Hey!! Kids Comics: The Brave and the Bold 145 (1978)

The Brave & The Bold, Vol. 24, No. 145

Cover date: December 1978

Cover artists: Jim Aparo and Tatjana Wood

"A Choice of Dooms!"

Writer: Bob Haney
Penciller: Jim Aparo
Inker: Jim Aparo
Letterer: Jim Aparo
Colorsist: Jerry Serpe
Editor: Paul Levitz

Plot: Batman stops a diamond smuggling ring but the leader practices voodoo on his gang members and has an unusual way to prevent them from talking. Can The Phantom Stranger help Batman overcome this supernatural threat?

---

Starting off like a 1970s era mystery/suspense TV show, the Phantom Stranger gives us his opening monologue while standing on the runway of an airport just as a jetliner is screaming in! You can just make out Batman lurking in the background, on the control tower.

Diamond smuggler Max Lustig has come to Gotham City to deliver his goods, but Batman is onto him. Batman catches him red handed, but during the confrontation, Batman would have been shot if not for the timely appearance of the Phantom Stranger! The Stranger beats Batman at his own game by vanishing just as quickly as he appeared leaving Batman perplexed.

Lustig is taken to police headquarters where Batman promises to protect him if he rats out his boss. Lustig agrees, but before he can sing, he becomes so paralyzed by fear that he is unable to speak! As Lustig keels over, we see a hand holding a voodoo doll made in the image of Lustig with a pin stuck right through it's throat!

With the authorities baffled, the Phantom Stranger pops up again to clue Batman in. Apparently the Icehouse Gang is led by Kaluu who controls his minions through their fear of his voodoo magic. Batman doesn't believe in all that hoodoo and goes off to track down Kaluu. Batman finds Kaluu's layer and discovers the voodoo doll, but without a warrant he can't use it as evidence and is forced to leave empty handed.

Batman drags Lustig off to the Batcave to scare the hell out of him in the hopes of breaking the spell Kaluu has over him. Of course this only makes things worse. Batman finally comes to the realization that by using fear, he is just as bad as Kaluu! The Phantom Stranger appears and tells Batman that by understanding this he has overcome the darkness within him. The Stranger reminds Batman that Lustig was looking to him for protection... Batman gets Lustig to pull the pin from a voodoo doll that looks just like the one Kaluu used! This breaks the spell and Lustig sings like the stool pigeon he is!

Time to go get Kaluu! Kaluu sics his giant zombie bodyguard N'Daka on Batman! With Batman occupied, Kaluu tries to put the voodoo on the Phantom Stanger by jabbing a pin into a voodoo doll in the shape of the Stranger, but it backfires and it's Kaluu who falls dead instead! With Kaluu gone, N'Daka collapses, no longer a threat.

Lets see what we got here... a classic detective tale with a splash of the supernatural featuring a stereotypical voodoo priest (Kaluu), right out of Live and Let Die along with his monstrous mindless zombie goon (N'Daka), shoving pins in wax voodoo dolls. Phantom stranger popping in and out giving clues and speaking in riddles. And finally a lesson to be learned: you can't break a spell of fear by being scarier than that which is feared! The power of truth is stronger than the power of suggestion.

So does this mean that Kaluu wasn't really using voodoo? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Don't know. Don't care.

Phantom Stranger + voodoo = win!
What a fun outing this was with Batman and the Stranger. It certainly is a treat seeing Jim Aparo doing Phantom Stranger again. Finally, the story is pretty a straightforward affair with none of those bizarre Bob Haney left turns his tales are infamous for.

This issue is notable as it features the Phantom Stranger's third and final appearance in The Brave & The Bold comic series.

This comic was my first experience with The Phantom Stranger. Who is this guy? Where did he come from? Why... how does he do all that stuff? Is he a magician or a ghost? I still don't know and I love it!

	Here is the whole comic for you to download and read as a CBR file, just follow the link on the left. CBR files hold comic book pages as images in a compressed archive format enabling them to be viewed, sequentially, from within a comic book reader program or app such as CDisplayEx.
DOWNLOAD CBR FILE

What did you think of today's adventure with Batman and the Phantom Stanger? Do you have a favorite team-up story from The Brave and the Bold? Sound off in the comments below!