The Brave and the Bold: from Silent Knight to Dark Knight; a guide to the DC comic book

The Brave and The Bold

From Silent Knight to Dark Knight

by Michael Curry

Smashwords edition

Copyright 2014

The Brave and the Bold & Batman are trademarks of DC Comics. All characters shown are TM & © DC Comics.

The Brave and the Bold, Batman, Justice League of America, Teen Titans, Silent Knight, the Viking Prince, the Suicide Squad, Hawkman, Metamorpho, Strange Sports Stories, Golden Gladiator, Starman, Black Canary and the Viking Prince and all characters associated or otherwise herein are trademarks of DC Comics. All associated artwork reproduced in this work is © DC Comics. All reproductions in this historical overview/index of the Brave and the Bold and related magazines are copyright by the respective copyright holders, as indicated in conjunction with the individual illustrations or photographs, and are used here strictly for historical purposes and under the Fair Use doctrine of 17 USC 106 & 106a for the purposes of criticism and comment.

Regardless of copyright status, the author thanks all the creators who poured themselves through their work into each and every four-colored hero and villain mentioned in this index. I wish I could list you all and do justice to your fantastic work.

Discover other titles by Michael Curry:

Abby’s Road, the Long & Winding Road to Adoption; & How Facebook, Aquaman & Theodore Roosevelt Helped

and

Toddler TV: A Befuddled Father’s Guide to What the Kids are Watching

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Michael G. Curry

PO Box 93

Mount Vernon, IL 62864

(618) 246-1296

[email protected]

Table of Contents

Note from the author

Dedication

Blazing Adventures: Of silent knights and princes named Jon

Showcase: Of Strange Suicide Squad Stories Inside Earth

The Team-Up Years 1: The World’s Greatest Super Heroes

The Team-Up Years 2: Lo, There Shall Come a Dark Knight!

The Team-Up Years 3: Coasting

The Team-Up Years 4: The Long Goodbye

Appendices

Errata, Additional and Supplemental

Final Tally

Tale of the Tape

Batman Family

Later Volumes of The Brave and The Bold

The Brave and The Bold (1991)

The Brave and The Bold: Flash and Green Lantern (1999)

The Silver Age: Brave & Bold (July 2000)

Brave & Bold Annual 1969 (2001)

The Brave and The Bold (2007 series)

Batman: The Brave and The Bold (animated series)

Reruns

Australian-Rules Brave & Bold

About the Author

Connect with Me!

Other Books by the Author

Abby’s Road

Toddler TV

Note from the Author

Regarding the use of italics - I try to italicize the title of every comic or magazine. This will clear any confusion between a comic title and a character. When I refer to Wonder Woman the character, she is not italicized; when I refer to her comic book, I italicze it - Wonder Woman.

The Brave and the Bold is referred to in many different ways here: The Brave and the Bold, Brave and Bold, The Brave & the Bold, B&B, etc. They all mean the same comic book series.

I may have missed a few and I apologize for the errors.

Dedication

To my dad who brought home stacks and stacks of comic books when I was a kid for me to enjoy!

And to my departed mother for selling them at yard sales for a nickel. Not that I’m bitter ... I’ve spent a fortune replacing them over the decades yet I would shred them all for five more minutes with her.

And as always everything I do is dedicated to my two lovely ladies - my wife Esther and my daughter Abby. I love you both with all my heart and soul!

Blazing Adventures

Of silent knights and princes named Jon

Invitation the comic cover called out amidst its four-color characters: "If you dream of riding in a thundering chariot – if you yearn to explore unknown seas – if you are ready to wield a clashing sword to guard an astounding secret – then – The Golden Gladiator, The Viking Prince, and The Silent Knight invite you to join them in blazing adventures from now on as a member of – THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD!"

In May 1955 the first issue of The Brave and The Bold hit the nation’s news stands. It was published by National Periodicals (only in the late 1970s did it legally become known as DC Comics) with an August 1955 cover month (hereafter the cover date will be used – keep in mind the date the comic was actually able to be purchased by eager readers would have been months earlier). To introduce new readers to the National Comics line, #1 featured ads for comics featuring their two biggest characters, Superman and Batman, in Action Comics (#206) and Detective Comics (#221) respectively.

