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Post by commond on Jul 14, 2024 15:39:53 GMT -5
Inside, the Black Condor is a new character from Bryan Augustyn and RA Morales. The Black Condor was a new incarnation of Will Eisner and Lou Fine's 1940s Quality Comics character. The cover of the month is a memorable Brian Bolland cover. I thought the cover was pretty bland and forgettable by Bolland's standards. It's a cover I still remember decades later, but I agree that it isn't his best work.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 14, 2024 19:12:56 GMT -5
The Impact line was something which always looked cool to me even though I knew nothing about the originals, and there were a lot of articles everywhere promoting it when it was coming out. I never managed to divert any of my measly comic buying budget towards any of these comics when they were new, but once it was over I managed to get everything from discount bins in the late 90s. I still enjoy them, especially the earlier issues, and have read through the whole run two or three times in the last twenty years. Not sure if there are rights issues keeping these from being collected, or if it's just lack of interest. The issues are still selling cheap on line I can think of two possible reasons. One, work done at DC was under a royalty system while I don't recall every hearing that Archie had one, in that time period. So, there is the potential that the writers and artists would be entitled to royalties from a reprinting. Two, I'm not sure if Archie has clear ownership; it might be shared with DC for the Impact line and the Red Circle material. If so, they might not be able to reprint it without cutting DC in for a piece of the action, similar to how the rights to the Batman tv series were split between Fox and Warner and Greenway (Warner owning the character, Fox and Greenway owning the series). Archie was crowd funding trade publications, not that long ago, which suggests to me that, even with tv money, they aren't parting with dollars they don't have to. Regardless of the rights, I suspect there isn't enough perceived demand to make it worthwhile. Archie has reprinted the Dark Circle stuff in trades and bits and pieces of the 80s Red Circle material, where they have clear ownership (meaning not Pvt Strong or The Fly). Impact did okay; but, with revenue split between the two, was probably not profitable enough for DC to continue with it and not enough for Archie to fund it themselves, until they tried again, with Dark Circle. Kind of surprised they didn't when they did the Red Circle experiment, in the 00s, with DC publishing new versions, crossing into the DC Universe. If there was a window of opportunity to make money on reprints, it was then, though they might have thought it would distract from what they were doing, in the new iteration. The fact that you can find issues cheaply in the secondary market probably influences how much lobbying they get from fans, to reprint it.
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Post by commond on Jul 15, 2024 15:17:53 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #53 (August cover date, 1992)We lead off this month with the Batman Returns adaptation. Batman Returns was the third highest grossing film of 1992 but not the phenomenon that the first film had been. Inside, we have a preview for Star Trek: Debt of Honor, which had been solicited previously. I assume that the book was late. Also solicited previously is The Hacker Files, which is now presented as a 12 issue maxiseries instead of an ongoing title. There is also a preview for the new Justice Society of America series, which I know has some fans around here. In the solicitations, the Doom Patrol: Crawling from the Wreckage trade paperback has been released. Animal Man very quietly reaches its 50th issue, which is Tom Veitch's final issue, and the Cool World movie adaptation is also late. The back cover is Hacker Files #1. The cover of the month is the Claremont/Hughes Star Trek book.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 15, 2024 21:05:52 GMT -5
Man, Batman Retruns was a hot mess of a movie, if you ask me. Waaaaaaay too much Tim Burton freak show.
Pitch Meeting covers it pretty well....
I didn't bother with the adaptation. LODK was my only Bat-book, at the time.
The Starzewski/Parobeck JSA was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!! Strazewski treated them with respect and mixed in some kids and proteges, but wasn't stuck in the past, like Roy Thomas in Infinity, Inc or other JSA stuff. They introduced Jessie Quick there and had a fun little story with Johnny Thunder's Thunderbolt. Parobeck made it dynamic and had some nice designs for the characters, giving them a classic feel, but with some modern touches. Plus, his cartoony style was the best of both worlds. This was the series that really made me a fan of his art, before Batman Adventures really showcased his talents. There were factions at DC who were trying to get rid of the JSA and replace them with younger heroes and they won out, getting the series axed, after one year (well...10 issues, cause why give them two more to round out the year?) According to Strazewski, they had a pretty solid readership, who were very vocal but the powers at DC didn't care. Right after, they killed or grossly aged most of the original JSA, except for a couple of guys who were saved in other books, in Zero Hour.
