Hepcat wrote:
Yossarian wrote:
By October 1963, I had been reading comics for about 18 months, and I had been reading Batman for almost all of that time.  I owned nearly every Batman and Detective in that period, which surprises me because Batman was never my favorite character.

So starting from Detective 302 ("The Bronze Menace") and Batman 147 ("Batman Becomes Bat-Baby....

Ulp! Talk about starting out on the wrong foot! Was there a worse Batman story in the Silver Age?
That is a tough metaphysical question.  Bat-Baby vs. "Ace the Super-Bathound" or anything with Bat-Mite?  Once a story has the crap stacked up that big, measuring which stack is higher seems irrelevant, so I would just say it is a matter of personal taste.

For me, the Schiff Batman stories seemed like pale copies of the exuberant Weisinger Superman stories, and they were always worse than the originals.

Superman has Red Kryptonite?  Batman turns into a fire creature, a mummy, a genie.
Superman has a super-canine? Batman gets Bathound.
Superman has a female counterpart? Batman gets Batwoman and Robin gets Batgirl.
Superman has a crazy imp that plagues him? Batman gets Bat-Mite.
Superman has "Imaginary Stories"?  Alfred writes "What if" stories about Batman.

The Schiff Batman stories I liked best were the ones where he wasn't copying Mort.  Batman had a rogues gallery that was unique to him and not a bunch of Superman knock-offs.  And the mystery stories, where Batman was imitating Sherlock Holmes rather than Superman, really highlighted what distinguished Batman from the other DC superheroes.