The Factual Opinion

The Cowardly and the Castrated: Part The Seventh, The Penultimate, The Staggered Walk Home

The short road home begins here, with the first part of a conversation between Noah Berlatsky and Tucker Stone.  If you missed any previous installments in the Cowardly & The Castrated, you can catch up using the following numerical structure: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six.  Stay here, read this.  Then Eight.

Tucker:  First up: was the Black Canary issue all you'd hoped for?  That was the cover story you were excited about, right? 

Noah:  I don't remember for sure if I was especially excited by it, to tell you the truth. I thought it and the Green Arrow one were kind of disappointing, actually.  More or less of a piece with the Wonder Woman one in the previous issue (105).  Basic adventures, not all that goofy...just, eh. 

Tucker: The Two-Face/Green Arrow story was a bit pointless--more of a Two-Face/Batman story with GA along for the ride.  I liked some of the dialog though, and that moment when Batman was screeching at the plane taking off...Green Arrow calling him "a fool" and saving his crazy ass...that was pretty classic. But the ending was terrible.  The Black Canary one was worse, although it started off pretty great.  I loved the hostage scenario.  But when it turned into a Wild West chase scene, I thought it was pretty tired, generic stuff.  Could've done with an actual gun battle too--was disappointed when the main villains killed each other off stage. 

Noah:  I mean, there were fun bits in both, don't get me wrong.  I especially liked in the GA one that nooooobody believes Batman when he suggests that there's a murderer running around killing potential investors.  Commissioner Gordon is like..."no! Murder! Never!  Why, that's a much more preposterous idea than...oh, I don't know, evil ghost Mormons returning to claim the city."  Or how about someone running around murdering investors...which just happened, like, five issues ago in the Metamorpho cross-over!?

Tucker:  The Sgt. Rock story was probably my biggest disappointment--I think the interview set my expectations too high, and then it had that great set-up, where Batman falls in the well and "sells his soul" to get free...only to immediately say "Hey, that was just crazy talk, I didn't mean to sell my soul to Adolf Hitler."  It reminded me of when Bart sold his soul to Milhouse.  But then it just went sideways, with the entire issue going into the Great Train Robbery.  There was some magic over-the-top stuff that could've happened, and the non-stop Bat-whining was excellent, real fodder-for-making-fun, but the overall meat of the story--bit of a letdown. 

Definitely nothing tops the Deadman story, I feel like that goes almost without saying.

I wonder if Green Arrow "felt sorry" enough for Two-Face to give the money to that plastic surgery clinic? If not, that means that Batman & Green Arrow fought the forces of charity to make sure Oliver Queen gets another ten million dollars.  Which would be sort of in line with the way Haney writes him...not so much the Denny O' Neill, "bleeding heart liberal" thing.  

Noah:  Oh, yeah...I also wanted to point out that Haney decided for some reason that he just damn well was not going to use the Canary's sonic scream. There's that one panel where Batman says "don't use it in the plane or you'll depressurize the cabin," and she responds by saying, "yeah, well that sonic scream doesn't work well anyway, even though the last time I teamed up with you I used it hurl us on my motorcycle over a dangerous obstacle.”  I'm surprised though that you weren't that into the Rock story.  I thought it was far superior to the other two.  Yeah, the plot sort of disintegrates towards the end...but the whole thing never quite manages to take off.  And the Adolf Hitler as the Devil thing...that kills me.  

Tucker:  Canary's Sonic Scream: yeah, that didn't make a whole lot of sense.  After they were out of the plane, it seemed like that could resolve everything immediately. 

Noah:  Well, that's why he tried to explain it away obviously.  He thought up this plot, but if anyone had a real super-power, the thing wouldn't work.  So he just conveniently shelved it.  Which, by the way, is a lot cooler than having some bargain-basement slasher villain kidnap her, rape her, and slash her throat so that she loses her powers.... Fucking Mike Grell. .......Anyway, on the anticlimax point...it seems like that's really a staple part of most Haney stories, isn't it?  In the GA one...the villainous two-face's evil plan was...just to cure himself.  I mean, why not ask Batman for the dough?  Or in the Canary one, the villain's shooting themselves off panel...or, yeah, Hitler-Devil just escapes.  I kind of like that about him; he's not afraid to just run out of space and throw up his hands.  Though, obviously, in the best ones, there's more of a sense of closure. 

Tucker: Well, the Teen Titans stories have closure, but they're still not very good.  Then again, the first Sgt. Rock one does, and it works like a charm.  I think what really disappointed me about the Sgt. Rock one was that it had this sense of ambition to it, like it really wanted to get wet in the deep end--the Soul nonsense, Batman basically scaring a guy to death--there was this sort of weird otherworldly thing going on, and then it was just abandoned for a not-super-exciting train invasion.  The last page was pretty great, with the big bold "No End" lettering--but those last pages really failed to meet the hope I had for it. (Which is obviously on me.)

I'd wonder how much he shot for the anti-climax though?  It doesn't strike me that conclusions were something Haney was always "giving up" on.  The Mormon story, sure, or the Black Canary one--but the Batman-Two-Face story pretty much played out like a lot of Batman stories do.

Noah:  Fair enough.  It's hard not to love a story in which you've got Batman in the bottom of a well, screaming and reverting to third-person in best Stan-Lee-super-villain form "I don't want to die! Batman wants to live!" 

Tucker:  Point!

Noah:  You're second point gets at the intentionality thing again.  It's awfully hard to know what Haney saw himself as doing.  I think he generally did want the plots to work out in a somewhat traditional fashion.  On the other hand, he's clearly more focused on other stuff in some sense.  The Rock story...the opening is extremely dark and weird.  First some stupid guy with a shotgun just basically outthinks Batman, shoots him, and dumps him in a well; then he's screaming about how he doesn't want to die; then, yeah, he chases some innocent guy and gets him killed in a traffic accident; and the whole weird Jungian thing on the train where somehow being led to think he's killed Sgt. Rock is supposed to lead Batman to turn evil...there's a fascination with making Batman behave like a fool and an idiot, and with the whole Hitler/Devil juxtaposition -- but then he's got to finish up by making it all work out in the end, and that entails basically ignoring the setup.  The Deadman one was so perfect because he figured out a way to work the bleak vision through all the way to the end, while still reaching, at least on the surface, that requisite ending where virtue triumphs.

