Originally posted on Superman board November 16, 2003

The Mightiest Team In The World Superman #76 Reprinted in Superman: From The 30's To The 70's
"These two mighty champions of the right have never met -- until now!"
Really? Not even when they appeared in All-Star Comics #7 (October 1941) & All-Star Comics #36 (August 1947)?

A man steals some jewels from U.S. Customs and Superman & Batman believe he has snuck on board the passenger ship.
Rather than holding the ship and searching it over thoroughly the ship is allowed to sail, apparently out of the country (the U.S. Customs office is seen when the ship returns at the end of the story.)

Batman swings into Bruce Wayne & Clark Kent's cabin porthole on a rope. Way to keep that secret identity secret, Bats. No one will suspect anything when they see that rope hanging down over your porthole.

The crook is stopped & turned over to the local police. Now, of course, begins the nightmare of extradition.

Originally posted on Superman board September 15, 2002

The Reversed Heroes Reprinted in World's Finest Comics #223
In this story it's revealed that Jor-el created some "radioactive capsules" to renew their superpowers if they should ever lose them. Surviving Krypton's explosion the box ends up on Earth where an Earth villain reads the English writing on the box and takes them gaining superpowers.
1. Shouldn't the writing on the box have been Kryptonian?
2. Amazing that these capsules, designed for an alien physiology, work on Humans. (Hmmm, in the Legion story, "The War Between Krypton And Earth" it was shown that ancient Kryptonians had emigrated to prehistoric Earth, presumably during the Mesozoic, but they all supposedly were wiped out. Maybe somehow their DNA survived & played a part in human evolution???)

At the end of the story the remaining capsules are taken, for safekeeping, to the batcave.
1. Why not take them to the Fortress of Solitude?
2. Did these capsules ever appear in another story again? (Might have come in handy when Batman was fighting Bane.)

The Capsules:
Batman would need them now if Superman was killed or went rouge.

Went rouge? No, they already did the Superman Red storyline. ;-)

The word you meant is rogue.

Robin: Why is Superman speaking in a southern accent and have a white streak in his hair?
Batman: Oh, no! He's gone Rogue.

Originally posted on the Batman board November 24, 2003

Superman's And Batman's Greatest Foes! Reprinted in Batman: From The 30's To The 70's
Luthor & Joker having done their time have claimed to go straight. Okay, technically only Luthor claims to have served his time in the story, but since the Joker isn't arrested for being out of prison or past crimes one presumes he must have.
Which is my problem. I'm not sure of Luthor's criminal past at this point in time, but the Joker is a multiple murderer. The first Joker story had him bragging about killing people on the radio. There should be no way in hell that this guy should be out on parole, let alone not getting the death penalty!

I wonder what name the Joker used when he signed those papers? To the best of my knowledge the only times the Joker was given a real name was the Tim Burton movie and the animated series, (Jack Napier, IIRC). However the comics always seem to treat the Joker's real name as a secret & whenever he seems to reveal it, it turns out to be a lie. (I'm not sure if it's ever been stated that no one knows the Joker's real name, but I am under the impression that it was.)

Luthor & the Joker send four Mechano-Men, by remote-control, down to the ocean bottom to search for some sunken diamonds. One sinks into the mud and Superman disguised as a Mechano-Man takes its place and returns with the others to Luthor & Joker's factory.
Okayyyyyyyyy, so why didn't Luthor's remote-control let him know that one of the Mechano-Men was stuck?
Also how would the Mechano-Men know what industrial diamonds look like? Either that info was programmed into them, at which point the remote-control becomes superfluous, or Luthor is able to monitor what the Mechano-Men can sense, at which point he'd know one was stuck.

Back at the plant, Luthor & Joker discover that Supes has taken the place of a Mechano-Man, but they don't let him know that they know, so they discuss a plan to make a fool out of him in the office.
Excuse me, Supes, but aren't you disguised as a Mechano-Man to learn what skullduggery Luthor & the Joker are up to? Don't you think it would be a good idea to use your superhearing to eavesdrop on what they are saying?

Bat-Mite Meets Mr Mxyzptlk Reprinted in Batman: From The 30's To The 70's
Batman & Robin use a giant acetylene torch to melt the road in front of a giant robot.
1. Why would anyone build a giant working acetylene torch??? That fact that it works indicates that it is full of acetylene gas and, I would think, that setting it next to a road where a car can crash into it, would constitute a danger to the general public.
2. So this is where Johnny Storm got the idea to melt roads! He's a closet DC fan! ;-)

Superman throws a giant rock at the, now flying, robot to smash it to smithereens.
Yeahhhhh, riiiiiiiiiiiiight.
1. There are crooks inside operating this. I should think smashing the robot to smithereens would most likely kill them.
2. Would the smashed robot & rock fall down, possibly on people, and most likely causing extensive property damage?
3. Wouldn't a better plan of action be to use superspeed and superstrength, or vision powers, to disable the rocket then use heat or X-ray vision to fuse the joints of the robot's legs so it couldn't walk away?

On page 4 the giant robot robs a jewelry store, however the necklaces in the robot's hands appear to be giant-sized themselves.

Batman & Robin knock a giant hollow statue onto the robot. If it's hollow I should think falling onto the robot, then the road would smash it to smithereens.

Batman or Robin say, "Should knockout the crooks inside, too!"
Or crush them to a pulp.

Luthor & the Joker send four Mechano-Men, by remote-control, down to the ocean bottom to search for some sunken diamonds. One sinks into the mud and Superman disguised as a Mechano-Man takes its place and returns with the others to Luthor & Joker's factory.
Okayyyyyyyyy, so why didn't Luthor's remote-control let him know that one of the Mechano-Men was stuck?
Also how would the Mechano-Men know what industrial diamonds look like? Either that info was programmed into them, at which point the remote-control becomes superfluous, or Luthor is able to monitor what the Mechano-Men can sense, at which point he'd know one was stuck.

Okay, I'm assuming that what happened is that Supes put the shell of the Mechano-Man on like a suit of armor and used that to pretend he's one of Lex's robots. If so, it brings to my mind two questions. Number one is, how could Luthor fail to know that Superman has impersonated his robot? And the second is why the flamin' is that Mechano-Man so hollow on the inside that Superman can get into it?

"Up, up and away!"

Originally posted November 25, 2003
Benn - I'm assuming that what happened is that Supes put the shell of the Mechano-Man on like a suit of armor and used that to pretend he's one of Lex's robots.
Nope. The Mechano-Men look human so Supes just used make-up and the same type of clothing to look like a Mechano-Man.

(Imitating Miss Emily Letella) Oh, that's completely different. Nevermind.

"Up, up and away!"

The Super Bat-Man! World's Finest Comics #77 Reprinted in The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told
This can probably go in any number of stories where Superman loses his powers, but I thought about it nitpicking this story so...
Why does Superman have normal strength & vulnerability when he loses his powers?
He still has his 'adapted to the greater gravity of Krypton' muscles. (Okay, so in reality all those years on Earth would have degraded the muscles to Earth normal, although the original explanation for his super-strength was the specially adapted muscles.)
Also he should still have his denser skin which should make him tougher than the average person.

Batman accidentally gets superpowers from a special charging ray that fills a person with electrical energy & gives them superpowers.
Uh, yeah... that's why when people rub balloons on their hair they can fly & have bullets bounce off their chests. The writer should have just said fills them with a special energy instead of electrical energy.

Surprisingly Batman's costume seems to have been supercharged as well. He uses his hands to dig a cave & doesn't rip the fabric.

Batman flies an orphanage, with the orphans still inside from one location to another. Surprisingly the building doesn't fall apart under the stress.

It's revealed that Superman didn't lose his powers from a de-charging ray as Pender had said, but a very fine spray of kryptonite. Oddly enough the kryptonite didn't affect Superman's costume. It's still as invulnerable as ever.

Supes says that he changed out of his regular costume & put on a spare. So where did he get the spare kryptonian fabric? Also since a blow torch had burned some of the kryptonite out of the right arm of his costume why not just take off the costume, move some distance away, then use heat vision to burn out the rest of the kryptonite?

Pender's charging machine cannot be used again because the tube is broken. Uh, yeah, but Pender still knows how to build another. All he needs is the rare elements to charge it.

The Capsules:
Batman would need them now if Superman was killed or went rouge. - Matt Pesti

If such were the case, you'd think Bats would have used them when he went up against Supes in the two Frank Miller Dark Knight minis.

"Up, up and away!"

Wipe The Blood From My Name World's Finest Comics #223
According to this story Gotham is a hundred miles from Metropolis. Later (in the JLA, I believe) it would be established that Gotham, Metropolis & New York are all near each other. Is New York a 100 miles wide?

This story introduces Thomas Wayne, Jr., Batman's older but mentally damaged brother. I think he would make one more appearance where he was killed and then be quietly removed from canon.

Deadman takes over Superman's body, but is unable to do any superstunts because he figures that Superman's alien corpuscles don't mix with an earthly ghost.
I thought the editorial policy of DC was to say that Kryptonian's were human not alien?

The Reversed Heroes Original publication not listed Reprinted in World's Finest Comics #223
Superman's flashback to Krypton's last moments is different from other such scenes.
Here Jor-el mentions the radioactive pills that can give someone superpowers.
The rocket looks different.
Baby Kal-el is wearing a copy of his father's outfit rather than being wrapped in red, yellow & blue blankets.

Powerless Superman hits the ground & thinks this unpleasant feeling must be what they call pain. Uh, hasn't Supes felt pain before? Like when exposed to kryptonite?

Superman thinks, "I've swallowed kryptonite dust and until it wears off I'll have no superpowers!"
Actually I think as long as it's in his system he'll have no superpowers. Better start eating lots of prunes. (Oddly enough Supes does regain his powers later without have to go to the bathroom.)

The superpowered Craig throws the now powerless Superman toward a cliff to distract the now superpowered Batman & Robin, thereby making his getaway.
Couldn't only one of them have gone to catch Superman?

Superpowered Batman blocks lightning with his chest. Oddly enough when we see him later his costume does not appear burned or scorched. Since the radioactive chemicals only affected Batman's body his costume should be vulnerable. (Maybe he flew to the Batcave at superspeed & changed to a new uniform?)

The Composite Superman! World's Finest Comics #142 Reprinted in World's Finest Comics #223
Plot: Joe Meach, resentful of Superman & Batman's popularity because he feels they got all the breaks while he's had nothing but bad luck, is given all the powers of the Legion of Super-Heroes. He becomes the Composite Superman to humilate Batman & Superman by pretending to be a new crimefighter & secretly tripping them up. He successfully defeats Batman & Superman, but his powers start to wear off before he can kill them and when he becomes Joe Meach again he completely forgets everything about being the Composite Superman.

Since the Splash page comes first what can be seen of the order of the Legion statuettes should probably be considered correct, but instead I'm going to use the order we see in the first full clear-shot of the statuettes & nit everything else.

Top Row: Brainiac 5, Chameleon Boy, Saturn Girl, Colossal Boy, Cosmic Boy, Shrinking Violet, Lightning Lad, Mon-el, Matter-Eater Lad, Star Boy

Bottom Row: Element Lad, Light Lass, Ultra Boy, Triplicate Girl, Elastic Lad, Bouncing Boy, Invisible Kid, Sun Boy, Phantom Girl, Supergirl

The splash page shows the statuettes from an angle with a number of the statuettes in silhouette. However it has 9 figures on the top row & 11 figures on the bottom row, instead of 10 each.
Colossal Boy is next to Shrinking Violet.
Lightning Lad is where Light Lass should be.
Bouncing Boy preceeds Elastic Lad.

When the Composite Superman introduces himself to Superman, Batman & Robin he has used his Chameleon Boy powers to make himself look like half Superman, half Batman & has made all visible skin green. Now since the Batman half of the mask only covers a quarter of his face, I had to laugh when Superman used his X-Ray vision to try & see beneath it.

Oddly enough the Composite Superman made the mask lead-lined. Since he used Chameleon Boy's power why bother? Just another way to baffle Superman?

And speaking of lead, it's amazing that the Composite Superman gets the superheroes' powers, but not their weaknesses. Lead (Mon-el's weakness) & kryptonite (Supergirl's weakness) don't bother him at all.