I picked up that Doom Patrol trade, to try Morrison's run, at the start (since I missed it). It was decent enough, but still not really my cup of tea and it wasn't nearly as weird as it got, at the beginning.
Cool World being late was probably due to the film running into problems, since the comic series was supposed to serve as a lead-in. It was released on July 10 and then pretty much shut down, after it's opening weekend, when Paramount dropped all publicity for it.
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Post by commond on Jul 16, 2024 3:46:58 GMT -5
I got my wires crossed with Cool World. The earlier release was the prequel miniseries. This was the movie adaptation.
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Post by commond on Jul 16, 2024 16:09:25 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #54 (September cover date, 1992)Is DC trying to get on the X-Force gravy train? Team Titans #1 had five variant issues. Hey, one of them is by Adam Hughes. It says Kevin Maguire is going to be the regular penciler. That lasted all of three issues. The book itself ran for 24 issues plus two annuals. Inside, Denys Cowan is doing a Lobo one-shot. Good money, I suppose. There's an Ambush Bug special called Nothing Special (I've gotta get that!), and Giffen introduces his new Heckler character. I can't remember if I read any Heckler, though I have a feeling that I did as I was a pretty big Giffen fan at the time. There's a Peter Cannon-Thunderbolt book, a new Martian Manhunter miniseries, and an interesting looking sci-fi series called Hammerlocke with art by Chris Sprouse. The solicitations have a lot of annuals. Robin somehow gets an annual despite not having an ongoing title. There's a Seasons of Mist hardcover collection, which my friend at the comic book store would later lend for me to read. Jamie Delano takes over as the new writer on Animal Man. The back cover is some Titans stuff. The front cover is another Demon plug. I feel so close to that book despite the fact I've never read a single issue.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 16, 2024 16:31:31 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #54 (September cover date, 1992)Is DC trying to get on the X-Force gravy train? Team Titans #1 had five variant issues. Hey, one of them is by Adam Hughes. It says Kevin Maguire is going to be the regular penciler. That lasted all of three issues. The book itself ran for 24 issues plus two annuals. Inside, Denys Cowan is doing a Lobo one-shot. Good money, I suppose. There's an Ambush Bug special called Nothing Special (I've gotta get that!), and Giffen introduces his new Heckler character. I can't remember if I read any Heckler, though I have a feeling that I did as I was a pretty big Giffen fan at the time. There's a Peter Cannon-Thunderbolt book, a new Martian Manhunter miniseries, and an interesting looking sci-fi series called Hammerlocke with art by Chris Sprouse. The solicitations have a lot of annuals. Robin somehow gets an annual despite not having an ongoing title. There's a Seasons of Mist hardcover collection, which my friend at the comic book store would later lend for me to read. Jamie Delano takes over as the new writer on Animal Man. The back cover is some Titans stuff. The front cover is another Demon plug. I feel so close to that book despite the fact I've never read a single issue. I picked up the entire run of Team Titans out of quarter bins shortly after the fact (maybe they were 50 cents by then). I paid too much. That Martian Manhunter: American Secrets is a dandy.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 16, 2024 20:50:48 GMT -5
I hated myself that I bought all of the individual issue #1s, with the origin stories for each character and the same main story, in each one. It was the only time I bought a gimmick variant and I was so ticked off, I never did it again.
