Tuesday, May 25, 2021

There's time-travel, prehistoric alien wizards, and flying tigers; yet Batman's most excited about letting his pores breathe.

I exaggerate, but seriously, not really. From 1982, World's Finest #282, "The Joy-Bringers!" Written by Cary Burkett, pencils by Irv Novick, inks by Frank McLaughlin.
Superman and Batman come down on some petty thugs like the proverbial ton of bricks, since they're still recovering weapons stolen from the Fortress of Solitude by the Weapons Master. Supes saves Bats from getting shot in the back once, but they're both caught flat-footed when a downed thug reaches the time-displacer and zaps Batman. Furious, Superman rapidly checks the settings on the weapon, then takes off to prehistoric times to save his friend; while the thug smugly notes Superman won't hurt him, as that was against his code. 

In said prehistoric times, Superman is surprised to be lassoed by flying tiger-riders, who are quickly joined by Batman on his own tiger mount. Batman explains he's been there a month, and these guys were cool; although Superman knows there shouldn't be anyone there in that time period. Again, Batman seemingly shrugs it off: they were the alien Eldiran, the "Joy-Bringers." Supes is understandably skeptical, but they do seem okay: they were prepping earth to develop higher life-forms later. Batman seems taken with them, and extremely cheerful not to have to wear his mask or any of that. Still, when Superman is sent to deal with a volcano that resisted the Eldirans' magic, Batman notices one of them seemingly up to something, and masks up, he's back on the job. In a fairly typical World's Finest split, Superman fights a giant lizard in the volcano, while Batman has to stop the lizard's master: the head of the Eldirans had been getting on in years, and wanted to tank their mission on earth so he could spend his last few centuries back home.
Afterwards, the remaining Eldirans send their former leader home, and Supes and Bats have to head out as well. Returning right when they left, the smug thug catches another lump from Superman; while Batman wonders if he will ever feel the peace he had with the Eldirans. It's weird to think of Batman just checking out of his life like that, but those flying tigers did have batlike wings, so...
We may look at the other features later: this was the last "Dollar Comic" issue of the series, it would take a more standard format going forward. Green Arrow had two more back-up stories to go before being transferred to Detective Comics, but this issue was the end of the Hawkman and Shazam! stories. Which seems like a bit of a surprise, at least for Hawkman: he had been searching for the missing Hawkwoman, who conveniently arrives to save him in the last three panels! ("Doctor Katar and Mister Plert" Written by Bob Rozakis, pencils by Carmine Infantino, inks by Rodin Rodriguez.)

2 comments:

  1. 'Just your everyday, garden-variety lava-lizard', eh Supes? I should probably stay way from your garden then.

    I've probably mentioned it somewhere else but I really like the Dollar Comics era of DC. Even though a good deal of it was to have somewhere for the titles cancelled in the DC Implosion, the quality was still good and it was an interesting format.

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  2. I only guess that Batman was so chill with hanging out with some (Dino) Tiger-Riders because the whole thing brought out the kid long buried in him that thought shit like that was cool. Plus, even though this era of Batman was relatively chill, I imagine he had a rough week in Gotham, even for him, so this was a nice vacation from all that.
    He's WAYYYYYY too damn uptight to enjoy that same trip now though.

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