Detective Comics #33 is a early Batman story in Detective Comics, notable for being the first one to cover the character's iconic origin.
Besides the opening origin, the story, "The Batman Wars Against The Dirigible Of Doom" is otherwise another typical night for the Bat as a dirigible, armed with a death-ray weapon, ruthlessly kills thousands. Batman jumps into action and investigates, believing that Professor Carl Kruger, a self-styled Napoleon, is responsible. Batman then breaks up a meeting between Kruger and his lieutenants, but he is nearly killed when the building is burned down.
Batman then visits one of Kruger's men the following night and is led to his hideout. Batman attempts to sabotage the dirigible, but he is shot — only his bullet-proof vest saves his life. When Kruger attacks the city in his dirigible again, Batman crashes his new vehicle, the Batplane, into it, causing them to crash. Batman escapes death, but Kruger dies as his plane is brought down in the river.
Other stories in this issue include an untitled Spy story, "Mine of Mystery" (Buck Marshall, Range Detective), an untitled Larry Steele, Private Detective story, "The Northwoods Mystery" (Speed Saunders, Ace Investigator), an untitled Cosmo, the Phantom of Disguise story, an untitled Bruce Nelson story, and an untitled Slam Bradley story.
Tropes For "The Batman Wars Against The Dirigible Of Doom":
- Cool Airship: The Dirigible of Doom is certainly an eye catching vehicle, looking akin to a Flash Gordon spaceship mixed with a blimp, rocking a bold yellow and red color scheme to go with it.
- Death Ray: Carl Kruger's dirigible is equipped with one, which he uses to ruthlessly raze Manhattan.
- Doomy Dooms of Doom: The eponymous Dirigible of Doom, which definetely lives up to its name thanks to the death ray its equipped with.
- Dread Zeppelin: The Dirigible of Doom, which is used as the weapon and base of the story's villain, Carl Kruger.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- The Batplane used here looks virtually nothing like it does in future stories, and on top of that, it isnt even a plane, more like a small Gyro-helicopter with bat wings.
- Also, like in the previous comic, Batman is seen using a gun here (though he doesn't directly shoot anyone with it — instead using it to blow up a machine that kills some of Carl's mooks instead), which is odd since it later became established that Batman hates guns and will not take a life unless he has absolutely no other options.
- Karmic Death: After his Dirigible is destroyed, the mass murderer Carl Kruger tries to escape in a plane, but Batman, who had just patachuted out of the Batplane after crashing it into the blimp, latches onto his plane with his rope. Kruger notices him and tries to shoot him with a gas pellet, but misfires and ends up knocking himself out, causing him and his plane to fatally crash into the waters below as Batman dives off just in time.
- Napoleon Complex: The story flat out says that Carl Kruger suffers from this, pointing out that he had previously spent time in an insane asylum before working on his new death ray weapon. To sell it even further, Carl even looks like Napoleon Bonaparte, which he is well aware of.
- Origins Episode: The opening pages of the book establish the origin of Batman for the first time; his parents were murdered in cold blood right in front of him, and using the vast wealth he inherited from them, he spent the following years learning and training how to live a life fighting crime. This culminates in a night where Bruce, trying to come up with an idea for something that will strike fear in the hearts of criminals, sees a bat flying through an open window in his study, which gives him the idea to become Batman.
- Villain of the Week: Professor Carl Kruger, a dime a dozen egotistical mass murderer that Bats had to deal with in the tale.
