DC's Digital Backlist - Secret Society of Super Villains spotlight!

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

A while back, I logged some week-to-week posts on DC’s digital reprint program through Comixology. It’s been a while, and their digital offerings have matured, so I thought I’d take another look at what they’re adding each week. Currently, they seem to be doing about 30 books a week. I might not list all the issue numbers going forward – if the 90s Superman titles continue moving forward at two of each a week, there’s not much value in listing each issue. But let’s take a look at this week’s, and let’s see where the patterns take us, shall we?

 

90s Superman: DC is following the 90s Superman titles (soon to be the 2000s Superman, as this week’s titles are from December 1999) pretty quickly, giving us 8 issues of the books every week. There’s a lot of material to get through, but that’s still an admirable clip. We may only have a few more weeks of this, judging by Action Comics (the one title of the bunch that doesn’t change its numbering and continues for a long while) – 761 is the most recent issue, and Action already seems to be in the digital library from 769 on. Superman, Adventures of Superman and Superman: Man of Steel have bigger gaps, though. 

Action Comics 760, 761

Adventures of Superman 574, 575

Superman 152, 153

Man of Steel 95, 96

 

Arion: 11, 12

DC has been adding two issues of Arion: Lord of Atlantis a week for the last 6 weeks. There are 35 issues and a special, so there's a way to go before the series is completed.

DC Comics Presents: 75, 76

DCCP started out at a faster pace, but has been going two a week for a little while now. There are about 20 issues to go. Bonus: More Arion this week, in issue 75!

Guy Gardner: Warrior: 33

11 issues to go.

Huntress: 19, 4-issue 1994 series

We wrap up the Cavalieri/Staton ongoing that introduced Helena Bertinelli, and then power through a Chuck Dixon mini from 1994. Will Huntress return next week, or will we move on?

Justice League America (Bwa-ha-ha) 51, 52

This one has a ways to go before having everything available.

Manhunter: 34

Four more issues till it’s all there!

Mister Miracle: 23-25

This wraps up the 70s run – Kirby and then Marshall Rogers, it’s all there! (I think DC also recently wrapped the 70s Return of the New Gods run, too.)

Superman (Bronze Age): 233

This is an interesting one. The Kryptonite Nevermore cover – I’m surprised it wasn’t available before this. Will DC continue from here? Their 70s Superman offerings on Comixology are paltry.

Wanderers: 7, 8

This 80s Legion spinoff ran 13 issues, so we’re almost there.

Wonder Woman (Silver Age): 130, 131

DC has been making silver age Wonder Woman stories available, probably wishing to expand their catalog in anticipation of the movie. At this point the silver age issues go from 112-131, with a couple of gaps.

Swamp Thing (Diggle/Dysart run): 25

4 more issues to go.

Trigger: 5

This Vertigo sci-fi series lasted 8 issues. I don’t remember it at all.

 

That’s a pretty exhaustive look at this week’s offerings. Next week, I’ll probably just note new additions (what will replace Mister Miracle? The '89 and '96 series have already been collected, so we might be in for something new. And there might be more Huntress comics that haven't been reprinted yet, but Comixology has a bunch of them listed already, and the Bat-universe is so sprawling it's tough to search), unexpected omissions, breaks from the patterns, and go forward from there. 

And to make things easy to follow:
Week 2. (April 6, 2017)

Week 3 (April 13, 2017)

Week 4 (April 20, 2017)

Week 5 (April 27, 2017)

Week 6 (May 4, 2017)

Week 7 (May 11, 2017)

Week 8 (May 18, 2017)

Week 9 (May 25, 2017)

Week 10 (June 1, 2017) -- All the golden age Wonder Woman goodness!

Week 11 (June 8, 2017)

Week 12 (June 15, 2017)

Week 13 (June 22, 2017)

Week 14 (June 29, 2017)

Week 15 (July 6, 2017)

Week 16 (July 13, 2017) -- Our Worlds at War! Underworld Unleashed!

