Zowie!: The TV Superhero Craze in ’60s Pop Culture

INITIUM

HOLY RATINGS!

MORE TV HEROES

Dynamic television 44 Adam West 46 Burt Ward 50 Yvonne Craig 54 Supporting players 56 Extracurricular television 57 Rogues’ gallery 58

‘The Green Hornet’ 74 Van Williams 76 Bruce Lee 78 ‘Ultraman’ 80 ‘Starman,’ ‘Johnny Sokko’ 82 ‘Captain Nice,’ ‘Mr. Terrific’ 83 Ron Ely 84

Introduction 4 Overview 8 Timeline 10

ORIGIN STORY

Roots of superdom 12 Batman begins 16 Jerry Robinson 20 George Roussos 23 Dick Sprang 24 Sheldon Moldoff 25

ANIMATION ‘Marvel Super Heroes’ 86 Filmation 88 ‘Space Ghost’ 90 Comic book worthy 91 Funny and furry 93 Japanimation 94

EARLY FILM & TV Birth of a film genre 28 Green Hornet serials 30 Captain Marvel serial 32 Fleischer Superman shorts 33 Batman serials 34 The Phantom serial 35 Captain America serial 36 Superman serials 37 Clayton Moore 38 ‘Adventures of Superman’ 39 Noel Neill 40

Frank Gorshin 62 Burgess Meredith 64 Cesar Romero 65 Julie Newmar 66 Eartha Kitt 69 Malevolent memories 70 ‘Pow!’ went the pop stars 71 The Batmobile 72

Insets: Bat lady by Margaret Brundage © Weird Tales; “The Detectives” © NBC Television; Eartha Kitt publicity photo; “Johnny Sokko” © TV Tokyo; “Space Ghost” © Hanna-Barbera Productions

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COLLECTIBLES

MOVIES

Rise of an industry 96 Games people played 97 Heroes of Halloween 98 Batmabilia 104 Japanese visions 108 Green Hornetabilia 111 Marvelous merch 113 Hanna-Barbera stuff 114 Captain Action in action 116 Super Soakys 120

Tights, camera, action 162 ‘Batman’ the movie 164 Lee Meriwether 166 ‘Rat Pfink and Boo Boo’ 167 A tale of two Batwomen 168 Superhero imports 170

Proofreader: Kevin Sharp

Front cover: Ka-Pow © Amalgamated Superheroes; playing card and Punchboy toy © current copyright holders; “Wild World of Batwoman” poster detail © ADP Productions; Aquaman mask © Ben Cooper & © DC Comics Inc.; Super Dracula by Tony Tallarico © Dell Publishing; Riddler cane and Batphone replica © Warner Bros. & DC Comics Inc.

PRINT MEDIA Masked on magazines 122 Book ’em 128 Trading cards 130 Norman Saunders 132

COMICS

Frontispiece: Detail from “Rat Pfink and Boo Boo” movie poster © Morgan Picture Corp.

CRASH & COMEBACK Death of the Dozierverse 172 1989: Twice upon a time 173 Modern superhero movies 177

AFTERMATH

Medium in flux 138 Carmine Infantino 141 Joe Giella 142 Batman comics vagaries 143 Creating Batgirl 145 The Marvel bump 146 TV character comic books 150 Parody panels 153 The superhero glut 154

Written & designed by: Mark Voger Publisher: John Morrow

Bruce Wayne in Gotham 178 Respect at last 182 Detective story 184 Epilogue 186 ‘The Super Zero Awards’ 188

Back cover: Captain Art Director and Zok! button © current copyright holders; Fly Girl © Archie Comics; Courageous Cat © Trans-Artists; Flash Gordon © King Features Syndicate; “Las mujer murcielago” poster detail © Cinematográfica Calderón

For Nairb “Zowie! The TV Superhero Craze in ’60s Pop Culture” © 2024 Mark Voger ISBN-13: 978-1-60549-125-7 First printing, July 2024 Printed in China All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from Mark Voger, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. Address inquiries to Mark Voger c/o: TwoMorrows Publishing. Photos credited to Kathy Voglesong © the estate of Kathy Voglesong

Published by: TwoMorrows Publishing 10407 Bedfordtown Drive Raleigh, North Carolina 27614

Insets: Toy box art © Captain Action Enterprises; Polly © Dell; “Las Mujer Murcielago” © Cinematográfica Calderón; “Argoman” © Fida Cinematografica; Julie Newmar photo © Kathy Voglesong

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INITIUM

Introduction

If, in January 1966, you hadn’t heard about the TV show “Batman,” you were probably in some cave still waiting for World War II to end. The Hype Machine did a real good job hyping the show’s premiere on Wednesday, Jan. 12 at 7:30 p.m. During recess, every kid in the parking lot of Holy Rosary School in the Diocese of Camden, N.J., was asking the same question: “You watchin’ ‘Batman’ tonight?” The answer was a resounding yes in every case but mine. I’d pledged my loyalty to “Lost in Space,” which would air in the same time slot. I was committed to the dauntless Space Family Robinson, the intrepid Major West, the conniving Dr. Smith, and even the weird alien chimp Bloop. I needed to see what gnarly, bulbous monster they would encounter next. Seven-year-olds love monsters. That evening, the Robinsons met all kinds of monsters, with Michael Rennie guest-starring as an intergalactic zookeeper. But as I watched “Lost in Space,” I was thinking about “Batman” every moment, wondering who he was, what he was. I felt this overwhelming dread that I was missing out on something important. When “Lost in Space” went to commercial, I thought: “What would be the harm in sneaking a peek and then switching back?”

I wrapped my small, second-grade hand around the channel-changing knob on our big, boxy, black-and-white TV set. The knob made a “chunk” sound as I changed it from Channel 10 (the CBS affiliate in Philadelphia) to Channel 6 (the ABC affiliate). What I saw next is seared into my memory. There was Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward) clutching a rope as they “climbed” up the side of a building. Man, their costumes were so cool. I was instantly hooked. From that moment on, I did a flippety-flop. I watched “Lost in Space” only when “Batman” went to commercial. Sorry, Will Robinson. “BATMAN” EXPLODED INTO A full-blown phenomenon. (The media termed it “Batmania,” a la Beatlemania.) There wasn’t a man, woman or child in America who was unaware of the series. Store shelves burst with Batman paraphernalia. (Batman white bread, anyone?) The whole world went bat-crazy. When the series first aired, only one or two households on my block had a color TV. By the final episode in 1968, it seemed like two-thirds of the neighborhood had upgraded to color, a large leap over a short span. I chalked this up to the show. The dazzling costumes, set designs and graphics were pure eye candy. It was a show meant to be watched in color. I’ve sometimes wondered if by watching “Batman,” a generation of kids was introduced to cross-dressing. Batman wore periwinkle tights. Robin wore green underpants over “nude” stockings. The Riddler’s costume looked uncomfortably form-fitting. (I sometimes felt embarrassed for Frank Gorshin.) And the Joker? White face, green hair, red lips, striped magenta suit with tails, lapel flower. I was so disappointed the first time I saw Cesar Romero in civvies. He was on a game show. Without the Joker getup, he just looked like a nice old man. Julie Newmar’s Catwoman costume appeared as if she was dipped in molten black rubber, although no complaints spring to mind here.

BATMAN’S INCREDIBLE POPULARITY blazed a TV trail for other superheroes. Another costumed hero greenlit for television was “The Green Hornet,” which reminds me of a milestone in my childhood: my Confirmation night. (It’s a Catholic thing, a sacrament that takes place some time between your First Holy Communion and Holy Matrimony.) I recall clearly, clearly, the night I was confirmed: March 1, 1967. It was the same night Batman and Robin would be fighting the Green Hornet (Van Williams) and his sidekick Kato (Bruce Lee). We knew this because, as a cliffhanger, the narrator would always announce who Batman would fight the following week. Holy Rosary School was abuzz! Like, weren’t Green Hornet and Kato good guys? Why would Batman and Robin fight them? But mainly, we wanted to see Kato clean Robin’s clock. Long before movies like “The Chinese Connection” and “Enter the Dragon,” “Green Hornet” fans knew Bruce Lee could kick anyone’s butt. Kato was a cool customer. The Green Hornet threw his share of punches, to be sure, but Kato swiftly dispatched burly henchman like they were rag dolls. Kids were imitating Kato’s roundhousekick technique in backyards across America. At the Confirmation ceremony — with its fragrant incense, clanging bells and fervently sung hymns — the nuns watched us like hawks for any slip-ups. Bishop Damiano himself was here to confirm us, wearing the tallest hat I’d ever seen. I sat in the third row of candidates next to Mark Adams. Bishop Damiano, aged and kindly, pointed a finger at us boys and said, “You are about to become soldiers of Christ.” But all we could think about was Batman fighting the Green Hornet. I was constantly looking at my watch. At around 7:50 p.m., I whispered to Mark Adams, “They’re probably fighting right this second.” Sure, I finally got to witness the historic faceoff between Batman and Robin and Green Hornet and Kato years later in reruns. But ya know what? It’s never the same. MY PICK FOR THE COOLEST BATMANIA SPINOFF trend of 1966? Had to be the Batman trading cards, which were issued by the Topps Company of Brooklyn. Every kid in the neighborhood bought ’em, traded ’em and flipped ’em. “Flipping” happened when two boys would crouch down in front of a brick wall, for instance, and toss cards against it with a flick of the wrist. Whoever’s card landed closest to the wall won both cards. It was a way to reduce your doubles and triples in the hopes of winning a card that you needed to complete your collection. (I know, I know, it sounds like something the Little Rascals would do. This was back when the very idea of a video game was science fiction.) Every kid in the neighborhood strove to collect complete sets of Topps’ three painted series. It seemed there was always one card in a given series that was more rare than all the others. In Set 1, it was Card #1, simply titled “The Batman.” (I base this purely on personal observation.) The card, a no-frills depiction of Our Hero, proved very hard to find. Nobody ever flipped Card #1. If you traded it, chances are you already had two Card #1s, and you would get back five or more cards in the bargain.

The Hornet was a good guy, right? © The Green Hornet Inc.; © Donruss One Friday evening when my mother had company over, the visitor’s toddler spotted my ultra rare Card #1 and snatched it with his grubby little fingers. I wrenched it out of his hands. (It was damaged in the skirmish.) The toddler started screaming his head off. Adults investigated the ruckus. My mother finally said, “Just give him the card.” That night, I barely slept. I’d worked so hard to amass a complete set of Topps’ Series 1 cards. In an instant, all that effort went phfffft. The next morning, I made like Perry Mason. I calmly explained to my mother that I worked very diligently — purchasing, trading, flipping, promising favors, selling my soul — to compile a complete set of Batman cards. And Card #1 was the hardest to acquire. I showed her my carefully collated collection, now minus one card. There was an expression in those days: “Children are meant to be seen, not heard.” But this time, at least, my mom listened, and asked what I thought should be done. We came up with a solution to offer five cards (which I had in doubles) that featured Batman prominently in exchange for the Card #1. The toddler agreed. I still have my Card #1. It’s scarred from the tussle, but by gum (pun intended), I have it. And I’m still occasionally in touch with the brat who damaged it. We Irish forgive ... but we never forget.

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ORIGIN STORY

Roots of superdom There were always superheroes. Some of them even wore tights. Before streaming, before handheld devices, before the internet, before home video, before television, before moving pictures, before radio, before print, what did you have? Word of mouth. (And Corinthian pottery.) Folklore and legends, parables and myths, fables and old wives’ tales … these were “mass communication” in ancient times. To understand how the TV superhero craze of the 1960s came into existence, we must first establish where the notion of the “superhero” originated. Looking back — way back — it’s clear that humans have always needed heroes and, more to the point, heroes with special powers who operate on the side of good. In short, better versions of ourselves. Is Superman really all that different from Hercules, a legendary hero from Greek and Roman mythology of decidedly mixed lineage (god dad, mortal mom) and super strength? Prometheus anticipated the Human Torch. Hammer-swinging thunder god Thor anticipated hammer-swinging thunder god Thor. Pegasus belongs in the League of Super Pets, yo! Were Jason and the Argonauts the first-ever superteam? Jason was the great grandson of a god; was raised by a half-man, halfhorse; married a sorceress; and went on a quest to find the fleece of a winged ram. (I could have sworn there was a Saturday morning animated series by Filmation titled “The Argonauts,” with Ted Cassidy as the voice of Jason and Casey Kasem as Acastus.) If the Argonauts were the original Justice League, doesn’t that make King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table the original Avengers? Robin Hood was an altruistic vigilante who “robs from the rich and gives to the poor.” His prowess with a bow and arrow were rivaled only by ... Green Arrow and Hawkeye. IN (RELATIVELY) MODERN TIMES, THE PULP fiction magazines of the late 19th century through the 1950s brought about many masked avengers and sci-fi heroes, some of whom influenced the creators of Superman and Batman. The Shadow, the Spider, the Black Bat, Tarzan, Zorro and a lot of deeper-cut characters (who have long since faded from collective memory) sprang forth from the pulps. Many of these characters were adapted to other media such as radio, movie serials and comics. The jungle hero Tarzan debuted in The All Story (Oct. 1912) in “Tarzan of the Apes” by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The masked avenger Zorro debuted in All-Story Weekly (Aug. 1919) in “The Curse of Capistrano” by Johnston McCulley. Artist Margaret Brundage’s sexy-creepy lady with the vampire-bat headdress on the Oct. 1933 Weird Tales cover would upstage Batman or Catwoman. (Hot tip: Investigate Brundage’s work!) Another prototype, Japan’s Ôgon Bat (or Golden Bat), debuted in 1931 in the quaint old medium kamishibai (or “paper theater”). Bold, acrobatic masked heroes pervaded the silent era of film.

