This finally happens, though the results are dampened by artist Wagner's seeming inability to get a handle on just how big his gigantic-ized monster men are (a captionless cover showing our hero dangling by the cape from a MMan's grip doesn't help matters here either.) All of a sudden, we've moved from Monogram Pictures to Bert I. Gordon, and the results ain't pretty. Also, a bit where one of the creatures appears to have died, only to pop up later in true horrorflick fashion, is seriously bobbled. Wavering giants aside, however, Wagner's art has a rough edge to it that is appealing, even if he does occasionally make his ingénue heroine look like a sharp-chinned harpy. In a perverse way, it hearkens back to comics' Golden Age, when city boys with only a smidgeon of art training could become comic artists, and their kid audience was completely satisfied with every undue body construct.

Wagner has fun working with the World of Early Batman. Though much of the action in Monster Men is set indoors (as if further replicating the soundstage look of B-movies), he still manages to convey a believably retro Gotham City. His caped crusader is not as hard-cased as he'll later become in the present day Dark Knight rubric, and is more interesting for it. Bruce even commits a clear strategic blunder by calling Julie's father by his first name, while wearing the costume — an act that you know will impact on future episodes of "Dark Moon Rising."

Mad Monk follows not long after the events in Monster Men: Bruce is still dating Julie Madison, while her father is descending even further into pathetic alcoholism. Future Commissioner Jim Gordon — seen for brief bits in the first Wagner graphic novel — has more a prominent role in this second outing, facing off a trio of corrupt policemen on a station rooftop while waiting for the Bat to make an appearance, escorting the costumed crimefighter into the city morgue. Monk's primary heavy doesn't make an appearance in the first chapter (though Golden Age afficianados and readers of DC's Batman Archives might understandably wonder if he's connected to the werewolf Monk who appeared in Detective Comics #31 and #32), but the villain who does — an exotically tattooed, leather-clad seductress — proves sufficiently pulpish to pique our interests. (Newly-borne Catwoman also makes an appearance in the first issue opening, but it's unclear whether she'll have a more prominent role in the storyline.) If the horror tone in this second outing is a trace more modern than it was in Monster Men — there's a hint of C.S.I.work in the coroner scene — it's still agreeably B-pic. (Howling 2 perhaps?)  Works for me!