Bat Man by Lew Merrill (1936) (2002 Reprint)

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Woe he animal or was he hn- man? Sometimes he loved the woman who had been his fiancee; at other times he oared only for his furry mate. What had happened to John Charters? BAT THK glare of the lights terrified and blinded me. 1 crouched there, in a corner of the room, looking al the empty bed, anil seeing, in the corridor beyond', women in nurses' uniforms passing from room to room. I tried to fly, and discovered that my left wing was injured. I could only crouch there, shaking with terror, in spite of my frantic desire to fly round and round the walls of the little room, in search of some refuge beyond the reach of earth-bound creatures. I saw a nurse with golden hair pass along the corridor, and that hair of hers seemed to me a haven of rest. If only I could fly to it and conceal myself widun it I For I had become a bat. A hat with a man's intelligence, a man's memories, striving to emerge from a confused mass of jumbled recollections. "He's got the brain of a bat." Who 16

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By LEW MERRILL MAN had said lhat? Roger Dean, who had transformed me into this low form o( life, by grafting my brain into the body of one of my species. Roger Dean, who was jealous of me, and wanted to supplant me with Alice ! 1 had been ill a long time, but I couldn't remember just what had been the matter with me. I recalled vaguely tlml there had been business troubles, a quarrel with Alice. I had even thought of suicide. What did it matter? I was a bat now, and soon they would discover that I had escaped from them, and they would catch me and put me in a cage, and rob me of my blessed freedom. For we hats are only able to live in freedom. You can't cage us. We die. And Roger Dean wouldn't want me to die. He wanted to gloat over me, and show ine to Alice.

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18 SPICY MYSTERY STORIES If only toy left wing hadn't been broken! Something tapped softly against the window-pane. I looked op and saw another bat, and knew that it was my mate. I scrambled op the window-sill, my tiny, furry body creeping beneath the shade so silently. Then I heard a startled cry from the room. It was the golden-haired nurse. "He's gone I" she cried. "He's gone !" TJUT I bad already scrambled down the wall and was- outside the hos- pital. Densely dark though the night was, I could see as well as by day. My mate was flitting and circling overhead, and I let her guide me. In a few minutes, scurrying on the ground, making such short Sights as my wing permitted, I had passed beyond the boundaries of our little town, and was making for the old, abandoned quarries on the outskirts. I knew them well, for, as a boy, I had traced their labyrinthine passages. My mate circled above me, and then, .with a thin shriek, darted inside. As I followed, scrambling with my bad wing, a delirious odor began to came to my nostrils, growing stronger and stronger as I penetrated to the inmost recess of the labyrinth. The odor of warm, soft bodies like my own. The space above me was filled with the darting creatures, issuing after insects, and returning, but there were scores that remained hanging head downward from the rocky roof of the cave, splotch- ing the walls with their dark, downy bodies. These, I knew, were mother bats, nursing their young. Right in the midst oi them was a yaeaut space that I knew was mine. No, Ours! I climbed up the rocks, and was wel- comed with twitterings of satisfaction at my arrival. I hung there among my fellows. Day was already dawning, and, as the dim light began to filter into the labyrinth, the remainder of the brood returned, clinging to the rocks until they covered them. Their sleeprag-time had- come. The gibbering and the twittering ceased. Oh the happiness that I felt, now that I had found my own f The sweet scent, the sense of solidarity among us, as if one single mind animated us all. Then, with a little whimpering sound, my mate crawled lo my side and dung tome, fastened herself to me, her downy body against my own. T MUST have slept through the day. I awoke to 6nd that it was dark again. And with that awakening a dim remem- brance oE the past came back to me. God, I had once been a man — that brain of mine that Roger Dean had trans- planted into the skull of a hideous bat! I had loved Alice, and this had been, his revenge 1 And here I hung in my loathsome bat- form, locked tight in the embrace of my mate, which had never ceased to cling to me through those hours of sleep. I was shut off forever from the world of human beings, from the woman whom I still loved with my human brain, though she seemed very far in the past. I must go to her, and find whether she had married Roger Dean. Besides, with my awakening hunger, a new instinct was awakening in me. I wanted to see Alice asleep, and apply my mouth to that pretty diroat of hers, drawing out the warm blood until my thirst was appeased, yet so gently that she wouldn't know. They say the vampire bat lives only in South .America. But the instinct is latent in all of us. And how codld I

