Four questions about Alfred

General Discussion Comic Books
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I’m doing some research about Alfred as he gets his own show, and I was hoping to use some collective wisdom. Let me know if you can clear these things up:

  1. Which issue first referred to Alfred as a former intelligence officer?

  2. Which issue first referred to Alfred as a former actor?

  3. Which issue first established that Alfred was the Wayne family butler, BEFORE Thomas and Martha were murdered? (I think this was changed post-Crisis, but I’m not sure.)

  4. If you could pin it down to one issue/story, when did Alfred stop being a comic relief character?

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Regarding the comic relief question, I’d suggest looking into Alfred Beasley and Alfred Pennyworth. Two different characters who were both Batman’s butler. I’m not sure when one changed to the other or if Alfred was always serious, but I know Beasley started as comic relief.

Can’t help with any of the other questions.

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I thought it was Beagle not Beasley

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Beagle, Bugle, Beasley, Basil. Something in that neighborhood.

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  1. His military service was referenced at least as early as Batman #202 (1968) by Gardner Fox, and Len Wein’s The Untold Legend of the Batman #2 (1980) mentions that he helped refugees flee the Nazis. His background in military intelligence was explored in detail a year later via a story by Gerry Conway that ran in Detective Comics #501-502. His medical experience in the military was mentioned in Batman #404 (the first issue of Frank Miller’s Year One, 1987).

  2. Alfred mentions his acting career in his first appearance, Batman #16 (1943).

  3. As you may know, Batman #16 stated that Alfred’s father, Jarvis, was the Wayne family butler in the past. The retcon occurred thanks to Frank Miller in the first issue of Year One, largely because he didn’t do his research. Alfred is explicitly shown to be the Wayne butler at the time of the murders in a flashback from Mike Barr’s Detective Comics #574 (1987), which came out the same month as the final issue of Year One (Batman #407) and which was the direct lead-in to Year Two (Detective Comics #575-578, also 1987).

  4. He was generally a more serious character once he was brought back from the dead (and reverted from his Outsider identity) in Detective Comics #356 (1966), but he really became the modern version of the character in the aforementioned Gerry Conway arc.

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Alexander Knox: Pulitzer Prize material as always, thanks! Very helpful.

I think I might disagree that Frank Miller erred by making Alfred the Wayne family butler. Seems like he decision is in keeping with the general trend in that time to focus more on the Wayne family murder, Batman’s motivation and his existential dread–making Alfred this living link to the world that he lost because of Joe Chill makes narrative and emotional sense. Whether that’s what Miller meant or not.

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@alexmparker I don’t think that is what Miller intended. Alfred barely shows up in Year One. I think he appears after Batman rings the bell and then he is never seen or referenced again. I could be remembering wrong though. Other writers took the opportunity to focus on the relationship between Bruce Wayne and Alfred in later stories.

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Yeah, I was just re-reading this. Alfred also serves Bruce ginger ale when he masquerades as a drunken playboy for Gordon. (I’d forgotten that Gordon is so onto Wayne as being the Batman–I guess Miller figured that it’s unrealistic no one would suspect it.)

The bell thing is a small moment but it’s a big one thematically…“If I ring this bell, Alfred will come. He can stop he bleeding, in time. Another of your gifts to me, father.”

It doesn’t seem like a sloppily chosen statement, whatever the reason behind it.

At that point, the idea that Alfred knew Wayne’s parents was so embedded into the Batman mythology that it’s mentioned several times in the 1989 “Batman.”

“I have no wish to spend my few remaining years grieving for the loss of old friends. Or their sons.”

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At the very least, it’s a confirmation that the makers of Batman '89 had researched some of the recent changes in the books. Imagine if they had instead gone with the pre-1987 notion that Bruce had largely been raised by his uncle’s housekeeper, who just happened to be Joe Chill’s mother! (Not making it up: see Batman #208 from 1969.) The downside of elevating Alfred’s role in Bruce’s life was that it came at the cost of Leslie Thompkins, despite Mike Barr’s efforts to feature both Alfred and Leslie in prominent mentor roles throughout Year Two and his subsequent attempt to keep Thompkins relevant through the Legends of the Dark Knight story Faith. That said, I’ll agree that Alfred’s narrative promotion really works in the movies and animated series, maybe more so than it does in the comics.

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Haha, I had no idea. I do know that they slowly built up Joe Chill as being part of this big conspiracy, but with Crisis they changed him back to just being a random mugger. Batman was getting more existential, he had to be fighting the idea of crime, or maybe just random death.

It does seem like Bruce Wayne’s family and background became more important in the post-Adam West years. Up until then, his origin story wasn’t really that important to the character, it was barely ever mentioned on the show at all. But as the murder of his parents became more of a recurring theme, they needed more and more characters connected with his past. And as you note, a few characters who performed this function were eventually consolidated all into Alfred.

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Yeah, Joe Chill got one big hurrah in Year Two (the post-Crisis era’s “gritty reboot” of Bill Finger’s Batman #47), but then Zero Hour totally wiped his identity out of continuity, and he didn’t come back until Infinite Crisis (which allowed Grant Morrison to do his own revamp of Batman #47 in Batman #673). On a side note, Year One and Year Two make for an odd pair despite coming out almost simultaneously. Frank Miller is over here in the Batman book tossing out practically everything he can from continuity, while Mike Barr over at Detective Comics is desperately grabbing things left and right (Leslie Thompkins, Joe Chill, Batman’s short-lived use of a handgun) and saying, “Don’t throw this stuff out!” In the long run, Miller won…at least until Morrison re-declared everything as canon.

And while I don’t necessarily mind Alfred’s presence as a father figure to Bruce, I am kinda glad that Scott Snyder brought back Uncle Philip in some capacity during Zero Year. (Take a picture: I don’t say nice things about Scott Snyder’s Batman run very often.) It’s just kinda weird in the post-Crisis timeline that the butler seems to have custody of the boy in the wake of his parents’ death instead of a family member. Then again, Golden Age Batman doesn’t seem to have been raised by anyone! (Secret Origins #6 from 1986 retroactively inserts Uncle Philip into Earth-Two, but that’s decades after the fact.)

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Legend of WW Alfred helps out by doing various tasks to hold the audiences’ attention, until Etta Candy & the Holiday Girls are ready to perform. He tells Diana Prince he’s an actor, juggler overall entertainer.

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Forgot my point was he (Alfred) was a child when he helped WW & Candy & he said he was an entertainer & was going to bean actor. Not canon I guess, but has to be 1st x he said he was an actor.

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I’m just happy that I discovered someone with the handle @ AlexanderKnox! Nice!

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Thanks so much for your help, guys–I wrote a blog post about the history of Alfred here: https://ordinary-times.com/2019/08/03/all-in-for-alfred/

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