The first volume in the Batman: The Silver Age Omnibus series is sure to surprise any long-time or current fan of the Caped Crusader with numerous flights of fancy and more versions of Batman than jokes in The Joker’s jokebook!
The Silver Age Omnibus contains stories from Batman #101-116 and Detective Comics #233-257, and starts with the harrowing tale of Batman’s cape blowing off, which, according to Robin, may jeopardize Bruce’s secret identity (he has his name inside the collar?).
From there, fans get to meet multiple versions of Batman including: The Batman Puppet, Batman Jones, The Phantom Batman, The Armored Batman, Mogo: The Bat-Ape, Batman: Superman of Planet X, Batman’s Robot Twin, The First Batman (Bruce’s father), The Outlaw Batman, The Rainbow Batman, The Giant Batman, and The Alien Batman.
The stories from the late 1950’s (1956 to 1958) are a little light on Batman’s traditional rogue’s gallery, with writers opting for adversaries such as cave men, aliens, giants, mobsters, robots, dinosaurs, and giant monsters “inspired” by the sci-fi films of the day such as “The Creature from 20,000 Fathoms” or “The Creature from the Green Lagoon” (not to be confused with Universal’s Gillman, of course).
As evidenced by the cover below, Batwoman does make her debut in Detective Comics #233 and competes with the dynamic duo a few times over the course of the collection.
The entire collection contains work by Bill Finger, Edmond Hamilton, Dave Wood, and Jack Schiff, Sheldon Moldoff, Stan Kaye, Charles Paris, Dick Sprang, Win Mortimer, and Bob Oksner.
The 728 pages omnibus will be in stores on December 20 with a bat-tastic price of $99.99.
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What the heck happend to “Batman – The Golden Age Omnibus” #10 – it fits between #9 and This Volume?!
Good question…hopefully DC will complete the set soon.