Great comic book runs: Batman by Marshall Rogers (Englehart and Wein)

As much as Neal Adams (with Denny O’Neil) defined Batman for me in the early 1970’s it has to be said that Marshall Rogers provided one of the most interesting takes on the Batman myth during his tenure on the character in Detective Comics (issues 471 – 476 written by Engleheart and issues 478/9 by Len Wein) in 1977/78. A great example of the wackiness and genius of these story’s is in the tale “The Laughing Fish” (issue 475) where the Joker infects fish with the Joker serum that provides that manic grin on their faces. The aim of what seems to be a pointless exercise is that Joker expects to be granted a trademark on his grinning fish which he thinks will make him a fortune. Of course you can’t grant a trademark on a natural resource so he kills any bureaucrats that stand in his way in obtaining this license. A great story that melds the world of the (then) modern 1970s Batman and the true madness of the Joker to the wacky original Kane-Robinson era. Other tales were just as inventive and all were all stunningly illustrated by Rogers giving a familiar yet stylised version of the characters. Sadly Marshall Rogers passed away in 2007 at the all to young age of 57 but he left us some wonderful comics and some great comic book covers.

Cover image taken from the DC Wiki page (can't believe I lost/sold/gave away my copy of this classic)

Issue 477 was a reprint of Detective Comcis issue 408 "The house that haunted Batman" by Len Wein and Neal Adams with Marshall Rogers providing a couple of intro/end pages into the story.