One of the books that I got as regularly as possible growing up was Brave and the Bold as I loved the team-up concept. Of course, my other favorites included Marvel Team Up, Marvel Two-In-One and the later DC Comics Presents. The star of B&B was BATMAN, the Caped Crusader and Darknight Detective. I am starting with #74 (N'67) because that's when Batman took over as the permanent star after several years of other heroes pairing up. This was thanks to the success of the Batman TV series but the Masked Manhunter stayed in the book after the show got cancelled so it must have popular afterwards!
The main author of these tales was BOB HANEY who apparently was quite the character himself. Fondly remembered yet much maligned, he care little for continuity instead focusing on telling a gripping story. Indeed that's why I'm starting here as I want to examine his Protean Batman who he molded to fit his story then alter him for the next one yet created a subtle inner continuity for the book. If the mood strikes me, I may interject some older issues including some non-Batman ones if there is any interest in them.
While I do have most of these early issues, I'll be using the collected volumes for a while.
I hope that you enjoy this, follow along and comment!
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I could write a book about DC house ads I kept in my head for years and was ultimately disappointed by when I read them.
This is one...
...this is another...
...and, coming up later in this discussion...
If I understand Wikipedia correctly the Alley Awards were awarded the year after the named year of award so e.g. the vote for the 1961 awards was tallied in 1962. Apparently a convention was first held in Mar 1964.
The Spectre won hero/heroine most worthy of revival in the 1961 and 1962 awards, and his feature strip favoured for revival in 1964's. Dr Fate's won the 1963 award, and the JSA's 1965's. The Spectre's won't have been eligible for that last one as 1965 is the year his first Showcase try-out appeared.
The Showcase try-out may have been partly prompted by ACG's introduction of Nemesis at the end of 1964.
Gardner Fox did write the Spectre in the Golden Age, but after Percival Popp had been introduced (More Fun Comics #74) and Jim Corrigan resorted to life (#75). Fox's Golden Age Spectre stories are a lot like his contemporary Flash stories, with Popp in the stooge role of the Three Dimwits.
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If you look at the Justice Society members featured in the first two JLA/JSA team-ups plus The Flash #137, five are duplicate heroes, the Flash, Green Lantern, the Atom, Hawkman and Wonder Woman (with the first three getting paired with the Earth-One counterparts), and four more are briefly partners with Doctor Fate & Hourman and Starman & Black Canary.
The only one left for the Spectre to be featured with was Doctor Mid-Nite (and Johnny Thunder but I couldn't see that happening!). Actually Doctor Mid-Nite would have made a better partner for Hourman.
As a lad, I would always try to "match" the JLA and JSA heroes, based on which ones were used. I mean, the two universes would be fair, wouldn't they? (Oh, to be young and naive again!) I think I had some vague "conservation of energy" idea in my head, that there was a finite amount of "superhero energy" in each universe, and if the "Dr. Fate" energy was used on Earth-1 to create a Martian Manhunter, then there'd be no Earth-1 Dr. Fate. Of course, a character like The Spectre tosses that theory into a cocked hat, but li'l me was confident he'd figure it out eventually.
Obviously, the four "repeated" heroes (Flash, Green Lantern, Atom, Hawkman) would be paired with each other. But what about heroes unique to one earth or the other? DC would help by having head vignettes lined up on either side of a cover or splash page, pairing them off for me. If Dr. Fate were used, he'd usually be "paired" in the vignettes with Martian Manhunter. "Aha!" Little me would say. "There's no Dr.Fate on Earth-1 because Martian Manhunter used his energy, and vice versa!" Aquaman would be paired with Hourman (both really strong!), while Batman would (in my mind) pair with Doctor Mid-Nite and Superman with Starman. Earth-1 Wonder Woman would be paired with Earth-2 Black Canary, as the only women on their respective teams, until our WW lost her powers and Black Canary moved to Earth-1, effectively reversing the pairing (with the Earth-2 Wonder Woman reappearing), but conserving the energy. (I may have some of these pairings or timings wrong -- it's been a few years!)