According to Pete Morisi, DC had sat on a license for Peter Cannon, since Crisis (the only time he was seen, in a DC book) and did nothing with him, until the rights were due to revert back. Unlike the other Action Heroes, DC did not buy Peter Cannon. Artist and creator Pete Morisi (PAM) bought the rights, from Charlton and licensed it to DC. They finally put this book out, which I greatly enjoyed, and then dumped it back in Morisi's lap. Judomaster got even less love (as did Son of Vulcan), appearing only in The DC Challenge, until that LAW (Living Assault Weapons) mini-series. Hell, Peacemaker got appearances in Vigilante and his own, demented mini-series (and not in a good way, if you ask me) and he was by far the weakest concept at Charlton. (though Pat Boyette did a great job on his Charlton stories)
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Post by commond on Jul 17, 2024 15:23:21 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #55 (October cover date, 1992)It's the 90s. I was highly influenced by that Batman cover and would often try to sketch the Joker that way. Guy Gardner gets his own ongoing title, and a jacket. Cos it's the 90s. Batman: Night Cries is a heavy looking graphic novel about child abuse. There's a new ongoing series called Darkstars, the Simonson Superman Special is finally getting released, and Chaykin has an Ironwolf graphic novel that looks very interesting. The art is by Mignola & P. Craig Russell. Sandman has began the Brief Lives arc, which is my personal favorite Sandman storyline. Unbelievably, there's a Lobo miniseries that wasn't plugged. Had did that slip through the cracks? There's a new Sgt. Rock Special with an unpublished Kanigher and Kubert story, and a trade paperback of the first nine issues of Hellblazer. The back cover is a demented illustration of Bat-Mite by Kevin O'Neill. Flicking through this issue, there was still a lot of good stuff being published by DC. You just had to be savvier than I was in 1992 to sift through it all.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 17, 2024 16:56:00 GMT -5
I enjoyed Sword of Azrael, though Quesada's design was a bit too much. The gauntlets are way over detailed, which I think factored into a lot of how he was used later, to get him out of the suit. Of course, a lot of groundwork had already been done by Doug Rice, in Manhunter, with the villain Dumas. The idea of the Order of St Dumas is pretty much lifted from the Cult of the Manhunters, from the Kirby revamp, with Mark Shaw, but with the added touch that it couldn't date back to the Crusades, as there is no St Dumas and the name is meant to invoke Alexandre Dumas, who wrote in the 19th Century and was a son of a Marshal of France, under Napoleon. Given the real history of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (the writer's father), I thought it would have been more interesting to tie the order to him, and mix his adventurous reality with his sons swashbuckling fantasies, which the fleur de lis is meant to invoke.
Night Cries was a particularly dark story, with evocative art by Scott Hampton. It established James Gordon as being a survivor of childhood physical abuse, caught up in a story of violence towards children. Archie Goodwin's script is masterfully done and made you wish he did more writing, at that time. Every once in a while he would do a small piece or project and remind you why everyone was in awe of his talent.
Fires of the Revolution was an interesting revisit to Chaykin's Ironwolf. DC had done a single volume Baxter-format reprint of the original Weird Worlds stories; but this showed a more mature Chaykin, along with writing partner John Francis Moore, and artists Mike Mignola and P Craig Russell handling things. It was a little bit of a reunion and a little bit of a revamp. It was also a reunion of the team (minus Al Williamson, but with Russell making a great substitution) that had done Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, for Epic (which was similarly a return, for Chaykin, and a kind of redraft of his take on the stories).
The Superman Special was worth the wait, as Walt gives us the Post-Crisis Sand Creature, revisiting the plot from the 1970s revamp of Superman, via "Kryptonite No More" and the introduction of the creature, who sripts away about half of Superman's powers, making him less invulnerable, to bring him back to more story manageable levels. Sadly, it was ignored after a year or so and Superman was back up to being able to alter the orbits of planets.
Eclipso....bah! I loved the old Silver and Bronze Age tales, but not this hot mess, nor the use of him to wipe out cannon fodder characters that the editors hated (Will Payton, Mark Shaw, the female Dr Midnite and Wildcat, etc). My memory is that the attempt to make him a major baddie fizzled out quickly, after he got his own series. Not surprising since the crossover event was pretty middling.
I'm not exactly at my really picky stage, but my volume of DC is declining, in favor of Dark Horse and some other indies. Marvel had mostly fizzled out for me, by the early 80s, with only a few bits and pieces gaining my money. Going into the 90s, Valiant and Dark Horse grew, while Eclipse was quite strong, before money issues made their releases so sporadic. Innovation got a lot of my money, during their short lifespan. Malibu was getting some, as were Kitchen Sink and Fantagraphics. However, overall, Dark Horse became more of my go-to company, for much of the 90s.
