1943 saw the introduction of several characters to the Batman mythos. The first one was in April with Detective Comics #74 in “Tweedledum and Tweedledee” by Don Cameron. The story begins with Batman and Robin out on patrol when they hear a gunshot explode in the night. They see a robbery in progress at the fur company and quickly swing into action. They take out the gang and enter the back of a truck where their feet are snagged in wolf traps. The leader of the gang tells his boys to let them live so they can reflect on their defeat. The gang dump the crime fighters out of the truck and escape with the furs.
Minutes later, after getting the traps off their ankles, the dynamic duo find another gang robbing a jewelry store. Batman and Robin think that it is the same rotund man from the fur robbery and are determined to stop him this time around. Unfortunately, the man hits the duo with an electrical gadget and escapes with a million dollars worth of diamonds.
Bruce Wayne and his young aide go visit the Fat Man’s Emporium, a clothing store that caters to large people. Bruce asks a worker if he had ever seen a pair of fat twins. The worker tells him about the Tweed cousins, Dumfree and Deever and gives Wayne their address.
That night the duo take the Batplane and fly over the Tweed’s house where they drop into the skylight. But it turned out to be a trapdoor that captures them inside a net of silk cords. They are lowered to the next floor where they come face to face with the gang dressed as characters from Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland. The Tweeds tell the henchmen to cut them free and they blast the crime fighters with one of their inventions that freezes them like statues.
The gang leaves Batman and Robin for a war bond masked ball. Batman manages to throw his utility belt into the gun causing a short circuit in the machine that is holding them in place.
Over at the Grand March, the Tweed Gang wins the best costume award and are surprised when Batman and Robin jump out of the prize box. They capture the gang and are told by the Tweeds that they will stay in prison until they come up with a plan to finish Batman and only then will they be back.
A month later in Batman #16, one of the most important characters is introduced to Batman in the story titled, “Here Comes Alfred.” The piece was written by Don Cameron and begins with Alfred coming to Gotham from across the Pacific Ocean on a small passenger vessel. Weary of a fellow passenger named Gaston Leduc, Alfred follows the man but is followed himself by the international crook, Manuel Stiletti. Alfred is jumped by Stiletti and his men when Batman and Robin come to help him. They fight the men off who escape in their car.
Later that night Alfred shocks the pair when he shows up at their house. He explains that he is to be their new butler. Alfred had promised his father Jarvis on his deathbed that he would find Bruce Wayne and become his butler as Jarvis was previously Thomas Wane’s butler.
Unbeknownst to the trio, Stiletti had followed Alfred once again to the house and broke in that night. Bruce and Dick quickly change into the cloaks of the dynamic duo and fight off the men. They chase two of the gang out the window leaving Alfred to deal with the third man. During the scuffle, Alfred accidentally triggers a secret door that leads to an underground hangar where he discovers the Batplane and uncovers Bruce and Dick’s secret.
Alfred then stalks the third man back to an abandoned theatre where he finds Batman and Robin captured. The gang return with Gaston Leduc who is really a Duke and his crown jewels to burn them all down inside the theatre. Alfred saves the day by dropping the thick, heavy curtain on the gang capturing them. The next night the Bat-signal lights up the dark night and Alfred brings them their cloaks letting them know that he had deduced their secret and their duo is now a trio.
The next rogue that was introduced to the Batman mythos came in the story, “The Crime Clinic” by Bill Finger in July 1943 in the pages of Detective Comics #77. The Doctor of Crime, Bradford Thorne opens a clinic that helps criminals with their crimes, much like the Penguin did earlier in 1943 with his bargains in crime scheme.
Once word hit the underworld of the success that criminals were having after visiting the Crime Clinic, a man named Ranson calls the doctor for help. He meets the criminal at a crime scene treating it like a doctor would a house call and together they rob the Rubber Warehouse. Alerted to the crime by the ambulance that the doctor showed up in, Batman and Robin are quickly on the scene. Thorne is able to knock over a bunch of crates on the dynamic duo, but stops Ranson from shooting them, telling him that he is a doctor; he saves lives and doesn’t take them.
Before the criminals are able to escape Batman throws a transmitter on the ambulance so he can track them. It leads them back to the clinic where a fight ensues. Matthew Thorne shines a bright light into Batman’s eyes blinding him. Instead of escaping when he had the chance, the doctor stops and helps Hodges, a sick man who stumbles into the clinic. Thorne tells Batman and Robin that Hodges needs an operation on his appendix. The three of them operate on the sick man working together to save his life.
After the successful operation, Thorne tells them that he loves surgery but crime excites him; it is like a drug that he can’t walk away from. With that, he douses Robin with ether and threatens to send him up in flames if Batman doesn’t back off. Albert, an associate of the doctor, ties up the duo with a rubber hose making it impossible for Batman to use his strength to escape.
Ever thinking, Batman uses the ether and a discarded cigarette to heat the rubber causing it to break and free them. Tracking the doctor, Batman chases the crook up a balcony and knocks him into a river. Not wanting him to escape, Batman goes into the water after him and drags him to the shore and takes him to prison.
In Detective Comics #81, another rogue character was introduced in the form a swashbuckling foe named “The Cavalier.” The story was written by Don Cameron and opens with the Cavalier appearing in Gotham for the first time, and forcing a young kid to give him his old baseball for three new ones. Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson happened to be walking along and are shocked to see this action. They quickly change in an alley into the crime-fighting duo known throughout the city as Batman and Robin. Confronting the Cavalier, he tells them that he wants to be more of an inconvenience to them as the Joker and Penguin have been. The foe hits Robin with a lead pellet wrapped in a lace handkerchief knocking him out. Batman battles the man but sees a car speeding towards the fallen Robin. Saving him, the car stops and the Cavalier jumps in providing his escape.
Batman and Robin talk to the boy’s father about the baseball and discover that is was autographed years ago by a pitcher named Berry Berrigan who runs a sporting goods store downtown.
Jennings, an assistant of the Cavalier takes a forged note to the Wheat Exchange Bank and steals an old, toy baseball bat from Berrigan’s safe deposit box. Batman and Robin arrive at the bank and chase the crooks in the Batmobile. Cavalier pulls out an electrical sword and fights with Batman. Deciding on retreat, Cavalier throws the toy bat to Batman and makes his escape as a train passes. Inside the bat, the Batman finds cotton with the indention of a key pressed into the material. The grim detective tracks down Berry Berrigan and asks what the key went to and he tells him that it opes a safe inside his store, but the only thing inside was miniature sports collectibles that have no real value.
Batman and Robin head to the shop and discover the Cavalier already there. Batman is beaten when the swashbuckling foe throws a steel-tipped dart from his hat through Batman’s cape pinning him to the wall. The Cavalier then made his escape on a waiting motorcycle.
Even though 1943 saw Batman’s Rogues Gallery expand, his family also had grown with the addition of Alfred to his team. The dynamic duo now has a third member of their team that will help them in their war against the likes of the Cavalier, the Crime Doctor, and the Tweed cousins.