Week 17 (July 20, 2017) -- The Great Ten! More Wonder Woman!

Week 18 (July 27, 2017) -- Batman Confidential and Deathblow? Young Heroes in Love?? Doom Patrol!

Week 19 (Aug 3, 2017) -- Some Bronze-age Batman!

Week 20 (Aug 10, 2017) -- Loeb/Sale Challengers begins!

Week 21 (Aug 17, 2017) -- Silver Age Challs!

MIDWEEK SALE BLAST (Aug 22, 2017): Wildstorm!

Week 22 (Aug 24, 2017) -- Holding pattern...

Week 23 (Aug 31, 2017) -- chugging along

Week 24 (Sept 7, 2017) -- Same old, but with newer Challengers

Week 25 (Sept 14, 2017) -- Baron/Jones Deadman debuts

Week 26 (Sept 21, 2017) -- Holding steady, with more Deadman

Week 27 (Sept 28, 2017) -- Deadman in Action Comics Weekly?

Week 28 (Oct 5, 2017) -- A slow swerve into Batman

Week 29 (Oct 5, 2017) -- Doom Patrol finishes in the smallest week ever

The Gap List: a list of unexplained or awkward skips.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

I'm a few days late, but we're in a pandemic. Time means nothing. But on June 9, DC released these 6 back-issues on Comixology:

No new Action Comics this week, unfortunately. And for the first time in ages, no Detective Comics. We do get another Batman one-shot, though -- in this case, Batman/Catwoman: Follow the Money, a double-size special written and drawn by Howard Chaykin. And with the first pages showing a confrontation with the Cavalier, I might actually buy this one!

Also in the superhero world is Super Friends 14, in which the team faces villains with powers based of the four elements! I'm pretty sure this comic was the first time I'd ever encountered that concept. 

The rest are horror and horror-adjacent titles. We've got Eclipso 13 -- the finale of the confrontation on the moon! House of Mystery 211: Check out that Wrightson cover! The Phantom Stranger 2, with reprinted Phantom Stranger and Doctor 13 tales from 1952, and The Spectre 14. The run skips an issue again, as the title did with issue 7. Both of these skipped issues happened after a week when The Spectre didn't appear on the lists at all. I suspect it's a crossed signal, where someone didn't complete the upload, and no one's caught it since. I'd put #13 on the Gap List, but right now our edit function is still on the fritz. So it'll have to wait. 

The sale focuses on The Joker, to which all I can do is sigh. But there are some interesting stories among the single issues there -- there's a Legends of the Dark Knight arc called "Going Sane" by JM Dematteis and Joe Staton that I've heard good things about. Perhaps now's my chance to read it. 

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Seven issues this week!

Continuing the horror-tinged titles from last week, we've got Eclipso 14 -- after last issue's bloodbath, Amanda Waller sends more heroes to retrieve the bodies! (Just 4 issues to go!) The Spectre 15 -- the Spectre has to enter Madame Xanadu's Tarot deck! And Phantom Stranger 3 -- more PS and Dr. 13 reprints from 1952. Plus, we've got Adventure Comics 431 -- with the first Fleisher/Aparo Spectre story, and a story by Shelly Meyer and Alex Toth as a backup!  The Spectre appeared in 10 issues of Adventure during this run, through 440. A few of them -- 435-437 -- are available together, without the backup features. I wonder if Comixology will be going back and reprinting the whole issues?

Also, we've been seeing a lot of the Spectre lately. Think he might be returning to the CW shows next year?

Also, we've got Action Comics 644 -- the second issue of the Perez run, and Detective Comics 382, after a week off.  Detective is inching closer to closing up the gap before the next big run -- only 383, 384, 386 and 387 to go, and then just 404-406, and Tec is sewn up through at least issue 500!

And finally, Super Friends 15, another delight by Bridwell and Fradon.  

