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Feb 06, 2015 Web Exclusive By Zach Hollwede

Bat-mania swept the United States in the 1960s. Adam West and Burt Ward appeared on television as the dynamic duo once a week. West’s Batman made the cover of Life Magazine in 1966. Circulation of Batman comics had surpassed one million copies per month in the U.S. And international fans wanted in on the fix. In the mid-‘60s, manga writer-artist Jiro Kuwata was commissioned to do a Batman series for the burgeoning Japanese market. Batman: the Jiro Kuwata Batmanga Volume 1 collects Kuwata’s work—translated into English—for the first time ever.

The tome collects six separate tale, each three or four chapters long. In them, Batman and Robin face off against (somewhat campy) villains such as Lord Death Man, The Human Ball, and Professor Gorilla. Each villain—in truth, each story—perfectly (and understandably) reflects the zeitgeist of 1960s pop culture’s fascination with sci-fi. A full half of the antagonists featured in the Batmanga owe their origin stories to science experiments gone wrong (in fact, the scientists depicted in each arc look identical, even though they represent different characters). The pacing and storytelling are fast and simple; an experiment creates a villain, Batman and Robin get their butts handed to them, and then they ultimately figure out how to defeat the threat.

Accept the fact that the stories are formulaic. You have to. They’re six of the same, and they’re all fun in spite of that. Kuwata’s work is as Westernized as it comes, evidence of how much foreign publishers wanted to jump aboard the Bat-bandwagon. (Okay, Lord Death Man sounds pretty Japanese, but the rest could have been in any Stateside Batman comic of that time.) The stories read quickly and engagingly, bolstered by Kuwata’s detailed yet somehow simultaneously simple artwork. The collection is a fun, amusing throwback to Batman of 50 years ago, a quick and fun book that’s sure to bring a smile to any Bat-fan’s lips. (www.dccomics.com/graphic-novels/batman-the-jiro-kuwata-batmanga-book-1)

Author rating: 7/10