFFERENT -- now I was eleven years old and commanded a hefty 5 dollars per week allowance to spend on whatever I pleased (within reason). This was my chance to experience Batmania's second-coming from the ground floor and to actually be an active participant. I did not waste time with this. I purchased trading cards, collected McDonlads happy meal toys, convinced my mom to buy cereals that had promo items in them, persuaded relatives to buy stuff from Zellers so I could acquire the trading cards -- let's just say, if it had anything to do with Batman Returns and was attainable through a small purchase (or even free), I was on it.

Batman Returns cereal. How bad could it possibly be?

Overlooking the fact that I got swept up in all of the Batmania hype -- how was the actual film? I was expecting to see a really entertaining sequel with two villains (instead of one), and Batman fighting a lot of people. Batman Returns delivered on both expectations. As an eleven year old boy, there's nothing you want more than to see a guy dressed up in a Batman costume kicking some bad guy ass. While 1989's Batman was very VERY good, and easily ranks as another one of my favorite films from my youth, it was also an origin story. so it meant there was a lot of build-up before you got to REALLY see Batman suit up and take action.

It's very rare that a sequel is just as good (if not better) than the first film. For me, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to really dig into something with the full conviction that they will probably never be able to top this, so I'm going to squeeze every second of joy out of this that I can.

My mom didn't have the type of patience/stomach for these types of movies, so I'm 100% certain it would've been my dad who brought me to see this movie. Probably at a drive-in. Probably as part of a double feature. It was a little unsettling that the entire story of Batman Returns takes place in December (considering it premiered late June in North America), but hey... that was a moot point... just show me Batman fighting the Penguin.

...but this article won't be about the film (because I'm sure there are already plenty of other blogs talking about that this week), today we'll take a look at the comic book adaptation of Batman Returns.

The 1992 Batman Returns comic adaptation came in two different variants: the Prestige Format and the New Format. The Prestige Format cost $2 USD more than the New Format, had a (mostly) painted wrap-around cover and an ISBN number. Meanwhile, the New Format had an illustrated cover with an advertisement for the Batman Returns film on the back cover. Despite paying a higher price for the Prestige Format, both formats contained the same interiors and neither formats contained any ads (unless you count the subscription page on the interior back cover of the New Format edition). I'm under the impression that the New Format was the 'newsstand edition', and the Prestige Format was only available in finer comic book shops and bookstores everywhere.

Prestige Format (left) and New Format (right)

The 'movie adaptation' comic book was pretty important in its day. In the pre-internet age, unless you possessed a VHS copy of said film, you couldn't revisit scenes from your favorite action/super-hero movies without resorting to your memory, the novelization, the trading cards, specialty magazines based on the film (see: Starlog) or -- best scenario of all -- the comic book adaptation of the film.

My best friend in the whole world bought the New Format comic adaptation for me that summer -- I *think* it was a birthday gift, since my birthday falls around the end of summer. Or maybe it was a gift while I was in the hospital (I had a medical issue that summer, and had to spend a few weeks in the hospital). Nevertheless, Nick Mureta surprised me one day with the film adaptation of a movie I was already psyched about. I was actually unaware this item existed before he surprised me with it -- within seconds of laying my eyes upon it, this comic had become so sacred to me that it felt like I had just gotten my hands on a mint copy of 1963's X-Men #1. Nick always knew where to find the coolest stuff.

The comic adaptation was written by Denny O'Neil, penciled by Steve Erwin and inked by José Luis Garcia-Lopez. This was my first real exposure to Steve Erwin art (without me realizing it, yet) -- Erwin had already been illustrating Deathstroke: The Terminator and was best known as the regular penciller on 1988's Checkmate [a title I hadn't even heard of, yet]. Garcia-Lopez inked over Erwin's pencils, and it's also well known that Garcia-Lopez illustrated the official artwork for Batman Returns merchandise. If you saw a cool-looking Batman Returns t-shirt in the early 90s, there's a good chance the graphic was based on Garcia-Lopez' original artwork.

