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eileentothestars · 6 years

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Today I am going to kind of review but mostly scream about Batman ‘66 Meets The Man From UNCLE because it makes me happy. Yes, I know this comic came out like two years ago but I don’t care and you can’t stop me, so either strap in or scroll past, kids. No knowledge of either show required. Spoilers ahead.

So ‘60s Batman is famous for being a camp fest, but The Man from UNCLE did that too; the 1965-66 season started to slide into light camp and even did the whole two-part-episode-separated-by-a-cliffhanger thing (”Alexander the Greater Affair,” Parts 1 & 2) several months before Batman debuted and made it legend. But it wasn’t a one-way relationship. When Batman proved a monster hit, MFU cranked the camp up several notches to try to siphon off some of their success.

In other words, this is a perfect choice for a crossover, even if the timing of this comic’s release (early 2016) makes me think they only did this in response to the 2015 MFU reboot movie.

So the comic revolves around a mysterious agent of THRUSH, the evil organization UNCLE frequently went up against, recruiting several Batman villains for some nefarious purpose, and you know what that means: STUPID DEATH TRAPS GALORE WHEEEE

Once again Illya is given reason to despair of heterosexuality.

The villainess there is Olga, Queen of the Cossacks. Her captives are, of course, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, the men from UNCLE. If you’ve never seen the show, that’s okay, the comic helpfully pilfers the opening sequence from the very early episodes to introduce them to you.

Olga takes a liking to Illya based on the fact that they were both played by actors who are clearly not Russian and lets him go... as long as he promises to kill Napoleon. Illya is very happy to go along and semi-pretends to smack Napoleon around a bit.

Well he wasn’t THAT happy about it. But what would either of these shows be without blatant innuendo?

Skipping ahead (do I even need to tell you they escape?), Batman and Robin have their own near brush with death at the hands of the Penguin, who admits he was working with THRUSH. Thankfully for the Caped Crusaders, their butler Alfred just happens to be an old friend of Waverly’s, and both sets of characters finally come together at a fancy-pants soiree at Wayne Manor.

1) I love the fact that Alfred and Waverly were army buddies

2) I need to talk about the art for a second. It’s mostly pretty good, but then you get weirdness like the above.

For the uninitiated, Alfred was played in the ‘60s show by Alan Napier, who was 6′9″ to Adam West’s (Batman’s) 6′2″. And yet somehow here he’s the same height as Waverly, who was played by Leo G. Carroll. IMDb says Carroll was 5′10″, which I suspect is an exaggeration, but regardless, Alfred should be TOWERING here.

Now this panel seems a little more accurate in terms of the height differences. (Robert Vaughn was apparently about 5′8″, making him Burt Ward/Robin’s height, but again, this is from IMDb which is a lying liar so idk anymore). Clearly the artist knew what the actors were supposed to look like, so I really don’t know wtf was up with Alfred there.

Speaking of weird artistic choices, there are some artist’s notes included in the back of the book as a bonus feature.

“handsome but generic” lol ouch

asldfhalsdjflasldflaks;dl

Um pardon me but what universe is this artist living in that he thinks that sweater is “frumpy?” Lana Turner could walk into a malt shop and get discovered in that sweater.

ANYWAY back on track.

THRUSH’s Bat-recruits crash the fancy-pants soiree to steal a science doohickey. Said recruits include some relatively minor villains from the ‘60s series, like Siren, Egghead, Sandman and Mister Freeze, as well as characters who never got a chance to appear on the show, like Scarecrow and Poison Ivy. Ivy has a southern accent for some reason, but it works, so I’m not complaining.

The attack leads to this fantastic panel.

So now our heroes have to figure out where the bad guys took the science doohickey and what their ultimate plan is. The Bat-clan and the UNCLE agents hold a video conference to compare notes, which Robin is super hyped about because VIDEO CONFERENCE IN THE ‘60S YOU GUYS

Wow wait what the sh--

Never let Napoleon run a Skype chat

So UNCLE has discovered the bad guys’ hideout is off the coast of Monaco, with the help of a random lady named Blanche (she of frumpy sweater fame). See, part of MFU’s shtick was that some innocent bystander--usually a woman--would get dragged into the mission du jour and help our heroes resolve it. That element really gets shoved to the sidelines in this comic, and that’s fair enough. We already have a lot of main characters running around. Blanche only shows up for like three pages, but it’s long enough for Bats to give his unsolicited opinion.

Surprisingly, Waverly’s response is not “Yeah well you bring an underage boy in hot pants on your missions so stfu.”

So off to Monaco we go--and yes, an ersatz Princess Grace does show up, thanks for asking--only for everyone to get captured and dragged to an undersea base. There we finally discover our main villain: Doctor Strange (not that one... though now I want that crossover too), a THRUSH agent who got into Arkham Asylum as a psychologist in order to determine which villains would serve THRUSH best.

I mean she’s not wrong.

Basically Hugo Strange’s plan is to slowly brainwash all of our heroes into becoming his pawns so they’ll help him achieve world domination. His brainwashing methods look suspiciously like the Bohemian Rhapsody music video, anachronisms be hanged.

NEVER LET ME GO (LET ME GOOOOOOOOOOO)

FOR MEEEEEEEEEEE *vigorous headbanging*

Okay this post is already way too long so let’s wrap up. Our heroes manipulate the Bat-villains a bit, pointing out that Strange only sees them as subordinates, which hurts their egos enough that they’re willing to team up with both dynamic duos to defeat Strange.

Side note: Batgirl is in this comic and she is amazing.

Look at her kicking the heads off Ivy’s plant men like a BOSS

A hundred feet under the ocean and outnumbered seven to one and she’s still ready to throw down. THAT’S MY GIRL

And you can probably guess the rest of the story: heroes triumphant, villains defeated, and there is also a giant octopus involved. So if you were disappointed in the ‘66 Batman movie where Penguin mentions having a trained octopus but never shows it to us, I hope this will heal the octopus-shaped hole in your heart.

So anyway, that’s the comic. I skipped over a whole lot of cool stuff so please buy it and also both of these shows and also the Batman ‘66 comic in general. One day I may do a post about Batman ‘66 Meets The Green Hornet too because it is actually EVEN BETTER

#dc #batman #the man from uncle #i may have gone a little overboard on this #i just love batman '66 and mfu okay #batman '66

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