#A Rutland spookyween adventure

[thebibliomancer]

100 Days of Comics! 084/100: Batman #237 (1971)

Today’s pull from the box of ever decreasing mystery is a Batman! From 1971!

This particular physical copy of the book is missing its cover. But I can’t be too upset. Its older than I am. I’m holding paper that is older than me. Also its a big beefy book with not only 25 pages of comic but a reprint from Detective Comics #37 from 1940. Content!

Also, this specific issue is a special Rutland Halloween story. I’ve covered Rutland, Vermont’s Halloween celebrations a couple times from the Marvel end so its neat to see how the other half lives.

We start with a dead Batman, staked to a tree. Is this Red Rain?

But on the next page, Dick Grayson and his college chums are taking in the Rutlan Halloween Parade, with one becoming increasingly fascinated by the parade floats. Granted, he’s been up three days cramming for an art exam.

Also, you may remember that on Marvel’s side of things, they use thinly veiled expies the Squadron Supreme to stand in for the DC characters that people will be dressed as at the parade.

DC just up and puts Marvel characters in the parade. There’s an off-brand Captain America, a Quicksilver mostly hid behind a float, and just Havok.

Dick and pals are headed to Tom Fagan’s Halloween party when they see some thugs beating up a fellow dressed as Robin. Dick and co intervene and Dick almost managed to beat up the thugs without coming off too Robinish but the float obsessed art major gets in his way to demand if he saw those outasight floats.

Still, the thugs are chased off. Costume party Robin says the thugs seemed convinced that he was the real Robin. But something seems fishy so on the pretext of hunting down the float maniac, Dick splits off from his friends to go investigate as TEEN/YOUNG ADULT WONDER, ROBIN.

And that’s when he finds dead Batman. Or rather, dead someone in a Batman Halloween costume.

And then the Grim Reaper bursts out of the darkness and menaces Robin with a scythe. This is less whimsical than Marvel’s Rutland stories tend to be.

While dodging, Robin trips over a rock and falls off a cliff, knocks himself unconscious, and starts drowning in a very shallow stream.

And the float maniac wanders by blissfully unaware, trying to find someone who will talk floats with him. 

Luckily the real Batman is really in the area for reals and happens to spot the hapless college-aged boy wonder. He takes Robin to the mansion of Tom Fagan to be ministered by Doctor Gruener.

Gruener is in fact the reason Batman is in town. He was once an inmate of a concentration camp run by Nazi Colonel Kurt Schloss, aka the Butcher. Obviously a real bad dude who did a lot of torture and killing.

Gruener happened to spot Schloss while shopping for a gift for his daughter. The store clerk told Gruener that Schloss had retned a pirate costume to be delivered to Rutland, Vermont. Schloss apparently really loves masquerade parties.

Obviously, Gruner alerted the authorities. Hence why Batman is here.

As for the thugs beating up Robins and murdering Batmen. Well, some of Schloss’ ex-underlings are hunting him for the Nazi gold he stole. They must be trying to take care of Batman and Robin before they can interfere.

But since Robin is too injured, now it is Batman time.

He heads downstairs and runs into Tom Fagan who praises his Batman costume and the muscles that go with it. A nonplussed Batman just stammers that he exercises a lot.

And at the party we see Havok again, claw-hammer collander-helmet variant Thor and someone just dressed as Spider-Man but calling himself Webslinger Lad.

Someone once told me that the Squadron Supreme seemed a really disrespectful way to spoof DC but at least Marvel tried to put some layers between spoof and thing being spoofed.

Outside, float obsessed art student tries asking the Grim Reaper if he digs floats and then realizes its the Grim Reaper and runs screaming for help.

Float Guy runs into Batman who examines the body the Grim Reaper left and tells Float Boy to hide somewhere but not to breath word of the murders. If a panic gets out, they’ll lose their chance of nabbing Schloss. And if you can’t bring in Nazis to face justice for their crimes then civilization is a farce. And that’s from Batman.

Batman notices that the light in the tower of Fagan’s mansion is blinking in morse code and realizes it must be the thugs. He runs upstairs, missing a man in a pirate suit hidden in a cupboard and beats up some thugs.

The thug spills the beans with Batman implicitly threatens to drop him off the roof. They observed Schloss arrive in a yellow car so they rigged it up to explode.

And before Batman can warn Schloss the car explodes.

So three people have died, including an innocent man whose only mistake was dressing up as Batman. But the case still isn’t closed. The Reaper is still out there and responsible for killing the man in the woods.

And Batman knows who it is and goes to the site where the fake Batman was killed.

Oh, hi Thor, Spider-Man, and Havok again.

Batman confronts the Reaper. The men chasing Schloss had no reason to know Batman was around, not unless someone told them. And Doctor Gruener told them after having a change of heart and deciding to take personal vengeance on Schloss.

Gruener lost his parents and sisters in the concentration camp and watched Schloss laugh as they died. He still awakes from sleep screaming even after all these years.

Batman says he has no right to judge but neither does Gruener. And there’s not enough water in that stream to wash the blood from the hands of anyone who takes a life! Better way! Etc!

Gruener swings his scythe around, smacks Batman in the chin and then runs off. A part of Batman wants to let Gruener go, seeing some of himself in him. BUT NO HIS WAY IS WRONG!

Meanwhile, Float Guy is on top of the dam telling his college chums about meeting Batman and the Reaper and he’s at least stopped talking about Floats. Also his name is apparently Alan. Which I’d probably know if I read issues before this about Robin’s college adventures.

Then Gruenereaper comes charging along and demands that Alan get out of his way. In frustration over Alan not moving fast enough, he goes to swing the scythe at him but notices a star of david necklace that Alan was wearing.

And ashamed of what he has become, Gruener involuntarily takes a step back. Right off the damn. Where he falls and dies. He’s dead. That’s how this issue ends. Gruener dead lying on the dry side of the dam, star of david necklace conspicuously wrapped around one of the handles of his scythe so its framed obviously in the panel.

Apparently this issue was inspired by two things. A real life spooky occurrence at Tom Fagan’s real life spooky Halloween party when Berni Wrightson tried to scare the other DC staffers when they were exploring the forest by positing that someone in an orange wig from the party was hunting them through the forest because he hated comics artists and writers. And then they heard rustlings in the underbrush...

The other half of it was Denny O’Neil’s friend Harlan Ellison suggesting he do a story about Nazi war criminals. Put ‘em together and what have you got? Bippity boppity boo.

I don’t want to go longer by covering the reprint. I’ll just say that Batman investigates a conspiracy to create an international incident that he coincidentally overhears when he gets lost and stops for directions at a spooky house. World’s Greatest Detective.

He also kills a man, indirectly. The guy threw his sword, Batman blocked it with a door, and later punches the dude so he stumbles into the sticking out blade part and dies. And Batman basically says ‘good, I’m glad he’s dead.’

But this reprint was from Detective Comics #37. And in Detective Comics #38, Robin was introduced. Batman probably stops murdering so much when he has an impressionable child around.