Erwin and Garcia-Lopez did a great job with this comic and the art was spot-on.

Michael Keaton/Bruce Wayne looked like he was supposed to:

As did Michelle Pfeiffer/Selina Kyle:

...even Danny DeVito/Oswald Cobblepot and Christopher Walken/Max Shreck received faithful adaptations:

Tim Burton's Gotham City was very gothic-looking and dark. And what I mean by 'dark' is that there wasn't very much natural lighting -- I can't remember too many scenes from that film that occurred during the day. To help convey this 'dark mood', the pages all had thick black borders between the panels. It worked out quite well.

page from the Batman Returns adaptation. New Format.

This comic book was integral in helping me understand the nuances of the story that I obviously missed the first several times watching the film. As an eleven year old, I just wanted to see Batman fighting thugs or using his vehicles to blow up bad guys, I didn't have time for sub-plots about political conspiracies or romantic tension. As far as I was concerned, any screen time that didn't have Batman in it (or was leading up to Batman fighting someone) was a waste of time. Naturally, my favorite scenes were the ones in which he fought the Red Triangle Circus gang:

Eleven year-old me loved this comic! Of course they didn't add *every* scene from the movie (this was only a 32-page comic, after all), but they did get the more important ones -- namely: Batman fighting circus thugs, Batman battling Catwoman, Batman's Batmobile getting hijacked, the BatSkiBoat and the big finale at the end. One scene that I can't believe they omitted was... well... notice anything different about Batman's second encounter with the Red Triangle Circus gang?

[spoiler]

Did you spot it? In the film, rather than throw the bomb into an open manhole, Batman attaches it to a rather large, brutish member of the gang and kicks him into a sewer (causing him to explode).

Considering the intended audience of this comic book, it was probably in DC's best interest not to show Batman killing a man. But still... you and I both know it happened.


There were no splash pages in this comic: every page had at least 5 panels, and some even had 10 panels or more. The creative team did a great job with the pacing and flow of the panels. Easy to follow along. Love the details in the background -- all that architecture must've been a chore to pencil and ink.

Needless to say, my Batman Returns New Format adaptation is a priceless possession in my comic collection (if for no other reason than sentimental value). Batman Returns had a really big impact on my love of comic books. I still cite it as my favorite superhero movie (even though I honestly haven't sat through a full screening of it since... I don't know... 6 years ago). I still collect Batman Returns vintage memorabilia when I can grab it on the cheap, and I find nothing more enjoyable than re-visiting the video game adaptations.

I had to re-watch parts of this movie for this write-up and, while I still see why the 'eleven year old' me loved this film, I don't seem to remember Batman delivering so many zingers. It's really not as sinister/serious as I seem to remember it to be, but it was a great movie nonetheless. 

Can't believe it's been 25 years!


-Justin

Artist Victor Santos talked to us about The Question, Kamandi and his latest work

Occasionally DC in the 80s likes to do an interview with a current artist that we find to be really exceptional. We have known about Victor Santos and his incredible work for years now, but recently discovered that he is a huge admirer of the classic 1980s DC version of The Question. Mark Belkin would be quick to identify Dennis O’Neil and Denys Cowan's run on The Question as one of the top 3 books of the 80s, and considers Victor Santos as one of the best artists working today -- so he thought it would be a perfect opportunity to find out a bit more about Victor, and expose fans to some of the work that Victor is currently working on.

Ladies and gentlemen... introducing Victor Santos

Mark Belkin (MB): I know the first DC Comic you may have read was Kamandi #32. Could you speak about your experience with that issue. How did it make you feel and what was it like reading it for the first time?

