The moral of the story in advance:

Even if you can't win the big game, you can try to win your own game.

As of this week, I'm declaring victory in my secret little project, after 97 weeks' engagement with our weekly Classic Comics Cover Contest. I had two entries I wanted to add, but given the trends of topics, it's looking like I might be hanging on for another year trying to find a chance to use the few remaining covers available to me. Since these last two, along with one I have already used, were outside the bounds of my original challenge, I decided to "cut them from the team" and let everyone in on my secret theme.

At some point, I began using spoilers to let any who were interested know that I did have a secret theme dictating my selections. I left additional clues by "liking" only those covers that might have potentially been used, had I not made an alternative choice or had already retired that character by using it in a prior contest. So you saw me liking a lot of DC covers (but not all! plenty of DC covers wouldn't qualify!), and only one Marvel (yes, there was in fact a Marvel cover that showed up in someone's entry that would have been a valid choice for this project!). At least one of the forum members--foxley--figured out my theme, but kindly kept mum about it!

Introduction: 
This is a review of my Classic Cover Contest Personal Challenge that I've been engaging in for almost two years now. This wasn't the first time I made up my own additional rules to apply to my cover contest entries. For a long time, beginning on the contest's predecessor on "the old boards" and continuing here, I challenged myself to post a cover that satisfied both the current contest and the previous week's contest. The challenge ended when I was finally defeated with a topic that I couldn't find a suitable entry for. Along the way, I had some exciting challenges; one of my proudest moments was when we had a "Favorite Jim Starlin Cover" back-to-back with a "Favorite John Buscema Cover", and I found a cover that was in fact not only a Jim Starlin layout under John Buscema finishes, but actually was one of my favorite covers, one with a personal meaning to me: the first issue I bought of Defenders, which would be one of my ongoing favorite titles (it was issue 4, with the introduction of Valkyrie to the team).

I followed that with a new challenge, which I kept secret: for the next seven weeks, I restricted my choices to comics with a cover date of February 1962. That didn't last very long, and when it came time for a new secret personal challenge, I eventually settled on: Brave and Bold Co-Stars!

Here's how it would work: Each week, the cover that I entered in the Classic Comics Forum's Classic Cover Contest would feature only characters or teams (or concepts) that co-starred with Batman during the original run of The Brave and the Bold. The initial rules, as we shall see, were later adjusted to include all of the B&B co-stars, including those who were teamed up with someone other than Batman, and eventually, all of the cover-billed features, even if not team-up participants. I had also decided to include the three features that appeared only as cover-billed reprints, but it is those features that I decided this week to un-include. So although I had already used a Challengers of the Unknown cover, I've decided not to try to fit in Hourman or the Secret Six.

The Rules:
Over the first few weeks of the challenge, I developed and refined the rules that I would try to operate under, which turned out to be a lot more complicated than I expected:

Once I used a co-star, he, she, it, or they would no longer be eligible to appear on any future covers I would use (with some exceptions noted below). In other words, I could use each B&B star only once.

If a cover featured other major characters who had not appeared as a B&B co-star, that cover was ineligible for my use. For example, any cover with Batgirl clearly depicted on it would be off-limits, since she never appeared (as a cover-credited co-star) with Batman in B&B. Although some villains did co-star in B&B, I allowed the appearance of any *other* villains on covers I might use. I was lax with this early on, as I was working out the rules for myself, so there is one cover with additional superhero characters who might feasibly have been used in B&B. 

I did make a general exception to the previous rule for co-starring teams. For example, any grouping of the original run of Teen Titans covers would count, even if they included members who were not in the B&B appearances (or if they did not include a member who was in the B&B appearances). The same went for the Legion of Super-Heroes. I did require the covers I used to be from the "same" team, i.e., not the New Teen Titans or Legionnaires or any of the other Teen Titans successor titles. 

Any character who appeared as both a member of a co-starring team and as an individual counted separately. This applied only, or so I thought, to the Earth-I Robin, who appeared in B&B as a Teen Titan and as an individual (in the team of "4 Famous Co-Stars" in B&B #100). To clarify, this means I would have to use both a cover featuring the Teen Titans cover and a different cover featuring Robin. Batman himself--Earth-I or Earth-II--could appear on any covers I used (since both of them served as the leads in different Batman team-ups).

The Earth-II Batman would also need to appear in one of my entries since he was also a "guest" in issue 200. I later decided that since he was also the "lead" team-up partner, it was only fair to include an Earth-I Batman spotlight cover.

I decided that any B&B covers were eligible, which was essential since one of the co-starring teams never appeared on any cover other than B&B! Consequently, Batman is allowed to appear as often as I want. Later, I decided to allow myself to use Robin of Earth-II on multiple entries if necessary, since I probably wouldn't be able to use the Earth-II Catwoman otherwise. Since both Robins were guest co-stars, I considered that any Batman-centric covers that included them would count as fulfilling their appearance on my roster. Since I used the Earth-II Batman and Robin early on, there was, therefore, no need to use a Star-Spangled Comics cover with Robin, and the Earth-I Robin was checked off my roster with an appearance on Two-Face's entry.

I favored covers with the lead character identified in the logo itself, or at least identified on the cover. So rather than using a Batman cover that included Riddler, Two-Face, or Ra's Al Ghul, I wanted to use covers with those characters in the actual title, with their own logos on display, if possible. 

I...Vampire! appeared primarily in House of Mystery. I considered those as separate entries, so that I could use one "standard" House of Mystery cover and one "I...Vampire!" House of Mystery cover. 

