Batman Team-Ups Volume Two Review
A Look at the 2nd Showcase Presents The Brave and the Bold Anthology
Aug 4, 2009
Many Batman fans have enjoyed seeing the Dark Knight team up with an eclectic cast of co-stars on the Batman: The Brave and Bold animated series. Reviewed here in Suite 101, the show debuted in the fall of 2008 and is adapted from the Batman team-ups which began in the pages of the DC comics title The Brave and the Bold in the mid 1960’s.
A very intriguing period in these adventures has been captured in one of DC comics black and white paperback archive additions. Showcase Presents: The Brave and Bold Batman Team-Ups Volume Two reprints stories from early 1970 through September of 1973.
This unusual collection of 21 tales features almost no big name villains. There’s one well known member of Batman’s Rogues gallery that shows up fleetingly in a story costarring Green Arrow but that’s it. Instead Batman and his allies square off against a little known assortment of mobsters, assassins, supernatural threats and in one case a serial killer known as the Scarlet Strangler.
Stories of Batman Messing Up
In his two films as Batman, actor Christian Bale has shown us a caped crusader who is less than perfect. In Batman Begins he was unable to stop his mansion from burning down and in The Dark Knight he failed to save the life of his former love Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gylenhall). These failings and their repercussions do much to humanize the Batman/Bruce Wayne character.
A fallible, vulnerable Dark Knight detective also pops up repeatedly in the pages of Batman Teams-Ups Volume Two. In “You Only Die Twice”, costarring sci-fi hero Adam Strange, the Batman is tricked into making a shady deal with a mob lawyer that causes him to be disgraced once it is exposed.
The Dark Knight utters the very un-Batman like line, “What Have I done” when he unwittingly releases a legion of vengeful ghosts in the Batman Flash team - up “ The Man Who Murdered the Past”. And the caped crusader is duped into delivering a male fugitive into the murderess clutches of his fiancee in the unfortunately titled “C.O.D. Corpse on Delivery”. The guest hero in this adventure is not revealed until the final twist ending of the story.
Batman in Unusual Territory
Not all the adventures in this second Showcase Presents collection of Brave and the Bold stories have aged well. For example “A Cold Corpse for the Collector” now exudes a predominantly sexist tone. Batman’s superhero costar, Black Canary, is portrayed as weak willed and naïve as she throws herself repeatedly at a bad guy who uses her in her criminal scheme.
Far more enjoyable are the stories outside the usual Dark Knight Detective realm. The Batman/Wildcat team-up, “The Smile of Choclotan” has some Indiana Jones flavour as our heroes battle thugs in Latin America while searching for a giant golden idol. Also fun is “Red water and Crimson Death” where the Batman becomes involved in a well plotted paranormal drama pulled from the pages of the DC comics horror title ”House of Mystery”.
Showcase Presents – The Brave and Bold Volume Two is a wide ranging collection of Batman team-ups that makes for enjoyable reading. It stands apart for regularly showing not your usual Batman, with not your usual Batman ally, in not your usual Batman comic book story.
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