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.

[Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man]

Last week, I bought the four issues of the Shazam post-Legends miniseries. I fell asleep reading the first issue a couple nights ago. That's not an indictment on the quality of the work; that's just what happens as soon as I start reading when I'm in bed!

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

They're printing a trade paperback of The Legion by Abnett and Lanning, Volume 1, scheduled for September. I think it's everything before Legion Lost. So Legion Worlds would be volume 3! (And probably in paperback, so not a match, but still.)

Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man said:

Oh, nice! I wish they would print a hardcover of Legion Worlds to go with my hardcover of Legion Lost, but at least now they are available to download.

Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) said:

And then there’s the Legion books. Not only do we get two more 70s Superboy & the Legion issues (consecutive from the two a couple weeks ago…now with Pulsar Stargrave!), but we also get all 6 issues of the Legion Worlds miniseries from 2001.

[Detective 445]

Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) said:

Debuting this week is Hawk & Dove, the first 3 issues of the 5-issue mini from 1991 from Barbara Kesel, Karl Kesel, and Rob Liefeld. This is weird for a number of reasons. For some reason Comixology credits the art to Greg Gulder, and the writing to Karl Kesel alone. What’s that about? And then, when I looked for other Hawk & Dove stories on  Comixology, I found that this whole miniseries has been available since 2011… with the proper credits. So some wires obviously got crossed here.

That is weird. The Liefeld mini is from 1988. There was an ongoing from 1989-1991 that had Guler (not Gulder as Comixology calls him) art.
Comixology gives the date for these new offerings as 1989-1991 but when you click on the "what's inside" link you can see that it's the 1988 Liefeld version.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Aha! So it looks like they uploaded the wrong comics under the (almost) right information.

[Luke Blanchard]

Rob Staeger said:

In other news, DC Comics Presents is closing in on its conclusion. There are 7 issues left going forward in the run till the last issue (97),

I've not read the final issue. It was by Steve Gerber and Rich Veitch, and a sequel to the Gerber/Gene Colan The Phantom Zone mini from 1981/82.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

I'm one issue away from getting that complete Phantom Zone mini -- hopefully I'll be able to track it down at this weekend's East Coast Comicon. Pretty sure I have that DCCP issue already.

By the way, in the vein of the books resurrected for Comixology having some bearing on what DC is currently doing (or about to do): It turns out that Arion has been appearing (as an antagonist, or maybe a full-on-villain) in recent issues of Blue Beetle. (I still suspect he's going to show up on Supergirl someday; a handsome ancient Atlantean mage is pretty much a perfect antagonist for that show.)

[Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man]

Ehh, I don't care about matching. Hardcovers and TPBs coexist on my shelf!


Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) said:

They're printing a trade paperback of The Legion by Abnett and Lanning, Volume 1, scheduled for September. I think it's everything before Legion Lost. So Legion Worlds would be volume 3! (And probably in paperback, so not a match, but still.)

Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man said:

Oh, nice! I wish they would print a hardcover of Legion Worlds to go with my hardcover of Legion Lost, but at least now they are available to download.

Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) said:

And then there’s the Legion books. Not only do we get two more 70s Superboy & the Legion issues (consecutive from the two a couple weeks ago…now with Pulsar Stargrave!), but we also get all 6 issues of the Legion Worlds miniseries from 2001.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

This week, DC kicks things into Super-Overdrive! With this century’s Action Comics run completed, DC is adding three new issues of each remaining title this week. So we get Adventures of Superman 586-588, Superman 164-166, and Superman: The Man of Steel 107-109. If this rate keeps up, we’ll burn through a full year of Superman comics every month.

To keep the endpoints of these titles in perspective, Superman: The Man of Steel ends in about 25 issues, with 134. Adventures of Superman ended with issue 649 (becoming Superman again with issue 650, during One Year Later). Superman ended with issue 226, but everything since issue 204 (the beginning of the Azzerello/Lee story “For Tomorrow” has already appeared on Comixology. So if things burn at their current rate, Man of Steel will drop off first (in about 2 months), then Superman, then Adventures of Superman.

OK, onto the regulars: We’ve got two more issues of Arion (21 & 22), two more issues of DC Comics Presents (94 & 95), one more issue of Guy Gardner: Warrior (38), three more issues of Hawk & Dove (issues 4-6; DC still hasn’t fixed the original 3 issues of the ongoing though, so at this point the earliest issue in the series is 4), one issue of Justice League America (61, beginning the Jurgens run), the Bronze Age Superboy & the Legion of Superheroes is back for two more (226 and 227, consecutive from two weeks ago).

In the newcomers, we’ve also got three issues of the Abnett/Lanning/Copiel Legion from 2004 that spun out after Legion Lost (I love that first issue’s cover!), Batwoman 0 (which might be the only Batwoman comic not already appearing on Comixology) and two issues of Lobo’s first miniseries. There were a lot of those minis and one-shots, so this could be the start of a walk down memory lane in a very bad neighborhood.

Only 26 items today – down from 32 a couple of weeks ago! And no Vertigo titles at all!

Next week could see the end of DC Comics Presents (unless they continue into the annuals or double back and upload the skipped issues). Swamp Thing might end, too, if DC gets back to it. 

[Detective 445]

I''m looking forward to that first DC Presents Annual. It was sort of a preamble to COIE and I'd love to see a retouched version.

Also patiently waiting for Superman and/or Action to get into the mid-late 70s. That was probably the only time period that I read those books on a semi regular basis.

Superboy and the Legion is also entering into a favorite period of mine with Jim Sherman art and the Earthwar storyline.

I'll probably have to grab that 2004 Legion series as well. Sold off my floppys a while back.

Lobo with Bisley art is tempting as well.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Tec, the Earthwar is already available on Comixology -- I grabbed it a while ago. 

I picked up a bunch of 70s & early 80s Superman and Action comics this weekend at the East Coast Comicon -- including a few issues with backups of the Bob Rozakis-written imaginary story about Bruce (Superman) Wayne. 

Keith Giffen was at the show, too, and he mentioned that the first issue of Lobo was priced at 99 cents because Paul Levitz was convinced they'd barely be able to give the book away. Instead it became a phenomenon. (I'm not sure how serious Giffen was about this, to be honest). 

[Detective 445]

Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) said:

Tec, the Earthwar is already available on Comixology -- I grabbed it a while ago. 

Thanks Rob!

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Just looked at Comixology, and DC now has those missing first three issues of the 1989 Kesel/Guler Hawk and Dove series up. So they've fixed their mixup, and presumable will carry on from here. This ongoing run lasts until issue 28, a War of the Gods crossover issue.