The Comic Book Longbox: Batman: The Black Casebook (2009)

 Hey everyone! How're you all doing today? It's pretty hot outside the Geek Cave today, but I'm in air conditioning, so I'll be fine. Today we're going to be digging through the Comic Book Longbox and diving into another Batman compilation trade paperback from my past. Unlike The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, this one is a bit more recent. So let's get into it.

Batman: The Black Casebook is a trade paperback that collects several issues of Batman and Detective Comics from the 1950s and 1960s that illustrate some of Batman's weirder cases. The cover says that the stories inspired Batman: R.I.P. by Grant Morrison, but from what I remember of these stories, there are elements in them that Morrison used both earlier and later in his run. For example the characters of Wingman, Man of Bats, who is the Indigenous version of Batman, and the Club of Heroes were all characters that Morrison used in other story arcs both before and after R.I.P. with the Batmen of All Nations appearing in Batman #'s 667 through 669 in 2007, and then being expanded upon, becoming Batman Inc., in Batman Incorporated #'s 1-8 in 2011. The elements that appeared in R.I.P. are the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, Bat-Mite, Thomas Wayne's "Bat-Man" suit, and the Army Doctor from Batman #156 actually being Doctor Simon Hurt, the main antagonist of Batman: R.I.P. 

I never owned this book. Sometime in 2010 or 2011 I borrowed it from the public library. It was after I'd gotten the trade paperback for R.I.P. and I was interested to see what stories inspired the insanity created by Grant Morrison, a writer whose work is hit or miss for me, depending on the story and the character he's writing. For example I'm not a huge fan of R.I.P. but I love All-Star Superman and Batman Incorporated. But being this was in 2010 or 2011, I borrowed this book because I was interested in seeing where Morrison took elements for his stories from. Let's dive into the individual issues shall we?

First up is Batman #65 and the story "A Partner for Batman!" from 1951. This story was the first appearance of Wingman, and the last until Batman #667, during Morrison's run. Back in the '40s, '50s, and early '60s, Batman had multiple stories in it, so for collections such as this a single story from an issue can be included even though the rest of the issue has nothing to do with the collection the story is being included in. In this story, Robin is injured so Batman uses the opportunity to train Wingman, a costumed character who Batman intended to be the Batman of Europe. Which is the start of the Batmen of All Nations, which would become Batman Inc. during the latter half of Morrison's run in 2010-2011.

 Next up is "Batman - Indian Chief" from Batman #86 published in 1954. This was the introduction of Man of Bats and his partner, Little Raven. Apart from the title, which was typical in 1954, this story was not great. But again, it was typical of the '50s. I mean Peter Pan had just been released in theatres the year before and that movie's depiction of indigenous people is on par with their depiction in this issue. Luckily when Morrison revamped the characters of Man of Bats and Little Raven, he renamed Little Raven to Red Raven, and gave them their own unique costumes that made them more distinct from Batman and Robin. 

Next is "The Batmen of All Nations!" from Detective Comics #215, published in 1955. This story was the genesis of Batman Incorporated, the Batmen of All Nations featuring Batmen from all around the world. I honestly don't remember much more about the story than that. It's been 11 to 12 years since I read it and like I said, it's not a book I own and it's not one DC has kept in print. As far as I know anyway. They tend not to keep collections like this in print after a few years. Even if they do a reprint.

Next is "The First Batman!" from Detective Comics #235, published in 1956. Because I already covered this issue in my overview of The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told (1988), I'm not going to talk about it again here. If you want to know what it's about, check out my overview of that book.

Then we have "The Club of Heroes!" from World's Finest Comics #89, published in 1957. It's essentially another Batmen of All Nations story, this time with Superman joining them for a case. And they fight against someone named Lightning Man, who is supposedly a new member of their group, but for some reason his powers have an effect on Superman. 

Then we have "The Man Who Ended Batman's Career!" from Detective Comics #247, published in 1957. This issue had to do with a criminal causing Batman to have a fear of bats, forcing him to stop wearing his Batman costume, and stop him from using his Bat arsenal, becoming Starman instead. Which is interesting since this was after the original Starman, Ted Knight, fell into obscurity due to the falling popularity of superheroes after Fredric Wertham's campaign against comic books. Despite the issue being published in 1957, the Bruce Wayne version of Starman was later named the Starman of 1951. 

Next is "Am I Really Batman?" from Batman #112, published in 1957. This has to do with Professor Milo, the villain from the previous story in this book. I won't give away the whole story, but it's similar to other stories where Batman deals with the possibility that he isn't actually Batman.

Next is "Batman - Superman of Planet X!" from the very next issues, Batman #113, published in 1958. The title of this story is a bit misleading since the planet Batman finds himself the Superman of is called Zur-En-Arrh, not Planet X. Though if I remember correctly, Planet X does exist in the DC Universe. This story introduced the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, which Morrison revamped into an alternate version of Batman, which eliminates the Bruce Wayne personality from Batman altogether, leaving none of Batman's humanity intact in a serious crisis, such as the events of R.I.P. though it never comes up again after that arc, so I don't think Morrison made it so that the change over is permanent. This is the sort of thing that makes Grant Morrison a hit or miss writer for me. His stuff is REALLY bizarre, especially for a character like Batman.

Next is "Batman Meets Bat-Mite" from Detective Comics #267, published in 1959. This issue is the first appearance of Bat-Mite, the Batman looking imp from another dimension. That's all I really have to say about this issue, because, again, I haven't read this book in a really long time, so I don't remember much. But it's the first Bat-Mite story, which means lots of mischief. Because it's Bat-Mite.

Up next is "The Rainbow Creature" from Batman #134, published in 1960. I don't remember this story at all. I also don't really know what it has to do with Grant Morrison's run on Batman let alone the R.I.P. story arc. Maybe because it's just a weird story and that's it? I have no idea honestly. 

Next is "Robin Dies at Dawn" from Batman #156, published in 1963. Again, because I covered this story in my overview of The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told I'm not going to say much more about it here. However, as I mentioned earlier, this story spawned the character of Doctor Hurt, who was just an ordinary Army Doctor in this issue, but in Morrison's run, he's the mastermind behind everything going on in R.I.P. as well as the issues that led directly into that story arc. So of all the stories in this collection, this is the one that influenced Morrison the most when he wrote R.I.P.

Finally we have "The Batman Creature" from Batman #162, published in 1964 and it's one of the last issues published before Julius Schwartz became the editor of the Batman comics and introduced the "New Look" Batman in Detective Comics #327 and Batman #164. Aside from Batman getting turned into a King Kong style monster being weird, I don't see what this story has to do with anything that Grant Morrison did during his run. Aside from the Zur-En-Arrh thing, Morrison's run is pretty solidly grounded in reality compared to many of the stories that were published in Batman and Detective Comics in the '50s and early to mid '60s. 

That's it for this book, but before I go, I just wanted to mention that within the story of Grant Morrison's run on Batman, the black casebook was a book that Batman used to chronicle his weirdest cases. It was a gimmick used by Morrison to try and re-incorporate all of Batman's pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths history. Including characters such as Julie Madison, the original Batwoman, Kathy Kane, and the original Bat-Girl, Betty Kane as well as Batman's more colourful villains from the Silver Age. Of course, because Morrison's run came right before the New 52 started, basically nothing Morrison did in his run, aside from Damian Wayne, stayed.

Alright my friends, that's going to be it for me for today. I will be back soon with more posts. This one and the Batman VHS post that I did yesterday were the primary blog posts that I wanted to get out this week. And I did. So until next time have a wonderful afternoon and I will talk to you all later. Take care and stay cool!