Okay, let's take a Superham break and look at the Batgirl story from Detective Comics #482. The year was 1979, and believe it or don't, you could get sixty-eight pages for one dollar on some titles. Yup.
Not that they were sixty-eight pages of top-notch storytelling. Hey, it was less than two cents a page, so you weren't complaining back then.
Anyway, I bought this off the wire rack at a convenience store and the Batman, Batgirl and Robin stories were all continued from the previous issue. But this looked like your standard, "The Protagonist Travels Someplace in His/Her Civilian Identity and Even Though They Have to Put on the Costume, No One Puts Two and Two Together" plots. Thusly:
Now, this struck me as funny, because here is the basis for this accusation:
They found Batgirl's costume. Of course, there is a redheaded American standing right there, but I guess Wo Fong thought that was a bit too obvious. Silly Wo Fong.... never assume anything is too obvious in comics. It will only end in frustrated tears.
So, Wo Fong wants to learn about how to create American super-heroes. Now, one would think that Wo Fong would want to know how to create a Superman or a Metamorpho or something similarly badass.
And one would be wrong.
.
Can you believe it? He wants to know how to create another Batgirl? Not to slam on Babs, but she's not exactly the varsity squad of the super-hero community. Unless you know you're going to be able to ask questions all day and all night, you might want to see if you can get the goods on someone a little higher up the evolutionary ladder. Like Zeep, the Human Sponge.
And, as you can see, Batgirl appears and no one figures out that it's Barbara.
This is the kind of thing we overlooked when comics were cheap.
Besides, that issue began with Batman fighting a gorilla:
Bitchin!
See you Monday!
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6 comments:
"...Batman fighting a gorilla..."
And drwan by Jim Starlin, no less!
But, hey, the "mixed-up secret identities" thing ain't new!
It happened on the Batman tv series when The Green Hornet showed up and the villain thought Bruce Wayne was The Green Hornet and Britt Reid was Batman, ignoring the obvious logistical problems...
http://heroheroinehistory.blogspot.com/2010/12/video-fridays-green-hornet-vs-batman.html
Boy, was MY face red... ;-)
Uhm, Bats? You want wanna just grab that thing around the gorillas neck that he might be being controlled by, before you beat the living hell outta him? Also I mean that is obviously an endangered albino gorilla or something, yes?
I seem to remember that Batgirl's Chinese adventure features an artist who anticipates Rob Liefeld by drawing the heroine with pontoon-sized breasts.
I can't imagine why I remember that.
He didn't want to make his own army of superheroes... he just wanted an batgirl clone for, ahem, perverted purposes.
come on, think about it... if you had a pretty girl in body-tight spandex and leather who were willing to do anything commanded of her, would you only think about world domination?
that was probably the real reason why he went after her instead of superman or somebody like that.
With all due respect to MarvelX42, if I've got to fight a gorilla, which could probably break every bone in my body with about as much effort as I'd expend opening a bag of chips, then I'm going to worry about knocking it the hell out before I worry about the fact that it might be mind-controlled.
Hell, even if you broke the collar, the gorilla would probably still break your neck just for looking at him funny. That's how gorillas roll.
justin, "Yousa point is well said."
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