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BAT MAN 19 catch insects an the wing, crippled as I was? The taste of warm blood from Alice's veins would almost recompense mc for having become the thing I was. Already my companions were begin- ning to squeak and gibber as their waiting time arrived. The thing that had been clinging to me now detached itself, and flitted spectrally out through the opening of the quarry. The rest took wing alsoi I worked my way down to the ground and began moving silently through the streets. of our town, until I reached the one on which Alice lived. The town was dim to me, though I could- see plainly m the darkness. But it required a constant and immense effort of mind to recall the days when I had walked its streets, a human being. God, how I hated Roger Dean, when I was able to recall what he had done to me I I would have fastened my small, keen teeth in his. throat and drawn the life- blood out of it, except for Alice. She had. been so gentle and compassionate. I was sure she would give me of her blood, if she knew who I was. I reached what I thought was the house, and, scrambling up the clapboards, perched myself upon the sill, and peered in through the open window. The room was quite dark to human eyes, but perfectly visible to mine. I saw a man and a girl embracing each other, holding each other East in an ecstasy of passion. I could hear them speaking in low tones, and, bat though I had become, I understood what they were saying to each other. «T>OGER, darling, I'm so happy •■with you," the girl waa saying. "Just think, it's a whole month since we came bock from our honeymoon, and we care for each other more than ever, don't we I" I heard his voice answering, and recognized it. It was that of Roger Dean, my murderer and my rival. So he had won Alice? For a few moments the blind, impotent rage of a bat filled my heart as I realized how helpless I was. But then the girl turned her face, laughing up into her husband's eyes, and I realized that she wasn't Alice, bat a strange girl. I could see her long, smooth limbs, her breasts, crushed in the man's embrace, and her dark hair. A stranger 1 So Roger Dean had discarded Alice, after performing that vile operation on mc ! "You know, darling, I used to he terribly jealous of that Alice Drew," said the girl. "I was afraid you cared for her, after I had begun to love you. Yoa did at one time, didn't youP" "That was before I met you, sweet- heart" "And you're quite sure that you don't care for her a little bit still?" "She's a good friend, and I want you two to be friends. But she was never anything to me from the moment that I set eyes upon you." "That was a week after poor John Charters escaped from the hospital, wasn't it? Poor Alice, it must all have been a dreadful shock to her. Would he ever have got well?" "Well, he had about the brain of a bat," answered Roger Dean. "A human brain functioning — what there was of it — by blind instinct It would have been interesting to see what would have hap- pened if he hadn't escaped and fallen into the river." "Do you think that was his body they found ?"

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20 SPICY MYSTERY STORIES "Well, the head was battered out oE all semblance to any human head, when the cataract carried the body over the rocks. Yet it must have been poor Chart- ers, or he -couldn't have escaped recap- ture— poor Charters, with his bat-brain. Don't let's talk about him. dearest- Kiss Her arms went around his neck, and she strained herself to aim. I watched them, mad with fury. She knew what he meant when he spoke of my "bat-brain." She, too, was laughing at me. I must have made some sound, for suddenly she had started out of his arms. "Roger, what was that?" she screamed. "At the window! Look, look?" Silently as a bat moves, T dropped from the sill and fluttered to die ground. I heard Dean shouting, and presently he came running out of the front door with a gun in his hand. But at that same time I was hanging, quite invisible to him, to the shrubbery beside the house. After a while he went in again and closed the door. "There's no one around here," I heard him call, "ft must have been the wind at the shutter, dear." ''But I was sure I saw — I was sure T saw—" T heard her say. BRAIN was working furiously; my bat's brain, through which the human emotions were trying to force a channel of thought. Why couldn't what Dean had left of it — why couldn't it function as a human brain? Were the obscure vital processes of the bat gradu- ally destroying the hitman element in it? I remembered how those two had dung together, and I remembered Alice, and the quiver of a man's desire ran through my furry body. For a while I hung in the shrubbery, shaken by pas- sion. Then I dropped to the ground and edged softly out into the night again. In a few minutes I -had reached what I was sure was Alice's house. Again 1 climbed to the window and looked inside. In the darkness- 1 could ace .a girl's form lying in a bed, a thia sheet half- way over her. She was asleep, and breathing smoothly and regularly. Very quietly I moved across the floor, trailing my broken wing, then climbed one of the bedposts and perched myself upon the pillow. The girl's face was turned away from me, but I was sura that she was Alice. The night was warm, and only a single sheet partially covered her. I could see her body in the rumpled, sheer night- dress, the rounded orbs of her breasts, one of which drooped softly against her arm, while the other pointed invitingly toward me. A sweet, warm fragrance came from her naked throat and shoul- der, making me forget the sweeter fra- grance of my companions in the cave! For a moment I felt a man again. Through the nightdress was faintly limned the flattened oval of her stom- ach, the curve of her full hips; under- neath the edge of it the whiteness of her thighs. They were crossed, and she seemed to be dreaming happily, for there was a look of rapture on her face. I had crept down from the pillow, to draw some blood from her. without awaking her, as we bats know how to do. All the infernal instincts of my race were alive io me. And yet — even then I had thai strange illusion that I was once more a man. I even fancied that, instead of perch- ing there near her white throat, a little, furry creature, 1 was a man beside.her, clasping her around her slender waist, and pressing my lips to hers. But this wasn't Alice I

