Batman Family Reunion #2

We’re back!  Paul Kien and Shawn M. Myers are your guides through the all-reprint Batman Family #2! See Batman take a header into a swamp! See Robin ride in a sidecar!  See Shawn eat too much corn on the cob! Come on by and join the party as we review 4 great stories with Batgirl, Robin, Cluemaster, and Mystery Man!

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13 responses to “Batman Family Reunion #2

  1. Great second show, boys!

    Can you imagine ANY Batman story in the last 20 years hinging on Batman merely slipping? BATMAN DOESN’T MAKE MISTAKES!

    Regarding that shot of Batgirl and Robin appearing on merch, it doesn’t look like it did to me, but I defer to our merch expert of the network, Chris Franklin.

    The Super Friends/Dick Tracy treasury ad–probably the best one-two punch of all of DC’s treasuries.

    This second show had a lot of Martin Gray content. Will this be a regular feature?

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  2. Another great episode fellas! The rainbow lights are indeed a bit of a stretch. Gardner wasn’t above giving heroes goofy gadgets in this period. I seem to recall him giving Sandman some dubious equipment in the JLA/JSA team-up in JLA #46 and 47. He was clearly embracing the camp era!

    I don’t think that image of Batgirl and Robin in the Batgirl-Cycle was ever used on merchandise that I know of. The cover image of Batgirl from her debut in Detective #359 was reused over and over, and even some interior panels were too, also by Infantino and Anderson/Greene. So maybe that’s what you’re thinking of.

    I seem to recall Mystery Man had a blink and you’ll miss it cameo in Kingdom Come, duking it out with the equally mysterious Power Man, who replaced Batman and Robin as Superman’s crimefighting partners in World’s Finest #94.

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    1. Oh, and “Men in Action” is a line I only knew from that same comic ad. My pal Brian Heiler has posted about them a few times on Plaid Stallions. I think they were some of the earliest action figures to have some kind of special “action feature” though, so they at least indirectly inspired Super Powers!

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  3. Bat-cousins! I can’t wait ’til I finish listening to comment. I’ll forget things. First, I’m pretty sure everything Babs’ motorcycle rainbow light show does could be accomplished today by LIDAR (light imaging detection and ranging), if she had an unobstructed line of sight to the target. The Wikipedia entry on LIDAR explains it pretty well, but the most impressive part is the Applications section. Of course, BG’s tech is fifty years ahead of its time and would be impossibly small even today, but that’s comics.

    Also, thanks very much for covering the ads. They were entertaining in their own right, and now they’re a slice of history.

    I vote for The Mighty and the Merciful or The Strong and the Selfless as alternate titles for DC Comics Presents.

    Thank you for everything you included in the gallery — but especially the Moldoff content.

    In the Batgirl & Robin image, Batgirl looks perfectly on model, but Robin’s still getting into the sidecar. That’s why I think at least his half of the image wouldn’t be used on merchandise.

    Please do not apologize or restrain yourself when it comes to sharing comics and creator history with us.

    Keep up the great work! I’ll try not to interrupt again until the end.

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    1. I listened to the end. Nothing to add except that you did, in fact, keep up the great work. Hear you later!

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  4. Thanks for another very listenable show.

    That’s a great cover. I just love the white box, an elegant solution to the problem of representing several stories. And yes, the floating faces are fab.

    This was a decent issue, with the Cluemaster story being the highlight. I do like his masked look, but the rest of the costume is just ‘vial’. And could there be a more perfect Villain of the Issue, given he actually wound up fathering a member of the Batman Family. Poor old Aunt Harriet, though, I believe she wound up in Arkham Asylum due to years of gaslighting.

    I wouldn’t say that Vicki Vale assuming Mysteryman is Superman is a leap of logic, they did team up eight times a year or something in World’s Finest and I’m pretty sure she was in the odd story. I wonder if MM being Commissioner Gordon inspired that odd Scott Snyder story arc with Gordon running around Gotham in a metal Bat-Bunny suit.

    Thank you so much for the Sheldon Moldoff inormation, it was fascinating – who knew he created Hawkgirl outfit? I do find it unbelievable that nobody at DC realised that wasn’t actually Bob Kane drawing all those pages. Surely they were just turning a blind eye.

    I know that Carmine Infantino’s later work isn’t all that popular, but late Bronze Age DC and Marvel paired him with scrappier inkers than the smooth operators he got in the Sixties. For me, he remained brilliant – just ignore the weird pointy boobs he’d give Spider-Woman.

    How do people feel about the reframing of the reprints, with updated logos and the like? I’m not keen, I’d rather see the stories as originally presented. If a Batman story is being repurposed as an Alfred tale, don’t knacker the splash page, just have Batman introducing it outside the regular image area, as would happen in the 100-page Super-Spectaculars. Mind, the Cluemaster makeover was pretty decent.

    Could we have a listener poll on the question of Twinkies? I notice only one host spoke up for them.

    As for the upcoming new logos, they’re marginally less awful, but still pretty rubbish.

    And finally, look again at the Alfred story, page seven, panel 3… I challenge you to unsee Robin’s sex doll legs.

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  5. First vote: Not a Twinkie fan. I’m hoping this doesn’t cause Shawn to cancel my planned appearance. I have greater appreciation for other, chocolate-based Hostess products. For example, I have a friend who, after months in a remote village in Africa, got caught stealing a more fortunate colleague’s Ho Hos, and I wouldn’t say she was right — merely that her crime was understandable.

    I’m not entirely against Twinkies. I did once work in a vault built during the Cold War. It had a “capture space” (think airlock, but for a different purpose). We determined that it was possible for someone to become trapped overnight, or worse — for the weekend. I suggested throwing some water jugs and Twinkies in the corner, out of respect for their shelf life.

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  6. First time I saw the Batman 1961 family picture was in The Killing Joke. Batman had a it in a frame on his desk in the Batcave. I was intrigued by the Batwoman and Bathound. I hadn’t known they existed until then.

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  7. I want to support Martin Gray in his opinion of Twinkies. You Americans load your food with so much sugar, it can seen inedible in other countries. Here in Canada, even the exact same brand of candy bar, cereal, etc. will have less sugar and taste different. In the UK, their “sweet” is a kind of bitter to a North American palate.

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  8. Last time, young Mr. Grayson and young Ms. Gordon faced off against the dark lord, Satan Lee, and triumphed!  This time … swamp fever?  (Note to self: we now know that Batman is part horse, as this is a disease of equines and doesn’t infect humans.)  Well, I guess we can’t always have issue-to-issue escalation of threats.

    As for the Mysteryman installment, for sure Bruce trusted Alfred — that wasn’t why he was asked to keep out the cave during Mysteryman’s visit.  It was just that Alfred was known as the Wayne Manor majordomo, so seeing him would have been enough for Mysteryman to immediately discern Batman’s identity.  Actually our trusty butler could have headed down to the cave in disguise if he wanted to troll Mysteryman.  My mind is conjuring up a Guy Fawkes mask, cape and big A on his shirt, and the alias Anonymousman.  Ah, but this is too early on for the version of Alfred that is made of sarcasm, I forgot.  More’s the pity.

    Hey, this podcast’s a lot of fun and I’m adding it to my must-listen queue.  You guys are doing a great job!  Oh, and thanks for the assortment of helpful tips on telling the two of you apart.  I attentively listened and failed to retain a word of it, though.  Cheers ’til next issue! 

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