Paneling: The Brave And The Bold #149

This one is a bit different from most Paneling posts, as I typically focus on a specific panel that has burned itself into my memory but this one is about a panel that I did not remember.

Which is surprising, as it’s a panel that is a bit of a headscratcher.

It comes from here…

…but while I had the original back in the day – acquired, I think, via mystery pack, though it may have been a Whitman version – I most recently read it in here:

The story from writer Bob Haney, artist and letterer Jim Aparo, and colorist Jerry Serpe, is entitled “Look Homeward, Runaway!” and features the Dark Knight Detective reaching out to the founding members of the Teen Titans for help dealing with a gang of teen criminals.

Though the Teen Titans had recently disbanded, they’re willing to put the band back together to help out the Caped Crusader.

The teen crime wave is the work of a gang of runaways who are clearly reporting to some central authority, a modern-day Fagin whom Batman has been unable to ferret out. Batman realizes that breaking up the gang and getting to the leader will require some undercover work, and though he is a master of disguise, Batman realizes that even he can’t pull off a 21 Jump Street.

Thus, he calls on Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, and Speedy to help him out.

Because Robin and Speedy have no powers and need their costumes and weaponry to be completely effective, it’s decided that Wonder Girl and Kid Flash will infiltrate the gang, with Wonder Girl wearing a wire so that Robin and Speedy can keep tabs on them.

To get in good with the gang, Wonder Girl (Donna) and Kid Flash (Wally) mug an old lady in broad daylight. (The old lady is an undercover cop who’s in on it.)

Initially, they’re confronted for muscling in on the Runaways’ turf, but once they provide their cover story of being runaways themselves and express a desire to join up, they’re brough in to meet “The Man,” who, like Charlie communicating with his Angels, only appears as a voice coming from an intercom speaker.

They go through an initiation – The Man tells the Runaways to kill Wally and Donna, but it’s a gag, as their guns are loaded with blanks, which Wally used his super-speed to confirm – and are given a crash course in the tricks of the trade and let loose on the street.

This brings me to some panels that I did remember from the story.

I just always liked that slick maneuver Donna pulls tossing the wallet into the trashcan (in which Wally is hiding).

Wally gets away, with a surreptitious assist from Speedy, but Donna gets caught, and though there is no evidence, as she tossed the wallet, she’s busted for disturbing the peace. Robin goes down to the precinct to secure her release.

One of The Man’s lieutenants remains suspicious of the newcomers, however, and tails Donna and Wally as they’re heading to the Batcave for a confab with Batman. Robin and Speedy are about to intervene, but Batman himself saves the day by confronting them, treating them like the criminal scum they’re pretending to be, and winds up getting his ass kicked.

With the Runaway field leader’s suspicions allayed, Batman, Donna, and Wally reconvene at the Batcave, and though the initial attempts at identifying The Man have been a bust, Batman has another idea, which leads us to the third panel on the eleventh page, which is the focus of this post.

This…this is not a power I ever saw Donna demonstrate either before or after this story.

I think the only explanation for it is that Bob Haney is gonna Bob Haney.

Still, despite Donna’s unusual power, it turns out that, as my dad liked to say because his dad liked to say, it was all for naught, as the voice is identified as belonging to none other than Police Commissioner James Gordon!

Batman surmises that The Man must be using samples of Gordon’s voice to edit together phrases.

This leads to Batman being a bit taken aback when a call comes in.

That snark from Gordon taken in conjunction with an earlier scene with Gordon confirming Robin’s story about Donna being part of an undercover operation suggests to me that Gordon is just done with Batman’s guano.

It may seem odd for him to say “again,” as Batman is always playing vigilante, but in the Haneyverse in which The Brave and the Bold stories exist, Batman is a sort of semi-official member of the police force.

There’s even one story in which the city council is able to force Batman to retire.

In any case, the Eddie Blaine who escaped was the Runaway whose capture clued Batman in to the existence of The Man in the first place.

Eddie is out for revenge because The Man was supposed to get him out of jail right away but failed to live up to that promise.

Meanwhile, Donna and Wally, with the assistance of some of the other Runaways, are trying to force The Man to show himself. He does, but only behind a curtain.

This leads to the two being outed as spies as one of the Runaways loyal to The Man discovers Donna’s wire. With their cover blown, the two Titans clean house, and Wally rushes the curtain to reveal…Batman? The element of surprise allows The Man to knock Wally out and escape through a fake incinerator shaft.

However, The Man finds Eddie waiting for him at the bottom with a gun.

The real Batman arrives in time to stop Eddie from killing The Man, whose identity is then revealed as…just some guy?

I mean, his identity was presented as this big mystery, one hidden under multiple layers of obfuscation, and then he’s revealed to just be some random nobody in a single panel.

I don’t know, I just expected something more.

Anyway, the story ends on a hopeful note, as all of the Runaways – except Eddie, who now has gun charges and a jailbreak added to his list of offenses – are put on probation, and Batman suggests that there may be some hope for rehabilitation for them, thanks to the help of the once and future Teen Titans.

As noted, the only reason I wanted to take a look at this story was that baffling panel about Donna’s superhuman skills of vocal mimicry, but it is an amusing story – and one of the more entertainingly goofy stories in the omnibus – and one that harkens back to the Silver Age Titans stories that Haney wrote in which the Teen Titans were always very much focused on issues involving other teens.

Beyond that, it’s your typical Haney B&B story, with Batman needing help with something that should be relatively low stakes for him, and that has some kind of attempt at social relevance.

And I’m totally hear for a Commissioner Gordon who is just over it.

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