Detective Comics, No. 28 (June 1939)

The Bat-Man. He's a mysterious costumed vigilante in the mold of The Shadow, down to his black cape and alter-ego as a handsome rich do-nothing. Still limited to six pages, Bat-Man tracks down a gang of jewel thieves led by a nefarious criminal (Frenchy Blake) in a smoking jacket and monocle, beats them all to a pulp, then hands the ringleader over to the police. We get Bat-Man's second kill in the first page of this story, when he sends one of the jewel thieves plummeting from a skyscraper. Bat-Man also pulls of the first of many gambits—convincing the police he's one of the thieves to give a real criminals a false sense of security. Overall, a more action-packed tale than his debut, but nothing special.

The main attraction of this issue is the debut of the Batrope, with plenty of panels of Bat-Man swinging through the city to escape the police or get the drop on this criminal gang. He even shows off what becomes a classic Bat-Man technique: dangling the villain out the window by his Batrope to force him to confess. One has to wonder a little about the state of Gotham City's legal system is confessions delivered under threat of defenestration are admissible in court.

We still get nothing about Bruce Wayne's background or the origins of the Bat-Man, which is surprising, given how frequently the Bat-Man's origin would be retold in later stories. Probably the most striking panel is Bat-Man's escape from the police, when his cape takes the form of a bat's wings in a way that reminds me of the Spring-Heeled Jack penny dreadfuls.