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)]

Six comics this week -- four continuations, and two one-shots.

First up, we've got two Spectre books, from the 1987 series (Spectre 24) and the 1967 series (Spectre 4). 

We've also got Super Friends 24. I've got to admit, I appreciate this book more and more as time goes on. It's an entry point for kids, and they they grow out of it in favor of more continuity-minded stories...but eventually, the clean storytelling and bright artwork have won me back.

Also, Weird Mystery Tales 9, with art by Jess Jodloman, Alex Nino, and Nestor Redondo.  

Plus, we've got Batman: Night Cries -- an album-size graphic novella by Archie Goodwin and Scott Hampton. A book with serious themes, as Batman confronts a child abuser. 

Also, we've got the Flash TV Special from 1991. Stories written by John Byrne and Robert Greenberger, with art by Javier Salteres and Darrick Robertson, with additional material by Mark Waid and David Williams. These are stories in the continuity of the 90s TV show, with John Wesley Shipp.

DC's sale this week promotes the new Three Jokers series, with comics that feature the Joker in one way or another. There's a lot of Batgirl here -- Cass, Steph, Barbara -- plus plenty of Batman, which is to be expected. There's a nice Gotham Central collection for $5.99, as well as a collection of the 70s Joker series. 

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Nine comics out this week from DC vaults.... the largest haul we've had for a while! Let's see what they've brought us, shall we?

First up, the regulars:

Batman 191, jumping from 188, because 189 and 190 were already available. There are still plenty of gaps to fill through the 200s, so this run could go on for a while, especially if it remains weekly.

Super Friends 25

Phantom Stranger 9

The Witching Hour 8

Spectre 5 (from the 1967 series) and Spectre 25, from the 1987 series.

And then, in what no doubt is a spin-off from the Spectre's days as the Spirit of Vengeance: The Bible! This is the first (and only) book in a planned series of biblical adaptations, written by Sheldon Mayer with art by Joe Kubert and Nestor Redondo. It was originally published in 1975, and reprinted in hardcover in 2013.

Finally, we've got two new prestige format miniseries available -- the first of three issues of Blackhawk! by Howard Chaykin, and the collected edition of World's Finest by Dave Gibbons and Steve Rude.

Pricing is weird on these. Blackhawk 1 is $1.99...but a collected edition containing all 3 issues, as well as the subsequent Blackhawk serial in Action Comics Weekly is on sale for $35. Meanwhile, the individual World's Finest issues are already available for $2.99 each, but the collected edition -- which might include something else, but it's tough to say -- sells for $12.99. Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

That said, DC is currently having a sale on Volume 1s... plenty of first volumes of its books are on sale, often for $5.99. I recommend Cover by  Brian Bendis and David Mack, and Doctor Fate by Paul Levitz and Sonny Liew.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

We've got 11 new back-catalog releases from DC on Comixology today -- more than we've seen in a while. 

Some regulars and continuations are here: 

Blackhawk 2: The second in the Chaykin 3-part prestige-format mini.

Super Friends 26: Zan and Jayna are shouting "That's not the Batman!" on the cover, and the clue is right there. Can you tell why they're saying it? (I remember this one from my childhood -- so happy to be fooled by a fair-play mystery!)

Specter 6 and Spectre 26, from the 67 and 87 series.

The Witching Hour 9 (under a sweet Neal Adams cover I've never seen before), and Weird Mystery Tales 10 (whose cover artist, Luis Dominguez, nails "grisly prurience") .

We've also got the movie adaptation to Batman Returns (by Denny O'Neil, Steve Erwin, and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, and listed on Comixology as #2 because it's adapting the second movie), and Batman: The Hill, a one-shot by Priest and Shaun Martinbrough from 2000.

And DC is starting to list the collections it's adding, too: We've got Birds of Prey: End Run (collecting the beginning of Gail Simone's & Ed Benes's return to the team pre-New 52, with the first 6 issues of the 15-issue series collected here. (Volume 2, the Death of Oracle, is already available.)

There's also Batman: Venom, by Danny O'Neil & Russ Braun, collecting the Legends of the Dark Knight story  that introduced the drug that later gave us Bane. Both this and the Birds of Prey book are more expensive than the single issues themselves. 

And there's the Before Watchmen 2012 Sampler, supplying the first issues of every Before Watchmen series, as if that's something someone would want to pay for.

Sale-wise, DC has a Fandome sale of graphic novels for half price (not very good deals, from what I can tell on a skim). Much more interesting to me is the Humanoids Start Here sale, with OGNs like Twilight Man (a bio of Rod Serling) and Meyer (about Meyer Lansky) for $5 apiece. 

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

It just occurred to me... there's a moment in the finale of Stargirl (teasing Season 2) that probably explains why DC chose the 90s Eclipso series to include in its Comixology offerings. We'll probably be seeing a fair bit of that entity next year.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

OK, three weeks in a row is no fluke: DC's either releasing more older collections, or just including them in their New & Noteworthy section for the first time. So we've got more than usual this week!