After Batman & Robin were knocked unconscious, the Composite Superman grabs two of the crooks guns & thinks that Batman & Robin won't know he captured the crooks by using a superpower.
Yeah, right..., unless maybe one of the crooks says something!

The Legion made these statuettes as a gift for Superboy & later member Jimmy (Elastic Lad) Olsen asked that a statuette of himself be made as well.
Surprisingly later (Post-2964) heroes like Dream Girl, Ferro Lad, Karate Kid, Princess Projectra, Chemical King, Timber Wolf, Shadow Lass, Wildfire, Tyroc, etc. don't have statuettes of themselves there.
Light Lass's statuette features her still in her old Lightning Lass uniform.
Supergirl & Elastic Lad's inclusions are problematic. Superboy had a post-hypnotic suggestion that made him forget any future knowledge he learned, so Supergirl & Jimmy Olsen were two things he should have forgotten since he wouldn't meet them until he was Superman. One possible anti-nit is that maybe he wasn't given these statuettes until he was Superman, but then one wonders why didn't he get any statuettes of later Legionnaires.

In order to test if the Composite Superman is a friend or foe they fire green shells at a Superman robot & a remote controlled Batplane. Superman thinks that the Composite Superman won't know they are robots because of lead in the uniforms & the robot's face paint.
Clearly Superman was not thinking this through. Why would Batman, Robin or Superman have lead in their costumes & makeup? Obviously because they were hiding something. If Superman were covered in lead why would green kryptonite shells affect him? (Not that the Composite Superman needed to ask himself those questions. His Penetra-vision can see through lead anyway, although the heroes didn't know that.)

First Panel of Final Page, we can only see three of the statuettes, but artist Curt Swan accidentally put Element Lad on the top row & Brainiac 5 & Chameleon Boy on the bottom row.

The Return Of The Composite Superman! World's Finest Comics #168 Reprinted in Super-Team Family #6
Plot: On a distant planet an alien criminal captured by Batman & Superman dies & his son, Xan, vows revenge. While he has a weapon that can kill them instantly, he wants them to suffer & since the Composite Superman is the only villain who defeated them he secretly gives Joe Meach the power to become the Composite Superman again. The Composite Superman figures out a way to use all his powers at once to kill Superman & Batman, but his powers start to fade before it is fatal, so Xan decides to finish the job. However Joe Meach isn't the same person he was 3 years earlier and he throws himself in front of Xan's gun & dies to save Superman & Batman.

I wonder if the alien who is shown dying was from a previous story or if he was from an unpublished adventure?

How does Xan know that the Composite Superman defeated Batman & Superman? I seriously doubt that they publicised the fact.

How does Xan know Joe Meach is the Composite Superman & how he got his powers?

The Light Lass statuette is now wearing the main Light Lass costume, the one with the feather logo.
(This is the only mistake I could find with the statuettes this time. With 3 years between stories the possiblity of making mistakes with the statuettes & their order was high. Cudos to artist Curt Swan for getting everything else as it looked 3 years earlier.)

Page 13, Panel 3. The Composite Superman's skin is colored yellow instead of green.

Page 14, Panel 1. The Composite Superman's left boot & left half of his trunks are colored green instead of blue.

Using all of his powers at once the Composite Superman is able to turn Batman & Superman into half anti-matter.
Okayyyyyyyyy, obviously he used Brainiac 5's genius & Element Lad's matter transmutation power.
Saturn Girl, Cosmic Boy, Lightning Lad, Mon-el, Star Boy, Light Lass, Ultra Boy, Sun Boy, & Supergirl all have some form of energy projection, so maybe he used those somehow.
In a later story it was explained that Matter-Eater Lad's people convert the matter they eat into energy & the excess energy apparently radiates away invisibly. So maybe that was somehow utilized.
Invisible Kid has the ability to let light either pass through him or around him. Since photons are their own antiparticle perhaps this was somehow utilized.
Phantom Girl comes from the fourth-dimensional world of Bgztl where natives can shift the state from solid to phantom. State-shifting might be necesary in this kind of thing.
Triplicate Girl can split herself into three people. Might be necesary in splitting someone to half matter & half anti-matter.
Chameleon Boy, Colossal Boy, Shrinking Violet, Bouncing Boy, & Elastic Lad can all alter their bodies shape and/or size, so maybe even their powers can be utilized in this. (Although I consider this a real stretch. ;-)

Surprisingly it will take a few minutes for the anti-matter to annihilate Batman & Superman. Geeze. Turn someone's body to half anti-matter I would expect an immediate explosion as it comes into contact with all matter around it.

On the base of Joe Meach's statue it reads, "Joe Meach He lived a criminal, but died a hero".
Lived a criminal? No, Joe Meach was a hard luck stuntman turned janitor. He only became a criminal when he was given many superpowers temporarily. The rest of his life seemed to be relatively free of committing crimes.

The Composite Superman really needs to make a comeback; maybe not Joe Meach, but a different character.

There was a third story in the '80s (pre-Crisis, IIRC) & the Legion was actually involved rather than just making a cameo, but I never got, or read, that story so I don't know who he was or how he came back. (The Legion statuettes that gave Meach his powers were destroyed in the second story.)

One of my complaints about Crisis On Infinite Earths is that with Harbinger's ability to go back in time she couldn't go back & bring the Composite Superman forward, or at least grab the statuettes & Monitor can use them to give people the power to become an army of Composite Supermen (& women), to send against the Anti-Monitor.

One of my complaints about Crisis on Infinite Earths is the way it killed off the Bug-Eyed Bandit. And the Mirror Master. And the Icicle. And Angle Man. (Sniff)

Oh, yeah. All the pointless casual deaths wiping out characters left & right.

Apparently the Bug-Eyed Bandit's death was all Perez. He hated the character & made sure that he was killed off.

Why would you hate the Bug-Eyed Bandit? I mean, what, he menaced the Atom in about five adventures? I mean, why don't you go work for X-Men and kill off some of their characters?

BTW, what Clayface dies in Crisis at the same time as the Bandit?

I know that Post-Crisis there was an arc in Detective that pitted Batman against four of the Clayfaces ("The Mud Pack"). But I'm not sure which of the Clayfaces were there (been a while since I've read those issues), much less which Clayface was offed as a result of Crisis.

Excelsior!

The second Clayface. (Who I believe teamed up with Brainiac once to fight Superman & Batman in World's Finest.)

The first Clayface was just an actor who used makeup (until the The Mud Pack storyline).
The second one was a crook who discovered a radioactive pool that allowed him to change shape. (The best one, I feel.)
The third was a rip-off of the Incredible Melting Man.
I have very little information on Lady Clayface other than her existence.

The Animated Series Clayface was an amalgam of the first & second Clayfaces.

Never read any other story with the Bug-Eyed Bandit so I wasn't familair with him, but I agree with killing off those boring X-villains.

BTW there is a board for discussing Crisis On Infinite Earths.

Let me see here: Basil Karlo, Matt Hagen, Preston Payne, right?

The first two are right, not sure of the third. Only read one story featuring him and was less than impressed.

Preston Payne, Clayface III, first appeared in Batman's Detective Comics #477-479. He was the first Clayface I ever encountered. I kinda liked him. He was a rather tragic character, I thought.

"Some days, you just can't get rid of a bomb."

The Super-Sons were a series of Imaginary Stories. For some odd reason the JLA computer* decided to do a projection of what would happen if Superman & Batman had married (other people, obviously) & had sons, Superman, Jr. & Batman, Jr.

Why did the computer do this? I dunno, I guess the Dharlu was really, really bored.
* Or maybe it was Superman's computer at the Fortress of Solitude? *shrug* I don't have the issue that explained it & can't doublecheck.

Technically the series was probably set around 15 years in the future, which would put it in the late `80s, early `90s, although the artists didn't knock themselves out trying to predict future fashions & writer Bob Haney's teenager dialogue felt more `60s than anything else. (Not as bad as his Teen Titans 'hip' dialogue though.)
Of course since this is a computer projection & not a 'real' story any flaws can be dismissed as just a computer error.

The Shocking Switch Of The Super-Sons World's Finest Comics #224
Clark, Jr. says, "I could have shaken off that collapsing building as easy as this pup shakes off fleas!"
If dogs could easily shake off fleas, then there would be no need for flea collars.

While fighting crooks Batman says, "Bruce? My boy... Bruce?"
Gee, way to keep that secret identity Bats. Sure you didn't expect Bruce, Jr. to show up, but how long have you been fighting crime?

Superman calls Superman, Jr., Clark & they are not that far away from an Army copter. I think Supes & Bats have got supersenility.

Me - The second Clayface. (Who I believe teamed up with Brainiac once to fight Superman & Batman in World's Finest.)
Clayface II appeared in World's Finest Comics #140 (where he duplicated Superman & his powers) & World's Finest Comics #144 where he teamed up with Brainiac.

The Menace Of The Moonman! World's Finest Comics #98 Reprinted in Super-Team Family #4
Batman & Robin are fighting crooks on the side of a giant moon display as if they are on top. Technically they should all fall off that sucker.

The Origin Of The Superman-Batman Team World's Finest Comics issue number not given Reprinted in Secret Origins Of Super-Heroes DC Special Series #19
Plot: Luthor breaks out of prison. Thinking that he might use kryptonite against Superman, Batman & Robin race off to Metropolis where Superman & his new partner Powerman (no, not Luke Cage) tell Batman & Robin that they are not needed. Trying to find out who this Powerman is & why Superman rejected them, Batman remembers the first time they teamed up. After thinking about the first adventure Batman realizes that Superman wouldn't want to endanger Batman & Robin's lives & discovers that Luthor escaped from prison using a ray that disintegrates everything but silicon. Whipping up some silicon shields Batman & Robin race to where Luthor is holed up and get the kryptonite away from Luthor. After catching the crooks Superman reveals that Powerman was a robot.

Despite what it said in Superman #76 this story tells of an earlier first meeting between Superman & Batman.

Batman observes, "Whoever Powerman is, he hasn't super-powers--Superman is carrying him!"
Actually all that proves is Powerman can't fly, you know, like Flash or Aquaman.

Superman picks up a building like it's a toy house.
Yeah, right... if Supes existed in the real world and tried that stunt the building wall would break.

Robin says, "He may not have super-powers, but he's strong!"
Or maybe super-strength is one of his powers? All you really know is he can't fly.

Flashback to their first case. Batman disguises himself as Superman, walks into the bad guys hideout and the crooks spray him with the kryptonite solution. One of the crooks notices, "The spray washed make-up off his face! He's not Superman!"
Problem is later Batman removes a mask of Superman's face. Oddly enough part of the mask is missing. What could destroy part of a mask, but not affect the costume or Batman?

BTW the Superman mask fit over Batman's cowl, pointy ears & all.

B&R go to the prison where Luthor escaped from & discover that the ray Luthor used to disintegrate the wall left behind the element Silicon.
Amazingly Bats knows it's silicon just by looking at it & not running any tests.
I may be mistaken, but I recall reading somewhere that the only place they've discovered pure silicon is by sending a probe down deep within a volcano. Apparently silicon normally bonds with other elements like oxygen creating silicon dioxide, one of the most common minerals on Earth. I don't know if pure silicon has been made in the lab or not.

B&R make silicon shields to block Luthor's ray.
1. Good thing Luthor didn't improve his ray, eh?
2. The shields are big & round. I should think rectangular might be good enough.
3. Instead of some handle on the back B&R hold them by their edges. B&R are lucky they didn't lose their fingers to that ray or that the shields didn't slip.
4. The backs of the shields are black, implying there is no way for B&R to see through them. Oh, yeah. Carrying a big, bulky shield, by the edges running toward a target you cannot see. 10 points for style, several million removed for brains. If the ray had left silicon dioxide rather than just silicon then they could have used clear quartz, or transparent agate, or even jelly opal as a viewscreen.

Presumably Batman meant silica rather than silcon. But then, if what he found were (presumably melted) lumps of silica, why didn't he just call it "glass"?

Since B&R fight with giant-sized props so much, maybe he meant silicone and the shields were giant breast implants. That's why they didn't have handles.

LOL

But they were flat, not round & bouncy. ;-)

The Super Bat-Man! World's Finest Comics #77 Reprinted in The Greatest 1950s Stories Ever Told
Batman (now with super-powers) sees that the Northville Powder Company building is about to explode & that it will damage the community.
Community? The building (an old shack it appears) stands alone & we see one house over the hill. Seems to me the community was built far about in case of an explosion.

