Welcome to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine!

Reel Crime
By J. Rentilly

Long before the controversies of jingoism, camp dilution, or rubber nipples, all the way back to the moment Bill Kane and William Finger first committed to paper the mythology of a long-suffering billionaire turned demonic crime fighter, the character of Batman-nay, The Dark Knight-was a detective, a mystery solver, a noirish gumshoe, inspired in equal parts by Sherlock Holmes, Dick Tracy, and The Shadow.

Sure, over the years Batman has become known for his gadgetry, his 'Biff! Zap! Pow!' fisticuffs, and his sleek, nightmarish costume-nipples (in the 1995 film, Batman & Robin) or not-but, at the core of the character is a steely determination, a preternatural gift of deduction, and a passion for cracking tough cases. It's not for nothing that Batman has spent his career in publishing with Detective Comics.

"For seventy years, Batman has been referred to as 'the world's greatest detective,'" says Mark White, Associate Professor of Political Science, Economics, and Philosophy at College of Staten Island/CUNY and co-author (with Robert Arp) of Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul. "Sure, Batman is an Olympic-class athlete and master of many martial arts and boxing styles. He has his physical prowess, like a superhero needs. But at his best he solves crime using impeccable logic and amazing powers of observation."

It's the sheer humanity of Batman's backstory-orphaned at an early age when his parents are gunned down in

cold blood, Bruce Wayne commits his life to solving crimes in his beloved Gotham City-that has kept the character current through several generations of fans.

This July, Warner Bros. will release their much-anticipated The Dark Knight, written and directed by Chris Nolan, the director of 2005's Batman Begins. Christian Bale returns as the Caped Crusader and Heath Ledger appears as The Joker. To bridge the narrative gap between the two films, Warner Home Video will that same week release Batman: Gotham Knight, a direct-to-DVD animated movie consisting of six interlocking stories, teeming with darkness, mayhem, and detective work.

"Batman's appeal can be summed up quite easily: he's the thinking man's hero," says Arie Kaplan, author of the forthcoming book, From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books. "And he's popular not only with fans of superheroes, but with fans of detective fiction too. Because he's only a man in a costume solving crime with pure intellect and deductive reasoning, he's more like Sam Spade or Sherlock Holmes or James Bond than he is guys with incredible powers, like Spider-Man or Superman. Batman is one of us."

Indeed, inspired by pulp fiction, noir literature, as well as Victorian mysteries, Batman-from his first appearance in Detective Comics #27, "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate," May 1939-was playing sleuth to a perplexing homicide. Two issues later, readers were introduced to Batman's cherished utility belt-"pretty much a portable forensics lab," according to Kaplan.

"Right off the bat, pun intended, Batman was solving mysteries in the classic fashion," says Kaplan. "Like all great detectives, Batman relies on scientific analysis of clues."

Paul Levitz, Publisher/Editor at DC Comics, notes that over the years countless authors of literary thrillers and detective fiction-from Gardner Fox to Mike Barr to Billy Schwartz to Walter Gibson to Brad Meltzer-have contributed to the character, adding to The Dark Knight's appeal to lovers of tight, provocative mysteries, not merely four-colored commotion.

"Batman has frequently tipped his hat to the classic mysteries," says Levitz, who counts among his favorite Batman series the 1964 run, edited by Julius Schwartz, called The Mystery Analysts. "Batman worked with a club of detectives, each one an analog for a classic detective-story figure. They were great pieces."

"Batman is always in the Batcave, studying criminal files, scouring the Net for information to improve his databases. He visits murder scenes and figures out clues, just like a classic detective," says Bob Greenberger, author of The Essential Batman Encyclopedia. "And he notices stuff even the mightiest heroes in the DC universe may have missed. A few years back, Superman couldn't find a kidnapped Lois Lane, but Batman did. Everyone considers Batman the smartest hero on Earth."

Brad Meltzer, who penned the best-selling DC mystery, Identity Crisis, prominently featuring Batman, always adored Batman's sleuthing expertise. "One of my earliest Batman memories is a story where he teaches a class about being a detective, using the example of a man who walks backward in his shoes to leave the crime with no footprints," says Meltzer, whose next novel, The Book of Lies, will be published in September. "But Batman figures it out because the footprint is deeper in the toe instead of the heel. I ate every panel of that. I was ten."

Through the years, however, Batman comics-not to mention the campy-culty Adam West television series of

the 1960's and the feature films of the past twenty years-have spent less time with procedural and more time on pyrotechnics and cliffhanging.

"As comics were increasingly seen as a children's medium, the detective work was downplayed in favor of simpler adventures," says Greenberger.

Still, many interviewed for this story-Batman enthusiasts and experts, admittedly-say The Dark Knight suffered more mightily with this dumbing-down than he ever did with such nefarious villains as The Joker or The Riddler. "There's a scene in 1995's Batman Forever (directed by Joel Schumacher) where a car crashes into a barrel filled with glitter," says Arie Kaplan. "Glitter, people! That's what Batman had been reduced to for a while."

DC's Levitz confesses, "Some writers are more passionate about constructing and solving a complicated mystery, while others are more interested in a great romp. Both are completely valid."

In recent years, Batman-in feature films, animated TV series, and comic books-has returned to his noirish roots and his classic detective work. "I think there has been a return to the detective work," says Batman & Philosophy author White. "Detective Comics, ideally, has always focused on this side of him, and I think it's truer today than it has been in a long time. People are hungry for great crime-solving stories, and Batman is delivering them."

In addition to Meltzer's Identity Crisis, recent comic series penned by Grant Morrison and Paul Dini, separately, have been widely heralded for their brain-twisting mysteries. And Bruce Timm and Paul Dini's animated series, The Batman, has been given high marks.

Everyone interviewed for this story believes that filmmaker Chris Nolan, the acclaimed director of Memento, delivered the goods with 2005's Batman Begins, and is looking forward to this summer's The Dark Knight.

"Ultimately, this is a character that has been around for more than seventy years," says Paul Levitz. "The world changes a lot in seventy years, and so do the stories we tell. Sometimes Batman is more dramatic. Sometimes he's more comedic. Sometimes he's doing a lot of detective work. Other times, he's using his fists. It goes with the times."

Levitz, though, along with so many mystery lovers, is clearly pleased to see Batman back to his crime-solving roots. "I've always been happiest when Batman is solving mysteries I never could," he says. "It's the brain in that character, not the brawn that is most interesting to me. And I know I'm not alone."