I can very clearly remember buying this issue of BRAVE AND THE BOLD on a regular trip to the 7-11, for no particular reason. B & B wasn’t a title that I was all that in tune with, and so my readership of the series would ebb and flow, often based on who the guest-star was that particular issues. Over the preceding couple of months, I had gotten into the habit of buying it, and so that pattern continued here. But it remained one of those books whose peculiar approach to continuity and characterization put it at odds with what was rapidly becoming a through-line of consistency across the DC line, and so it still felt weird to me (though not as weird as earlier issues had.)
This particular issue contained an interesting experiment. For this one story, regular artist Jim Aparo was joined by Joe Staton. Clearly, somebody had decided, not incorrectly, that Staton’s elastic, cartoony style was a good fit for Plastic Man. Looking through the issue, I don’t know how much work Staton actually did on it. All of the Plastic Man figures and some of the ancillary characters look like his, and the page layouts mostly show his hand as well. But the overall finish is entirely Aparo’s–apart from the Plastic Man figures, which look as though Staton may have inked them himself. Surprisingly, the art job is still very consistent and feels not out of step with any prior issue.
Writer Bob Haney had a number of characters that he had an affinity for and so would feature as Batman’s co-stars time and time again: Wildcat, Sgt. Rock, Metamorpho…and Plastic Man. Haney’s take on Plastic Man was very much out of step with what everybody else tried to do with the character. His Plas was depressed, mopey, doomed to live the life of an elastic freak, never knowing true love or a normal life. Not exactly the demeanor that most people think of when envisioning the hero. But Haney was consistent in his treatment, and all of his B & B Plastic man outings exist in his own personal side-continuity, with references to earlier B & B team-ups with Batman getting mentioned along the way. In some ways, this approach permitted Plastic Man to fit a bit more logically into the world of Batman (though the Batman in B & B was his own creature as well.)
Case in point: can you imagine any contemporary Batman delivering a line such as, “Plastic Man, you did it again! Let’s start high-ballin’ ourselves for the Sunshine State!” As I’ve said before, Haney’s Batman was often calibrated more in the spirit of Adam West, with the seriousness of the art style making up the difference (though occasionally being unable to do that.)
So what’s going on in this story? Well, there’s a war on between rival gangs of smugglers in Gotham City–to the point where different crews are hitting one another and making off with the contraband. But Batman and Plastic Man, who is employed as a street corner Santa Claus, get a break in the case when the crooks heist the entire Lacy’s Department Store Christmas Display. It’s all for the final Christmas party of one of the gangs’ leaders, Big Jake Doyle. He’s on his deathbed, and so he’s invited all of his rival leaders to a last celebration, where they can broker peace and all get a slice of the pie. Of course, this whole party is an ambush intended to lure Jake’s enemies into a trap, where they can all be gunned down. After a bit of pursuit, Batman and Plas catch up to the goons at Big Jake’s homestead in Florida. But Batman is captured before he can act. Fortunately, the crooks think that Plastic Man is merely a harmless Santa Claus player.
At the key moment, as Big Jake’s gunsels pop out of an enormous Christmas gift, Plastic Man reveals himself. He balloons up to colossal size, blocking the murderous slugs from finding their targets. The entire party descends into chaos, with Big Jake giving up his pretense of illness and attempting to flee. But the Caped Crusader is on him. The assorted smugglers are all captured and rounded up, but the one sad note is that tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and the Lacy’s display won’t be in Gotham City as always. Gotham’s holiday is ruined!
Except, maybe not. Before turning in the bad guys, Batman and Plastic Man coerce them into driving trucks loaded up with the stolen display items back up the coast to Gotham City, and to restore everything that was taken. It’s a Christmas miracle, or so the Mayor thinks! He and others also have the unfortunate tik of referring to the crime as Buttlegging, because the thing being smuggled is most often cigarettes. But that sure sounds a lot more nasty to my 21st Century ears than was intended.
And a new week brought a new edition of the Daily Planet, DC’s in-house promotional page. As usual, this one included a fun comic strip by fan cartoonist Fred Hembeck as well as another installment of Bob Rozakis’ Ask the Answer Man column. Having answered a ton of fan questions myself, I can appreciate the brevity and casual snarkiness of some of Rozakis’ answers.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
I really liked the Pasko/Staton Plastic Man strip that ran in Adventure when Len Wein edited it about 6 months after this. I wonder if this was Staton’s audition . . . .
The only other post-Jack Cole Plastic Man that caught a bit of Cole’s combination of whimsey, drama and pure imagination was the last couple of issues of the (originally Gerry Conway edited) Plastic Man by John Albano and Ramona Fradon back in 1876-’77 after Conway left for hi (brief) sojourn as. Marvel EIC.