Victor Santos (VS): My youngest uncle was a comics fan and I usually infiltrated in his room silently (laughs). He had a lot of European books (Tintin, Moebius, Asterix, Valerian...), Spanish editions of Marvel stuff, superheroes and black and white Conan magazines. DC was not published in Spain, yet, I think we are talking about 1984... I was 7 years old. But he had Mexican editions of DC: Batman, Legion of Superheroes and Kamandi. Digest size editions with awful simplified translations. Kirby was a visual impact, I called him "the guy who draws exploding fists"; his art blew me away. All was different in that issue: his ships, those massive gorillas and tigermen, crude energy blasts -- this was the first time I realized art does not have to be realistic, but can work in its own way.

Kamandi #32 (1975). So much Jack Kirby goodness.

MB: What DC comics followed that?

VS: I really didn't read many DC titles out of the stuff my uncle bought. I read American stuff recommended by friends in school, but not superheroes. The only DC exceptions were Norm Breyfogle's Batman and Mike Grell's Green Arrow, my father bought me some of them and I loved it. But I occasionally [read] things like Tim Truman's Scout by Eclipse and First comics stuff like Elric and Hawkmoon... and some Marvel books like Secret Wars (I had the toys). And later books derivative of animation like Masters of the Universe, Ninja Turtles or Transformers.

You have to consider I belong to the first generation influenced by the first manga wave. Dragonball, Fist of the North Star, Saint Seiya... When manga arrived I only read manga. It was more accessible to me because I didn't understand the superheroes books with all these references to other titles.

MB: But you did read Dark Knight when you were very young and I've read you weren't into it. Have you changed your opinion over the years?

VS: Of course! (laughs). I didn't read it when I was nine because I never gave it a chance. I saw that mythical cover of volume 2 and said: "What crap! Batman is fat and old and he´s injured! Batman can´t be injured!" (laughs). When I attended the Fine Arts College I was influenced by friends who recommended a lot of classic and essential American stuff. Then I read the DKR and a lot of Miller's stuff like Daredevil and Ronin -- those titles changed my life.

MB: We share a mutual love and admiration for the 1980's version of The Question, the Dennis O' Neil and Denys Cowan masterpiece. How did you get into The Question? Did you start off with #1?

VS: Thanks to a friend from college, he lent me his DC and Vertigo complete collections: Things like The Question, Sandman, and Grant Morrison's Animal Man. I enjoyed all that stuff but The Question was my favorite ever.

The Question by Victor Santos. I made this my background image the moment I saw it. This NEEDS to be a story, I’m writing a pitch this very minute.

MB: How amazing was Denys Cowan's art? Have you ever had a chance to speak with him? If not, what would you ask him artist to artist?

VS: Mainly you can see and enjoy how is increasing and improving his art. When I read it I was growing as artist too, searching for my own style, studying Drawing, Anatomy and Art History, searching for my voice. You can see this in the art and how every issue is better than the previous one. And the story is the same, how Vic Sage grows as a human being and accepts his own human condition, both his mistakes and victories. I’ve never meet Cowan and I don´t know what I would ask him, I would simply thank him for inspiring me.

MB: Do any stories stick out to you? Any great memories of pages or panels?

VS: Richard Dragon and Lady Shiva parts of the story, I love them... well, all the cast of characters was incredible, like the reverend Jeremiah Hatch or that story of the kidnapped bus... The relationship with Myra... My biggest impression was the art and story of the final issues. How The Question was abandoning Hub City. That sense of failure and how you must accept that life is life, you cannot win forever. Sometimes the only exit is protecting a new generation and trust the hope they will bring.

Big Barda & Mister Miracle art by Victor Santos

MB: Were there any cross overs that you enjoyed? Any particular storylines from DC comics in the 1980s that still speak to you today?

VS: I never was a fan of crossovers. I read Crisis on Multiple Earths in a commemorative edition and never connected with them. I always preferred the closed stories and, if it's possible, the same creative team. For this reason I always loved manga, you never had that problem with it.

MB: How did you get into being an artist? What inspired you? I know Will Eisner's Spirit was huge for you. Was that the awakening of your love for noir?