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22 SPICY MYSTERY STORIES makes love to strange women, aren't your" But I couldn't answer her, of course. She was still half asleep. And f was ab- sorbed, searching far a place to apply my keen little teeth, 1 saw the tracery of blue veins on her neck, and I was mad with the desire for blood. "It doesn't matter," she whispered. "I adore you for jour daring." Suddenly she shrieked as I nipped her, twittering with ecstasy, shrieked and leaped from the bed. T HEARD her stumbling down the stairs, calling for help, and then the soand of running footsteps. But, again, for me escape was easy. I scrambled to the open window, was down the clap- boards of the house in a moment, and running for the shelter of the trees in the little park. I couldn't understand how I had got confused. By this time I was too fright- ened to try to find Alice again that night, I made my way back to the quarry, and sought my old resting-place. The bats were flitting in and out by scores, and, as I sought my niche, a soft. Curry body flopped beside me, and an insect was Ihrust into my mouth. I. swallowed it mechanically, and me- chanically my mouth opened again to re- ceive another of the loathsome delicacies. My mate was bringing mc food, because my wing was crippled, and I was unable to hunt for myself. Through the remainder o[ the night I clung there, my mouth opening mechan- ically like a fledgling's, whenever she ap- peared beside me lo thrust in another nsect. To me the taste of that food was lelicately rare, horrible as the memory of it is now, for by this time Alice and the past had grown very faint again. I exulted in the companionship of my fel- low-bats, as they winged their way -fe and out of the cave, bringing food' for their young. I felt my consciousness go out to the tribe, unite, and become one with them. When at last dawn "was approaching, my mate ceased to feed me, and snuggled up to me again. There we hung, heads downward, our bodies dose together. With dawn, the bats came winging back to sleep. Soon the wall of the rocks was once more covered with a dense cluster. Now I had forgotten every- thing. I lapsed into unconsciousness. J^AYS, weeks seemed to go by. I had forgotten Alice, for my mate was feeding' me. And then, suddenly the de- sire for blood awoke in me once more. Then one night I found myself in the street, crouching beneath Alice's. window. I realized my former mistake. I- had confused left and right, I had gone to the wrong side of the little park. Now I had found her. There was no light in her window, but it was open, and, when I had clam- bered to the sill, to avoid startling her, I tapped, tapped with my sound wing until I heard her movements within the room. Then she said, in a steady tone : "Who's there? Don't move! I've got a revolver. I flunk you're caught at last I" "It's I. It's John Charters I" I tried to say. though of course only a thin twit- ter came from my mouth. "Merciful God !" I heard her whisper, A little shaded light beside her .bed went on, and I saw her sitting on the bed looking at nie, her fair hair falling about her neck, and her lovely breasts half- bare. "John 1 John !" she whispered, look- ing at me in mingled horror and pity. She knew met ■ The very force of my

