Episode 31: Fill In Stories Abound
Welcome to the thirty-first episode of The Overlooked Dark Knight. The is a non-index index show where the hosts, Andrew Leyland and Michael Bailey, look at Batman comics that rarely, if ever, get talked about. In one episode they will talk about Bat books from the late seventies and early eighties. In another episode they will talk about the animated Adventures titles that DC published in the nineties. Sometimes they talk about whatever strikes their fancy.
This time out the guys deal with two fill-in stories, which isn’t to say that the stories are bad. They’re enjoyable, but they kind of mess with the flow of the story lines that Andy and Mike have been covering. In Batman #320, the Dark Knight travels to Spain to deal with a mystery that involves secret passages and Catholicism. Then, in Detective Comics #488, the whole dealing with the death of Kathy Kane thing takes a back seat once again to deal with a tale of novelists and switching places, which is fun and has some great Don Newton art. Ads are discussed and a Star Wars conversation goes down. This one has it all.
Below is a gallery of images from the books discussed in this episode.
Andy and Mike want your feedback on this episode so they can read it on an upcoming show! You even have options in how you leave your feedback. The most direct way is to leave a comment right here on the site. You can also send all questions, concerns, fears and trepidations to overlookeddarkknight@gmail.com. Then there’ the Facebook page, where you can also leave a Batman related question for Andy and Mike to answer at the beginning of the show. If you talk about this show on the social medias please include a #overlookeddk so the guys know where to find it.
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Next Time: You are cordially invited to attend the birthday of the Clown Prince of Crime. Also, a team-up with The Maid of Might…Supergirl!
Thank you, gentlemen, for your work in giving us fun and informative looks at the “Overlooked” Dark Knight. I must say, in this episode, I was surprised that I didn’t hear either of you comment on the name of Batman’s mail-drop for his clipping service. Sigerson is almost certainly a reference to one of Batman’s inspirations, the great detective Sherlock Holmes, who, after his return from the grave in “The Adventure of the Empty House”, tells Watson that during his hiatus, he’d spent some time pretending to be a Norwegian named Sigerson. In my first sentence above, I put “Overlooked” in quotes, because Batman, as a character is about as “overlooked” as Sherlock Holmes.
Hi Michael and Andy,
I’ve been listening all along, and enjoying it tremendously. I am particularly fond of this era of Batman, as that’s when I was buying these books! As I listen to you, I can remember most of the books quite clearly. Last episode, with the Gentleman Ghost and the costume party at Wayne Manor, I clearly remembered how Irv Novick drew Bruce, Lucius, and Selina in their costumes! (Not Alfred, though.) In this episode, I was confused at first. You described the cover, and I thought of this one by Wrightson, but you said JLGL, and I thought that there must be another one, and I was racking my brains trying to figure it out. (I was driving, and couldn’t do a search on my own.) Of course, we got it all cleared up, but the thing is, I couldn’t recall this story AT ALL! However, this Spook story has always stayed with me. Even though it also smells like a fill-in, Don Newton’s gorgeous art has staying power in my mind. It’s a good little story, if you just accept the premise.
One more point, regarding Wayne Manor. Once Dick went to college, Bruce moved to town (1969-1970),and we readers no longer went to the Batcave regulary Steve Englehart established that Batman had a new Batcave under the Wayne Foundation Building in 1977. (An unfinished subway tunnel that had been abandoned in the 1930s.) So, this “appearance” of Wayne Manor was kind of significant.