To prevent the explosion from wiping out the community (*snicker*) Batman picks up the shed and throws it into the air.
... yeahhhhhhhhhhh, that’ll contain the explosion, Bats...
(Admittedly Batman does realize his mistake & comes up with an overly complicated way to deal with the threat.)

All stories reprinted in Showcase Presents World's Finest Volume 1
Batman-Double For Superman! World's Finest Comics #71
Flashback to Superman #76 has slightly different dialogue from Batman.

Oooooooookayyyyyyyyy... the Batplane is investigating a helicopter that the coast guard had reported. They put the Batplane on automatic & drop a ladder so they can climb down into the helicopter... and get worried when they see the helicopter is armed.
1. Wouldn't differences in speed & the fact that helicopters being more maneuverable make the automatic controls, well, useless.
2. Never mind the weapons, what about the helicopter blades whizzing around & covering most of the helicopter???? Really, there's no way you're even going to get close to boarding that sucker, either you and/or your rope ladder will be sliced to ribbons.

Page 3, Panel 1. The helicopter guns shoot down the Batplane, surprisingly there is no sign of the helicopter blades.

A Contest Of Heroes World's Finest Comics #74
Not exactly a contest.

The splash page depicts a scene not in the story.

Page 2, Panel 1. It's said the atomic-powered rocket will reach a new height in our stratosphere. Panel 2 shows it passing an inhabited asteroid.
That would be quite a bit higher than our stratosphere.

Good thing no other aliens from this asteroid came to Earth, given that there are criminals there & that they have Supes' strength & invulnerability...

Superman And Robin! World's Finest Comics #75
NNAN. The Gotham Gazette & the Daily Planet are owned by the same newspaper chain.

Page 11, Panel 4. The bat symbol disappears from Batman's chest.

At the end Batman says, "Nobody will ever see the end of Batman and Robin!"
Obviously precognition is not one of Batman's abilities... then again, maybe he was talking about that bad Joel Schumacher movie? ;-)

When Gotham City Challenged Metropolis World's Finest Comics #76
Supes grabs some helicopter blades & holds them steady so the fuselage spins instead... in mid-air.
Da laws uv fisics don't work like dat.

Supes spots a crack in the rock of the Bat-Cave's ceiling & using himself as a drill bores holes around the crack & threads it with old steel girders.
I should think that drilling person-sized holes would weaken the ceiling.

Electrical cables under the street have caught fire & Supes see that they are going to set fire to a gas main, so he rips out the pipe & apparently the only gas to catch fire is with the pipe he yanked out.
Yeahhhhh....

Supes rips up Rock Mountain & moves it closer to Gotham so it can be carved to honor Gotham's founders.
Cartographers must love this man.

Supes flies the convention center back & forth between Gotham & Metropolis.
Surprisingly the building doesn't fall apart.

When Superman's Identity Is Exposed World's Finest Comics #78
Warned that Rivertown might flood, Supes builds a giant plow & carves a new channel.
I wonder how the property owners felt about that?

The Three Magicians Of Bagdad World's Finest Comics #79
I'm not sure if this is a nit or not. In the Batman stories where Dr. Nichols sends Batman & Robin to the past that I've read. They usually leave the question of whether or not they were sent or just hypnotized to think they were sent, here however, Nichols definitely sent them.

Page 2, Panel 4. Clark changes to Superman & leaves his clothes behind on top of the Daily Planet.
Yeahhhhhhh...

Telling what's happening in the past to B&R the story jumps to Superman with, "And so, at this very moment, as Superman starts his epic flight through the time barrier..."
At this moment... a thousand years in the future!!!

Of course, the panel shows the years 1755, 1555 & 1355, so "starts his epic flight through the time barrier" should be taken with a grain of salt.

Superman picks up a corner of the caliph's palace & it lifts up instead of it crumbling & breaking apart.

The True History Of Superman And Batman World's Finest Comics #81
Ka-Thar, a historian from 5956, comes back through time to verify some information in a book he wrote called "The History of Superman and Batman". When he finds that he got details wrong he insists that Batman & Superman redo those stunts the way he wrote them or he will expose their identities.
Why doesn't Superman just hypnotize Ka-Thar into not revealing their identities & rewriting his book?

Supes, B&R can't figure out why Ka-Thar won't let them read the book.
I'd have figured because it would have contained how & when they DIED.

Superman flies into the stratosphere to get a lungful of super-cold air to freeze water with.
Doesn't he usually just use his superbreath normally to freeze water?

The Three Super-Musketeers! World's Finest Comics #82
Superman, Batman & Robin are in 1696 France. For the most part the French people's dialogue is written in English, but on Page 6, Panel 1, a guard says, "Incroyable!"
Since presumably, the language is being translated for the convenience of the readers, why would one suddenly have a French accent?

The Super-Mystery of Metropolis! World's Finest Comics #84
Splash page. The Daily Planet headline reads, "What has happened to Superman?" with a picture of Supes on the front page. One of the citizens has a copy of the Planet & he's apparently looking at the back page since the headline & picture are facing us. However the way the pages spread out it looks like the Planet decided to print the headline on both the front & back of the paper.

Superman is blackmailed out of Metropolis by a crook whom Supes thinks knows his secret identity.
Geeze, when did Supes develop his super-hypnosis. You'd think he'd just hypnotize the guy into forgetting.

Supes tells Bats about when he was Superboy & how the crook & an unfamiliar boy (guess who?) were working together (he thought) to try to uncover his identity & he thought they had succeeded in getting Superboy's fingerprints.
1. With his super-memory you'd think he would have figured out the boy was a young Bruce Wayne when he met him as an adult.
2. While having Superboy's fingerprints would be a bad thing, they'd need Clark Kent's to confirm it. Since Clark, presumably, did not have a criminal record...

NNAN. This story reveals that before his parents were killed Bruce Wayne already wanted to be a detective.

The Super-Show Of Gotham City World's Finest Comics #86
To raise money for the police welfare fund, Supes, B&R are re-enacting some past cases. For one B&R need two buildings, so Supes flies in holding two buildings & says, "I got permission to borrow the two Gotham City buildings you asked for!"
8-/
Ohhhhhhh, where to start?
Carrying one building through the air should be impossible because of the stress on the structure.
Supes carrying two should be impossible because his arms are only so long.
Not to mention things like basements, sewer lines, electrical connections, etc.
Most ridiculous though is that they are in an amphitheater Superman built just for the event, so why can't he just build some mock up buildings for the demonstration? The demo takes place on the exterior anyway.

Okayyyyyyyy... the reason Supes, B&R were flubbing their re-enactments? Seems Supes overheard the film-maker saying that once he had footage of the re-enactments he would release the film as "The Feats of Superman and Batman" & make a fortune because everyone will think they are the real actions & not re-enactments.
Say what?
Why would people thinking they are real instead of re-enacments bring in a lot more money?
Also if the man is mis-representing what the film is they could always give interviews to newspapers & radio telling the truth. (Frankly I think people might be suspicious of the unchanging background anyway.)
Personally I was expecting that the guy would turn out to be filming this stuff so the underworld could somehow learn secrets about Supes, B&R's crime-stopping techniques, but this answer deservedly belongs on the Superdickery site.

The Reversed Heroes World's Finest Comics #87
While technically the second story to have Supes lose his powers & Bats gain superpowers, I wonder if it could be set prior. It's told in flashback, there are no references to the events of WF77 & Supes doesn't use the Supercar he had in that issue & here Supes teaches B&R how to use superpowers, something Supes doesn't have to do for Bats in issue 77.

Page 12, Panel 2. Lois is shocked that B&R are flying. However she saw them flying to her in Panel 1, so why is she shocked in panel 2?

Superman's And Batman's Greatest Foes! World's Finest Comics #88
Cover. Superman says, "Stand back--we're accepting that challenge!"
What challenge? Could it have anything to do with the blank label on top of the metal box?
(The Grand Comics Database has a color copy of the cover & on the sheet in red letters is "A challenge to Superman and Batman! Open this-- if you dare!" Since the text was in color & not B&W it wasn't there on the B&W reprint.)

Also the title listed on the cover says the story is "Superman And Batman Greatest Foes!", which makes it sound like Supes & Bats are foes.

The Club Of Heroes World's Finest Comics #89
Yes, the Club of Heroes made up of the most famous heroes of the world, Superman, Batman & Robin, the Knight & Squire, the Musketeer, the Gaucho & the Legionary...
Who? ;-)
So where's Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Aquaman & Flash? (Martian Manhunter was still performing his deeds secretly so no one knows of him yet.)
I don't think this Club of Heroes was ever mentioned again.

Page 6, Panel 6. To keep a huge kryptonite meteor from landing on Earth, Superman throws a mountain to knock it away.
A mountain? Seems a trifle ostentatious there. Couldn't you find anything smaller?

As far away from Earth as the meteor appears to be, it would be more accurate to call it a meteoroid or asteroid.

The Super-Batwoman World's Finest Comics #90
Superman hears the alarm-signal at Metropolis prison, miles away.
Okayyyyy... even if Supes can hear the sonic vibrations of the alarm wouldn't it take time for those vibrations to cross the miles?

The flashback to issue 87 changes some of Jor-El & Lara's dialogue as well as a differently drawn spaceship for Kal-El.

In issue 87 Elton Craig had all the superpower capsules in a kryptonite encrusted box, but here we find he had hidden one capsule, just in case.

Ticked at Batman's patronizing attitude, Batwoman decides she's going to use her powers to find out their identities so they stop bossing her around. At one point Supes mentions his real name.
Good thing Batwoman hasn't figured out that superhearing trick yet (although she does use it later).

Superman says he shielded the real Bat-Cave with a lead ceiling so Batwoman wouldn't find it when she was using her x-ray vision to find it.
Good thing she didn't try drilling through any unusual deposits of lead she found.

The Three Super-Sleepers! World's Finest Comics #91
A criminal sets a trap for Supes & B&R, using a knockout gas & kryptonite, he knocks them out then stands them in glass cases & he expects the gas & kryptonite to keep them sleeping permanently.
Well, the type of gas isn't named so maybe it is something that would slow down metabolism & allow suspended animation. Superman, however, should be killed by the close proximity of the kryptonite.
How do they remain standing?

After putting them into the cases the crook decides he wants to learn B&R's secret IDs.
Maybe you should have thought of that BEFORE you put them in the cases?

They wake up in 2957, & while Superman can return himself back to 1957, he says he can't take B&R.
Why not? He took them forward in time a 1,000 years in issue 79 when they were trapped in the past.

They've had no crime for centuries so they have very little need of detective work.
Seems unlikely given the super-science they have. Detective work is a science & a scientific approach can be used. Not to mention looking up information in historical records about methods.

The heroes are sent back in time, a minute before they entered the crook's trap.
So if they never entered the trap, they never had their adventure & they never would have arrived a minute before they entered the trap, so they did enter the trap, had the adventure, then went back to a minute before they entered the trap, so they never entered the trap, never had the adventure... etc, etc, etc...

The Boy From Outer Space! World's Finest Comics #92
Skyboy is helping Superman & Supes thinks, "For the first time, I've got a partner, too... A super partner!"
errrr, what about issue 90 when you & the superpowered Batwoman were saving Mountainville together?

Aliens are looting the Central City mint.
Where's the Flash? (Yes, he'd appeared in two issues of Showcase at this point.)

The Boss Of Batman And Superman World's Finest Comics #93
Dr. John Carr has invented a machine that he feels can increase a person's intelligence 100 times, but hasn't found the missing ingredient.
Why am I reminded of the cartoon with the joke "Insert miracle here"?

A criminal & Robin are in front of the amplifying ray just as Superman flies in front of the "intake-ray" & his super-intelligence is transferred to the criminal & Robin.
Intake-ray? Why on earth would it need an intake-ray?

The Super-Foes From Planet X World's Finest Comics #96
To save the radio relay station on Barren Island from the Storm Top, Superman lifts up the entire island.
How the heck does the island not crumble & fall apart?

The Crawler has shrunk Supes, B&R, but Supes leads it into a cigar box & B&R slam the lid shut & Bats says, "Now the box is air-tight, Robin!"
Really? Unless you have some kind of sealant I'd say no way.

