Thursday, June 4, 2015

Batman's Behavior Caused a Doorman Shortage in Gotham City Back in the 1970's

I just saw the trailer for Fallout 4, guaranteeing that I will upgrade my console at some point in life.  Granted, it'll probably be a few years, but.... Fallout 4.

Anyway, let's take a gander at this moment in Batman #241 that we can only call

Well.... Touche! (tm!)




Well.... Touche! (tm!)

Let's hop up to the next issue where a scene gave me a double-take:


For non-comic book nerdlingers, this is weird because when Batman goes undercover, he uses the identity of "Matches" Malone.  So, seeing Bats and "Matches" in the same room is like seeing Batman and Bruce Wayne: You know something isn't as it seems.

But it turns out, this is an origin story!  Check it out!:






Fast forward a few pages later:



Yup!  Turns out the "Matches" at the beginning of the story was the real "Matches" Malone, and Bats assumed his identity from that issue onward.  To be fair, it's not like "Matches" was going to use it any longer.

Of course, that leads one to wonder how Batman got rid of the body and kept anyone (including the chef who witnessed the whole thing) from leaking word that the real "Matches" had died, but you can't think that far in comics.  Unless you can't help but notice that stuff, in which case you start a blog.

I thought that was pretty nifty because I had always assumed Batman just made up the whole identity.  Come to think of it, that probably would have been a bit easier...

Oh, well.  Enough armchair quarterbacking for one day!  I'll see you tomorrow!

3 comments:

Wayne Allen Sallee said...

I always thought Matches Malone was a made-up thing, too. The talk, the gimmick of flicking the matches.

So did Btman punch that first guy because of his socks? What a weird angled panel.

Adam Barnett said...

Yup! He punched him because of his socks. I'm not joking. That was his justification. He thought that a fancy building like that would never allow their doormen to wear argyle socks, so.... whammo! Again... not joking.

Gene Phillips said...

I remember reading the story back in The Day, yet I confess that nothing crossed my mind regarding Batman's illegal disposal of a corpse. I mean, Batman's an illegal entity anyway, at least in some narratives, but it does seem pretty high-handed, to presume that even a stone-cold mobster doesn't have anyone who would miss him. Or did Bats adopt the identity because he was as sure as shootin' that Matches had no one in his life-- relatives, girlfriends-- who might compromise the Bat-masquerade?

Given those possible complications, making up a new identity, the way some undercover cops do, seems eminently more sensible.