Tucker:  That's a pretty interesting way to take it...I can't really disagree with any of that. The only thing I'd add to that is that the Deadman story has a really solid action sequence to hang its hat on--that panel you pulled for Hooded, as well as the following page--that was (probably?) the best action in the entire collection.  The Rock/Batman team-up that I first reviewed had some pretty good stuff as well, but I thought the entire train sequence could've been better handled.  As nice as that one panel was where Batman jumps for the caboose, it was relegated to such a small portion of the page.  That could've been really iconic stuff, if there'd been more room to deal with it.  The second part as well, where Batman is tricked into telling the Nazis to shoot at Rock's jeep.  That should have been extended, instead of just thrown away. 

Of course, it did help to make Batman look like a fool--failing to trust Rock, again, almost immediately.

Noah:  Yeah; I think the rushed pacing and the lame action may in part be a result of the overall weakness of plot.  The best action sequence in that Rock one is right at the beginning, where Batman decides to rush the guy by coming through the window rather than the door...but the guy anticipates him and shoots him.  That opening splash page, with the split panel, and Batman and Dorn (that's his name!) yelling at each other through the door; that's a really nicely done page, and then the sequence with Batman coming through the window; and especially that totally horror comic sequence with Dorn dragging Batman under the moon, and then we see Dorn pushing him into the well from basically the level of the opening, with Batman's upside down foot and a little of the cape all that we see as he falls; then Bats shouting up from the bottom of the well...it's a fabulous sequence.  I guess there is a bit of chicken-or-the-egg question here; is the visual pacing good because Haney had a better story to tell, or is the story better because of the visual pacing?  I think it's clear, anyway, that Aparo needs more of a hook to hang his hat on than, say, Nick Cardy does.  The great things about Cardy's art tend to be only tangentially related to the script; that awesome first Black Canary story, for example...it didn't really matter what Haney wrote, Carey was going to draw some sexy Dinah Lance, damn it.  Whereas, Aparo...what's great about him has a lot more to do with how he tells the story, in terms of tricky angles, nifty power displays, or whatever.  The fact that he and Haney are more simpatico in some ways means that there isn't as much of a buffer, almost...

Tucker:  I'd actually found some really cheap Metamorpho yesterday in this weird out-of-NY comic shop, and while I'm looking forward to it, the main thing this little adventure has left me with is a desire to hunt down more Jim Aparo stuff.  I've got a huge amount of his straight Bat-work, but I'd really like to see him on other characters.  As much as some of the Cardy stuff here was really interesting to look at, the more action-heavy portions of Aparo were really fantastic.  On a side-note, I think any script would've been blessed to have that panel where Dorn drags Batman through that clearing.  It's not as kinetic as the Bat jumps a car with machine gun panel, but it's classic EC stuff. 

Noah:  Yeah; Nick Cardy has been the revelation for me...mostly because I knew about Aparo.  He is something else

Tucker:  And the panel where Batman brings his palm down on Dorn's neck?  That was great, really, really brutal stuff.  It looked like Aparo took the time to figure out exactly what parts of the human arm would be stressed by the movement, and then added in the neck stiffening to make it clear that Batman is really hurting the guy. 

The conversation, and this little fiesta, concludes over at The Hooded Utilitarian!  (Apologies for the quality of scanned images.)

Issues dealt with in this two-part conversation include Brave & The Bold # 106-108.  Art probably belongs to DC Comics, all the characters certainly do.  But everything above was drawn by Jim Aparo and written by Bob Haney, which means that God is currently patting their backs.  Somebody else handles the welcoming committee for corporate overlords.

The Cowardly and the Castrated: Part Five, Where Jim Aparo Shows Up And Everybody Realizes That They Were Sitting In His Chair All Along

Explanations, sexplanations.  What?  One, Two, Three, Four.

Now available, Part Six! 

Brave & The Bold # 100
Written by Bob "Spanky" Haney
Art by Jim "Sparky" Aparo
Cover by Nick "Least I'm Not Dead" Cardy
Published by DC Comics, 1972

"And the 100th issue.  That was a good issue."
-Bob Haney

Well, look, what do you want?  That's all he said.  I'd like to transcribe the entire section about how Bob Haney got jacked out of the job by Paul Levitz and Paul's terrible idea of teaming up Batman with Aquaman's wife Mera, but I'm sure there's a limit to how much you can copy out of a two year old Comics Journal issue before Michael Dean and Gary Groth show up at your house with the head of Harlan Ellison swinging like God's own testicles.  Besides, it fits.

Well, if you're looking for covers that seem unbelievable while still totally in correlation to the story it's hawking, then here you go, it's Brave & The Bold's 100th issue.  Page one?  Batman, shot in the heart!  The left chamber, to be exact.  Crippled in a wheelchair, waiting for the famous Dr. Hellstrom to save him--and all just scant days before the biggest heroin shipment is to arrive in Gotham.  Again, it's movie time:  it's the fear of The French Connection, with the ankle weights of The Bone Collector's plot device!  (Now, I've never seen The Bone Collector, but am I correct in assuming that Angelina Jolie doesn't end up doing it with a paralyzed Denzel?)  No misdirection here: Batman's chest-sucking wound sidelines him for the entire issue.  He ends up struggling to maintain a grip on his "operatives" and carrying on a feverish one-sided conversation with the world's hungriest spider.  The best part of that conversation comes when Batman dispenses with the whole "talking out loud to a spider" conceit and just sits there trying telepathy.  It doesn't work, and he gets mad and says "You're not listening, Spidey?"  Well, of course the spider isn't listening.  You were thinking.  Sure, this spider eats a lot, and it serves well in the position of being a blatantly obvious metaphor for The Batman Incapacitation Situation, but that doesn't make it the Martian Manhunter.

