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Author: Bill Ramey Thursday, March 15, 2007
PREVIOUS: "The Joker Returns!"
The story titled “Professor Hugo Strange and the Monsters” was a double edged sword for me to be honest. I’m one who hates the brief period in which The Batman actually killed. On the other hand, this was a pretty good story even though The Dark Knight snuffed out a few of the “monsters.”
If you fancy yourself Batman historian or have read Matt Wagner’s BATMAN AND THE MONSTER MEN, you are most likely familiar with this tale -- Wagner’s miniseries is based on “Professor Hugo Strange and the Monsters” from BATMAN #1.
Prof. Hugo Strange, c. 1940 -- Art by Bob Kane (© DC COMICS) As our story begins, Prof. Hugo Strange -- whom The Batman had defeated in DETECTIVE COMICS #36 -- is seen carrying out a successful prison break. Not long after Strange‘s escape, these huge hulking “monsters” begin wrecking havoc in Gotham. The pipe-smoking Bruce Wayne (how can he perform the feats he does if he's a smoker?!) -- listening to reports of the mayhem via the radio -- believes Strange to be masterminding the attacks. The Batman takes to the air in the Batplane and follows the monsters back to Strange’s hideout. The Dark Knight lands the plane (where?!) and enters the building, where he is quickly captured by two of Strange’s creatures. As the villains of this era always do, Strange spills the beans to Batman -- telling him that he has discovered and “extract” that accelerates a person’s growth glands, alters their brains, and turns them into monsters. Strange then injects The Batman with the extract and informs him that he’ll turn into one of these creatures in eighteen hours! Is there enough time for The Batman to concoct a cure and save Gotham from Strange’s scheme? Come on, you know the answer!
BATMAN #1 can be found in THE BATMAN CHRONICLES, Vol. 1
Anyway, “Professor Hugo Strange and the Monsters” is a cool little tale that’s fairly similar to the stories of this era. And it’s fairly “realistic” even though The Batman is taking on monsters. For all intents and purposes, Strange creates these brutes with some sort of steroid -- or at least that’s how I interpreted the story. Of course, I don’t think there were steroids around in 1940. But even so, it’s not like they’re creatures from outer space -- although that day is coming soon for Batman!
Batman takes out Strange's thugs in BATMAN #1 (© DC COMICS) Of historical significance, I believe this to be one of the last times in the comic books that The Batman kills intentionally, as that practice was being quickly phased out as one of Batman’s crime fighting methods. Also, it’s certainly one of the very last solo Batman stories (Robin does not appear in this one) until the early 1970s. NEXT: “The Cat”
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