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.

[Detective 445]

Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod) said:

One thing we don't have is The Untold Legend of the Batman by Len Wein, John Byrne, and Jim Aparo. To me it’s always been the definitive origin and early years of Batman, and I was glad to see on the Comixology upcoming releases list that it would be available again. And yet as of today, the books haven't appeared on the app. Maybe they'll show up tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe they'll be held indefinitely. It's disappointing. 

That's another one of those Comixology head-scratchers. Those issues were digitized a while ago for "Tales of the Batman: Len Wein" so it seems like there wouldn't be any cost to make them available as singles. But, I wouldn't be shocked if one hand isn't talking to the other and we see singles that are taken from low quality scans.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

And now Untold Legend is up, as promised! There must have been a glitch. 

That makes me feel a bit better about this small week.

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

Speaking to the crossover sale, I read the Batman/TMNT one a month or so ago in a trade, and I thought it was really good. If its on sale I really recommend it.

[Detective 445]

Travis Herrick (Modular Mod) said:

Speaking to the crossover sale, I read the Batman/TMNT one a month or so ago in a trade, and I thought it was really good. If its on sale I really recommend it.

I didn't realize that was James Tynion! I'll check it out.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

99 cents apiece, or $5.99 for the collected edition!

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Another list of 12 backlist books. It seems like this is a genuine slowdown for a while, which is a shame.

We still don’t get Detective Comics 447 and 448, the final two parts of the Wein/Aparo “Bat-Murderer” story, but we do get three more issues of Detective: 298, 478, and 479. They’re all Clayface stories, and I know something big is coming up with Clayface in the modern Detective Comics (possibly a return to villainy for Basil Karlo, which would be a real shame; I’m a sucker for reformed criminals).  

We also get the remaining four issues, 116-119, of that Justice League of America run filled…including 80 pages of comics from issue 116 (the other 20 of this 100-page Super Spectacular were presumably ads). That means every issue of JLA through issue 137 through issue 124 is now available, with the sole exception of issue 112. (Which I'll put on the Gap List, since it's such a glaring omission at this point.)

There are also three Wonder Woman books: 2 Wonder Woman Annuals (#5 and 6, the Legends of Dead Earth and Pulp Heroes themes, respectively), and the Wonder Woman Gallery, a collection of pinups that is available for 99 cents.

So that’s ten of the new books. The other two are another Secret Files and Origins (DCU Heroes #1, from 1998), and Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #2. This is the one where the Alan Moore/Kevin O’Neil Abin Sur story appears, explaining why he was using a spaceship, and including a prophecy that I’ve heard Geoff Johns mined quite a bit for his Green Lantern run.

So it seems that, in addition to a slowdown, DC is looking back and trying to find some books its missed in earlier digitization waves. Annuals, Secret Files, etc.

Still no sign of the rest of Starman or Lobo this week. And again, no Wildstorm, no Vertigo, no Golden Age.  

This week’s DC sale is a spotlight on Jim Lee, with 18 different trade paperback collections that he drew, including Hush, Batman Europa, Deathblow, Divine Right, and more. The most recent stuff are the first two Suicide Squad Rebirth trades. There’s also a few things where he’s mostly on the periphery, just contributing a story or two, like Wonder Woman: Her Greatest Battles and Vertigo’s Flinch volume 1. Strangely enough, there’s no WildC.A.T.S. included in the sale. Maybe it’s being saved for another time?

[Luke Blanchard]

The last two parts of the Bat-Murderer story were pencilled by Ernie Chan.

Detective Comics #298 was the first appearance of the Silver Age Clayface, who had the power to change his form. The story was by Bill Finger and Sheldon Moldoff.

#478-#479 featured Clayface III. My recollection is he was nuts and his touch was liquefying.  He had a strength-increasing exoskeleton. The story was by Len Wein and Marshall Rogers. #479 was a DC Explosion issue (25 pages for 50c) with a Hawkman back-up. The GCD tells me it was by Wein and Rich Buckler and introduced the Fadeaway Man.

Englehart's run had ended in #476, and #477 had a reprint with a framing story. #480 was the last issue before the title was combined with Batman Family and made a giant.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Thanks, Luke! I'm glad to see DC is making more of Wein's work available. And thanks for the correction about Bat-Murderer!

[Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man]

I can't remember whether it was JLA #116 or 117 that I had read once was one of the greatest Justice League issues ever written. I know it was one of them. I'll be buying both of them and deciding for myself--it's about time!

[Luke Blanchard]

#116 was written by Cary Bates, and #117-#119 by Elliot S. Maggin. #116 and #117 are stand-alone issues, but #116 teases #117 in a couple of ways. #118-#119 are a two-parter. They build on #117 in a couple of ways.

[Detective 445]

Wandering Sensei: Moderator Man said:

I can't remember whether it was JLA #116 or 117 that I had read once was one of the greatest Justice League issues ever written. I know it was one of them.

Hmmm. I wonder why? I don't remember anything particularly noteworthy about those issues.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

We’ve got 15 books this week, a slight uptick from last week’s 12. Still a far cry from the 25-30 books we used to get.

No Batman this week, and no Secret Files. But we do get 10 issues of Justice League of America. (Say, is there a movie coming out?) They’re issues 125-134, filling the gap between 124 and 135 in one fell swoop. (I know that last week I said JLA was complete (aside from issue 112) through issue 137, but I’d misread the numbers as I looked through the title (probably because it was exactly a ten-issue jump, going from 124 to 135). Now they’re there, so let’s just say I was right, but a week early. The books are all drawn by Dick Dillin; some are written by Gerry Conway, others by Marty Pasko.

Then there’s four other books, all Green Lantern related. There’s Green Lantern Annual #3 – an Elseworlds annual which, judging by the cover, positions John Stewart as a rebel GL against a fascist state propped up by Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner. So that’s a Secret Empire tie-in, I guess?

Also, there are three issues of Green Lantern Corps, 208-210, in which Kilowog leaves the US and joins Russia, working with the Rocket Red program (which I believe were created for that series). Only two issues of the title’s 23-issue run, largely by Steve Englehart and Joe Staton, had been made available before this—issues 201 and 207. So why this story, and why now? Who knows…but Russia has been in the news lately. Or, heck – maybe Kilowog will show up in the Justice League movie. Stranger things have happened.

There’s no Starman this week, but we do have Lobo! Not a continuation of his ongoing series, but a one-shot special, Lobo/Demon: Hellowe’en, from 1996. Story by Alan Grant, Art by Vince Giarrano.

Again: no Wildstorm, no Vertigo, no Golden Age. 

The sale this week is DC horror, with a some of DC and (mostly) Vertigo collections available at around half price when you type in the code HORROR at checkout. There’s Hellblazer, Swamp Thing, iZombie, and some others. Now's a good time to pick up the compete runs of Coffin Hill and Red Thorn, if you were planning to. Through Thursday, to make sure it’s still running for Halloween, presumably.