Friday, September 23, 2022

MINOR SUPER-VILLAIN 162: THE CLOCK MAKER

(Batman Comics 006, 1941)


A few different longstanding comic book bits make early appearances in the tale of the Clock Maker. First, Bruce Wayne has to go to a boring old board meeting at one of the many companies that he has an stake in, but that meeting sows the seeds of crime. Specifically, they all go to a clock store together afterward and Atkins, the evil board member who wants to gain sole ownership of the clock company for some reason, meets Elias Brock, an unhinged old man who loves clocks so much that he gets violently angry at the thought of wasting or killing time.

Which leads to the second recurring comics motif: the calculating villain convinces an unstable person to do their killing for them. Brock takes out two board members and almost gets Bruce Wayne before Batman works out the plan, then kills Atkins and almost blows up a decent part of Gotham before being pitched out a window by Robin.


A side note is that the comic itself seems to somewhat agree with the clockmaker with regard to the precious nature of time - the man himself is a bit of an anticapitalist...


... while Batman expresses more of a rise and grind mentality, completely unsurprisingly.

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