Giant Bottles Thursday!

One interesting thing I've noticed while going through these issues of Detective Comics around issue #300 is the staggering number of Clayface appearances. The Joker, the Penguin, Two-Face, the Riddler, the Scarecrow and Catwoman are nowhere to be found (although we did get the first appearance of Cat-Man). But Clayface has appeared three times so far in their absence. I guess all the shape-changing lent him to enough weirdness that it was worth bringing him back.

But Detective #313 gets us back to some good old-fashioned detective work. Like this:


As is mandated by human biology, whenever someone has a net or a lariat thrown over them, a crook will drop his gun. It is some sort of involuntary muscle spasm that cannot be controlled. Batman employed this little-known medical fact often to his advantage. Stay in school, kids!

You know what we haven't seen in a while?


That's right! Robin trapped in a giant milk bottle! I can remember all those classic Mike Hammer novels where he'd get trapped in a giant milk bottle. That's a great homage to the classics!

This one takes a little background. See Batman, talking and all that?


Well, here a smarter-than-average-comic-book-bad-guy doesn't waste any time and tries to kill him right away:


That's a pretty good strategy, and would work any other time except in the Silver Age. Why didn't it work this time?

You know the answer!


A robot, of course! Because it's the Silver Age, and if I'm selling you a comic for twelve cents, I'm going to give you twelve cents worth of thought in my stories! What are you going to do, demand more value for your dime and two pennies?

See you tomorrow!