The Black Bat Omnibus, Vol. 3, coming "soon" from Altus

The term "soon" has yet to be defined, but it's soon enough that Altus Press was comfortable enough to mention it on their Facebook page this past weekend.

I'm actually most curious about the first story, The Black Bat's Flame Trail. It is the seventh Black Bat story overall but the first to not be written by Norman A. Daniels.

Rather, the story is credited to Whitney Ellsworth and what makes that interesting is that Ellsworth worked on Batman for DC Comics at around the same time as he was involved with The Black Bat. The Black Bat Companion includes a quote from Bill Finger in which he states that "through Ellsworth's intervention, a lawsuit was avoided" between DC Comics and Black Book Detective publisher Better Publications.

My understanding it that there are glaring differences and errors in Flame Trail, particularly involving the supporting cast, that make it glaring that Daniels did not write the story.

But even if Ellsworth has contributed only one Black Bat story out of the 60+ that appeared in Black Book Detective, and that story feels awkward in the collection, he may have had a major impact on the character "behind the scenes". So I'm eager to see his "in print" contribution first-hand.

Also, Altus has been slow to release these Omnibus volumes in the past. Let's hope that this signals the start of a little run. Volume two was released in April 2013, three years after the first volume. Maybe the gap between releases is narrowing, finally.