Enough can't be said about what a dive in quality it was to go from O'Neil Novick/Giordano from roughly BATMAN 217-266, to drop to the low of David V. Reed, who incredibly lasted on the book from 267 (Sept 1975) - 304 (Oct 1978).
As a 12-year old, I was really pissed off, to not only lose O'Neil/Novick/Giordano, but have them replaced by Reed, with Ernie Chan of all people as artist. And adding insult to injury, DC suddenly had Chan doing covers on a large ratio of DC's titles starting at that point.
And while not every issue, Colletta didn't sweeten the deal at all on the issues he inked. Tex Blaisdell as inker didn't help the situation either. I can't recall exactly when I stopped reading, but it was 2 or 3 issues after 266. When I saw it wasn't just a Reed fill-in issue, and O'Neil, Novick and Giordano were really gone.
What the hell were Infantino and Schwartz thinking? Even at that young age, it seemed to me they didn't care about their readers or any semblance of quality, and I stopped buying.
Grell pencilled issues 287 and 288 (inked by Wiacek), and even those I felt were crap storywise, and Grell's art sub-par.
Issues 289 and 290 were inked by Colletta, but at that point I'd already stopped reading.
As I said previously,there were a few issues by Reed I actually liked, toward the end of his run.
Issue 295 is a fill-in by Conway with art by Michael Golden, which is a good issue.
296 is a Scarecrow issue, with art by Almendola.
297 is pencilled by Rick Buckler, and inked by Colletta.
300 is a "Last Batman story" imaginary tale, with art by Simonson/Giordaano. Perhaps because Reed was working with better artists, he did a better job on these stories.
Gerry Conway, who replaced Reed, is I think a talented writer when he makes the effort, but more often than not, particularly in that 1975-1983 era, Conway more often just hacked stories out. So even when Reed was gone, there wasn't much of a rise in quality in those years, through the Don Newton BATMAN era.
I also wasn't a fan of the Moench/Colan/Alcala Batman run, that had this weird mix of Adam West style camp combined with grittiness. The Jason Todd Robin was a completely annoying faggoty brat.
Who WASN'T glad when Starlin and Aparo killed the kid off in 1989's "A Death In The Family"?
Unfortunately, they immediately replaced him with Robin III (or whatever the hell they called him). Robbins and Novick/Giordano sent Robin off to college in BATMAN 217 in Dec 1969, there he should have stayed forever, with no replacement Robin needed.
All of which demonstrates O'Neil and Novick/Giordano were a tough act to replace. I think the only Batman runs I've fully enjoyed since are the Frank Miller Batman:Year One series, DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, and especially the Englehart/Rogers DETECTIVE run. And much later, the Moench/Kelley Jones run (515-552) and their Batman graphic novels.
The saving grace through the late 1970's were the O'Neil/Golden stories in BATMAN FAMILY 15-20, plus in BATMAN SPECTACULAR (DC SPECIAL SERIES 15), and the last Golden and Rogers material in DETECTIVE 481-482. I wondered why DC put those stories in BATMAN FAMILY, a fourth-rate title that almost no one bought, rather than the regular BATMAN and DETECTIVE titles that people would actually see and buy. The DC Implosion finally shifted the last Golden and Rogers material to DETECTIVE 481 and 482, but that was a result of catastrophe, not planning.
As we discussed in the other topic, Colletta became known not only as a fast but lackluster inker that few chose to work with, but one who cut corners and took credit for what his assistants did, and ultimately got fired from Marvel after Shooter's departure, when Colletta lost his last remaining ally.
Grell also did backup stories in DETECTIVE 445, March 1975 (a Robin backup), the above vampire story in 455, Jan 1976 (Grell's best effort on Batman). And "The Calculator" backups in 463-464, Sept-Oct 1977 (both inked by Austin).
When Englehart and Rogers took over DETECTIVE, I couldn't believe the rise in quality, and bought these Grell and early Rogers issues (466-468) as back issues, to see what I missed.
It would have been great to see more Grell Batman stories, but at least we have DETECTIVE 455, to show us what was possible. Grell's best work was on SUPERBOY/LEGION 202-224, the revival of GREEN LANTERN in issues 90-110 (Grell first aspired to become an artist and do comics as a soldier in Vietnam in 1971 when he first saw the O'Neil/Adams run, it must have been a dream to be assigned GREEN LANTERN), and WARLORD.
In the 1980's, Grell also did exceptional work on STARSLAYER, JON SABLE FREELANCE, GREEN ARROW: LONG BOW HUNTERS (on this last one great art, but I thought the story was a bit annoying and lame), and JAMES BOND: PERMISSION TO DIE, the last truly great story I've read by Grell. I thought his new more recent Warlord material was sub-par as well. I guess, like Neal Adams on Batman and Deadman, you can't go home again.
