April Madness--The Final Round!!

It's been a long, strange road to get here...

But we're finally at the Final Round of The Seven Justice Soldiers of The Victory League Society!! And, probably to no one's surprise, it is Team Superman...

...vs. Team Batman!!

Fair warning--there are no coincidental "Martha's" in this fight to cause an unlikely truce.

Superman makes the first move, grabbing Hourman and dropping him 61 minutes in the past, so his Miraclo will be worn off by the time the fight starts!!

And as Batman pulls out the inevitable piece of kryptonite, Metamorpho turns himself into a lead suit of armor encasing Kal-El, and together they show Batman that he's not quite ready to "defeat anyone if he has enough time" yet.

Sandman cold-cocks a powerless Hourman, and Metamorpho sneakily grabs Starman's Cosmic Rod, ending this little slugfest!!

So, our grand champion is...

...Team Superman!!

And it's all proven with irrefutable comic book logic!!

Thanks for putting up with this all week...

April Madness, 1st Semifinal--SHOCKER!!

It's time for the first semifinal of The Seven Justice Soldiers Of The Victory League Society!!

Can...

...defeat...

It should be trickier for team Superman this time around, as they have to face a true major league magic user!

And indeed, that's how it starts off, as Kal-El takes one of Dr. Fate's bolts of eldritch energy right to the face, and goes down!! Big trouble for the #1 seed!!

Ralph Dibny's nose starts smelling a mystery, which means he's helpless when he gets a snoutful of sleep gas from Sandman!!

Metamorpho turns into a super-dense mesh, temporarily trapping the Atom. So this battle may come down to Dr. Fate vs. Sandman!

But wait!! Sandman unleashes a punch so powerful, he actually dents Fate's helmet!! What the?!?! Team Superman wins--but how?!?

LOOK!! Sandman is taking off his gas mask--and he's really Superman!! INCREDIBLE!! It was the classic Silver Age tactic of switching identities before the fight, so Wesley Dodds would take the brunt of Doctor Fate's attack, leaving Superman free to take the sorcerer by surprise!!

What a classic!! Tune in later this morning for the second semifinal!!

April Madness Round I--No Surprises!

Welcome to the first round of The Seven Justice Soldiers of The Victory League Society, our insane little tournament that exists for no reason whatsoever!!

Our first round features:

vs.

That's Earth-2 Green Lantern, Earth-2 Robin/Batman in the most godawful costume ever, and Mr. Terrific.

It's no surprise, or at least it shouldn't be, that Kal-El's team is the top seed--any team that has a Kryptonian and a guy who turn turn his body into any shape and virtually any element is going to be pretty tough.

The other team? In the biggest pre-Crisis gathering of heroes ever, our creators couldn't even find a spot for these guys--they showed up late, and didn't even take part in any of the quests. Sad!!

In my completely arbitrary (and totally unappealable) view on how this fight would go, it's not too much of a contest. Alan Scott could perhaps give Superman a moment of trouble, as some tellings have his ring being magical in nature. But a quick spritz of sleep gas from Sandman would break his concentration, and Superman would smack him with a tree. Meanwhile, between bouts of laughter at Robin/Batman's costume, Metamorpho would make pretty quick work of the Man Wonder, leaving Mr. Terrific to cry about "FAIR PLAY" as he gets pummeled.

Our winner:

Can anyone stop the Superman group?

Tune in later today for another match!!

Metamorpho And The Horny Shark!!

We're out at sea!! Simon Stagg goes overboard!! Metamorpho springs into action!!

Wait!! What was that?!?!

Oh, Bob Haney...

Meanwhile...

...Joe Orlando kind of loses it here, because that's the oddest damn shark I've ever seen!!

But Rex has saved the day, after all, so surely Stagg is properly grateful, right? Right??

Nope.

From Metamorpho #6 (1966), as reprinted in World's Finest Comics #224 (1974)

Friday Night Fights--Batman Has Plastic Powers?!? Style!!

Sometimes on Friday Night Fights, things aren't quite what they seem. For example:

Wait..what?!?!

Wait....WHAT?!?!?!?!?

OK, you see, Batman found Plastic Man living as a hobo (doubtless taking turns with hobo Namor!). And, because Bruce Wayne has to out of town for a couple of weeks, he gets Plas to pose as Batman, so crime won't run rampant. But then Plas gets himself brainwashed by a femme fatale, so know he believes he really IS Batman, and he frames Bruce Wayne for murder and arrests him, all so the femme (Ruby Ryder, by name) can win an auction for for a stolen sacred statue (which Bruce wants to buy and return to its native African tribe) and then Metamorpho...

Deep breath, snell...deep breath...trying to summarize a Bob Haney script is going to give you a mental hernia.

Anyway, that kinda sorta catches you up, Not let's get back to brainwashed Batman-Plastic Man fighting Metamorpho:

Sadly, that's where Plastic Man's brainwashing wears off...because, man, I could have you 200 pages of that kinda fight...

Spacebooger thinks we need more hobo versions of superheroes...

Bob Haney and Jim Aparo never let logic get in the way of an awesome fight in Brave And The Bold #123 (1975)

Now is the time for you to go and vote for my fight. Why? BECAUSE IT'S FREAKING AWESOME, THAT'S WHY!!!  Now go and vote!!

Batman's OTHER Job

You know all the wonderful 100 Page Super Spectaculars and Super Giants and other exciting and monstrously large issues DC liked to put out in the 60s and early 70s?

Well, did you ever wonder exactly HOW they decided which stories to reprint in those? Well, thanks to Super DC Giant #16 (1970), the truth can finally be told:





Ha ha...Barry just tricked Batman into choosing the Flash team-up from Brave & The Bold #67!!

After that story...





And Metamorpho just influenced Batman to pick the very first Metamorpho story, from B&TB #57.

Just so we're clear on the concept, Batman takes nights off from fighting crime to travel to New York and pick reprint stories for DC.

And his "friends" play tricks on Batman to get him to pick stories featuring them.

You know, this explains so much about why Batman made the choices he did in Tower Of Babel...

And to conclude our framing sequence:



Julius Schwartz just called THE GODDAMNED BATMAN "bush." DC editors--balls of steel!


"Swing"?? Oh, Bob Haney...