Dig this ECLIPSE DAY excerpt from Jim Beard’s new B&B history guide…
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Hey, you mighta heard that there’s a big ol’ eclipse Monday. Of course, that means it’s time to celebrate the greatest eclipse-based character in all of comicdom — ECLIPSO! Dig Jim Beard’s piece below, including an EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT from his new Brave and the Bold guidebook, Breaking Bold and Brave. Then click here to check out 13 ECLIPSO COVERS. Far out!
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By JIM BEARD
They say you never forget your first eclipse — for me, it’s that I’ve never forgotten my first Eclipso.
I’m talking about DC’s “Hero and Villain In One Man,” of course, Bruce Gordon, the on-again-off-again baddie called Eclipso, one of the company’s underappreciated characters, in my opinion. All the eclipse fever we’ve been experiencing has sent me down Memory Lane, and recalling my first brushes with the dude and the impact he’d left on me… you might say it’s been a total Eclipso of my heart.
JLA #109. Written by Len Wein, with art by Dick Dillin and Dick Giordano.
Looking back, I see my first Eclipso viewing came in Justice League of America #109, coincidentally the very first JLA my dad ever bought me back in 1973. He seemed like the perfect villain for the League to battle and I knew right then and there he was something special — and creepy.
I didn’t actually get to see an “old” Eclipso story until 1974’s World’s Finest #226 reprinted the third Bruce Gordon tale from House of Secrets #63. I had no idea the story was more than 10 years old at that point (older than me!), but I totally grooved on the Alex Toth art. Thankfully, I had only to wait until World’s Finest #228 for another dose of the black diamond’s totality on my young soul.
Great cover by Gil Kane
The real kicker came in mid-1976’s Super-Team Family #5. That crazy little book gave me the stuff my dreams are made of: A reprint of the Batman-Eclipso “team-up” from The Brave and the Bold #64. There it was, my favorite hero in the same story with my new-favorite bad guy, all from the pen of Bob Haney, soon to become one of my favorite comic book scripters.
B&B #64 is remarkable in many ways, but one of the most intriguing things about it to me is the fact that Haney was ahead of the curve in “camping out” with the Caped Crusader. The book hit the stands in late December 1965, just a few short weeks before the world would get its first taste of Batmania courtesy of the Adam West Batman television series.
The rest is history, both comic book-wise and otherwise.
I recently published a new book that details my personal journey through reading all 200 issues of The Brave and the Bold (1955-1983). It’s called Breaking Bold and Brave, and I hope it’ll be something of a gateway drug into the wild and wonderful world of the classic DC series. Here’s an EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT from it, one of the “dossiers” on a B&B issue… which just happens to be that Batman-Eclipso tale.
Happy Eclipse Day 2024! Enjoy!
THE BRAVE & THE BOLD #64
DATE: Feb-Mar 1966
TITLE: “Batman Versus Eclipso”
STARS: Batman, Eclipso
VILLAINS: Eclipso, The Queen Bee
GUEST-STARS: Commissioner Gordon, Dr. Bruce Gordon, Prof. Bennet, Mona Bennet
WRITER: Bob Haney
ARTIST: Win Mortimer
EDITOR: George Kashdan
STORY: Batman stumbles across Marcia Monroe, a girl to whom he was once engaged, who promptly frames him for a jewel theft. Marcia is an operative of CYCLOPS, and as Queen Bee teams with evil criminal Eclipso to unleash a crime wave on Gotham City while the Dark Knight is out of commission. Batman breaks out of jail to battle the super-villain duo and finds himself aided by Bruce Gordon, Eclipso’s virtuous alter-ego.
COMMENTS: With nary a superhero team-up in sight, Haney launches a tale of a super-villain combo and a SPECTRE-like crime cartel. Eclipso is shown here as a separate entity from Bruce Gordon just as in many of his House of Secrets tales. Queen Bee would return in an “Old Maid” type Batman card game of the time. Look for strange scenes of Batman and Marcia making-out in the Batmobile and becoming engaged, and the Caped Crusader weeping in a jail cell. Really.
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Postscript: In all honesty, I was probably introduced to both Eclipso and the Queen Bee in the magical 1966 Batman Card Game by Whitman that was sitting around my childhood home. The people who produced the game were probably given a few comics of the day and most likely thought the two baddies from B&B #64 were prominent Bat-villains, worthy of rubbing elbows with such luminaries as the Joker and the Penguin!
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MORE
— 13 ECLIPSO COVERS: It’s Eclipse Day! Click here.
— ZANY BOB HANEY: Dig 13 MORE Great BRAVE AND THE BOLD Stories. Click here.
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When JIM BEARD’s not editing and publishing through his two houses, Flinch Books and Becky Books, he’s pounding out adventure fiction with both original and licensed characters. In fact, he’s put words in the mouths of Luke Skywalker, Superman, Fox Mulder, Carl Kolchak, Peter Venkman and the Green Hornet… and lived to tell about it. His latest pop culture non-fiction tome is Breaking Bold and Brave, available here.
April 8, 2024
That issue of Super Team Family was my first exposure too. Such a great memory, I must have reread that story dozens of times. Can’t wait to read your newest book, Jim. The cover doesn’t scream B&B but I’ve a pretty good idea what’s between the covers. (I’m guessing legal reasons for the title and cover choices.) Hopefully you’ve got some new Adventure Team stories left to tell soon too!
April 8, 2024
Thanks, Buck. Yes, I couldn’t get that close to anything DC-owned, but the logo is a combo of the 1950s and early 70s B&B logos, and all of the cover images are generic versions of all the B&B themes and stars.
April 9, 2024
Jim, my copy should arrive this week. Your book is jumping to the top of the heap. Just gotta finish “Doc Savage: Skull Island” first.
April 9, 2024
Sincerely appreciate the faith. Please leave me an honest review when you’re done.
April 8, 2024
One of my all-time favorite issues of Brave & the Bold. Like you, I first came across it in the Super Team Family reprint…which I found at a used book store. I grew up on Bob Haney, but it didn’t prepare me for this. The story is totally Bat-crap crazy….Haney at his Haney-ist.
BTW, Queen Bee didn’t just make it to the Whitman card game. She was also on a jigsaw puzzle. I wonder if she is the only DC character who had more merchandising appearances than comic appearances. I would love, love, love a Queen Bee action figure or statue, but I know we’ll never get one.
April 8, 2024
Sure, but all I ever knew as a kid was the card game. I didn’t know the puzzle existed back then.
April 9, 2024
No criticism intended. I became a Batman fan in 1976, and fully remember the times when we only learned about Batman comics/merchandise if we went into a store and saw it. I bought one of the jigsaw puzzles off eBay just because I am so fond of Queen Bee…well, and Batman, too, of course.
Good luck with the B&B book. I’ve ordered mine.
April 10, 2024
Joe, no worries. Love talking Batman merch. Thanks so much for the order. I hope you’ll let me know what you thought of the book.
April 8, 2024
That Super-Team Family is actually #5, not #76.
April 8, 2024
Why do you hate SUPER-TEAM FAMILY so much you’d begrudge me some wish-fulfillment? (Yes, it’s being corrected. Just fumble-fingers on my part. I’m aware the book didn’t have 76 issues.)
April 9, 2024
I think I missed this one! But I read some of the Eclipso reprints in World’s Finest and as an eclipse geek since I saw the 1970 one in the U.S., I loved it! Read a page of an Eclipso story in a World’s Finest reprint by the light of an eclipsed Moon when I was about 12 years old!
April 9, 2024
Jeff, here’s hoping you’ll seek this one out and read it.