By my records this may be the 4th planet designated as Planet X in the DC Universe.
The first was a science fiction story so may not be a part of the 'mainstream' DCU (The Ark From Planet X Strange Adventures #59).
The second apparently had Batman gain superpowers while there (Batman -- The Superman of Planet X! Batman #113).
The third was just a reference by Superman to some bubbling crystals he had from there (The Super-Key to Fort Superman Action Comics #241).
Neither Bats nor Supes seem familiar with any of the things from this Planet X, so presumably they hadn't visited this one.

The Day Superman Betrayed Batman World's Finest Comics #97
Not a nit, but parts of this story feel recycled from a Batman story called The Crime Predictor from Batman #77. Bill Finger recycling, no doubt.

Crooks are running in different directions so Superman bends a railroad track & throws it like a boomerang.
Problem is he didn't shape it like a boomerang so it shouldn't have curved.

Crooks run across the train on the turntable so Superman punches the train (twice) to turn the table & send the men flying.
1. Wouldn't punching the train damage it & possibly knock it off the track?
2. I can't imagine that this did the mechanical parts of the train turntable any good.

Another bit o'recycling. In issue 90, Superman built a fake Bat-Cave under John Martin's mansion, with permission, to fool Batwoman. This issue Superman dug a fake Bat-Cave under Scott Forest's mansion, with permission, to fool some crooks. (Edmond Hamilton is listed as 90's writer.)
I can't imagine building all these fake Bat-Cave's can do the mansions above them much good.

Batman's Super-Spending Spree! World's Finest Comics #99
Batman has a million dollars which he is spending. Robin & Superman are worried about his purchases & Superman secretly helps Batman's investments pay off.
You know, both Robin & Superman know that Bats is a pretty smart cookie who usually knows what he's doing, so why are they both concerned that he's off his rocker here?

Divers see water in Gotham Bay burst up & assume an underwater volcano & decide to go down when the eruption stops.
That seems rather blasé. A volcano in the bay of a city would seem to be quite dangerous.
Despite the fact there is no evidence of a volcano they assume one must have blown a Spanish galleon out of quicksand.

The plot of the story is a blatant ripoff of Brewster's Millions (or whatever the original movie was called). Vincent Verril gets a million dollars which he must spend in 4 days without making a profit, then he will get 10 million dollars. However Vincent has to go to the hospital for an emergency operation so he asks the lawyer if Batman can do the spending for him & the lawyer agrees on condition that Batman tell no one why he's doing this.
1. I've never understood the premise of intentionally losing money to teach you to make wise money decisions. They do Lampshade the thing as saying old Carl Verril was eccentric, but out of his mind would have been more accurate.
2. How Batman got involved is never explained.
3. How does Batman spending the million teach Vince how to make wise investments? The whole point is invalidated by this.

The Dictator Of Krypton City World's Finest Comics #100
Flashback to Action Comics #242 has Superman recognizing that a bottled city is Kryptonian while he's outside it. In the issue he didn't know that until he was inside talking to Kimda.

Apparently Bill Finger missed the part where Kandor was named since he has Superman call it Krypton City.

Luthor & his gang have shrunk themselves down & entered Kandor.
How they are not affected by the heavier gravity mentioned in a flashback is not explained.

A Kandoran says, "Criminals! What shall we do? Crime has been outlawed on Krypton for so many centuries, we've forgotten how to fight wicked men!"
This contradicts Superman #123 where they had the Kryptonian Bureau of Investigation & criminals were sentenced to spend a 100 years in a prison satellite where, while under suspended animation, mind-cleansing rays would eliminate criminal behavior.

The Caveman From Krypton World's Finest Comics #102
A meteor crashes on Earth, inside is a caveman in suspended animation, when he awakes he has superpowers, examining the meteor Supes realizes that it's composed of elements only found on his home planet & hypothesizes he had been trapped in a lava pit where the chemical reaction created a strange gas that put him in suspended animation & sealed him inside a hollow lava ball.
1. Yea gods, that a long string of circumstances.
2. Since elements are basic building blocks of matter I would assume Supes means minerals, or chemicals, or percentages of elements.
3. I think this is the only piece of rock from Krypton that didn't turn to kryptonite.

The Secret Of The Sorcerer's Treasure World's Finest Comics #103
The Magic Prism distorts & deflects energy, Superman & Batman both bounced off it, Superman's superbreath was bounced off it, but Supes finally destroys it by hitting a superhigh note.
Wouldn't that also be a form of energy?

The Duplicate Man World's Finest Comics #106
Supes uses a puff of superbreath & blows the propeller off a helicopter.
Since nothing is holding the helicopter down wouldn't the puff just lift the copter higher?

They capture the Duplicate Man & get his research on his device that gives him his power to duplicate & remerge himself, & Robin says, "They're so complicated, he couldn't possibly have memorized them! We'll destroy them… by the time he gets out of jail, years from now, he won't live long enough to make another duplicator!"
Yes, Boy Wonder, destroy a marvelous scientific invention just because it was invented by a crook. Think of all the useful things a hero could do with that gadget, why don't you?
Also what if he had memorized it, then you would lack the know how to build a device to counter it.

The Secret Of The Time-Creature World's Finest Comics #107
B&R hear a report of Supes going to fight a mysterious creature that can ward off army shells & Bats says, "Maybe we can give Superman a hand fighting that creature!"
Gosh, Batman is so modest...

The Bewitched Batman World's Finest Comics #109
Batman, under the control of an ancient sorcerer, must fight a dragon or die. Superman temporarily gives Batman superpowers, then flies through space & brings a dragon for Batman to fight.
1. Why not use the dragon of Metropolis (a remote-controlled robot) seen in issue 86?
2. Why use this never before seen gadget from the Fortress of Solitude when Bats could have taken one of those super pills that Jor-El made in issue 87?
3. How did the dragon survive the flight through interstellar space? Supes just grabbed it & carried it.

The Alien Who Doomed Robin World's Finest Comics #110
The alien is shrinking Earth buildings, but there is no evidence of sewer, water or power lines to these buildings.

Superman's Secret Kingdom World's Finest Comics #111
Superman is trying to stop a volcano, it explodes, sending him flying into the jungle & giving him amnesia.
Wha...? A mere explosion giving him amnesia? They didn't even try to come up with better explanation.

Table Of Contents Showcase Presents World's Finest Volume 1
Lists the story of issue 79 as "The Three Musicians Of Bagdad".
It's Magicians, not Musicians.

All stories reprinted in Showcase Presents World's Finest Volume 2

Table Of Contents
Lists issue 138 as September 1963 instead of December.

Captives Of The Space Globes World's Finest Comics #114
NNAN. Previously the planet Zoron was the exploded homeworld of the hero Hyperman (Action Comics #265) here Batman, Robin & Superman are taken to another planet named Zoron.
Not impossible for two planets to have the same name, but fiction usually tries to avoid name duplication.

Zoron has a purple sun.
There are no purple stars.

The Curse That Doomed Superman World's Finest Comics #115
Picking up a pin dropped by the Swami, Batman identifies it as "a perfect copy of a rare and ancient Egyptian scarab!"
Apparently the artist hadn't seen a scarab before as this 'scarab' looks nothing like the insect, but is rectangular with either Chinese or Cuniform letters on it.

The cause of the 'curse' that's been causing Superman to go haywire is revealed to be crooks secretly exposing him to red kryptonite.
How convenient it all had psychological effects on Superman rather than physical. Not to mention Superman not noticing the tingle that accompanies Red K, or the fact that it's effects were much shorter than usual. Admittedly this was a 1961 story so some of those effects might not have been codified yet.

Super-Batwoman And The Super-Creature World's Finest Comics #117
Batwoman discovers that the super-creature Golanth was built by Luthor & controlled by him with a device he wears on his head. She gains superpowers by accident, Luthor escapes & she tells Batman, Robin & Superman what happened. Later Luthor discovers he can use his device to control Batwoman as well.
The nit comes at the end when Batman catches Luthor, but he never seems to realize that he can simply remove the device from Luthor's head to break his control of Batwoman & Golanth (instead Superman rewires the device that gave Golanth & Batwoman their powers.) Yeahhh...

The Hostages Of The Island Of Doom World's Finest Comics #125
About Doom Island Jundy explains, "Thousands of years ago, many criss-crossing rivers ate deep chasms into it's rocky surface! Now it resembles a vast maze".
The drawing of some of these vast chasms look more like pits then a channel formed by water.

Superman can't rescue Batman & Robin because Jundy has criss-crossed the island with electric eye beams & if he intercepts one an explosion will go off.
1. Good thing there are no birds on this island.
2. Can't Superman fly faster than light?
3. What's to stop Superman from burrowing up under the island?

Jundy's first task is for Superman to get an eye from an idol.
Would Jundy have known if Superman had made a duplicate gem? Possibly, but you'd think Superman might have tried it.

Riddle Of The Four Planets! World's Finest Comics #130
Dick sees a weird, flying starfish fly by, but Batman says he doesn't know what it is.
Giant, flying starfish & you don't automatically assume it's Starro the Conqueror? (It's not, but still you'd think that would be the first idea.)

Zelaphods (the starfish like creatures) are apparently created by a puff of volcanic smoke, through a star-shaped hole, given life by a weird gem on the planet Karos.
Uhhhhhh... yeahhhhhhh...

Batman destroys the gem rather than taking it for scientific study.
Well, sure, I mean it only creates life, who'd be interested in that?

The Mystery Of The Crimson Avenger World's Finest Comics #131
The Crimson Avenger in this story says he took his name from a former lawman... indicating that the Crimson Avenger was an Earth-1 hero rather than Earth-2 as later stories indicated. Although this would also indicate that the Seven Soldiers of Victory were also from Earth-1.

The Crimson Avenger bungles his attempts to stop crooks and allows them to get away & Batman, Robin & Superman just allow him to go on his way.
I'd think the police would want to talk to him for interfering with law enforcement.

Batman And Robin, Medieval Bandits World's Finest Comics #132
NANJAO. Quite possibly the only time a crook captures Batman & takes off his mask. *shock* *gasp*

Bruce & Dick escape from Kale & Biggs trap & Bruce says, "Then we'll get into space costumes and rush to Nichol's lab!"
In context I think that was supposed to be Spare costumes.

The Beasts Of The Supernatural World's Finest Comics #133
Ages ago a sorcerer sent some supernatural beasts to the constellation Scorpio, but when Dr. Gault repeats the incantation he uses the term "Scorpio star", but there is no one star identified as Scorpio.

The Band Of Super-Villains World's Finest Comics #134
Science City has been isolated inside a force bubble & after a while the people start passing out because of an alien element being put into the air. Oddly enough Batman & Robin are not among the affected.

The Secret Of The Captive Cavemen World's Finest Comics #138
Batman & Robin learn that aliens will go into the past to make cavemen slaves. They contact Superman & go. 50,000 years in the past they question cavemen about what's happened...
When did they learn to speak caveman? (I suppose Wonder Woman could have lent them some language tapes as a 1950s story showed the Amazons knew, but still it's not really the sort of thing Batman & Robin would need to know.)

In order to find out the aliens plans they make themselves look like cavemen, but instead of wearing animal skins they just rip their costumes (Superman had a spare made out of ordinary cloth). Good thing the aliens are too dumb. They think the costumes signify a leadership status & not time travelers.

Taken to the alien planet Superman only realizes the planet has a red sun when he attempts to fly. At that point he'd been on the planet several hours & mining rock.

Apparently the aliens are speaking English as Batman & Robin are able to understand what the aliens are plotting.

Okayyyyyyyyyy... the aliens need humans to mine drakkium which is as deadly to their species as kryptonite is to Superman, however refined drakkium is not deadly to them.
How the heck did the aliens learn this?

Additionally refined Drakkium is deadly to humans, but not the ore.
How did they learn this?

The Olsen-Robin Team Vs. The Superman-Batman Team! World's Finest Comics #141
NANJAO. This issue features the "New Look" Batman costume. For the heck of it I looked at my list of when various DC Comics went on sale & discovered that this issue came out 3/12/64, whereas Detective Comics #327, usually listed as the first appearance of Batman's "New Look", came out on 3/26/64. So if my list is correct this should be listed as the first appearance of the "New Look" Batman not Detective 327.

