The Brave & The Bold #255 - Batman and Commando Yank - homage to Marvel Team-Up #120

Latest Golden Age Team-Up Project commission - The Brave & The Bold issue #255, teaming Batman with Commando Yank, adapted from Kerry Gammill and Bob Layton's cover to Marvel Team-Up #120, as reimagined by Bambos Georgiou.

1948 - and Bruce Wayne lunches at an exclusive club for Gotham's richest sons and captains of industry, where he overhears concerns about possible sabotage at the defence plant run by Conrad Harrison, an acquaintance of the Wayne family. Given the sensitivity of work the plant is doing, Harrison doesn't want to involve the police - and he also isn't keen to let the Pentagon know that their project could be under threat.

Intrigued, that night Batman infiltrates the plant and, after several hours spent with reports, rosters and employee records, concludes that there are only three possible candidates for carrying out the sabotage:
- Professor Andrej Walenska, a Polish scientist leading the production of rocket fuel, who still has family behind the Iron Curtain and who therefore, Batman speculates, might be subject to blackmail from Moscow;
- Doctor Linda Sterling, a mathematical genius who, like many Americans before WWII, had expressed sympathy for Russia and the communist political agenda; and
- Frank Gephardt, a former US Army ballistics expert - who could have a motive as a result of his enforced retirment from the military, after he lost a hand in the latter days of the war.

The following day, Wayne telephones Harrison and asks if he can visit the defence plant, implying that he might be open to investing in the business, and is invited to join a press junket happening later that afternoon. When Wayne arrives, he's introduced to the press corps, including reporter Chase Yale, famous for his work as a war correspondent and now a reporter for a TV network. As the visitors are shown round the plant, an under-construction missile breaks loose and crashes down, narrowly missing the party!

As plant security try to round up the reporters, Bruce Wayne manages to duck into a storroom and change into Batman - but as he emerges, he bumps in to the costumed Commando Yank (secretly Chase Yale). The two are clearly after the same saboteur and rush back to the scene - only to find all three suspects still there, although Doctor Sterling has been injured in the collapse.

Bluffing, Batman announces that he knows the identity of the person who has been trying to destroy the plant's operations - and Gephardt betrays himself, pulling off the glove which conceals his artifical hand, which both Batman and Commando Yank recognise as that belonging to the notorious Nazi war criminal Franz Gerhardt, known as The Iron Major, who was presumed to have died in the final days of WWII.

As Batman clashes with the villain, Commando Yank draws his weapons - wartime colleagues of his had been killed by the Iron Major and he won't let the Nazi escape again! Batman tries to halt his fellow hero, arguing that whatever crimes the Iron Major has committed, he needs to stand trial, but the villain reveals that he is in the US under a fale identity, given a blanket amnesty offered to him (as part of a parallel to Project: Paperclip) by the US government as a result of his specialised knowledge -- and, if he kills Batman, Commando Yank and the other two witnesses, there will be no evidence against him, and he can blame the sabotage on one of the other scientists, alowing him to continue his campaign of revenge against the US.

Shocked by the revelation, the two heroes relax their attentions enough that the Iron Major is able to take Doctor Sterling hostage - but as he tries to escape, he's knocked down by a blow from a steel pipe wielded by Professor Walenska, allowing Batman to take him prisoner.

As the two heroes escort the villain from the premises, however, they're met by Federal Agent King Faraday, who takes custody of the Nazi villain. Commando Yank expresses his disquiet about the turn of events, not fully believing that the government will prosecute the Iron Major given they've already turned a blind eye to his actions on a previous occasion - and Batman, disturned by the turn of events, can't help but agree with his fellow hero. A Cold War has replaced the more overt struggle against the Nazis -- and unsavoury activities are taking place on all sides.

Another new team-up - next issue!