Frank Byrns: Why the Black Bat?

So… why the Black Bat?

If you’re asking that question, you must not know much about this particular pulp hero. Because if you did, you’d be asking a different question:

Why the hell not the Black Bat?

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: a brilliant young District Attorney runs afoul of the mob in his crusade to clean up his city and gets a faceful of disfiguring acid for his efforts.

Or this one: A blind defense attorney dons a different suit at night, using his enhanced remaining senses to hit the streets and take it to the criminal underworld as a costumed crimefighter, often going after the very criminals he defended in the daylight.

Or this one: A costumed crimefighter dressed in black, adopting the guise of a bat, striking fear in the hearts of cowardly criminals around his city and beyond.

All three of those should sound familiar to any self-respecting comics fan. But long before there was a Two-Face, or a Daredevil, or a Batman, there was a Black Bat.

And even better?

This guy might be crazy. Here’s a hero who didn’t mind killing a bad guy or two, if that’s what it took, usually with the pair of .45s he kept on his person at all times. And then, just to let everybody know he meant business? He’d pull out a knife and carve a little bat in the fresh corpse’s forehead. His calling card, if you will.

Like I said: crazy.

I’ve written the Black Bat before, over at Ron Fortier’s Airship 27 pulp revival house. So when Nick Ahlhelm came to me with his idea for Pulpsploitation, my mind immediately returned to Tony Quinn and his excellent supporting cast: Silk Kirby, Butch O’Leary, Carol Baldwin, even that suspicious old Lt. McGrath.

I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of legacy heroes. Even though I’m a Marvel guy through and through, one thing I’ve always liked about the Distinguished Competition is the idea of the hero’s mantle being passed down from one generation to the next. So from the start of this project, I hoped to go that route with the Black Bat rather than a strict reimagining.

So what would that mean for a Tony Quinn in his seventies? What would he be up to? If I left him in New York, I could work in another of my passions: the look and feel and vibe of 1970s crime films. The French Connection, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, sure. But also things like Rolling Thunder, The Killer Elite, Charley Varrick, The Yakuza. Friends of Eddie Coyle.

So give Quinn a pro bono legal aid clinic in a rundown Brooklyn neighborhood. Make Butch O’Leary’s daughter a crackerjack young lawyer working for Uncle Tony. Have Silk Kirby’s kid work as a plainclothes narcotics detective. Add in a former Vietnam tunnel rat, who’s used to fighting in the dark where he can’t see. The NYC heroin trade. The Mafia. Street gangs. Son of Sam. Reggie, Sparky, and Billy. The blackout.

Now we’re talking.

Why the Black Bat?

Why are you still asking?