Batman 1943 - Chapter 4

"Slaves of the Rising Sun"

August 6, 1943

As with every chapter of this series, writer Jim Beard and I did a podcast per chapter. We're in the middle of the 1949 series now and hope that you'll take a listen by subscribing to the podcast.

It's interesting to note that we have train cliffhangers in both serials, 43 and 49. Train cliffhangers were a common motif in the movie serials, but it's also something that considering it's a modern conveyance and quite useful, the movies would portray the train as an element of danger and mystery, be it having a murder to solve take place aboard or fights atop the moving vehicle or having folks trapped on the tracks.

Batman and Robin get thrown into the water at the end of the cliffhanger and they emerge and remove their masks and cowls. Again the two are a little too lackadaisical with their identities. I realize it's night out, but anyone might come wandering by and see them.

I forgot about the moment of dark humor as Daka almost throws Warren into his pit of alligators to feed them. And his eagerness at learning how many will killed on the train is good. And then we get the turning of one of his men and we get some ugly words from Foster about Daka and his people. In the end, Daka gets to feed his pets.

And we get to see Bruce's lab set off from the Bat's Cave as is currently (1943) in the comics. This will change by the time we get to the 49 serial.

This all leads to the first real padding of the story as Bruce and Dick visit a fortune teller that Linda is coming to see. Bruce takes his place and diverts Linda from getting into trouble. Bruce speaks briefly with Daka, but he doesn't recognize the voice other than it is foreign.

We're still at the point in the serial where the gun is important as Daka continues to try to secure the needed uranium while trying to recover the weapon itself from Batman. For the cliffhanger, we have Batman and an armored truck going over the edge of a cliff. Overall, a good episode, but you can see where the padding is starting to take hold as we need to hit 15 episodes.

And what's next? It's on to the anthology Batman comic, Citizens!