This week's sale focuses on Scott Snyder, because of the new Death Metal series. So finally, the rest of his Justice League run (except for the last issue, cause that's how they GET ya!) is 99 cents, and I'm gonna buy it. I might buy Death Metal online too -- I think I enjoy wordy Scott Snyder books when the panels are at a size I can enlarge to give my eyes a rest. Especially considering that damnable Joker font!

I am old, I am old, I used to carry my funnybooks rolled.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Precious and few are this week's DC digital backlist. Only 5 issues. Let's see what we've got:

The horror trend only barely continues this week, with Eclipso 15. The book ends at 18, so we're in the home stretch.

We get Action Comics 645 and Detective Comics 383,. two continuations of runs from vastly different eras. The Action Comics issue is the debut of Maxima, and the Detective Comics story seems to be based on the old joke of a fortune: "Help! I'm being held captive in a fortune cookie factory!" We've also got Batman 182, a Giant-size issue printed in 1966 but reprinting  stories from earlier eras.  

And finally, Super Friends 16 sports an Escher-like cover by  Ramona Fradon. I remember liking this issue a lot... and just staring at that cover!

DC's sale this week is DC In Space -- so there's plenty of Green Lantern, Legion, Adam Strange, Hawkworld, New Gods, and other cool books!

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

We're back to seven issues this week!

No Eclipso this time, but we've got The Spectre 16 and Adventure Comics 433 -- two appearances of the Spectre from different eras. (Adventure 432, which  also had a Spectre story, was skipped.) Plus we've got Phantom Stranger 4 and The Witching Hour 4, a title we haven't seen for a while.  And that wraps up this week's horror-style books. 

For superheroes, the focus is pretty squarely on Batman. We've got Detective Comics 384 and Batman 184 -- issue 183 having been on the service for a while now. We've only got two more issues of Detective Comics in this run... will they move on to fill other gaps in the run (such as 404-406), or find a different title to spotlight for a while?

And finally, Super Friends 17, which of course co-stars Batman. This one also features Professor Nichols's time machine, and the Legion villain The Time Trapper!

Finally, DC's sale this week is "Old School," with tons of pre-90s comics on sale. Looking for old issues of L.E.G.I.O.N. '89? You're covered! Also, you can get Batman: 66: The  Lost Episode for 99 cents -- that's a great deal for a story by Harlan Ellison, Len Wein, and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez!

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Another seven issues this week. Let's see what we've got.

In horror hero/villains, we're continuing with The Spectre (issue 17), Eclipso (issue 16), and The Phantom Stranger (issue 5). Just two issues left on Eclipso.


We also get our weekly dose of vitamin B with Batman 185 (another Giant!) and Detective Comics 386. With Detective, we just need issue 387 and then issues 404-406, and we've got all of the 400s, all the way to the next one-issue gap, 546. Heck, I'm just gonna go ahead and put that on the Gap List. (Oh, wait, it's already there! Along with some issues I should have taken off already!)

Batman's also in Super Friends 18, a continuation of the Time Trapper story. Man, I don't remember so many continued stories in Super Friends! And his fellow Super Friend, Superman, appears in Action Comics 646, the fourth issue of the George Perez run.

And DC's sale this week is a "Summer Get-Together" sale, featuring  assorted teams and team--ups. I might pick up the second volume of the most recent (Damian-led) version of Teen Titans, by Adam Glass and Bernard Chang; I just started to read volume 1, and I'm already really enjoying it.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

I'm super late on last week's Comixology report -- must be my 70-hour work week. But here, briefly, are the 8 titles that arrived last week.

Batman 186 and Detective Comics 387. The Batman issue has the Joker's new sidekick Gaggy, perhaps intended to be the Punchline of his day. Don't know what THAT didn't work!

Adventure Comics 434 and The Spectre 18 -- more adventures of the Spectre, from the 70s and late 80s.

Also in horror, we've got The Witching Hour 5, and horror-villain Eclipso reaches his penultimate issue, 17.

And for more superheroes, we've got Action Comics 647 and Super Friends 19. 

DC has its Summer Sizzle sale going on -- a lot of top-selling books like Sandman, Y the Last Man, plenty of Batman stuff, etc. All collected editions, no singles. 

