By Jim Aparo with Bob Haney, Cary Burkett, Archie Goodwin & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4296-1 (HB)
After periods as a historical adventure and try-out vehicle, The Brave and the Bold won critical as well as commercial acclaim through old-fashioned team-ups. Pairing regular writer Bob Haney with the best artists available, a succession of DC stars joined forces before the comicbook hit its winning formula.
The said format – featuring media superstar Batman with other rotating, luminaries of the DC universe in complete stand-alone stories – paid big dividends, especially after the feature finally found a permanent artist to follow a variety of illustrators including Ramona Fradon, Neal Adams, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Irv Novick, Nick Cardy, Bob Brown and others…
At that time editors favoured regular – if not permanent – creative teams, feeling that a sense of visual and even narrative continuity circumvented confusion amongst younger readers. The slickly versatile Jim Aparo was a perfect match for a drawing brief that encompassed DC’s entire DC pantheon and all of time, space and relative dimensions in any single season…
James N. Aparo (August 24, 1932 – July 19, 2005) was a true quiet giant of comicbooks. Self-taught, he grew up in New Britain, Connecticut, and after failing to join EC Comics whilst in his 20s, slipped easily into advertising, newspaper and fashion illustration. Even after finally becoming a comics artist he assiduously maintained his links with his first career.
For most of his career Aparo was a triple-threat, pencilling, inking and lettering his pages. In 1963 he began drawing Ralph Kanna’s newspaper strip Stern Wheeler, and three years added a wide range of features for go-getting visionary editor Dick Giordano at Charlton Comics. Aparo especially shone on the minor company’s licensed big gun The Phantom…
When Giordano was lured away to National/DC in 1968 he brought his top stars (primarily Steve Ditko, Steve Skeates and Aparo) with him. Aparo began his lengthy, life-long association with DC, illustrating and reinvigorating moribund title Aquaman – although he continued with The Phantom until his duties increased by way of numerous short stories for the monolith’s burgeoning horror anthologies and revived 1950s supernatural hero The Phantom Stranger…
Aparo went on to be an award-winning mainstay of DC’s artistic arsenal, with stellar runs on The Spectre, The Outsiders and Green Arrow, but his star was always inescapably linked to Batman’s…
Aparo and scripter Bob Haney continue their run of enticing all-action epics in this second sturdy hardback and/or eBook compilation, gathering B&B #123-136, 138-145, and 147-151 plus the lead stories from Detective Comics #437 & 438 (cumulatively spanning December 1975 through June 1979) in a fabulous celebration that opens sans preamble.
With this collection of Batman’s pairings with other luminaries of the DC universe we find a creative team that had gelled into a perfect machine producing top-notch yarns aimed at the general readership – which would often annoy and appal the dedicated fans and continuity-obsessed reader.
B&B #123 brought back and united Plastic Man and Metamorpho with the Darknight Detective in ‘How to Make a Super-Hero’ as well as featuring a rare incidence of a returning villain: ruthless tycoon Ruby Ryder, once again playing her seductive mind-games with the pliable, gullible Elastic Ace.
Always looking for a solid narrative hook, Haney spectacularly broke the fourth wall in ‘Small War of the Super Rifles’ when Batman and Sgt. Rock needed the assistance of artist Aparo and editor Murray Boltinoff to stop a gang of ruthless terrorists. This is another one that drove many fans batty…
‘Streets of Poison’ in #125 is a solid drug-smuggler yarn with exotic locales and a lovely hostage for Batman and the Flash to deal with, after which John Calnan stepped in to ink #126’s Aquaman team-up, solving the sinister mystery of ‘What Lurks Below Buoy 13?’
It was back to basics next when Wildcat returns to help quash a people-smuggling racket in the ‘Dead Man’s Quadrangle’ whilst #128’s ‘Death by the Ounce’ finds the Caped Crusader recruiting Mister Miracle and Big Barda to help him rescue a kidnapped Shah and save a global peace treaty.
Ever keen to push the envelope, the next yarn is actually a jam-packed 2-parter with #129’s ‘Claws of the Emperor Eagle’ pitting Batman, Green Arrow and the Atom against the Joker, Two-Face and a host of bandits in a manic race to possess a statue that had doomed every great conqueror in history. The epic, globe-trotting saga concluded with an ironic bang in ‘Death at Rainbow’s End’.
The last time Wonder Woman appeared (B&B #105) she was a merely mortal martial artist but in Brave and the Bold #131 she exults in all her super-powered glory to help Batman fight Catwoman and ‘Take 7 Steps to… Wipe-Out!’
When DC cautiously dipped its editorial toe in 1970s Martial Arts craze #132 found Richard Dragon, Kung Fu Fighter joining ‘Batman… Dragon Slayer??’, as Denny O’Neil succeeded editor Boltinoff, resulting in a rather forced and silly tale of duelling fight stylists and purloined historical treasures.
