DECADE BY DECADE, Part 6: Spies, Private Eyes and Superheroes

The creation of Superman in 1938 opened up the floodgate for costumed superheroes within the relatively new medium of comic books. Within a couple of years, there were more superheroes buzzing around than you could shake a death ray at.

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Many of these masked marvels had--like the Last Son of Krypton--superpowers. Others, though, were just regular guys, who donned their own unique costumes and battled crime while trusting to their own natural abilities to see them through.

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The most famous of the non-powered superheroes has got to be Batman. And it's Batman's first appearance--in Detective Comics #27 (1939)--that will round out our look at the 1930s.

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You really got quite a lot for your dime when you bought a comic book in 1939: sixty-four pages of adventure splashed on each page in bright primary colors.

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Batman's first adventure, titled "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate," takes up only six of those pages. Written by Bill Finger and with art by Bob Kane, it's no surprise that the Dark Knight stood out from the crowd. Finger actually lifted the plot from a Shadow novel published a few years earlier (Partners in Peril), but his skillful storytelling and Kane's striking art more than make up for the minor literary theft.

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But though Batman might be the most important historical element of Detective #27, it's good to remember that there is a lot more cool stuff there as well. Two different stories produced by Jerry Siegal and Joe Schuster (Superman's creators) are included: "Slam Bradley" and "Spy" both feature standard hard-boiled heroes, but both tales make for fun reading.

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"The Crimson Avenger" balances out Batman as another costumed hero--mimicking the Shadow in both appearance and style. "Speed Saunders" is yet another fedora-wearing tough guy hero, while "Buck Marshall, Range Detective" catches crooks out West.

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There's a few short humor stories, a two-page prose story titled "Death on the Airwaves," and an adaptation of one of Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu tales. All the stories maintain the detective theme, with the heroes following up clues or employing deductive reasoning to nail the bad guys. But throughout the issue, action is emphasized over plot.

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Still, the plots are, for the most part, pretty solid, weaving gun battles and death traps throughout simple but logical storylines.

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Batman may be the big commercial success story here, but Slam Bradley, the Crimson Avenger and their comrades-in-crimefighting don't do half bad themselves. It's a pity that the economics of the industry don't allow comic books like this anymore--where each issue gave us a nice variety of stories and characters linked by a common theme.