Sometimes I feel a little unloved, being a Bronze Ager. With all the attention going either to the Silver Age or today's comics, I always think MY comics are getting ignored! So I ask any and all of you, what DC book that started or was revived in the 70s was your favorite? Granted most of them had limited runs but that doesn't have to be a negative factor. My only rule is that it had to begin or restart in the 70s.
My favorites, in no order but memory,
"All-Star Comics" : the Justice Society in their own book! I was in heaven! With Giffen/Wood, then Staton/Layton artwork, plus Power Girl and the Huntress, what more could I want?
"Firestorm, the Nuclear Man" and "Steel, the Indestructible Man": both lasted five issues but I got both #1s as Christmas presents. It was the first time I read a character from its beginnings. Warm memories!
"Secret Origins" and "Wanted" : Great Silver Age and Golden Age reprints!
"Challengers of the Unknown": especially the stories from "Super Team Family" (another favorite) which are hidden gems.
I could go on and on but what is your favorite?
Replies
I like some issues of DC's Shazam series. The Black Adam and King Kull issues were the only comics from this list that I bought new.
I had incredibly limited access to DC comics growing up, but in retrospect...
All Jack Kirby's stuff would be top of my list. No question.
New Gods
Mister Miracle
Forever People
(Jimmy Olsen - ok, he doesn't qualify)
Kamandi
Omac
Demon
In pretty much that order. All original boundary-pushing stuff.
I had no exposure to them as a kid, but as a grown-up I thought these comics still had a lot to say.
Forgot about Kirby's Marvel work-
I always think of The Eternals as 80's work for some reason. They are pretty good.
2001 was great fun, although the series as a whole didn't seem to be going anywhere by the time it wrapped up. You had Kirby doing Kubrick doing Clarke: 3 great C20th visionaries in one comic.
I recently read most of Kirby's Machine Man run. There was some poetry there, but I'd rank it as the most minor of all the ones mentioned so far.
Mike Grell's"Warlord"
O'Neil and Kaluta's "The Shadow" (sadly short-lived)
A one-shot issue of "Sherlock Holmes" (also written by O'Neil)
"Jonah Hex"
Kirby's Fourth World (including "Jimmy Olsen," for sheer wackiness ... vampires one issue, Don Rickles the next)
I dug most of the ones you mentioned above Philip, as well. Some great reads in there.
Also, if you don't mind me tooting my own horn, I do review Silver Age comics from time to time on my "A Comic a Day" thread
I always loved the All-Star revival... long before I ever read any of the original JSA stories. I picked up on this about halfway through, around the Psycho-Pirate storyline.
My two favorite 70s series are Kamandi (which I collected mostly in back issues -- I only picked up the very last few Ayers issues off the stands) and Jonah Hex, which I didn't appreciate back then but I *love* now!
(And for Marvel, Tomb of Dracula!)
So no Tomb of Dracula, Rob, and no Eternals or Machine Man, either.
ToD is way up there though!
I appreciated "Tomb of Dracula" when I got older but had a soft spot for "Werewolf By Night"!
Also "Metal Men", first with Simonson art then Staton.
Forgot about Manhunter but again I needed a few years to get it!
I like elements of the pre-Machine Man issues of 2001 - particularly some of the art - but the first four issues are very repetitive. The 'grand tour' sequences derive from the movie, but are also remarkably like the scene Scott Shaw excepts here. The series was preceded by a treasury adaptation of the movie.
I suspect Machine Man derived elements from the Eando Binder Adam Link stories. I can't find the link where I found this out now, but Machine Man's design derives from a story about an android Kirby did for Marvel in the late 50s or early 60s. I've always thought Machine Man's origin quite striking, but it might be Kirby took the idea of a robot going mad due to an identity crisis from somewhere.
I finally "got" the Fourth World when the books came out in B&W trades a while back -- enough so that I bought the hardcovers when they came out.
Philip Portelli said:
Me too!
-
1
-
2
-
3
of 3 Next