In a 1955 story titled "Fan-Mail of Danger" (Batman #92, reprinted in a 1966 Signet paperback), Batman and Robin are X-raying a package sent to them in care of the Gotham post office. Batman says, "It's all right! It's only a gift -- a huge stuffed bat!"

The X-ray screen shows the silhouette of a baseball bat. It seems that the artist, Sheldon Moldoff -- a man quite used to drawing Batman and all of his Bat-paraphernalia -- misunderstood the script.

I think Loeb has *tons* of good ideas, and that’s actually his greatest strength.

No, Loeb RECYCLES a ton of good ideas from other media, writers and old comics. As far as actually creating any good ideas himself, I only know of two: the one from the urban legend Brian just cited and the Uncle Sam as a Green Lantern. And of the latter I'm skeptical.

It also reminds me of a gimmick on Dragonball Z called the Spirit Bomb. The hero Goku has a special attack that he uses as a last resort called the Spirit Bomb. Instead of just using his own chi or spirit to generate an attack, he tunes into the collective spirit and willpower of everyone on earth and uses the chi or spirit of the people of earth to generate a devastating energy attack. I don't know if Loeb has ever seen Dragonball Z, but that could be where he got it from too.

And in Up, Up, and Away, Luthor supposedly gathered all the green Kryponite.

Isn't that also the plot of the Incredibles? Without the whole moon sucking thing. I also agree that this is the best SM/BM issue yet. I was actually relieved, because until now I couldn't remember why I was geting it every month.

Some guy captured the WCA back when they had like a dozen members, and had them fight a killer robot. Each time one of them defeated the robot, he rebuilt it with the capability to counter whatever defeated it. The plan was to make the robot unstoppable.

So, Tigra used her agility to throw it off a cliff, and it came back faster and more resiliant. Iron Man zapped it and it came back with the ability to absorb energy rather than be hurt by it. Etc.

Finally, the last Avenger was Moon Knight. And, being a normal guy with gadgets, he couldn't figure out what he was going to do. Then the spirit of the moon pointed out that the planet they'd been taken to had hundreds of moons orbiting it. He sucked up all of their energy to make himself more powerful than the rest of the Avengers combined and took the robot apart with his bare hands.

The other Avengers were shocked at his hidden power. Until the end of the issue. But, the moon-energy sucking power was never mentioned again so far as I can recall.

Theno

I once figured out my reason for having a love/hate relationship with Loeb; much of his stuff reads like a really cool Elseworlds story. Or like one of those stories where there's a really weird but kinda cool situation, and you don't find out until the end that it was all a dream or a simulation or Superman playing a convoluted Silver Age trick on his friends to teach them a vaguely-defined lesson....

Except with Loeb, you don't get that "punchline" - all the weird but sort of cool but out of character stuff "really happened!"

Heck, remember this installment of Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed where Elliot S! Maggin talks about how a young Jeph Loeb came out with the really cool "Must There Be a Superman?" story?

that was a great idea by Loeb

since it was a good idea, i assume he cribbed it from somewhere else? anyone know from where?