Nemesis 23: B&B #189

#23

Brave and the Bold #189 (August 1982)

Synopsis: 

Mob boss Jay Kingston's butler, Sheffield, prepares to kill him per orders from Maddox, another mob boss. However, Sheffield decides to bide his time when he realizes that Kingston is not alone. Sheffield  doesn't want to have to kill Brewster, who is another top-ranked goon. He sneaks off.  Kingston and Brewster, of course, are enraptured by what they are watching on the closed-circuit television: Nemesis fighting for his life in Kingston's "Gauntlet of Death." 

Luckily for Nemesis, he suspected that everything in the gauntlet was booby-trapped. So instead of charging through it, he tossed his knife at it. This is what triggered the would-be fatal explosion. Shaken but definitely still alive, Nemesis heads through the secret passage (now conveniently revealed) and comes across the master broadcast control room. He knocks out the engineers, verifies where the kidnapped Marjorie Marshall is being held, and then destroys the place. He also calls Valerie to signal her to pick them up. 

Kingston and Brewster are shocked when their screens go blank, so Kingston sends Brewster to the broadcast control room to take care of Nemesis personally. Frantic that his plan might be unravelling, Kingston is easy prey to Sheffield, who kills him. 

Nemesis finds Marjorie's room, but he must face down another booby trap to get to her. Close on his heels is Brewster, following the trail Nemesis is not trying to hide. 

Nemesis finds Marjorie, but there is no time for any emotional reunion. Intent on escaping as quickly as possible, Nemesis blasts out the outer wall of Marjorie's room, allowing them to escape into Kingston's grounds.

Meanwhile, Valerie causes a diversion on the east side of the campus so that she can land the helicopter on the west side, where Nemesis and Marjorie wait for her. As they head for the helicopter, Brewster catches up to them. Nemesis warns him that some of Kingston's lions have arrived, but Brewster doesn't believe him. The lions attack Brewster as Nemesis and Marjorie make good their escape. 

  

Commentary: 

The first thing I want to write about is the clever way Cary Burkett wrote himself out of one of the cliff-hangers from last issue: when last we saw, the butler is ready to blow Jay Kingston's brains out; how in the world could Kingston escape!? Well....the assassin simply changed his mind. Brilliant. Of course, we do get the off-camera "K-Blam!" before the end of the story, in case any readers felt cheated. 

This story is full of call-backs to previous encounters as several loose ends are tied up. Certainly, the murder of Kingston is the most obvious one, but there is also the death of Brewster by lions. You will recall that the lions almost killed Nemesis a few issues ago, so it's not a surprise to see them again this time. Also, Brewster was the one who knew the connection between Nemesis and Marjorie; with his death, this little bit of information is now lost to The Council again. Clever plotting by Burkett, for sure. 

The art by Dan Spiegle is great, as always. I especially like the splash page of Sheffield about to shoot Kingston, especially juxta-posed against the first panel of page two of a solo pic of the would-be assassin. This is well designed storyboarding! I also like the "neon-light" effects on Brewster on page six as he bursts into the broadcast control room. It's a bit cheesy, but it does effectively show the haste Brewster is in. 

Nemesis Fact File:  

• The team-up in this issue is the concluding chapter of the Batman and Rose & The Thorn story, "A Grave As Wide As The World!" by Robert Kanigher and Jim Aparo. I had seen Rose & Thorn maybe *one* time before this, so this adventure sort of confused me. And it also made me think that older writers like Kanigher just didn't know how to write women characters. I'll leave it at that.   
• There was only letter printed in B&B #194 about this installment. Kent Phenis of Indianapolis praised it as part of his review of the entire issue. In the editorial response, Len Wein (?) wrote, "When the decision was made to go to book-length novels in these pages, we also decided it might be nice to write finis to the saga of Nemesis rather than reduce him to being another loose end in the DC fabric of reality....." More on this in another few posts....!   

This story has not yet been reprinted. Therefore, I gladly reproduce the eight-page story here in its entirety, exactly as it appeared in its comic-book form.
Please do not allow it to fall into the hand of the Council!

NEMESIS 

created by Cary Burkett and Dan Spiegle