Robin & Jimmy tell Batman & Superman that they're going to hide out on Stone Island. Superman says, "If you hid in the Fortress of Solitude, or the Batcave it would be too obvious a hiding place for anyone to guess!"
Uhhhhhhhhh... except that the location of the Batcave is secret & the Fortress of Solitude as well at this point in time, IIRC.

Okay, Robin & Jimmy faked their deaths because they stumbled onto some crooks plans to kidnap them as hostages to keep Superman & Batman from stopping them committing crimes and since the crooks have devices that can make them invisible they worry the crooks might succeed if they know Robin & Jimmy are around.
Fair enough, but since the crooks can turn invisible, why try to kidnap Robin instead of just KILLING Batman & Robin? Also Jimmy isn't Superman's only known friend, so once Jimmy disappears they could just kidnap Lois, or Perry, or Clark *snicker*. From a crook's POV Jimmy is not the only possible kidnap victim to use against Superman.

The Feud Between Batman And Superman! World's Finest Comics #143
This story must have been written before the edict to stop using the sillier aspects of Batman's legend came down as Ace the Bathound appears.

Robin says, "To think... Batman and I are going into a city of old Krypton!"
Makes it sound like he's never been there before. Did he forget about going there in issue 100?

Superman, Jimmy, Batman & Robin shrink themselves down to enter Kandor & they lift the cork to climb inside.
Wouldn't it make more sense to just have some kind of airlock on the darn thing?

Superman introduces B&R to Nor-Kann on Page 6, Panel 6, but on Page 7, Panel 2 the second N in his name disappears (there is space for it though.)

The 1,000 Tricks Of Clayface And Brainiac! World's Finest Comics #144
Okayyyyyy... because Jimmy got hit with a jet-powered spray of kryptonite he has particles imbedded in his skin, so Jimmy goes to work with Batman & Robin goes to work with Superman.
Usually Supes works alone, not with Jimmy, so it's kind of ridiculous to have Robin switch partners & given that Jimmy doesn't actually have any crime-fighting training having him serve as Batman's partner is just as laughable.

Batman reveals his identity to Jimmy, for no real good reason, & at the end of this story we find it took weeks for the kryptonite particles to go away & for all that time the switch in partners continued.
Soooooo... it would seem to be known that Jimmy worked as Batman's partner for weeks, so if crooks captured Jimmy & gave him a truth serum it would seem that they would have a good reason to ask Jimmy if he knew Batman & Robin's secret IDs.

Batman lands his Batplane into a barn on the Wayne spread which conceals the entrance to his Batcave.
Soooooo... wouldn't this just make it easier for people to spot? Some crook with a radar set-up or a pair of binoculars can just watch where the Batplane seems to disappear, etc., etc.

Signal 99 is a special signal that means Clayface is in Gotham.
Are all of Batman's villains numbered? ("Signal 147? That means that... uh... was 147 Dr. No-Face or Dr. Double-X?")

Batman & Jimmy are going after Clayface, disguised as a pterodactyl, in the whirly-bats. His power wears off & he changes to Matt Hagan & both reach out & catch him as he falls.
How they kept the whirly-bat rotors from chopping him to pieces I don't know. Frankly getting the whirly-bats that close together should have been a problem.

Prison For Heroes! World's Finest Comics #145
A filter is used to make the planet's yellow sun appear red. Superman figures it's 99% effective since he has lost his super-strength, speed & invulnerability, but he still has some super-breath & super-vision.
1. How exactly does he know which powers he's lost & which he's kept without trying them? (Compare with issue 138 where he didn't realize he even lost his powers because he didn't know he was in a red sun system.)
2. Given that his muscles & skin density are because of his Kryptonian physiology shouldn't his strength, speed & toughness be more than an Earthlings? Also his super-breath should just be a subset of his Kryptonian lung muscles.

Two of the heroes have interesting powers & weaknesses. The Freezer comes from a colder world & can freeze anything, but loses his powers on the prison planet which seems to be around Earth-normal temperatures since Batman wears his normal outfit without complaining. The Flame can melt anything & comes from a super-hot world & loses his power on this colder planet.
Given that The Freezer's world is colder his ability to freeze things doesn't seem as impressive & coming from a super-hot world, The Flame's ability to melt stuff seems redundant.

All stories reprinted in Showcase Presents Robin The Boy Wonder Volume 1

The New Terrific Team! World's Finest Comics #147
The cover says the story is "The Doomed Boy Heroes!", but the Table Of Contents calls it by the name of Part 1 of the story (Part 2 is "The Doom Of Jimmy Olsen And Robin!" which is not listed in the TOC.)

Opening caption reads, "Who can think of Batman without Robin, the Boy Wonder, in action beside him?"
The people who read Detective Comics before Robin's introduction? Fans of the Justice League of America?

"And who would remember the feats of Superman without recalling also his young pal, reporter Jimmy Olsen?"
Most readers of Superman?

Dig Now, Die Later! World's Finest Comics #195
Page 7, Panel 3. Pocket is misspelled as "pa ket".

Why is this in a Robin collection? It focuses on Superman & Batman.

All stories reprinted in Showcase Presents World's Finest Volume 3

Batman, Son Of Krypton! World's Finest Comics #146
Superman and all the rest of the surviving Kryptonians are observing five minutes of silence as this is the anniversary of Krypton's destruction. Supergirl is thinking, "None of us *choke* will ever forget out native world."
Uhhhhh... YMMV but Supergirl was born after Krypton exploded. Her memories are of a piece of Krypton, Argo City. Then again, how many people in the bottle city of Kandor were born after Krypton's destruction?

Dr. Ellison had invented a monitor-type telescope of unprecedented power and was able to view Krypton, study children's picture books & read the lips of Kryptonians to see what they are saying.
Yeahhhhhhh...
Surprisingly he never sold or donated this magnificent invention for any other scientist to use.

Somehow this telescope is able to see inside of buildings & he learns of the atomic reaction that is about to destroy Krypton, so he invents a ray that has a neutralizing effect to stop atomic reactions.
Of course he does. Child's play really...

He focuses the neutralizing ray at Krypton & he believes that instead of stopping the reaction he increased it & blew up Krypton, although we later find out that his ray was too weak & the reaction too far along.
I thought for sure that the obvious solution was going to be that because of the great distance between Krypton & Earth he was actually seeing scenes of Krypton's past & that the planet had exploded before he could do anything and/or that the neutralizing ray, traveling at the speed of light, couldn't have made it in time to do anything.

Superman has a time-space viewer that can pick up light & sound waves from the past & he uses it to show Dr. Ellison Jor-El detecting the neutralizing ray.
The super-scientist who invented that viewer were something. Their machine picks up light waves from inside buildings & it picks up sound waves despite the inconvenience of sound not traveling in space.
Also you'd think this device might actually have some practical crime-fighting applications, but I guess not as Supes doesn't ever seem to use it to solve unsolved crimes or anything. *rolls eyes*

Superman And Batman-- Outlaws! World's Finest Comics #148
Batman is explaining to Superman about parallel worlds.
Apparently Batman forgot he, Superman & the rest of the JLA had already encountered stone giants from a parallel Earth, teamed up twice with the JSA from Earth-Two, and fought their evil counterparts from Earth-Three.

While the story does explain why the Batman & Superman from this parallel Earth are criminals it doesn't explain why they are friends & occasionally team-up.

The Game Of Secret Identities! World's Finest Comics #149
Batman says that only Superman knows the location of the Batcave.
Well, Jimmy Olsen knows as well.

Batman & Robin use the Batplane to lift the giant key & move it into the lock of the Fortress of Solitude, then get a tree trunk to use as a handle.
Wait a minute, the Fortress is in the Arctic, where would they easily find a tree?

The Batplane shoots out a cloud of green kryptonite dust.
Why would Batman carry a load of green kryptonite dust in his batplane? (This was the happy, friendly Batman of the 1960s, not the paranoid Batman of recent years.)

The Super-Gamble With Doom! World's Finest Comics #150
Examining Gamblers' Isle Batman sees the giant roulette wheel uses a hollow plastic ball, so he rides inside to see if it is fixed or not.
Wait, what?

After being introduced to Lurala Superman thinks of her as another L.L. girl.
Except that Lurala is one word, not two that start with Ls. Now had they spelled it Lura La then we'd have another L.L. girl.

At the end Rokk & Sorban play Superman in a game of Solar System Roulette by which they had previously destroyed the inhabited planet Vira &, if they win, could destroy Earth.
Superman & Batman leave at the end without apparently trying to bring Rokk & Sorban to justice, or even notifying the Green Lantern Corps about this world which has destroyed at least one inhabited world. Heck, the happy ending is just, Batman is saved, Earth is saved, everyone in the Prison for Bad Losers is released & Superman has another girlfriend, Lurala. Justice for all inhabited planets destroyed by Ventura? Zero.

The Infinite Evolutions Of Batman And Superman! World's Finest Comics #151
Grungy Nitpicking Time. The cover reads "The Infinite Evolutions Of Superman And Batman!", but the story is called The Infinite Evolutions Of Batman And Superman!"

Okayyyyyyy... the story starts off with a Superman-Robot getting shorted out by the radiation from a green kryptonite object. Since it's obviously a machine from Krypton Supes wants to know what it is so he creates a net to catch it & has Batman check it out.
Uhhhhhhhhh... so the radiation of this thing is powerful enough to short out a robot, but you're not worried about what effect it might have on your human friend?

They discover that this is an evolution accelerator & that Ral-Than had planned to test the device on men, but Krypton exploded before that could happen so Batman decides to use the machine on himself.
Wait, what? World's smartest detective my *bleep*!

The Colossal Kids! World's Finest Comics #152
NANJAO. This story features a logo combining the heroes' logos. Basically a diamond-like shape with the bat symbol on top & the Superman S on bottom.

Part 1 sets up a mystery of who these two kids really are, but the splash panel of part 2 gives it away which makes the storytelling a bit odd as two panels later (on the same page) the caption reads "And the astounding identities of the Colossal Kids are revealed to be..."
You just gave it away in the first panel of the page!

NANJAO. Interesting to see Bat-Mite turn up given that the editors of the Bat-books had consigned silly things like him to limbo while they tried to make Bats more serious.

NNANJAO. Mr. Mxyzptlk reveals that Bat-Mite comes from a different dimension than the fifth.
I believe later writers have tried to claim that all the various DC "imps" (Mr. Mxyzptlk, Bat-Mite, Quisp, etc.) all come from the same dimension.

Page 11, Panel 4. Mr. Mxyzptlk thinks, "Maybe I can use his hero-worship of the capet crimefighters"
Capet?

Page 13, Panel 2. Superman says, "They probably come from the far future when everybody is super"
When exactly is that? It seems like every future Supes has visited has had people who would seem to be normal.

The Clash Of Cape And Cowl! World's Finest Comics #153
NANJAO. This Imaginary Story has Bruce Wayne believing Superboy killed his father & becoming Batman to bring him to justice.
Funny how the Silver Age is filled with ideas that would be embraced by fanboys... such as the grim, obsessed Batman who could take down Superman. ;-)

When Robin discovers Batman wants to prove Superman killed his father Bats slaps him for not believing & erases his memories of Batman & ever being Robin, he'll just remember that he is Dick Grayson, orphan.
So does that mean he won't remember Bruce Wayne either?

Batman stops a robbery by Luthor in Metropolis & Superman gives him a flying belt as a memento.
Gee, I wonder why Supes never gave Bats a flying belt in normal continuity?

The Sons Of Batman And Superman! World's Finest Comics #154
So which one was the mother? ;-)

NANJAO. Kathy Kane makes a post-New Look Batman appearance & references her Batwoman career, but then this is an Imaginary Story.

Outside the courthouse, with people following them, Kathy says, "Oh, Lois, aren't we lucky... me to have Batman for my husband, and you to have Superman as yours!"
First off, dumb thing to say in public.
Second thing, I can understand the guys letting their fiancés in on their individual secret IDs, but why on Earth would they let the other guy's fiancé know their secret ID? There is no good reason for Clark to let Kathy know he's Superman or Bruce to let Lois know he's Batman.

Both couples got married in a double ceremony.
Why? Besides making it easier for the artist to draw.