Batman's squadron of warriors is made up of Green Arrow, Robin, Green Lantern & the Black Canary. After some requisite "this happened in another comic" moments, wherein Green Arrow yells at everybody for ignoring the fact that Speedy is suffering from a drug problem--ah, there's nothing that gets people as excited as referencing that comic book--it's time for job assignments.  The team goes off individually, tracking down various false leads and pretty much just showing off their various tricks: Green Arrow shoots stuff with arrows, Green Lantern makes magic pincers with his magic ring, Black Canary ignores her assignment because she is getting her hair done.  Wait, really?  Yes, really.  When Robin's informed that Black Canary is persona non grata, his response is pretty priceless: "The flippy female's probably got her wrist radio jammed with a bobbie-pin!"  Geez, Dick.  That's pretty sexist.  Of course, it's not that far removed from the truth, after all, Black Canary isn't forced back into work until after Robin tracks her down at the beauty salon.  Her assignment, the infiltration of a book-reading at the local "No Men Allowed" club is met, and you get the experience of the most baldly ridiculous setting of the issue, wherein a French author with a ridiculous accent delivers a non-stop anti-man jeremiad from a Third Reich-ish podium.  Black Canary quickly figures out that the author isn't just a bra-burning man-hater, but also works as a touchy component in a massive heroin smuggling ring, and hardcore shitkicking ensues. By the time we get back to the oh-yeah-don't-forget, Batman is at death's door, it seems like the action of the issue is probably exhausted--after all, it's just regular old open heart surgery time, it's not like anything can go down now, right?

Wrong-o!  Even under a massive dose of anesthesia, Batman--who does happen to wear his Bat-clothes during open heart--realizes that the tender hands caressing his naked flesh are not those of esteemed surgeon Dr. Hellstrom, but actually belong to the heroin smuggler, and with a couple of well-placed pokes and screams, his team of associates bust down the door to dispense some more violencia.  It's a tasty stew, only thing missing is the throwaway gags.  While the Batman presented here is quite a bit more professional then the one Noah's spent the last few issues dealing with, he's still a bit impotent here--of course, he's in a wheelchair the entire issue, so that's to be expected.  But still, there's a little something missing here--maybe it's just that the recent issues in this little excursion have been funnier, maybe it's that the excitement of having Jim Aparo come on board was met by the memory that a really great artist isn't the be-all end-all for a super-hero comic, maybe it's just that the Black Canary jokes are just kind of mean and not that funny--but yeah, it's a bit of a let down.  Oh well.  More to come, as they say.

Brave & The Bold # 101
Written by Bob "Rex" Haney
Art by Jim "Mason" Aparo
Published by DC Comics, 1972

"It's kid's junk.  Kid's poison.  Adults have their junk.  Whether it's booze or sex or whatever.  Kids needed junk.  And the junk was comics for years."

-Bob Haney

Well, this puts the lie to a common myth--Neal Adams and Frank Miller were hanging in the shadows of Haney.  This right here--as well as plenty other Haney tales--is where the uber-obsessed Bat was built.  Not in a "oh he set the stage" variety.  Not in a "oh they took what worked and refined it" type thing.  No, not at all.  What Haney did was he took one series and gave you whatever Batman worked best for the story, meaning one time you'd get an inappropriate, near-incompetent poser who goofed his way through an adventure with an unseen Plastic Man, whereas in another, you'd get this guy, a cold, robotic sociopath who reserves all the cavalier behavior for when he's forced to hang out as Bruce Wayne at various nightclubs and bars.  You get a guy who says closes the issue by saying that "Someday, Bounty Hunter and I'll tangle again and I'll end his killing career-or die trying!"  Fuck Year One and those Adams hardcovers--if you're looking for when Batman broke up with Hokey Smokey and started grimacing at the sound of Alfred's pitter-patter, here's where the machine was built.

For what it's worth, the story itself is a solid one as well--like the previous one, it's a bit low on the fun side, but hey:  it's a Metamorpho story.  Even when Metamorpho is being serious, which he is, all the way through, he's still fucking Metamorpho.  Out of all of DC's various C-level characters, he's a gem of a find--he can do anything with his body, like Plastic Man, his physical appearance is one that's actually gross enough to pull off the rarely believable "that man is a monster" moments, and his always-in-the-wings supporting cast consists of a mad scientist with Wolverine's haircut, a walking ape-man who wears a business suit, and the dumbest, most brilliantly stereotypical piece of female plot device of all time.  While the plot of the issue attempts to focus on a group of six individuals--including Bruce & the gloriously stupid Sapphire Stagg--who are marked for death by the mysterious and Bat-hated assassin plainly called "Bounty Hunter," the truth is that it's just another classic Metamorpho story, which means that Sapphire is dumb, and therefore must dumb her way into a problem.  "Saving her" ensues.

While some of the other Bravers and Bolders have goosed around the idea of having a team-up that doesn't really occur, this one comes rather close to pulling it off.  While there are times when Batman appears on the same page as Metamorpho, their paths only intersect twice, and both times they barely speak to each other.  It's still sort of a team-up in the sense they both have the same general goal--Batman wants to stop the murder of those on the death list, Metamorpho wants to save one of those people--but it's more like a team-up in the same way that you'd call Philip Seymour Hoffman and Tom Cruise in Magnolia a team-up.  They just bump into each other on the way to their respective goals.  While your mileage for this sort of thing--standard, done-in-one super-hero stories--may not allow for a detour into the back catalog, it's an excellent piece of work, made even more interesting for the behavior of it's protagonists and the near-perfect work of Jim Aparo.  It would be nice to say that there's a super-hero comic on the stands right now as well put together as this one--but honestly, there isn't.  Somewhere along the way, whether in pursuit of better sales or in a desire to make art, the skill it took to do stories like this got lost.  There's not enough snark in the world to regret the absence.

Brave & The Bold # 102
Written by Bob "Groovy" Haney
Art by Jim "I Don't Feel Well" Aparo and Neal "Don't Worry Brah I'll Finish The Issue" Adams
Published by DC Comics, 1972

Bob Haney, regarding his dialogue: "Some of that stuff you did hear around here.  That's what some of the people who were criticizing me didn't appreciate.  Around Woodstock, you did hear some of that.  You heard a better form and a more raunchy form.  You couldn't put that in the comics.  I had to water it down and make it kind of juvenile."

Of all the stories I really wanted to read a remix version of, I think the last one would have been the concentration camp one.  Good for me.  Commence with the quotations!

"Aquarians are positive--preservers of the groovy values...so we can't let 'em tear our turf down around our ears, guys!  We gotta FIGHT BACK!  Get WITH IT, tigers!"

Okay, while this issue isn't an anniversary one, it's a team-up extraordinaire:  Batman finds himself hanging, A-Team style, with a local youth gang/focus group called The Young Aquarians who need some assistance keeping "their hood" clean.  He calls the Teen Titans, the standard phone call he makes whenever he runs into local people in the under-25 set.  (I'd assume he would've started writing down what "groovy" meant by this point.)  By the end of the issue, it's difficult to discern who he hasn't teamed up with.  Hell, at one point, he starts a teams-up with the local bulldozer captain, and yes, the scene depicted on the cover actually occurs.  Why lay in front of bulldozers?  Let's ask the Young Aquarians.

