The Rock And The Bold!

I dearly miss the "Haneyverse". For those who might not know, the "Haneyverse" was the loving nickname fanboys gave to the work of Bob Haney, especially his work in The Brave and the Bold starring Batman and others. Those others could pop up from anywhere and sometimes any when and not always or even usually was much effort to maintain any connection to continuity in the guest's world. One of the regular visitors in the "Haneyverse" was Sgt.Rock.

There was very little communication generally between DC's war comics and its superhero comics, mostly I guess due to the difference in tone in the two genres and at DC anyway, the manner in which comics were arranged into fiefdoms with lots of editors running villages of comics. But in the "Haneyverse" it was all on the table and so we get Sgt. Rock teaming up with Batman both in the "modern" world and in the past of World War II. The time since WWII was still just close enough that Rock being a viable assist and vice versa was still possible.

In their first meeting Bruce Wayne is called upon during wartime to become a secret agent behind the lines and is assisted by Rock and Easy Company to forestall a deadly Nazi scheme to use poison gas. In the second we shift to the here and now and both Batman and Bruce Wayne are required to act as agents of the government when an ambassador is kidnapped and Rock is the primary suspect. Neal Adams drew the first with gusto and Nick Cardy was on hand to add his creamy goodness to the second.

(Reprint of Brave and Bold #108)

In their their team-up things get a little more fluid as we meet Rock as an older soldier who has been tracking the same man for many years, a man he believes to be Hitler. At the same time this man might or might not be the mysterious fellow who saves Batman from a well and then says the hero must do evil. It's a Faustian whodunnit of the first stripe. This is the first of three drawn by Jim Aparo.

When next they meet, it's Rock who's in big trouble with the ghost of a man he shot for cowardice long ago still haunts him. It's a weird tale with lots of convolutions but in the end as you already know Batman and Rock win the day.

But perhaps the weirdest of the Batman-Rock team-ups happened in issue #124 when both Rock and Batman are saved from certain death by the people who are in the best position to do so, artist Jim Aparo, writer Bob Haney and editor Murray Boltinoff.

As they are chased by the same terrorists in the story both Aparo and Haney use their wits to keep the story rolling and so keep Batman an Rock on the trail. The fourth wall is blasted to smithereens in this delightful comic book.

Batman and Sgt.Rock have a much ore regular adventure when they fight together in the heat of World War II against a deadly Nazi leader. The Batman here is Batman-2, and so this adventure is on Earth-2 where the Justice Society of America handles most of the superheroics. Finally continuity seems to have washed up on the shores of the exciting and unpredictable "Haneyverse".

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