THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD 80 PAGE GIANT ANNUAL

By Tony Whitt     May 07, 2002

The fiction of the DC editors looking in the DC vaults and finding some unpublished 80-Page Giant Annual from "back in the day" has worn just a little bit thin this time. The whole thing would probably work were it not for the inclusion of the Charlton Comics characters Captain Atom and Nightshade. Still, it's a good thing they're here, because the DC regulars are looking none too good in these outings.

For example, the early Green Arrow and Speedy stories from the '60s are difficult enough to take, especially when everything in Ollie's life at this point mirrors the Batman's. (Kevin Smith's in-joke in his own GREEN ARROW series is that Ollie never had an original thought of his own.) But it's even worse when a Martian Manhunter who's more human than human joins the Arrow Duo for the first ever THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD team-up in "Wanted - The Capsule Master!" Written by Bob Haney and drawn by George Roussos, this "book-length epic" from THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD #50 follows our heroes as they try to capture an alien crime lord using Martians as his thugs. (With a name like that, it sounds more like he should be an alien drug lord, doesn't it?) It's a typical, harmless bit of foolishness from the '60s, full of sound and fury, signifying absolutely nothing.

More initially promising is "The Death of the Flash!" starring the Flash and Batman, in which Barry Allen discovers that his super-speed has finally begun to wear his body down and that if he uses it, he may die. Hero that he is, though, Flash can't turn down the call for help from his buddy the Batman, who's trying to stop a group of artificial speedsters known as the Speed Boys from plaguing Gotham. (Capsule Master? Speed Boys? You can just tell these stories were written in the '60s, huh?) Bob Haney does the scripting chores yet again with Carmine Infantino (who seems to have had an exclusive contract to draw the Flash in the '60s) and Charles Paris on art. This one has the potential to be something more than a bit of fluff - it's rather surprising that none of the subsequent Flash writers explored what utilizing the "Speed Force" must do to the human body. But the typical serendipitous happy ending ruins any sort of narrative tension, even though Barry's struggle to keep going while keeping Batman in the dark builds that tension beautifully. The only other flaw here is that Haney is writing TEEN TITANS by this point too, so he's got one tin ear to the ground listening for teen lingo - lingo which bleeds over into the dialogue. Hearing Batman referring to a criminal "turning on the juice" is enough to make anyone shudder and thank their higher power that those days are gone forever.

Included in this volume presumably for patriotic value, "The Invasion of America" is a wartime story by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby featuring the Boy Commandos, the Newsboy Legionnaires, the Kid Commandos, and just about every other group of kids pressed into service by the seemingly irresponsible US government of the DCU. The good-will tour they're all brought together on is threatened when Nazi spies try to hatch their most insidious plot. Could it be blowing up the Statue of Liberty? Could it be blowing up New York? No way, boys and goils - this is 1943, and comics aren't quite up to showing the horrors of war yet. No, the plot is to kidnap the Boy Commandos and replace them with dummies during their parade. (That's a bit redundant, isn't it?) As much as I love Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's wartime work - especially their creation of a certain icon from that rival company who's making his own "wartime" comeback this month - I've never much cared for the Boy Commandos, nor can I fathom any other reason for their inclusion here. THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD was a bit like MARVEL TEAM-UP, bringing the big boys (and the occasional big girl) together to fight crime. The Boy Commandos are neither "big," nor are they really teamed up with anyone "big" - unless you count their rescue by the Kid Commandos as a "team up." As our little friend Brooklyn would no doubt say: "Sheesh!"

The only story in this volume worth its weight in...erm, paper is ironically not an original DC story at all. In "The Strings of Punch & Jewelee," Captain Atom and Nightshade fight the oddly-named kidnapping criminal duo to rescue their friend Alec Rois, who doesn't know their secret identities - and whom they do not know is truly their greatest enemy, the Ghost. This one actually has some exciting moments - not because of the main plot, of course; that's rubbish. The tension here comes from the interplay between the characters and the almost SMALLVILLE-like subplot of two friends in one guise being bitter enemies in another. The scene in which Rois nearly kills an unconscious Captain Atom who's been captured after trying to rescue him is particularly well-done, especially when backed by the artwork of a curiously restrained Steve Ditko. But apart from this last little gem, this is an 80-Page Giant Annual that's about twenty pages too long. Maybe DC should look in the vaults and bring out that 80-Page Giant Annual they never printed of Captain Atom next time, instead?