“Mark of Zorro” (1920) gave us an early masked avenger on film. Opposite: Genre thrills on pulp fiction covers. © United Artists; magazine covers © current copyright holders

Zorro was only a year old when Douglas Fairbanks Sr. donned the mask in Fred Niblo’s 1920 swashbuckler “The Mark of Zorro.” Radio gave us heroes like the mysterious Shadow (in 1930). The Old West vigilante the Lone Ranger (in 1933) and his great nephew the Green Hornet (in 1936) were introduced by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker. Radio also provided a new venue for existing characters Superman (in 1940) and Batman (in 1945). The newspaper comic strips brought us heroes that still seem timeless today. Such strips include Philip Francis Nowlan’s “Buck Rogers” (in 1929); Chester Gould’s “Dick Tracy” (in 1931); Alex Raymond’s “Flash Gordon” (in 1934); Lee Falk’s “The Phantom” (in 1936); and Hal Foster’s “Prince Valiant” (in 1937). Of these, Falk’s Phantom, “the Ghost Who Walks,” seemed most simpatico with the comic book superheroes who were soon to follow.

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Batman begins

From his first flap of the cape, Batman was breaking the rules of a genre in its infancy. Superman wore bright colors. Batman wore black. The two seminal superhero characters, introduced within a year of one another, were inexorably linked from the start. What they had in common — both were orphans with secret identities who took a vow to protect the innocent — wasn’t nearly as interesting as their contrasts. Superman was smiley; Batman was brooding. Superman had super powers; Batman was a mere mortal. Superman played by the rules; Batman possessed the ruthless heart of a vigilante. WHEN ACTION #1 SCORED NEWSSTAND gold, its editor Vincent “Vin” Sullivan (1911-1999) sought a followup superhero. He mentioned this to Bronx native Bob Kane (1915-1998), a cartoonist who had been drawing humorous fill-in pages for Action. These were often written by Denver native Milton “Bill” Finger (1914-1974), Kane’s fellow alum of DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. Kane had a wisp of an idea — just the name Bat-Man and a vague sketch — and turned to Finger to help flesh it out. Both men loved adventure-genre fiction and films, and put those influences in their proposal. (Kane would later cite Roland West’s 1930 mystery “The Bat Whispers” starring Chester Morris as an influence, even if the masked Bat of that film was the bad guy.) Kane pitched the Batman concept to Sullivan, apparently neglecting to mention Finger’s contribution. Batman debuted in Detective Comics #27 in 1939, an anxious time in America. Folks were still reeling from the Great Depression, and a war was looming. The first Batman story — illustrated by Kane and written by Finger — bore the unsexy title “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate.” (This was Detective Comics, not Action Comics, so mysteries were de rigueur.) What aspects of the Batman mythos were present from the start? In the first panel, we meet Bruce Wayne (identified as a “young socialite”) and Commissioner Or was it a purple-throated calliope? From Detective Comics #33 Gordon. That, and the costume, are about it. (1939). Opposite: “The Bat Whispers” (1930). © DC Comics Inc.; © Atlantic Pictures Otherwise, the earliest Batman is a punisher who has zero empathy for lawbreakers. When he sends a In the first 11 Batman stories through Detective #37 (1940), gangster into a vat of acid with a punch, Batman brusquely remarks: it’s plain how the character was influenced by the movie serials “A fitting ending for his kind.” Batman drives a car (colored red, and pulp fiction stories of the day. Batman was so simply drawn at least in DC’s 1990 reprint), but it has no bat-like modifications and unambiguously written, you’d swear he was dreamt up by a yet. His dialogue is 100 percent pun free. couple of kids. Which he was. Kane was 22; Finger was 21. Fun facts: The character name is actually spelled with a hyphen So Batman was a boyhood fantasy not only for millions of (“Bat-Man”) over the first three stories, often in quotes and precedreaders, but also for his co-creators. ed by the article “the.” And Batman fires a gun (!) in ’Tec #32.

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When Bill Finger decided Batman needed a Dr. Watson, Jerry Robinson pitched in. Left: Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson artwork by Sidney Paget (1890s). Robinson named Robin for Robin Hood. Right: Errol Flynn as the fabled hero (1938).

Jerry Robinson © Strand Magazine; © Warner Bros.

It was the summer of 1939. Batman was a thing, but only just.

A 17-year-old journalism student at Columbia University named Jerry Robinson had a chance encounter with someone he’d never met before, Bob Kane, at a tennis resort in Pennsylvania. Kane, then 23, paused and engaged Robinson in conversation after taking note of the jacket the teenager was wearing. “I went out to play tennis and I wore a jacket that I had decorated with my cartoons,” Trenton native Robinson (1922-2011) told me during an interview conducted in 1989. “And Bob Kane, who had just started Batman shortly before that, saw it and asked who did the cartoons. A friendship developed, and he said that if I came to New York, I would be able to assist him on Batman.” Bat-what? By summer ’39, a few Batman stories had been published in Detective Comics, not that Robinson had seen them. “I had never heard of it,” he said. “In fact, Bob took me down to the local magazine store to find a copy of it.” Robinson bit, and the decision changed the course of his life. “I came to New York and started work in the fall,” he said. “In fact, I didn’t even go back home. I went right from the resort.” Robinson reckoned he debuted in “one of the fall issues of 1939,” initially as a letterer and background inker. (For non-geeks: “Pencillers” draw the artwork in pencil, “inkers” finish it in black ink.) As an artist, Robinson grew in leaps and bounds over the next couple of years. He graduated to inking main figures, and eventually began pencilling outright. Robinson’s contributions marked a turning point for Batman. He retained Kane’s cartooniness, but added a much needed fluidity that Kane’s stiff figures lacked.

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HERE’S WHERE THE STORY GOES SOUTH. Today, Robinson is acknowledged as a co-creator of two important characters in the Batman canon that both debuted in 1940: Robin and the Joker. But for many years, Kane denied Robinson’s credit. (Sound familiar?) Batman’s co-creator, writer Bill Finger, decided that Batman needed a sounding board, a Dr. Watson to his Sherlock Holmes. Partially based on Robinson, Robin debuted in Detective Comics #38, touted as “The Sensational Character Find of 1940!” Recalled Robinson: “I was a kid at the time — I was only 17 — and they would call me ‘Robinson the Boy Wonder.’ I didn’t like that at the time because I wanted to be thought of as older. “In fact, I did name him, but my concept was from Robin Hood. If you look at the costume, it’s kind of an update of Robin Hood.” Regarding the Joker, Robinson didn’t mince words. “The Joker was my creation,” the artist stated. “Batman was growing more popular with each succeeding issue, and they decided to publish the Batman quarterly, Batman #1, for which we needed a lot more stories. My idea was to create a new villain, because there weren’t supervillans in the comics at the time. From my studies in literature, I learned that all the great heroes from Biblical times on had an antagonist. Even Sherlock Holmes had Moriarty. But we never had one for Batman. “I had written a lot of humor pieces in my courses at Columbia. I wanted to create a villain that had some sense of humor. That would be a contradiction in terms, a villain with a sense of humor. That is the essence of a good character: It has contradictions.”

A NAME FOR THE CHARACTER THEN PRESENTED itself. As Robinson told it: “Once I’d decided on his sense of humor, in searching for a name, the Joker came to mind. I immediately associated it with the joker playing card. That’s where the visual image of his head came from. That’s where we started from.” Robinson’s playing card concept was used in the Joker’s debut story (and occasionally thereafter). But Kane’s Joker design was more influenced by a reference supplied to him by Finger: German actor Conrad Veidt in the silent adaptation of Victor Hugo’s “The Man Who Laughs” (1928). The Joker debuted in Batman #1. Kane recollected the Joker’s genesis differently in his memoir: “In a number of interviews, Jerry Robinson has claimed that he created the Joker. At this time he was an 18-year-old kid just out of high school. He came in with a drawing of a joker playing card, with a joker that looked like a court jester. … Jerry claimed that this card was the original inspiration for the Joker. ... I do not doubt that my ex-assistant is sincere in believing that he did, in fact, create the Joker, but time has eroded his memory.” BACK THEN, NO ONE KNEW HOW MUCH MONEY would change hands over characters like Robin and the Joker. “In those days, and being so young, we never thought of that,” Robinson told me. “That was a long time ago. Since then, we’ve become a little more aware of our creative rights. “In fact, (Superman co-creators) Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster are good friends of mine. I don’t know if you remember the story a few years ago, but they were left penniless. Myself and another artist (Neal Adams) renegotiated that deal for them, and I represented them. Finally, I did get at least some justice for those two.” (Shuster died at age 78 in 1992; Siegel at age 81 in 1996.) Said Robinson of his old collaborators on Batman: “I haven’t talked to Bob in some years. He moved to the coast. I’d occasionally speak with him or see him in New York. Bill passed on some years ago (in 1974). It’s really a shame he didn’t get credit for his contributions in his lifetime. It’s only now that they’re starting to know his name. It was never signed on the strip, which it should have been. I used to sign his name myself to stories I drew.” ROBINSON WAS NO FAN OF THE TV SERIES. “I didn’t like the concept of that TV thing, because they really had camped it up so much that I knew it wouldn’t last more than a couple of seasons,” the artist said. “It didn’t do justice, I don’t think, to the initial concept, which I think is very strong and could have been a long-lasting series, just as Tarzan has been and James Bond has been. Or a strip like ‘Peanuts,’ if it’s handled properly, can go on. But if you parody it, it wouldn’t have the longevity. That’s what I objected to.” But Robinson had no objections to the show’s portrayal of the Joker. “I liked the selection of Cesar Romero. In fact, I met him out in Hollywood. I kidded him at the time that when I created the Joker, I didn’t know I was reviving his whole career.” Said Robinson of the casting of Jack Nicholson in the 1989 film: “He didn’t fit my idea visually – the Joker is tall and slim — but I think he’s an excellent choice.”

Jerry Robinson in 2003. Background: Joker influence Conrad Veidt. 2003 photo by Kathy Voglesong

Dick Sprang (1915-2000) HE REFASHIONED THE CHARACTER, AND THE villains, as his own. The most distinctive Batman artist of the Golden Age of Comics, Dick Sprang gave Bruce Wayne a square jaw and Dick Grayson an oval head. He played with perspective, sometimes imbuing his panels with a prescient trippiness. His villains could be garish, even grotesque. Sprang’s Joker, wearing a face that never quite adhered to the laws of human proportion, was a deformed, twisted nightmare. His Two-Face was like something dreamed up by Lon Chaney Sr. His Catwoman was sexy, but there was larceny and murder behind those alluring eyes. The art of Dick Sprang was never equaled or duplicated. When that art was initially published, his byline didn’t appear. Savvier fans certainly recognized his work when they saw it. Some may have even wondered: Who is this mystery artist?

