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One of my favorite Two-Face stories barely features the character at all. But much like Orson Welles's Harry Lime, whose five minutes of screen time dominated the whole of The Third Man, the threat of Harvey Dent looms throughout the Batman/Green Arrow team-up story from 1973's The Brave and the Bold #106.
Written by Bob Haney and drawn by the great Jim Aparo (who got top billing!), "Double Your Money... and Die!" was the second story to feature Harvey since Denny O'Neil dusted off the character after seventeen years in obscurity. It's pure Bronze Age Batman, too: a murder mystery filled with action and intrigue, building up to an epic ski chase in Switzerland. Plus it's fun, thanks the humor both intentional (Ollie's wisecracks) and unintentional (dated lingo, clothes, Batman uttering "Ye gods!", etc).
Told in one single issue, the story was so densely packed that DC actually sacrificed the letters column to let it run twenty-three and one-third pages instead of the standard twenty-two! Either they really wanted to do justice to Haney and Aparo's story, or they wanted avoid printing the letters for issue #103. Either way, Haney and Aparo make use of every single panel, and modern comic creators would do well to follow the economy of Bronze Age writers like Haney.
Also, Jim Aparo. It's Jim Aparo drawing Batman. On skis, no less!
( Death on skis (and I don't mean the Black Racer) behind the cut! )
If you'd like to read this story in whole (which I recommend, as there's much more I had to cut), it's collected in the black and white collection, Showcase Presents the Brave and the Bold: The Batman Team-Ups, volume two, appropriately enough!
Written by Bob Haney and drawn by the great Jim Aparo (who got top billing!), "Double Your Money... and Die!" was the second story to feature Harvey since Denny O'Neil dusted off the character after seventeen years in obscurity. It's pure Bronze Age Batman, too: a murder mystery filled with action and intrigue, building up to an epic ski chase in Switzerland. Plus it's fun, thanks the humor both intentional (Ollie's wisecracks) and unintentional (dated lingo, clothes, Batman uttering "Ye gods!", etc).
Told in one single issue, the story was so densely packed that DC actually sacrificed the letters column to let it run twenty-three and one-third pages instead of the standard twenty-two! Either they really wanted to do justice to Haney and Aparo's story, or they wanted avoid printing the letters for issue #103. Either way, Haney and Aparo make use of every single panel, and modern comic creators would do well to follow the economy of Bronze Age writers like Haney.
Also, Jim Aparo. It's Jim Aparo drawing Batman. On skis, no less!
( Death on skis (and I don't mean the Black Racer) behind the cut! )
If you'd like to read this story in whole (which I recommend, as there's much more I had to cut), it's collected in the black and white collection, Showcase Presents the Brave and the Bold: The Batman Team-Ups, volume two, appropriately enough!
