The Brave and the Bold #59

So a little bit of Teen Titans before, a little bit of Batman Team-ups now! It appears that the Brave and the Bold comic series from the 60's would have The Batman teaming up with a random other hero... Sort of like that cartoon from a few years back called 'The Brave and the Bold'... I wonder if there's any connection? Anyway, being that this was the 60's, I'm going to guess these team-ups had weird, happy Batman, as opposed to broody, bitchy Batman...

The Brave and the Bold #59(April 1965)

Summary: With Alfred on vacation, and Robin away on a school trip, a bored Bruce Wayne throws darts at a newspaper(which is weird), bringing an odd story to his attention.

Poor Bruce Wayne...  Billions of dollars and not a friend in the world...

Apparently, a wanted fugitive was planning on giving a speech, which is something the bored Mr. Wayne figured he should check out. Upon arriving at the theater where the speech is being held, Bruce bumps into his old chum, Commissioner Gordon, who swears to arrest the fugitive the second he sees him. Brucie heads inside and along with several other Gothamites, realizes that the fugitive wasn't physically there, but had sent in a video of himself to be played on the big screen. The fugitive(why I'm not just using his name beats the hell out of me...) shows all sorts of new evidence from his crime and implores the good(and dumb) people of Gotham to demand he get a new trial. The Gothamites seem to be convinced and leave the theater. Pipe-smoking Bruce Wayne bumps into Gordon(again?) on his way out and tells the Commish that it seems that the fugitive had won over he public. From there, Brucie heads home and discovers a weirdo in a costume there. The weirdo, who goes by the name of the Time Commander, shows off his ability to rewind time for an object or person. He reveals that he is the fugitive from earlier, as well as telling Bruce that due to his time powers, he knew Batman and Bruce Wayne were one and the same. Finally, the Commander asks for Batman's help in proving his innocence, which Bats, with his identity revealed, has no chose but to agree to. From there it's off to Coast City, where Hal Jordan receives a coded telegram from Batman, telling him to head to Gotham City. The telegram also reveals that Batman is Bruce Wayne and that Batman knew that Green Lantern was Hal Jordan. Green Lantern flies off and arrives at Wayne Manor, where he finds Batman laying on a table motionless, with the exception of his mouth, which was moving. GL makes a stethoscope(of course he does...) and listens to Batman's whispering, learning that Batman poisoned himself while making crime fighting chemicals(?!) and was unable to move. GL happily blasts Batman with his ring, which somehow results in Batman getting powered up.

Um, no...  

After being thanked, GL leaves, but is forced to head back when he realizes that his watch(which he apparently wears on the outside of his costume...) had fallen off at Wayne Manor. GL gets back inside and finds his watch, but doesn't find Batman. He does overhear on the radio that Batman had just robbed a government lab. And that's the end of chapter 1!

Thoughts: I don't get why the Time Commander followed Bruce Wayne home at all... He claimed that he did so after hearing Bruce and Gordon talk, but it wasn't like Bruce was screaming that the fugitive was innocent, he simply stated that the fugitive had won over the public. The scene between the Commander and Bruce made it seem like Bruce couldn't be more on the Commander's side. Also, the coded telegram to Hal... So Carol gives Hal the telegram, Hal looks at it and gathers that Bruce Wayne is Batman, Hal is Green Lantern, and that he was needed in Gotham... Even though it's coded in such a way that Carol can't understand it... But Hal does, just by looking at it... He doesn't use a decoder, or like, I don't know, sit down and puzzle it out, he just looks at it and boom, decoded. I'm not even going to touch upon Hal somehow losing his watch or Batman poisoning himself making “crime fighting chemicals”, and the fact that Hal was 100% fine with that. I'll instead just move on and say that this was a pretty meh first part... Good move on my part for picking it to review...