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Another super busy week, so I'll just briefly note the 6 titles we get from DC's Comixology reprints:

Incredibly, we get FOUR titles featuring the Spectre, and not one appearance of Batman!

The Spectre appears in Adventure Comics 438 and 439 (70s heyday Spectre; there's a backup in 438 drawn by Howard Chaykin), The Spectre 19 (transition proto-Vertigo Spectre, now with art by Mark Badger!), and Eclipso 18 (the final issue, guest-starring the Ostrander-Mandrake-style spirit of God's Vengeance Spectre).

In Spectre-adjacent comics, we have Phantom Stranger 6.

And finally, the only thing completely mainstream DC, Action Comics 648. An actual superhero comic! Who knew?

DC's continuing the Summer Sizzle sale, with a different selection of collections this time. I saw some Astro City books in the bunch; there's never a bad time to read those!

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Another busy week for me, so I'm getting to this late again. Here's the 6 DC back issues added to Comixology this week:

More Spectre! We get Adventure Comics 440 and Spectre 20. Issue 440 was the last of the Spectre issues (barring 432, which DC skipped, and is on the Gap List), and the next feature, Aquaman, already exists on the service (albeit largely in doubled-up issues, excising the backup features). So this might be the last we see of Adventure Comics for a while. Spec's own late-80s series lasted till issue 31. Also, Comixology mis-identifies the writer of Specter 20 -- it's still Doug Moench, but the writer is listed as letterer Jade Moede (probably an autocomplete error, since their last names begin with the same letters). 

We've got another issue of the Perez Action Comics, 649. Superman is also in Super Friends 20... along with his teammate Batman, who also appears in Detective Comics 404! I think we can expect issues 405 & 406, and then that might be the end of Detective Comics for a while, unless they make a big jump forward or backward.

And finally, we get The Witching Hour 6. At first I thought Comixology's credit for this one are messed up, too, since there's no sign of Alex Toth in the credits, but the preview pages, focusing on the Three Witches, seemed like pure Toth to me. But no... the GCD (and Comixology) credits Dave Kaler and Mike Sekowsky, witht he database adding this indexer note: Framing sequence. No credits. Sekowsky pencils per Jim Bain via the GCD Errors list. Previous indexer credited Alex Toth. Script and art credits confirmed from The Comic Reader #75 (1969).    

Finally, DC's Comixology sale is focused on The Sandman. Plenty of stuff there, if that's what you're looking for -- including the full run of Sandman Mystery Theater, one of my all-time favorite comics! Next week, we'll see the debut of Sandman Presents: The Dreaming: Waking Hours, which I'll definitely be giving a try. My guess is, with the impending debut of Injustice: Year Zero, we'll see an Injustice sale next week.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Haven't done one of these in a while. Since DC is currently filling in some gaps, I thought I'd take a look at Action Comics and see what's on the service, and what's not yet.

Action starts really strong for a Golden Age title. The first 105 issues are all available, which is pretty amazing. Unfortunately, most, if not all, of them are presenting only the Superman material in each issue -- the stuff already appearing in the Golden Age archives and Omnibuses. 

After 1947's issue 105, we jump ahead 12 years to 1959, and the debut of Supergirl in Action 252. Then we get only two more issues in the 200s: 267 and 284.

We get a run in the 300s, starting with 308 and ending with 376 (with the exception of 341, 343, 351, 352, 355, 360-363, all now on the Gap List).

Then we jump ahead to the 70s, for Action 457, a cover that desperately needs its word balloons to make it not horrifying.

Then another jump ahead to Action 521, the debut of Vixen in 1981, and then up to 1984, where we start a run at the tail end of the Wolfman/Kane issues: 552-559. Finally, we get the pre-Crisis send-off from Alan Moore and Curt Swan in Action 583.

Post-Crisis begins with the John Byrne teamup stories, from 584-599, all there. Then Action Comics Weekly takes hold, from 600-642, but that coverage is very spotty (IIRC, it seemed mostly to follow the issues Deadman was in). 

