BHOC: BRAVE AND THE BOLD #145

This is another comic whose contents I barely remember, whose story didn’t really make much of an impact on me, and that I likely bought simply because it was there and I had the forty cents to spare. I was still lukewarm on BRAVE AND THE BOLD in general–it still felt “off” to me as compared to the other books Batman starred in–and I wasn’t especially a fan of the Phantom stranger, at least not as a solo character. (I liked him well enough when he would turn up in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA.) I considered him a mystery/suspense character like the other horror hosts and not a genuine super hero at all. And what I liked were super heroes. Nevertheless, this book came home with me from the 7-11 that week.

One of the biggest draws of BRAVE AND THE BOLD, though, was the artwork of Jim Aparo. I wasn’t yet in the habit of following creators from assignment to assignment–that would come a year or two later. But I knew that I liked what Aparo did, even if I often didn’t love the stories on which he did it. That meant that I had a strange relationship with Aparo’s work, as it was seldom enough to get me to pick up a title that fell outside my limited range for what sorts of books and stories I liked. But it was always welcome when I did pick up a book that he had drawn.

As we’ve talked about a lot when discussing previous issues of B&B, writer Bob Haney had a peculiar way of approaching Batman, treating him simultaneously as a super hero as well as somebody who can parlay openly with the Gotham police department. In essence, Haney’s Batman was the 1966 television version handled with the tone of a 1970s cop/detective show. This issue opens with the Masked Manhunter on the trail of Lustig, a known smuggler who is trying to spirit six million dollars’ worth of stolen gems out of Gotham City. As he attempts to capture the man, he is aided in his efforts by the sudden appearance of the Phantom Stranger. Not understanding why the Stranger has chosen to become involved in this situation, Batman turns to question him–but the man of mystery has, of course, already vanished.

With Lustig in custody, Batman vows to protect his life if he flips on the men who hired him–and believing the Caped Crusader’s word, Lustig agrees. But as Lustig begins to speak about his boss Kaluu in front of the Judge at a special hearing, he is stricken from afar and falls into a petrified state upon the floor. Despite an investigation, neither Batman nor the Gotham police can find any cause for Lustig’s sudden seizure. But the Phantom Stranger has one, and he reappears to offer it to Batman: Kaluu is a master of the mystic art of voodoo. The stranger also warns the Darknight Detective that his soul is in peril as he pursues this matter. But Batman is going after Kaluu regardless. As an aside, it sure looks to me as though Aparo drew Kaluu as being black, but he’s colored Caucasian throughout the story.

So Batman locates the apartment in which Kaluu resides and tosses the place, coming across a stash of voodoo dolls including one in the likeness of Lustig with a pin stuck through its throat. But before the Masked Manhunter can dislodge the pin, he is set upon by Kaluu and his men. You’d figure that Batman could handle a few thugs himself, but the Phantom Stranger pops up to lend a hand anyway. But Kaluu employs not magic powers against them but the force of law. He tells them that they broke into his apartment, and so he’ll call the police on them. Batman warns Kaluu that he’ll bring Kaluu down and show him that no one is above the law. But in the scuffle, Kaluu has plucked a hair from the head of the Phantom Stranger, and he can use that to cast a voodoo spell upon his magical enemy.

Not truly believing in the power of voodoo, Batman gets the Gotham police to permit him to take Lustig back to the Batcave. There, he attempts to break Lustig out of his paralysis by making him more afraid of himself than he is Kaluu. Batman goes further and further with this, scaring Lustig to the point where the immobile man may die of fright–before Batman pulls himself up short. The Phantom Stranger then appears to tell Batman that he has conquered the madness within himself. Instead, Batman shows Lustig the voodoo figure of himself with the pin in its throat. Batman indicates that he could remove the pin, but he won’t–it’s up to Lustig to do it for himself. And, haltingly, the smuggler does, breaking the spell. At which point Batman reveals that what he gave Lustig wasn’t the actual voodoo doll at all, but a copy of it that he had made.

With Lustig’s testimony, Batman now has enough evidence to bring Kaluu in legally, so he and the Stranger return to the man’s apartment. But in order to do so, Batman must defeat N’Daka, Kaluu’s zombie slave (who is colored as a black man.) Batman gives it his best shot, but the guy he’s fighting feels no pain and is incredibly strong. Which is when the Phantom Stranger takes a hand, approaching Kaluu. The evil sorcerer is ready for him, though, and pulls out the voodoo doll that he’s made with the Stranger’s hair. The stranger is nonplussed, telling Kaluu that his actions will only harm himself–and when the voodoo master plunges the pin into the figure’s heart, it is his own heart that is pierced by it, rather than the Stranger’s. When Kaluu falls dead, so does N’Kala, and Batman, who still doesn’t believe in magic, tells the Stranger that his power of suggestion was clearly stronger than Kaluu’s. The stranger is noncommittal, but indicates that there were other powers at work her besides suggestion. And that’s the issue!

Well, except for the letters page and the Daily Planet promotional page. On the letters page, editor Paul Levitz tells readers that BRAVE AND THE BOLD has finally been increased to being a monthly–DC was still publishing a lot of titles on am eight-times-a-year basis, but that all changed when Jenette Kahn came in as publisher. From that point forward, virtually everything was a monthly apart from an occasional special case title. And there was another fun Fred Hembeck cartoon on the Daily Planet page. These strips were goofy as heck, but I really loved them.