The so-called Silver Age of Comic Books, starting in the mid-1950s and lasting until around 1970, was a deliriously fun era. It produced plenty of odd, colorful stories with simplistic yet creative visuals just begging to become pop art fodder.
Since then, artists like Rian Hughes have had a great time trying to emulate the mesmerizing weirdness of Silver Age covers…
Tales From Beyond Science
…but few of these pastiches can beat the charming feel of the original comics, especially the ones involving the Caped Crusader. After all, there is a reason virtually every episode of the awesome The Brave and the Bold cartoon drew on Silver Age imagery (perhaps none more than the geekgastic ‘Legends of the Dark Mite!’).
To be clear, Silver Age Batman tales aren’t the freakiest sci-fi stories of that time (those can be found in Philip K. Dick’s collection Beyond Lies the Wub). They’re not even the era’s freakiest sci-fi comics (for that, check out 50 Girls 50 and Other Stories). But they were this unbelievably strange assault on the senses that, much like the torture scene in Sidney J. Furie’s The Ipcress File, seemed to be using purple colors and disorienting logic in order to induce a trance-like brainwash.
Indeed, when you consider the kind of zany adventures the Dynamic Duo had during those years, it’s no wonder so many covers feature Batman, puzzled by what’s going on around him, shouting ‘Great Scott!’ in front of a flabbergasted Robin:
Great Scott, indeed.