Misleading cover? Overwritten dialog? Convoluted storylines involving decades of continuity? It must be the 1970s!
So already you know this is going to be kind of goofy. Let's check out that first panel and see where this is heading!
"GIVE ME THE... BRAIN!" Just buckle up kids, this one starts off incoherent and gets even goofier as it goes along.
No, seriously, I'm not kidding.
This dates from the era of comics when superheros would describe every single thing that they did or saw or felt inside their heads. In fact science has shown that 9 out of 10 blackout victims have enough time to shout "Aiiee! I.. I'm blacking out!" before they lose conciousness. While Batman is busy tripping his brains out, over in Metropolis Superman is fighting Sinestro. In practical terms this means Sinestro does property damage and Superman fixes it. It's a little game they play to hide their deeply suppressed love for each other.
I think this is the only time Superman ever used the words "super butt" in a sentence.
Whee! Tiny ground up pieces of glass! Let me play in it mommy! And this is 1979 so you know that some people are going to try to put this up their nose. Way to go there Superman.
Meanwhile in Gotham City Batman is hauling this crazy string-tie wearing doctor around and being menaced by crooks who announce what they're about to do in loud voices. If only all criminals would follow suit. LOOT THE SAVINGS AND LOAN, they'd holler. BLACKMAIL DAVID LETTERMAN would be their battle cry. All right, enough yelling and powdered glass. What's really going on here?
So there was this crime boss who was executed and they took his brain and put it inside a giant ape which surprisingly enough created an ape who was also a crime boss, but he fell off the Empire State Building and died. Now you'd think this would be enough crazy outlandish plot for any superhero comic, but you'd be wrong.
Recently alien beings schemed to turn Earth into a non-green world. Don't ask me why, they just did. Look, if you're going to hassle me on every single inane, nonsensical story point, we'll be here al night! Just take my word for it, they wanted Earth to not have any green in it, and in order to carry out their green-eliminating plot, they needed the brain of the crime boss which at one point had been put inside a gorilla. Are you following me here?
And IRONICALLY this crime boss gorilla non-green alien plot nerve center brain, it somehow wound up being put inside Batman's skull. Also IRONICALLY the writers of this story do not know what the word IRONY means, unless Batman had spent that whole story telling everybody how he sure didn't want that crime boss gorilla non-green alien plot nerve center brain in his skull. Which I don't put past them, to be honest.
As the underworld medico rambles on, we realize that if aliens from space landed and stole our crime boss gorilla non-green alien plot nerve center brain, we'd be in a freaked out state too.
Yellow aliens... yield signs... sign of the times... the New York Times... newspapers... William Randolph Hearst... yellow journalism... Spanish-American war... Remember the Maine... the Main Event starring Barbara Streisand... who's a big Barbara Streisand fan... Green Lantern... tiny moustache... Sinestro! That's IT, old chum!
And, owing to sloppy brain removal techniques on the part of string-tie underworld doctors, Batman still has a little bit of crime boss gorilla non-green alien plot nerve center brain in his skull rattling around giving him clues to what's happening in Metropolis. Yeeow!
And people say comic books are confusing nonsense. I beg to differ!
Okay so we need a one-page spread here of Superman flying towards a giant brain in outer space. No, I don't have any photo reference for a brain! Just make something up! What are we paying you for? Who cares what it looks like? Colletta will ruin it anyway!
And so the crime boss gorilla non-green alien plot nerve center brain is burned out of existence by Superman's x-ray vision. Because those are actually X-rays shooting out from his eyes, giving cancer to Lois Lane and everybody else Superman ever looks at.
How did Superman punch me through the dimensions and into the anti-matter universe of Qward? With his super-aim, that's how.
Another case closed for the super team of Superman and Batman! Join us next time when our heroes battle the giant irradiated left toe of Klem-Zor the Kryptonian Super Toad, whose saliva glands were implanted into the city council of Bayonne New Jersey and shot into space aboard Apollo 15 where they became rulers of the Moon until Hawkman accidentally parked in their reserved parking spaces and forced them to attack Star City where the Flash and Wonder Woman time-share a vacation condo!
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