I see they used a “Scooby-Doo” font on the word “GHOST” – Detective Comics #376

I picked this one up a couple of weeks ago at a local shop – it’s a nice, crisp copy with only a little wear on the sides. And I never, ever pass up a chance to buy some old issues of Detective Comics.  The use of perspective on the cover was what caught my eye.  The overall design, with Bats gazing upwards in the foreground, another Batman over the skylight and the moon and the upper reaches of some structure (not Wayne Manor) in the background, is nicely laid out.  My only complaint is the Bat-shadow on the wall behind Robin – where’s it coming from?  Batman’s sort of turned to the side, so he can’t be the source.

That’s the sort of thing that bugs me.

“Batman — Hunted or Haunted?” is your typical Silver Age fare.  The opening panels show Batman in the Batmobile returning to the Batcave.  It’s only inside that the cowl is removed and we’re greeted by a bald, egghead-y looking guy.  This ain’t no Bruce Wayne.  It turns out that we’re in the far future, and this “Batman” is arriving at a meeting of similarly costumed fellas, the “Batmaniacs.”  A nuclear war wiped out all records of human history (though apparently geeks and cosplay survived), so all that they have left by this point are tales handed down through word of mouth.  Batman is therefore the stuff of legend, though their costumes are exact recreations and they have models of various Bat-devices on the wall – it seems that they have the most precise oral histories ever.

The previously mentioned egghead, Tomas, goes on to tell the group about his trip back in time to see if Batman was real.  He went as a non-corporeal entity, so he only observes during the long flashback.  He watches as Batman and Robin track down a thief who stole Comissioner Gordon’s briefcase, and throughout the story Batman catches glimpses of someone watching him.  The Dynamic Duo solves the case and Tomas returns to his own time just as Batman is about to unmask in the Batcave.  D’oh!

The epilogue is some pseudo-science blather about how descendants can see the ghosts of their ancestors, though it turns out they apparently can also see the “ghosts” of their own descendants, because – wait for it – Tomas is Tomas Wayne, a direct descendant of Bruce’s.  Hence Batman’s fleeting impressions.

And there you go.

The backup story with the Elongated Man is less than stellar – some more nonsense about thugs and voodoo dolls – so I won’t get into that.  While it was silly, I did enjoy the Batman story.  I wish I could give some solid info on the creative team, but I’ve found conflicting info on the web.  I think Chic Stone handled the art on the Bat-story and Gardner Fox handled the scripting, though I’m not sure – but we can all be sure that Bob Kane, whose name appears on the first page, had little if anything to do with it.  It was Irv Novick’s nice cover that drew me in, though, so maybe that’s where most of the credit should go.

But where is that shadow on the cover coming from?