I'm about halfway through reading this Showcase.

There's an interesting contrast between Sheldon Moldoff's old fashioned, Golden Age style art and Carmine Infantino's more modern approach. I prefer Carmine's style. One thing is for sure...Infantino was doing some fantastic covers for BATMAN and DETECTIVE COMICS during this period. The cover with the close up of a weeping Robin clutching a newspaper with a photo realistic rendering of a dead Batman was particularly impactful.

I really liked Joe Kubert's covers featuring Batman for DETECTIVE COMICS. Does anyone know if Joe ever illustrated any Batman interior stories?

Having the writers show up in the middle of the stories is a entertaining touch, particularly Gardner Fox and his "What If room". These panels reminded me a lot of the scans KOBE posted recently on the TOWER OF SHADOWS/CHAMBER OF DARKNESS thread on the Marvel boards which showed the artists and writers introducing horror stories. This and the What If concept seem to be 2 more ideas that Marvel derived from DC.

Gardner Fox's Riddler story is pretty fascinating. The Riddler tries to give up his self-defeating ways of providing Batman with clues for his crimes only to wind up doing so subconsciously in his sleep. This story is every bit as steeped in Freudian psychology as Hitchcock's SPELLBOUND(1945) or Brian De Palma's CARRIE(1976). The Riddler remains one of Batman's most intriguing villains for me.

It's strange in light of the concurrent success of the Batman TV series that so few of the famed rogue's gallery appears in this Showcase. Only one story each for the Riddler and the Joker with the balance of the stories featuring more obscure new villains or run-of-the-mill thugs.