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BAT MAN 23 lave had somehow enabled us to com- municate hy telepathy with each other. Furry, repulsive little tiling though I had become, as I scrambled toward her bed, she knew that the soul of me was the soul of the man she had loved. Silent, rigid, white, she waited till I had scrambled up the bedclothes and perched myself upon the bed beside her knee. "Alice," I twittered. "I see you know me. I want you to believe what I'm go- ing to tell you. Can you understand what I am saying to you ?" And again she understood me, though my words were only the shriek of the flittermouse I was I "Yes, John, I understand you," she answered. "Roger Dean made me what I am, be- cause he was jealous of our love. He operated on me in the hospital, removed my brain and placed it in the skull of a bat. I am a man in a bat's body, Alice f™ ^/HAT a.glance, what a piteous glance she gave me, as if she had suspected all! I, saw her open her lips as if to apeak, then check herself. "I'm glad that devil didn't marry you. I saw him with that woman he married." "You? That was you?" she whispered in real terror. 'Yes, I have been looking for you so long. Oh, my dear, I was so a f raid some- thing had happened to you. If I were a man, I should ask you to let me creep into your arms and lie there. Would you r" "Why, oE course, John, darling," she answered. "But I'm a bat, you see. I live in the quarries, and I have a mate who firings me food. Am I frightening you?" She fixed me with that steady gaie ol hers. "Ho, John, go on," she whispered. "You're not afraid that I'll get into your hair?" "No, I'm not afraid. But you can have my hair, darling. Anything you want of. me." "Oh, if only I was a man again," I sobbed. "Alice, don't be frightened when I tell you what 1 want. I want to drink some of your blood. May I ?" "Why, of course, John," she answered softly. "Come here to me!" I scrambled toward her, little broken thing that I was, and nestled close to her lovely shoulder — so white, so soft and warm. Oh God, if I had been a man in- stead of a loathsome bat ! I put my tiny, fox-like head against her smooth throat and nuzzled there, and felt her cool hands pressing against my face, stifling the throbbing in my brain. 1 put my lips to her white flesh and drew a tiny fold between my sharp little teeth. The skin broke as I nipped it. And then somehow I knew — it was just as if it had been shouted in my ear — that all my immortal future depended upon the fight which had suddenly been forced upon me. If I drank of Alice's blood, there would be no hope for me throughout all eternity. If I abstained, I might hope some day, somehow, to win hack to human form, if not in this- in- carnation, then in a subsequent. one. T DREW my lips away. "I've hurt you, dear," I twittered. "No," she answered. "You couldn't hurt me, John. Do anything you please to mc. But let me hold you close." I snuggled down again, and she crooned over me like a mother. Gradu- ally my thirst for her blood abated. I was winning that fight. I caressed her skin with my daws, fondled her smooth throat, and stroked her hair, thinking all the while how great

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24 SPICY MYSTERY STORIES her- Love jnuat be, that she could endure such a repulsive little thing', so close to her; Then- 1 lay passive, and let her ton- die.- inc. ""Your arm, darling, isn't it better?" she asked. Yon see, she had even, tailed my wing an -arm. She was pretending that I was a man I "Not yet," I answered. "That's why my mate Eeeds me. I must go back to her, Alice, and you must forget me." "Back to the quarries, John ?" "Back to the quarries, never to see you again. I realize how I have hurt yon, coming here like this. It would have been better to have let you go on think- ing in e dead." "I knew you hadn't died, darling. If yon had died, I should have known. I'm coming with you. John." Remember, all this conversation was carried on by pure telepathy. How could she have understood the meaningless squeaks that issued from my lips, save throngh the telepathic powers of love? "I can't — I can't let you come there,'' I said. "But you can-l drive me away. I'm coming, John," she answered. "To — to see me living there? I told you 1— I've got a mate there. It's not for human beings. And when I'm there, I— I forget. 1 become wholly a bat again. You couldn't understand the — the beauty and the glory of it." "I'm coming with you, John," she an- swered. "Don't be afraid of me. My sis- ter's away, and there's no one else in the house. Wait till I'm dressed, and I'll come with you." "I'll wait outside," I said, and perched myself upon the window-sill. J HAD always known that Alice was no prude, just the sincereat, sim- plest, sweetest girl In the, world. Why should she have wanted- to hide her lovely body from/ a bat, .even though it had -a human brain? She seemed forgetful. of herself entirely. She turned away as she stripped the nightdress over hex bead, but 'that was all. I devoured her soft, boyish bosom with my eyes, and the lovely curves\of her hips as she put on step-ins and stock- ings. And, like so many women, she sat on the floor to put her stockings od. I don't know why this little thing touched me so deeply. Then she slipped the -dress over her shoulders and put on her shoes. "I'm ready, dear John," she said. "Let's go downstairs." "It's easier forme to climb down the front of the house,".. I anav/rn7erL "jCH wait for you outside." "Oh!" she gasped, pressing. hcfcfilind to her breast, and I saw the. tears come into her eyes. Dut I was already scrambling out of the window, and I was hardly down be- fore the front door opened, and Alice came out. I scurried along beside her, looking up into her eyes with eager hope. Could she really be coming to the quar- ries, to live there with me? Could a human being understand the joy and the wonder of the bat life? "If my wing would heal, I could fly," I said, "Oh. John, don't speak about it," she sobbed, So I said nothing more, but fluttered along beside her, looking up into her face every now and then to reassure myself that she wasn't weakening. I was sure she would he afraid when we reached the entrance to the quarries, with die bats skimming in and out, b«t she only put both hands on her hair and followed me.

