Batman: The Golden Age, Vol. 1 by Bill Finger, Bob Kane, and others

This is the first two years or so of Batman stories, from that famous bit in Detective Comics #27 through the subsequent 17 issues, plus the Batman stories from New York World's Fair Comics #2 and the first three issues of the quickly-organized quarterly Batman series. This collection was published in 2016, and includes what looks like full credits for all of the stories - the cover doesn't use authors, but the book mostly defaults to saying Batman is by Bill Finger (writer) and Bob Kane (artist), while also noting all of the other hands - Gardner Fox, Shelly Moldoff, Jerry Robinson, George Roussos, a few others - that worked on some pieces.

It's well-presented, with crisp presentations of what looks like the original garish WWII-era coloring, all in a handsome (I think; I read it digitally) package. DC has been making archival books like this for a long time, and they're good at it: Batman: The Golden Age, Vol. 1 is a fine presentation of this material. 

It's just a shame that the stories are so repetitive, talky, and cluttered, with layouts that semi-regularly actively impede reading comprehension. (But I've already said this is a Golden Age collection once, so I shouldn't repeat myself.) It shouldn't be surprising: comics were still in their infancy, and artists in particular were still working out how to lay out full pages, while also creating undemanding disposable action stories at high speed for an audience generally assumed to be children.

But anyone coming to the earliest Batman stories these days - over eighty years later - is going to run right up into that wall: there's some imaginative power here and there, some concepts that are exciting, but the stories themselves are mostly simplistic and straightforward beat-up-the-crooks stuff. The colorful villains do start up here - The Joker makes several appearances - but they're mostly pulp-magazine mad scientists, and not particularly colorful.

There's about four hundred pages of comics here, and all of the stories feel the same by the end. Even the introduction of Robin is early enough that any lightness and energy he brings to the proceedings is baked in thoroughly well before we hit the end. Our heroes are also increasingly likely to speak directly to the audience, telling 1940's boys to stand up straight, comb their hair, eat their Wheatena (well, not that), and avoid criminal activity.

This is of historical interest, absolutely. But I'd be hard-pressed to find any other kind of interest in it. If you want Batman stories, they got better - or, in many cases, quirkier in more amusing ways - at various times in the last eight decades.