DC Showcase Presents: Robin

This book came out years and years ago, and I've put off buying it. I only purchased it recently because of my discovery that many of these Showcase Presents volumes command a huge price second-hand. If my comic book shop does run out of copies, I won't be able to get another one easily.

The reason why I hesitated (for so long) before buying it is because of the Silver Age. While I love Batman stories from the 1940s and 1950s, and think that the character hit a high mark in the 1970s and early 1980s, I view the 1960s (and the 'New Look') as a lost decade for the Caped Crusader. Things in the 1960s only perked up after Irv Novick jumped on board for the seminal story 'One Bullet Too Many' (Neal Adams drew the cover).

Batman leaves Wayne Manor and moves to the Wayne Foundation Penthouse, and the series - after Batman relocates to the big bad city - takes on a more grim and gritty Dirty Harry / French Connection vibe. I think that the Batman stories of this period represent the transition from the Johnson era to the Nixon. I wanted to read these Bronze Age issues, but, when I bought this book, I expected a whole slew of stories from the Silver Age drawn by Sheldon Moldorff (not one of my favourite Bat-artists). I was pleasantly surprised: most of the stories come from the Bronze Age - this is the Robin (and Batman) I grew up with.

Something that you notice, at once, about these stories is the role the 1960s and 1970s counter-culture plays. One story - involving a hippie commune - anticipates a similar arc in season seven of Mad Men. You find plenty of social commentary and references to the Generation Gap, the Vietnam War, student riots on campus... Given how averse comic book writers (traditionally) are to write stories based on events in the real world, I can only imagine that the political, social and cultural events of the time were too big for the writers (here Frank Robbins, Mike Friedrich, Elliot S. Maggin mostly) to ignore. Some may find the results painful and dated, but I enjoyed these stories. They seem fresh and exciting. The book even contains a Robin story which refers to H.P. Lovecraft - yes, that's right, Lovecraft (sounds like a Marvel book, doesn't it?).

The volume ends in 1975. Dick Grayson grows sideburns, gets a girlfriend (Lori Elton) and starts driving around in a groovy van (with the Robin cycle loaded in the back). I'm sure that there were enough Robin solo stories from the next ten years to fill up another volume, which hopefully DC will publish.