Although the number of total comics published in the 1950s was more than at any time in history until the 1990s, the number of super-heroes was at its lowest. The funny-animal strip characters the Fox and the Crow appeared in as many comics as Batman – a feat unthinkable today.

A few years ago DC comics rebooted all of its titles starting at #1. If you don’t count the renumbering, there are only five comics published in August 1955 that are still being published today, give or take a hiatus or restructuring of a few months. As you might guess they were the icons of the four-color world Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman (although it was also cancelled and restarted as #1 during the 1980s, too, so does it count?), Detective Comics and Action Comics. The only other superhero magazines at the time were Adventure Comics, World’s Finest (these latter two featured Superboy and the Superman-Batman respectively, aiding their survival – no one bought World’s Finest to read Green Arrow), and Quality Comics’ Plastic Man, but that would be cancelled within two years.

A list of National’s other comics published when B&B #1 hit the stands show the typical range of comic book readers at the time: A Date with Judy, Our Army at War, Our Fighting Forces, All American Men of War, The Adventures of Bob Hope, The Adventures of Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Peter Porkchops, Fox & Crow, Frontier Fighters, Tomahawk, House of Mystery, Mystery in Space, My Greatest Adventures, Showcase, Strange Adventures, Star Spangled War Stories, Real Screen Comics, Western Comics and All-Star Western. I may have missed some. National staples Sugar & Spike (in their own comic) and Tales of the Unexpected had yet to debut. Quality was still publishing magazines later taken over by National Comics: GI Combat, Plastic Man, Blackhawk and Robin Hood and some romance titles.

Obviously, grown men in underwear and capes were not on the priority list of comic book publishers. Captain Marvel and other Fawcett heroes had been cancelled due to National’s extensive (and expensive) litigation; Timely’s Captain America, Human Torch and Submariner were revived a few times in the fifties without success.

New to comics at the time was the Comics Code Authority -- a group created to regulate the content of comic books to prevent the government from doing it -- ensured no further sexual exploitation, gruesome and/or violent activity or any fun at all would be depicted in comic books. This rang the death knell for EC Comics and drove their readership underground for the next thirty years.

The first volley of the superhero revival would be fired two months later with Showcase #4 and the return of the Flash, ushering in the Silver Age of Comics. B&B #1 and Showcase #3 shared the newsstands.

B&B #1 was a fairly typical comic for its day – focussing on swashbuckling sword operas – where adventures abound in ancient bygone days. Heroes were beyond reproach, their allies no less than absolutely trustworthy, sneering villains were ingenious yet always fallible and damsels were always, always, in distress.

Until issue #16 there were three stories per issue, along with the mandatory page of text (to allow comics to be mailed at magazine subscription rates) and a one-page humorous cartoony strips.

Texts in issues 1 – 24 include descriptions of battles, weaponry and peoples, cultures and specific heroes and villains of Roman and Medieval times. Single page comics ranged from public service cartoons regarding the International Labor Organization, going back to school, Pennies for Unicef, National Brotherhood Week and getting a library card. There were also humorous knight cartoons scattered throughout the twenty-four issue run.

The first issue’s cover showed all three features in action blurbs (National having no idea yet which of the three would be the star of the magazine) – covers afterward would feature only one star, with banners proclaiming the adventures of the other two.

***

Just from observing the covers, it would appear the Silent Knight was the star attraction. Including #1, he appeared on eleven of the first fifteen covers and again in issues #18 and 20. Only Batman appeared on the cover of B&B more times.

And with good reason: the Silent Knight feature was certainly the most colorful and energetic of the features in this period. Bright red and blue hoods and capes abounded in the days of Camelot; as young Prince Brian Kent was trained in the ways of knighthood and leadership until he could ascend the thrown on his eighteenth birthday. In the meantime, wicked Sir Oswald controlled the kingdom. To help the oppressed, young Brian assumed the red mantle of a knight, but as he stated in every issue, Now I must remain mute, lest my voice reveal my true identity!