Lois & Clark have a son they name Kal-El, Jr.
Wait, what? Way to keep that secret identity secret!

Okayyyy... Nappy Klains, the Napoleon of Crime, knows that Kal & Bruce, Jr. are the sons of Superman & Batman, and may even know their full names, and the story ends with him still alive knowing this secret.
Bit of an odd loose end to leave hanging.

The 1,000th Exploit Of Superman And Batman! World's Finest Comics #155
Splash Page has Batman thinking, "I won't be with Superman on our 1,000th case... he has his new partner Nightman"
Ah, when heroes discover their partner fighting crime with another hero... tsk, tsk. ;-)
First off, if you're not going to be with him on your 1,000th case then there just won't be a 1,000th case. That would be like a woman being married to one guy for 9 years, then divorcing him and marrying another guy & claiming their first anniversary is her tenth.
Secondly, 1,000 cases? 1,000 days would be 2 years, 270 days although I doubt they had a case a day. True there are cases that have been referenced, but not actually been important enough to appear as a standalone story, but still it just seems way too high.

Batman's trying to figure out who this mysterious hero Nightman is & since he has film of Nightman next to Superman & they know Superman's height they can figure out Nightman's height, Batman then asks Robin to read off the information they have & he says, "We have Nightman's height".
Heaven forbid they bother telling the readers what that height would happen to be...

Batman is given 7 days to find out who this Nightman is. He starts by examining the Bat-eye footage & feeding the information to a computer to come up with a list of likely suspects. He sleeps & discovers that Nightman had prevented a crime last night, then he goes to check out the three suspects, one somewhere in the US, one in Mexico & one in England, but when he gets back he suddenly has less than 24 hours to solve the mystery. Huh?
The plane flights would seem to be the longest parts of the journeys & I doubt they would eat up four days.

The Federation Of Bizarro Idiots! World's Finest Comics #156
UN countries worry about clever thieves stealing gold reserves, so governments come up with great idea to ship gold to another planet, an interplanetary Fort Knox that can only be reached by spaceships world not have...
Oh wait, that wasn't one of the wacko Bizarro ideas, that was a serious idea. *rolls eyes* What's it say when the so-called serious ideas sound just as goofy as the Bizarro ideas?

Last issue they were celebrating their 1,000th case, this issue their trophy hall has mementos of the more than 1,000 cases they worked on.

The Abominable Brats! World's Finest Comics #157
NANJAO. Imaginary Story.

Page 2, Panel 1. The Caption reads, "In the very near future"
Except that Bruce & Kathy look between 20 - 40 years older. Also the flying cars make it seem much, much farther away into the future.

Three Bottles Of Danger! World's Finest Comics #158
Splash Page. Shows the three bottle cities & superimposed on each one something is happening to the four characters. Superman being hit by a rock in the first one, Batman being netted in the second one, Jimmy & Robin tied up in the third.
While all of those things happened Batman was netted in the first bottle.

Jimmy & Robin discover a cave & Jimmy says, "Maybe we can set up our own version of the Batcave".
You already have The Eyrie, why do you need another HQ?

Parachuting into the third bottle Batman observes the light is green and thinks, "Superman has no powers under a green sun!"
Probably because there are no green suns.

In the third bottle city are a group of villains who viewed the Legion of Super-Heroes through a time-scope & gave themselves the powers of the Legion which they then used to rule their world.
Kind of a cheesy way to reference the Legion. A time-scope, how conveeeeeenient.
On the other hand we were robbed by not seeing Jimmy Olsen go up against a villain with the powers of Elastic Lad. ;-)

Turns out the entity which put the three evil cities in bottles was not Brainiac, but Brainiac A, the first humanoid robot made by the machine-men that had overthrown their creators on Colu (unnamed in this story).
I wonder if Brainiac A ever appeared again, since I'd never heard of him before reading this story.

Being good Brainiac A went around space shrinking & imprisoning evil people.
Wonder if there were other bottle cities besides the three we see here?

Also since Brainiac A had a shrinking ray did he also have an enlarging ray? Maybe he could have restored Kandor to its normal size if Superman had asked?

The Cape And Cowl Crooks! World's Finest Comics #159
It's Krypton Day the annual anniversary of when Krypton exploded.
NNAN. The last time we saw it in World's Finest was issue 146, cover dated December 1964, this issue is cover dated August 1966.

Superman & Batman are really trusting. At the beginning Perry White & Commissioner Gordon are allowed to look around Superman's Fortress while Supes & Bats go into Kandor, later White & Gordon are allowed inside the Batcave while Batman & Robin go off.
Yeahhhhhhhh...

While in the Bottle City of Kandor, Batman thinks, "I've always wanted to see this ceremony, when all Kryptonians honor their perished planet!"
Uhhhh... technically you did in issue 146. Okay, sure, you weren't in the Bottle City standing around with everyone else looking at a globe of Krypton, but you did get to see Superman standing around staring at a slideshow of Kryptonian sites. Five minutes of silence are five minutes of silence, not really much ceremony to it at all.

NNAN. This story says Luthor is on the planet Lexor where he's a hero, although it doesn't say when Luthor returned there.

NANJAO. An editor's note explains that gold kryptonite is only effective within 2 feet. Not sure if this is the first story to establish that or not.

Anti-Superman is chasing Superman with Gold Kryptonite. He goes down to the ground in Metropolis where he can run amongst the buildings to keep Anti-Superman from being able to throw the Gold K at him. Oddly enough he's running slow enough that people can see & identify him as Superman.
Geeze, Supes, you can run as fast as the Flash, why are you going so slow?

Lois is shocked to see Superman running from a crook just like Clark Kent would. Jimmy says he must have a good reason.
Oddly enough, neither Jimmy nor Lois seem to see the glowing gold rock in the crook’s hand. (Guess this is one of those rare times where people don't recognize Kryptonite on sight.)

Okay, the Anti-Superman was chasing after Superman with a chunk of Gold K, but when Supes changes to Clark Kent and Anti-Superman passes by him he's not holding the chunk any longer.

Pawns Of The Jousting Master! World's Finest Comics #162
Batman says, "We've never yet tangled with a foe we couldn't lick, though!"
Uh, what about the Composite Superman? You didn't lick him.

Lancelot reveals that the mace he used against Superman had a tiny piece of kryptonite in it.
Normally Superman can detect the presence of kryptonite.

At first I was wondering why Merlin didn't summon the Shining Knight to help Camelot, but then I remembered that was the Earth-2 version of Camelot. Still might have been nice to see an Earth-1 version of Sir Justin & Winged Victory given the other knights have special abilities.

Some knights in a tower are dropping rocks one of which is kryptonite, the editor's note says, "How can kryptonite exist in the past? During a United Nations H-Bomb test, a kryptonite meteor was caught in the blast and hurled through the time-barrier by the terrific force."
On the one hand how conveeeeeeenient that the H-Bomb could rip a hole in the space-time continuum. On the other hand I'm fairly certain they have been other attempts to explain away kryptonite in the past. Heck, I'm fairly certain it's a universal law in the Earth-1 universe, "No matter where Superman goes, there will always be a piece of kryptonite waiting."

The Duel Of The Super-Duo! World's Finest Comics #163
Page 2, Panel 1. Caption reads, "Welcome to Gotham City... and the opening of the Gotham Bridge, where thousands of drivers pay five dollars' toll for the privilege of being among the first to cross the span... the proceeds going to charity..."
Wait, I thought the point of a toll bridge was that the tolls pay for the costs of building & maintaining the bridge? Diverting that to charity would just be a waste of money. (Not that that stops corrupt politicians from stupid decisions regarding money, but still...)

Oddly enough a Gotham Bridge was seen in the October 4, 1946 Batman comic strip. Not sure if there was a Gotham Bridge in any earlier comic books though.

The Batmobile is chasing after the Crimemobile, Batman thinks, "My special high-powered bat-headlights turned up full strength are intense enough to counter their rays..." & one of the crooks says, "That laser ought to... Hey! It ain't workin'!"
1. I'm not sure it's even possible to counter a laser with headlights.
2. Just how freakin' powerful are those headlights? You thought it was a pain when some ordinary driver left his high-beams on, now drivers in Gotham have to worry about their faces melting off because Batman hit the wrong light switch.

Batman rammed the Crimemobile into a wall and the metal crumples up.
The armored metal that bullets were bouncing off of earlier, riiiiiiiiiight...

Batman figures he stopped 58 crimes this month.
And yet only 4 or 5 of them were worthy of appearing in comics. ;-)

Batman is in a reproduction of the Batcave, we see the giant penny & a bunch of test tubes & Batman says, "He has my souvenir of the Joker's "Bad Penny Crimes"... and my crime lab".
So it seems like the giant penny is souvenir of a Joker crime rather than a souvenir of a one-time villain.

NNAN, but it's funny how it was Batman, who suspected that this might be a trap, got taken by surprise, while Superman figured out that it was a trap at the last second & escaped.

Superman escapes so Jemphis resorts to Plan B, he pushes a remote control on his belt and Superman sees this world's sun undergoing atomic explosions changing it from yellow to red.
Uuuuuuuuuuh... yeahhhhhhhh... nevermind how long it would take to physically alter the energy output of a star to drop it from yellow to red and also nevermind how many minutes it would take for the light from the star to reach that planet, presto chango instantaneous Tah-dah!

NANJAO. The house I grew up in had previously been an antique/junk store & as a kid I had found a number of comics that the previous owner had left behind. Some of those comics, however had gotten lost & I only had memories of parts of them & wondered about the full stories. One of which turns out to have been this story.

Brainiac's Super Brain-Child! World's Finest Comics #164
Cover. "Featuring Genia_ Mistress of Malice, im "The Broken Code!""
In, not im.

Brainiac attacks Superman with a weapon that increases the super-energy in his body into an explosive force that will shatter Superman's body. In one panel we see a "Powwff!" and a cloud of smoke & a triumphant-looking Brainiac.
Now I don't have a twelfth-level effector brain, but if the explosion is supposed to be strong enough to blow up Superman's invulnerable body are you sure you want to be in the same room? I mean, we're talking big boom here, a really big boom. Pieces of Superman would be flying everywhere.

Of course, the next panel has Supes standing there, exhaling smoke, because his invulnerable body easily contained the super-energy of that internal explosion.
Uhhhhhh, yeahhhhhhhh... so why did we see a cloud of smoke if Superman didn't really go boom? If there was an internal explosion, but Supes is unharmed, then what really exploded?

Superman can't go after Brainiac because the bottle-city's bottle was cracked and if he doesn't repair it the air could leak out of the bottle and Kandor could be wiped out!
Don't they breathe the same air we do? Earthwoman Sylvia Dewitt Zee lives in the bottle, powerless Kryptonian Quex-Ul lives on Earth, it sure seems like Kryptonians & Earthlings breathe the same air.

Brainiac makes his creation look like Madam Tru, president of the country of Orienta, who has just been elected chairman of the United Nations Security Council.
Isn't it just Ambassadors who become chairmen of UN councils?

Brainiac is test-running Genia & it turns out he accidentally reversed the program tape when mounted it.
Pretty silly mistake for a super-intelligent computer to make.

Genia, prisoner in the Fortress of Solitude uses her x-ray vision to see a room that shows mannequins of Superman changing to Clark Kent & Batman changing to Bruce Wayne.
Why the heck would Superman need such displays with signs explaining it, no less?

The Crown Of Crime! World's Finest Comics #165
King Wolff is supposed to executed, but he still has a full head of hair when he gets into the electric chair.

The electric chair King Wolff is strapped in flies into the air, out a skylight.
Do rooms with electric chairs have skylights? Amazingly Wolff is not cut by the broken glass. Apparently the electric chair was just sitting on a platform rather than being bolted down or something.

So how did the chair go flying???
Well, Wolff's gang converted a skyscraper spire into an electro-magnet that was "tuned in" on the same wavelength as the chair's electric current.
Yeahhhhhhhhh... I didn't realize electric chairs had specific wavelengths (especially once they've been disconnected from their power source) & I didn't realize you could tune an electro-magnet to only attract specific objects & ignore all other metal objects within range.

After the chair is stuck to the spire we see a panel of a helicopter with a ladder that King Wolff is climbing.
So how did he undo all the straps & things that were holding him in the chair?

