In every installment of I Love Ya But You’re Strange I spotlight strange but ultimately endearing comic stories. Feel free to e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com if you have a suggestion for a future installment!
It's still Batman Day in California, so we'll do one more Batman Day bit!
Today, we look at the time that Ace, the Bat-Hound, gained superpowers and turned on Batman and Robin! It all went down in Batman #158 (by Dave Wood, Sheldon Moldoff and Charles Paris)!
First off, let me note how much that I adore this Sheldon Moldoff cover. The way that Robin says that dialogue as if it is just some normal, everyday occurrence, is amazing...
The issue opens with Batman and Robin leaving Ace behind, but they are shocked when he suddenly shows up...with superpowers!
They theorize that he got his powers from some chemicals, but we soon learn that nope, it was from that annoying imp, Bat-Mite, who decided to give Ace powers both to help Batman and Robin in their crimefighting and also because, hey, it amused him...
And sure enough, Ace's new powers DID lend themselves to helping Batman and Robin a lot in their crimefighting...
But then a funny thing happened. Some mine fumes messed with Ace's heads and he suddenly became incredibly suggestible when exposed to the fumes and the bad guys quickly realized that using the fumes, they can make Ace do whatever THEY want and so they surprise Batman and Robin by turning Ace and his newfound abilities on Batman and Robin!
Bat-Mite freaks out, as his whole shtick is that while is annoying as heck, he is still a huge fan of Batman and Robin and he doesn't want them to be hurt, so he quickly uses his powers to first give them shields to protect them from Ace's flames and then, just when it appears that Ace is about to listen to the bad guys to attack Batman and Robin again...
He turns on the bad guys, instead! It turns out that the fumes only work on his mind when he has powers, so Bat-Mite just took the powers away...
What a hilariously bizarre story.
Happy Batman Day, everyone! I'm glad that we have so many amazingly weird Batman stories like this over the years! And I'll be sure to share many more over the years!
If anyone else has a suggestion for a future I Love Ya But You're Strange, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!