Breaking Batman??

So, last week, we were looking at a Batman/Green Lantern team-up wherein:

*Hal Jordan defected to "The People's Republic";

*They beat the living crap out of Hal;

*The U.S. government sends Batman in to bring Green Lantern back;

*Batman got captured;

*Batman beat the crap out of Green Lantern for being a traitor.

Gosh bless Bob Haney, that was only the first 6 pages. So let's continue, along with a bit of a compare/contrast with a more recent Batman epic.

Our heroes' captor, Colonel Vakla, is wisely suspicious that they might be trying to pull some fast one on him, because after all, Justice Leaguers don't defect every day, and Batman doesn't get captured very often. So he decides upon the ultimate test:



Oh, no, not The Demolishment!! (I'm sure it sounded better in the original People's Republicese...damned translators).

First up: Drugs!!


Duh!! Of course Batman has spent a lifetime building up an immunity to iocane posioning--I mean hallucinogenic drugs.

Allow me to compare to Batman R.I.P., wherein Batman was vulnerable to hallucinogenic drugs...but he had a back-up plan to create a fake personality (well, actually, two of them) in case it ever happened.

Next--The Tank!!


Again, to contrast, in Batman R.I.P., Batman was broken by the isolation take, wherein Doctor Hurt was able to implant hypnotic triggers in Bruce's mind. Bob Haney's Batman, though? Tougher than that:


No, Bruce didn't have to create "The Batman Of Zur-En-Arrh" this time around--he just had to be Batman.

Next--The Theatre Of The Absurd:

Prepare yourself, for an Aparo Freak-Out:


Enough to break Batman? Nope.

Or was it?? Batman's not out of the woods yet:



Well, looks like Batman was broken...we even get the "shoot Green Lantern, ha-ha the gun was empty" bit.

So what was behind the final door? What was the final act of The Demolishment?!?


D'oh!!!!

But, guess what--Batman wasn't really broken. You see, that was the whole point of this defection/rescue escapade--to discover the secrets of The Demolishment!!

So why did Batman seem to succumb??

Ah, only pretending. Good old Batman. Even the worst the Iron Curtain had to throw at him couldn't turn him into the Manchurian Candidate.

So there are your two versions of Batman: Grant Morrison's "always prepared for everything" Batman, who could be broken but had ridiculously convoluted schemes to overcome it; and Bob Haney, whose Batman was macho enough not to broken by any of those shenanigans in the first place.

You can decide for yourself which version of Batman you prefer, but let me put this to you: which version had Batman smacking around Hal Jordan?

Case closed.

From The Brave And The Bold #134 (1977).