“THE RETURN OF DOCTOR DEATH”

The first issue featuring the assistance of Sheldon Moldoff, and I’m fascinated by how the art has taken on a strange gravitas. This issue has a sparse everyone’s-asleep night coziness to it, in both style and pacing.

Much of the issue has Bruce engineering a plot to lure Dr. Death out of hiding, but it also features a lot of creeping around at night. The best parts are panels like these with their densely hatched lines making them look like old woodcuts.

Last issue (#29) featured the first use of the bat-utility bat and here a lot of attention is paid to the mechanics of Batman’s activities. Certain panels frame Batman as a thief and villain himself. And here, Batman actually breaks into a house and steals some diamonds.

Featuring the first in some extremely bizarre characters designs. Dr. Death gets not one, not two, but three different faces in two issues. He’s gone after this issue, but he’ll be back in 43 years.

Love how his face is somehow on? seen through? part of? his bandages.

(A likely nod to Claude Rains’ Invisible Man from six years earlier in 1933, smoking jacket and all!)

An almost quiet issue that hits not only on Batman’s psychological similarity to those he fights, but also his fundamental loneliness and separation from the rest of humanity. He’s alone in an endless night. Where he sometimes seems to boil with rage, here tinges of despair.

Originally tweeted by Weird Batman of the Golden Age (@GoldenAgeBats) on June 7, 2022.