But then DC introduced Earth-2 versions of Superman, Robin-as-Batman (Dick Grayson) and Aquaman (All Star Squadron), throwing all my figuring out the window. And then Crisis made it all moot. Crisis was just such a killjoy for me, in so many ways!
The membership of the JSA was mostly constant from All-Star Comics #24/#25. These issues appeared during a period when AA's publisher Max Gaines seems to have been trying to break with DC. He switched to the use of an AA badge, and the active DC JSAers, Starman and the Spectre, were permanently dropped. That left Hawkman, the Flash, Green Lantern, the Atom, Dr Mid-Nite, Johnny Thunder, and Wonder Woman. Mr Terrific and Wildcat appeared in #24.
Gaines then sold out to DC. In #27 Wildcat appeared instead of the Atom, and in #36 Superman and Batman instead of the Atom and Johnny Thunder, but the cast was otherwise kept until #39/#40, when Black Canary replaced Johnny Thunder. Julie Schwartz reportedly took over the editing at that point.
In the second team-up of the two Flashes Jay reminiscences about his last adventure with the JSA. This depicts the final team. The Flash #137 uses Johnny Thunder instead of the Black Canary, which is to say the team from the Injustice Society story in All-Star Comics #37, which the story references. This was the only time Savage met most of them. Like the Gambler, he was a Green Lantern villain. Apparently he'd only appeared once before, and didn't appear again in the Golden Age.
In the first JLA/JSA story the JSA is represented by Hawkman, the Flash, Green Lantern, the Atom, Black Canary, Dr Fate and Hourman. I suppose this is the original team with Black Canary instead of the Sandman or the Spectre. (Johnny Thunder crashed the meeting and told a story in All-Star Comics #3, but didn't join until #6.) Or one can view it as the last team with Dr Fate and Hourman instead of Wonder Woman and Dr Mid-Nite.
In the second the JSA is represented by Hawkman, Black Canary, Dr Fate, Dr Mid-Nite and Starman. That might show a desire to use unmatched heroes, since the JLAers were matched by the villains. The Earth-One Hawkman only joined the JLA in the next story.
The third stars the Earth-Two Hawkman, Flash, Green Lantern and Atom, and Dr Fate and Mr Terrific. Johnny Thunder also appears. In this case there may have been a preference for matched heroes since the JLAers hardly appear. Mr Terrific may have been included so there would be a new revivee in the mix, and as an analogue for Batman. (The existence of an Earth-Two Superman and Batman had not yet been established.) Wildcat returned immediately after, in the second Starman/Black Canary team-up. His presence there followed from its use of his arch-foe the Huntress as one of the villains.
In the fourth the JSA was represented by Black Canary, Dr Fate, Dr Mid-Nite, the Sandman, Wildcat and the Spectre. This was the Sandman's first Silver Age appearance.
My hat-tip to Mike's Amazing World.
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Brave and the Bold #76 (Ma'68) starring BATMAN and PLASTIC MAN
"Doom, What Is Thy Shape?"
story: Bob Haney
art: Mike Sekowsky & Jack Abel
cover: NEAL ADAMS
plot: Gotham City is plagued by a parade of plastic pilfering and plundering. Batman is baffled by the antics of the Molder who appears to have turned plastics into weapons, including shape-shifting androids call the Plastoids. Luckily the Caped Crusader is joined by Plastic Man though he can't seem to keep himself together!
The Molder uses a catalytic plastic to cause Plas' body to grow out of control, threatening to drown Gotham and Batman in a deluge of plastic! Luckily Plas both loses and keeps his head and finds the Molder's lair and the cure for himself. Together he and Batman manacle the Molder!
Guest Star: PLASTIC MAN (or more precisely, PLASTIC MAN II as it was revealed that he was the son of the original Plas in Plastic Man #7 [D'67]). Plas doesn't come off very well here, tricked by the Molder twice and getting blown apart...twice! And his "pieces" were solid and he just puts himself back together, proving that he is no longer human. I'll have to look to see if he could do that in his 60s series because I know he was never shown doing that in his 70s and 80s features!
