The Brave & The Bold #213 - Batman and Mr Terrific - homage to Blue Beetle issue #21

New Golden Age Team-Up Project commission - and it's back to "new" adventures of The Brave & The Bold, in this instance issue #213, pairing Batman with Mr Terrific, in a Bambos Georgiou-drawn cover adapted from Blue Beetle #21, original art by Chris Wozniak.

1951 - and Bruce Wayne takes a vacation in the newly-popular resort of Las Vegas (and, as Batman, intending to follow up leads that members of Gotham's underworld are laundering money through the city's casinos). However, shortly after arriving, Wayne is met by his old All-Star Squadron buddy (and fellow occasional JSA member) Terry Sloane, secretly Mr Terrific - and Sloane tells Wayne that he knows his secret identity, and needs Batman's help on a case!

Commandeering a bubble-top helicopter from the hotel, the two heroes head out into the desert, while Mr Terrific fills Batman in - members of a criminal gang are planning to steal the atomic bomb which is due to be used in the first nuclear test in Nevada, and hold the US government to ransom by threatening to destroy a city! From the air, the heroes spot a stationary convoy of Army and AEC trucks, and, after landing, they find that the convoy has been attacked, the soldiers and scientists incapacitated by sleeping gas, and the atomic bomb stolen!

Back in the air, Batman is able to detect tracks and directs Mr Terrific to follow them - and they catch up with a lone truck just as it drives through a hidden portal in a rock outcropping. The two heroes are able to find a concealed air intake and, squirming through the ventilation system, find the captured bomb being unloaded by a gang of costumed hoodlums - under the command of Wildcat's old foe, the Huntress!

Leaping from their hiding place, Batman and Mr Terrific engage in a battle with the criminals - but a surprise sleeping gas attack lays both of them low! When they come round, they find themselves chained to the atomic bomb, and the Huntress informs them that her plans have changed - she's sure that the criminal underworld will pay her handsomely to set the bomb off and kill the two heroes once and for all, so she'll no longer be threatening a US city.

After she leaves to contact her fellow criminal leaders, Batman turns the tables on her and uses one of his own gas-bombs, concealed in the fingertip of one of his gloves, to knock out the guards, and then starts his escape. Tilting his head and straining his arm, he retrieves a diamond-tipped wire from one of his earpieces and, after flipping it around the chain binding his left hand, is able to quickly saw through the mild steel. With one hand loose, an acid spray taken from his utility belt lets him free his other hand and his legs by melting through the chains.

As he turns to help Mr Terrific, however, he discovers that his fellow hero is already free - a mastery of the escapologist's arts being just one of Terry Sloane's many talents. As the Huntress returns, the two are able to quickly overpower and capture her and her goons - and then set up the TV cameras the Huntress had brought with her, broadcasting the details of their escape to the underworld masterminds who were expecting to see the execution of the captured heroes!

Next time - a new one-off adventure!