It's interesting to note that Adams' art changes, for the better, where he abandons the oddly shaped panels for square and rectangles, but changes their dimensions a lot more. Their Brave and the Bold fill-in issue not only features a crossover with the supernatural series “House of Mystery”, but also features Jim Gordon giving Batman a ticket to a cruise. Adams also drew a few stories for Weird Western Tales and House of Mystery and covers for Action Comics and Justice League of America as well.

At that time, Neal held a position of respect in the industry that no one in comics since then has achieved.

The Detective Comics issues were fun little mystery stories that shunned more well-known villains for one-off characters. That may not seem like a great deal of money, but at the time it meant a great deal to myself as well as my mothers . As well, Adams drew 18 sample dailies (three weeks' continuity) of a proposed dramatic serial, Tangent, about construction engineer Barnaby Peake, his college-student brother Jeff, and their teenaged sibling Chad, in 1965, but it was not syndicated.

That’s not to suggest that the pair were entirely free of some of the sillier trappings of earlier adventures. Art is subjective and we as viewers bring to it a certain personal history that can influence our perspective. I’d also forgotten that all Batman’s adventures were considered ‘cases’ that he made a case file of. As the story goes, they are the team that brought back to his darker roots after the Batman TV show came and went. Big bonus points for the transparent logo that helps sell the movement of the giant ax and the creepy negative version of the Bathead.Not that these things were unknown in comics by any stretch, but publishers traditionally deemphasized them. Neal Adams is considered one of the greatest Batman artists of all-time, and one of comics' most influential illustrators.

The ABC series, which ran five seasons, ended March 21, 1966, with the final comic strip appearing Sunday, July 31, 1966. Although he was scarred once again – in a convenient explosion, like in a certain other Two-Face story – in his last prior appearance, over a decade-and-a-half before this story.

I just find it interesting that Bob Haney had a similar fixation on Hispanic culture during his own The Brave and the Bold run. Instead, he deals with the idea of civil corruption, which feels like a theme that works quite well with Batman, as the hero’s meddling in a mayoral election manages to stop only the greater crook from winning office. While the Brave and the Bold always had some odd-ball pairings and some weird stories (“Punish nor my EVIL son! Various crooks who have been defeated by Batman come together to join the “Batman Revenge Squad” but one of the benefits of the squad is that they get to put on a costume much like Batman’s except it is purple and dark purple and the bat-symbol has a skull between the wings!