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26 SPICY MYSTERY STORIES fof his wretched work/' I said, "hut I'm only a bat What can I do?" "John, have you been living here these past three weeks F" she asked. "Three weeks? About three days," I answered. "Ever since I escaped from the hospital." "John, will you come with me — to a place where — you will be comfortable? No more hunting for food in garbage cans at night, and — " "You mean the zoo," I said. "No, no, my dear, I prefer my liberty. And you're quite mistaken about the garbage cans. My mate brings me my food, because I cannot fly. I sleep all day, and it is warm and comfortable among the bats. Oh, the great peace and joy of it — if you could only know, Alice!" She was silent for a while. Then she said, in a strained tone : "Shall T find you here, John, when I come back?" "You're going away?" I hadn't thought she would stay, but that hurt nie. "I'vcgot to go away. I wasn't pre- pared. Bui I'll be back soon. You 1\ stay here, won't you, John?" "Yes, I'll stay here," I answered. T WAS banging head downward amODg the rocks again, and my mate was twi tiering beside me. She seemed to sense that something unusual had hap- pened, something that threatened my safety. And, because there is only a sin- gle consciousness among the bat tribe, the others seemed uneasy too. I arill reinembercil Alice, but in a dim way. for the blessed dawn was coming, when I could sleep and forget. I should be snugly asleep in this dark, secret para- disc. I was already snuggling into my mnte's embraces when there arose a sud- den commotion in the cave. Though it was dimly light, the bats were rising in scores from their resting- places, and flitting to and fro, squeaking and gibbering, till the whole interior of the quarry was alive with wings. Then I discovered what the cause was. Three men were entering the cavern, widi flashlights in their hands. The dreadful light blinded me, and terror overcame me, but, with my broken wing, I could only cling to the wall. And now the bats were streaming out over their heads, leaving me alone. Even, my faithful mate had deserted me. "There he is!" I heard one of them say, and the torchlight, directed full at my face, was agony. "Oh, take care! I'm afraid -he'll falft Don't let him fall !" cried another voice, in a high-pitched key. "It's all right. Miss Drew. WeWe got the net spread. We'D get him down^poor Fellow. John, won't you come down?" he called. I didn't know who John was. I didn't recognize Alice's voice, didn't know that that high pitch was a mark of the human female. But I knew the voice of the man. It was the man who had mocked and tortured me. I bared my slurp little teeth and grinned defiance at him. "Jim," I heard him say, "run back and get that pole. We'll have to poke him out of there." "Don't hurt him I Oh, don't hurt him ! Remember he's half paralyzed 1" came the high-pitched voice again. "Don't be afraid," came the response. "We'll have him down easy and com- fortable." T GRINNED and twittered, but tho two men went on talking and paid no at- tention to me- "Yes, chief," said Dean, "this is hb-

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BAT MAN 27 donbtedly John Charters, who has been breaking into houses at uight and fright- ening women hall to death. I 'recognized him as soon as I flashed that light, de- spite his beard and rags. Well, once we get him back to the hospital, we'll watch him so he won't escape again. Poor fel- low, I was beginning to hope he would recover. Now, aEter this experience— well, I don't know." "But this bat business — it's all batty to me. How did he get the idea he was a bat?" "Here's my explanation, chief. When the foolish fellow fired that slug into his temple, after a perfectly causeless out- break of jealousy about me and Miss Drew — why, we've known each other since we were kids . — he blew away the whole frontal area of the brain, instantly reducing himself to the condition of an automaton, acting by purely reflex ac- tions, like a bird or a bat. Under such conditions, his future life would be a purely vegetative ope, were it not for the fact that we have two brain3, one of which is never developed. ,lI wag trying to, induce the frontal am, of the right brain to take up the task laid down by the left, which had been destroyed. Had f succeeded, he would have become a human being again. I may succeed yet. He must have heard me refer to his having the brain of a bat, and, by the power of suggestion, ac- cepted the idea that he was a bat. But this fact gives me hopes tliat lie may yet recover." "I think I get you, doctor. And diat paralyzed arm and leg—" "Which he spoke of as a wing? That will pass, if ever the brain resumes ac- tivity.1' "And what about those descriptions oT his life as a bat, that Miss Drew picked up in this place?" "I build my strongest hopes upon those, for it is evident that poor Charters always retained a lingering doubt whether he was not a man. It is evident that the slug, which destroyed most of the frontal lobe, missed the speaking centre, and through this Charters was able to establish connection with the ex- ternal world." "I see, doctor. It's sort of beyond me, but — -here comes Jim with the pole." "Don't hurt him !" cried Alice, and ran to the base of the wall again. "John ! John, darling," she cried in piteous tones, "it's Alice! You know me. Won't you coine down?" And suddenly something seemed to click in my brain. It was as instantane- ous as the click of a camera shutter. Suddenly the bat life, with all its wonder and its glory, was closed to me for ever. Suddenly I realized that I was John Charters, dinging precariously to this wall, in a vile litter of evil-snielu'ng filth. With three leaps I was on the ground. "Alice. I — I'm sane!" I cried. "Don't touch me!" But her arms were around my neck, and she was sobbing out her joy upon my shoulder. Next MonUi SPICY MYSTERY STORIES will present another sensational story by Lew Merrill, "Astral Murder"

