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Today, we look at the Atom’s ghoulish plan to fulfill Batman’s final mission by…manually reanimating the braindead body of the Dark Knight?!? For reals?
In every installment of I Love Ya But You’re Strange I spotlight strange but ultimately endearing comic stories. Feel free to e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com if you have a suggestion for a future installment!
As you may or may not know, Bob Haney has a special reputation in comics for the continuity of his Brave and the Bold comics. As I’ve written a number of times, the old newsstand format lent itself to the popularization of team-up comic books, as most (not all, of course, but most) comic book purchases back in the day were impulse purchases. In other words, you grabbed a comic book when you were at the newsstand or the drugstore and you grabbed whatever comic book looked the coolest to you. And if you liked Batman and, say, Green Lantern, if you saw a comic book starring Batman AND Green Lantern, then you just got two heroes for the price of one. As we got to the direct market model, comic book customers were coming to the comic book store mostly for comic books that they wanted before they got there. And then, comic book readers wanted comic books that “mattered.” One-off stories between Batman and another superhero weren’t really going to affect the continuity of either character, so team-up books were slowly phased out. However, while they were still popular, the whole idea of continuity was basically negligible, which is right where Bob Haney lived. He didn’t need to know what the deal was in your own comic book, once you go into the pages of Brave and the Bold, you were a Bob Haney character. People would often joke that Haney’s Earth was a whole other world in the Multiverse (Earth-B?), because characters acted totally unlike themselves while appearing in Brave and the Bold.
So yeah, if you want consistent characterization, then Bob Haney Brave and the Bold isn’t for you, but if you’re up for totally bizarre but awesome comic books, then these stories are very much for you! Haney had a true “throw everything at the wall” approach that is a true delight to read. And that includes The Brave and the Bold #115, where Haney and the brilliant artist, Jim Aparo, told an absolutely BONKERS “team-up” of Atom and Batman where Batman dies and Atom pulls a Weekend at Bernie’s with the Dark Knight.
BATMAN IS BRAINDEAD…NO, SERIOUSLY
One of the other interesting aspects of Haney’s Batman is that he was very emotional, in many different ways. He was fairly quick to anger and he was also a lot more interested in the ladies than most depictions of Batman. That’s the driving force of Batman in this issue, as a beautiful social worker that Batman was taken with witnessed a murder and she is kidnapped to prevent her from testifying and Batman is driven to find her. However, the problem is that when he finally finds where she is being kept, he is so emotional that he looks past the fact that the apartment is booby trapped and Batman gets a tremendous blast of electricity that leaves him, well…DEAD!
Yes, Commissioner Gordon is shocked to discover that Batman is now braindead…
However, Batman’s Justice League teammate, The Atom, happened to be at the hospital at the same time in his Ray Palmer identity. The Atom then shrinks down and runs around Batman’s brain to activate his nervous system (paired with a mini video camera that allows him to see what Batman sees)…
It’s the most absurdly ghoulish thing! However, boy, Aparo just drew the heck out of all of the scientific stuff, right? The things that a comic book artist have to suddenly figure out how to draw! It’s, like, “Today you have to draw a space armada. Tomorrow, you have to draw the inner workings of the human brain as if a little person is running on top of it.” But damned if Aparo didn’t perfectly pull it all off every issue!
THE ATOM PLAYS BATMAN’S BRAIN LIKE A MARIONETTE
So Batman is now basically like Bernie in Weekend at Bernie’s, with Atom playing him like a puppet, with Haney having clearly lots of fun with the Atom trying to figure out which parts of the brain allows him to do what things. It’s like Haney read an article about the parts of the brain and was, like, “I gotta put this into a story!”
The Atom uses the sense memory of Batman’s brain to retrace the Dark Knight’s steps so that the Atom can at least finish Batman’s final case and presumably save the young woman who was kidnapped. In the end, though, Atom cleverly realizes that in a close quarters fight, he is not able to control Batman well enough, especially with the bad guys threatening to kill their hostage, so he just leaves Batman’s brain, letting his body drop to the ground and then surprise the bad guys by leaping out of seemingly nowhere to take them all down!
And then, of course, the awesome twist that allows us to continue the story for another issue. Apparently, all of Atom’s stomping and running on Batman’s brain actually DID actively jumpstart the synapses in Batman’s brain and now suddenly the Dark Knight is back in action! It’s so ridiculously silly, but it’s also so AWESOMELY silly, at the same time!
And after all of that, the Atom, of course, is all, “Hey, how come I don’t get a kiss, as well?” I am glad that he has his priorities straight.
Thanks to reader Tony D. for suggesting this one!
If anyone has a suggestion for a future I Love Ya But You’re Strange, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!
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