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I read through Spider-Man: Blue last night. That's Loeb and Sale's color miniseries for the wall-crawler. Such a great story. Beautifully drawn.
The whole thing is Peter, married to MJ, but reminiscing on Valentine's Day about the events that led up to his relationship with Gwen Stacy. And he's telling Gwen all this while speaking into an old recorder.
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Back in March, in this thread, Aberzombie brought up Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga. That led me to rave about Paul Levitz, whose Legion stories from the 1980s I contrasted favorably with those of Jim Shooter from the 1960s. (Here's a link to that post.)
In writing that post, I referred to Paul Levitz' first Legion run. Then I proofread my post and frowned. It wasn't his FIRST run. What about all those Legion stories he wrote in the 1970s? So I edited my post to say "Paul Levitz's SECOND run". Later I re-read my post and frowned again. In the 2000s, when I got all Legion-crazy and collected over 50 of those Paul Levitz issues, why did I never look into Levitz's FIRST run, from the 1970s? I don't recall ever even considering it. I'm not such a Legion fan anymore, and can no longer seem to read more than a few issues at a time, but still, I wondered what I might have missed out on. Maybe Paul Levitz - still a young and immature writer - had some room for improvement in the 1970s, but hey, I got and enjoyed reading his stories about Aquaman and The Huntress from that decade, even if his dialog wasn't quite up to snuff.
So the next time I ordered old comics from Mile High, I threw three of Levitz' Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes issues into my order. I chose issues 228 through 230, simply because they were cheap. With hindsight, I should have chosen some later issues which were twice the length, thus getting more bang for my buck, but I didn't think to check the page counts. Ah well; live and learn. But the issues I DID get proved worthy additions to my collection. Yeah, some of Levitz' dialog could have used some minor revision, but he had good IDEAS for stories, and the plots and action beat the heck out of the Legion stories of the 1960s.
Maybe I should justify what qualifies me to make that comparison. I bought and read the first three DC Showcase Presents: Legion of Super-Heroes volumes, thus covering every Legion story until mid-1968. Possibly Jim Shooter's Legion stories improved during the next ten years, in which case my dismissing Shooter may be unfair, but I'm judging by what I've seen.
Anyway, I got to start my reading with a bang. The rest of this post is spoiler-heavy, but hey, there were ALREADY spoilers; in Adventure Comics issue 354, Jim Shooter had foretold that Chemical King - whom we had never even SEEN and would not see until 17 issues later - "sacrificed his life to prevent World War VII". (I was fortunate enough to see that bit of foreshadowing in the third Showcase volume, which also showed me the first appearance of the Dark Circle in Adventure Comics issue 367.)
So I thrilled to see those very events - related previously in only one brief phrase in Adventure 354 - unfold in Legion issue 228. I've often ranted that I prefer LINEAR time travel stories - in which the future cannot be changed - over stories it which it can. Not only do I regard the business of changing history to be inherently illogical, but every story about changing history - with no major exceptions that I can think of - seems unable to stay true even to its own - already absurd - rules of logic. Before the Crisis on Infinite Earths, characters like Superboy simply could not change history in the DC comic-book universe, and that's the way it should be, in my not-so-humble opinion. The letters page, speaking of issue 223, mentioned a "billion possible futures". I don't know what that's about, and I don't want to know. Issue 228 showed us history happening the way it was meant to happen.
Issue 229 made a perfect follow-up to that story, as the Legion went after the Dark Circle in retaliation. Even issue 230 mentions Chemical King's funeral, if only briefly to set the stage for Bouncing Boy's solo story (as I've seen done in so many other team books). And it's nice to see an alien that isn't just a human in a funny suit.
Last year, I got so thoroughly hooked on Denny O'Neill's Iron Man run that I frequently had to order many issues of that stuff from Mile High Comics. This time, I'm not nearly so hooked on Levitz' Legion stories, so it will probably be some time before I order comics again. But I look forward to that day - whenever it is - so I can get a little more of that Legion material.
My latest order from Mile High also included other comic books that I wanted as a result of stuff Aberzombie brought up in this thread. I'll probably post about some of those other issues another day.
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Reading through that new Transformers series is not only filling me with fond memories of my cartoon watching youth, it’s also filling me with memories of my earliest days of comic collecting. My first series being G. I. Joe from Marvel. I think I’ve also got the first Joe/Transformers miniseries (from ‘87) in my collection somewhere.
The other day I started re-bagging and boarding my collection of Detective Comics. Of course, while doing so I read through a few issues. One three-part story that always stood out for me was when they introduced Mr. Kadaver and Corrosive Man. That was in the Grant and Breyfogle era.
They followed that up not too long after with another three-part story that had some dude who could create Tulpas, and Batman had to recruit Etrigan to help out. I was always impressed with writers who could work Etrigan into a story, especially with his rhyming.
