I tell myself that like every morning, too.

The other day at the Comic Book Shop, I got a pile of books before they made it to the quarter bins! Starting with this one: from 1973, World's Finest #220, "Let No Man Write My Epitaph" Written by Bob Haney, pencils by Dick Dillin, inks by Murphy Anderson, cover by Nick Cardy.

Aw, this was the second of a two-parter? Wait a minute...I have absolutely no recollection of the lead feature, but I've blogged the previous issue! The Metamorpho back-up feature, anyway. The lead story features Supes and Bats in search of El Monstro, a Swamp Thing-like brute who's giving Nazi gold to the peasants and may be Carlotta Esteban, a nude girl! How could I forget something like that? Well, Haney stories hit me like watching low-grade horror movies with a hangover, I may black out occasionally.

Carlotta can't stay in human form long, but monster-form is better for revenge anyway. Batman feels that; but Superman says her revenge is illegal, and she's not supposed to have that gold, either. They split up to continue searching for the downed U-boat; but Bats had already found it, and wanted Supes out of his way while he "saved El Monstro from herself!" Supes wasn't fooled, and heads to where Batman had been looking. Meanwhile, cruel landlord Don Ernesto and his lawyer tell the peasants that they can't buy their land with illegal gold, but they can pay him "a modest rental" by working in the mines! Or get murdered, if they want to get uppity. Batman saves a peasant, but is then held at gunpoint by the lawyer on horseback! El Monstro saves Batman, who then goes to Ernesto's hacienda, which had previously been the Esteban estate before Ernesto had Carlotta framed for her father's murder. Oh, and "she masqueraded as a boy all her life," for...reasons? (At a guess, to dodge getting married to Ernesto?)

In the attic, is a colossal painting of Carlotta, in her male disguise, and in a fetching dress: Batman seems impressed. El Monstro agrees, she was pretty smokin' back in the day. Bats tries to get her to give up the quest for vengeance, because everyone knows that's just for boys--no, because killing Ernesto would make her the bad guy. She clobbers Batman, then smashes through to Ernesto, as his lawyer either falls or jumps out the window. Ernesto flees to his old mine, with El Monstro and Batman giving chase; then tries to start a landslide to kill them, but falls in himself as well. Ernesto is killed, and El Monstro gathers the battered Batman and heads back to the sub, which Superman has found--but he gets hit with depth charges from the local government, "atomizing" the sub and the treasure. Um, no...Earlier in the story, Supes noticed diesel fuel on Bats to catch him in a lie; here a bomber sneaks up on him.

A government copter also hits El Monstro with defoliant--they seem pretty on top of things, why were Supes and Bats there again? Bats can only...throw his bat-rope in frustration, as Carlotta, seemingly mortally wounded, plunges into the water and "vanishes...dissolves...forever!" Forever forever? Swampy-sludge monsters have a way of coming back, but apparently that was that. Not a great showing, guys. Haven't got to the Metamorpho back-up yet, maybe later this week for that.