With the aid of his trusty horse and falcon, Brian fought brigands, Oswald’s henchmen and even some Knights of the Round Table to keep the peace. Ever attracted to the fair lady Celia, she had eyes only for the Silent Knight (this plot devise being a comic staple). At times it seemed very superheroic – Brian had to sneak away to change into the Silent Knight. Often Celia tried to prove Brian and Silent Knight were one and the same, only to be fooled into thinking otherwise. Lois Lane and Clark Kent – no relation to Brian (not at the time - DC missed that obvious twist for decades and only hinted at it in The Brave and The Bold 2007 series #10) – had been going round and round with this plot devise for seventeen years by now!).

Silent Knight appeared twenty-two times in Brave and Bold; as many as the more popular Viking Prince. The stories were written by Robert Kanigher and sometimes by Bob Haney and were drawn mostly by the legendary Irv Novick (a few stories were drawn by Russ Heath). Novick’s art style fit the feature perfectly – as clean and brightly colorful as the Cinemascope movies Ivanhoe and Robin Hood from which Silent Knight was inspired. Scale armor was painstakingly detailed as were the weapons of the period. Later, more fantasy-based stories focussing on dragons and magical beasts certainly did not dampen the spirit of the comic. One could almost hear the orchestra swelling during the jousting and hand-to-hand combat scenes.

As beautiful as the art was, the strip seemed to suffer from … sameness. A brief synopsis of the stories published show some of the flaws:

1. With his father accidentally killed by Sir Oswald, our Brian is ordered by Oswald to train in knightly ways. Brian impresses his teachers with his skills. Brian unintentionally allows the falcon Slasher to escape. While recovering it, Brian discovers the mysterious armor, helmet and sword held floating mysteriously in the forest. He dons the armor, defeats a group of brigands and is given the name Silent Knight.

2. Prince Brian has to protect fair lady Celia (who was delivering jewels) from the Robber Baron.

3. Cedrick the Black storms the castle. With all other knights away on missions, the castle’s only defenders are old Sir Grot, evil Sir Cedrick, and Brian!

4. How can the Silent Knight defeat the Robber Baron, when the Baron uses a shield as tall as a horse?

5. Brian defeats the twin Hooded Terror, who blocks a bridge demanding a toll; then on to the Tournament of Roses to defeat Sir Edwin’s knights.

6. Evil Sir Edwin hires a fake Silent Knight to lure the real hero into his clutches.

7. Ala Cinderella’s slipper, everyone must try on a replica of Silent Knight’s suit of armor. Will Brian be revealed as the Silent Knight?

8. Evil Sir Oswald (Edwin and Oswald are apparently interchangeable) orders Brian to capture the Silent Knight!!

9. To appease the wrath of a knight, Alvin the kitchen boy must capture the Silent Knight.

10. Evil Sir Oswald orders our Brian Kent to deliver the Sun Ruby to Sir Duncan through the Forest Perilious. How can the Silent Knight save him from bandits when he is the Silent Knight?

11. Tana the Stallion and Slasher the Falcon compete to see who Silent Knight needs and relies on the most!

12. Sir Brathe plots to capture the Silent Knight and take him to Camelot to ensure his membership in the Round Table.

13. In a series of continuing story lines, Sirs Galahad and Lancelot woo fair Lady Celia and battle the Silent Knight.

14. Tricked into going to Camelot, the Silent Knight bests Galahad and Lancelot in a two-to-one joust.

15. Guinnevere states that only the bravest knight could challenge the Silent Knight and make him speak! Galahad and Lancelot accept the challenge!

16. Silent Knight meets the challenge of the Triple Thunderbolts (evil knight triplets!) to save Camelot.

17. Sir Edwin tries to drown and then burn the Silent Knight to make him reveal his identity.

18. As tall as a mounted knight, evil Sir Hawk torments all who enter the