One day, Ellsworth paid Sprang the ultimate compliment. Said the artist: “Later, after some years, Whit told me, ‘Look, go your own direction with Batman. Do what you want to do with him.’ I took this as quite an endorsement. But analyzing it, I couldn’t see any dramatic changes to be made in this highly popular character.” Regardless, Sprang’s Batman evolved over the years: “I widened Batman’s waist a bit. I made his figure a little more fluid in action. I shortened his bat-ears. But I retained Kane’s basic concept.” As for Robin: “He was a little tough, that kid Robin,” said Sprang. “You know how a kid is. His head is very deep at the back. The skull is very round at the back. Sometimes I flattened him out a little bit. So (editor) Jack Schiff or one of the boys would suggest, ‘Hey, make his head more round!’ ” Sprang was directed to strive for authenticity in illustrating a series of whimsical back-in-time stories written by Finger in the 1950s. SPRANG WAS BORN IN The artist recalled: “Whit Ohio and turned pro when he Ellsworth was quite insistent was a teenager. Before seeking on this point. He said, ‘Look, work in comics, the self-taught kids read this stuff. When Sprang wrote and illustrated for they see ancient Rome, pulp fiction magazines, doing ancient France, ancient western and detective stories. Greece, I want them to see “I saw that the pulps were those countries as they existed just about being crowded out by — the architecture, the costhe comic books,” Sprang told tuming, the horse gear, everyme during an interview in 1993. thing. Let it be somewhat “This was a trend. Now, you educational for the kids.” can’t change a trend, but you Sprang inked his own pencils “I made his figure a little more fluid in action,” said artist can try and manage it. I saw until 1945, after which he was Dick Sprang of modifying Batman in his art. Photo illustration opportunity in the comics.” teamed with Charles Paris, who At DC, Sprang was seen by became Sprang’s exclusive editor Whitney Ellsworth. “Of course, I had no idea that I’d ever be inker for the duration of his career with DC Comics. “Charlie told put on Batman,” Sprang said. “Whit handed me three script pages me once that he enjoyed my stuff because there was no question of a Batman story that had already been drawn and published. He what I intended,” Sprang said. “My pencils were not sketchy.” said to me, ‘Take ’em home.’ He said, ‘By the way, I hope you won’t look for the book in which these pages have appeared.’ I SPRANG RETIRED FROM DRAWING BATMAN IN 1961, though he later produced special commissions for fans. said, ‘Don’t worry, I won’t. I understand why you’re doing this.’ “So I still draw the character a lot,” he said. “But I must tell “He said, ‘Pencil it all, ink about half of it, do some lettering, you, when I began to do the recreations in about ’84 or ’85, it was put the balloons in, but get it out as quick as you can. I’d like it tough to get the character back. I found I’d lost a lot of facility.” back in four days.’ Like he told me, I brought it back in four days. Was Sprang at all bothered about the fact that during all those “Whit went through it, squared it up, picked up the phone, and years, he never received a byline for his Batman artwork? asked for a check. He turned to me and said, ‘What was your “I know it annoyed some people to be ‘ghosting,’ but not me,” name again?’ He gave me a page-rate check for a story that had the artist said. “Only in the later ‘giants’ (reprint issues) did they already been published! Well, this impressed me to no end.” start to give me a credit. That was just fine. Initially, Sprang kept his drawing style on Batman more or less “Bob Kane had a contract; I think he owned the title. His name consistent with that of Kane — both artists were cartoony — but did appear on Batman, as you may recall, in that boxed signature Ellsworth did not direct Sprang to mimic Kane outright. of his. Whit had asked me if that would bother me when I first “Of course, he told me to stay with the character,” Sprang said. worked for him. I said, ‘Look, as long as my name appears on “Naturally, I assembled a bunch of Bob Kane stuff and drew him that oblong, green piece of paper.’ ” (Namely, the check.) as best I could. I followed that for quite some time.”

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Sheldon Moldoff (1920-2012) THERE WERE RULES TO BEING A “GHOST ARTIST.” “Originally, Bob Kane was crazy about ‘Dick Tracy.’ And Sheldon Moldoff knew them going in. when you drew comics, you basically wanted it to be a cartoon, “Now, being a ghost, you don’t say anything to anybody,” the not an illustration. My style, apparently, fit a lot of stories that artist told me in 1998. “You just work for your boss and that’s it. went on through that long period.” So Bob Kane took all the credit — not that he would give credit As for those wacky storylines with gimmicks like the Zebra to anybody anyway. That wasn’t in his nature.” Batman, the Mummy Batman, the Negative Batman, the Double Moldoff was Kane’s most prolific ghost artist during the 1950s Batman and the omnipresent Bat-Mite: “Well, that’s a long period and ’60s, a memorable-if-wacky period for Batman comics. for a cartoon to keep going. The stories with the aliens and the Prior to that arrangement, when Moldoff was fresh out of high different, almost crazy angles was a search for something that school, he had briefly worked for Kane as an assistant. After that, would sell. Because cartoons, comic books, etc., have cycles. Moldoff went to work for All-American Comics, where he drew There were a lot of ups and downs. What can we do to keep the Green Lantern, the Flash and readers’ interest? That’s why Hawkman through the 1940s. the thing ran in so many differ“I had done many, many ent directions.” things, including the Hawkman, When DC enlisted editor the Black Pirate,” Moldoff said. Julius Schwartz to, shall we “I did the covers that introduced say, refresh Batman in 1964, the Flash, the Green Lantern. Kane lost his iron grip on the Then I went into the service; I books. Moldoff hung in there a came out of the service after few more years, switching off two years and started to work illustration duties with fellow for Fawcett Publications doing artist Carmine Infantino. But Captain Midnight, Tex Ritter. I the times, they were a-changin’. introduced a horror book, This Magazine is Haunted.” DID IT EVER BOTHER More than a decade passed. Moldoff, not getting credit for One day in 1953, Moldoff all those Batman stories? ran into Kane by chance at a “Well,” he said, “I honored National Cartoonists Society the agreement. Now, maybe fete thrown by bandleader Fred other artists wouldn’t honor it, Waring, who was famously a but I honored it. That’s my cartoon enthusiast. own character, my own person“By this time, Batman was ality. I never said a word; I just “You don’t say anything to anybody,” said artist Sheldon really solid, very well known,” did it for those 15 years. Moldoff, who for years ghosted for Bob Kane. Photo illustration Moldoff recalled. “Bob and I, “It didn’t prevent me from we were glad to see each other. doing other work. As I say, it He said, ‘Shelly, get in touch with me. I need a ghost.’ We got wasn’t an exclusive. I had plenty of other work in the meantime.” together in the city, and he offered me this job. We shook hands, I asked Moldoff, one of the medium’s most prolific “ghosts,” and I became Bob’s ghost artist right then and there. This was in to clarify the difference between an assistant and a ghost. 1953. That lasted until 1967, a period of about 15 years.” “An assistant is just helping the creator out,” Moldoff said. “It Moldoff explained the working routine that he and Kane folcould be lettering, background drawing, inking, whatever. lowed during that time: “Bob would get the script; give it to me; “A ghost does all the work and the creator takes the credit. I would lay it out; pencil it up; finish it; and give it back to him. When you’re ghosting for someone, it’s like being a ghost writer. And then he would just bring it down to the office.” The fella who is supposed to be the author takes the credit. The The artist reckoned he drew between 6,000 and 7,000 Batman ghost writer is never mentioned. He may be a better writer, he pages, and hundreds of covers, all published under Kane’s byline. may have a better use of vocabulary. For whatever reason, it’s a “It was a good relationship,” Moldoff said. “He wasn’t easy to common practice — ghost writers and ghost artists.” work with but, you know, he was OK. We were friends. As he Still, comic book fans eventually unmasked the artist. always said: ‘You’re my buddy. What would I do without you?’ ” “What happened was, the credits gradually were given to me,” Moldoff’s style was rather comical, befitting the Batman Moldoff said. “When these reprints are put in books, I usually stories of the 1950s and early ’60s, which favored way-out sci-fi receive a check from DC Comics. They’ve been very good about plots and whimsical characters like Batwoman, Batgirl (her that. But we can thank the comic collectors and the comic book original iteration), Bat-Mite, and Ace the Bat-Hound. historians, because with the advent of the comic conventions, “Some say I had a little bit of a cartoony style, that I wasn’t there was a real serious interest in comic books. Once that hapvery straight,” Moldoff said, “but the style fit the character. pened, everybody connected wanted to know who did what.”

25

EARLY FILM & TV

Cinematic

“MOVING PICTURES” WERE FIRST SCREENED IN 1895. Superhero comic books were first published in 1938. This leads to a simple question: What was the first superhero movie? Well, as with many burning topics, the answer is not as simple as the question. The earliest live-action depictions of superheroes on film were called “serials” or “chapter plays.” These were not full-length movies, but a succession of short films (typically 12 to 15) that played theaters in weekly installments. Yeah, they were low-budget, low-tech, and formulaic, but their influence is still being felt. The TV Batman’s cliffhangers and periodic fight scenes were torn from the serials. Universal’s serial “Flash Gordon” (1936) starred Olympic-gold-metal swimmer Buster Crabbe as Alex Raymond’s comic strip hero. Flash was not a superhero per se, but he resonated during the 1960s Batmania craze as one of nine characters that Captain Action — “the Amazing 9-in-1 Super Hero” — could change into when the toy was introduced by Ideal in 1966. The serials also gave us masked avengers (some of whom originated in fiction and radio) who looked and acted a lot like superheroes. These include the Spider in “The Spider’s Web” (1938); “The Shadow” (1940); “The Masked Marvel” (1943); and Commander Cody in “Radar Men From the Moon” (1952). LIKE BATMAN, RADIO’S GREEN HORNET wore a mask but had no super powers. He, too, resonated during Batmania for a special reason: “Batman” executive producer William Dozier’s followup TV series “The Green Hornet” (1966-67). This makes the Hornet as much a superhero as Batman, and therefore worthy of the distinction First LiveAction Superhero on Film for his 1940 serial of the same title. Cutting it finer, the First Live-Action Comic Book Superhero on Film was played by Tom Tyler in “The Adventures of Captain Marvel” (1941). The important qualifier in the previous sentence is the term “comic book,” as opposed to newspaper funnies, pulp fiction, radio, etc. (Yeah, it’s gettin’ geeky up in here.) More comic book superheroes like Batman, Captain America and Superman would follow in their own serials. But 10 years would pass before a superhero finally top-lined a feature film as opposed to, yep, a serial. That film was “Superman and the Mole Men” (1951) starring George Reeves, the First Live-Action Superhero Movie. It led to the First Live-Action Superhero TV Series — lots of “firsts,” eh? — “The Adventures of Superman” (1952-58) also starring Reeves. Elsewhere in TV land, a series based on another of Captain Action’s original nine alternating characters, the Lone Ranger, aired from 1949 until ’57, with Clayton Moore wearing the mask.

Main image: Buster Crabbe with large space gun as Flash Gordon. Insets from top right: The Masked Marvel, Commander Cody, the Spider and the Shadow. © Universal Pictures; © Republic Pictures; © Columbia Pictures

‘The Adventures of Captain Marvel’ (1941) A MASKED CRIMINAL MASTERMIND WHOSE identity is unknown to his own flunkies seeks to obtain a superweapon with which to rule the world, all the while being pursued by a costumed avenger. That could be the plot of any serial based on a comic book superhero. In this case, it happens to be the very first one: Republic Pictures’ “The Adventures of Captain Marvel” co-directed by William Witney and John English. While not exactly capturing the humor and whimsy of the Fawcett Publications comic books, the serial may well be the best of the wide 1940s field. Tom Tyler cut a dashing figure in the Captain Marvel getup, moving gracefully and playing the character straight — no winking, no barely concealed humiliation.

Tom Tyler moved gracefully and played it straight. © Republic Pictures; © Fawcett Publications

IN A “VOLCANIC LAND” CHEERLESSLY called the Valley of Tombs, an archeological expedition discovers an ancient tomb containing a golden idol in the form of a scorpion. Accompanying the expedition is radio journalist Billy Batson (Frank Coghlan), who encounters a robed, bearded wizard named Shazam (Nigel de Brulier). The idol must not fall into the wrong hands, Shazam warns Billy. To prevent this, Billy is granted the power to transform into a superbeing. Says the old man: “All that is necessary is to repeat my name … Shazam!” The golden scorpion is outfitted with five special lenses which, when positioned correctly, emit a destructive beam that can melt a mountain. A hooded fiend who calls himself the Scorpion — even the actor who plays him is listed only as “the Scorpion” in the credits — wants that idol. “Whoever controls the device will have power that men have dreamed of since the beginning of time,” he roars. But expedition members cleverly divide the lenses among themselves in an attempt to keep things honest. (The real reason, savvy viewers know, is to give the flunkies a reason to pursue said expedition members for 12 chapters.) Joining forces with Billy are Betty (Louise Currie), who is unafraid to get her dainty hands dirty, and Whitey (William Benedict), Billy’s kinda goofy wingman. Benedict’s Bowery Boys character was likewise called Whitey. Typecasting? Or “othering” just ’coz the actor’s pallor bordered on translucent? Legendary stuntman David Sharpe put his gymnastic training on display, effortlessly executing a standing back flip in costume. For the flying sequences, a dummy gliding along a wire is sometimes utilized. Though not 100 percent convincing — the face is clearly that of a mannequin — seeing the dummy “fly” through actual environments (not rear screen) with cape flapping is so darned cool, you gladly overlook the deceit. On those occasions when Tyler’s face is visible, he achieves credible takeoffs and landings. This Captain Marvel can be a badass. One of his signature moves is to lift a bad guy over his head and throw him. At one point, Marvel cavalierly tosses a baddie from atop a tall building. There’s nary a scream, but it’s a cinch the guy doesn’t survive the plunge. Judge, jury and executioner — it wouldn’t happen in a Fawcett comic book.

