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Batman vs The Penguin

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Four Square, New English Library, London, 1966
(price: 3/6; 160 pages)
(first published in this edition in the USA by the New American Library, 1966)

The blurb on the back:

OOOOOOW!!
A dynamic duo from Four Square.
BLAAAF!!! The foul bird of banditry challenges America's Number One TV hero in BATMAN VS THE PENGUIN.
...EEEEEK!!! The feline beauty with a felon's mind challenges the Caped Crusader in BATMAN VS THE CATWOMAN.
ZAM! It's another first from Four Square. Now in book form, and straight from the early BATMAN files of the fifties, here are the best of the original adventures of BATMAN VS THE PENGUIN and ZOWIE!! An added first - this BATMAN book also includes one of the very first adventures of BATMAN VS THE CATWOMAN.

Before the movies, there was the TV series, and before the TV series there was the comic. This is the comic, repackaged in the mid-1960s to cash in on the TV series, but still a comic with no quarter given to those who fell for the camp foolishness of Adam West and Burt Ward.

Not particularly well-drawn, lacking in wit, failing to achieve the level of mythologising that Marvel managed - it's not very good really. Nevermind.

Note:  In case you're keeping track of these things you might want to follow Burgess Meredith, who played the Penguin on TV, through to his later role as Sly Stallone's trainer in Rocky.

ARTISTIC MERIT: 2/5
ENTERTAINMENT VALUE: 2/5
HIPNESS QUOTIENT: 4/5

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