"Aquarians are life-givers...not takers!"

"The ghetto's a life taker, baby!"

The Teen Titans take the motto to heart and show up for a little civil disobedience, with the help of a very convincing reverse psychology trick where a bloodthirsty Batman gets on board and starts screaming "Turn on the speed--RUN RIGHT OVER THOSE TEEN ANARCHISTS!", the tricks pay off, and before you know it, it's time for the music montage, where 30 days of clean-up are dealt with in one four paneled page.  Kid Flash sweeps up the entire ghetto, Robin and the Young Aquarians beat the shit out of drug dealers, Speedy gets put on rat-killing detail--I guess they couldn't trust him around pushers--and Wonder Girl puts up wallpaper.  Wait, seriously?  Wallpaper?  Can't she fly and do all kinds of strong girl things?  Putting up wallpaper?  Oh well.

While of course everything works out fine, with the ghetto becoming a magical place, fit for a multicultural block party--who knew urban renewal required so little--a couple of bad pennies show up to try and intimidate the local citizenry back inside to live in fear.  While most, scratch that, all, of these kinds of scenes always play out exactly the way you'd expect, with the good guys winning, this one is particularly ridiculous--the mean drug guys that show up?  There are seven of them.  Seven people versus Batman, the Teen Titans, the Young Aquarians, the mayor, the police force, all of the happy and grateful citizens, a dog, two cats and I wouldn't be surprised to find out Plastic Man is there, boinking some girl while pretending to be a fishmonger.  Batman, in vain hopes that it will help to entertain the reader, tells absolutely everybody to hold back, so that the Young Aquarians can "stand on their own."  Wha..wait a second.  These kids are stupid and irritating, I get that, sure, but seriously:  it's been a month!  They haven't proved themselves at this point?  Hell, the black guy with an afro has been Robin's beat-the-shit-out-people partner all that time!  Speedy's been off shooting rats with a bow and arrow!  If anybody has proved their commitment, these goofballs certainly have.

Now, this issue is far more entertaining then the "kids with an atomic bomb" story, but honestly:  who gives a shit.  Urban renewal by way of non-violent peace movement?  How does the audience for that kind of comic meet the Batman-team-up audience?  Is this it?  It's nowhere near as obnoxious as the previous one, if only because the kids in the previous version of this story came across as being smart enough to care about things besides rats, whereas the Young Aquarians are clearly a bunch of navel-gazing dickheads, but that's really besides the point.  No matter how much less obnoxious you make the story, it's still a fucking Batman comic about dealing with rat-infested and new wallpaper-needing blocks of apartments that deals out emotional relevance by having the nosy old man realize what a nice bunch of kids those damn hippies are.  It's got some charm to it, sure, but so does an ice cream sundae.

Oh yeah, the art.  Well, it's Jim Aparo and Neal Adams.  They do a good job of illustrating something inconsequential.  Still, not all is lost.  After all, the issue ends with this little ditty:

"The future belongs to those who fight for it--today!  Future issues of Brave & Bold belong to those who keep the faith!  'Til then, faithful ones!  The start!"

Start of...okay, no.  I don't get it.

-Tucker Stone, 2008

The Cowardly and the Castrated: The Third Time Wants To Charm You, But That's Cause Spiking Lauren Conrad's Drink Didn't Work

Part One: TFO on Brave & The Bold #88-90

Part Two: The Hooded Utilitarian on #91-93

Caught up?  Damn straight.

Brave & The Bold # 94
Written by Bob "Get Out Of My House Denny O'Neill" Haney
Art by Nick "Tommy Hilfiger" Cardy
Published by DC Comics

"I don't know whether these young people in the business today appreciate how lucky they are to be able to write anything they want."  

-Bob Haney

There's a ton of great shit like that in the two part interview that The Comics Journal published in 2006. More to come, although it may or may not have any connection to the issues in question.  

Okay, now if there's a cover that will need...okay, yeah.  I'm not really sure how you defend or explain this one, or even if you have to.  It's great to look at, it's kind of insane, probably offensive to some, and yeah, it really says: "Concentration Camp For Adults Only."  At least the Teen Titans let Commissioner Gordon have his pipe.  Gold fillings too, that would've been--okay.  Let's just move on.

Oh, since it made Noah happy to point out the Rocky IV connection for the first issue, I'll just go ahead now and say that yes, this issue is what happens when you take the 80's movie The Manhattan Project and dress everybody up like The Warriors.  Once again, Bob Haney = futurist.  Haney acknowledges this himself--in his Journal interview, he briefly talks about watching The Terminator and telling people that they'd basically done that same story "about 37 times before, in comics."  This story--a standard "youth in revolt" tale about a ragtag group of terrorists who hold Gotham City at ransom with a homemade atomic bomb--isn't one that has the same ambitions, little of it goes beyond street level dealings, there's a tiny bit of fighting, and it deals most of its drama out in short segments of Wire-style backroom deals. Imagine, if you will, Batman, Commissioner Gordon, and the Gotham City Council sitting around in a breakroom debating on whether or not they should arrest a bunch of slum lords and clear the ghetto of trash and a rat infestation.  That's pretty much it--what makes it a comic book, and a somewhat okay one, is that they're having these negotiations under the threat of a citywide armageddon.  It's never made completely clear whether or not the residents of Gotham are aware that there's an atomic bomb somewhere in their vicinity--a smart move on Haney's part, since the result of that would've been making Nick Cardy draw a bunch of pages of everybody trying to escape their doom.  It's doubtful Gotham's citizenry would have stuck around to find out whether or not their mayor was willing to hire an exterminator while under the threat of atomic annihilation.  

