Batman: The Dynamic Duo Archives, Vol. 2

Batman: The Dynamic Duo Archives #2

by Gardner Francis Fox, Ed Herron, Bill Finger

Follows Batman as the Caped Crusader and his youthful sidekick, Robin, protect the citizens of Gotham from villains including the Joker and gang leader "Boss" Barron.

Genres: Comics, Batman, Graphic Novels

216 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Gardner Francis Cooper Fox was an American writer known best for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics. Comic book historians estimate that he wrote more than 4,000 comics stories, including 1,500 for DC Comics.
Fox is known as the co-creator of DC Comics heroes the Flash, Hawkman, Doctor Fate and the original Sandman, and was the writer who first teamed those and other heroes as the Justice Society of America. Fox introduced the concept of the Multiverse to DC Comics in the 1961 story "Flash of Two Worlds!"

Pseudonyms: Gardner F. Fox, Jefferson Cooper, Bart Sommers, Paul Dean, Ray Gardner, Lynna Cooper, Rod Gray, Larry Dean, Robert Starr, Don Blake, Ed Blake, Warner Blake, Michael Blake, Tex Blane, Willis Blane, Ed Carlisle, Edgar Weston, Tex Slade, Eddie Duane, Simon Majors, James Kendricks, Troy Conway, Kevin Matthews, Glen Chase

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've little tolerance for Silver Age DC, honestly. If I hadn't gotten these for free, I wouldn't have put the money into them. There are some pretty goofy, but kinda fun, mysteries in here. Highlights included a Julie Schwartz gorilla story and a mysterious mastermind who is behind a few cases in this book, but is not revealed or caught during these stories, so I have no idea what eventually happened to "The Outsider."

My favorite part of this book: in the Riddler story, Batman and Robin punch the Riddler in the face a dozen times, but don't seem to be hurting him. It is eventually realized that the Riddler anesthetized his face! So the shock of the blow was never felt and, thus, he would be fine! Hilarious!
Never mind the concussion he's received!

Most surprising to me was that Robin was not the "Boy Hostage" in these stories. He's quite effective, even if Batman does most of the detective work. Batman frequently has Robin take out the mastermind (so that Batman himself can fight three or four thugs), and Grayson does so every time.

You can see the influence on the Adam West series. Sometimes, I even heard his voice while reading it. And if you like stories about how the villain got away because of several bad breaks, so Batman figures that his luck is due to change and waits for a good break in order to catch the thief, well, this is the book for you. Or the story in which "you" are a character, and "you" figure out Batman's identity, but decide to keep his secret. Hilarious!

Really solid art from Moldoff and Infantino though.

But, seriously, thank god we never saw The Grasshopper again!

[Michael P. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Let's get a couple of things straight. It is often claimed that the New Look Batman dropped the sci-fi stories of the past several years. While there are fewer of them, editor Julius Schwartz still inflicted his favorite genre on some of the stories in this collection. The bigger difference between the two eras is that with the advent of Robin nearly all Batman stories had inane banter during the fights, most of it spoken by Robin. There are three stories in this collection with inane banter but most of the stories are nicely free of it. One of the enjoyable things about the previous collection was seeing the New Look established one story at a time. Now established, that joy is missing from this collection. So is good sense. Several of the stories made no sense. My eyes rolled again and again. To be fair, these ridiculous plot elements did not bother me as a child but they sure enough bother me now. This book is a real disappointment.

[Dan Hensley · Rating 3 out of 5]

See my review for Vol. 1. I had to force myself to keep reading these, because they did not age well. That doesn't mean they are horrible, but it's not for me. I will say that I am happy that I made it through these because it is important to me as a Batman fan to have knowledge of these past stories.