I was still regularly following GREEN LANTERN (co-starring GREEN ARROW) but to be honest I was enjoying it less and less. I'd first encountered the character as a back-up strip in THE FLASH where his adventures were galactic in nature. But in this book, it was clear that the writers and editors weren't entirely comfortable … Continue reading BHOC: GREEN LANTERN #115
With a big Omnibus collecting all of them coming out any time, my mind has been drawn to the assorted authorized crossovers undertaken by rival companies Marvel and DC over the years. Some of those stories were triumphs, sagas that compared and contrasted the characters involved skillfully, and which were just crackerjack entertaining in their … Continue reading 5BC: Five Middling Marvel/DC Crossover Books
For almost the entirety of its run, I had been a regular reader of BATMAN FAMILY. But during the famous DC Implosion, in which DC's publishing line was significantly pruned back, BATMAN FAMILY had been merged with DETECTIVE COMICS in an effort to keep the series that the company had been named after alive. Clearly, … Continue reading BHOC: DETECTIVE COMICS #483
Over the course of comic book history, the fortunes of super heroes as a genre waxed and waned as tastes changed and the marketplace shifted. This led to moments where a series that was once popular had fallen upon hard times or was seen as being out of step with the era, and needed to … Continue reading 5BC: Five Times Two Heroes Were Better Than One
Super heroes as a genre were on their way out as the 1960s turned into the 1970s and the super hero fad that had driven success throughout the silver age fell away. But this meant that publishers were more encouraged to experiment than they had been previously in an attempt to stave off cancellation--and every … Continue reading 5BC: The Five Best Comic Books of 1970
By 1971, Stan Lee's career scripting comic books was winding down. While he'd remain in place as Marvel's Publisher for the remainder of the decade, he ceased scripting pretty much everything he had been working on, except for an occasional and far-between assignment. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #96 is the first part of the last truly great … Continue reading 5BC: The Five Best Comic Books of 1971
I continued to purchase GREEN LANTERN (co-starring GREEN ARROW) every month, even though the quality of the series varied wildly. Writer Denny O'Neil had been in place since the early 1970s, when the title's dip into confronting real-world issues got it a lot of public attention and notoriety. But I get the sense that Denny … Continue reading BHOC: GREEN LANTERN #114
When I did the initial wave of these 5 Best write-ups concerning the best comic books of each year, I confined myself to just the years when I was a fan and a reader, 1973-1989. I didn't think that it was proper for me to go beyond that, as I was a participant in the … Continue reading 5BC: The Five Best Comic Books of 1972
Green Lantern had been my second-favorite super hero going back to my youth, when I found him occupying the back pages of THE FLASH. Once he got his own series again, I followed it regularly right from the jump. And I was particularly enamored of Marv Wolfman's run on the character which had wrapped up … Continue reading GH: GREEN LANTERN #162
There was a relatively brief period of time during which IRON MAN was a crackerjack reading experience. After more than a decade of mostly just floating along not being especially inspired, David Michelinie, John Romita Jr. and Bob Layton made the Armored Avenger into a real player. They put him up against more major threats, … Continue reading GH: IRON MAN #171
The Tom Brevoort Experience 