Normal service resumes and Deadman steps in to deliver ‘Another Kind of Justice!’ to rum-runner Turk Bannion as his heir and murderer turns to a more modern form of smuggling before ‘Demolishment!’ (#134) sees Green Lantern defect to the soviets, a la The Manchurian Candidate with Batman’s hasty rescue attempt going badly awry…
In #135 the robotic Metal Men re-emerge to solve the mystery of a 19th century artificial intelligence in ‘More Than Human!’, but when Ruby Ryder is unmasked as behind the plot, it costs Bruce Wayne everything he owns and only the timely assistance of Green Arrow in concluding chapter ‘Legacy of the Doomed!’ is able to restore the status quo.
Mister Miracle is back in #138, tackling a ‘Mile High Tombstone!’ with Batman to save a missing geologist and thwart deranged escapologist Cosimo (and a killer computer), after which ‘Requiem for a Top Cop!’ sees Commissioner Jim Gordon targeted by alien bounty hunter Vorgan, forcing the Gotham Gangbuster to call in alien cop Hawkman…
‘Dastardly Events Aboard the Hellship!’ in B&B #140 pits Wonder Woman and Batman against circus-obsessed billionaire super-spy Dimitrios, whilst Black Canary pops in to help quash the Joker‘s byzantine extortion scheme in ‘Pay – Or Die!’
In #142, ‘Enigma of the Death-Ship!’ sees Aquaman and his wife Mera battle the Dark Knight to suppress a ghastly family secret, before the sordid trail leads to the most respected man in America and a confrontation with the Creeper in ‘Cast the First Stone’ (as Cary Burkett teams with Haney on script).
Haney solos on the magical mystery tale of ‘The Arrow of Eternity’ as Caped Crusader and Emerald Archer head back in time to Agincourt to foil a wicked plot by time-tamperer the Gargoyle after which the Phantom Stranger and Batman face ‘A Choice of Dooms!’ pursuing voodoo crimelord Kaluu…
Supergirl enjoyed her first ever B&B Bat team-up (she had paired with Wonder Woman in #63, co-starring in the ferociously-dated and indefensible ‘Revolt of the Super-Chicks!’) in issue #147 where Burkett and Aparo’s ‘Death-Scream from the Sky!’ sees her and Batman save the world from extermination by satellite and a surprise super villain…
‘The Night the Mob Stole X-Mas!’ is a piece of seasonal fluff scripted by Haney and pencilled by Joe Staton with Aparo applying his overwhelming inks to a tale of cigarette smugglers and aging mafioso with the still-itinerant Plastic Man helping the provide a Christmas miracle.
The disbanded Teen Titans briefly reform in #149 for Haney’s ‘Look Homeward, Runaway!’, hunting a kid gang moving from petty crime to the big leagues after which ‘Today Gotham… Tomorrow the World!’ celebrates a landmark anniversary with an extended tale of Bruce Wayne’s abduction by terrorists and the undercover superhero who secretly shadows him. No hints here from me…
The brave, bold portion of our entertainment comes to a close with a rather era-specific yarn co-starring the Flash as #151 features a predatory haunt feeding off patrons at the ‘Disco of Death’.
This stunning compilation concludes with a brace of gripping thrillers from Archie Goodwin, after he took over the editor’s desk from Julie Schwartz in Detective Comics #437 (November 1973). He also wrote a stunning run of experimental yarns, beginning with ‘Deathmask’: a brilliant supernatural murder-mystery featuring an Aztec curse and seemingly unstoppable killer; all magnificently depicted by Jim Aparo. Following that, Detective #438 brought forth ‘A Monster Walk Wayne Manor’ wherein the abandoned stately pile (Batman having relocated to a bunker under the Wayne Foundation building) became home to a warped and dangerous old enemy…
By taking his cues from news headlines, popular films and proven genre-sources Bob Haney continually produced gripping adventures that thrilled and enticed with no need for more than a cursory nod to an ever-more-onerous continuity. Anybody could pick up an issue and be sucked into a world of wonder. Consequently, these tales are just as fresh and welcoming today, their themes and premises are just as immediate now as then and Jim Aparo’s magnificent art is still as compelling and engrossing as it always was. This is a Bat-book literally everybody can enjoy.
These are some of the best and most entertainingly varied yarns from a period of magnificent creativity in the American comics industry. Aimed at a general readership, gloriously free of heavy, cloying continuity baggage and brought to stirring, action-packed life by one of the greatest artists of the art form, this is a Batman for all seasons and reasons with the added bonus of some of the most fabulous and engaging co-stars a fan could imagine. How could anybody resist? Seriously: in this anniversary year, how can you…?
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