VS: No, really my love for noir came from movies and Dashiell Hammet novels. Will Eisner inspired me in how I can play with the storytelling and how ambitious can be a story told with panels. I love animation and cinema, and since I was a child I drew comics because I wanted to draw motion pictures. When I was a teenager I drew manga exploits, rip-offs of Dragonball or Saint Siya (laughs).

I studied animation in College, I wanted to make animation. Batman TAS was a success then, that was my goal. But then I read Eisner, Frank Miller, Matt Wagner, people who twist the storytelling... They showed me the true potential of the medium. Then I understood comics are comics, and I chose that path.

DKR Batman by Victor Santos. Inspired by Frank Miller

MB: Who were some of the artists that you were most inspired by? Who do you like today?

VS: The people I mentioned you and a lot of artists more like Mike Mignola, Jim Steranko, Mike Oeming, Kazuo Koike & Goseki Kojima, Osamu Tezuka, Hugo Pratt, Jose Muñoz, Mark Buckingham, Akira Toriyama, Alex Toth, Jordi Bernet, Edurado Risso, Walter Simonson, Tim Sale, Gendy Tartakovsky…

MB: Would you say that your soul is noir? That something inside of you is inspired by that Hollywood criminal dark past. The scars, the eye patches, the violence. Is that anything like your regular life?

VS: No, I live in a very safe place (laughs). I love the iconography and pulp flavor of these things; patches and scars... It comes from my love for Spaghetti western movies too, where the characters are defined by little visual elements or rituals. I'm obsessed by the "Pulp and cheap" inspiration, you know, things like the John Carpenter movies. I also I'm a fan of American culture and its Modern History. The culture or the gun is something, as European, I can´t understand and maybe even hate it, but at the same time it holds a fascination for me.

MB: Your work just blows us away at DC in the 80s. Could you talk about a few of your works? Did you draw any inspiration from the past for your art and writing?

VS: Thank you! I began in the Spanish and French market, writing and drawing my own books, first as self-publisher and with indie publishers, and later with other big publishers. I created Los Reyes Elfos (the Elf Kings), a black and white comic-books saga that was popular there, inspired by Nordic mythology and won some prizes. I made six series' compiled as GNs, three anthologies and even two spin-offs. Made some noir GNs like Pulp Heroes, Faeric gangs, Protector, Black Kaiser, Lone in Heaven and a lot more, and wrote GNs for other artists like Silhouette, Ezequiel Himes: Zombie Hunter or The Blood of the Valkyries. I tried in the US market with two collaborations with an american good friend, writer Miles Gunter, Zombee for Image comics and Demon Cleaner for Antarctic... but they didn't work out really well.

In France I created a young readers series titled Young Ronins, very 'Bruce Timm style'. Just when I was doing Young Ronins came Filthy Rich.

MB: Could you tell us more about Filthy Rich for Vertigo?

VS: It was a great chance mainly thanks to Brian (we meet at a Spanish con), but I must say I think it was a lost opportunity because I was really conservative. The chance scared me a little and the little size format didn't let me do some storytelling things that I felt would be cool. He wrote an AWESOME story and the book looks cool, but I think in the next collaboration with him (we're chatting about), I have a lot of ideas to fix a lot of things. I'm awful selling the book (laughs) but the good part is the book opened me a lot of doors, although not to DC (laughs).

page from Filthy Rich (Vertigo). If this isn't noir, I don't know what is.

MB: Maybe that will change some day. How about your long run on Mice Templar?

VS: This was a great chance too, Miles Gunter was close friend of Mike Oeming and he offered me the chance to continue the book. Above all it was a great human experience and an incredible schooling. Bryan Glass and Mike gave me all the freedom and during the 39 issues I drew, I tested all kind of storytellings and designs. Sadly, at the end of the series, the sales dropped down and the final stages were a little dying -- it was hard to hang on until the end -- but I don´t regret it, I´m proud of being part of that Mice Templar family.

Mice Templar by Victor Santos

MB: How was the experience of Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters?