Features in cover cameos counted, if the character were depicted on the cover (which in itself would disqualify all of the Hourman covers from Adventure Comics. So I couldn't use a cover that included an illustration for a Golden Age Green Lantern story, for example, but if I used a cover with a "Nemesis" backup depicted, that would count as my "Nemesis" entry and take him off the board. 

I could use multiple co-stars in a single cover. For example, I started off with a cover that prominently featured two of Batman's frequent co-stars. I allowed myself to re-use Superman in the context of a Lois Lane cover. Otherwise, my Lois and Rose & the Thorn selections would have been too restricted. If I had a do-over, I wouldn't have used Superman before Lois, and would have counted my Lois Lane cover as a "threefer", eliminating Superman, Lois, and Thorn from my list. (Obviously, I considered it acceptable to use either Rose or Thorn in my selection, not both--which probably would have been impossible.)

The characters I used had to be essentially the same ones as the characters in Brave & Bold. They didn't necessarily have to be pre-Crisis versions, but they couldn't be legacy characters. In other words, my Green Arrow had to be Oliver Queen, not Connor Hawke. My Earth-II Huntress had to be specifically the Earth-II version, the daughter of Bruce Wayne, not Helena Bertinelli. My Earth-II Robin had to be the Golden Age character (although I allowed myself to use a version from before the multiple Earth concept was part of the canon for any of the Earth-II characters). The only exception I (initially) intended to allow myself was for Catwoman: the Earth-I version was "sort of" cover-billed on B&B 131 "Batman and Wonder Woman vs Catwoman", while the Earth-II Catwoman was the formal co-star of issue 197. Rather than count these as two separate co-stars, my initial plan was to include only a single Catwoman in my roster. Obviously, the Earth-I Catwoman would be a lot easier to find covers for, at least as logo-billed headliner, but there were plenty of Batman covers featuring the first Catwoman. Ultimately, I realized it might be smart not to make a decision on this until I had to, in order to give myself some flexibility. The more I thought on it, the most consistent position would be to use an Earth-II Catwoman cover as a priority, leaving Earth-I Catwoman as a contingency plan, and not allow myself to use the Earth-I Catwoman as a stand-in for the actual, headlined co-star. That is, it must either be both of them or only the Earth-II version that I would use. The latter approach would limit my cover options more. After I did in fact use the Earth-I Catwoman, I was obligated to using the Earth-II Catwoman in a later entry. 

Black Canary was another bit of a challenge, but I decided to ignore the mother/daughter retcon and allow myself to use any of the Black Canary covers, whether they were the explicitly Earth-II version, Earth-I when she was presumably the same person as the Earth-II version, Earth-I after being identified as the original's daughter, or post-Crisis. 

I counted as a "co-star" anyone who was referred to specifically as a co-star on the cover, even if their actual logo didn't appear. There were only a few instances where this applied: Earth-I Robin and Two-Face were among two different sets of "4 Famous Co-Stars". Three characters were identified only as "?" on the cover, although two of them later appeared as co-stars under their own names (one of them was Two-Face, who never got a cover logo, but was identified as a co-star, as mentioned in the previous sentence. One surprise co-star was mentioned in a cover blurb only as a "fourth fabulous co-star"; that character went on the list, too. As mentioned above, Earth-I Catwoman was listed as a part of the masthead in one issue, so her position on the roster is debatable, but I ultimately opted to include her. 

I drafted one other character onto my roster as an "honorary" guest star, one who was cover-featured on one issue and made at least two significant story appearances, but was never mentioned on any cover. There are probably several incidental characters who appeared in various stories, but didn't rate being on my roster. 

I counted The Outsiders as legitimate B&B co-stars, since they were touted on the final issue and did in fact team up with Batman inside. This meant another two co-stars, like Robin, who would be included in my roster both as a team member and a solo guest star: Black Lighting and Metamorpho.

DC Special Series #8 counted as an issue of B&B, since it was only identified on the cover as "The Brave and the Bold Special", and the indicia listed the same thing as the primary title of the comic. All of its co-stars had to be accounted for, but only one of them never appeared as a co-star in the regular series.

If I could not satisfy the weekly contest topic using one of the covers available to me, I would skip the contest that week and continue the next. To be honest, it was always a little disappointing to see a contest with so specific a theme that I immediately knew I couldn't join in--particular companies and characters, mostly.

Eventually, as we shall see, the ground rules changed a bit, to include characters who appeared in non-Batman B&B team-ups. 

This Thread:
While I will use this thread to do a retrospective of all my entries, discussing the various challenges I found myself up against, I'll also be making short comments on each of the characters/features. Since the initial focus was on the characters Batman teamed with, I'd welcome others' thoughts on these characters as team-up partners or as concepts in their own right, specific team-up appearances, or any other observations you might want to contribute. I'll be tackling these in order of my usage, so that you've got an idea of how the noose slowly tightened around me as my "talent pool" got used up, so I ask you to refrain from discussing features and co-stars until they come into play. But I do hope this discussion will be more than a vanity project: I know that B&B is a favorite of many of us here, but it's not one that we've explored in depth (other than the terrific podcasts that focused on the pre-Batman team-ups!)

I've been writing these up the entire time alongside my entries, so there should be no risk of this thread evaporating (like some of my review threads have--temporarily, I hope!). 

And thus, let us proceed--or is it recede?--to the beginning of my challenge!