I got my introduction to the concept of the comic book way back in 1988 or so, when my mom and grandfather introduced me to comic books with a stack of Silver Age DCs. But my REAL start into comics was with those earliest comics that my parents bought me. This week, I’m providing a brief look at what my earliest comics were.
In this second installment: Batman, Detective Comics, and a dead Robin!
I wasn’t familiar with Clayface at the time, so didn’t know this gang of multiple Clayfaces from anything else. But the cover stood out big-time, as this mud statue of Batman, and then seeing it within the issue, getting smashed by the guy on the cover. So this was Batman, but I was without context…just sorta took it as it was, at face value.
I didn’t know who this guy on the cover was–didn’t know about Nightwing, didn’t know that he was the original Robin, etc. And this being the conclusion of a story, I really didn’t follow. Just something about some book everyone was after, and this guy and Batman not getting along. There was a sense of some history, yeah, but I didn’t even know what questions to ask at the time to catch up. Still…like with the Superman stuff from the other day…this lack of understanding and comprehension failed to turn me off to the character and comics…
This being part of the story that introduced (cameos) of Tim Drake is part of why I like the Tim Drake character–he was introduced into comics at the same time I got my start in “collecting” comics.
This issue was probably just about THE most eye-opening comic of my youth. Turns out that Robin died some time back, as here’s Batman at the grave with a ghost of Robin pointing a blaming finger. The way Batman acted inside, that someone took the appearance of Robin, bringing back the memory of his dead partner…yet again, it’s just something I took at face value. Something that had happened sometime between the comics my grandpa had and these. It just WAS.
(I then found out from a friend some time later that Joker was the one who killed Robin, with a crowbar. It was yet more time later before I tracked down that story as Death in the Family, and still later before I got to actually READ the story.)
Filed under: NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: Batman, Detective Comics, Lonely Place of Dying, Mud Pack, Robin, Year 3 | Leave a comment »
Comic Reviews by Walt 