Trip to the Past: Going Through My Closet!

[Philip Portelli]

Since I'm off this week, I decided to go through my upstairs closet for the first time in at least ten years, if not more. The long boxes contain books between 1996 and 2000, roughly. This was when I returned to comics after quitting cold turkey for two years. I only went through three boxes today which held:

• Heroes Return Avengers and Captain America (both mostly good runs)
• Marvel Knights Black Panther (which was why there was a movie in the first place), MK Captain America (which I had forgotten even existed) and MK Daredevil (best DD since Miller)
• Peter David's excellent Captain Marvel
• Batman, Detective, Batgirl, Gotham Nights & Legends of the Dark Knight ( before, during and after No Man's Land)
• Birds of Prey (first regular series----hoping for that movie!)
• Blood + Water (a Vertigo mini that I'm going to reread)

Also there were three volumes of Batman: The Dailies from 1943 to 1946 and four magazine-sized issues of Tales Calculated to Drive You MAD! from 1997-98 that reprinted MAD #1-12.

On top of the boxes were a bunch of action figures from various franchises:

• Toy Biz Marvel Legends Hulk with a white shirt
• Toy Biz ML Doctor Doom
• Toy Biz Movie Hulk: David Banner (Nick Nolte action figure!)
• Marvel Covers: Black Widow (very Mego-like)
• Harry Potter Draco Malfoy, Tom Riddle and Gilderoy Lockhart
• X-Men Evolution Storm (animated series)
• Spectrum of the Bat: Batgirl (animated series)
• DC Direct figures of----
• Doomsday
• Supergirl (white shirt)
• Ares (Wonder Woman)
• Artemis (Wonder Woman)
• Fatality (Green Lantern)
• Tomorrow Woman (JLA)
• Tim Hunter (looking very bitter)
• Universal Monsters Lon Caney, Jr. as the Wolfman with bear trap and silver-handled cane

I'll continue to dig through and see what treasure (or trash) I can find!

[Philip Portelli]

[Emerkeith Davyjack]

...Has anyone here ever bought all 3 volumes - or even less - of the three-volume set of the 60s-70s BATMAN newspaper strip? I've long meant to get it, was going to soon, but have had to put it off again. I had the 90s first edition of the 40s Batsy strip collection.

[Philip Portelli]

Went through two more longboxes:

• a Doctor Fate mini from 2003 (no memory of it!)
• an Elfquest 25th Anniversary special by DC of all people!
• Exiles first series *Knock me over with a feather" Part 1! Never thought I had them!
• Fables starting with #6. Missed the first story arc!
• Fallen Angel by Peter David which everyone thought was connected to his Supergirl.
• Fantastic Four (Heroes Return) with a lengthy run by Chris Claremont! Plus it got renumbered to hit #500 so there's precedence for that!
• Flash where I met Impulse, Max Mercury and Walter West!
• Formerly Known as the Justice League mini from 2003 which revisited the "Bwah-Ha-Ha! days. Supposed to be called Super Friends but DC didn't want them "tainting" the name!
• Green Arrow by Kevin Smith!
• Green Lantern's #50 made me quit comics but #81's requiem for Hal Jordan helped bring me back!
• Harley Quinn first ongoing series from 2000. "Knock me over with a feather!" Part 2!!
• Harley & Ivy: Love on the Lam: a 2001 prestige one-shot with a lot of cheesecake! First time for the H&I brand?

More to come!

[Travis Herrick (Modular Mod)]

I don't remember that Dr. Fate series either.

I remember Elfquest at DC, they even did a few archive reprints.

For the most part I thought Kevin Smith's Green Arrow was an okay series. With Matt Wagner covers if memory serves (then again it may not)

Philip Portelli said:

Went through two more longboxes:

• a Doctor Fate mini from 2003 (no memory of it!)
• an Elfquest 25th Anniversary special by DC of all people!
• Exiles first series *Knock me over with a feather" Part 1! Never thought I had them!
• Fables starting with #6. Missed the first story arc!
• Fallen Angel by Peter David which everyone thought was connected to his Supergirl.
• Fantastic Four (Heroes Return) with a lengthy run by Chris Claremont! Plus it got renumbered to hit #500 so there's precedence for that!
• Flash where I met Impulse, Max Mercury and Walter West!
• Formerly Known as the Justice League mini from 2003 which revisited the "Bwah-Ha-Ha! days. Supposed to be called Super Friends but DC didn't want them "tainting" the name!
• Green Arrow by Kevin Smith!
• Green Lantern's #50 made me quit comics but #81's requiem for Hal Jordan helped bring me back!
• Harley Quinn first ongoing series from 2000. "Knock me over with a feather!" Part 2!!
• Harley & Ivy: Love on the Lam: a 2001 prestige one-shot with a lot of cheesecake! First time for the H&I brand?

More to come!

[Philip Portelli]

I liked Kevin Smith's Green Arrow a lot, though it was a very convoluted and clever to both bring back Ollie among the living as he was blown to literal bits and rejuvenate him after they made him over fifty! Plus Smith stayed until #15 which is a long run for him.

Brad Meltzer, who followed him, has a bit of a bad rap today but his "Archer's Quest" was a really great story, told with great affection yet also shows how much Ollie had to grow up.

I had Marvel's Epic line reprints of Elfquest which was why the DC book threw me for a loop.

[Philip Portelli]

Two more long-boxes:

• Hawkman which was spun off from JSA and has been the character ever since.
• HERO, a dark and gritty version of Dial H For HERO. *sigh*
• Hulk later redubbed Incredible Hulk from the fallout of Heroes Return as the Hulk gets a lot more dangerous!
• Human Target from Vertigo.
• Human Torch (2003) trying to be serious with very cartoony art. 
• Iron Man (heroes Return) Tony doing too many Tony things and so many new suits of armor!
• JLA a great series by Grant Morrison but suffers after him.
• JLA: Scary Monsters: a 2003 mini by Chris Claremont!
• JLA-Z, a 2003 version of Who's Who.
• JSA, one of the best series of the 00s!
• Justice League Adventures based on the animated series. Should be constantly reprinted for kids!
• Kingpin a 2003 mini that tells about his rise to power at the same time Spider-Man debuts. Really.
• League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 2, a must-read!
• The Legion, a 2001 series that I have little memory of. They battle Ra's Al Ghul! But it's the only Legion series here.
• The Losers by Vertigo. Forgot I had it!
• Marvel 1602. Might have to reread this one!
• Marvel: The End. More Thanos hijinks!
• Namor a prequel of sorts, taking place in the mid 1930s.