In hopes of gaining the trust of the youth gang--a multicultural group made up of a black guy with an afro, hippy girls, some weird amalgamations of punk rock and the Fonz and a bunch of Hispanic muscle that look like Native American Navy Seals--Batman enlists the Teen Titans.  In a moment clearly designed to fit into the remainder of the plot, Dick Grayson makes sure to specifically ask Batman if he needs the Titans to wear their costumes or not.  (Which sort of begs the question--why not just bring the costume anyway?  Does your method of transport only allow one outfit?)  After their arrival, the Titans immediately narc out, hook up with the gang and work the street angle while Batman attempts to get the city officials to accede to the gangs demands.  (It's irritating how Haney immediately takes the idea of an activist youth organization and makes no mention whatsoever of the Vietnam War, civil rights, or birth control--these kids are just a well-organized militia devoted to local city related issues.  Whether they have an interest in global--hell, even national affairs--their agenda with the use of the atomic bomb is simply to clean up their living space and gain a fair educational playing field.  Other than that, they seem to want nothing at all.  I'll get into this more later in #96, but for now it's best to just think of the these guys as a particularly virulent strain of a co-op board.)

Unsurprisingly, the issue plays out pretty much as expected--the Teen Titans are found out but are able to talk their way out of subterfuge by pointing out that Batman convinced the city to meet all their demands, a final monkeywrench is thrown in simply so it can be met and the fear of the bomb can last to the final page, and the entire thing ends with Batman and Gordon realizing they should always make sure to pay attention to what happens to those who live on the bottom end of the scale.

If for nothing else, the issue is actually more disappointing the more you get to know Haney's past--unlike, Bob Kane for example, Haney actually lived in a Hooverville during the Great Depression, he was an active participant in 1960's anti-war protests, defined himself as "an old socialist"--basically, he did all of the things these kids did, except he did them in real fucking life, for real fucking stakes. (Except for the atomic bomb thing.)  At the same time, he's trying to tell a story here, he was operating under a still enforced Comics Code, and he did the best he could.  It doesn't change the simple fact that this one just ain't that fun, and--except for the raw emotion of that cover that tells Batman "Every grown-up will suffer [in a concentration camp] because you lied to us!"--it's just too damn safe.  

Brave & The Bold # 95
Written by Bob "Corbin" Haney
Art by Nick "Bernsen" Cardy
Cover Art by Neal Adams & Dick Giordano
Published by DC Comics, 1970

"Listen, in those days, I had girls--I had five girls at a time.  Jesus.  I was cutting a swath through New York.  It was a great time for that."

-Haney, again

After last issues "wow, are you guys serious" cover, it's back to your standard Batman responds-with-shock-to-off-camera-surprise cover.  Starting up the issue, it's time for one of the best throwaway sequences yet, when Batman stops by to meet some rich lady and she has him sprayed with her favorite cologne, as she apparently does to all men who come to see her.  (She's got a thing set up inside the ceiling of the elevator that sprays the cologne, which is called "Tiger Lover.")  Noah seems concerned that some people might get the impression that I think this kind of stuff--jokey, random silliness--is stupid or somehow off-putting.  If anybody does think that, let me be clear: that isn't the case at all--if anything, I think it's a testament to Haney's exceptional talent that he's able to add these random diversions into silliness merely for atmosphere (and yes, that's pretty much what I think most of them are for) while at the same time achieving his primary goal of making up an exciting story that fills the issue out. That being said, this issue is one that doesn't really work, and while the jokes are funny and make sense, there's a few portions that need more fleshing out.  (Particularly during the panels where Batman's as-of-yet unrevealed partner shoves him out of the way of an assassin's bullet.  The sequence eventually becomes comprehensible but not upon a first read--is Batman reacting to the bullet?  Doesn't it seem like he doesn't acknowledge the shove for a long time?  On top of that, where, exactly, is he when all of that occurs?)  Cardy's work, as has been better explained by Noah, is top-notch noir--but there's a point brought up by Matthew Brady that helps it appear so, which is that these Showcase reprints are black and white. I have my doubts that what Cardy is doing--and doing extremely well--would be this intense in color.  The black and white, all the shadows and gloom, lend the appearance that everything is taking place at night, whereas the narrative makes it clear that a good half of the comic itself is occurring in broad daylight.  Either way, this ball is rolling and neither Noah or I are going to go longbox diving under the hateful eyes of all the comic retailers we've both alienated to find out.  I'd promise a future update, but I'm sure that I'll get distracted by Nana and getting over the cancellation of Blue Beetle.

Now, this story is weirder then most, as the team-up isn't revealed until the final pages of the issue, and when it is revealed, it's done so in one of the most over-used scenes in all of fiction, that being the "good guy reveals the truth of situation and in such a way that you realize it was impossible to have figured it out on your own."  In other words, this ain't one of those times where the most well-read comic fan is going to be able to truthfully say "I figured out that the guy that lady shot was Plastic Man way before the end."  In fact, the only reason you know that it's Plastic Man that lady shot, if you haven't read the issue, is because I just told you it was Plastic Man without saying "spoiler" first.  Now, before you get upset, let's be clear about two things:  1) You really shouldn't be reading this if you're going to get upset, in fact, if you get upset about things strangers write in blogs, you really shouldn't be doing a lot of things, like breathing or writing poetry.  2)  You've had 38 years to read Brave & The Bold # 95 and be surprised by this issue, and you didn't, so you don't get to have the right to be surprised anymore.  By the way, Nina is a traitor and Jack kills her in season four.  Wait, three?  Can't remember, but he shoots her a bunch of times in the face.

Oh, did I mention that the sequence where Batman tells you the entire secret of the story is also during the second-most over-used sequence in fiction, that being the "stop the execution" moment that always seems to occur seconds before death delivers an icy fingerbang?  Because I meant to mention that.

Honestly, there isn't a whole lot to say about this issue.  There's a great page during the part of the story where Batman is framed for murder when he shows up at the murder victims funeral concealing his costume under what looks like Dick Tracy's hat and trenchcoat.  That's pretty fantastic.  Things aren't as good on the art end of things--Cardy may have just had too much work on his plate, because while everything is still structured very nicely, quite a few of the panels look unfinished.  Most of all, the problem I had with this one is just that it's one of those stories that depends on a last-minute reveal, and I think last-minute reveals are kind of lazy.  When the build up has been strong and exciting on its own, there's nothing wrong with flipping the tables and delivering a shock.  But when an entire story spends all it's time waiting for somebody to stand up and say "But what you didn't see..."

Well, that's just not that fun.

Brave & The Bold # 96
Written by Bob "Buttermilk Johnson" Haney
Art by Nick "I Invented The Missionary Position" Cardy
Published by DC Comics, 1971

"We built tankers down in the lower Delaware.  It had a higher rate of casualties than the service did....well, they were running the equipment three shifts a day.  Continually.  Building ships is dangerous, anyway.  I almost was killed twice.  One time, one of them was deliberate, some black guy was out to get me.  We had a fight and an argument.  Blah, blah, blah.  Anyway, it was very dangerous.  I saw guys killed with my own eyes."