Trades:

We've got four ancillary Blackest Night collections: Rise of the Black Lanterns, Black Lantern Corps volumes 1 & 2, and Tales of the Corps. Plus, we've got volume 2 of the New 52 Blue Beetle series, and -- saving the best for last -- Camelot 3000 in collected form. 

So that's 6 titles. And we've got another 8 single issues, most of which are continuing current reprint efforts.

First up is Batman 192, with a crystal ball cover, as Batman is impersonating a crook to infiltrate a gang. I was thinking this might be the first appearance of Matches Malone, but that would be Detective 242, published fives years later in 1972.

We've got another Super Friends, #27, "The Spacemen Who Stole Atlantis!" This is right in my sweet spot for Super Friends issues... I was a year or so into my comics buying habit, and I wasn't yet thinking of Super Friends as kid stuff.

On the supernatural side, we've got another issue of The Phantom Stranger (#10), another issue of the 1987 Spectre (#27), and TWO more issues of the 1967 Spectre series, 7 & 8! We haven't seen a twofer for a while. 

And yet it must be Two-fer Tuesday, because we also get a double debut for Elvira's House of Mystery, issues 1 & 2, an 80s attempt by DC to revive the horror anthology by having the popular horror movie host be our guide. It didn't work, unfortunately -- the mag lasted on 11 issues. (She's had more luck at other companies, enjoying a staggering 166-issue run at Claypool comics, and currently appearing  over at Dynamite.)

No sign this week of the final issue of Howard Chaykin's Blackhawk mini. 

DC's weekly sale is on Batman comics, collections and single issues -- celebrating the jumbo-size Detective 1027. I'm contemplating picking up the Dollar Comics run of Detective Comics, when it was hosting Batman Family, for a buck apiece.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Oh, and it IS Cassandra Peterson's birthday today... so what the heck, buy her Elvira book!

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Ten books reissued by DC on Comixology this week. And it's a real change of pace. Let's get to it!

We've got three collections: DC Universe Online Legends volumes 1-3.  They're comics created in 2011, in conjunction with the DC Universe online RPG.

We've also got Blackhawk 3, completing the Howard Chaykin miniseries. And Phantom Stranger 11, the next issue in the 1969 series, by Gerry Conway and Jim Aparo.

But then we've got an assortment of Wonder Woman comics. We've got four from the pre-Crisis series: Wonder Woman 204-206, and then issue 302.  As a general overview of pre-Crisis Wonder Woman, Comixology has the Golden Age run through issue 15, then sporadic issues until 98, when most issues are available until the most recent three, 204-206. Then we've got a gap from 207-211. Then we've got the issues of Wonder Woman's labors to get back into the JLA, and then some of her WWII adventures.... before another gap. Then there's chunks of issues leading up to 300, and 301 and now 302. Then 303-305 are missing, and that's the last gap before the series ends at 329.

Plus, from the post-Crisis series, we've got Wonder Woman Special 1, from the William Messner-Loebs run. From the post-Crisis run, it looks like the only gaps are issue 81, and Annuals 3 & 4. I'll put those on the Gap List.

Edited to add: It's been over a month since we've seen any of that mid-600s Action Comics run.

The DC sale celebrates Sidekicks -- one nice buy is Superboy's Legion, a 2-part prestige format series collected as 1 100-page spectacular, by Mark Farmer and Alan Davis... all for 99 cents. 

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

OK, let’s give the Pre-Crisis Wonder Woman title a complete overview of where we stand now, sort of like what I recently did with Action Comics.

In the Golden Age, issues 1-15 are all available… and only cost 99 cents apiece. What’s more, they seem to be the full issues, clocking in at around 44 pages.

We’re sporadic through most of the rest of the double-digit issues. Only 45, 50, and 76 are available, until a run that begins with 98, and goes to the recent 206, with only a handful of gap issues (111, 113, 123, 143, and 198). This is mostly thanks to a push for Wonder Woman material in 2017, when the movie came out. 

There’s a small gap (207-211, which might be closed soon), and then 212-230 are available.

Then we get a short burst -- 274-277 – followed by a longer run: 287-293. Then we get 300-302, and then 306-329, which is the final issue before the Crisis restart. There’s a short gap, 303-305, which might close soon.

THE FINAL WORD: Plenty of space for growth in the first 100 issues. The next 100 are surprisingly robust. The 200s are hit-and-miss, and there are only a small handful of the 300s left. The Huntress backup feature in Wonder Woman ran most issues from 271-321, although it stopped being cover-featured in the early 300s. Almost all of it is available.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

The "New and Noteworthy" section of DC's Comixology pages lists 12 new items... but there are actually 13 released this week.

Let's start out with the one released on Wednesday: Hardware: The Man in the Machine, a collection of the first 8 issues of the Milestone series.  It's by Dwayne McDuffie and Dennis Cowan (largely; some art is also credited to JJ Birch, a pen name Joe Brozowski used for a while). This is part of DC's plan to re-release Milestone content before launching new material as digital-first comics. The first three pages are available as a preview, and they're a great scene unto themselves, and one I remembered well, 20 years later. o far, single issues of Hardware aren't available.