‘Superman’ shorts (1941 - 43) THE FIRST CINEMATIC DEPICTION OF SUPERMAN, AND the first time the endless possibilities of the superhero genre were fittingly explored on film, happened in cartoons. Fleischer Studios — the animators behind those fantastically strange Popeye and Betty Boop shorts — kicked off a series of seven-minute sci-fi masterpieces that comprise the Superman shorts. The Technicolor cartoons (most directed by Dave Fleischer) did what live action and even comic books could not, by demonstrating Superman’s super strength, speed and flight in imaginative and realistically executed scenarios. The Fleischers achieved a sweeping scope in their heavily storyboarded sequences of crackling laboratories, gleaming superweapons, giant robots, lumbering monsters, and teeming Metropolis itself. Lois Lane (initially voiced by Joan Alexander) was a rare protofeminist character in the genre. She never flinched in her pursuit of The Big Story, despite sexist attitudes of the era. Lois’s snooping invariably resulted in her being lowered into a bubbling cauldron; or suspended over an active volcano; or stuffed into a torpedo awaiting launch. This is where the Man of Steel (initially voiced by radio’s Superman, Bud Collyer) came in. The episodes typically wrapped with a Daily Planet headline (over Lois’s byline) summarizing the adventure. Lois would deflect compliments on her reporting by adding, “... thanks to Superman!” Clark Kent then winked at the viewer. The debut short, “Superman,” was nominated for an Oscar. The shorts popularized (but did not outright introduce) the concept that Superman can fly; previously, he “leaped.” Superman’s co-creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were billed in the opening credits. The “faster than a speeding bullet” intro narration originated in these shorts, and was retained for the 1950s TV series. FLEISCHER STUDIOS’ NINTH SUPERMAN short, “Terror on the Midway,” was its last. It’s commonly reported that Paramount Pictures “absorbed” the Fleischers’ operation after two costly features underperformed at the box office. But in “The Fleischer Story” (Da Capo Press, 1988), author Leslie Cabarga suggests a more concerted takeover by Paramount. Not helping was the fact that the Fleischer brothers — Max, Dave and Joe — often butted heads, to put it mildly, over remuneration, credit, workplace ethics and morale. Despite greatly reducing the number of drawings, Paramount’s new animation arm Famous Studios maintained a degree of quality in the remaining eight shorts. Two key Fleischer refugees, Seymour Kneitel (Max’s son-in-law) and Isadore Sparber, were hired as production chiefs. Five of the eight Famous Studios shorts are World War II-themed. In “Japoteurs,” the “world’s largest bomber plane” (an American invention) is hijacked during its maiden voyage. In “The Eleventh Hour,” Superman commits acts of sabotage in Japan. In “Destruction Inc.,” Lois investigates a munitions plant suspected of enemy infiltration. “Jungle Drums” ends with an Adolf Hitler cameo. In “Secret Agent,” a beautiful undercover agent embarks on a desperate mission to deliver a dossier detailing enemy plans. Some shorts present regrettable stereotypes. We’ve been here before. Such cringe-worthy scenes can really ruin the party for classic movie buffs.

Superman’s sci-fi roots were visualized in the animation medium. © Paramount Pictures; © Fleischer Studios; © DC Comics Inc.

Clayton Moore THE LONE RANGER WAS — NO PUN INTENDED — A straight shooter who never took a drink or killed indiscriminately, unlike some movie cowboys. “Well, the show started on radio in 1933. We, on the television series, lived up to the rules and regulations of the radio show,” said Clayton Moore (1914-1999), who portrayed the masked western hero on TV alongside Jay Silverheels (19121980) as Tonto. “It was a good moral program. Great for the kids. Great for the grownups, too. We need it today.” Moore played in 169 of the 222 episodes of “The Lone Ranger,” which aired on ABC from 1949 through 1957. “We pioneered the TV business,” Moore told me in 1992. “We started in 1949. We worked pretty fast, believe me. The budgets were very low in those days. We kept pretty active. And, of course, we had the fights going. Jay and myself were very careful. We rehearsed the stunts quite a bit. We made sure that nobody got injured. There was a tremendous amount of horse work. We did all of the horseback work, too. I love horses.”

Clayton Moore, then 78, again wore the Lone Ranger’s mask in 1992. Photo by Kathy Voglesong

SAID MOORE WHEN ASKED HIS THEORY ON on the enduring appeal of the Lone Ranger: “Well, I don’t think it’s only the Lone Ranger. I think it’s the fair play and the honesty that the cowboys showed, fellas like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and the Durango Kid, Charlie Starett. We had great heroes in the early days, too — Ken Maynard, George O’Brien, Colonel Tim McCoy, Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson, Buck Jones. “I was quite a western (movie) admirer when I was a kid. It was Americana, the trials and tribulations the pioneers went through in the early days across the desert and the mountains with the storms and the snow. A tough life. They survived. They gave us what we have today: America.”

Said Moore of his costar Silverheels: “He was a wonderful man to work with. We were certainly good friends off the screen as well as on the screen. We shook hands for the first time in 1949. “Jay was a full-blooded Mohawk Indian. He was born on the Six Nations reservation in Brantford, Canada. Good sense of humor. Very quick study. Good athlete. Wonderful horseback rider. He was quite a gentleman. We kept in touch constantly. We did a lot of personal appearances together years ago.” Said Moore of another co-star, the white thoroughbred horse Silver: “A beautiful animal. Very fast horse. Never got injured. Was very calm. Well kept. He was bathed every day. You know, with a white horse, you’ve got to keep him nice and clean, so he’ll look nice.”

Did Moore wish to reprise his role in Universal’s “The Legend of the Lone Ranger” (1981)? “I would have liked to have done the feature that they made at that time, of course,” the actor said. “Anything pertaining to the Lone Ranger, I was always very eager to participate in.” The role instead went to a relative unknown named Klinton Spilsbury, and the movie bombed. I asked Moore if he thought he would have done a better job as the Ranger. There was a brief pause. “I think everybody tried real hard to make a nice picture,” he finally said. “I got out of that one, didn’t I?”

He was the first to play Superman in a feature film and on TV. Iowa native George Reeves (1914-1959) first donned the capeand-tights of the Man of Steel in Lee Sholem’s “Superman and the Mole Men” (1951). It made history as the first superhero movie (even though it was really a glorified pilot for the television series). The plot has a surprising element of social consciousness, when a drilling project in a small town unearths Mole Men who glow in the dark, and a vigilante group forms with the intention of killing them. Exhorts Superman as the mob tries to infiltrate a hospital at which a Mole Man is recovering: “I’m going to give you one last chance to stop acting like Nazi stormtroopers!” “Superman and the Mole Men” was released through Lippert Pictures, makers of low-budget western, sci-fi, mystery and action films in the 1940s and ’50s. Phyllis Coates, later seen in “I Was a Teenage Frankenstein” (1957), co-starred as Lois Lane. Two of the Mole Men actors, Billy Curtis and Jerry Maren, played Munchkins in 1939’s “The Wizard of Oz.” (It was Maren who handed Judy Garland a lollipop when she first landed in Munchkinland.) The Mole Men wore bald-head wigs and furry eyebrows, and they brandished an Electrolux vaccum cleaner — which kind of looked like a prop out of “Plan 9” — as a weapon. REEVES AND COATES REPEATED their roles as Daily Planet reporters in the television series “The Adventures of Superman” (1952-58), which added Jack Larson as Jimmy Olsen, John Hamilton as Perry White, and Robert Shayne as Inspector Henderson. The “Mole Men” movie was re-edited into two episodes of “The Adventures of Superman” titled “The Unknown People” parts 1 and 2; these became the final two episodes of Season 1. “The Adventures of Superman” was filmed on the RKO-Pathé stages and backlot in Culver City, and sponsored by Kellogg’s. There were 103 episodes over six seasons. The first two seasons were filmed in black-and-white, and thereafter the series was in color (though the color shows initially aired in black-and-white). After Season 1, Coates was replaced by Noel Neill for the remaining five seasons. (Neill had originated the role in two serials opposite Kirk Alyn as Superman.) Reeves cut a striking figure as Superman, convincing in action scenes as he burst through faux walls and bounced off springboards for “takeoffs.”

“George was just a wonderful, wonderful guy,” Neill told me in 2002. “I called him a ‘Southern gentleman.’ He was just so sweet, so perfect, so nice to everybody. And he tried to help everybody. Jack said he gave away more money than he ever made. “When I first joined the group, I had a little trouble with one of the directors. George just stopped the shooting. He motioned the director over into the corner, and then came back. It turned out that he said, ‘Listen, this is the kid’s first day with a new family group. Give her a break.’ So I appreciated that to the end of my life.” IN 1988, LARSON TOLD STARLOG MAGAZINE of Reeves: “We were just getting to know each other. I told him how much I had enjoyed him in ‘So Proudly We Hail’ (1943). George was wearing his Superman costume, and he said, ‘If (director) Mark Sandrich hadn’t died, I wouldn’t be wearing this monkey suit today.” Larson told David Letterman during a 1982 TV appearance: “It was wonderful to do, and one of the wonderful things was George, who was so funny to work with. People often ask me, ‘How did you keep your sense of humor on the shows? Why are you so buoyant?’ It was hard to keep from laughing with George. “For instance, I would be tied to a chair with a bomb at my feet or something, and George would be prepared to come through a wall. Before the scene would shoot, suddenly George would appear around the corner of the set and he would blow me kisses. And he’d say, ‘Don’t you worry. Super-Boo’s gonna save you.’ ” A PIONEER OF THE COMIC BOOK’S translation to film was Whitney Ellsworth (1908-1980), a DC Comics editor and writer who was assigned to be an associate producer and script editor on the TV series, in order to keep an eye on the characters’ continuity. (This is of vital importance to comic book nerds.) Ellsworth earlier consulted on the Superman serials starring Kirk Alyn and the Batman serials starring Lewis Wilson and Robert Lowery. “The Adventures of Superman” had been renewed for a seventh season when Reeves’ shocking 1959 death cut short the actor’s life, career and his reign as the Man of Steel.

George Reeves, remembered as someone who stood up for his colleagues, cut a striking figure as Superman. © Warner Home Video; © DC Comics Inc.

39

Adam West

HE WAS THE RIGHT (BAT) MAN FOR THE JOB. An actor who could be both leading man and clown, Adam West (19282017) was born Billy West Anderson in Walla Walla, Washington. In his 1994 memoir, he was candid about his mother, Audrey, an alcoholic who West knew, even as a youngster, was not faithful to his father. Audrey had dreams of stardom, and once told West that but for his birth, she could have been Joan Crawford. Armchair psychologists might point to these events as the roots of West’s own issues with intimacy and commitment. West worked as a radio disc jockey in Walla Walla … spent a year with the McClatchy news agency … worked in an embryonic television facility at Fort Monmouth, N.J., while in the Army … migrated to Hawaii, where he made his film debut in the Boris Karloff movie “Voodoo Island” (1957) and hosted “The Kini Popo Show” on local TV … migrated to Los Angeles ... and won promising early roles in “The Young Philadelphians” (1959), TV’s “The Detectives” (1961-62), “Robinson Crusoe on Mars” (1964) and “The Outlaws is Coming” (1965). In the end, a silly little TV commercial for Nestlé’s caught the attention of producer William Dozier, leading to the role of a lifetime. I interviewed West on six occasions between 1992 and 2010. Q: Is it ever painful for you to talk about “Batman”? WEST: Not at all. I have no rancor, no bitterness. I don’t cry over all the money I’m missing. Q: When did you realize that you had become irreversibly famous? WEST: It was when I got home from the studio on the night “Batman” was scheduled to go on the air. I stopped at a market in Malibu, where I lived at the time, to grab a steak and a six-pack of beer for dinner. I was in a hurry and overworked. And I heard, at the checkout, “Come on! Hurry up! We’ve gotta get home to watch ‘Batman’! Faster!” And I thought, uh-oh, this could be the start of something. Q: When “Batman” premiered, us kids tried to stay faithful to “Lost in Space” on CBS. But once we saw you and Burt in those costumes … WEST: That’s very funny. See, that’s how we grabbed the kids. And then as adults, they watch it later and then they get the jokes. Q: You grew up during a great time for Batman comic books; you were 11 when the character debuted. Did you read them as a child? WEST: Yes, I did. My education was elective, not selective. Q: Did you bring anything from the comics into your portrayal? WEST: Well, you know what you do? You grab a little from something and something else, and you scratch it out. What I called on there was not so much the comic book, literally, but the sense memories of having read it and what it did to me. You know what I’m saying? As a kid. How it affected me, to call that back.