-Bob Haney

And here we are, with Sgt. Rock, Batman, and a story that could only be called "The Striped Pants War!"  (Emphasis?  All Haney's.)  Cardy's opener wouldn't look out of place in Greg Rucka's spy thriller Queen & Country, and it's an effective piece of work--a van slams into a car in a "quiet South American city", the van doors spring open, automatic weapons fire, and a man is taken from the car.  Another, as of yet unseen, lays on the ground.  Simple, brutal stuff.  Nice work, and it's even more disconcerting that no one--not the abductee, his would-be protector or any of the assailants--is more than a shadowy figure.  While the question of "does this work better because it's black and white" can't be answered without something to compare it against for other issues, this segment rests on its own.  Color wouldn't bring anything to the table.  Any of the problems with the previous issue are completely absent--Cardy's work is excellent throughout this entire issue, and considering the script he's dealing with, his ability to raise the game on the art front to meet that script on its level is striking, gorgeous, and worthy of about fifteen more words of praise.

Batman's introduction on the scene comes next, with Bruce Wayne responding to a call to travel to Washington DC for a surprise meeting with the President--which one, we never see--as well as Batman, who attends as well, thanks to Alfred and a padded suit.  If the dialog here is meant to be trusted, it's not the first time Alfred has shucked off his butler responsibilities to wear the tights, on top of that, he even refers to the suit as "his."  (I don't know why, but I kind of hope that Alfred requested that suit on his own volition, because the prospect of Bruce Wayne sidling up to Alfred in the Manor and saying, shyly, "Look what I made for you" is rather skeevy.)  The introductions continue--unlike the previous issue, there's no "guess who he's teaming up with" here, it's Sgt. Rock, he's also the man who failed to protect the abduction depicted on the first page; that abduction is also revealed to be the ambassador to....well, it's a random South American country, considering the year it was published, it could be pretty much any South American country, the US was still actively treating the region like a Risk game.  Bruce Wayne and Rock's relationship is revealed to be a--heh--extensive one, introduced and explained in a sequence where Rock begins tearing off his clothes in anger to remind Bruce of all the battle scars he received over the course of his 30 odd years of service.  Thankfully, Cardy relies on a simple ass shoot, pants on, when it comes time for Rock to talk about his "legs full of goodies from a gook grenade in Korea."

As the evening rolls around, conversational catch-up gives way to Batman's exploration of the city, which leads to this delightful back and forth with a young boy, practicing to become a matador late at night.

"Bathombre!  Madre Mia!"

"Buenas noches!  Perhaps you can help me!  How are you called, Amigo?"

That isn't the last time somebody refers to Batman as Bathombre, and no, it never loses it's delicious flavor.

All the fun gives way though, as it's now time for one of those sequences that, if this comic were to be published today, might just well get itself about 963 comments on CBR calling for the writer to be fired, or Dan Didio to be fired, or a live monkey to be eaten by Ed Brubaker on a webcam video shot inside Jimmy Palmiotti's bedsit.  The sequence?  Oh, it's just a tasty slice of some muthafucking manslaughter.  Not "debatable" manslaughter, but just good old fashioned in-self-defense manslaughter.  Guy charges Batman, Batman does a sort of frog jump onto the guys back, which sends him careening through a poorly boarded window, boom, guy falls to his death.  No question, no problem, just murder, and Batman's first regret is that, in the process of slaughtering a man, he also broke his new amigo's toro rig.  The kid doesn't seem bothered by the death of a man, brought about at the hands of a spandex clad American he just met in the middle of night, and if he's not, then hey:  I'm not either.  Kill away, Brucie-kins.

When the morning rolls by, Bruce Wayne (who, by the way, rocks the most amazing side burns in this issue, think twice the size of Luke "Dylan" Perry on that old 90210 show and you're probably still not bushy enough) does about five-minutes of detective work and decides that Sgt. Rock is in cahoots with the local terrorist gang, tries pulling rank on him, and the next thing you know, Rock is punching out local army boys and disappearing off embassy grounds.  His behavior, which any good Rock fan knows, is clearly for the best, but Batman isn't much of a reader.  Instead, Bruce continues his search--and in what happens to be more then just a mildly clever twist but an outright shocking one, it turns out that the terrorists have been keeping the kidnapped ambassador in a hidden torture chamber in the basement of the American embassy.  "The calls are coming from inside the house," that whole thing.  Genius maneuver, and I for one, never saw it coming.  The fight that ensues is a pretty standard one for a Batman/Sgt. Rock team-up, meaning Batman sticks to punching the guys until Rock shows up and starts pumping bullets into anything that speaks Spanish, is warm, and moves.  When escape is finally made, this little piece of blood theater hits it's audacious climax--the surprise is not that the traitor behind all this nastiness was the minor character from early in the issue who talked shit about Sgt. Rock, that's completely predictable--no, the surprise is a lot more basic then that.

It's that the traitor is shot dead by Alfred Pennyworth, who apparently packs a fucking sidearm along with his padded Bat-suit.

It's interesting to look back now, and even more so to read what Haney has to say about working in this time period, and then compare what's actually on the printed page to what continually raises the ire of a segment of today's fans.  Just like in film, sex, uncomfortable politics and religion are the off-limits "adult" topics, whereas violence--good old fashioned, blood on the floor, shot in the back, impaled on fences violence--didn't come across as problematic for DC, or the Comics Code, at the time.  Haney makes it pretty clear that the Code was a meager thing, used mostly as a silent battleaxe to force the writers to censor themselves before they even went to an editor--it wasn't that somebody stopped him and made him change stuff, but that he never brought anything that would need to be changed to the table.  As is clear here--and, by comparison, the earlier issue regarding youthful protesters who have little to no connection to any of the major issues that youthful people (and Haney) were actually protesting at the time--Haney knew exactly what he could get away with, and what he couldn't.  He could use the word "gook" in a Batman comic, he could have Alfred Pennyworth shoot a man in the back, but he couldn't depict the denizens of Gotham's ghetto as Black Panthers or free-loving hippies.  If nothing else, that self-censorship, and the culture of impotence that created it, is shown here to have accomplished one simple thing:  it made what could've been a good, vibrant story into one that's only tolerable in issue 94.  That culture's same disinterest in policing the violence in its book then turned around, two issues later, and helped create a stark, nasty story that, by its very simple, liberal use of blood happens to be one of the more remarkable ones I've read yet.  Not all Batman comics could, or should, work like this.  But this one does, and it's all the better for it.

