Batman Archives, Vol. 3

Batman Archives #3

by Bill Finger, Bob Kane (Illustrator)

Originally published in magazine form in Detective Comics, #71-86.

Genres: Comics, Dc Comics, Graphic Novels, Batman, Comic Book

224 pages, Hardcover

First published November 14, 1997

About the author

William "Bill" Finger was an American comic strip and comic book writer best known as the uncredited co-creator, with Bob Kane, of the DC Comics character Batman, as well as the co-architect of the series' development. In later years, Kane acknowledged Finger as "a contributing force" in the character's creation. Comics historian Ron Goulart, in Comic Book Encyclopedia, refers to Batman as the "creation of artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger", and a DC Comics press release in 2007 about colleague Jerry Robinson states that in 1939, "Kane, along with writer Bill Finger, had just created Batman for [DC predecessor] National Comics".

Film and television credits include scripting The Green Slime (1969), Track of the Moon Beast (1976), and three episodes of 77 Sunset Strip.

-Wikipedia

Reviews

[Michael P. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Early Batman stories are not universally bad, formulaic, and crudely drawn, just mostly bad, formulaic, and crudely drawn. Two of the stories in this collection are quite well written and another achieves "not bad" status. The rest are for completists and uncritical geeks only.

[Ronald Wilcox · Rating 3 out of 5]

As usual, a mixture of very good strips (like the ones featuring the Joker) and just ok strips (the war bonds one was definitely a 2 star story).

[Mindbait]

Unintentionally hilarious in places with Batman being super patriotic and the villains constantly looking to steal war bonds that are needed for the valiant boys overseas!

I was quite surprised at the breadth of the vocabulary in these early comics. I don't know whether kids were a lot more literate then, or if they mostly just looked at the pretty pictures.

Also, oddly Two Face is 'Harvey Kent' here and in one story he gets reconstructive surgery so that he isn't Two Face anymore...

[Dan Prestwich · Rating 3 out of 5]

The limitations of the formula are starting to show themselves more and more, but that has as much to do with me reading so many of these Golden Age Batmans in such a short period of time as it does with the relative quality of the comics. I still remain, on some level, kind of amazed at how much about this feels so immediately recognizable, even in this relatively nascent state, as hopelessly dated as this all feels now, as different as it is from the comics I grew up reading in look and tone. Whether this means that there's just something elemental about Batman that endures, or if it's just a sign of the creative stagnation of mainstream American entertainment, I have not yet figured out.

B-

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun compilation of the wild vitality of early superhero comics. Batman and Robin treat crime fighting like some grand game, wisecracking as they throw themselves into action and shrugging it off when they catch a blow to the head or are pitched down into a death trap.

Bob Kane's thick, inky art is really lively, always seeming to catch the heroes in action (and rendering the villains as different kinds of weird grotesques).

The stories are pretty similar. Some feature villains still popular today--the Scarecrow, the Joker, Two-Face. Others introduce a crime lord with a theme: a judge who offers licenses to commit crimes, a doctor of crime, the quarterback of crime, etc. The arc of each story is pretty similar--a clue, a crime, fisticuffs. But I enjoyed the energy that's poured into these pages.

As a side note, we also see the revamp of Bruce Wayne's famous butler as Alfred goes to fat camp to shift from being a roly-poly, bumbling sort to the streamlined helper we know today. Although he's still trying to solve crimes as the volume ends...not sure how long that goes on.

[Bill Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

The World War II- era Batman comics hold little in common with the current incarnation of the character and nowhere is that more obvious than in these reprints. The art's a little cramped and crude by modern standards but the stories wrap in less than twenty pages.

And Holy Puns Batman. Robin was the blueprint for every wisecracking teen. If only he were funny. After two-hundred pages you want to throw a punch his way.

The collection is certainly a portrait of high adventure from another time as there are two stories about crooks ripping off War Bond money. There are a couple of Joker stories in this one and a Two Face story about Harvey Kent.

[Michael Tildsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read the previous two installments as well. I'm pleased to say that while the majority of the stories contained in this volume follow the tried-and-true formula of the old Batman comics, several actually take risks.

In one, Batman and the Joker have to team up. In another, Two-Face, (here Harvey Kent, not Dent) gives up his life of crime and gets a reduced sentence and his face fixed. Alfred goes away on vacation and loses a ton of weight. There are a few others as well that threw me for a bit of a loop.

All in all, the creative changes were enough to make this the best of the Batman Archives so far in my opinion.

[Theresa Kettler]

Batman rox!