For the first Batman Friday I will be looking at the trade of Batman: The Black Casebook. These are some of the stories that inspired Batman: R.I.P. and has an introduction by Grant Morrison. This trade collects an assortment of Batman stories from the 50’s and one from the 1964, and if you have read Grant Morrison’s book Supergods you will get a taste here on how weird the post war era of Batman was. At the beginning of the trade there is a general introduction on how and why Grant Morrison ended up on Batman as well as a background on the twelve Batman stories that he chose for the trade. 
The first story collected is “A Partner for Batman” which is a story of Robin confronting his greatest fear… the Batman replacing him with someone else. In the beginning of the story Batman and Robin are taking down some criminals on a boat, well doing that Robin ends up breaking his leg. For the remainder of the story Robin is stuck being on bed rest, so for the time being Batman needs a replacement sidekick and that’s where Wingman comes in. By the end of the story we see that all of Robins fretting was for not since Wingman was actually being trained by Batman to go be a Batman in Europe. Grant Morrison in his Batman and Son & Batman: The Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul story arcs touched on this story with the replacing of Tim Drake as Robin for Damian Wayne.
The next story in the trade is “Batman—Indian Chief”. This is the story that introduces us to the characters of Man-of-the-Bats & Little Raven. Now I could go on & on about this story in comparison with the seventh issue of Batman Incorporated. These characters have evolved from their first appearance in 1954 to their most resent appearance; they went from being depicted as uncivilized versions of Batman & Robin to fully formed character dealing with the real issues that are faced by the First Nations people on reserves. Anyways in the story Batman has to take on the role of Man-of-the-Bats so Great Eagle isn’t found out to be Man-of-the-Bats by his enemy Black Elk. As I have mentioned these characters appear again in Batman Incorporated seven, but they also return in Grant Morrison’s Batman: The Black Glove story arc. Grant Morrison has done amazing work in developing these two characters, & I feel out of any of the Bat characters to come out of Gran Morrison’s run with Batman these two are in desperate need of a mini-series or even on going series.
“The Batmen of All Nations” is central to Grant Morrison’s Batman: The Black Glove with it being the story in which all the different heroes that have been inspired by Batman have come together. It’s your basic story of murder and deceit with on of the other Batmen being someone out to kill Batman. Overall its kind of a forgettable story if it was for what Grant Morrison and Paul Cornel would do with those characters fifty some years later.
Did you know that there was a Batman before Bruce Wayne was ever Batman… well that is reveled in the story of “The First Batman”, where it turns out that Thomas Wayne wore the cape and cowl before his son ever did. This story tells the tale of how Thomas & Martha Wayne were at a costume party Thomas ended up stopping the sinister plans of a gangster who would later hire Joe Chill to murder the Wayne’s. Batman tries to bring down the gangster through his normal route, but that doesn’t work for him. So after all normal methods have been proven fruitless Bruce Wayne puts on his father bat costume and goes after the criminal with great success. In the end Bruce hangs his fathers costume up in the Batcave like he would with any of his past costumes. This story plays a role in Batman: R.I.P. & Grant Morrison’s run on Batman and Robin as the outfit for the villainous Doctor Hurt.
“The Club of Heroes” is a sequel to the “Batmen of all Nation” story talked about earlier in the trade. This story reunites our international team of Batman like heroes and introduces the character of billionaire John Mayhew, a character that would return with the Club in Batman: The Black Glove as a connection to Doctor Hurt and the sinister Black Glove. The story itself isn’t much, it’s a Superman Batman team up where Batman & the Club of Heroes are trying to figure out who will be its leader, & Superman is dealing with a new hero in town by the name of Lighting Man. Turns out the leader for the Club will be chosen by the person that does the most amazing feat, and that person ends up being our Dark Knight who discovers that Lighting Man is actually Superman well suffering from Kryptonite amnesia. Who new Batman was such a great detective?
Who would be capable of ending the Batman’s career, well that is what we find out in “The Man Who Ended Batman’s Career”. Turns out its no one, but we do get a gripping psychological story of how Professor Milo plans on stopping the Batman by making him afraid of the very thing he is, so without missing a beat he becomes the character of Starman. With the help of his faithful ward Robin helps Batman get over his phobia and become the Batman again well taking down Professor Milo. These kind of stories where inspirational to Grant Morrison in his creating of Batman: R.I.P., because of the potential for psychological damage to Batman from years of mind altering attacks.
“Am I Really Batman?” is another story heavy in psychological drama for the Batman, as well as the return of dear Professor Milo who has dosed Batman with a mind-altering chemical that changed his state of mind. The chemical Milo uses causes the victim to loose all desire to live, so Robin & Alfred give Batman a reason by denouncing him as Batman & thusly giving him a caused to keep fighting. They do this for the twenty-four hour time period it would take for the chemical to wear off. Again it is another psychological drama stories that paved the way for Batman: R.I.P.
Zur-En-Arrh! If you were to pinpoint key phrases that have been important to the Batman title in the last ten years “Zur-En-Arrh” would be one of them without a doubt. The concept of the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh from Grant Morrison’s Batman: R.I.P. can be traced back to a one-shot story from February 1958 in “Batman – The Superman of Planet X”. In that story our Batman is teleported to the planet Zur-En-Arrh by its Batman. Well there our Batman finds out that he has powers similar to those of his friend Superman, and so with these new abilities he stops disasters, fights invaders and hordes of giant robots. By the end of the story he is sent back home, and is left trying to figure out if it was or wasn’t all just a dream… with a little gift from the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, the Bat-Radia. So much of what happens in this story is brought up in Batman: R.I.P. & I love that. I think out of all the stories in this collected trade this is by far my favorite.
“Batman Meets Bat-Mite” is the first appearance of Batman’s number one fan, the fifth dimension being known as Bat-Mite. In this story Bat-Mite does all he can to make this the best Batman adventure ever by throwing all sorts of changes at him with his fifth dimensional magic. This character makes important appearances in both Batman: The Black Glove & Batman: R.I.P.
“The Rainbow Creature” & “The Batman Creature” are both stories depicting how this had drastically changed in this post war era of Batman. With the waning interest in superhero comics by the general public this were done differently then how they were in the past. Also at this time Batman & Robin were facing claims of homosexuality, which at that time was less accepted then say today. In the story of “The Rainbow Creature” we showcase the weird stories that they told in order to get away form some of the issues of the past with new & weird bad guys for Batman to fight. In this case a multi colored monster with different powers base on its colors, as apposed to random street gang crime. As for “The Batman Creature” we so both a story showcasing the new Bat-family members, Batwoman and Ace the Bat-Hound, as well as a story about the weird things that would happen to the Batman, such as in this story being turned into a Gorilla.
The two part story “Robin Dies at Dawn” is the really rocket fuel to the story of Batman: R.I.P. with it having to deal with the loneliness of Batman and the emotional toll that can take on the character. It also is the bases for the idea of the three different Batmen we seen in Batman: and Son, as well as Batman: R.I.P., through the isolation experiment, as well the doctor conducting the experiment would also be retconned into being Doctor Hurt. This story is very weird in that we are dealing with things of Batman’s imagination, criminals in gorilla suits, and Batman hallucinating things from his time in the isolation experiment. In the end Batman does save Robin and thusly saves the day.
In the end I would highly recommend this trade to anyone wanting a way to better understand Grant Morrison’s run on Batman, as well as to anyone that would want to get familiar with Batman stories of this time. I would like to mention that I wouldn’t mind if DC would do one of these for All Star Superman, since that is another Grant Morrison story based off of some of those weird Superman stories of the post war era.
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