The Panic of The Composite Creature - Brave and the Bold #1

 

The Panic of The Composite Creature

BRAVE AND THE BOLD #1

Published: 28th January 2009
Cover Date: March 2009
Cover Artists: James Tucker / Brian Miller
Writer: Matt Wayne
Penciler: Andy Suriano
Inker: Dan Davis
Colourist: Heroic Age
Letterer: Randy Gentile
Editors: Rachel Gluckstern

Introduction
After so much, or really so little, 90s EXTREME I need a bit of a palate cleanser. So as a touch of unofficial synergy with Shag's look at the Brave and the Bold, as posted on the Fire and Water Network ( for the rare person who's not here from said site, the episode is here). Whilst Power Girl didn't appear in the animated show, as it seems to be the pattern, she did appear in the first-ever issue of the tie-in comic. And whilst it doesn't mention the JLE at all it just happens to be set in London (England) of all places!

Story Synopsis

We open as in the cartoon with a vignette where our boisterous Aquaman helps Batman fight Carapax, a Ted Kord Blue Beetle villain, with a drive-by (swim-by?) assault by a Whale. As the prologue comes to an end we get a message from Alfred, as sassy as he should be, telling Batman that he has a distress call from London.

We get a splash page of said threat, a giant red blobby creature, along with the title of the comic. An initial attack costs Batman a Batwing, how many of these do he write off as a tax break? Along with a few other just as unsuccessful attacks.

We also get a reveal of the villain behind this beast, Lex Luthor, who in homage to the Silver Age roots the series loved he's in his Mad Scientist form.

Totally not a Comic-Con

 Nearby, but not a block away as we don't really have them, one Karen Starr is giving a lecture at a COmputer Convention. I'm sure the blocking to suggest it's a Comic Con is totally coincidental! When the creature stomping causes a panic she changes to Power Girl to investigate. As always it's nice that they remember that Karen is a computer programmer in her civil identity, whether she owns her own company isn't covered here. She's also a Karen here, despite me not being the most massive fan of the name, as she's not called Kara in the issue at all.

Interestingly she is in her scalloped top version of her costume instead of the boob window costume that she would have been best known for around this time. This is around the end of her JSA appearances but just before her own series started up the same year. I assume that this is partly because this is meant to be an all-ages comic to tie in with the series, though she still kee[s her infamous figure.

After Batman fails to tie the creature down with a fire hydrant, something we also don't have in the UK, Power Girl goes to do some punchin', only to discover it's a composite creature composed of various Londerers (apparently from a three-block area). They use the cables from Tower Bridge, the monster sent by Luthor to steal the Crown Jewels from the nearby Tower of London, she then uses her X-ray vision to see Luthor in a nearby abandoned building.

She crashes through the wall and Luthor tricks her into a device that projects Red Sun Lamp, she's back to her Kryptonian origins at this point, that instantly strips her of her powers, though as she's still relatively fit she just punches out the relatively unfit scientist.

We then get to the real heroic powers of the story, computer hacking! Between herself and Batman they guess that his computer password is of course "Superman", This helps them find the way to unlock a very Kirby-looking gun, which in a missed opportunity is not the Konami code, which makes a very sorry-looking beast collapse back into the people making up the beast. (And also no

Beauty defeated the Beast line either), We have a load of very confused, and stereotypically accented, Londers as Luthor is carted away by the Yeoman of the tower (those dressed in the costume used by Beefeater,

We find out that the Queen had taken the Crown Jewels to a safe spot, where we meet on a rooftop where she gives our two heroes medals (that she carries on hand just in case). They then fly away in a helicopter, that the Queen leant to them after she landed on the rooftop, where Karen asks to be taken into sunlight to restore her powers. Which Batman jokes is away from foggy London. Despite it being quite a nice, if cloudy, day and London not having those evocative foggy streets for around fifty years!

I almost suspect that the artist has never been to London, or the UK before...

Final Thoughts
Weirdly for a comic about Batman, he really gets little to do here, and even the villain(s) seem to do nothing but gloat or stomp around. No the character that gets the most to do, and I may be biased here, is Power Girl! 

As it should be!

It also remembers that she's wicked smart and learned computers, though alas it doesn't mention that she learned it through the Amazon's purple laser (or as it should be through the VR reality of her Bioship).

It's a simple tale well told, the humour isn't subtle but that's what you get when it's based on a show like The Brave and the Bold. 

And Pee Gee is awesome, and that is always good!