The Brave and The Bold is a comic book with a long and colorful history. It began in the 1950's as a comic devoted to adventure strips, such as Robin Hood, the Golden Gladiator, The Silent Knight and The Viking Prince. The book then changed into a try-out book for new features, capitalizing on the popularity of DC's companion title, Showcase. The Justice League of America, the Silver Age Hawkman, Cave Carson, and the Suicide Squad all got their starts in the pages of Brave and Bold.

With issue #50, The Brave and The Bold became a team-up comic. Green Arrow and the Manhunter From Mars met in that first story, and most of the popular DC characters of the era made appearances in the title (with the notable exception of Superman, who did eventually appear in a special story later in the series run). The Batman began as the regular star of the book with issue #74, and the remainder of the book's run featured a bi-monthly meeting between the Dark Knight Detective and a different character from the DC Universe. The book ended with issue #200, being replaced by the new team book, Batman and the Outsiders, which was featured in a "bonus book" in that final issue.

Some of my fondest comic book memories come from the pages of The Brave and The Bold. It introduced me to many of the characters I still enjoy, and it is one of the few comics that I read consistently while I was growing up and did my best never to miss an issue. You were always guaranteed a good, solid story with at least two interesting characters every issue. Not a bad way to spend twenty to forty cents back in those days. The demise of the team-up book in general is something that I think is pretty sad ... the only way to get new characters any exposure now is to start a whole series on them, which is often too dicey and too expensive for a publisher to risk. Look at all the recent comics that might've gotten more of a chance if they had started out by appearing in DC Comics Presents or B & B ... Chronos, Vext, Resurrection Man, Major Bummer ... the list gets longer every year.

The team-up era of the book is the primary focus of this web site. It was the longest-running format of The Brave and The Bold, and produced some of the most memorable stories in comics. Bob Haney was the perennial writer of the book's Batman era, assisted at times with scripts by the likes of Marv Wolfman, Alan Brennert, Cary Bates, Mike W. Barr, and some of the biggest names in comics provided the artwork. Neal Adams, Jim Aparo, Don Newton, Ross Andru, Bob Brown, Gil Kane, Bruno Premiani, Carmine Infantino were among those taking up the quill to illustrate this tales.

I've arranged the reviews by both character (and some special runs in the series) and by issue number, at least to the extent our now-meager collection will allow. I hope to eventually review to the entire run from Issues #50 through #200.

I would welcome any comments, additions or corrections. Please e-mail me at muzik@ptd.net and let me know what you think about this site.

Please use the pull-down menus at the top of the page for synopses & reviews of the many issues. You can do so by co-star or by issue number.