-Tucker Stone, 2008

Check out Noah's place tomorrow for part four.

The Cowardly and the Castrated: The First Part, Where Bars Get Set And Dreams Get Met

What the hell is this?  It's a crass team-up event blog.  Part Two, tomorrow, at the Hooded Utilitarian.

The Brave & The Bold # 88
Written by Bob "Hammering" Haney
Art by Irv "The Nerve" Novick & Mike "Kill" Esposito
Cover by Neal "The Seal" Adams
Published by DC Comics, 1970

So what if it's the plot of Rocky IV, right down to a touchy Russian who calls foul on every minor quibble while behaving as unsportsmanlike as a doped up horse in a dog race?  This was 1970, and Haney had it first.  (Well, that's probably unlikely.  A nice rich guy bringing an old warhorse out of retirement, the only stumbling block in his way being the warhorse's belief that his best days are behind him--hell, that's sort of Biblical.  Old, at least.)  But it's America vs. Russia, it's boxing--fuck it, it's Rocky IV.  Bruce Wayne rightly keeps up with the times, and Eddie Campbell wouldn't have much to complain about here:  these are men, they wear clothes, the clothes are not tight bodysuits.  Fabric, hanging to the ankles--how many pockets on your sportcoat, Ted Grant?  Four?  Is that a--Bruce Wayne, what is that tied around your neck?  Is that a...goddamn, man.  That's a silk kerchief!

Hells yes.

After the requisite plot-setting--Bruce needs a coach for the American youth boxing squad, the kids are going to Vienna, but it's all a bit of slight and underhand. No, here's what's really going down: Batman has a date with the Evil Empire--this being back in the day when Bats would get called in for that sort of wetwork, you understand--and soon enough, it's off to the races, classic Haney style.  "Blast!  Can't track him in this crazy place!  Which way?  Which way--?"  (It's a sewer.  Follow the water that's disturbed.  Come on, physics.  You know this shit Bruce.  Get it together.)

This being a standard Bob Haney "give 'em two, keep 'em moving" tale, the B plot of catching a spy takes the backseat when it's time for Batman to do some muscular therapy with Teddie "Wildcat" Grant, who's still wishing and washing his way through a real funk, terrified that he'll be unable to take down the  young Russian who has his goat, will soon be eating his goat, probably on a ke-bab.  It's therapy time, 1970's Batman style, which takes the form of a suckerpunch to Ted's face--fighting ensues, in the Vienna Wonderwheel.  (That's where Ted goes, when he's "feeling low.")  It works, and although Ted immediately starts dropping a Bapeta-Bapeta-Bap on the old speed bag, Batman goes ahead and sets up some all-the-lights-go-out-at-seven "insurance," just in case he's wrong and Teddie can't take out a steroid-driven crewcut-having Commie Russkie in the ring.  (Not much faith in your fellow man there, Bats.)  For the sake of the plot, Batman doesn't end up making it to the boxing bout, as he's captured by a wily sweetbread vendor (cart and all!), and Ted uses Bat's seventh road blackout opportunity--in the middle of a fight he may just be on his way to winning on his own--to tear ass through the streets of Vienna, saving Batman just in time for everything to be wrapped up in a neat bow.  The Russians fail to steal some plans and "blackmail the world," Batman pleases his imperialist masters, and Ted Grant gets a comeback win in the ring.  (And all Batman has to do is call him a "has-been" to get the blood pumping.)  Good times?  Good times.

There's a lot here that ends up working pretty damn well--the art choices for Bruce are a bit odd at times, giving him an appearance that doesn't match up with what he looks like in the Bat-suit, but it's pretty clear that's done to give him a look that more easily distinguishes him from Ted Grant, who, for all his dimestore On The Waterfront fashion sense, looks exactly like a Jim Aparo Bruce Wayne with streaks in his hair.  But it's a full comic, one that would probably be a bit too high-tempo for an animated program, and the dated 70's slang gives it even more charm.  Two points on the high and mighty scale.  Your pants?  Remove them now.

Brave & The Bold # 89
Written by Bob "The Job" Haney
Art by Ross "Stop-Loss" Andru & Mike "Maim" Esposito
Cover by Neal "The Deal" Adams and Dick "No Trick" Giordano
Published by DC Comics, 1970

"Out of the twilight smog and into the quickening bustle of the great city they come--fierce-eyed, but with faces like masks--as the creaking of wooden wheels seems to spin a thenody that Gotham's strangest has struck!  Too late, sergeant!  The wheel turns...the moving finger writes...what is will be...what was is NOW!"

You read that, and you say: shit.  Zombies?  I'm tired of zombie comics.

Get over yourself, you judgmental twat. 

These are MORMON zombies.

Well, not really.  They're a religious sect, nobody likes them, they were slaughtered back in the ye olden days of Gotham (cue a picture of wigs and beauty marks) and now their descendants are back to claim reparations.  They're white, so they aren't Native Americans.  Call them Mormons.  (Or Hellerites, after their founder, who wrote a book called Catch-22.  Wait, Josiah Heller?  Brother.  Got to be his brother.)  They aren't zombies either, because they've actually been living out in the desert.  One of them is dead though, and that's enough.  Batman versus Mormon Zombies!

The team-up here is with the Phantom Stranger, although Dr. Thirteen makes an appearance, as well as his business card, which says "Dr. Terence Thirteen The Ghost Breaker Hoaxes Exposed," in all caps and apparently hand-made, since Ross Andru didn't use a ruler to make sure the words on the card stayed on the same line.  Unfortunately, Terry 13 is there to expose the Phantom Stranger as the "charlatan" he is, Batman agrees, mostly because in his confusion he decides to use the logic of "a bad thing happened and you were nearby" to determine who he's going to put under "Bat-Arrest."  (Actual words!)  The fight that ensues ends quickly, through no help of Bats--he tries a smoke canister, but according to Phanty, "smoke is one of his allies."  Dr. 13 takes care of the magic knock out business: Karate Chop!  Down goes the DC's most unloved magical entity, as long as you're ignoring those weird female characters they make up whenever somebody tries to write a Dr. Fate ongoing.

