UTHEORY OF : Detective Comics # 27

Picked up another copy of this recently...The 1974 Famous First Edition reprint of Detective 27 from 1939... I must not have read it for a long time, because I'd forgotten what a glorious mishmash this comic was...The classic Batman debut remains riveting... Finger stole the plot from a Shadow pulp and Kane stole half of the art from a Big Little book...Doesn't matter...Still oddly spooky when Batman emerges...

As for the rest...well, even with these rough styles, Batman was far from the best-drawn feature in this issue. Many of these, of course, already had been running in Detective for some time. Superman creators Siegel & Shuster have two features here - Spy and Slam Bradley, both in that rollicking style that was perfected by putting a red cape and blue tights on their protagonist. Two people die in the first eight panels of the Spy story. Slam Bradley's sidekick Shorty Morgan is drawn as a cartoon character, making him look not even human. Ah, the Golden Age.

The best-drawn feature here likely is Crimson Avenger by Jim Chambers. Chased off the lead spot by Batman, CA was basically a pulp character that never quite caught on. The Bruce Nelson feature - another private eye or cop or something - also was well-drawn by Tom Hickey.

The rest is fairly forgettable. Zatara artist Fred Guardineer does a sub-par job on Speed Saunders. Leo O'Mealia also doesn't offer much on Fu Manchu. Two dull features here are printed n their original two-tone pink and white. (Maybe it was supposed to be red?) Cosmo by Sven Elven and a Western strip called Buck Marshall by Homer Fleming.

(I had to look up Sven Elven. Yes, there really was an early comic book artist by that name.)

Humor features Plainclothes Pete and Flatfoot Flannigan seem oddly out of place here, even as comic relief.

Batman would soar to glory. Most of the rest would be forgotten, although CA wld don a full costume and join second-string super-group 7 Soldiers of Victory. He'd linger on the edges of the DC Universe and even make a cameo on the Justice League United cartoon in the 21st century. Slam Bradley would run for many years, and later be re-introduced into the DCU.

Even with its uneven content, Tec 27 remains a milestone comic both for DC and the entire comics industry.