VS: I always say this was my first contact with a popular character and how that world is. People of IDW were really cool and they let me do whatever I wanted -- but some reviews and criticisms were terrible. It was hard working day by day knowing the opposition of some hardcore fans (and this was before the twitter rising, luckily) but I had fun drawing my beloved fat lizard.

Godzilla by Victor Santos. Looks great to me!

MB: Furious

VS: Bryan and me collaborating together again! A really easy job, my editor was Jim Gibbons, who was the editor of Polar and the relationship was great. We had budget limitations so they let me color the book, this was important to me (and I had good colorists). I think the series deserved a continuation. Bryan is going to continue it with another publisher and artist but I´m going to be involved, too, with covers and designs.

MB: I really enjoyed reading Polar online. How was publishing a webcomic and collecting it? Did you feel a connection to your audience that maybe you don't see when putting out a monthly book or collection?

VS: Well, when I began with the web comic it was more something made for myself than for the audience. I need to recover the joy of drawing before a lot of franchise stuff had affected it. The reason I transformed it into a web comic was “Hey, if I'm going to do it for free maybe some editor will see it and give me a job”. I never expected Dark Horse would publish it, they were FIRST on my list because they published Hellboy and Sin City. Then I had a GNs series, options for a movie and the book sold to a lot of countries... and this began because I wanted to do something I could enjoy. It sounds like a cheesy story but sometimes doing something with the heart works.

Polar page by Victor Santos. Hotness.

MB: And now you've just put out Violent Love as a GN. How did that come about?

VS: Frank and I met because Boom Studios! needed an artist for a miniseries. I had refused other series' from them, but then I needed the money (laughs) and the plot looked fun to draw. Frank was a nice guy and really easy to work with, and we'd chat about noir and a lot of common likes, like the Powers series. He has writing a successful series for Image [comics], Five Ghosts, and I wanted to return to Image with a new creator-owned series because all the cool people were at Image now! (laughs) So we chatted about we wanted to do and the result of these conversations was Violent Love, a crime story that was also epic and a romance.

Violent Love from Image Comics. I bought it, You should, too.

MB: Anything else we missed you'd like to mention?

VS: Right now, at the same time as the Violent Love series, I'm drawing a graphic novel for Gallery 13, the GNs line of Simon & Schuster publishing. It's a great noir book written by Alex de Campi about the heist of a Cuban casino in the 50s. It will be published next year and I think if you like books like Darwyn Cooke's Parker this is your book.

This October Dark Horse will publish Rashomon: A Commissioner Heigo Kobayashi case. It's a 160 page original graphic novel written, drawn and colored by me and published originally in Spain. It's a free adaptation of the Ryonosuke Akutagawa tale which inspired Akira Kurosawa in his classic movie but with a touch of noir. Think of James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential placed in the Feudal Japan. I think this is one of my best scripts, solid and complex, so if you've read Polar and think "hey, that guy draws OK but his scripts are simple" then read Rashomon.

MB: What inspires you to draw today? What process do you go through at home?

VS: Well, I try to get inspiration for everything: books, movies and TV shows, art, music. I´m a disciplined guy and this is the reason I produce so many books, but working on a lot of things at the same time make this job so much fun. If my schedule lets me, I used to work on a different project in the morning and another in the evening. I try to do the boring things at the beginning and at the end of the day, so I´m focused on the important things in my most productive time. Try to do some exercise like jogging and I use this time for "mind work" like scripts and storyboarding. And I never work at night because I want to take care of my sight.

Above all I try to enjoy what I do with every work, I don't want to be an embittered artist in the future. If some day I see that I hate drawing, I think simply I´ll quit.

MB: You have so much work that we want to see. Where is the best place to pick up your work?

VS: If you go to my sites www.victorsantoscomics.com and www.polarcomic.com you can find a section with links to all my books (and a lot of links to my social network and tons of images and comics).

MB: Thanks so much for talking to us!

Victor Santos sketch cards