The second time he loses his head, it miraculously gets flung into the Molder's lair in an unbelievable coincidence! There he slithers his neck to drink the memory plastic serum to cure his rampaging body!
By the time of this issue, Plastic Man was between #8 and #9. Since the book was cancelled with #10, his appearance here didn't boost his sales!
Villain: THE MOLDER (1st Appearance & origin, such as it is being said to be "a plastic research expert who went berserk after a lab accident!") Doc Ock, he's not!
Using such weapons as quick expanding plastic, hot jets of plastic, his Plastoids and his catalytic plastic, he wanted to bring about "The Age of Plastic"! Wearing his green and orange outfit, he was surprisingly agile!
He seemed to be patterned after the baddies from the TV series!
Another Molder with a stunning secret would appear in The Flash #252-253 (Au-S'77).
Bat-Role: Plastic Man's straight man but he was no Dean Martin (and Plas no Jerry Lewis)!
notes: The issue is proof of several things: 1) Comedy is hard and 2) Mike Sekowsky needs a strong inker!
It gives a brief glimmer of what Plas joining the Justice League would look like at the time and that Batman was still in the grip of the "Camp" fad!
Nostalgia Factor: None. I didn't read this until college though I would have panned it at any age!
Next: "Tiny Terrors on a Train!" or "Not Another Circus!"
After Plastic Man was cancelled with #10, the Surreal Stretcher only appeared in Golden Age reprints and altered ones at that. In fact, his only new appearances until his book was revived in 1976 were in Brave & Bold! And Bob Haney took the character in a new direction. Not a better one but a new one.
When I was in high school and began to seriously start collecting older books, one of the first that I deliberately searched for was DC Special #15 (D'71), the all Plastic Man issue!
Plastic Man has never been a favorite of mine; too silly, too implausible (although not quite as bad as the Metal Men). When I was ten years old, my mother gave me a copy of Jules Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes for my birthday. I liked the origin story well enough, but few of the stories I have read since have lived up to that standard. (To be fair, I've read relatively little of Jack Cole's material.)
This era of Neal Adams covers always reminds me of Dave Sim's The Roach (or vice versa rather).
"The Molder" is not exactly among the cream of Batman's rogues gallery, and his "plastoids" are far less menacing than those of Marvel's Leader.
Batman Imposter Quote of the Month: ""Go, little Batmobile!"
Later in the story, Haney narrates, "Go little whirly-bat, go!" I have little doubt he was inspired by Chuck Berry's 1963 hit "Jaguar and Thunderbird."
Wearing his green and orange outfit, he was surprisingly agile!
Now that you mention it, the Molder, too, is far less menacing than Marvel's similarly clad Unicorn.
He seemed to be patterned after the baddies from the TV series!
It occurs to me that Bob Haney's writing style more closely resembles William Dozier's narrration than that of any other writer (until Batman '66, anyway).
I mildly enjoyed the Plastic Man Archives DC put out a few years -- nine volumes, if I remember correctly.
They weren't hilarious, but then, it was written for children in the '40s. I can write off some of the dopiness to missing the context, or just because humor has gotten more sophisticated in the many decades since. And in other cases, I assume that the joke I'm not laughing at really is lame -- just like the entirety of the '60s Plastic Man series. Because humor is hard!
Aside from the best of Jack Cole, the funniest Plastic Man I've read was written by Kyle Baker. Baker wrote and drew Why I Hate Saturn and The Cowboy Wally Show, so he knows a thing or two about visual humor. Not every punch landed, but his Plastic Man (20 issues, 2004-06) was a good series.
I'm getting the PS Artbooks Plastic Man series, which is just now catching up to where the Archives ended (on the Plastic Man title, not Police Comics). So I'll be reading a lot of Jack Cole in the future.
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