Favourite comics: The Brave and the Bold issue 100 - The A- team (that's Adams & Aparo!)

I don’t think I was actually aware that the “Brave and the Bold” was an standalone comic title at the time I purchased this issue on my way back from school in mid-1972. The reason for this confusion was because the first time I recall seeing “The Brave and the Bold” was in an advert for issue 99 (below) in a DC comic and I can vividly remember thinking it was an issue of the regular “Batman” comic with a pretty cool story titled “The Brave and the Bold”. The cover of issue 99 (by Neal Adams and Dick Giordano) set my fanboy juices alight and I was determined to track that issue down, sadly I failed but around six month later I stumbled across issue 100 in a local R S McColl’s newsagents in my then home town.

As soon as I saw the cover to issue 100 by Nick Cardy I instantly realised my mistake and that this was an ongoing DC team up book and better still it had 4 guest stars and a Deadman back up story, comic book heaven. The main story “The Warrior in a Wheelchair” featured the first work I had seen from the legend that was Jim Aparo. In the story itself Batman is struck by a snipers bullet and only the skilled surgeon Dr. Hellstrom can save his life. However the doctor has to travel from Zurich to Gotham. As Batman is in a weakened condition and is unable to finish the job of stopping the latest shipment of cocaine into Gotham City himself he enlist the help of Robin, Green Arrow, Black Canary, and Green Lantern to help him. He sends the group out to seek out his leads however these all lead to a dead end. When Batman is undergoing the surgery to remove the bullet from his chest , the lead surgeon is revealed not to be Dr. Hellstrom, but the drug lord Belknap, who has taken Hellstrom's place to try and kill Batman on the operating table. Stopped by the other heroes, Green Lantern then uses his power ring to bring the real Dr. Hellstrom to Gotham (he really could have done that at the start) . When he arrives to undertake the operation Dr Hellstrom finds the drug shipment stashed away in a cabinet in the operating room. Aparo’s art in this issue is excellent as was his entire run on the title where he drew some wonderful versions of Batman’s various team up partners including Wildcat, Mister Miracle and Black Canary.

As much as I enjoyed the above story and Aparo’s art it was the backup strip that blew me away. Deadman “Hide and Seek” (originally published in Strange Adventures issue 210) by Jack Miller and Neal Adams. By 1972 I was aware of Adams art but I hadn’t seen great deal of it so every morsel of his work was savored and his Deadman art was an artistic banquet. I still remember pouring over the first page of the story and that atmospheric scene with Deadman walking down the “lonely and empty” street (strangely casting a shadow in an “empty” street with cars and lorry’s) regardless the art was stunning and inspired me to copy several of his panels almost every day for a few months so much so that I could still probably draw a half decent swipe of a Neal Adams Deadman face.

In the story Deadman seeks to learn what has happened to the police detective assigned to his case. Michael Riley. He discovers that the detective has been falsely accused of brutally beating a thief who had already surrendered to him, and has been kicked off the force. As with most Deadman stories there is a link to the Hook (the man Boston Brand thinks killed him) which again leads nowhere - I wonder if Deadman every found his killer? . I wouldn’t see another issue of “The Brave and the Bold” until number 106, and from that issue onwards it became one of my favourite comics and one of the few types of book (team -ups) that for me DC did better than Marvel.