Toys are me. Of ball-bearings, Green Hornets and full-length costumes.

There are of course three main joys of childhood. They are: comics, toys and sweets - and happy are the times when such things overlap. How I remember well the adverts for Dracula ice lollies that featured repeatedly in the British Dracula Lives comics of the 1970s.

Well, ice lollies were one thing but toys were a whole other matter. I have to admit I didn't have many comic book related toys. I never caught sight of a super-hero action figure in all my childhood and when I saw the pictures of them in the comics I devoured like sweets, I never felt any urge to own them. Compared to my Action Man, those adjustable heroes seemed a poorly articulated bunch.

I did however have a Green  Hornet car. Given its solidly-built metallic nature, I assume it was a Dinky toy  although I couldn't swear to that.

Exactly how I came to have a Green Hornet car, I have no idea. I certainly never asked for one - as a kid, I didn't even know who the Green Hornet was. Even now my knowledge of him extends barely beyond knowing what he looked like and that Bruce Lee was involved.

On more solid ground, I had a Batmobile just like the one in the Adam West TV show.

When I say, "Just like," it was of course much smaller, being no bigger than my palm but it had a chain cutter at the front and plastic flames at the back and that was good enough for me. I may also have had a toy Bat Boat but don't quote me on that.

Also on the Batman front, I had a toy Robin the Boy Wonder.

Unlike the Green Hornet car, I know exactly where I got it. I bought it from a couple of kids holding a jumble sale on Constable Close in my very early youth. It was a legless version of Robin, a small plastic thing with a ball-bearing where his legs should've been, What the idea was of giving Robin a ball-bearing in place of legs was anyone's guess but I had hours of fun for more years than I'd care to admit, rolling him along the hearth - pretty much the only thing in our house that was smooth enough for ball-bearing related fun.

But pride of place in the Batman toy department was my Batman costume. I got it one Christmas, probably when I was four, and it consisted of a Batman mask, a plastic Bat Cape and a bright yellow utility belt. Sadly the utility belt was just a belt, not containing any of the wonders the real thing did but I didn't care, suddenly I was Batman and no one could stop me.

As it turned out, someone could stop me. I don't know his name but the moment I clapped eyes on him I knew he was a wrong 'un. Within days of getting that Bat costume, I discovered my nemesis as, on a trip to the local shops, I saw a kid with an entire top-to-bottom Batman outfit that put my mere mask, cape and belt to shame.

Still, I stuck with my Batman kit until, years later, it helped the nation fight the energy crisis by adding fuel to our fire during one of the country's regular 1970s' electricity outages.

I'm sure you'll agree, it's all heart-warming stuff, in a traumatising way and I'm sure you had equally powerful experiences, so, if you had any comic book related toys as a youngster, you are of course free to let us all know.

If you sold me that ball-bearing bearing Robin, you're even more free to let me know.

And if you were that kid on at Herdings shops in that winter of 1968, flaunting his full-body Batman suit, you are of course even more welcome to let me know - especially if you can tell me that owning such a thing still didn't guarantee you the flawless and ideal life that was denied the rest of us.

Detective Comics #450. The hit man and the house of wax.

As I roam the streets of Sheffield, people tell me that, like a fine wine, I'm of a certain vintage.

And possibly should be kept locked in a cellar.

Well, like many people of that vintage, my first exposure to super heroes came through the old Adam West Batman shows, which, with me being about three at the time, I completely missed the irony of and took dreadfully seriously.

By the 1970s, DC Comics were taking Batman dreadfully seriously too, with as much of the old silliness removed as possible in a strip about a billionaire dressed as a bat.

By one point, the Batmobile, the Bat Plane, the Bat Copter, Wayne Manor, the Bat Cave and even Bat-Mite had been ditched in a blatant attempt to move the strip as far away from the TV show as possible.

This issue, Detective Comics #450, seems as a good an example of that as any, as we get a tale of a tycoon who wants to get his hands on Batman's mask and cape as a trophy. To do it, he hires the services of a hitman and a house of wax.

As it turns out the whole thing's just a set-up to catch the hitman. Needless to say our hero does it with remarkable ease and a bit more blood splattering than I was used to. The story's quite neat and pulls a twist that I didn't see coming - possibly because, unless Batman's a Slitheen, it's physically impossible.

Admittedly, on recently re-reading this for the first time since the '70s, my tiny brain was somewhat confused by the twist and it took me a second reading to figure out what was actually going on.

This could be a failure on my part or it could be a confused bit of story telling. It's drawn by Walt Simonson in a dirtier, messier style than I was familiar with after years of Neal Adams, Jim Aparo, Irv Novick, Dick Dillin and Dick Giordano and, although it's not quite the Batman I was used to, it does feel oddly appealing and possibly hints at the grittier years to come for the dark knight detective.

But Detective Comics was rarely just about Batman and so we get a back-up tale in which Robin the boy wonder's up against a man who snatches women's bags in car parks.

I don't want to demean the plight of women who get their bags snatched in car parks but it probably sums up Robin that this is the level of foe he's up against.

Even worse that he seems to be somewhat out of his depth against even that level of opponent.

It's a two part whodunit and, never having got the next issue, I don't know who the wrong-doer turns out to be. The finely honed senses that left me confused by the twist in the lead story tell me it's either the college treasurer or Chief McDonald and therefore I'll guess that it's actually Mrs Roberts the secretary.