The Brave & the Bold #78 p. 17 (Batman, Wonder Woman & Batgirl) by Bob Brown

B&B #78 may be the first comic I ever bought and I have long wanted a page from it. Published in 1968, the first year I began to actively go to comic racks and pick my own comics, it was obviously influenced by the campy Batman TV show which I loved.

It is one of those special books that took place in what the guy at The Comic Treadmill (a good place on the web to waste your time if you like goofy old comic books) calls "the Haneyverse." Only Bob Haney could have come up with a plot in which, Batman has Wonder Woman and Batgirl pretend to fall in love with and fight over him in order to lure a thief, Copperhead, out from his hiding place. It all goes horribly wrong when our superheroines actually get the super hots for the Caped Crusader and the fighting becomes real.

Where else could you find Batgirl willing to offer Batman,"the greatest gift a superheroine can offer," which, for the record, was her library card? Nowhere but the Haneyverse! Seriously, google this issue and read TCT's article on this story if you don't have a copy of it handy.

Despite the crazy, nonsensical story, Bob Brown's art is solid on this page and throughout the book. I really like the Amazonian quality he gives Wonder Woman, and the classic feel of his Batgirl. Were he still with us today, I would love to thank him for helping a four-year-old boy begin his life-long love of this art form and I am very happy to have landed such an incredible page. Thanks, Paul.

PS
Nick Katradis, who has a nice collection of Brown's art from both his DC and Marvel eras, informed me that Mike Esposito did the inks on this page. I'd always read that Brown inked himself here, but Esposito, who inked Wonder Woman (among many other books at or around that time), would make sense. I'm not an expert, but, now that you have mentioned it, the inking style does seem similar to his.