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)]

Oh, I hadn't realized you were talking about the 100-pagers! I thought you were talking about Shaft! the Justice League title itself!

I'm glad to see them getting digitized -- those reprints were crucial to giving a generation of kids a sense of comics history.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

This week's DC Comixology backlist, as foretold!

• Justice League of America (1960-1987) #159: The first part of one of my favorite JLA/JSA teamups, as they encounter DC heroes from the past, like Jonah Hex and the Viking Prince!
• Super Friends (1976-1981) #44: The Super Friends all suffer from amnesia. But even better, look at that cover! Robin punches a PIG WITH HIS FACE! (Also a Jack o' Lantern backup!)
• Wonder Woman (1942-1986) #198: A missing Sekowsky issue, as powerless Diana returns to Paradise Island.
• Static (1993-1997) #8: Another part of Shadow War, Milestone's first crossover. It comes after Blood Syndicate #10, so we'll have to wait a while to read this in order.
• Hardware (1993-1997) #8: Curt learns of a previous high-tech vigilante that fought the system...er, SYSTEM. 

The JLA and Wonder Woman stories are both on the Gap List.

DC is continuing its Explore the Multiverse Sale this week. Also noted: IDW has a Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover for sale in its TMNT sale this week.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Also, I found an article on Batman-News.com showing what's coming up on DC Infinite (and presumably comixology) through April.

Arriving Week of 4/5

• Justice League of America (1960-1987) 160
• Super Friends (1976-1981) 45
• Breach (2005-2006) 1
• Blood Syndicate (1993-1996) 3
• Icon (1993-1997) 8
• Action Comics (1938-2011) 661

Arriving Week of 4/12

• Action Comics (1938-2011) 341
• Super Friends (1976-1981) 46
• Breach (2005-2006) 2
• Static (1993-1997) 9
• Hardware (1993-1997) 9

Arriving Week of 4/19

• Action Comics (1938-2011) 343
• Super Friends (1976-1981) 47
• Breach (2005-2006) 3
• Blood Syndicate (1993-1996) 4
• Icon (1993-1997) 9

Arriving Week of 4/26

• Action Comics (1938-2011) 351
• Batman (1940-2011) 208
• Breach (2005-2006) 4
• Static (1993-1997) 10
• Hardware (1993-1997) 10

So... DC completes Super Friends (aside from issues 32 and 33, still MIA) and starts up Breach, a series that ran 11 issues that I totally forgot about. Blood Syndicate still lags behind the rest of the Milestone series, which will make it hard to read the crossover for a few months. And DC is doing a bit more gap-filling, wrapping up this week's JLA story, and giving us some missing Action Comics and a Batman issue.

[Luke Blanchard]

The cover story from Action Comics #341 looks like the inspiration for the bit in Superman III where Superman and Clark Kent fight each other. The net tells me the story was by Otto Binder and Al Plastino and the Supergirl back-up was a reprint.

In the early Silver Age Mort Weisinger put Wayne Boring onto the newspaper strip and made Curt Swan, who'd been drawing it, the lead Superman artist. (He was already the cover-artist.) After the strip ended in 1966 Boring regularly drew comics stories again. Apparently the lead story in #343 was by Jim Shooter and Boring, and the Supergirl story another reprint, this time of a story in which she guested from Jimmy Olsen.

#351's Superman story was the start of three-parter by Binder and Boring about a villain called Zha-Vam. Zha-Vam was a variation on Captain Marvel. Apparently the Supergirl story in #351 was the first part of another Jimmy Olsen reprint.

Batman #208 was a reprint giant on the theme of the women in Batman's life. It's a mix of reprinted stories and extracts in a framing sequence by E. Nelson Bridwell and Gil Kane.

[Luke Blanchard]

Justice League of America #160 was the second part of the JLA/JSA two parter in which the heroes of yesteryear guested (Jonah Hex, the Viking Prince, Miss Liberty, the Black Pirate, Enemy Ace). It's by Gerry Conway and Dick Dillin, and one of Conway's best JLA stories.