Page 8, Panel 4. Mitch Grinnell says, "The Illusion-Gas from the light bulb is making them see things -- but not us, because of the contact lenses we're wearing!"
So instead of affecting people's mind the gas is actually creating visual images???

King Wolff's body glows because he's affected by radiation.
Except that bodies don't glow from radiation.

The Danger Of The Deadly Duo! World's Finest Comics #166
A strange story to nitpick as I haven't read the Superman story it is a sequel to. It's set in 2967, but there's no reference to the Legion of Super-Heroes. It features Superman the 20th & Batman the 20th, but the Legion was formed because of the legends of Superboy & Supergirl from the 20th century, not the 20 generations of Supermen & Batmen. It was also written by Jim Shooter who also wrote the Legion. So it's either a parallel timeline where the Legion doesn't exist or it's an Imaginary Story & they forgot to label it as such.

So what happened to people's names? Superman XX's secret identity is Klar Ken T5477 & Batman XX's secret identity is Bron Wayn E7705.

Probably more of a nit for the Superman story where he first appeared, but...
Superman XX is immune to kryptonite, but his weakness is... sea water. It seems there was an Intergalactic Atomic War which had a chemical fall-out that landed in all seas everywhere making sea water deadly to him.
Yeahhhhhh...
1. Space is big, so the idea that fallout from a war between two or more galaxies can reach all planets is ludicrous.
2. Chemical fallout? So couldn't it be filtered or counteracted with another chemical?

The New Superman And Batman Team! World's Finest Comics #167
This is an Imaginary Story.

One of the changes to normal continuity is that a piece of Gold Kryptonite passed by Kal-El's rocket as the ship entered Earth's solar system & took away his superpowers.
For some reason the Gold K had a delayed effect on baby Kal-El so he survived the crash landing on Earth, but lost his powers afterwards.

Page 2, Panel 3. They show Kal-El punching a hole in the side of the rocket.
Presumably this story takes place before the idea that kryptonian metal would be just as strong to Kal-El in Earth's solar system as it would in Krypton's.

Okayyyy... in the two panels following the punching a hole in the spaceship, we see no evidence of a hole.

For some reason young Luthor wears glasses in this story.
Are we supposed to believe that since Luthor has been working for 2 years on a serum that could give him superpowers he decided to wear glasses as a possible disguise?

Amazingly Luthor's "action suit" looks just like Superman's.

Another change to normal continuity is that Ma & Pa Kent were killed by a thief and Clark was taken in by his rich uncle Kendall Gotham City.
I wonder if uncle Kendall ever appeared, or was referred to, in normal continuity?

Oddly enough Afred was Kendall's butler.
Wonder why he wasn't working for the Wayne's?

Lois ISN'T interested in Superman?
Okay, there's stretching your disbelief & stretching it until it's dead, dead, dead. ;-)

The Supergirl-Batgirl Plot! World's Finest Comics #169
NNANJAO. Seems like the city that Stanhope College is in is within sight of Gotham & vice versa. Page 2, Panel 1, the caption reads "somewhere between Stanhope College and Gotham City, as Supergirl flies on patrol" & in the distance behind Supergirl you can see a city. In Panel 2 we see another city ahead of her. On Page 3, Batgirl shows up on her Batcycle to help Supergirl.

Gotham City is hosting a Fair Of The Future and one of the exhibits is a working atomic reactor that has no safety features to keep people from being tossed in.
Safety features? We don' need no stinkin' safety features in the future!

NNAN. Supergirl is carrying off the Fortress of Solitude, including the iceberg that it's encased in.
I suppose chipping off all that ice might be a waste of time, but I suspect TPTB have forgotten that the Fortress is supposed to be a self-contained sphere.

The Executioner's List! World's Finest Comics #171
NANJAComment. Dick Grayson says, "but why should anyone want to bump off millionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne?"
Well, usually in a case like this it's who would stand to benefit? Does Bruce Wayne have any heirs who would inherit his vast fortune? That's probably the person behind it, Dick! ;-)

You know, Perry says that he was planning to take the Planet's helicopter to a publishers convention when he's leading Clark to it to get to a story & yet when it explodes he's convinced someone tried to kill Clark. Even Superman with his super-memory seems to think someone tried to kill Clark.

Clark's overcoat is shown to be ripped & torn from the explosion, but two panels later he's in a suit with no apparent damage to it.
Either the overcoat took all the damage from the explosion or Clark keeps a change of clothes at the Planet.

Bruce sends Alfred to see if "Swifty" Sloane is out of his coma yet.
Don't you think the police might wonder why Bruce Wayne's butler would be so interested in a criminal's condition? (Then again Gotham doesn't have the smartest cops around...)

Superman And Batman... Brothers! World's Finest Comics #172
An Imaginary Story.

In this story the Wayne's are killed & the Smallville orphanage asks the Kents if they would adopt Bruce.
Why on Earth would the Smallville Orphanage be involved?

NNAN. Okay, in this Imaginary Story Superman & Luthor never met as boys, but Luthor is shown to be bald. This is an interesting change since the previous Imaginary Story (#167) where Kal-El lost his powers & never became Superboy they showed Luthor with a full head of hair.

Page 13, Panel 2. Batman says, "This miniature bomb from my gravity belt"
Gravity belt? So far Batman has been like the normal continuity's version & isn't using any super-science devices.

Losing two sets of parents to criminals is really hard on Batman so he wants to get away & find peace. Superman takes him to the 30th Century where he's allowed to join the Adult Legion of Super-Heroes.
Yeahhhhhhh... so not only has he lost both sets of parents he now knows when his brother Superman died. Gee, thanks...

The Superman-Batman Split! World's Finest Comics #176 Reprinted in Showcase Presents Batgirl Volume 1

Jimmy says, "Robin! I tried to contact you earlier today about a feud between Superman and Batman" and Robin says he just "found out about the big hassle!"
Huh? Outside of the battle between Superman and the team of Batman & Supergirl at the Fortress of Solitude (the location of which is secret) what evidence of a feud would there have been?

The Showcase Presents reprint of this story has an interesting typo. Superman says, ""Dur" told me he was from the 5th planet in the Sirius system! I once exploded that planet... and it's uninhabited!"
Yeah, well, once you exploded it it would be. ;-)
What's funny is the reprint in Super-Team Family #3 had the word explored so why didn't they just use that copy? (Or was exploded a typo in the original World's Finest printing?)

All stories reprinted in Showcase Presents World's Finest Volume 4

Secret Of The Double Death-Wish! World's Finest Comics #174

Probably one of those stories where they had the cover, then dreamed up a story to go with it. Sometimes this leads to good stories... and sometimes not so good stories... It's not necessarily terrible as puzzle stories go, but the solution really undercuts the drama of the cover.

A Professor Madden has invented some androids as a gift for Superman and Batman.
1. Superman has been building androids to take his place since he was a teenager, and even Batman has been known to build the occasional android, so what a pointless gift.
2. Neither hero seems to assume that this might be a trick from a mad scientist. (It isn't, but it is a logical assumption.)

The androids are programmed to believe they are Bats & Supes and are then tortured into giving up their secrets at which point they fail the test, they realize they are just androids and beg to be "killed".
Yikes!
1. Why give the androids real information to test them with? Seems unnecessarily risky.
2. Who knew Batman and Superman were expert torturers? Maybe they should use these techniques on criminals to get them to go straight? ;-)


The Hunter And The Hunted! World's Finest Comics #181

For years I've seen this cover in an old comic promo & have wondered about the story. Sadly the story just doesn't live up to the story implied by the cover. That's not to say the story is bad, in it's own way it's an okay little puzzle story, it just doesn't live up to the drama and power implied by the cover.

Superman's super-computer warns Superman that a being with superior power will capture him and Batman.
How exactly can the computer know this? What information is it basing it on? Especially as the alien and his world came from the future, so you couldn't even argue that it got this information from off-world informants or space police.


Superman's Crime Of The Ages! World's Finest Comics #183

Time travelers have convinced Batman that Superman will commit a terrible crime, so Bats stops him in the present day and the UN security council tries Superman for a crime he has yet to commit.
Uh, yeah.......
So... much... wrong... with this... All the characters in this story took stupid pills.

If it was a future version of Superman, why doesn't Batman try to catch the future evil version rather than the past good version? Because there isn't one, but that would give the game away, wouldn't it?

Why is the UN trying someone for a crime they won't commit until the year 4069? Seems a little outside their jurisdiction.

Why are two of Superman's smartest villains pulling a stupid little con like this? Why does everyone just take their disguises at face value?

Why does the solution to the event in 4069 feel so groan worthy? I assume it would work in a better told story where it would be seen as clever, but it's more like a wasted punchline here.


Robin's Revenge! World's Finest Comics #184

NANJAO. This is an imaginary story. (No Alan Moore quotes, please.)

The story starts off with Supes, Bats & Robin closing in to capture the Automator, a master in the creation of robot crime machines. Then Supes has to take off because a plane is about to crash into a mountain.
Uhhhh... Supes? Why are you not focused on the job at hand? I mean with your superspeed you could have zipped in, bound and gagged the guy in a fraction of a second and still had time to save the plane.

Also one would think that with his vision powers he could see the pretty big weapon that the Automator had hidden to kill Batman.
What the heck? Are you forgetting what powers you have?

After Batman's death, Robin set up a fake skiing accident that kills off Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson. Robin's reasoning is that if just Bruce is reported dead people might assume Bruce was Batman and Dick is Robin.
Seems to me that they have had people, or robots, disguised as Bruce before (certainly in later stories), so why not have some one or a robot make some public appearances to show 'Bruce' is alive while Bats is dead?

The money situation is not explained, although one hopes Robin sealed off all access from the mansion to the batcave or the next owner will be in for an interesting surprise.

Almost ten years later a villain called Golden Gloves shows up, Supes and Robin track him down and discover he's Batman, brainwashed to follow the order of the Automator.
Wait a minute? Why would a guy who makes robot crime devices need a human to work for him?

Also the Automator created a vitality serum that kept Batman young, but the Automator had to use all of it on Batman, not himself.
Yeesh, if he had just kept to using robots, he wouldn't have needed to waste all the vitality serum on Bats.

Also Robin & Supes plan to retrain Batman to be a crimefighter again.
So how will they explain this new Batman?

I think this might be the first story to show Robin growing up and not adopting Batman's identity himself.


The Galactic Gamblers World's Finest Comics #185

Okayyyy... a world of gamblers teleport Superman and Batman to their world which has a red sun and Supes & Bats are forced to fight to the death. At the end it's revealed that Supes still had his powers because the sun isn't really red, it was an atmospheric effect that made them think that and they didn't know that because they use teleportation instead of spaceships. Superman had been secretly using his powers to affect the outcomes and communicate with Batman. Anyway... the nit is how Supes was secretly communicating with Batman, using his heat vision on Batman's forehead to send Morse code signals.
Bwha? I would have expected him to use his super-ventriloquism to whisper to Batman, but nooooo.... First of all Bats has a mask that covers his forehead, so Supes would have to heat the fabric enough for Bats to feel it, not to mention guess that this is a message and not something else. But mainly how the heck does the fabric cool off fast enough for Bats to determine there is a Morse code message? The longer Supes focuses on Bats' forehead the hotter the fabric would get and stay. There is no way to send a quick message by this method, heat up, let it cool, heat up, let it cool, thereby defeating the quickness of using Morse code.

NANJAO. Part of me wondered why create a new planet of gamblers when DC already had Ventura, then I checked to see who wrote it... ah, Bob Kanigher... where would nitpickers be without his wacky stories that don't care about continuity?
Admittedly Ventura wouldn't work for this story as it had featured in a few stories by this time and they were familiar with Batman & Superman and there is no rule that says the universe can't have more than one planet of obsessed gamblers, it's just that DC tended to keep it's "Planets of Hats"* unique for continuity.

* Planet of Hats is a TV Tropes term referring to fiction where a world is, or can be, described by one unique quality, i.e. the planet of logic, the planet of gambling, the planet of Nazis, the planet of gangsters, the planet of nitpickers, etc., etc.


The Bat-Witch! World's Finest Comics #186

NANJAO. Hey this issue shows credits on the story. Another Kanigher tale.