Adam West (shown in 1994, opposite, and 1992, right) was constantly reminded that the public equated him with Batman. Photos by Kathy Voglesong; “Batman” © Warner Bros.; character © DC Comics Inc.

Who else could have worn the cape and cowl?

Burt Ward HOLY CATCHPHRASE! IT WAS BURT WARD, attired in the famous red, yellow and green costume of Robin the Boy Wonder, who popularized those “Holy this” and “Holy that” sayings which were on the lips of everyone in schoolyards, beauty parlors, diners, offices and locker rooms across America during the Batman craze of the 1960s. A former professional ice skater, Ward’s athleticism came into play as he navigated the sometimes dangerous stunts while playing the teen hero. I spoke with the Los Angeles native (born 1945) in 1995, 1997 and 2001. Q: How were you picked for the role of Robin? You weren’t yet a professional actor at the time. WARD: I was studying acting, but I hadn’t done anything before. I was going to UCLA and selling real estate on the weekends. I was one of the youngest in California to get a real estate license. And I sold a house to a producer who sent me to an agent who sent me out for the part. It was the first thing I ever tried out for. Q: Had you read the comics? WARD: Sure, I read the comic books as a child. Well, I was mostly reading Superman and Superboy. But I did go back a little when I was doing the series, and kind of researched and looked again. I took another look at the characters. Q: Did you ever visit DC Comics in New York, or speak with (artists) Bob Kane or Carmine Infantino? WARD: I had lunch with Bob Kane. I was back in New York for the “Batman” movie opening (in 1966). It opened in 36 theaters in three days. And as a result of being there, we made a stop up to see the DC Comics people. So, yeah. Q: How were you received at DC? WARD: Great. I mean, we made them a lot of money (laughs). DC loved us.

A natural athlete, Ward said he performed most of his own stunts on “Batman.” © Warner Bros.; © DC Comics Inc.

‘Boy Wonder’ faced real-life danger on set

Q: Were you surprised when the “Batman” series became such a hit? WARD: Yes, but I didn’t know it right away. I was told later. You see, Adam and I worked very long hours on the stage every day, and then on Saturdays and Sundays he’d go to his house and I’d go to mine and we’d just crash out. We didn’t really get involved with the public in the beginning. And so when I heard the ratings were high, I said, “Gee, that’s nice.” Only when we started making personal appearances did we really see the effect on people. Q: In fight scenes, stunt men are in there for you and Adam in certain shots. What’s surprising is how many stunts really are you guys. WARD: As a matter of fact, I did almost all of my own stunts. They had a stunt man there not so much for stunts, really. It took such a long time to make a show that the stunt men choreographed the fight scenes, and then for the most part, Adam and I executed them. The stunt men were only really there for the long shots. Q: Any dangerous stunt anecdotes? WARD: Tons of ’em! I was in the emergency room five times on the first show. First day of shooting, I came out of the Batcave with a stunt driver, who drove like crazy. You know, their concept is: The more broken bones they get, the more work they get. Since I wore a very thin mask instead of a cowl like Batman, they always used me. That was the basic concept: Whenever there was anything really dangerous, always use Burt. And we came right at the camera. You see it on every show, where the Batmobile comes out and makes a sharp left? And in this case, my door flew open and hit the cameras and I almost flew out, going 55 miles per hour. I was able to grab the gearshift, the stickshift knob, to keep from falling out. This was the first day.

Q: What were your other injuries on that first episode? WARD: On the same show, there’s a scene where Batman breaks through the subway. This is the Frank Gorshin one, the first one. I was on the table, and Batman breaks through the tunnel in the subway to rescue me. The special effects men were to have built a “breakaway” set, so that when they put in these light explosives, it would just break away and Batman could come through. Well, the people that built the set, in their infinite wisdom, didn’t make it a breakaway set. They built a regular set with 2x4s. There wasn’t time to cut it all up and redo it. So again, the special effects people, being the geniuses that they were, planted three sticks of dynamite and nearly blew the entire sound stage down! I had 2x4s landing on my head! I went right back into the emergency ward. Then — on the same show — I’m climbing out of a burning car and Batman, being the main character, gets to come out first. So I’m down there in this flaming car while Adam stands there, taking quite a while in front of the camera before coming out. And just as I start to jump out, the car accidentally blew up and threw us both to the ground. I got scorched and went back in the emergency room. So that was three (laughs). Anyway, quite a lot of things like that happened. I thought I wasn’t going to survive it. Q: As a show-biz newcomer, were you aware of the legendary status of many of the guest stars who appeared as villains? WARD: Oh, sure. I was like a kid in a candy store. Every one of these superstars shows up, and here I am, just a kid working with them, you know? I was just a 20-year-old kid brought up in a sheltered life. So for me, all of this stuff was so much of a change. It was really a treat to work with so many greats. I don’t have one complaint about one person on “Batman.” They were all terrific. It was like a learning experience for me, working with people like Tallulah Bankhead and George Raft. Great, great actors and actresses. They were fabulous. Each one brought something different to the show. I just had the greatest time. Q: Were there any guest villains who didn’t “get” it? Tallulah Bankhead was, first and foremost, a stage actress ... WARD: No, she was wonderful. “Batman” was such a success that everybody wanted to do the show. Everybody wanted to kind of let go and be crazy, and that’s what they did. Q: It seemed that the top four villains on the show were Riddler, Penguin, Joker and Catwoman. The movie supported this view. WARD: Well, they may have been the four who were selected for the movie, but I’ll tell ya, I really enjoyed working with a lot of the others, too. Victor Buono, who played King Tut, was incredible. I think Vincent Price, who played Egghead, was great. Q: Adam said Otto Preminger was the most difficult guest. WARD: I had heard stories about the horror, the terror of this man Otto Preminger. But he was very nice to me. Q: How about his fellow Mr. Freeze, George Sanders? WARD: George Sanders had an elegance and a class. He just reeked of class. He kind of reminded me of Cesar Romero. Very classy man. Just totally professional. Totally sophisticated. He was just terrific. The fact of his suicide (in 1972) was such a surprise. It really stunned me, the tragedy of his death.

“It was the first thing I ever tried out for,” said Ward (shown in 1992) of auditioning for the role of Robin. Photo by Kathy Voglesong

From left: The versatile Frank Gorshin in “Portland Expose” (1957), “Combat!” (1965) and “Star Trek” (1969).

Frank Gorshin © Allied Artists Pictures; © ABC Television; © Paramount Pictures

“HE’S DANGEROUS,” ADAM WEST ONCE SAID OF Frank Gorshin, the comic actor who clearly relished playing the Riddler, a mad criminal genius who seemed like he wanted to get caught. Why else would he spill all of those clues? Gorshin imbued the green-clad Riddler with a manic, overthe-top energy that seemed unrehearsed, and was positively spellbinding. His many years doing standup as an impressionist probably had a lot to do with it. I spoke with the Pittsburgh native (1933-2005) in 1996, 1997 and 2001. Q: As the Riddler in the first two episodes of “Batman,” you earned the distinction of being the show’s first “guest villain.” GORSHIN: I was on the first episode, yeah. I guess I was the pioneer. I kind of set the pace for the series. I received a nomination for an Emmy for that (in 1966), but I didn’t actually win the Emmy. But, yeah, I helped set the tone for it. Q: The show, with its colorful costumes and sets and comedic scripts, was different from anything that preceded it. GORSHIN: That was exciting. It was going to be a new, different thing — the comic book done with real-life characters. I loved it, loved being part of it. That was a big mark, a big changing point in my career. It was a catalyst. I’m talking about my nightclub situation. Up to that time, I was an opening act. Suddenly, I became a headliner because of the importance I took on from that exposure. Q: What did you use as inspiration for your interpretation of the character? Did you consult, for instance, the comic books? GORSHIN: No. I remembered the comic books. When I was a kid, I remembered reading the Riddler and loving that character, even though he was synonymous with evil. But he had such a zest for life, such enthusiasm, even though what he was doing was wrong. But whatever he was doing, he did with a full commitment. It was a game for him. Life was just a game — outwitting the law and outwitting Batman.

Q: So you already had an idea of what you would do? GORSHIN: I thought he was going to be a fun character to do. Here’s a guy who fancied himself as a genius, as someone who could do everything. You know, he would think of himself as a great actor, a great scientist, a great mathematician. I thought it would give me that kind of scope. I thought I could end up doing Shakespeare, even, and things that the Riddler could do that nobody else could do as well, as far as he was concerned. I felt that I had a lot of levity in that role. It’s too bad it lasted only three seasons. Because they would write it so that I would touch on Shakespeare. I would have a situation where I was raiding the vaults of the motion picture museum, and in raiding the vault, I assumed the roles of different people. This is one episode. Q: In your actual playing of the character, in your reading of the lines, you sometimes fluctuated between over-the-top hysteria and quiet menace. It kept viewers on edge. GORSHIN: Well, just the character himself was broad, you know? All the “Batman” characters were broad just by virtue of them showing up. I think no matter what I would have done as an actor, it would all seem big. I think the clothes that I was wearing were already making a statement. Q: How did you develop the Riddler’s trademark laugh? GORSHIN: It’s my own laugh. I found it when I started listening to my own laugh. I knew the laugh was going to be the key thing. If anything, it had to be honest. I didn’t want it to sound like a fabricated laugh. I’ve found that whenever something breaks me up — (Gorshin did a Riddler laugh here) — I get this high-pitched tone. And I felt, “That’s it! I’ve got to use that all the time.” I laugh at people, sometimes patronizingly — (Gorshin did a “regular” laugh) — I laugh like that. But when something really breaks me up, I get that high-pitched sound (Gorshin did a Riddler laugh).

Q: The outfit you wore as the Riddler was unforgivingly form-fitting. Did you have to lay off the pasta in order to squeeze into it? GORSHIN: I love pasta (laughs). I always eat pasta. But that’s not fattening. It’s what you put on that pasta that’s fattening. No, at the time, I was pretty trim. I only weighed 155 pounds, as opposed to now. Now, I’m between 175 and 180. The costume was dictated by the comic book. That’s what the comic book was. If you look at those old comic books, he wore the same skin-tight outfit. The same one I wore, the same one Jim Carrey wore (in “Batman Forever”). Q: Adam and Burt said they got pretty banged up while shooting “Batman.” Do you have any dangerous stunt anecdotes? GORSHIN: When I came down that slide in that first episode, I had a tough time doing that. When I’d get down to the bottom of the slide, I always ended up on my can. That was embarrassing, to have everybody watching. But then after a few tries, I got it. Q: As the Riddler, sometimes you wore the mask, sometimes not. Did you do this unconsciously, or was it in the script? GORSHIN: Well, the Riddler wasn’t worried about being recognized. But he would feel, from time to time, that the mask made him more attractive (laughs). Q: Burt Ward has called Adam West, with affection, the world’s greatest upstager. Did he upstage you? GORSHIN: No. It was Burt Ward who upstaged me. He’s the world’s greatest upstager (laughs). Q: What was the main difference between making “Batman” the TV show and “Batman” the movie? GORSHIN: Really, there was no difference, although on the show, each episode would be dedicated to one particular villain. On the movie, we all got to work together — Cesar and Burgess and Lee Meriwether. In that respect, it was different. And it took more weeks to shoot than an episode, of course. Q: Before “Batman,” you did those wild impressions of Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster on “Ed Sullivan.” Did you ever hear from those guys? GORSHIN: I heard they were flattered by what I did. Kirk Douglas himself told me he loved to watch me do it. He said that if he ever forgot how to do himself, he would call me (laughs). Q: Are there ever times when you regret being so identified with the Riddler? GORSHIN: No! How could I resent it? It was really an important part of my career. I like to think that people are aware that I do other things too. I can’t resent it, because it did a lot for me. Even now, I get kids who are 10, 11 years old who know me because they’ve seen me as the Riddler. So it’s kept me alive, so to speak, my career.

