The Brave and the Bold #166 DC Comics, 1980

Man, I loved this comic book when I was a kid. Do you remember this issue? The one where Batman and Black Canary fight a 600-foot tall Penguin? Look, there he is on the cover, looming over Gotham with an umbrella the size of a Zeppelin. In order to defeat The Mega Penguin, Batman has to pilot the Bat Sentinel, a giant Shogun Warrior robot that Black Canary (who is a scientific genius) designed. During the huge brawl at the end of the book, the Canary slips into Mega Penguin’s oversized nose and plants a bomb in his frontal lobe, and –

Okay, I’m just fucking with you. There’s no Mega Penguin, no Bat Sentinel. But wouldn’t that be cool - a giant bat robot? DC Comics – give me money to write a Batman: Ultimate Robot Monster Killer comic!

In reality, The Brave and the Bold #166 is almost as cool as that, but for different reasons. Any young lad who has read this comic will undoubtedly remember this as the legendary issue where Black Canary gets tied up in her underwear. It is the climax of the story, and the thing that makes this particular issue stick in my mind.

Even if this comic didn’t have Black Canary in underwear, it would still be cool. The Brave and The Bold was a team-up book that was very similar to Marvel Two-In-One or Marvel Team-Up – the superhero star of the title would join forces with a different guest hero every issue. This issue is a “full-length novel” starring Batman and Black Canary and featuring the avian villainy of The Penguin, with a back-up story starring Nemesis, that uncanny master of disguise. I’m not sure, is this the first appearance of Nemesis? Again, too lazy to look it up.

The Penguin story, by writer Michael Fleischer and artists Dick Giordano and Terry Austin is a simple, somewhat formulaic tale of crime in the DC Universe with solid, classic Batman art. The “yellow utility belt era” of Batman will always be the definitive, classic take on Batman. He has that Jim Aparo/Marshall Rogers look to him that I like, with the black forehead and big stylin’ yellow belt with those strange pellets. That’s the Batman of my childhood, and therefore, the ultimate archetypal Batman for me.

The Penguin in this comic looks exactly like the Penguin should look. Plus, he’s mean. In this issue he breaks out of a prison in Gotham and goes after the four henchmen who testified against him in exchange for immunity. The ex-henchmen have relocated to Star City, Black Canary’s stomping grounds, where The Penguin quickly and brutally takes over a local gang:

Now that is how you recruit henchmen.

Batman trails The Penguin to Star City, where he teams up with Black Canary. Unlike the Goddamn Batman of today’s comics, Yellow Utility Belt Batman knew how to treat the ladies.

Check out Batman’s method:

Das smoove.

And see? It works! Black Canary is digging his action. Personally, it looks like he’s trying to hard to me. I think he’s coming across a little patronizing. But whatever, it’s obviously working for him, so who am I to judge.

There are several quality scenes where The Penguin takes his revenge on his betrayers by killing them in needlessly complicated but spectacular ways – all with a canary motif, because his betrayers “sang” to the cops. Somewhere along the way Black Canary gets captured and The Penguin tries to kill Batman using a Canary look-alike in a dark alley.

Fortunately, Batman spots the imposter before she can breath cyanide gas in his face. He’s no chump. Actually, in a lot of comics from this era Yellow Utility Belt Batman has progressive competence – his abilities and intelligence increase as the plot progresses, until at the end he’s finally smart/tough enough to defeat his foe.

Batman finally tracks down The Penguin and starts beating the hell out of everybody while he carries on an internal monologue that explains the plot:

I will resist any crude or obvious joke about Batman getting close enough to realize the fake Canary was a real blonde. I think I deserve points for my discretion.

All this leads us to the climax of the book: In order to clothe his Canary imposter, The Penguin had to borrow the real Black Canary’s costume – which means she gets tied up in lacy black underwear.

Believe me when I tell you that Young Dave studied this panel intently:

Batman finally gets his hands on The Penguin and beats him up. See, Goddamn Batman hasn’t totally cornered the market on brutality, it’s just that Yellow Utility Belt Batman is more of a bully than a psychopath. I mean look down below, he smacks the shit out of The Penguin, who isn’t even fighting back. And he calls him “pudgy.” And he backhands him, the ultimate act of contemptuous assault.

In the end, the big aggressive alpha male wins the girl, and the nerd is defeated. Just like in high school. The Black Canary makes a big deal about being a “liberated” woman, but she ends up giving her alpha male protector a little sugar in the end anyway.

I’m not sure about the sexual politics in The Brave and the Bold #166, but I love it anyway. Perhaps this comic is in a small part to blame for some of Young Dave’s misunderstandings about women, for some of the failed relationships and squandered opportunities of my adolescent years.

You know – I think I may have something here – I should sue DC Comics for that time Kristin Carlisle broke up with me in 1986! If The Brave and the Bold #166 hadn’t modeled unhealthy gender roles and female objectification for me early in life, I might have had a chance with her! A chance at happiness! I will sue them –

-- unless they let me write Batman: Ultimate Robot Monster Killer, of course.