Then -- well, previously -- on Tuesday, DC released 4 other collections: Green Arrow volumes 1 & 2 (this was the 2010 series, after Brightest Day); Fringe: Beyond the Fringe (connected with a TV show); and Grifter volume 2, from the New52 series. 

And then there's the single issues.

In our long-standing continuations, we have Super Friends 25 (what kid could resist that cover? I sure couldn't), 1967 Spectre 9, 1987 Spectre 28, and Weird Mystery Tales 11. 

Plus, we've got an array of Wonder Woman! From the Golden(ish) age, we've got Wonder Woman 41, cover featuring a story called "Wonder Woman: Private Detective," with a cover cool enough that I might buy it myself. Then the small post-300 gap closes further, with Wonder Woman 303. And finally, two issues are removed from The Gap List a week after they appeared: Wonder Woman Annuals 3 & 4. Now the post-Crisis series is only missing issue 81. 

This week's sale is DC Events... so if you passed up on, say, Milk Wars and want to find out what it was about, now's your chance. 

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

A quick look at DC's digital offerings for last week, as the new ones will be upon us tomorrow!

We've got five collections: Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors Vol. 1, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Vol. 1, Icon: A Hero's Welcome, JLA Earth 2 Deluxe Edition, and Jack Kirby's O.M.A.C.

Of the bunch, Icon is most interesting to me, as it's the second Milestone collection showing up in these reprints. But it's nice to see all of OMAC is available in one place. If I didn't have the hardcover, I'd consider this. (Which reminds me, I've got to get back to reading the Demon collection!)

We've also got a Milestone comic among the single issues: Static Shock: Rebirth of the Cool #1. This is from the 2000 Milestone revival, a 4-issue mini by Dwayne McDuffie & John Paul Leon. 

We've also got two more issues of Batman, 193 & 194.  Issue 193 is an 80-page giant reprint issue -- so a great bargain for the page count. Issue 194 is back to the "New Look" Batman, with a Blockbuster story sporting one of my favorite Infantino Batman covers. 

We also get return engagements from Super Friends 29, The Spectre 10 (final issue of the 1967 series), and Wonder Woman 304 (one more issue to go in the 300s!).

Last week's sale was on Scott Snyder books, both DCU and Vertigo. Sale ends at midnight, so act fast!

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

We've got five single issues and 4 trade paperbacks in this week's DC backlist. Let's get to 'em.

This week's Milestone trade: Icon volume 2: The Mothership Connection. Strangely enough, while volume 1 collected issues 1-8, volume 2 collects Icon #13, 19-22, 24-26 and 30. I'm not sure what the thinking was on this; the collection was originally printed in 2010.

Then we've got Legion: Secret Origin, collecting the Levitz/Batista miniseries from the early days of the New52, Necessary Evil, a supervillain tie-in to a TV special on DC's villains, and Penguin: Pain & Prejudice, another New52-era mini, by Gregg Hurwitz and Syzmon Kudranski.  

On the single issue side, we've got some next issues: Batman 195, featuring "The Spark-Spangled See-Through Man" (gee, wonder why he never caught on), Wonder Woman 305 (completing the 300s!), Static Shock: Rebirth of the Cool 2 (of 4), and Super Friends 30 (aw, yeah, Grodd!).

And we get a new debut! Tales of Ghost Castle 1 is the first of three issues of this 1975 horror anthology. It's most notable not for its stories, but its narrator... this is the series that introduced Lucien, the custodian of Sandman's dream library! This issue features work from Paul Levitz, David Micheleine, Marty Pasko, Nestor Redondo, Frank Redondo, Rubeny, and Sergio Aragones. 

DC's sale is themed "Who Needs Superpowers" -- a neat way to feature Batman & other non-powered* superhero comics as well as some of Vertigo's crime dramas, like Scalped.  Heck, they even have some Looney Tunes comics for sale!

*they really stretch the idea of non-powered, considering there are some Blue Beetle collections here. 

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

We've got two collections this week, and five single issues. Let's get to em!

Collections: Resurrection Man volume 2. This completes the New 52 revival. 

Also, Red: Better R.E.D. than Dead -- a collection of one-shot tie-ins to the RED movie -- strangely enough, seemingly without Warren Ellis's involvement. 

In the singles, we get continuations: Batman 195, Stactic Shock 3 (one more issue of this revival miniseries; plenty of issues of the original, if DC decides to go back to it), Super Friends 31 (my first exposure to Black Orchid as a kid!), and Tales of Ghost Castle 2 (just one more issue!).

Also there's Batman: Arkham Asylum: Tales of Madness 1, a one-shot that's actually chapter 16 of the Cataclysm crossover. 

As for sales, DC's doing a Fables sale this week, with Fables, Jack of Fables, Fairest, Wolf Among Us, Cinderella, and Ever After on sale. And maybe one or two more tie-in titles I'm forgetting.