100-Page FAKES! returns to the pages of The Brave And The Bold for our latest phony-baloney expansion of a regular-sized '70s DC comic book. I was 15 years old when this Batman/Man-Bat team-up was published, and while I loved Jim Aparo's irresistible artwork then and now, I was growing increasingly disenchanted with writer Bob Haney, whose occasional wacky machinations and willful disregard for continuity was becoming a turn-off for li'l teen me. I look back on Haney's work with much greater fondness now.
But the main reason I decided to turn our FAKES! spotlight back on B & B rather than on one of the other DC and Charlton Comics titles I have on deck was because I wanted an appropriate spot to include "The Origin Of Robin!," writer E. Nelson Bridwell's 1969 re-telling of The Boy Wonder's who-he-is-and-how-he-came-to-be. Bridwell's expansion of Bill Finger's original 1940 story incorporated elements that had been added to the Batman mythos over the years--when it came to continuity, Bridwell was Haney's polar opposite--and gave me my first-ever look at Robin's back story. While Robin's debut story from 1940 is rightly considered a classic among Batman's chronicles, it's a shame that Bridwell's version has been forgotten.
To make this a genuine faux Super Spec, we add a vintage Batman and Robin story from 1954, plus Golden Age adventures starring Midnight, Spy Smasher, and Mr. America and Fat Man, and garnish with a resolutely goofy Silver Age tale of Dial H For Hero, as Robby Reed dials up crusadin' incarnations Whozis, Whatsis, and Howzis. Goofy? One regrets Bob Haney never got around to team our Robby with The Dark Knight in The Brave And The Bold.
The Batman and Man-Bat in "Bring Back Killer Krag," The Brave And The Bold # 119 (June 1975)
The Batman and Robin in "The Origin Of Robin!," Batman # 213 (July-August 1969)
Midnight (untitled), Smash Comics # 81 (February 1949)
"Spy Smasher And The Ghost Squadron," Spy Smasher # 6 (August 1942)
Dial H For Hero in "The Freak Super Heroes," House Of Mystery # 165 (March 1967)
Mr. America and Fat Man (untitled) Action Comics # 51 (August 1942)
The Batman and Robin in "The Phantom Bandit Of Gotham City!," Batman # 81 (February 1954)
Everything is copyright DC Comics Inc.The Midnight and Spy Smasher stories are public domain, and the rest is represented here in sample pages; my subscribers see the whole thing. And now, CC presents DC's B & B. See?
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