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Post by commond on Jul 18, 2024 15:03:32 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #56 (November cover date, 1992)First up we have the true origin of the Green Lantern Corps based on a plot from science fiction author Larry Niven and fleshed out by John Byrne. Time and endless reboots have reduced this book to a curiosity, but Byrne was clearly keen on doing a Hal Jordan story. Inside, we have some good news -- Batman Adventures! Arguably, one of the best superhero books of the 90s. Denny O'Neil pens another eco-conscious story with his darlings Batman and Green Arrow. The Eclipso crossover gives us two new ongoing series, Valor and Eclipso. The all-new for the 90s Timber Wolf gets his own miniseries, and Steve Englehart befuddles us with a Congorilla miniseries. If that's too much 90s for you, there's also The Shazam! Archives featuring Whiz Comics #2-15. In solicitations, Bryan Talbot begins a story arc in Legends of the Dark Knight. Swamp Thing has a big 125th issue that features the return of Anton Arcane and costs a whopping $2.95. And a new character is coming who will have a chilling effect on the life of Superman. The back cover is some images from Batman Adventures. The cover of the month is New Titans struggling to compete with the hottest 90s titles.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jul 18, 2024 15:56:29 GMT -5
I had Ganthet's Tale, but I don't remember a single thing about it.
Bought the Shazam Archives, which included the ashcan images of Whiz Comics #1, and the Flash Comics logo.
If memory serves, they were using Valor to fill in some of the Legion back history, replacing Superboy as an inspiration....or, at least, that seemed to be what they were suggesting, in the marketing. I didn't pick that one up. Later they switched to a new spelling of the Mon-El name (or, rather new use of apostrophes) to give it a new context. That was another series that should have restarted, after Crisis, instead of multiple continuity fixes and reboots.
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Post by commond on Jul 19, 2024 16:03:20 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #57 (December cover date, 1992)Robin gets his third miniseries -- this time it's 6 issues, biweekly and the covers feature exclusive, entirely new, movement enhancement-technology. Ooh wee! I guess someone in sales figured it made more sense to flog speculators with miniseries instead of giving Robin his own ongoing title. Check out that cover of the month -- Ambush Bug is coming! Inside, we couldn't get further away from the world of Robin and his moving covers. There's a graphic novel called Tell Me Dark that promises to explore the darkest aspects of the human soul, a hardboiled crime miniseries called Streets, a new Baron and Jones Deadman miniseries, and the debut of Ostrander and Mandrake's Spectre series. I have mixed feelings about Ostrander's Spectre series as I've both loved and hated it the times that I've read it. Speaking of things I didn't like, the earth is destroyed in Legion of Super-Heroes #38. A ballsy move, but the book had become a hot mess by that point. The first solicitation is for a Titans Sell-Out Special. Not sure if that's Wolfman being self-reflexive or unintentionally ironic. There's a trade paperback of Moench & Gulacy's Prey, which is one of their best collaborations, IMO. Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Vol. 2 strikes me as a solid alternative to the earth being destroyed. Green Lantern Corps Quarterly Vol. 3 has a G'Nort story written by Jeff Bailey and Marty G. There's also a random Blackhawk Special by John Ostrander and Mike Vosburg. The back cover is an advertisement for DOOMSDAY. This time the never-ending battle ends! Hide your wallets!
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Post by chaykinstevens on Jul 19, 2024 18:04:28 GMT -5
Green Lantern Corps Quarterly Vol. 3 has a G'Nort story written by Jeff Bailey and Matt G. I think you mean Marty G.
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Post by commond on Jul 19, 2024 18:09:02 GMT -5
Green Lantern Corps Quarterly Vol. 3 has a G'Nort story written by Jeff Bailey and Matt G. I think you mean Marty G. Ugh. I write these things at like 5 o’clock in the morning before work, but that was a bad one.
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