Batman 1943 - Chapter 5
August 13, 1943
"The Living Corpse"
As always, you can check out what writer Jim Beard and I thought of the chapter in our podcast. The player is attached here. But I few other thoughts I had as I rewatched it for the blog.
Batman, of course, manages to jump off the falling truck in the nick of time. That's a staple of cliffhangers. But I had to laugh at the image of Batman and Robin on the side of the road discussing the situation. While I was happy that they got Robin's cape right in this serial as opposed to the 1949 one, I couldn't help but feel they looked like two poor cosplayers at that moment.
I loved the Japanese submarine contacting Daka. It's actually a shame the sub didn't play more of a role in the serial, but I guess the budget would not have allowed for it. We also get a lengthy propaganda scene showing the lengths the Japanese are willing to go to to fulfill their mission and that includes allowing oneself to die to be used as a currier, only to be revived for a short time to deliver the message. This is a very heavy Daka featured chapter as he also recruits new zombies by picking up a couple of plane builders.
We discussed how Batman works out of Los Angeles based on a letter he receives from the government. We wondered why they didn't say Gotham City, but based on what we've covered here in the blog, Gotham has not been fully established yet. Yes, the name is mentioned in various issues, but so has New York. In fact, in a most recent issue, a character points out he was late as he had to take the train from Brooklyn. So it makes sense that they would establish a city of their own and why not Los Angeles as that's where they are filming. Surprised the comics didn't adapt that as they did the Batcave.
Oddly enough, I do not recall the ending as the zombies take the place of the pilots of a new plane that Bruce sneaks aboard to keep an eye on. He changes to Batman and then tries to surprise the zombies. But Daka has a camera on the plane and sees him sneaking up on them? Meanwhile Robin gets word that the plane's been stolen so the army has it shot down while Batman continues to struggle with the zombies. It comes to a crash at the end of the chapter.
