Put THAT in Your Article Tuesday!

I don't recall exactly where I had previously seen it, but Detective #417 had a plot centered on the notion that if you could prove yourself worthy, you could be "Batman for a Day."  I think this had been done at least once before (many years prior), but that was the deal here: Basically, if you could make it a round or two in Batman's Personal Fight Club, that was (for some reason) grounds to let you impersonate him.

Of course, this scenario was not without its potential pitfalls.  For starters, I would imagine the mortality rate for "winners" of this privilege would be pretty high, whether you got all Tyler Durden on Batman or not.  There is also the problem that you might do something where, to borrow a phrase from the kids, you aren't "representin'."  Thusly:

See?  You got him so cheesed he started referring to himself in the third person.  That is something Bats is usually way too cool to do.

And I hate to split hairs, but I'm pretty sure I've seen Bats use other weapons besides "The Decent Weapons of Outrage and Indignation."  In fact, I'm pretty sure he has a whole arsenal of weapons on his belt and some heavy artillery in that cave of his.  Outrage and indignation are fine for motivation, I suppose, but not much good when Killer Croc is about chew on the inside of your chest cavity.

Of course, Bats also uses psychological warfare, which is why he is (and I can't say this enough) so dang cool.  But you've got to draw that sort of thing correctly, or it's just not gonna happen.  Thusly:

Wow.  Detective #414 was not the high point in an otherwise decent run of Silver Age goodness.  I can't tell you exactly what's wrong here, because no one would ever accuse me of being an artist.  But let's face it.... he looks like your uncle doing his best Bela Lugosi impression.  Thusly:

See?  See?  

And while I'm on the subject of Ineffective Striking Terror into Criminal Hearts, let us visit the 1990's and the otherwise awesome Robin mini-series:

Seriously?  I do appreciate that Batman is just kind of standing there behind him all "This needs a lot of work."

You know what else needs a lot of work?  This girl's hands:

Well, she's screwed.  It doesn't matter how beautiful your dress is if you're sporting a set of manos.  BLAH, indeed!  Girl has no game. No game at all!

Thanks for all your great input on television shows of days gone by.  I neglected to state that Paul Dini was allegedly a writer of Hero High.  And, AND... the girl who played "Dirty Trixie" married Willie Aames of Eight is Enough and Charles in Charge.  You just can't know too much of this kind of stuff!

See you tomorrow!