Don Newton could draw gritty action better than most, so it’s pretty great that he got to work on so many Batman comics from the late seventies and early eighties, when writers such as Denny O’Neil and Gerry Conway gave him ample opportunities to flex his muscles. His characters’ facial expressions and body language seemed impeccably designed to convey rage and strength and desperation. In particular, Newton’s collaborations with inker Dan Arkins and colorist Adrienne Roy often projected quite a hardboiled mood, with plenty of mean-looking scumbags and ominous, strategically placed shadows.
Here are a couple of pages from ‘Murder by Thunderbolt,’ with the Dark Knight typically resorting to extreme interrogation methods:
Detective Comics #486
There is so much to love about this sequence: the two panels at the top, which establish the dirty, downtrodden setting and create a sleazy vibe; the elegant way Batman deflects the grenade, not missing a beat; and, above all, the old lady’s unfazed attitude, as if no explosions or violence can possibly deserve more attention than the clothes she has to dry.
Besides beating up slimy underworld hoods in search for information, another classic situation in Batman’s repertoire is getting strapped to a deathtrap and having to mobilize all his wits and grit in order to wrestle out of it. For instance, in ‘Nine Lives Has the Cat…,’ Catman ties the Caped Crusader’s arms and legs to stakes on the beach, leaving him to die as soon as the tide rises. This sounds like a goofy premise right out of a Bond knockoff (Catman even paraphrases Goldfinger at one point), but Don Newton played it straight and managed to pull off a surprising amount of pathos:
Detective Comics #509
Of course, much of the sequence’s hard-hitting atmosphere comes from the fact that it takes place at night, with Newton, Arkins, and Roy enveloping Batman’s struggle in dark negative space. I bet those panels with the Caped Crusader’s head disappearing under water were a major inspiration for Kelley Jones’ cover of Detective Comics #663, twelve years later.
Let’s finish with yet another kickass moment related to the threat of drowning, from the story ‘College for Killers.’ Once again, the Dark Knight is on a quest and willing to trash any lowlife who can help him find out what he needs to know. This time around, Don Newton’s pencils were inked by Frank Chiaramonte, who worked well with Newton’s noirish, muscular style. Assisted by Ben Oda’s sound effects, they crafted a punchy, dynamic scene, hilariously leading up to one of Batman’s all-time dickiest moves:
You look like you should be the side kick of Batman’s side kick robin. I’ll set the scenario. ( your r name is billy and you’ve been a huge fan of Batman and robin but have no skills at all so robin hires you has his assistant because he feels pity for you because you remind him of a younger version of him but you feel so happy to just feel apart of a team so you always where a tight Batman shirt too show team spirit!!!!)