So, Superman Jr. and Batman Jr. fight some giant puppets (don't ask, it's Haney) who are abusing a hot chick. And here we find out what Batman Jr. expects as his reward for fighting crime:
But sadly, Bruce Wayne Jr. is no Bruce Wayne Sr.:
Sad lesson for Batman Jr.: when you beg for the smooches, you never get the smooches.It's just as well, though, as the girl is really the daughter of Lex Luthor. So, really, Bats, you're probably just as well off.
From World's Finest #238 (1976).
Haney stands almost alone as one of comics' most utterly bizarre writers, in the "eccentric elite" of writers like Fletcher Hanks, Bob Kanigher, (solo) Jack Kirby, and late-period Frank Miller. But, wow....I'm not sure any of those writers can touch Haney's unique ear for horrendously campy (or is it campily horrendous?) dialogue. Which is actually pretty odd considering how tight of a ship DC editorial was back in those days. It's hard to imagine someone like Julius Schwartz giving the green light to this kind of whack-nuttery. They REALLY must have been desperate to capture that "hip quotient" that Marvel had an easier time pulling off (though they were guilty of some pretty wince-worthy dialogue as well, as your 1,500th post clearly demonstrated).
ReplyDeleteI've always had the suspicion that they considered World's Finest and Brave & The Bold as the hinterlands of the Supes and Batman franchises...so Schwartz et al probably said, "No one really cares about these books, even by our standards they have no continuity with the rest of Supes and Bats books, so why not let Haney go nuts?
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