Before There Was Bane..... by Dave Goode

Before Bane there was the Hooded Hangman. But unlike Bane who wore a luchador-styled mask and who I've often referred to as the penultimate rudo, the Hooded Hangman was an actual pro wrestler. He appeared in the Silver Age of Comic Books in a story from Detective Comics No. 355 (September 1966). Written by John Broome and illustrated by the tag-team of Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella "Hate Of The Hooded Hangman" was a 14 page story that had the Caped Crusader facing off against a cyclopean masked wrestler. The pair engage in a sort of two out of three falls mask vs. mask match. The Hangman actually wins two falls and unmasks Batman. But Batman preserves his secret identity with a trick he could have torn from Mil Mascaras playbook.

The story is pure Silver Age fun. It begins with Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson attending the wrestling matches where the Native-American wrestler the Arizona Apache is taking on the gargantuan grappler known only as the Hooded Hangman in the main event. The Hangman is filling the arena with the promise to unmask if anyone can defeat him. The masked man makes short work of his opponent using his signature move the  "Hangman's Knot" (a variation of the sleeper hold ). The fans leave the arena disgruntled. And Dick suggests to Bruce that they use their world renowned detective skills to discover the Hangman's true identity. Of course in a series of "this could only happen in a comic book" coincidences Batman and the Hangman find themselves at odds.

For my money the best scene in the story has Batman sitting ringside at the wrestling matches in full costume. Gosh but you had to love the Silver Age.

No way did anyone consider using this story for the 60s television series. Not

even for the anything goes final season. But if they had made an adaptation of this story my nomination for the actor to play the Hooded Hangman would have been the late Clint Walker. The former star of the CHEYENNE television western stood 6' 6" tall with the broadest shoulders and thickest traps to be found outside of a bodybuilding contest. One of the things I remember best from the CHEYENNE series was the writers finding some reason to have the star stripped to the waist to show off his physique. I've joked for years that Walker would have made a great Superman. But a pair of glasses could never disguise those shoulders

Image from Megomuseum

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