Gorshin (shown in 2001) compared the Riddler to Shakespeare. Photo by Kathy Voglesong

Righteous wheels HE WAS DESIGNING A CAR FROM A COMIC BOOK. But George Barris, Hollywood’s “King of the Customizers,” didn’t design a comic book car. “As you know, in the comic book, Bob Kane had an old Zephyr,” Barris (1925-2015) told me during a 1997 interview. “The bat-face was just cut out of metal and stuck on the front. Of course, this was an artist’s rendition. When they (ABC TV) came to me — this was in 1966 — they said, ‘We want to get a 20th-century Batmobile, something that would be for a crimefighter with the crimefighting equipment of today.’ Immediately I thought, ‘If I’m going to build a Batmobile, I want to incorporate the bat-features into the car, and not have it be just a ‘paste-up.’ “That’s why, when I designed the car, I designed it off the Futura. The original car was a Futura Lincoln-Mercury Ford ‘concept car.’ A concept car is not a production car or a year model. It’s not sold to the public. It’s a concept car like you see at a new car dealers’ show. You see special ‘idea’ cars or futuristic cars. “Because we had three weeks to build the car, I had to have a basic car that I could work with. That one (the Futura) already had some of the characteristics that I wanted. It had the double basic bubbles. It was only a two-passenger. It was 20 feet long. I could use that to effect the length and the wheel base.”

The Batmobile in 1989. With only three weeks to build the “No. 1 car,” Barris used a Futura Lincoln-Mercury concept car as a “skeleton.” Photo by Kathy Voglesong

With the Futura as a suitable “skeleton” for the Batmobile, Barris set about customizing the vehicle. “Of course, I changed the basic fins around so that I could get the bat-fins,” Barris said. “I took the headlights and made them into bat-ears. I took the scoop and made it into a nose. We had the chain slicer coming out of the nose. The grills on each side, I made out of cavities; they became the mouth. “In painting the car black, we outlined all of the characteristic lines in a fluorescent reddish-orange, which is a ‘glow’ color, so that it would glow at night. That meant the bat-face and the batfins and the bat-figures would illuminate at night on camera or wherever we had it. That’s the effect we wanted.” What did the TV folks mean when they said the car should have the “crimefighting equipment of today”? “At that time, crimefighting implements were squirting out oil so the Joker, who was chasing you, would skid out,” Barris laughed. “Or throw out nails to puncture the Riddler’s tires. Or we had ejector seats, so that they could get out of the car quick in case there was a theft. We had rockets and the chain slicer in the front.”

BARRIS, WHO ALSO DESIGNED THE As for the car’s popularity: “The Batmobile has delightfully dilapidated “Beverly Hillbillies” gotten so much recognition through television and truck, built two Batmobiles in metal and three in movies,” Barris said. “People love it. It just seemed fiberglass for the production. to catch ahold and move forward. (Executive pro“We always have to make more than one ducer) Bill Dozier — with his creativity of making car,” the customizer explained. “Because if you ‘Batman’ into a POW! WHAM! BANG! humorous have one car and it gets smashed while you’re show — followed the trait of having the Batmobile filming, you can’t stop the whole production to become an effective part of that show.” build another car. That’s another three months. The 1966 Batmobile remained a fan favorite. Time is money. You don’t want that. “Today, it’s all computers and electronics,” “So you always want to have a spare car — Barris said. “They can do things today that are just one or two or three other cars — in case there’s unbelievable and fantastic. But the old days of the an accident or it stops running. crimefighting collector pieces still become a favorite “We started out with one metal car. In order of the people, because it was enjoyable. It was not to make the duplicates, it’s a lot easier to pull a so fancy and way-out that you couldn’t adjust to it. mold off of one car to make the other ones. You George Barris in the ’60s. People can’t understand all these high-tech electronPublicity photo can put a fiberglass body together a lot faster ics, with buttons and lights and computers.” and better than trying to do them all out of If Batman was at all territorial about people drivmetal. Since we had two cars that were also going out on tour — ing his car on the TV show, he didn’t enforce it very well. Many which eventually went to three and four cars, of course — it was a other characters, friends and foes alike, got behind the bat-wheel. lot better and more effective to have those be fiberglass cars. So These include Robin, Alfred, the Riddler, the Penguin, the the No. 1 car was the original, which was built in metal, and the Catwoman, King Tut, the Black Widow and the Sandman. No. 5 car was the stunt car, which was also built in metal.” In a (very) weird related development, the Batmobile was sometimes used as a conduit to smuggle characters into the Batcave, often with the use of sleep-inducing “bat gas.” (In this way, the “visitors” wouldn’t realize that the Batcave was located beneath Wayne Manor.) Such interlopers include Commissioner Gordon, Batgirl and various henchladies. In the 1966 movie, the Penguin smuggles a small army of henchman into the Batcave to overtake Batman and Robin. (It’s too bad for Pengy that said henchmen are vaporized on contact.)

Adam West on the Batmobile: “Every time I got in that car

— I mean, the car was not poised. It wasn’t set up. The suspension, the drive train, it was so torque-y and off-balance. It wasn’t very stable. And every time I did something in the car, poor Burt (Ward) was hanging on for dear life. George’s cars looked good. That’s all I can say.”

ANIMATION

Titans of the ’toons

It was the comic books come to life. And that ain’t hyperbole.

Grantray-Lawrence Animation’s series “Marvel Super Heroes” debuted in syndication on Sept. 5, 1966, a period during which superheroes could do no wrong — something the series put to the test. This was limited animation at its most limited. Actual Marvel page art was Xeroxed (then a new technology). Camera tricks such as zoom-ins were employed to give the illusion of movement. But lest we forget: This was artwork by Jack Kirby, Don Heck, Gene Colan, Bill Everett — guys whose illustrations had movement. The series’ roster of heroes comprised Captain America, the Sub-Mariner, the Hulk, Thor and Iron Man. But the shorts also introduced deeper-cut Marvel characters (to mainstream viewers, at least) such as the Avengers, the X-Men and many villains. When I brought up the series to Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee during a 1992 interview, I found myself being serenaded. Lee warbled the first line from the show’s opening theme song: “He’s a sulky, over bulky, kind of hulky superhero ...” I told Lee that, believe it or not, I felt the 1966 cartoon series was the most successful attempt to capture Marvel on film up to that time. (The so-called “Marvel Curse” was still a thing in 1992, and Lee had been disappointed in Marvel’s filmic progress up to that point. Boy, would things change over the next 10 years.)

How was it arranged that the actual Marvel Comics page art would be used? “I don’t remember too clearly,” Lee said. “The two guys who did it, I believe, were (animators) Bob Lawrence and Steve Krantz. They were both interested in preserving the real feeling the Marvel characters had, and I worked with them. While the animation was rather limited at that time, they made a concerted effort to keep them as close to the stories in the Marvel comic books and as close to the artwork as possible. “Unfortunately, all of the other animation we did, or most of it, was all done for networks. And networks are notorious for changing things and editing things, telling you how they want to do it. “You’re quite right. Of everything that’s been done, those primitive little cartoons were the closest to our own style.” There are two reasons for this. One is that, although the shorts presented solo adventures by the six heroes, there were occasional unbilled appearances by characters from surrounding Marveldom. The Captain America segment “The Return of Captain America” is like reading an issue of The Avengers. The Sub-Mariner segment “Dr. Doom’s Day” is like reading The Uncanny X-Men. The second reason? The small matter of actual comic book art being “animated.” It looked great. But was it fair and equitable?

TV’s “Marvel Super Heroes” had super cheezy animation and recycled artwork, but it introduced deepcut Marvel characters to the mainstream. © Marvel Comics Inc.; © Grantray-Lawrence Animation

This ad for the animated “Marvel Super Heroes” appeared in Marvel comic books in 1966. Below: Spidey snaps one. © Marvel Comics Inc.; © Grantray-Lawrence Animation

DON HECK WAS IRON MAN’S FOUNDING ARTIST. In 1993, I asked him if he was aware of the animated series. Heck knew exactly what I was talking about, if not the exact title. “You mean the — whaddaya call it? — the ‘Merry Marching Marvel Society?’ ” was the artist’s response. I told Heck that I’d recognized some of his Iron Man comic book artwork that was used in the TV cartoons. “They stole it!” he came back. “Whaddaya mean, ‘used’ it? They traced it! Panels were taken cold. They just blew them up or made ‘stats’ of them, and moved the mouths. The first one they put on was a George Tuska job, and he wasn’t given credit.” Nor, one would suppose, was he given remuneration. “We didn’t get any money for it,” Heck said. “Somebody called me and said, ‘Gee, I see you made out. You’re in television.’ I said, ‘What, television?’ When they send me the check, then I’m in television. When they don’t send me money, I’m not in television. It doesn’t do anything for me. “None of us got anything for that. Any more than Jack Kirby got money — I doubt it, anyway — when the Hulk suddenly appeared on television. I’m sure he didn’t get a dime. Creativity rights weren’t given in those days.”

SPIDER-MAN WAS ARGUABLY MARVEL’S MOST popular character by 1966. So why wasn’t he on the “Marvel Super Heroes” roster? It happens that he was, until he wasn’t. It was wisely decided to put Spidey on hold for a future solo series. (Congratulations to Iron Man for getting Spidey’s ’66 slot.) The resulting series, “Spider-Man” (1967-70), was the first filmic depiction of the hero co-created by Steve Ditko and Lee. The same animation team was put on “Spider-Man,” which was technically a better show. It had original animation art (no more “stolen” panels); and the longer-form stories were generally true to the comics. Two voice artists from the 1964 Christmas special “Rudolph the RedNosed Reindeer” did “Spider-Man” voices: Paul Soles (Spider-Man), who was Hermey the Elf, and Paul Kligman (J. Jonah Jameson), who was Donner. Villains included the Green Goblin, Mysterio, the Rhino, the Scorpion, the Vulture, Dr. Octopus, Electro and Kingpin. Plus, the show had one groovy theme song (co-written by three-time Oscar winner Paul Francis Webster). Sample lyric: “Wealth and fame? / He’s ignored / Action is / his reward.” It was once covered by the Ramones, bruh!

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“Space Ghost” © Hanna-Barbera Productions

Saturday-morning-friendly supercharacters filled air time. But Space Ghost was different. Despite having a masked monkey for a sidekick and some inherently goofy villains, Hanna-Barbera’s “Space Ghost” (initially broadcast 1966-68) played it straight, more or less. Space Ghost has often been called, in elevator-pitch fashion, “Batman in space.” He certainly looks as cool as Batman. Much credit for this goes to Alexander “Alex” Toth (19282006), a comic book artist with a resumé dating back to the 1940s. Toth pulled a mid-career switch beginning in 1960 by honing a specialty in character design and storyboarding for animation. Drawing on his extensive background in superhero comics — Toth had drawn Green Lantern, Flash, and the Justice Society of America during the Golden Age of Comics —he created sleek animation designs that were instantly classic. Toth rendered Space Ghost as a mysterious figure in a black hood (with white eyes), a gold cape, white tights and red armbands. The character’s founding voice artist was Gary Owens, remembered as the announcer on the very ’60s TV comedy “Laugh-In.” Space Ghost patrolled outer space in his rocket plane, the Phantom Cruiser, accompanied by teenage cohorts Jan (voiced by Ginny Tyler of Disney fame) and Jace (Tim Matheson of “Animal House” fame), plus Blip the monkey (Don Messick, the voice of Scooby Doo). In keeping with the All Things Superhero policies of 1966, each of these characters was masked. Even Blip. The group communicated via radios in their chest emblems. Largely thanks to those versatile armbands, Space Ghost could activate a force field; emit powerful energy and hypno rays; attain invisibility; and fly through space with no apparent air helmet.

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BATMAN VS. SPACE GHOST MISSION Fights injustice from the dark corners of Gotham City

Fights injustice from the dark corners of outer space

TRAJECTORY Started out in comic books, wound up on television

Started out on television, wound up in comic books

COSTUME Dark cowl with white eyes, cape, tights, gloves, boots

Dark cowl with white eyes, cape, tights, gloves, boots

SIDEKICK(S) Masked teenager Robin

Masked teenagers Jan and Jace

ANIMAL PAL Ace the Bat-hound (a masked dog)

Blip (a masked monkey)

Guest villains were voiced by Ted Cassidy (Lurch on “The Addams Family”); Keye Luke (Kato in the Green Hornet serials); Alan Reed (the voice of Fred Flintstone); and Vic Perrin (the kinda creepy announcer on “The Outer Limits”). But was Space Ghost a ghost? Important details like Space Ghost’s origin story were left to subsequent iterations to fill in, and liberties were taken. In 1994, Space Ghost was reintroduced as a talk show host in the Cartoon Network’s droll sendup “Space Ghost: Coast to Coast.” The roster of live-action guests was, to say the least, eclectic. Guests included Bjork, Willie Nelson, the Bee Gees, the Ramones, Jim Carrey, George Clinton, Ice-T, Carol Channing, David Byrne, Kevin Smith, Charlton Heston, Timothy Leary, and — in yet another full-circle moment — Adam West.

