Random Happenstance

Thorn, the sensational character find of 1982! Maybe. Or not.

To be honest, I don't know how I ended up with as many Brave and the Bold issues as I have: I was primarily a Marvel fan as a youngster, and judging based on the boxes I've found them in, I didn't pick all these issues up at once either. These two were from the start of the book's last year, as it would be replaced by Batman and the Outsiders. Yeah, it doesn't seem a fair trade to me either, even with Metamorpho in there.

Brave and the Bold #188-189, "A Grave as Wide as the World!" Written by Robert Kanigher, art by Jim Aparo, featuring Batman with Rose and the Thorn. Rose and Thorn have a great logo, that reminds me of a soap opera, but this story is all action, opening with Nazis (!) about to kill Batman, who's trapped in an open grave (!!) before Thorn attacks. As the Nazis fire on Thorn, we go back to the beginning, and Hitler. Yeah, the third page and we've got Hitler. That's one of B&B's most endearing qualities: it hits the ground running, no matter how insane the setup or premise, and never looks back.

A decrepit old Nazi in a hospital bed sieg heil's Hitler, who gives the bedridden man the Iron Cross, for keeping his secret for thirty years. At Hitler's request, the man reveals the secret's location, and is further rewarded with a pillow over his face. Man, nursing home abuse is out of hand. Actually, the setting was Gotham Federal Prison (I'm sure Gotham needs a Federal prison. And Blackgate. And Arkham. Probably more people incarcerated in Gotham than in Texas.) and 'Hitler' was a hospital orderly, with a latex 'Mission: Impossible' style mask. (You know, the kind that are perfectly lifelike until pulled off, then they look like Silly Putty and a wig.) The orderly changes and leaves, plotting to turn America into a graveyard.

The next day, Bruce Wayne is going to take a group of kids on a picnic, and is soundly rejected. So, he comes back as Batman, and the kids flock to him like he was giving away candy wrapped in hundreds, something Bruce may want to try next time. Kind of sad that 'masked vigilante' is more popular than 'guilty liberal bazillionaire.' Batman takes the kids to a lake he swam in as a kid, but now it's full of garbage. Batman tells the kids this is what happens when they don't take care of the earth, which is awfully harsh, considering the kids lived in an only-marginally better slum. So the children are our future, and as such need to clean up the world, the streets, government, the comic book industry...Batman will help you out, kids, but it's all up to you! Maybe Batman needs to bring in the children of privilege next time, as in, the kids of the polluters who wrecked the lake? Or are they cleaning it for those privileged kids?

God, a three page sequence that should be a 'The More You Know' or 'Knowing is Half the Battle' moment, and all I can see is exploitation and class warfare issues...as Batman takes his band of unescorted minors back to the ghetto after a twelve-hour day cleaning up old tires and hazardous waste, they listen to a news bulletin from PPN, the Plot Point Network. Mystery Science Theatre 3000 thrashed this before: how in movies (and comics!) every time someone turns on the radio, inside of 10 seconds a newsflash directly related to the plot will come on. In this case, the bulletin notes Ernst Kuller died in his sleep, taking his secret to the grave. (In these pre-CSI days, didn't they do autopsies on old people? Or dead Nazis with pillows stuffed down their gullets?)

Batman explains to the kids the rest of the story, about how Kuller had stolen a canister of 'Inferno A,' a concentrated bacteria serum, from a U.S. chemical warfare depot. Although captured, he never revealed where he hid it. (So, our story predates waterboarding, right?) The kids then task Batman with finding the canister, guilting him but good.

Bats starts his investigation with Kuller's body:

Wouldn't the last thing Kuller saw be his pillow? The warden tells Batman that David Phillips, an orderly, was the last to see Kuller alive, and he immediately reported finding him dead. Batman wants to question him, but Phillips went on vacation with his fiance after being questioned. The warden doesn't see anything suspicious, as Phillips had been a good and devoted employee for six years, and shows Batman a photo of the couple; in which Phillips is wearing a death's head ring, and his car's license plate number is clearly visible. Badly staged photography, or was Phillips a gearhead and death metal fan?

As Batman puts out an APB on Phillips, to question him, he nearly runs over a woman being attacked by birds. Pretty big birds, actually. Batman gets her back to the Batmobile and puts the top up, something I had always wondered about this particular model Batmobile. The birds hit the glass for a while, then convulse and die. In these bird-flu-phobic times, that may seem like something warranting further investigation, but Batman takes the time to get the shaken victim, Rose, back home, and hold her hand until she falls asleep. Aw...you don't see that kind of sweet concern from Batman, at least not in the last few years.

After Batman leaves, the sleeping Rose opens a secret panel "into the abandoned, boarded-up costume shop on the adjacent street." She had found the passageway as a child, which makes me wonder why there was a secret passage from the bedroom to the costume shop: probably bootleggers, that's an old standard explanation. Anyway, Rose changes into her Thorn costume, which while outdated and probably sexist, is really pretty hot. Thorn must draw the hell out of Rose's eyebrows, though.

Next, a brief recap of Thorn's origin: Rose's father was a cop, murdered and dumped in the Gotham river. In her sleep, Rose would go into a rage, her id taking over and acting out vengeance on the killers. The doctors had thought her dual personality would merge. Good luck with that.

Batman goes back to investigate the birds, and the army has cordoned off the area. Refreshingly, a colonel shares info with Batman: "My findings are top secret! But I know I can rely on your silence!" He confirms the birds were exposed to Inferno A, a warning shot from whoever had the canister. If this story was written today, Inferno A would be tested on, I dunno, a whipping-boy city like Bludhaven or something, instead of a lake full of birds.

As Batman drives away, he has no leads except PPN, which he's watching while he drives--aren't there supposed to be interlocks to prevent just that? On the news, Rose's father's body was stolen as a dozen cemeteries were vandalized. That body appears to be the only one stolen, though, and Rose is perhaps understandably freaking out, but freaking out a lot. Again, Batman seems to drop the Inferno A case to take care of Rose, because he goes to investigate the empty grave. Of course, since this is Brave and the Bold, the two are connected, and a Nazi pistolwhips Batman and pushes him into the grave, where the issue began. And now, a Jim Aparo page of Batman beating up Nazis, which is not only awesome in it's own right, but I know will be better than Frank Miller's Holy Terror, if and when that ever materializes.


As Batman introduces himself to Thorn after the fight, a Nazi tries to kill them with the old 'potato masher' style grenade. Batman tries to get Thorn to cover, but she's able to throw one of her tiny little thorn weapons and blow the grenade early, which kills the whole Nazi lot. Batman calls in for a 'morgue van', and the police inform him of the discovery of the orderly Phillips' car, at the bottom of Gotham Bay. (How did people in Gotham City find anything? Gotham Bay, Gotham River, Gotham Federal Pen, Gotham Street, Avenue, Walkway...did the first guy there name everything after himself?)

Thorn wants to come with, but Batman won't risk her life, which is slightly out of place from past B&B team-ups. I don't think Bats left her because she's a girl; but he probably doesn't see her as a professional yet, even though he calls her "a magnificent fighter of evil!" after seeing her kill some Nazis once. Batman speeds off, leaving Thorn in the graveyard, and leaving the reader waiting fot the conclusion, a rare B&B two-parter. We'll hit the next part later, and look a little more at Thorn's problems, and why the World's Greatest Detective can't recognize a girl disguised with a wig and short-shorts.