In any long-running series, there's going to be a magnetic pull among a certain type of writer to want to change things, to make adjustments to details, to eliminate contradictions in the stories that have been told and to introduce new information about foundational events. These ideas can sometimes be additive and sometime be destructive, … Continue reading 5BC: Five Best Forgotten DC Retcons
It's impossible to encapsulate how seismic the effect of THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS was on the field of comic books. Not only did it introduce a more prestigious package for comics (and a then-unheard-of cover price of $2.95) but interest in the series also inaugurated the now-common process of repackaging collections of recent storylines into … Continue reading 5BC: Five Best Comics of 1986
Another issue of SUPERMAN that I bought at my local 7-11. It's got something of a strange cover image to it--I'm not certain how intrigued a potential reader would likely to be by the notion that Solomon Grundy was stealing Superman's cape. It's not exactly a big stakes question, after all. But what do I … Continue reading BHOC: SUPERMAN #320
This was another forgettable issue of ACTION COMICS that I bought on my now-weekly trips to the 7-11 every Thursday for new comics. As elsewhere, there's some dodgy lettering on this cover--that lower balloon was clearly traced of of an oval template. But the cover does have some drama to it. I was reading ACTION … Continue reading BHOC: ACTION COMICS #479
This issue of MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE featured John Byrne's first outing with the team as both writer and artist, a time travel adventure that had Ben Grimm coming face-to-face with the earliest version of himself as seen and characterized in FANTASTIC FOUR #1 and #2. Byrne does a great job of capturing the period of the … Continue reading 5BC: Five Best Comics of 1979
DC put a huge push behind the roll-out of their Dollar Comics line of titles, but for the most part they weren't very appealing to me. And the reason for that is that none of them were really very good. Oh, they were all adequate, competent comic books. But each one contained a ton of … Continue reading BHOC: SUPERMAN FAMILY #186
The mail carrier also delivered me my subscription copy of FLASH right around this time. This was the middle chapter in a three-part story. Multiple part epics were beginning to become more frequent at DC, which was good in that, between having read the DC titles for so long and beginning to discover the Marvel … Continue reading BHOC: FLASH #255
