Brave and the Bold

While Batman was helping Superman in Worlds Finest he was also moonlighting by helping others by fighting crime in Brave and the Bold. Like Worlds Finest the early issues were an anthology to showcase the lesser characters that DC published like Viking Prince, Shining Knight, Robin Hood etc. Eventually they started showcasing more major heroes in the book and was the first book to show the Justice League of America and the Teen Titans. Thus the book made two contributions to the comic book pop culture early on. With issue #50 the book did its first traditional team-up with Green Arrow teaming up with the Manhunter from Mars. After that the series would team up heroes more frequently. However, they needed a heavy hitter to be there every month. Eventually they team-up Batman with other DC stars but then were back to random team-ups for a couple of months. Then with issue #74 Batman was the regular star of the series. It was a fun series to read and I was never disappointed with any story. However, I always wondered why Batman. They teamed-up Flash with a few early on so I think he would have been just as well. Superman didn’t have a team up book at the time so why pass him over? Others who I don’t think they owned at the time, Captain Marvel, Plastic-Man and the Spirit, would make great stars of team-up books today.
The book was canceled with its 200th issue. It was replaced by Batman and the Outsiders. From time to time DC has kept the name of the series alive by having brought it back to random team-ups of current DC heroes. They even used it as a min-series to show the early adventures of the Flash and Green Lantern.
Recently they have brought Brave and the Bold back again with more random team-ups. Another that Marvel also brought back recently in the same way is Marvel Team-up with we will talk about later. I hope it works. If it doesn’t the day of the team-up book may be passed.