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PULP HEROES OF THE THIRTIES I 74 When Batman burst upon the newsstands in DETECTIVE #27, be not only took the nascent comic book world by storm, but sent shock waves through the pulp magazine world as well. Specifically, the storm centered around Leo Margulics' Better Publications, whose BLACK BOOK DETECTIVE had just inau- gurated the adventures of a cowled crime-buster who wore a black, ribbed cape and styled himself the Black Bat. As the late Bill Finger, scripter and co-creator of Batman, revealed in Jim Steranko's HISTORY OF THE COMICS: "It was a weird coincidence. Apparently this character had already been written and on the drawing board. Whit Ellsworth used to be a pulp writer for Better Publications. So through Ellsworth's inter- vention a lawsuit was averted. They were ready to sue us and we Were ready to sue them. It was just one of those wild coinci- dences." And it was. The first Black Bat novel, "Brand or the Black Bat," appeared in the July 1939 BLACK BOOK DETECTIVE while DETECTIVE COMICS #27 was cover dated May 1939. But actually the Black Bat had been created first. He was the work of the prolific Norman A. Daniels, who submitted that first novel on Dec. 6, 1938. Ironically, Daniels originally called his character the Tiger, but his editor requested that the character be revamped into more of a mysterious figure because be was going to appear in BLACK BOOK DETECTIVE. So the Black Bat he became. The Black Bat waa a strict Shadow clone. He wore ordinary black clothes, a cape absolutely identical to Batman's, and a hood- ed cowl wbich lacked bat ears and exposed more nose than Batman's but was otherwise quite close. The Black Bat carried a .45 and wore black gloves like the early Batman, Both characters later donned finned gauntlets. Like Batman, the Black Bat was a wealthy young man about town who fought crime by night. He was really District Attorney Tony Quinn, who lost his sight when criminals threw acid inlo his eyes. A secret eye transplant restored his vision and gave him supersight and the ability to see in the dark, but he pretended to be blind so he could become the Black Bat unsuspected. (Daredevil fans, take note.) He wore the cowl to cover telltale facial scars. Daniels, who wrote virtually all the 60-odd Black Bat novels under the G. Wayman Jones house name, gave only a cursory explanation for Quinn's decision to use a bat as his role model. While discussing the need for a new identity with his aide, Silk Norton, Quinn decides he'll have to don a hood, and Norton suggests Quinn wear black so he can move in the shadows unseen. At this point, inspiration strikes Tony Quinn: "But there must be some means of identification," Quinn pursed his hps. "Something by wbich men can recognize me. An Insignia - a name. Silk - I have it! I've been blind - as blind as a bat. I still am so far as anyone knows. I shall prowl during the

