ironchimp
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Post by ironchimp on Jun 9, 2014 15:27:24 GMT -5
there never seems to be much love for crumb or shelton here - no fans?
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Post by Hoosier X on Jun 9, 2014 15:47:59 GMT -5
I'm not overly fond of The New Look Batman myself. The art is modernized, sure, but the stories are still pretty durn goofy. Batman isn't fighting aliens (except several times a year in JLA) or turning into Bat-Baby any more, but there is still an element of the fantastic in some of the stories (my favorite ones, natch).
Like in Detective #339, he fights an intelligent gorilla named Karmak who attaches a bomb to his chest and threatens to blow up Gotham and Batman defuses the bomb just by keeping Karmak from touching the ground for a certain amount of time. Great art by Infantino doesn't make this any less silly than a lot of the stuff in the Schiff era.
And Detective #333 has another one I love, where the girlfriend of an explorer dresses as Gorla, the elephant goddess, and tries to trick Batman and Robin into going to Africa and finding the Elephant Graveyard. Batman realized she's not really the elephant goddess (cuz he's the world's greatest detective and stuff) but helps her out anyway. Again, great art by Infantino. I love this story, but it's pretty dumb.
But this era also had the Outsider! It was like the 1960s version of the Clone Saga. Pretty bad.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jun 9, 2014 15:52:11 GMT -5
there never seems to be much love for crumb or shelton here - no fans? That should put the 1960s over the top for a few people. But, no, Batman turned into a genie in 1963, so the whole decade is exempt.
(Batman turning into a genie is actually pretty awesome. Fortunately, Bat-Girl (the original Bat-Girl, not Barbara Gordon) shows up, so Robin doesn't have to fight Batman-genie alone!)
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ironchimp
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Simian Overlord
Posts: 456
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Post by ironchimp on Jun 9, 2014 16:54:34 GMT -5
there never seems to be much love for crumb or shelton here - no fans? That should put the 1960s over the top for a few people. But, no, Batman turned into a genie in 1963, so the whole decade is exempt.
(Batman turning into a genie is actually pretty awesome. Fortunately, Bat-Girl (the original Bat-Girl, not Barbara Gordon) shows up, so Robin doesn't have to fight Batman-genie alone!)
yeah if you take superheroes off the table, just the underground comix creators alone kicked the door wide open for the 80s indie scene. i havent read much 60s batman but the little i've seen it looks far more drug addled and psychedelic than the freak brothers. In the right mood the lunacy is unbounded and that's a very hard skill to master. Plus no 60s Dc no Grant Morrison (which i know might be a curse for some) but he can often melt my tiny mind |
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Post by Rob Allen on Jun 9, 2014 17:19:30 GMT -5
Yes, there are definitely fans of Crumb and Shelton here. And Jaxon, and Spain, and Foolbert Sturgeon, et al.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2014 17:20:50 GMT -5
I love Crumb's illustration and am very interested in the underground comix movement, but a lot of underground comix I have read haven't been that great. Same as I wouldn't say the entire decade sucked because of Batman, I wouldn't say the entire decade was great because of Crumb. It was a decent decade with decent stuff though. My favorite 60's comics are Warren mags.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Jun 9, 2014 17:40:27 GMT -5
Jack Schiff edited the Kirby Challengers and the Cardy Aquaman, right? I like both of those quite a bit.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2014 17:53:14 GMT -5
