Brave and the Bold: "Bold Beginnings!"

Another episode of Batman: Brave and the Bold with a whole lotta Aquaman, as well as some of my other favorite heroes!

After an opening segment featuring a team-up between Batman and Space Ghost(!!), this show opens with Aquaman, Green Arrow, and Plastic Man prisoners of the dastardly Mr. Freeze:

As Green Arrow struggles to pick the lock holding Aquaman, the three heroes thoughts naturally turn to Batman...as in, how lame it would be for him to show up and rescue them all.

This of course leads Aquaman to reminisce about the first time he met Batman...only for Green Arrow to interrupt and tell his own story about teaming-up with the Dark Knight Detective, which centered around catching the debonair villain The Cavalier.

After he's done, Aquaman resumes his story, only to be interrupted again:

Plastic Man tells his Batman story, about the time they took on the Dick Tracy-esque villain Babyface.

After Plas finishes, Aquaman sneezes, causing Arrow to drop his skeleton key. As it lay there on the floor, our heroes helpless, Aquaman finally gets to regale his pals with his story. It was soon after Arthur became King of Atlantis, "not even long enough to grow my luxurious beard!"

Aquaman's dolphin pal tells him there's trouble, and there sure is: Batman is being held captive underwater, being roughed up by some thugs! Whose thugs? One guess:

Aquaman steps in and helps free Batman, but Black Manta calls in reinforcements. The way Aquaman tells it, it was ten...no, twenty...no, fifty henchmen, plus at least that many killer sharks under Manta's mind control!

...Green Arrow doubts the veracity of this story. No matter, Aquaman keeps talking.

Just then, Mr. Freeze (looking very much like the version from the Batman TV show) arrives, meaning Aquaman is interrupted again. He's about to blast our heroes with his freeze gun, when Batman shows up!

Bats throws some explosives at the ice stalactites, freeing all three. Mr. Freeze calls in some henchmen of his own, and its a classic Brave and the Bold donnybrook. And Aquaman couldn't be happier!

Green Arrow severs the cord to Mr. Freeze's gun, leaving him helpless. He turns to find Aquaman, really mad that he didn't get to finish his story:

As Mr. Freeze slides across the floor, the adventure is over. Batman and Green Arrow depart, with Plastic Man asking for a ride. Aquaman decides to stay and wait for the authorities, choosing to "entertain" Mr. Freeze with the rest of his Batman story. Mr. Freeze lets loose a groaning "Ach du lieber!" and our story is over.


As a kid, my all-time four favorite superhero characters were, in order, Aquaman, Batman, Green Arrow, and Plastic Man. Because Plas was not in the JLA (at least until Alex Ross came around), I rarely--if ever--got to see them all in one book together. If DC had decided to put out a book with just those four, it would have rocketed to Favorite Comics status. So I got a real nerdy tingle over this episode featuring all four of them:

On top of that we get to see a glimpse of, for lack of a better term, Aquaman: Year One, Black Manta, plus a team-up with Space Ghost! I know I say this for nearly every episode, but...Outrageous!