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PULP HEROES OF THE THIRTIES / 75 night Bats are blind and fly by night also. I'll be the bat. Silk. The Black Ball" Bui, originally. Bob Kane and Bill Finger didn't even do that much. Batman appeared without benefit of origin in a moody first story Bill Finger admitted was "a take-off of a Shadow story." Finger, who helped artist Bob Kane develop Kane's red-garbed, J^ino-maskod original Batman concept into the familiar strange iture of [he night, readily admitted to a strong Shadow influ- "My idea was to have Batman be a combination ofDouglas anks, Sherlock Holmes, The Shadow, and Doc Savage," he -nid. Finger not only used old Shadow and Doc Savage novels as ' ^boards but adopted various other ideas. Batman's utility belt - first used in DOC SAVAGE, for example, as were most of 's gadgets. Playboy Bruce Wayne might have been sug- by any one of the standard pulp playboys. Lament Cranston or Richard Curtis van Loan, the hero of Better Publications' PHANTOM DETECTIVE. Commissioner James W. Gordon could only have been a nod to Commissioner James "Wildcat" Gordon, the fearsome alias of the star of Street & Smilh's THE WHISPERER. Finger also claimed to have conceived Batman's not-so- aniqtie cape, and that a 1926 film, THE BAT, was the inspiration. The villain in that film wore such a cloak. But Finger, an avid reader of the pulps, might have been inspired by any number of pulp bat-men who roamed the popular magazines of the The fact of the matter is that even the Black Bat was not an original character, as far as bat-men are concerned. You can go back lo Mary Roberts Rinehart's book, THE BAT, or to the batlike suggestiveness of Bram Stoker's cloaked DRACULA (which par- tially inspired The Shadow, loo). During the pulp era there was the short-lived BLACK BAT DETECTIVE MYSTERIES. It featured a series of novelettes about an ordinary detective nicknamed, for no apparent reason, the Black Bat. Will F. Jenkins wrote the stories under his better- known Murray Leinster byline. But this rather undistinguished character is not likely to have influenced Finger. One early villain in THE SPIDER was called the Bat Man. He appeared in "Death Reign of the Vampire King" (November 1935). He controlled an army of vampire bats and glided around on great artificial bat wings. He was similar to the bat-men who were the minions of the villainous Emperor Zero in BRAND OF THE METAL MAIDEN, i Secret Agent X novel (January 1936). They wore leather outfits and hoods which covered their entire heads except for saucer-like giggles. Six-foot bat wings enabled these critters to fly. By an interesting coincidence, another bat villain appeared in Better Publications' PHANTOM DETECTIVE just six months before their own Black Bat appeared. He was called the Bat, dressed in the usual regalia and was vanquished in "The Yacht Club Murders" (January 1939), The weird part about this is that the author was Charles Green, who would later script Barman in theForticsl bat-inspired characters. Their most interesting one was another hero who predated the Black Bat. Known simple as the Bat, he premiered in the first issue of POPULAR DETECTIVE dated November 1934 in "The Bat Strikes" by C.K.M. Scanlon. Scanlon was a house name created by Leo Margulies to thumb his nose at those who frowned on the affair he was having with the woman he later married, Cylvia Kleinman. Legend has it that C.K.M. Scanlon stood for Cylvia Kleinman/Margulies Scandal. In any case, the identity of the Bat series author is unknown - even to Jack Schiff, who was editing POPULAR DETECTIVE at the time and who later, much later, edited BATMAN. Schiff had complete- ly forgotten the series. While no one knows who this particular Scanlon might have been, there is at least one strong suspect. In style and character

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PULP HEROES OF THE THIRTIES / 76 treatment, the Bat stories are strikingly similar to the kind of stuff that Johnston McCulley was doing for Margulies around this time, McCulley was, of course, the creator of Zorro - himself a direct influence on Batman, ironically enough. The Bat was a rather unprepossessing character, as far as bat- heroes go. He wore an ordinary suit lopped with a shapeless black hood which covered his entire head. A white bat glowed on the forehead He was really private detective Dawson Clade, who was framed for the murder of a wealthy philanthropist because his investigations were getting too close to underworld and political secrets. Sentenced to die in the electric chair, he is about to receive a parson from the governor when the latter is assassinated by crim- inals wielding a fatal dart gun. Martin Fenbeck steps in and, working with the prison warden who believeB Clade is innocent, rigs the electric chair so the framed man appears to die, but doesn't. They spirit Dawson Clade to Fenbeck's cabin in the woods while someone else is buried in the detective's grave. Now officially dead and therefore free of the murder charge, Dawson Clade hides out in the isolated cabin where he plans his revenge on the underworld. But before we consider the Bat's origin, it might be worth- while to review Batman's. Bob Kane and Bill Finger didn't get around to explaining Bruce Wayne's background until DETEC- TIVE COMICS #33. In a two-page vignette, they first revealed that Brace Wayne had witnessed the brutal double murder of ha parents when a kid. Orphaned, he grew up to hate crime sol vowed to avenge their deaths. After a course of training that might have made Doc Savage envious, Wayne sits in his study consider- ing how to effect his revenge. "Dad's estate left me wealthy," he muses. "I am ready. . . But first I must have a disguise. '■Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot," he continues, "ta my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible. . . A. . . "