Comic book worthy It wasn’t all kids’ stuff on Saturday mornings. During TV’s superhero craze, Hanna-Barbera occasionally took the genre seriously with characters that could have headlined comic books prior to their TV shows (rather than the other way around). Space Ghost designer Alex Toth was also behind Birdman, a Hawkman-like hero with a peculiar cry, and Mighty Mightor, a club-wielding hero from the dinosaur days. HB also brought Marvel’s Fantastic Four to the small screen, though Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Girl, the Human Torch and the Thing had already — ahem — proven their comic book worthiness. (’Nuff said.) And as preposterous and maligned as DePatie-Freleng’s “Super President” was, a comic book starring the moonlighting politico would get my vote.

Saturday morning heroes from top: Space Ghost, Birdman, the Fantastic Four, Super President, Jan, Jace, Mightor and Blip. © Hanna-Barbera Productions; except the Fantastic Four © Marvel Comics Inc. and Super President © DePatie-Freleng

COLLECTIBLES

Rise of an industry A dry run for the deluge of TV-hero-themed memorabilia happened during the 1950s.

Well, it couldn’t have happened in the 1930s (with the Great Depression and all), nor the 1940s (with World War II and all). After all of that scrimping, saving and sacrificing came the era of “post-war optimism.” The advance of television had been put on hold during those trying times. But in the nifty 1950s, as bulky TV sets entered more and more households, television grew into a cultural force. Children were glued to the sets to watch their favorite shows such as “The Howdy Doody Show,” “The Lone Ranger,” “The Roy Rogers Show,” “Hopalong Cassidy,” “The Adventures of Superman” and sci-fi programs like “Tom Corbett, Space Cadet” and “Captain Video and His Video Rangers.” Fess Parker, who starred in Walt Disney’s miniseries “Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier,” got to be as big as the Beatles — at least, to the munchkins. “I first got a clue to the enormity of it when I was sent out on tour,” Parker told me in 1995. “There were massive crowds. I shook hands with 3,000 children a day in the department stores where I was placed.

“I was appearing in different venues, all of which were just completely unique. I’d never dreamed that I would be asked to speak at the Rotary, or have dinner with this person or that person, from breakfast until it was time to go to bed, and then on to the next city. It was almost overwhelming, but I got through it.” Television — moving pictures and sound in real time — became the ultimate marketing tool. Perhaps the most ubiquitous TV tie-in product of the ’50s was the coonskin cap popularized by Parker. Artist Howard Bender, a “Crockett” fan who grew up in the decade of Elvis and hula hoops, believed Disney was using his Sunday night TV show to hype Disneyland, which opened in 1955. “He’d have Frontierland, and then he’d do a TV show about that,” Bender told me in 2023. “Disney decided to do Davy Crockett who, unfortunately for him, was a real person; he couldn’t be copyrighted. This gave anyone license to put Davy Crockett on any product. That’s why the craze was so huge. But you could always tell the Disney stuff by Fess Parker’s face.” The selling power of “Howdy Doody” was noted in a mailing to potential commercial partners bearing the slogan “Meet Howdy Doody, the super-popular salesman on strings.” A chilling sentence from that mailing: “It is even conceivable that your TV-tutored 2-year-old clearly enunciated ‘Howdy Doody’ before learning to say ‘Mommy’ or ‘Daddy.’ ” Scorch! IT’S NO COINCIDENCE THAT SO MANY kiddie shows of the period were western-themed. The venerable, old-timey genre still ruled kids’ entertainment, until the anything-goes 1960s came along and everything went kablooey. So when the TV “Batman” skyrocketed in the ratings with its Jan. 1966 premiere, the merchandising magnates were ready to pounce. They had systems in place. They had formats from lunch boxes to puppets to games to dolls to models to masks. They knew the ins and outs of licensing. No pun intended, but after everything they’d learned during the reign of Davy Crockett, Howdy Doody and the Lone Ranger — well, this was not their first rodeo.

Television grew into a cultural force during the nifty 1950s. Shown: Items based on the TV properties “The Lone Ranger,” “Howdy Doody” and “Davy Crockett.” © The Wrather Corp.; © NBC Television; © Ideal Toy Co.; © Current copyright holder

Games people played One freezing Sunday night when I was 8, my father took me to a huge, dark warehouse to pick up some thing from some guy. (It didn’t hit me until decades later that this was, tellingly, an “after hours” transaction.) For being my father’s discreet little wingman that night, I was rewarded with a Justice League of America board game plucked from one of the warehouse shelves. Don’t ask ... don’t tell. You knew the superhero craze was out of control when they started making board games about Mr. Fox, Mr. Justice, Mr. Jag and Mr. Steel. Who? They’re four of your 10 “favorite hero characters,” according to Transogram. Some of the characters on The Mighty Comics Super Heroes Game looked familiar, like the Shield and Fly Girl, but come on. From top: The aforementioned Mighty Comics game; Milton Bradley’s Captain America Game and The Amazing Spider-Man Game; and Transogram’s The Phantom: Ruler of the Jungle Game. © Archie Comics; © Marvel Comics Inc.; © King Features Syndicate

Mask up!

Don’t just watch TV and read comic books — become your favorite superhero! Above: The Woolworth’s chain heralded Ben Cooper’s glut of superhero costumes. Left: Ideal’s hard plastic Batman helmet covered the entire head. (But be sure to look both ways before crossing the street, kids.) Ad © F.W. Woolworth Co.; characters © DC Comics Inc., © Zorro Productions Inc., © The Green Hornet Inc.; helmet box photo courtesy of Heritage Auctions

On Halloween, at least, a kid could become a superhero for a day. Ben Cooper masks from top left: Batman, Aquaman, Daredevil, Captain America, Wonder Woman, Thor, Green Hornet, the Hulk, Superman, the Flash, Batgirl and Spider-Man. © DC Comics Inc. except the Green Hornet © The Green Hornet Inc. and Captain America, Daredevil, the Hulk, Spider-Man and Thor © Marvel Comics Inc.; masks © Ben Cooper

Manufacturers were just about tripping over each other. In the Year of Our Lord 1966, you couldn’t walk into a store without seeing Batman and Robin plastered on something. If it was a supermarket, you’d see Batman bread, Batman cola and Batman jelly. If it was a department store, you’d see Batman model kits, Batman board games and Batman play sets. If it was a pharmacy, you’d see Batman comic books, Batman paperbacks and Batman-related cover stories on the magazine rack. If it was a toy store — well, forget it, old chum. They may as well have renamed it The Batman Store. Wrote Joe Desris in “Batman: The Silver Age Newspaper Comics Vol. 1: 1966-1967” (2014, IDW Publishing): “An insatiable market for Batman merchandise single-handedly ushered in a new era of comic and superhero licensing and promotion.” Wrote Josh and Gordon Javna in their book “60s!” (1988, St. Martin’s Press): “In 1966, the show’s first year on the air, more than 60 manufacturers made more than 500 Batman products and sold more than $60 million worth of them! It astounded everybody.” How could it not? There was a deluge of masks, puppets, model kits, lunch boxes, trading cards, pins, board games and accessories popularized by the TV show like bat-utility belts, bat-phones, bat-walkie talkies, and bat-weapons. Manufacturers slotted Batman into existing formats such as Pez candy dispensers and ViewMaster reels. Colorforms’ low-tech-but-versatile Batman and Robin Cartoon Kit sure was goofy. So what? It still qualified as a Batman toy. If you were in the sweet spot — old enough to dig Batman, but not too old to still play with toys in the manner of a small child — Ideal’s Official Batman Play Sets were tailor-made. I snagged one as the top prize in a drawing at some kid’s birthday party. It had 3.5-inch-tall figures of Batman, Robin, a few bad guys, plus vehicles and weapons, all on a cardboard “stage.” Create your own Batman show! The figures were touted as “hand-painted,” but I could have sworn mine were in solid colors, with Batman in blue. (A false memory?) The sculpting was Aurora and Marx-worthy. Yep, these sets were a blast — if you fell within that blessed sweet spot. Some of the most bizarre, innovative and just plain funny Batmabilia came out of Japan, where graphic designers tossed away Batman’s strict visual continuity, especially in the characters’ costume color schemes. There were tin toys, games, manga (Japanese comic books) and a transparent ripoff of Batman and Robin called — you will love this — Space Flyman and Punch Boy.

A Batman Pez stays vigilant (and dispenses candy). Opposite: Batmabilia-a-go-go. © PEZ; characters © DC Comics Inc.

The Green Hornet, owing to his TV association with Batman, inspired more merch than most of his contemporary masked avengers save for You Know Who. There were Hornet trading cards, wrist radios, wallets, pins and Gumby-like figures. GH’s sweet ride, the Black Beauty, was rendered by Aurora, Corgi and Remco. Though many Marvel Comics heroes were relative newcomers — Batman was born in ’39, Spider-Man in ’62 — Marvel received a bump, merch-wise, from the trend. There were beautifully sculpted figures of Iron Man, Thor, et al., and charming tin vehicles from Marx. But clearly, the king and prince of the swag scene were Batman and Robin. It cannot be overstated: They were everywhere. I mean, giveaway masks from General Electric Television? And who ever thought that Batman and Robin Rolykins would be a good idea? Who even knew what Rolykins were?

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Manufacturers listed unless unknown. 1: Batman arcade rings. 2: “Batman and Robin” album (Tifton Records). 3: Pinball game (Marx). 4: Batman playing card. 5: Batman board game (Hasbro). 6: “Batman” View-Master (Mattel). 7: Batmobile batphone (replica). 8: View-Master viewer (Mattel). 9: Batman game piece (Hasbro). 10: Batman hand puppet (Ideal). 11: Batman bank (Lego). 12: Robin Rolykin (Marx). 13: Batman Club “code” card. 14: Penguin model kit box (Aurora). 15: Batman Rolykin (Marx). 16-19: Batman Activity Box figures of Batman, Robin, Penguin and Joker (Whitman). 20: Pop-Tarts featuring Batman comics giveaway (Kellogg’s). 21: Batman Trading Cards wrapper (Topps). 105

Bat accessories The well-equipped Batfan was prepared in case supervillains invaded their block. From top: Detail of box art from Ideal’s Official Batman Play Set; Marx’s Batphone Hot-Line (a “talking” toy with 10 sayings); Hot Toys’ Batman Utility Belt (a replica); Lone Star Toys’ sci-fi lookin’ Batman Cap Gun; Remco’s Batman Walkie-Talkie; Ideal’s Batman Utility Belt. © Ideal Toy Corp.; © Louis Marx & Co.; © Hot Toys; © Lone Star Toys; © Remco. Batman © DC Comics Inc.

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Batman knockoffs Ever hear of Super Bat or Batichica? A Batman knockoff side hustle thrived during Batmania. From above left: Argentina’s Batichica; a “jiggler” from 1973; a sad guy in red leotards with oven mitts; the Batichica logo; packaging from the Super Bat (who?) costume.

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All this (& gum) for a nickel BOLD. EXQUISITE. HYPNOTIC. And weird as hell. The painted artwork of Topps’ first three Batman trading card series of 1966 remain some of the finest, and craziest, visual depictions of Batman and Robin in any medium — comics and film included. The paintings were museum worthy, at least to us whelps who spent our hard-won nickels on them. They were markedly different from any other Batman-related media seen during this fast and furious era. On the TV show, Batman never pursued a crook atop the Statue of Liberty, nor hung from a giant clock. (Little did we know, these exciting scenes were throwbacks to the pulp fiction covers of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, painted by one of the medium’s masters. More on that later.) We generally think of Topps as a trading card company, but actually, it began as a chewing gum company that used cards to help sell gum. Topps Chewing Gum, Inc., of Brooklyn was founded in 1938 and introduced Bazooka Bubble Gum in 1947. Though Topps is best known for its baseball cards, the company’s initial cards featured movie cowboy “Hopalong” Cassidy. Topps’ 1952 Mickey Mantle card once sold for $12.6 million (!). Topps got into painted artwork with trading card series on the Civil War, World War II, and its infamous sci-fi series “Mars Attacks.” The “Batman” TV show triggered a tsunami of merchandising in 1966 — something that was anticipated by Len Brown, then an editor for Topps. He told me in 1996: “Batman was another thing, like science fiction, that deeply influenced my life. I collected the comics when I was a little kid. My earliest memories of going to the movies were seeing these 1940s Batman black-and-white serials, where they’d show a chapter a week. My grandfather took me. In ’49, the second Batman serial was issued, so I went every Saturday. I was 6. I remember thinking they were great. I’ve seen them again since, and laugh at the campiness and how poorly done they were. “So Batman was just a character that I loved. And now he was going to be on television. We heard about it the previous year.” Brown alerted his superiors at Topps about the upcoming show.