A bust has been donated to the Gotham Museum and they are unveiling it sight unseen.
Bwha? Does the Gotham Museum have no standards? You'd think the museum would have examined the bust after receiving it to find out more about it and determine that it actually was worth displaying.

A single guy is carrying the bust, which has a sheet over it, and he drops it, shattering it into a million pieces.
1. Fire that moving company.
2. What kind of cheap material was this bust made of anyway?

Fortunately Superman is able to piece the fragments and dust back into it's original look, which is a bust of Mad Anthony Wayne, but furthermore that the bust was of Mad Anthony Wayne wearing a Batman cowl.
1. Unless this bust was made of clay in two stages, this makes no sense. Why sculpt a likeness of someone maskless, then put a mask over it, instead of simply sculpting someone wearing a mask?
2. The bust of Mad Anthony Wayne had a squarish hairstyle that doesn't match the same bust with the Batman mask on. Now real hair would flatten down, but sculpted hair?

In order to learn more about this bust Superman decides to take Batman back in time.
Yeahhhhh... my first thought would be to talk to the person who donated the bust first, but what do I know?

Amusingly Superman takes Batman into the next room, then cuts up the museum's drapes to make colonial style clothes for him and Batman.
Yeahhhhhh... I would have loved to see the scene of Supes explaining that to the museum director. "Well, you see, I ruined your drapes because..."
Frankly given the number of times Bats & Supes have time-traveled I'm surprised they don't have period clothes in their respective HQs just in case.

Later Superman makes it look like Batman is a witch & Superman is chosen to work as prosecutor.
Excuse me??? Supes & Bats came to this town together, why would the town elders pick an accused witch's traveling companion as the prosecutor?


The Demon Superman! World's Finest Comics #187

Part of the flashback to last issue has Batman saying the bust being made almost 200 years ago in Salem. A scene that didn't actually appear in the last issue.


The Man With Superman's Heart! World's Finest Comics #189

Superman's dead body falls to Earth. Batman shows up at the Daily Planet with Superman's will which states that his organs be transplanted to a deserving person. The Daily Planet staff choose Batman, and a medical team is about to perform the surgery when Batman decides against it.
Ummm... isn't it medically unethical to give a transplant to someone who doesn't actually need a transplant?
Not to mention that no one knows what killed Superman, so how do they know his organs would even work?
Also wouldn't said organs also have traces of Superman's super-immune system? What would that do to a non-super earthling?

Batman pulls out feeling that there must be someone more worthy like "a great scientist... or a statesman!"
A politician??? Geeze Batman, I thought you were supposed to be smart! ;-) (Oddly enough, in the story the president who announces Superman's death to the nation is... Richard Nixon. *snicker* Hilarious In Hindsight.)

The crook who gets Superman's hands gains Superman's super-strength.
Bwha? Wouldn't you need super-muscles for super-strength? Where the super-hand attaches to the human arm there would only be normal human muscles in the arms.


The Final Revenge Of Luthor! World's Finest Comics #190

Okayyyyyy... Superman explains to Luthor how he faked his death in the previous issue. (Somebody should really make a list of times Superman was reported dead in canon Pre-Crisis stories.) He went to New Krypton, a world he and Supergirl created to replicate Krypton and populated it with non-living androids, got the android that was a duplicate of his uncle Nim-El who resembles him, puts him in a Superman costume and turns him off and drops him over Metropolis Park, and it was the android's synthetic organs that were removed.
Why not just make a new android rather than using one who was living a life on New Krypton? Nothing is said about restoring the organs to the Nim-El android.

The whole thing was a trick to catch the Big Four gangster crimelords.
Seriously? You could just ask Hawkman to use the Absorbascon to give you their IDs.

One theory about the transplants is that the bodies might reject the synthetic organs, which happens, at exactly the same time in all four criminals.
Technically the rejections should happen at different times, but yeah, comics...

Soooo, okay. Your big plan to catch four unknown gangsters is going to cost them various organs that they'll probably never get replacements for and might kill them?
Seriously, with all the resources Supes and Bats have access to THIS was the best plan they could come up with???

BTW the crook with the super-lungs suffocated to death.
So much for Supes and Bats code of not-killing.


Execution On Krypton! World's Finest Comics #191

Superman and Batman go to Krypton in the past to solve a mystery. Superman flies himself and Bats into the past and they arrive and Supes loses his powers.
You would think he would have realized this earlier, but no, at the end of the story they're not sure how they are going to get back. It's only an improbable happenstance that gets them back to Earth in the present.

On Krypton people go to the cinema by bringing headsets that have lenses for each eye and speakers.
So why go to the cinema? Why not just broadcast the movie to the houses of those that pay to see it?

The island of Bokos on Krypton is home to criminals. It actually is the law for people to commit crimes. Two people get temporarily exiled for failing to help with a robbery and later Superman gets himself exiled by trying to put coins back into a broken parking meter. The cop chews him out by stating that honesty doesn't pay.
How exactly would you run a society on the idea that the law is to break the law???


The Prison Of No Escape! World's Finest Comics #192

NNAN. In this story Superman loses his powers, including his invulnerability, do to his exposure to synthetic kryptonite.
That would make synthetic kryptonite more powerful than the real thing since, at the time, he was still invulnerable when exposed to kryptonite.


The Breaking Of Batman And Superman! World's Finest Comics #193

NANJAO. This story references Justice League Of America #9 with how Batman and Superman defeated Dr. Light.
Considering that this story was written by Bob Haney, I was stunned he would be true to continuity.


Inside The Mafia Gang! World's Finest Comics #194

Disguising himself as a criminal, Superman infiltrates the Mafia and is ordered to kill Bruce Wayne. So, of course, they fake Bruce Wayne's death.
Considering all the legal things that must happen when someone is reported dead, inheritance, changes in company leadership, etc., one wonders about the casualness of all this. Also why use a forger as a hitman?

Batman infiltrates the mob pretending to be a criminal that the FBI is secretly holding.
Is secretly holding a suspect even legal?

Batman decides the best way to get the information they need against mob overboss Lukaz and his lieutenants is to take over Lukaz ID, so Superman kidnaps Lukaz and his driver and keeps them at his Fortress of Solitude.
Again on the legality issue.


The Kryptonite Express! World's Finest Comics #196

Interesting premise. A meteor shower turns out to be kryptonite so America is covered in green k. Of course, rather than exploring the idea the nation is told to put their meteors in a special train that will collect it all.
One train? Wouldn't it make more sense to have centers across the country?
Then again, why say it's kryptonite? Just say the meteors are radioactive.
Why not have Flash & Kid Flash zip around the country getting rid of it?

The villain, K. C. Jones, (yes, and he loves trains) has a spy aboard the train so he can steal the kryptonite. It turns out the spy is a guy pretending to be Robin.
How the heck could Batman not figure this out shortly after the guy started to pull off the impersonation??? He helped raise Robin, his life has depended on working with Robin as a team, there should be dozens of things to have tipped off Bats that this guy wasn't Robin.


Race To Save The Universe! World's Finest Comics #198

NANJAO. The first issue to make World's Finest a team-up mag for Superman like Brave And The Bold was for Batman. This was the first of a two-parter between Superman and Flash. Batman does appear in this and the next two issues, but just as a cameo.

A Guardian of the Universe calls Superman a Terran instead of a Kryptonian.

Superman has a Roman centurion with him (thinking him a nutcase rather than someone shifted 2 thousand years forward in time) and rather than dropping him off he takes him with to Oa where Supes has been summoned.

Even more odd Supes doesn't even wrap him in his cape to protect him. Supes does mention using a space warp to get to Oa as opposed to flying through real space, but still, previous stories that have mentioned a space warp in Earth's solar system have had it in space some distance from Earth's atmosphere.

A swarm of thousands of Anachronids from another dimension have entered our dimension and since they travel at greater than light speed they can disrupt time, but the Guardians have determined that two beings with the mass of humans traveling faster than light the opposite direction can counter this.
Huh? Two vs. thousands?

They've also determined that Superman and Flash are the only ones who can do this.
So a couple of Green Lanterns flying faster than light won't work???

The Guardians provide Flash with a medallion that will allow him to run through space. The reader then learns that this device is using all the energy of the Green Lantern Corps, so the Green Lanterns are not able to do anything.
How much power can this thing be channeling? It's not shown to do anything a Green Lantern ring can't.

Really grungy nitpicking opportunity. This book came out in September 1970. Superman and Flash leave Earth, pass by all the outer planets and are heading for the Andromeda Galaxy.
I think we were, at least, a decade away from szyzygy, so passing all the planets like they were in a straight line seems unlikely. Also it just seems unlikely that they would have been pointing toward Andromeda.

Superman and Flash pass by the Anarchronids swarm near a yellow star 16 light years from Earth.
There are no yellow stars 16 light years from Earth. In the 15 & 16 light year range we have mostly red stars, one white dwarf and an orange dwarf, plus a few brown dwarfs that weren't even known at the time.
On the other hand the Anarchronids did cause it to supernova so I guess we can just chalk that up as a difference between the Earth-One and Earth-Prime universes. ;-)

Jimmy Olsen, trapped in 15 BC, says his signal watch can't call Superman through time.
Well, that's a change. There are stories where it does work through time, I know because I've nitted them. ;-)


Race To Save Time World's Finest Comics #199

Okayyyyy... in the previous issue the Guardians described the Anarchronids as life forms and their description implied something they had encountered having entered our universe before. Here Professor Vakox mentioning building them and sending them out, which would make them robots rather than life forms and the Guardians could only have a limited amount of study time to learn about them and the damaging effect they could have.

The dimension the Anarchronids came from is a dimension on the far side of the Phantom Zone that several Kryptonian prisoners managed to escape into. At the end Superman leaves them there instead of putting them back into the Zone and believes that the Guardians can seal up this dimension. Which should be difficult since the passageways are a doughnut shaped sun which changes from red to YELLOW and yellow is a weakness for the green lantern energy.


A Prize Of Peril! World's Finest Comics #201

Okayyyyy... Green Lantern tries to deal with a meteor shower by speeding up the meteors so they will burn up in the atmosphere.
Given the problem was that some of the meteor's were too big to burn up before he pulled this stunt. Really just break up the bigger meteors and let nature take its course.

Superman spots the meteors, but somehow misses GL.
You'd think Supes would take special notice of green, glowing masses amongst meteors given that they might be kryptonite.

Supes' plan is to create turbulence which would erect a wall of air to deflect the meteors.
Deflect to where? Who knows? Again, just break up the big ones and let air friction deal with the smaller ones.

Somehow GL's speeding up the meteors and Supes' wall of air causes the meteors to scatter putting a jetliner in danger, and Supes & GL argue about each others bad plan until a Guardian appears and proposes a contest to see who can protect Earth from outward threats with the winner having domain of Earth's atmosphere.
Huh??? Only one hero to defend a planet from offworld threats? How is this a good idea? Green Lanterns are supposed to patrol space sectors not just one world in that sector. Superman occasionally travels offworld, or through time, or is just busy with some other threat. Of course if Supes or GL thought about it, then we would have had short story syndrome.


Vengeance Of The Tomb-Thing! World's Finest Comics #202

IINM this is the story that gives the reason for Superman to stop using his Superman robots. Despite being nearly as strong and invulnerable as Superman, the robots aren't working as well because of pollution.
Yeahhhhhh... if only Luthor, Brainiac, the Prankster had known they could have stopped Supes robots... with smog? *rolls eyes*

Okay archeologists find the tomb of the legendary King Malis, from 5000 years ago and at the end it turns out Malis was an alien robot. Who and where from, apparently, unimportant as everyone is shown leaving after the robot has been stopped.
Excuse me???

Almost ten years later a villain called Golden Gloves shows up, Supes and Robin track him down and discover he's Batman, brainwashed to follow the order of the Automator.
Wait a minute? Why would a guy who makes robot crime devices need a human to work for him?

Maybe it was just for the fun of making Batman do his biding.

I think we were, at least, a decade away from szyzygy, so passing all the planets like they were in a straight line seems unlikely. Also it just seems unlikely that they would have been pointing toward Andromeda.

That szyzygy was just New Age pseudo science hype. The planets were never anywhere near aligned in a straight line. And if you are going to Andromeda, you will never go past any planet, Andromeda is located far from the plane of our solar system.