Back in January, I wrote about Slam Bradley, one of several detectives who share Gotham with the Dark Knight. I don’t mean police detectives – I’m talking about the many private investigators whose cases have brought them into contact with the eccentric crimes of this oddball city… And since Bradley is hardly alone, I’m kicking off an irregular series of posts discussing Batman’s local competition, starting with a couple of funny additions to the cast.
Comics and mystery fiction have had a long relationship. Indeed, one of my favorite subgenres of Batman stories are tales in which the Caped Crusader – also hyperbolically known as the World’s Greatest Detective – uses his intellect to sort out a web of intrigue or to solve a whodunit, especially when some of the rogues show up as suspects or supporting players, like in ‘Broken City’ (Batman #620-625), ‘Dead Reckoning’ (Detective Comics #777-782), and ‘Cold Case’ (Legends of the Dark Knight #201-203), not to mention The Long Halloween.
Like I said in the intro, besides playing the detective himself, Batman sometimes bumps into other (professional and amateur) investigators, who can become allies or turn out to be wild cards pursuing their own agenda. One of those figures, created by Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle – and who popped up in half a dozen of the former’s comics – is Joe Potato, a deadbeat P.I. (that happens to look like a potato).
Detective Comics #594
Part of what made the schlubby-looking, rough-sounding Joe Potato so instantly entertaining was the juxtaposition of his attitude (he spoke like an old-school gumshoe) with the fact that – let’s face it – he wasn’t especially good at his job… He first showed up in 1988’s ‘Ecstasy’ (Detective Comics #594), where he couldn’t even figure out who his client was, only managed to close the case by following Batman around town, and didn’t even get the rest of his payment in the end!
It would be almost two years until we saw Joe Potato again, in ‘Sisters in Arms’ (Batman #460-461), where he asked the Caped Crusader for help in dismantling a white slavery ring that was smuggling wannabe dancers from Gotham to a Thai brothel (just another addition to the franchise’s long-running obsession with sex work). They teamed up, but Potato wasn’t exactly the most reliable partner… Hell, when Batman went into an office to search for clues, Joe couldn’t even be trusted to wait around in the Batmobile without screwing up:
Batman #460
(Anything that serves as a pretext for Breyfogle to draw an action scene is okay in my book, even when it’s irrelevant to the plot… Yet this sequence isn’t entirely gratuitous: besides the visual delight and comedic relief, it further underscores the stark contrast between the two detectives.)
While the big team-up in ‘Sisters in Arms’ turned out to be between the series’ female characters (Catwoman, Vicki Vale, and the sorely missed Sergeant Sarah Essen), it was amusing to see the ultra-competent Batman given a relatively bumbling sidekick, for a while. That said, Joe Potato wasn’t just a dead weight… He actually got the most sinister line in the whole arc, when facing a member of the slave ring:
Batman #461
In case you’re worried, this object turned out to be a harmless rubber peeler; Joe Potato was just bluffing in order to extract information from the slaver (‘Mrs. Potato’s boy plays strictly by the recipe book!’).
Alan Grant later brought back Potato in Shadow of the Bat (namely in issues #40-41), where he was hired by yet another mysterious client (who turned out to be the vigilante Anarky) and once again bit off more than he could chew (he ended up tied to a zeppelin loaded with explosives). Honestly, it’s a damn shame he didn’t show up more often: I quite like the idea of a clueless, unlucky loser who keeps getting mixed up in Gotham City’s bizarre underworld, never entirely sure about what is going on around him (not unlike Jon Polito in The Big Lebowski).
It wasn’t until Shadow of the Bat Annual #5 that Joe Potato got a proper starring role. That issue was part of DC’s pulp-inspired 1997 annuals, riffing on hardboiled detective fiction and young romance comics with a story deliciously titled “I Was the Love-Slave of a Plant-Based Killer!”
Shadow of the Bat Annual #5
It’s a pretty nifty issue. Joe Potato, down in the dumps (“I’m an ugly guy doin’ an ugly job, and the babes ain’t exactly swoonin’ at my feet”), is hired by Poison Ivy to get an ancient emerald skull and, of course, he falls head over heels for her. As a result, Potato makes one mistake after another as he finds himself fighting for his life against dangerous thugs and monsters, double-crossing the Dark Knight, and both endangering and saving the world, only to wind up heartbroken and alone. What a send-off!
And if Joe Potato comes across like a playful version of the archetype of the noirish, seasoned private eye (a la Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe, or Lew Archer), then Beatrice and Penelope Biddee are the franchise’s take on ‘old lady’ amateur investigators, like Miss Marple and Jessica Fletcher.
Detective Comics #634
These two ladies keep bumping into murders and heists, which they then cheerfully investigate on their own, testing evidence in their kitchen. Part of the joke is the contrast between their sweetness and their enthusiastic embrace of a world of violence, as they carry multiple firearms in their pursues and do tests with amyl nitrate while preparing a tea… Yet the joke is also that the Biddee sisters are *not* Miss Marple: according to Batman, they’re infamous for having fucked up a number of police investigations through their interference.
Writer Kelley Puckett introduced the Biddees in ‘The Third Man’ (Detective Comics #634, cover-dated August 1991), a very funny mystery yarn with a sprinkle of international intrigue. Sadly, DC never took advantage of this offbeat pair, although the issue’s manic pace and sheer overflow of ideas probably clinched it in terms of getting Puckett the gig of kicking off – and thus setting the tone for – the Batman Adventures line (which eventually did feature a side-splitting cameo by the sisters, in issue #30).
Both Joe Potato and the Biddee sisters are sadly underused characters, although I like how they nevertheless help build up the franchise’s rich pedigree of fun minor figures populating Gotham City, reminding us that the costumed heroes and villains aren’t the only weird people running around. Next time (whenever that is), I’ll discuss two recurring detectives that left more of a mark.