After that is the period we're doing now, which up until a couple months ago was a big gap from 643-668, with only a couple issues represented (the one where Lois learns Clark's ID, and one part of the Crisis of the Crimson Kryptonite crossover). As of now, we're up to 649, and I can see this going another 20 weeks to close that gap. (Note from the future: As of late September 2020, the Action run petered out on August 18 with issue 652. So much for counting chickens.)

Then the issues continue into the 700s, with only 729 missing, all the way up to when the series ended its numbering at 904.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

This past week saw eight comics... and somehow still managed to be Spectre-heavy. There must be plans afoot for the Ghostly Guardian. Maybe he'll make a surprise appearance in the Suicide Squad movie?

So let's start with Spec. We've got Spectre 21, of his 1987 series, which ended with issue 31. We're also starting a new run, with Spectre 1, from 1967, by Gardner Fox and Murphy Anderson. That series ran 10 issues, with the next four drawn by Neal Adams. It's astonishing that at least those issues weren't widely reprinted.

And finally we have Ghosts 97 -- sort of. Comixology's description explains that this is actually Ghosts 97-99, but only the Dr. 13 vs The Spectre three-parter by Paul Kupperberg and Mike Gustovich (credited as Mike Adams). So the other creators listed likely do not appear. This is a shame; it'd be good to have used this as an excuse to have three issues of Ghosts reprinted and available. 

Specre-adjacent, we've got The Phantom Stranger 7 -- mostly new material this issue, with a reprinted Dr. 13 story at the end. And considering he appears in the main feature, too, that's three Dr. 13 appearances in one week. That's Spectre-level attention!

We've got some Batman comics, too: Batman 187 (an 80-page Giant), Detective Comics 405 (with Batgirl), and Super Friends 21. Which makes Batman seem almost as popular as Doctor 13... that's just crazy talk.

And finally Superman: Action Comics 650, a double-sized anniversary issue written by Roger Stern, with art by George Perez, Kerry Gammill, Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, and Curt Swan. That's a hell of a roster.

DC's latest sale focuses on Harley Quinn... if you haven't checked out Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo's current run on Suicide Squad yet, issues 1 and 2 are available for 99 cents apiece. If you're an old-school Squad fan, you'll be glad you did: as a huge fan of the Ostrander/Yale/McDonnell series, I can honestly say the series is as good as it's ever been. Twisty, fun, dangerous stuff.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Turns out there IS a Spectre omnibus on the horizon. Coming September 1:

The Spectre: The Wrath of the Spectre Omnibus

• Collects Showcase #60-61 and #64; The Brave and the Bold #72, #75, #116, #180, and #199; The Spectre #1-10; Adventure Comics #431-440; DC Comics Presents #29; and Ghosts #97-99.
• Release Date: September 1, 2020

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

I went camping for a long weekend, and totally missed last week's releases. S0 let's get back on track with both, shall we?

Action Comics 651 and 652

Super Friends 22 and 23

The Spectre 2 and 3 

The Spectre 22, Annual 1, and 23

Weird Mystery Tales 8

The Witching Hour 7

Batman 188

Detective Comics 406

Phantom Stranger 8

The underlined issues were from last week; the un-underlined ones were released today. 

We'll see if we go further with Detective Comics. There's one more issue, 546, on the Gap List, but beyond that, I think Tec is available straight through today. (I could be wrong about that; I'll be checking soon.)

Also, for some reason we've skipped issues 5-7 of Weird Mystery Tales. There's no compelling reason to reprint these horror anthologies in order, but I'll put them on the Gap List just the same. Weird Mystery Tales ran for 24 issues.

This week's sale is half price on a bunch of books, celebrating DC's Fandome event this weekend (and what a time for that, considering everything that went down at the company last week). I'm sure there'll be better prices later, but I decided I didn't want to wait anymore on Injustice: Year One, since I'm reading Year Zero currently and am pretty high on Tom Taylor's work these days.