Pre-Crisis Primer: Rogues' Round Robin

Batman 373-375

Detective Comics 540-542

“Between Two Nights”

What you don't know: Robin really broke Batman's back there.

After the highly suspenseful boxing-match-rigging drama at the heart of the Dr. Fang saga, Batman jumps right into kicking some proper super-villain ass by taking on a total of three prime members of the fabled Rogue's Gallery. Scarecrow, Penguin, and Mr. Freeze, step right up. Your five minutes of fame is about to begin.

Batman's Rogues don't really follow the mold of many classic DC Universe bad guys; most have backgrounds that are based in magic or science fiction, usually of the mad scientist or alien despot variety, while Batman's rogues are taken right from pulp stories or old pulp crime movies. Batman villain NUMBER ONE, The Joker, is taken directly from a 1928 classic film: “The Man Who Laughs” where a man has his face altered into a permanent grin. Another classic Bat-rogue, one of my favorites, Two-Face, former Gotham DA with half his face horribly scarred by acid, would be right at home with Dick Tracy's rogues and all their unique and eye-popping disfigurement. Batman's small dalliance with the 'mad scientist' motif is Dr. Hugo Strange, who's more in common with the crime scientist from the German expressionist “Dr. Mabuse” films than any kind of death-machine building sci-fi Bond villain.

Hiding out while Batman has some java. Won't ever find him here.

The rogues featured in this story are a good mixture of the usual DC bad guy tropes: Penguin is a classic gangster who's most interested in taking over parts of the underworld and pulling off robberies. He comes with a tiny bit of super-science in the form of trick umbrellas that can act as gyro-copters, swords, machine guns, and flame throwers. Scarecrow is pure pulp movie goodness straight from a horror movie: a psychologist who studied fear at Gotham University, he experimented a little too harshly on students and was fired. In a fit of rationality he decided to dress as a ragged scarecrow, develop a toxin that will cause victims to hallucinate to the tune of their greatest fears, and have his revenge on all 'bullies.' Mr. Freeze is probably the most mad scientist in Batman's rogues gallery as a cryo-scientist experimenting on methods to cure his wife, currently in cryo-freeze induced suspended animation. His funding stripped, the corporation he worked for was directly responsible for an accident that left Freeze's body mutated: he can no longer survive out of sub-zero temperatures. Taking the sane response, Freeze built a suit and a gun and went on revenge.

Lesson here: Don't fire crazy people, they will definitely become Batman villains.

They'll never suspect The Penguin.

Batman goes through this rogues in more or less a rote fashion: Scarecrow is out to prove he's top dog by scaring the shit out of people, simply enough; Batman later tails Penguin all the way to Antarctica for some cross-continental action after the rotund gangster steals some defense plans form the Pentagon; and Freeze literally dreams he's frozen Gotham City solid for the hell of it and sets off to do just that. 'm sure I'm not spoiling anything but pointing out that Batman wins all of these conflicts with his fists. Sure, Robin helps out against the Scarecrow, but a dose of fear gas for Batman regarding Robin's recent run in with Crazy Quilt and possibly losing him to one of the many crazies they face on a nightly basis leads him to ground Robin for the time being. Shall a robin fly no more?!?!

The literal dream. Freeze's wet dream.

Here's where we get to the interesting part of these issues. The main plots are all merely placeholder: main action to have something to put on the covers for the monthly publication. The only real bit of inspiration is plunging Penguin headfirst into international intrigue, by still, by the end of the story everything is status quo and the villain is locked up again. Aside from my love for the colorful bad guys, there's little to recommend with the main plots. For the audience, as readers, and I suspect for the writer, the real story is what goes on between the main plot, the sub-plots.

As with most of the series up until now, the question of whether Batman is right to train and put Jason Todd in the line of fire as Robin is the main driving force for the character-based stories. As I mentioned, Batman grounds Robin, but that's not all: a teacher at Jason's school noticed the boy always falling asleep at class and sporting numerous bruises. A call to Protective Services later and it's revealed Bruce Wayne never even formally adopted the boy. These stories end on the cliffhanger of Jason Todd being taken away from Wayne Manor and remanded to a home for boys until a possible foster situation can be worked out. Even the state thinks Wayne is unfit, which is a theory this writer has held for awhile now. Robin is great and everything, but it's difficult with modern stories to justify his existence. I do appreciate how the writer is exploring this and taking the story the whole nine yards.

Batman does get to shine in these stories too. Looking badass.

Other simmering sub-plots include a sequel of sorts to Gordon's brushwith death. We learn that Harvey Bullock was assigned to Gotham PD as a replacement for Gordon by corrupt Mayor Hill only to betray the mayor and end up helping Gordon at the last minute. Hill, clearly not thinking straight, has gone to Dr. Fang, who languishes in prison, for aid. While I'm pretty sure this dork never took over the Gotham underworld, he still has the power to direct assassins from prison towards Hill's endeavour. His price: freedom from prison.

Finally, the stories regarding Alfred's daughter, Julia, who's been staying at Wayne Manor, as well as Bruce's estranged lover, Vicki Vale collide in a less than satisfying form. In previous stories Vale was an equal with Wayne, she wanted to pursue a relationship as much as he did and when he (as we know because was Batman) starting giving her the cold shoulder, she ended things with him and went and put that energy into starting her own photo-journalist business. She end's up hiring Julia Pennyworth as an assistant and the two almost immediately become catty towards each other Bruce Wayne. Because they both love him. Of course. Although, on the good side, Vale is able to help Batman out by saving his ass against Mr. Freeze. She drops a stalactite on the villain. That's cool. Et's hope her strong characterization comes back.

As with most stories during this run of Batman, the main plots are weak and simple, but the simmering sub-plots give the character's stories a lot of meet and provide the real impetus to continue reading on a monthly basis. 

Too stupid to say much else.

On the flip-side of these stories, we do get some back-up action with Green Arrow. I don't want to spend too much time on these stories because they're horrible. Green Arrow in his civilian identity of Oliver Queen is a former millionaire, who, upon finding corruption in his own company sold off all his assets, gave away his fortune and went to live in an ashram for a time. Returned to society as Green Arrow, he works as a reporter for a local radio station. The radio station finds itself under siege twice, once by a villain with a flaming trident and again by a bad guy with a prankster identity. Not worth reading at all. I'm just interested in Green Arrow for the continuity. Really disappointing.