#also dick sprang did this sort of thing much better than sheldon moldoff

[cantsayidont]

February 1955. My personal favorite of the various minor recurring characters of the Batman stories of the 1950s is Brane Taylor, the blonde Batman of the 31st Century, who appeared twice: first in a story in BATMAN #67 in 1951, and again in DETECTIVE COMICS #216 in early 1955.

As explained in the above page from the latter story, Brane first traveled back to Batman and Robin's era to enlist Dick Grayson's help after his own Robin (Brane's unnamed redheaded nephew) was injured fighting a space pirate called Yerxa. Robin's recollection above makes it sound a bit more glamorous than that earlier adventure actually ended up being for him — you see, Brane got both of them sent to space-prison!

If that last panel looks familiar, that's because it's a pretty direct swipe from a scene in the film DESTINATION MOON, which came out in 1950, not long before Bill Finger wrote this story. (That image appeared in promotional stills and posters, which I assume penciller Dick Sprang referenced.) In any event, Brane and Robin had to endure a lot of very miserable manual labor "in the mine pits of Vulcan" before they figured out how Yerxa was stealing the Vulcanite (a "new element" that when combined with glass "concentrates the sun's heat to an unbelievable degree!"). Afterward, Dick used Brane's time machine to bring Bruce Wayne to the 31st Century to help thwart Yerxa's attempt to reveal that Brane Taylor was Batman.

Oh, "scientific massage-treatment," huh? Is that what they're calling it now? The "one difference" between them, by the way, is that Brane is slightly taller than Bruce Wayne, something that will indeed become relevant later.

Brane's earlier appearance had implied that he was a bit more of a fop than Bruce Wayne, and during his time in the 20th Century, he keeps flirting with Vicki Vale, something that immediately makes her suspicious:

Brane also comes across as a bit of a doofus, although part of his problem is that he's largely unfamiliar with the 20th Century (which is ancient history for him), and Robin keeps nagging him not to use his various futuristic gadgets, especially around Vicki:

Sometimes, of course, he has no alternative:

By this time, Brane's "scientific massage" has worked wonders, and Bruce Wayne is back in action. However, Vicki is not satisfied:

Honestly, he's lucky Vicki didn't break out the phrenology calipers.

There's a common misconception that the monsters, weird aliens, and strange transformations that began to dominate the Batman strip around 1957 were a huge departure from what had come before, but the truth is that Batman stories had incorporated a fair number of fantastical elements since the very beginning. What changed in the late 1950s and early 1960s was that those elements became too frequent and too rote to really be fun anymore. Earlier stories like the Brane Taylor adventures are also pretty out there, but there's an imagination and energy that editor Jack Schiff (though reportedly much better to work for than tyrannical Superman group editor Mort Weisinger) didn't know how to sustain when this kind of material became the rule rather than the exception for Batman and Robin.