Good stuff.
I remember the Tulpa one. The three thugs went from being all Gung ho to begging cops to arrest them.
Back in October, in this thread, Aberzombie brought up Scarface and the Ventriloquist. I reminisced about the first two issues of Detective Comics I had ever bought, back when they were new, which happened to form the first Scarface/Ventriloquist story. Years later, I read my friend's Batman material, including Knightfall, Knightquest and KnightsEnd. I was pleased to see the Ventriloquist return. Aberzombie's comments made me curious to research details about the Ventriloquist, and when I did, I felt surprise at learning of a "Return of Scarface" story BEFORE Knightfall. "The Return of Scarface" started in Batman #475, continued in Detective Comics #642, and concluded in Batman #476. Having loved the first Ventriloquist story, I felt curious about the second. So last month, when I ordered comics from Mile High, I included those three issues in my order. I just read them this week.
And they were awful! AWFUL!!! Especially the ending! It almost read like Alan Grant DELIBERATELY wrote a bad ending just to surprise the readers!
Alan Grant co-wrote the first Scarface story. Could it be that story wasn't as good as I remembered? I HAVE gotten fussier in the years since then, after all. I had to re-read Detective Comics 583 and 584 to remind me of what a great story that was. No, the writing just went from great to horrible over the course of those four years.
I remember, back in 1988 through 1992, when I would buy the odd issue of Batman or Detective Comics, that I felt that the Batman stories were growing worse and worse. That's why I stopped getting them in 1992. Batman seemed to do less and less as time went on. He barely did anything, in his own series'. And he barely did anything in The Return of Scarface. What the heck happened to him?! In the concluding issue of first Scarface story, Batman was so determined to put the Ventriloquist behind bars, he...
In contrast, what does he do in Part 3 of "The Return of Scarface"?
And why didn't Batman do anything about the Ventriloquist afterwards? Did he get too busy with other matters, in Detective Comics 643 and Batman 477? Maybe. I'm not getting those issues to find out. But even so, is this the same Batman who, as I said, multi-tasked in the first Scarface story? (Ah, I'm giving up on spoiler buttons at this point.)
I wondered: how did the Ventriloquist wind up in Arkham at the beginning of Knightfall? In some other story? I looked it up in comicbookrealm.com, to find that the Ventriloquist's next appearance, three months later, was in Detective Comics Annual 5, in which he helps the Joker escape from Arkham Asylum. According to my Google search, no, Wesley does NOT wind up in jail nor in Arkham Asylum in that story; he just disappears. And his next appearance was in Knightfall, which starts out with him in Arkham Asylum. How did he get apprehended to be sent there? As far as I can tell, the comics never tell us this. Maybe ordinary people - such as the police, lawyers, government agents, and the like - managed to nab him for something... like tax evasion, perhaps? Heh. Well, that would be fine. But then why read "The Return of Scarface" at all? I would advise anyone to skip it.
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Saw a post from Walt Simonson this morning on The Book of the Face. It was a page of art from an adaptation of REHs The Cairn on the Headland. He and Archie Goodwin had started it, but never finished.
It got me thinking - how many other great stories and/or adaptations of great stories were started by some of these now legendary comic creators back in the day, but never finished. It might be fascinating to see book of fragments of comic stories. I’ve seen collections of old writers work that included similar “fragments”.
It got me thinking - how many other great stories and/or adaptations of great stories were started by some of these now legendary comic creators back in the day, but never finished. It might be fascinating to see book of fragments of comic stories. I’ve seen collections of old writers work that included similar “fragments”.
Years ago, when I was seeking comics with an Old West setting, one of the few that I liked enough to read twice was Rio by Doug Wildey. I read it in a trade paperback I got from a public library. It included the few existing fragments of the final, unpublished story, including unfinished art.
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It got me thinking - how many other great stories and/or adaptations of great stories were started by some of these now legendary comic creators back in the day, but never finished. It might be fascinating to see book of fragments of comic stories. I’ve seen collections of old writers work that included similar “fragments”.Years ago, when I was seeking comics with an Old West setting, one of the few that I liked enough to read twice was Rio by Doug Wildey. I read it in a trade paperback I got from a public library. It included the few existing fragments of the final, unpublished story, including unfinished art.
Sounds interesting. I'll have to look around for that.
Batman 45 (the original, not that newer crap)
Whoa. That must date back to the 1940s. Is that the oldest comic in your collection?
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Sweet! I had ordered a 2006 Edition of DC Universe: The Stories of Alan Moore from Amazon. Even when I checked earlier today it said the delivery wouldn’t happen until later this week or early next week. And it was in my mailbox when I got home! Huzzah!
The reason I wanted the 2006 edition, is because I heard later editions removed certain stories (like The Killing Joke) that DC thought could sell just as well on their own.