Bending Reality with Bob Haney

I made mention the other day of a post Snell had made over at Slay, Monstrobot of the Deep about the Blue Bolt tale Blue Bolt #24. It's a glorious piece that not only breaks the 4th wall, but tears it down to make use of it. If you haven't already, Go Read It. This post isn't going anywhere.

This started me to seeking some other medium benders, especially with that last little remark from creator George Mandel at the end of that tale. While other interesting bits turned up (like Jack Kirby drawing Blue Bolt with Joe Simon for a half dozen stories about 45 issues before the Kirby Db first lists him working on the title).
Not too long after, a long forgotten bit of medium bending insanity dropping into my path for rediscovery. I might typically lean towards 'fun' or 'glory' or something instead of 'insanity' for our description here, but insanity is definitely the right word when we're dealing with Bob Haney. Haney was arguably the most insane comic book writer of all time. Don't assume that's meant as a negative assessment. His insanity was candescant, and willful. Logic? Reality? Sanity? These are tools for the weak! Bob Haney eschewed all such limitations and just span yarns. Nothing mattered except the narrative flow through Haney's Madworld. His stories might not make any sense the moment you stop to think about them, but that's okay. Most of the time he's not going to slow down to let you stop and think. I'm sure he'll come up again here, but (once again) just go over to Slay Monstrobot and click on the Bob Haney label. With 66 posts under that label, you'll get a pretty clear picture.

Of course, this might give you a fair picture, too:

While that exact scene doesn't happen in the comic, it's not far off the mark.
Let's take a look.

Old Man Sgt. Rock is in town again (Haney loved using him) working the same case as Batman from a different angle. He's tracking stolen military gear (1000 Super Rifles, experimental ordinance) that is being used by The 1000 to cause trouble in Gotham. (Apparently Batman reduced their numbers by 90% before they decided to relocate to Metropolis)
Batman & Rock team up, as they have many times before, and are tracking down scattered stashes of the stolen rifles. All fairly typical for the time for the first five pages.
Then this happens:

Jim makes his escape from the storeroom and flees into the night, making his way to the lighthouse residence of his artist friend, Chuck. (real person? we never meet him, so unknown) There he manages to find some of Chuck's art materials and get to work, drawing Sgt. Rock saving Batman from an explosive trap. But, now what?

 

Batman and Rock continue the search independently, following different leads. Both survive near death encounters (this was pre-demigod Batman), leading Rock to muse, "It's like somebody's playing Guardian Angel for the old Sarge!". Indeed:

Murray? Yep. They're dragging Murray Boltinoff, Editor, into this fracas!

"As the Editor wracks his brain to help the Brave and Bold Duo," Jim Aparo sits by the phone waiting. Meanwhile, Batman and Rock use the fear of rabid rats to extract the location of their base from a captive gang member and are soon heading to confront The 1000 in their lair. The Long Night passes while Aparo waits...

 

 

 

 

And there you have it. Sure, Julie Schwartz, Cary Bates, and Elliot S! Maggin came bopping on through here before, but they had to breach the barrier between worlds and cross over from Earth Prime to Earth One to do it. Not Bob Haney and company. Haney makes his own rules, tells his story, and everything else be damned. Questions about how and why are for lesser mortals.
And, y'know... We didn't care. We knew it made no sense. We knew he was crazy (as a storyteller). And we also knew he was going to do something we didn't expect.
And we loved him for it.

I'll tell ya, though. Never pictured him as a hairy, bearded hunter in the woods type.

cover & pages from The Brave & The Bold #124 by Bob Haney & Jim Aparo (& Murray Boltinoff)(1976)