In the superhero desert of the late 1950s, kids like me were eager for any glimpse of a new costumed champion.
Even the pseudo-superheroes served up occasionally on DC covers were sufficient to fire up the imagination. What might these heroes be like, what adventures might they have had, if they’d starred in their ongoing features?
Comic books entertained you not merely by telling you tales, but also by tantalizing you to make up your own.
For example, in The Dynamic Trio! (Detective Comics 245, July 1957), Batman declares that he and Robin need help fighting a band of smugglers, and calls in a caped, green-clad crime-fighter called “Mysteryman.”
In this story by writer Edmond Hamilton and artist Sheldon Moldoff, reporter Vicki Vale is determined to discover who’s under Mysteryman’s full-face mask.
Gotham City’s answer to Lois Lane “…is consumed by curiosity, and spends the story testing Mysteryman in a variety of ways, trying to determine if he is a robot or Superman, but always striking out,” noted Deejay Dayton in his Babblings About DC Comics blog. “Even Alfred is kept in the dark about his identity.
“In the end, Vicki sneaks into the trunk of the Batmobile, and when Mysteryman is dropped off at his home, she realizes it is Commissioner Gordon in disguise.
“She exposes him the next day, and Batman explains to the mayor that Gordon had done all the groundwork on the case, and Batman didn’t want him left out of the loop when the gang was rounded up.”
Vicki realizes that Batman had left the trunk open deliberately.
“Batman, you wanted me to expose Mysteryman, didn’t you?” she says.
“Yes, Vicki,” Batman replies. “You see, I didn’t want to hurt Gordon’s reputation by succeeding where he’s seemingly failed! But I’d promised him I wouldn’t expose him, so I let you do it!”
“You deliberately tricked me — but you’re a darling, Batman!” says Vicki, planting a kiss on the Caped Crusader’s cheek.
The tale provided the rare opportunity for an old guy to serve as a superhero, however, briefly (Gordon wore contact lenses under his hood so he could see to punch crooks). And it was satisfying enough to be reprinted in the 7th Batman annual — Thrilling Adventures of the Whole Batman Family! — in 1964, as well as in The Batman Family 2 in 1975.
Rounding out the Detective Comics issue were artist Ruben Moreira with the Roy Raymond TV Detective tale The X-Y-Z Ray, about a hoax metal-melting beam, and artist Joe Certa with the Martian Manhunter story The Phantom Fire Alarms, in which criminal Lance Faber discovers John Jones’ weakness. Those three features made Detective Comics the best anthology buy of that era, for my money.
By the way, I always thought “Mysteryman” was a great superhero name — kind of elemental, like “Superman” or “Wonder Woman.”
About Author