It shouldn't go unmentioned that choice dialog swipers could go into overload with this particular issue--whether you're just looking for that moment where Batman screams like a 50's housewife who saw a mouse, a slice of the cake that is "those cobblestones...have become...CLOBBERSTONES!", this issue is a piping hot bucket of "wow, Haney really goes for it, doesn't he?"  Now, that stuff on its own--yes, it's kind of silly.  It's even sort of...well, dumb.  But it works, and I'd gather that it works because the story moves quickly, and there's zero pretension to it.  Even when Batman--or Commissioner Gordon, or the wow-this-guy-is-an-asshole Dr. 13--have to fill their mouths with so much hyperbole that their jaws distend in the expulsion, there's no sense whatsoever that it's trying to be "thematic" or "metaphorical" or "speak to a universal truth" or any of those other nattering reasons a certain group of people take when they want to "defend" super-hero comics.  (From whom are you defending them?  Is there some argument, some path to take in a dialog that will somehow convince others that they are wrong, and what they Do Not Like they Actually Like?)  No.  Bullshite, it is said.  Sure, there's some Brave & Bold stories out there about "the magic of teamwork" or "two heads are better then one," but seriously, seriously, let's all be seriously serious:  morals are for Aesop, Batman slapping the Phantom Stranger to wake him up and saying shit like "CLOBBERSTONES."  That's for the awesome, that's for the "Ripper mate, good on you."  That's for the JOY, that's not for the dramaturgy.

Look, you either ride this bull because you fucking like this bull or you don't.  It's a metaphor!  It's an allegory!  It's all rife with the meaning of the Heroic Saga, as written by Joseph Campbell "The Dumbest Literary Philosopher In The Bargain Bin Of Literary Philosophy" and popularized by George Lucas, the patron saint of "If something has a double meaning, it's clearly, oh so clearly, better then Tolstoy."  No.  Don't get your pretension in here.  Take it and shove it up your ass, and take Mallard Fillmore with you: those are your comics.  Not for us, for us, it's Bob Fucking Haney, and Haney understands you, 1970.  Haney is going to teach you that when it wears spandex, and when it punches shit, that it is to scream like a housewife, worry about Dick Grayson, and entertain.  This is entertainment, it's pure.  If Stan Lee knew that a bunch of people with way more time on their hands then they had sense were going to write terrible books about how Spider-man defined a culture, he would've jumped out a window and shot up the floors he passed on the way down.  And we would be a better race of knuckle-draggers for it.

In other words, this is good stuff if you're down for it.  It's great stuff, if you're down for it.  It's uncut Bolivian Batman hash.

Brave & The Bold # 90
Written by Bob "The Father" Haney
Art by Ross "The Son" Andru & Mike "The Holy Ghost" Esposito
Cover by Neal "The God-In-One" Adams
Published by DC Comics, 1970

Wow, off topic!  Let's get on topic.  It doesn't take too many pages of issue 90 before you look at that Jim Aparo cover of the Showcase Presents A Title That's Too Long Volume 2 and say to yourself, "man, when is Batman going to start looking like that?"  Ross is tolerable, he's got some distinctive stuff going on with Adam Strange, and his art never stops the story in it's tracks--but goddamn, Batman sure looks like...egh.  Doughy.  There's no dimensionality to his chest, it's all just lines on a cardboard torso, and considering that there's some clever angles being chosen--a corkscrew spin out and around Batman's attempts to catch a sniper--it hurts to see good design cluttered with a character that's so achingly standard and generic.  There's nothing "bat" about this Batman, he's just any spandex clad character.  If you were going to make a movie reference, you'd skip past Nolan, Burton & Shumacher and embrace Billy Zane in The Phantom.  Nobody wants that to happen, except Billy Fucking Zane.

Bob Haney spends a good portion of this issue--an issue that by the end, features a Batman who goes from looking barrel chested to actually looking like he is wearing a barrel with a bat symbol on it--pushing the suspension card as far as is imaginable.  After the issues somewhat theatrical opening--clinical death followed by Adam Strange's delivery of what may be Batman's obituary from the future--the story spirals downwards.  Batman cuts a terrible deal allowing a mobster a weeks free reign of crime, he's caught on tape and destroys both his and Commissioner Gordon's reputation in the process (Gordie heads home to spend his final years "tending geraniums"), and then, for the final nail, Bruce heads home himself to go into a full Howard Hughes solipsism, even going so far as to fire Alfred.  (Alfred, in a prize moment, refuses a parting salary.)  That's a lot to take in.  Besides the stupid arrogance of his behavior, Batman's sole motivation is his desperation to escape the futuristic obituary, which has, of course, foretold exactly what's happening: Batman's career ending in shame and disgrace, Bruce Wayne's life petering out in a solitary confinement as an eccentric shut-in at the manor.  Meanwhile, the reader sits though reading all of this saying "Well, obviously none of this is accurate." 

But it is.  Batman ends up saving the day, through the help of Adam Strange and the horrible financial choices made by Alfred Pennyworth, but none of what had occured in the previous pages is denied its reality.  In this comic, this story, Batman did give a mobster a week off from Bat-justice, he did explode emotionally on all of his closest friends and fire Alfred, he did wallow in a self-pitying morass of depression alone in the mansion with armed guards preventing bothersome busybodies from intruding on his poetry-reading time.  It's all true, and it's all there, and it's all--and this is the part that makes it great, and makes you really wish that Jim Aparo was handling the action sequences--it's all believable.  It's not realistic, hell no, realism is for fucking date rapists.  It's crazy Batman shit, and it's easy to buy into.  It's the sort of thing that doesn't worry that it's going to "break" Batman, because it can't, and it won't.  It's pretty magical, in a way, to read something like this.  It would be heavy, indefensible praise to call it "great."  It's got a lot of problems, not the least of which is a dependence on a main character that Andru never pulls off (in this particular issue, as it wasn't this ugly in the other one he drew), and it's probably a little more emotion-heavy then it needs to be to get it's plot points met.  Still, it's a great way to put some scars on the chassis, just to prove that the threat of death isn't the only trick available when it's time to amp up the tension.

-Tucker Stone, 2008

Tune in now to see what Noah has to say about the next three issues, and on Thursday, it'll be time to deal with a story called "The Striped-Pants War" which, I pray, is far better then the title sounds.  And also not about Striped Pants.