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)]

Beyond the handful of issues on the Gap List, here’s what’s needed to complete the latter-day Post-Crisis Superman runs. It’s not a lot, all things considered.

Adventures of Superman: 599-607, 610-638: 38 issues

Superman 177-185, 188-203: 25 issues

Superman: The Man of Steel 121-129, 132-134: 12 issues

[Philip Portelli]

Don't forget about Superman: The Man of Tomorrow which was only published in months with five Wednesdays!

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Good point! But all 15 regular issues of the comic are already available. (As are all issues of Action Comics from the later era, though some of the earlier, pre-Death of Superman issues are still missing.*) The only one that isn't (that I can tell) is the 1,000,000 issue (the cover of which is, ironically, the image that Comixology uses as the icon for the series as a whole).

*I've amended the above post to say latter-day Post-Crisis Superman. There's still some earlier stuff to cover as well.

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

Man, I remember that Batman/Wildcat mini being some good fun.

[Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man]

I recently bought the trade, which includes that story plus the Catwoman/Wildcat story, also written by Dixon.

Travis Herrick (Modular Mod) said:

Man, I remember that Batman/Wildcat mini being some good fun.

[Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man]

I'm hoping that we get more issues of Starman at a time now that Guy Gardner is finished and Hawk & Dove is about to end.

Doggone it, what I would give to have them publish Hero Hotline digitally! I love me some Stephen DeStefano!

[Philip Portelli]

Wish they would put out Hero Hotline and 'Mazing Man trades!

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Yeah, Chuck Dixon can really write an adventure story. I've just pulled an old Airboy out to read that I bought from a back-issue bin. Dixon on words, the Kubert Brothers on art. How could I resist?

Hero Hotline would be great -- I only read the first issue for some reason, but I bet I would adore it now. (Loved Mazing Man from the start!)

[Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man]

When I started reading comics, I believe Hero Hotline was on issue 4. I went back and picked up issues 1 and 3 eventually through back issue bins, but never found 2!

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Another week, another batch of vintage DC goodness. We’re looking at a lot of continuations this time, in familiar doses. Let’s get to it:

We’ve got two more issues of Arion (33 & 34); three more issues of Hawk & Dove (22-24); one more issue of Justice League America (65) and three more of Justice League Europe (26-28; the next issues start the "Breakdowns" crossover with JLA, which so far has only the odd-numbered chapters available); three more issues of Lobo (10-12); one more issue of Starman (3); and three more issues of the Abnett/Lanning Legion (18-20).

We’ve also got four more Bronze Age Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes comics (250-253); and two more late Silver Brave and Bold teamups (78, with Wonder Woman, and 79, with Deadman). This run of Legion is nearing its endpoint: The title changed to Legion of Super-Heroes when Superboy left in issue 259, and the run from there has been reprinted to its conclusion. Five more issues will close the gap.

And we’re getting more Wonder Woman, too – one more 99-cent Golden Age Sensation Comics (42), plus five more Silver Age issues of Wonder Woman (118, plus 145-148). Issue 118 was an unexplained gap in the Silver Age run DC’s released so far. Other notable gaps are issues 105, 111, 113, 123, and 143. It’s possible DC is planning to fill out the run all the way to the “new look” issues, which started in 178 and are already available.

Sensation Comics ran for 109 issues, although Wonder Woman only appeared through issue 106. Regardless, there’s still a ton of issues to reprint -- but Sensation is also probably the DC Golden Age title that has the most issues reprinted in their entirety at the moment.

No Superman this week, and no Vertigo. (Although there’s a big Vertigo sale going on! 60% off any Vertigo books, if you use the code VERTIGO at the cart page.) We could see both the end of Arion and the end of this run of Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes next week (although there’s more of both titles, if DC wants to make a jump to a new starting point).

[Detective 445]

I'll be getting all the Legion stuff again and probably Brave & Bold.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they continue on through the 70s with B&B. Lots of Aparo goodness there.

[Luke Blanchard]

Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) said:

And we’re getting more Wonder Woman, too – one more 99-cent Golden Age Sensation Comics (42)...

The GCD notes that's one of the issues with an AA rather than a DC bulllet. It says the story was written by Robert Kanigher. It's the earliest DC (DC/National or AA) story it assigns to him. The supporting strips were "Little Boy Blue", "The Black Pirate", "Mr. Terrific" and "Wildcat".

All these features had started in the first issue, but "Wonder Woman" was the only one still being drawn by its original artist. The GCD doesn't have writer credits for the other stories. It lists the artists as follows:

"Little Boy Blue" Frank Harry (he's a new name to me)

"The Black Pirate" Alfonso Greene

"Mr. Terrific" Stan Aschmeier

"Wildcat" Joe Gallagher (he used a cartoony style on the feature)