Fred Van Lente’s back with another not-at-all facetious clash of the titans… By FRED VAN LENTE Hey gang, welcome to Part Two of a slugfest between the premier Big Two team-up books, The Brave and the Bold and Marvel Team-Up. A commenter in Part One complained that I was pitting mostly average issues of MTU versus superlative issues of B&B, and if I went out and sought better examples of the former, the latter wouldn’t have run the table last time. While I appreciate the urge for fairness, due to strict COMIC BOOK DEATH MATCH regulations (regulations which I, as Commissioner and sole member of the North American Comic Book Death Match Association, totally made up) I can only pit issues against each other that came out in the same month (thanks to pub data provided by the fine folks at Mike’s Amazing World of Comics), so if I pick one comic that might be interesting or amusing to discuss, I’m forced to pick that month’s counterpart from the opposing title, regardless of its relative quality. I’d also argue that having read more than 100 issues of Marvel Team-Up at this point, there are only “average” issues of Marvel Team-Up! Sorry/not sorry. Bob Haney and Jim Aparo had something special going on in their B&B run, while across Midtown at Marvel nobody else yet clicked. (Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema are terrific creators, but their Team-Ups never reached the heights of their, well, incredible run on Hulk.) But now that we’ve reached ’76 in our re-read, something interesting is happening, as John Byrne joins MTU as main series penciller and Chris Claremont as main series writer not long thereafter. Will that alter the outcome of this round at all? Let’s find out—ring that bell!! — NOVEMBER 1976 The Brave and the Bold #132: “Batman—Dragon Slayer??” Richard Dragon, DC’s Chuck Norris ripoff answer to Marvel’s Bruce Lee ripoff Shang-Chi, is visiting a friend’s Gotham City dojo when he gets challenged to a kung fu duel in the park, which, for Dragon, I assume is just a regular Tuesday. Batman, who seems to think Gotham’s real name is Bat City, doesn’t like people who aren’t him fighting on his turf; he and Dragon battle to a standstill, and he grudgingly agrees to figure out who put a killer on Dragon’s tail....