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PULP HEROES OF THE THIRTIES / 77 The next panel is captioned: - As if in answer, a huge bat flics is Ihe open window. Wayne looks up, startled, and exclaims those now-famous words: "A ball That"* itl It's an omen. . . I shall The last panel shows the crouching image of Batman with the option: "And thus is bora this weird figure of the dark. . . This avenger of evil. The Batman." Funny thing. Dawson Clade had a very similar experience back io 1934. For posterity, he is the unabridged moment of epiphany from 'The Bat Strikes:" secretary, Dawson ( link droned into a chair, lit heard the roadster's motor start, ami then the sound Huled into Ihe distance as Martini enheck drove sway, ('lade's brain nas working swiftly I le realized that he lias a dead man in I lit eves lit I lie world lit would not he able lo appear mi pul 'lie milts- he miv enri'l'ullj disguised. No one save leubeek and i lit- prison warden knew or should ever know that Dawson < Made still lived. Yet he was one man wprictBf alortt ajainsl Ihe trooks ami Ihe cnrrupl politicians w ho went hand in gtove w ill) the cul forces of the underworld l or lhat reason he must become a figure of siitislci import hi all of these people. A uningc Nemesis that would eventually become a lesendan ( 'lade rise and began to pace (he floor I le w as nervous, restless Reaction had sel in What he had been through as he sat in the electric chair had left him .shaky Tar mom so than he had realized up to Ihe moment He was slid thinking Just what Ihe character would be that he intended in assume was still vague in his mind Ik- on!) knew Ihal it Would have to he some nunthilous |sic| creature of Ihe night lhal lutked in 11k- shadows. He glanced al llic oil lump burning on a table. Then he swung around, suddenly tense In the shadows above his head theie came a slithering. Happing sort of sound. Clade leaped hack insiiiitlneh as something hrushed past his cheek. Again Ihe Happing of wings— a weird rustl.ng sound T enor overcame him for an instant as something hrushed against his hair, caught in a tangled luck Something ihm seemed mis|vakahly evil I le reached up. lore at ii with lingers that had suddenly grown frantic. He Hung the thing aside As he did so he saw that it was a hat An insectivorous mammal with its wings formed by a membrane stretched between the tin; clongau-d Impels, legs and tail. As the ercalure hovered above Ihe lamp for an instant it east a huge shadow upon (he cabin wall "Thai's it!" exclaimed (Tadc aloud. "I'll call myself The "BAT MAN" from SPICY MYSTERY STORIES (Feb. 1 936)

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rULP HEROES OF THE THIRTIES / 78 The prose is pure second rale Waller Gibson just as The Bat is a third-rale version of The Shadow. But the Bat stories, of which there are at least five, are full of little touches like those found in Ihc early Batman stories. The Bat likes to leave liltle calling cards imprinted with a bat symbol, for instance. The unknown C.K.M. Scanlon continually refers to his character as "the Bat, strange creature of the night." He doesn't kill. Instead he fells crooks with his 'Vapor gun." His police contact is Detective Sergeant Burdoon, who doesn't know his identity. Coincidence? Well, consider these facts. Four individuals who were involved in the early Batman came out of Better Publications. Whitney Ellsworth, who wrote for the firm and later joined DC in an editorial capacity. Mori Weisinger, who was lured over to DC by Ellsworth and who became Batman's first official editor, (1 should mention that Weisinger's first professional sale, "Rope Enough," appeared in an early POPULAR DETECTIVE along with a Bat story.) Jack Schiff, who edited POPULAR DETECTIVE and took over editing Batman during the war when Mort Weisinger lured him into comics. And Charles Green, a later Barman scri pier who just happened to have created a villain named the Bat just before the Black Bat came along. All of these interesting connections are coincidental. At leasl, according to Bill Finger's account of Batman's creation as given in the HISTORY OF COMICS, Ihey are. And there's no reason to doubt him. He's frank about his influences. But could the striking similarities between the Bat's origin and Batman's be a coincidence, loo? Well, a lot of writers were busily imitating The Shadow in those days and a good portion of their efforts seemed to run to dark figures with bat imagery. It is possi- ble that Finger just happened to have explained the already-extant Batman with the same idea C.K.M. Scanlon devised about live years previously. But then again. Finger was a voracious pulp render and when you stack up ail these coincidences, I think that this last coincidence is just one too many. We'll never know for sure tf Bill Finger ever read the Bat sto- ries and deliberately or - equally likely as the Bat series is decid- edly less than memorable - subconsciously borrowed that one scene, because Finger died several years ago. But if it is a coinci- dence, it's a wilder one than the synchronicity which saw the births of the Black Bat and Batman just months apartl