 

Justice League of America was a giant from #139-#157. With #158 it went down to regular size, but this was as part of the DC Explosion. The idea was DC titles would be priced at 50c and have 25 pages. Some titles had lead stories of 17 pages with 8-page back-ups, but the JLA stories continued to be book-length. So #160 has a 25 page story. The price went down to 40c with #161, but DC Indexes indicates the stories were 22 or 23 pages before #166, where they went down to the period's standard 17. #165 was Julie Schwartz's last issue as editor. His replacement was Ross Andru.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Oh, now I'm curious to see if the tenor of JLA stories changed under Andru. When Andru took over Flash, his adventures took a sharp turn into grittier crime stories (resulting in the death of Iris) instead of the lighter fare they'd been under Schwartz, even though Cary Bates remained the writer.

[Lee Houston, Junior]

As far as I recall, JLA under Andru split its focus between team adventure and personnel subplots, mostly the characters who didn't have their own books at the time.

I don't remember what title/issue it was off the top of my head (the Flash, maybe?), but I do remember that Andru once got into some editorial hot water over his reply to a reader's letter and had to spend most of another issue's letter column explaining/apologizing.

On a different topic, has anyone else noticed that over the last couple of days, a lot of the e-versions to several Marvel Masterworks volumes have started ending in odd price points?

Instead of the usual 99 cents, I've been noticing some .09s, .19s, and even a few .49s.

Does anyone have any idea why?

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

I don't remember that lettercol incident with Andru, but I remember something like that when Ernie Colon was the editor a few years later. He could be curt and abrasive, and even sometimes downright antagonistic. 

I've no idea what's going on with those prices. Maybe they change them up as a way of tracking something about the sales? Say they know a comic referencing an old Silver Surfer story will come out next week. Right before it hits, they change the price on the Silver Surfer Masterworks. Then, when Comixology lets them know how many copies it sold this month, it's broken down between the two price points, so Marvel can see if any sales were driven by the guest appearance. (I honestly doubt this is exactly what's happening, but I wouldn't be surprised if the end numbers were a way of collecting *some* sort of data that it might be difficult or expensive to get otherwise.)

[Lee Houston, Junior]

@ Rob:

Considering how long ago it was and I have no idea what storage box those issues might be in (provided I still have them), maybe it was Colon. All I remember is that there was an incident.

And your guess is as good as mine concerning the price points, which is why I raised the question to begin with.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

As foretold by the oracles at Batman-news.com, here's the (largely Batman-free) new DC backlist additions for this week. For a change, there are six issues instead of five!

• Justice League of America (1960-1987) 160: Part two of a time-traveling JLA/JSA teamup, guest starring DC's historical heroes. Another issue filled in from the Gap List!
• Super Friends (1976-1981) 45: The Super Friends have to free six villains in order to defeat a new menace called The Conqueror!
• Breach (2005-2006) 1: I'd totally forgotten about this book, which ran for 11 issues. Written by Bob Harras, the art's by Marcos Martin, a name I didn't know then, but certainly do now! (He's currently working on Panel Syndicate's former-kid-detective series Friday, with Ed Brubaker.)
• Blood Syndicate (1993-1996) 3: Speaking of syndicates, here's issue 3 of Milestone's super-powered gang series. This series is straggling behind the other Milestone books; an appearance of the team in a recent issue of Icon spoiled an upcoming character death... and the crossover Shadow War is coming up quickly for the other titles, but in another month or two for this one. 
• Icon (1993-1997) 8: Icon finishes telling Rocket about his origins... and Rocket makes plans to keep her baby. Leads up to Shadow War.
• Action Comics (1938-2011) 661: A Superman/Plastic Man teamup, from the Triangle era. Another issue filled in from the Gap List!

The DC sale is DC Classics -- largely pre-crisis collections and single issues. Why not check out Detective Comics 526, celebrating the 500th appearance of Batman in the title? A giant-size issue by Gerry Conway and Don Newton, featuring all of Batman's villains teamed up against him? At 99 cents, it's cheaper than the comic cost when it was first published. Or the Justice League's four-part adventure into the Microcosmos, in JLA 213-216? It's another Gerry Conway story, this time with art by Don Heck. For the price of one modern comic, you get four!

[Lee Houston, Junior]

Thanks for the weekly heads up Rob.

Besides Detective 526, I also got issues 500 and 572 (the 50th anniversary of the title) for 99 cents each.

[Rob Staeger (Grodd Mod)]

Nice! All good ones!