That book actually looked like Albano & Fradon enjoyed doing it.
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Jim Aparo in his prime. Distinct & definitive. Less than 10 years later I’d lose my taste for his new work, even though he kept drawing Batnan almost right up to the 21st century. But this period still holds up.
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There are people whose work never looks right unless they ink their own pencils.
Arparo, Ditko and Cockrum come to mind , , , , ,
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“Looking through the issue, I don’t know how much work Staton actually did on it. All of the Plastic Man figures and some of the ancillary characters look like his, and the page layouts mostly show his hand as well. But the overall finish is entirely Aparo’s–apart from the Plastic Man figures, which look as though Staton may have inked them himself.”
Staton laid out the whole issue, Aparo did the finished art. It was an effort to get the book back on schedule.
No idea whether it caught them up much, whether Aparo was freed up by not having to lay out the book, or whether finished art over someone else’s layouts took him longer. At the very least, he didn’t have to letter it, which saved some time.
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I recognize the cover and I assume I’ve read the story. But even the excepts here bring up a big zero in my memory banks, so I guess I’d rate it as one of the most forgettable Haney scripts.
Haney’s Batman dialogue doesn’t sound like anything sober-sided Adam West would have said. I think Haney had Batman talk like a hip version of a hardboiled PI: Raymond Chandler seen through a Mod Squad lens. Haney was also given to having his version of Batman do really dumb things because the story required him to be dumb– and by a coincidence, it’s the much more memorable (if equally daffy) first Bats-Plas teamup in B&B that’s just chock full of Bat-dumbness. In that story, the crusader acts so little like Batman, and so much like a dimbulb private dick, I like to think of that Batman as “Mike Dumb-As-a-Bag-of-Hammers.”
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I’d never seen this Staton/Aparo team-up, thanks. Aparo was also drawing “Deadman” stories for ADVENTURE COMICS around this time, which may be another reason why he only did inks in this story.
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Earth-8?
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I think it’s meant to be “Earth-B”. That was the half-serious designation given to stories in Brave and the Bold which, as Tom noted, were often a bit out-of-sync with regular continuity. I’m not sure if it stood for “Earth-Brave and the Bold”, “Earth-Bob Haney”, or “Earth-Boltinoff” (after the editor).
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That makes more sense. Thanks!
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I remember reading stuff in “Amazing Heroes” (or somewhere) around “Crisis on Infinite Earths”, that discussed “Earth-B” or “Earth-H”, for Haney’s writing quirks. These days, I associate “Earth-8” with Morrisson’s Marvel analogs. “Retaliators Ready!” 30 seconds later, “Retaliators Retreat!!” 😉
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I wish there was a Batman/Plastic Man story which had them both undercover on the same case, as “Matches” Malone and “Eel” O’Brian.
I’ve said before, original Plastic Man wasn’t “wacky” in terms of personality. He was emotionally expressive, but that’s very different. It was more like the constantly gesticulating, talks-with-his-hands, kind of person. But thinking about his origin, he’s a fairly hard guy (pun unintended). Serious criminal, got shot and left for dead, decided to reform. Focusing on that aspect would fit reasonably well into Batman’s world.
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I’m glad someone remembered how Plastic Man was originally in Police Comics#1 ( August 1941 – Millennium Edition: Police Comics#1 ( September 2000 ) which where I got to see his first appearance ).
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Believe it or not, E. Nelson Bridwell had the same idea — Eel and Matches meet up in Super Friends #36.
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“I wish there was a Batman/Plastic Man story which had them both undercover on the same case, as ‘Matches’ Malone and ‘Eel’ O’Brian.”
I feel like I’ve read that story @ least once. And not in “Super Friends”. If not Haney then another writer of a handful of Bronze Age writers could have. Sounds like something Mike W. Barr might’ve done.
Or even Morrisson, after the Bronze Age. Grant’s connected so many other dots, or resurrected older ideas before.
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Tom, The Brave and the Bold#148 was a continuation of Plastic Man’s behavior in The Brave and the Bold#95 ( April-May 1971 ): Plastic Man hated being a plastic clown so he created a new identity for himself ( Kyle Morgan — he was also willing to let his ex-fiancee Ruby Ryder get executed in the electric chair for Kyle’ murder. He even took a job as her executioner ).
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Page 13 looks a lot old school Aparo, like it was drawn early on, at the time of his early works on Bats at the beginning of the decade. Batman looks very different and the style is more hard-boiled, almost Kubert. But maybe it’s just me, or it’s Staton’s influence.
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