Above: Topps’ 1952 Mickey Mantle card and FDR on Topps’ 1965 World War II set. Opposite: A 1966 Catwoman card autographed by Julie Newmar. Cards © Topps; Catwoman © DC Comics Inc.

“I remember telling (Topps supervisor) Woody Gelman and the people who made these decisions: ‘As soon as Batman goes on TV, we’ve gotta get the rights to do it. Because this is going to be huge. Kids are going to see Batman for the first time in the flesh.’ Sure enough, the Adam West show debuted and it was an immediate hit.” Topps figured that photos from the TV show would be used for the cards. Recalled Brown: “They (DC Comics) said, ‘No, there’s a problem. We don’t have the rights to the actors’ likenesses. Why don’t you just use artwork, like comics?’ It was licensed through DC Comics at the time.” But Brown and his colleagues had a different idea. Previously, Topps enjoyed success with “Civil War News,” a trading card series about the Civil War dressed up with blood and guts. Chief among artists assigned to the series were Norman Saunders, whose dynamic painted covers adorned pulp fiction magazines beginning in the 1930s, and Bob Powell, a veteran comic book artist who served as a penciller. “We got pushed into it, but I think we lucked out,” Brown said. “We really wanted pictures from the TV show because we felt that’s what the kids would want. So really, we were forced into doing the paintings.” SURPRISINGLY, DC BALKED WHEN they first saw the finished artwork. “I remember going up there with the art after we had finished it, to get the approvals,” Brown said. “They hated it. They wanted it to look just like the comics. They wanted it to look like Bob Kane comic book art. That’s what they were licensing. They said, ‘What are you guys doing? You’re painting it? You’re trying to make it look like Adam West and Burt Ward?’ I guess, to a certain extent, you might say that. We didn’t make it look exactly like the actors, but we felt the cards should look like pulp covers — you know, the way paperback covers looked in those days. “When I left DC, I was completely dejected. I couldn’t get approval. It took the president of Topps calling somebody high up in the DC chain for them to say, ‘OK, OK, go ahead and use it.’ ” In the end, money talked; the Batman cards were a huge seller. “Batman was, to the ’60s, like the Davy Crockett craze was to the ’50s,” Brown said. “Every kid was into Batman.” The painted art was realistic, cinematic and, not for nuthin’, weird. The artists — whose numbers grew with the second and third series — seemed to pack an entire story into each 2.5"-by3.5" card. The fleet synopses forced the reader to fill in story details, a healthy exercise for growing brains.

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SCHWARTZ AGAIN ENLISTED INFANTINO, ASSIGNSCHWARTZ ENCOUNTERED KANE AGAIN YEARS ing two strong inkers to him: Joe Giella and Murphy Anderson. later at another convention. He recalled: “Bob Kane came to the Recalled the editor: “When I took over Batman, I said, ‘I don’t San Diego con (in 1989). I was wandering around. I saw Frank want to use Bob Kane’s artwork.’ I said, ‘I want to use my main Miller who, of course, did (the 1986 graphic novel) The Dark artist, Carmine Infantino.’ So they said, ‘Well, we can’t let Bob Knight Returns. I said to Frank, ‘How well do you know Bob Kane go. He’s under contract. So why don’t we simply alternate? Kane?’ He says, ‘I’ve never met him.’ So I brought Frank over to Carmine does one story, Bob Kane does another.’ Bob and introduced them. They had a little talk. After Frank went “That agreement was reached, so I used Kane one issue and away, I asked Bob, ‘What did you think of Frank Miller’s Batman?’ Carmine another. But it was I who insisted that Batman needed a Kane says, ‘It was very interesting. But I certainly didn’t like the breath of fresh air, and so Carmine was named as Batman’s main way he drew Batman. He made him look like Quasimodo!’ ” illustrator. Eventually, of course, Kane left (in According to Schwartz, Kane wasn’t the only 1966) and I didn’t have to use him anymore.” person who was, shall we say, protective of There was a practical reason why Schwartz Batman. Back when Schwartz edited Justice directed Infantino to add the yellow circle League of America, he met with Superman editor around the bat logo on Batman’s chest. Mort Weisinger and Batman editor Jack Schiff. “That was my idea, mainly because I “They felt Superman and Batman were being couldn’t see it (the bat logo). I wanted to highoverexposed,” Schwartz recalled. “They asked light it,” Schwartz said. me not to put Superman and Batman in Justice “Of course, when the ‘Batman’ movie came League, which I agreed to. You didn’t see them. out (in 1989), that’s all you saw was the bat “Later, when the magazine started to slip, I insignia encased in a yellow circle!” went in to (Donenfeld) and I said, ‘Gee, I’d like Schwartz cleaned house, or Wayne Manor, to use Superman and Batman on the cover.’ He by killing off Alfred the butler and introducing said, ‘Why didn’t you use them all along?’ I Aunt Harriet to lend a woman’s touch. This all said, ‘Mort and Jack wouldn’t allow me to.’ He transpired in Detective #328 (June 1964), but said, ‘You tell those two sunuvub*tches that the impetus dated to the middle ’50s — namely, Superman and Batman belong to DC Comics, the rise of psychiatrist Fredric Wertham, author and not to Mort Weisinger and Jack Schiff.’ ” of the comics-bashing book “Seduction of the Innocent” and a harsh critic of Batman comics. SO JUST HOW NECESSARY WAS THE Recalled Schwartz: “Fredric Wertham said New Look? The world was changing, but Batman that it was unnatural to have three bachelors was not keeping pace. Actor and comic book nerd — Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson and Alfred — Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars”) living unchaperoned at Wayne Manor. So I once shared an anecdote which made the point killed off Alfred and then brought in Aunt that the sheer silliness of the later Schiff era, Harriet as a kind of den mother. however charming, had grown anachronistic. “But then (TV producer) Bill Dozier wanted “I always thought Batman was realistic comto put Alfred in the television series, so I had pared to Superman,” Hamill told me in 1996. to come up with a way to reverse his death.” “I knew people couldn’t fly or see through Schwartz hadn’t known at first that Kane walls or bend steel in their bare hands, but I did used “ghost” artists, an inconvenient truth think you could build your body up to the point which Kane went to great lengths to hide. where you could become Batman. “Because I was new to Batman, I didn’t “I remember specifically a story I’d read as a Photo by Kathy Voglesong realize that Bob Kane wasn’t doing the artkid, a Batman story with Ace the Bat-Hound. As work,” Schwartz said. “Bob Kane would come a kid, I didn’t bat an eye when Ace the Bat-Hound up; I’d give him a script; and then he’d bring it back a few weeks had a mask on. It was at age 22 that I thought, ‘Well, what did he later, all finished. I hadn’t realized that Sheldon Moldoff was doing need the mask for? To be protected from other German Shepherds? practically all of Bob Kane’s work, but it soon became apparent.” The idea of a dog having a dual identity!” This harkened back to when another DC editor, Vincent “Vin” A more significant result of the New Look: It was the moment Sullivan — the man who hired Kane in the first place to come up that finally loosened Kane’s stranglehold on Batman. with a new superhero — was editing Detective Comics. In Detective Comics #326 (1964) — the final edition prior to “Now, here’s something even stranger,” Schwartz said. the New Look — Kane’s boxed signature appears on the splash “When I met up with Vince (at a comic book convention), I page as usual (in this case, for the story “Captives of the Alien asked him, ‘Listen, Vince’ — because I knew him fairly well — Zoo!”). In the following edition, which introduced the New Look, ‘tell me, what did you think of Bill Finger?’ You know what he Kane’s credit is gone. There’s no Infantino/Giella credit either, but said to me? ‘I never met him.’ elsewhere in the issue, editor Schwartz touts “the handiwork of the “What Bob Kane did — once he got the OK to do a Batman peerless pencil-and-pen pair, Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella.” script — was he got Bill Finger to write it. And he got guys like This was heretofore unheard of. Kane was apoplectic, accordShelly Moldoff to help him out and do lettering, whatever the case ing to Infantino. But the writing was on the wall: Throughout the may be. And when Bob Kane brought the story in, Vince Sullivan industry, the practice of “ghosting” was finally eroding. Over at paid him for the full job! Pencils, inks, lettering, everything else. Marvel, “Smilin’ ” Stan Lee enthusiastically abetted this process It was at that point that Kane gave whoever was working for him with transparent credit for “Jolly” Jack Kirby, “Jazzy” John whatever he thought they were worth.” Romita, “Dazzling” Don Heck and others. It was a new day.

Julius Schwartz on adding the yellow oval to the bat logo: “That was my idea, mainly because I couldn’t see it. I wanted to highlight it.”

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Carmine Infantino

“I was a fan of the Batman as a kid,” said the artist who, as things turned out, rescued Batman from the editorial chopping block. “I enjoyed seeing the character,” continued Carmine Infantino, an influential superhero artist who later became editorial director for DC Comics. “I was happy to get a shot at it. That was in 1964 I took it over, when it began to lose some popularity.” Brooklyn native Infantino (1925-2013) was speaking of the time that Julius Schwartz — then the newly appointed editor of Batman comic books — engaged him to illustrate Batman stories after 25 years during which the character was controlled by its originator, Bob Kane, and Kane’s complement of “ghost artists.” “That was a decision by Irwin Donenfeld, by the way, who was then the publisher,” Infantino told me in 1992. (The artist’s version of events differed somewhat from Schwartz’s account.) “Apparently, the Batman was dying. They were getting sales like 18 percent, 17 percent. It was literally dying off. So he suggested to Julie — this is what I was told, now — that they should put me on Detective, and I should do all the covers on the Batman, and see if anything happens. “And if nothing happened, they were going to unload the strip. Drop it altogether. That’s how bad it was. The first issue I did (Detective Comics #327) did well. And then the covers helped on the other Batman stuff.”

“Bill Finger should get some credit here,” Infantino said. “The truth is, he was promised all kinds of things by Bob’s father (engraver Herman Kahn). They never delivered.” Perhaps Infantino thought better of his candor? Before ending the conversation, he lauded Kane for his tenacity. “Kane had a right to have an ego about it,” Infantino said. “It was a wonderful strip, a lifetime thing. He had his name on it. That’s the key. The Batman was his thing. He created a whole world with that character. He created a character that is immortal. “Myself and, I’m sure, everybody else I put on the strip — like Neal Adams and Irv Novick — we were very pleased to have worked on that character for all those years. Bob created something that will outlast generation after generation of youngsters. He created something that will be part of our society forever.”

THE SO-CALLED ‘NEW LOOK’ WASN’T JUST ABOUT optics. The scripts evinced a shift in narrative tone toward something less fanciful, which jibed closer to Infantino’s visual style. “At the moment, we were just going to do subtle changes,” the artist said. “We were feeling our way. The only thing they did want me to do was keep the character in my style. Because they thought that Kane had gotten too cartoony or something.” As you might guess, Kane did not take the transition lightly. “He was not happy,” Infantino admitted. “You know, Kane was very upset. When the Batman was dying many years ago and they put me on the strip, he was quite upset about that. He said that my work stunk. He said that. “But I can understand that, too. You know, he was being taken off the strip. It makes sense. That’s a normal reaction. There’s nothing detrimental about that.” SIX YEARS AFTER THAT CONVERSATION, I AGAIN spoke with Infantino, this time on the occasion of Kane’s death. I asked the artist what Kane was like as a person (little realizing what a loaded question that was). “He was quiet,” Infantino then said. “He had a big ego, I remember that. You know, really, he wasn’t very well liked, this guy. And he used guys all over the place to do the stuff (artwork) for him. I don’t think he drew the strip after 20 years. He had Sheldon Moldoff do it; nine different people did the thing for him. A lot of people had all kinds of animosity.” There was no need to bring up the name of Bill Finger; Infantino did that for me.

Artist Carmine Infantino in 2001. Photo by Kathy Voglesong

One memorable (in the sense that you can’t un-remember him) superhero of 1960s comics was this guy. Move over, Norman Rockwell and his Famous Artists School — the Art Directors’ Course had the “full information” for a quarter! When the mailing address changed from New Haven to Manhasset, we wondered if Captain Art Director had to move back in with his mom. © Current copyright holder 174

Parody panels Who better than Wally Wood to lampoon

the DC pantheon for Topps’ Krazy Little Comics (1967, above left and right)? Jack Kirby sent himself up in Marvel’s Not Brand Ecch #1 (1967, left). Gnatman and Rotten punk Spidey-Man in Marie Severin art from Not Brand Ecch #2 (1967, below). DC, too, joined in with The Inferior Five’s Merryman, Dumb Bunny, the Blimp, Awkwardman and White Feather. © DC Comics Inc.; © Marvel Comics Inc.;

© Topps