Golden Age Comics

[GRWelsh]

I recently bought the first Golden Age omnibuses for Superman and Batman. And a couple of things jumped out at me:

- The first Superman strip has a little sub-section titled "A Scientific Explanation of Clark Kent's Amazing Strength." It says, "Kent had come from a planet whose inhabitants' physical structure was millions of years advanced of our own. Upon reaching maturity, the people of his race became gifted with titanic strength! -- Incredible? No! For even today on our world exist creatures with super-strength! The lowly ant can support weights hundreds of times its own. The grasshopper leaps what to man would be the space of several city blocks." I only mention this because for years I believed the source of Superman's powers was earth's yellow sun, but that was evidently a later retrofit. But the original origin is significantly different, because it implies Kryptonians weren't simply more scientifically advanced than earthlings, they were also more physically evolved. It also implies that even on Krypton, super-strength would have been the norm. Also, in the first strip, Superman comes across as a lot more brusque, verging on brutal, compared to his later wholesome and goody-two shoes persona. He almost seems to take delight in beating up and tormenting the bad guys, making wise-cracks as he does so.

- The first Batman strip (in which he is referred to as the "Bat-Man") has a criminal who tries to shoot Bat-Man, but Bat-Man punches him causing him to miss and also to fall backwards through a railing and into an acid tank (it's not the Joker, by the way, but a guy named Alfred Stryker). Bat-Man then remarks: "A fitting end for his kind." Bat-Man has short, purple gloves in this issue. In the second issue, he has no gloves. In the third issue, he has blue gloves begins to be referred to as Batman, or the Batman (without the hyphen or quotation marks), and he picks up and points a gun, but does not use it... but does threaten some hired killers with it when he says: "Your choice, gentlemen! Tell me! Or I'll kill you!" The third issue is also the first appearance in his comics of a named super-villain, Dr. Karl Hellfern, AKA Doctor Death, who survives and reappears in the next issue. So, in these early issues, Batman didn't seem to have any aversion to killing criminals and seemed a lot like "The Shadow" but with more of a reliance on fisticuffs, wits, a lasso, and then (in issue 3) gas pellet from his belt and suction cups to climb with. I read somewhere that one of the inspirations for "The Shadow" was Dracula, so that seems to even further strengthen the Batman/Shadow connection.

[geneweigel]

Do those include ACTION and DETECTIVE?

I've read so many reprints that I've lost track. In the 70's with the nostalgia boom bookstores were packed with reprints. Some of those Bat stories show that the new age Batman was different. Although he vents a few bad guys early on they eventually get to the point where they say he doesn't kill. I think it was the 40's.

Superman's early universe is weird especially the transgendered first villain later called the ultra-humanite with a large-brained, albino gorilla body. The first appearance of "Luthor" in ACTION is cool with him being an American Fu Manchu for today sort of thing.

[geneweigel]

The Superman story was ripped off from the novel GLADIATOR (1930) where the scientist gives his unborn child experimental formulas. Its a pretty gruesome read although most of its left to the imagination if you're imaginative it would make a rated R horror movie. So it can be separated from SUPERMAN in that regard in that I don't think Superman has ever ripped anyone apart.

[GRWelsh]

Yes, they include ACTION and DETECTIVE comics, and those are the ones I'm referring to.

On second thought, I shouldn't have said "Batman doesn't seem to have any aversion to killing criminals." That isn't really clear. In the first issue (Detective Comics 27), the kill is more like self-defense that ends up in a death. In the second issue (DC 28), Batman brandishes a gun and threatens to kill, but doesn't. In the fourth issue (DC 30), Batman kicks a Cossack in the neck and kills him, which could be considered self-defense again, because the Cossack was trying to shoot Batman. In the sixth issue (DC 32), Batman shoots a vampire with silver bullet, but that doesn't really count. The best argument for this might be in the seventh issue (DC 33) in which Batman has a holster and pistol as part of his costume, when he takes on the "Scarlet Horde" who are terrorists with a dirigible threatening Manhattan with a death ray. But even in his issue, it isn't clear Batman doesn't have any aversion to killing, since he uses non-lethal attacks (Batarang, sleep gas).

Superman comes across like a lot of the red-blooded American male pulp heroes of the time, with some swagger and "Here's where I even a little score!" attitude. Not a bad guy at all, but with a lot more playfulness and bravado than we're used to seeing in later versions of "moral high ground" Superman.

[geneweigel]

I think the cutoff is the Silver Age for sure with the Gardner Fox input. The clear water mark is red-haired Batgirl who shows up as if they've never heard of Batgirl who appeared a few scant years prior.