I wouldn't say an entire decade of comics wasn't good because I didn't like one title from one publisher that decade. I wouldn't even miss it. 60's aren't my favorite decade either, but there is so much more going on than just Batman. I used Batman as my example because it's my favourite DC Character. Superman comes next. As much as I buy (high grade) Superman and Action Comics from the 60s, this wasn't my favourite era of those either. Early X-Men was here and there before Neal Adams came along in 1969 and gave it a shot in the ass. Can mid 60s X-Men issues in the 30s-40s compare to the Claremont era? Not in my opinion. Early Ditko Spidey....again, okay, it had its charm...but I preferred when Romita took over. So in essence, 60s Spidey wasn't as disappointing to me as Batman was. But I'd still give the 70s an edge...not just because of Amazing Spidey, but it also included Marvel Team-Up, Giant-Size Spider-Man and Peter Parker as well. 60s horror comics - average, but give me any copy of Unexpected, Ghosts, Witching Hour, Haunted House etc from the 70s-80s. 70s Ghost Rider was awesome...90s Ghost Rider, had its moments, but the Terminator looking Johnny Blaze and Vengance pissed me off. There are some good 60s moments of course, just like I can pick some good ones from the 90s (which I rank last... LAST DOESN'T MEAN DUMB)...just least favourite of the other choices. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Jun 9, 2014 17:59:55 GMT -5
Jack Schiff edited the Kirby Challengers and the Cardy Aquaman, right? I like both of those quite a bit. I'm reading Showcase Presents: Aquaman, Volume 1, currently and there's a lot of Cardy Aquaman in this volume. These stories are a lot of fun, and the creative use of sea life - electrics eels weaving themselves into nets, puffer fish putting out fires, whales lining up so a disabled plane can land on their backs - boggles the mind.
There's also stories where Aquaman and Aqualad are refreshed by snow or rain or a mud puddle instead of being immersed in the sea. In one of the series in the 1990s, the writer had Aquaman refreshed by the rain and the story acted like it was some kind of breakthrough for Aquaman writing. Nope. Sorry, hip modern writer. Those dummies in the Silver Age had already figured it out.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jun 9, 2014 18:26:11 GMT -5
Early X-Men was here and there before Neal Adams came along in 1969 and gave it a shot in the ass. Can mid 60s X-Men issues in the 30s-40s compare to the Claremont era? Not in my opinion. I've been reading The Essential X-Men, Volume 2, with X-Men #25 to #53, and I thought for a minute that I was reading one of the worst stories of the Silver Age when I read #25 and #26. (That's the El Tigre story.)
It gets better pretty quick, what with the return of the Mimic and Banshee and Factor Three and I was digging the Super-Adaptoid story. (And then it gets pretty bad again with the Warlock.)
I don't know what was wrong with the Silver Age X-Men. I've read so much Silver Age Marvel, but very little X-men after issue #18. When I was a kid, we had a few beat-up copies of The X-Men when it was a reprint comic. (#67 to #93) So I knew about the Blob and Factor Three and the era when Professor X was dead. (Not really.) But I was never interested enough to make an effort to read the missing issues like I was with FF, Spider-Man and Tales of Suspense.
(OMG! There's some Ross Andru inked by Don Heck art in this volume! Can't wait!)
I don't think anybody thinks X-Men #30 to #49 compares to the first few years of the Claremont era. X-Men #94 to #143 are among the best super-hero comics ever. Very little compares to it. For me, though, almost everything that is better than the Claremont X-Men is from the 1960s.
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ironchimp
Full Member
Simian Overlord
Posts: 456
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Post by ironchimp on Jun 9, 2014 18:26:18 GMT -5
I love Crumb's illustration and am very interested in the underground comix movement, but a lot of underground comix I have read haven't been that great. Same as I wouldn't say the entire decade sucked because of Batman, I wouldn't say the entire decade was great because of Crumb. It was a decent decade with decent stuff though. My favorite 60's comics are Warren mags. i think though that the very best of it hasn't dated at all. If it came out today it would be still be totally fresh which is incredibly hard to pull off. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jun 9, 2014 18:28:04 GMT -5
I ranked the 1980s in 1st place.Afterwards I'd go with
2-1960s
3-1930/40s
4-1970s
5-1950s
6-2000 up
7-1990s
60s highpoints are the rise of Marvel but in particular Kirby's FF and Thor,Spider-Man,Steranko and Dr Strange.DC would be Julie Schwartz comics,Enemy Ace,Weisinger Superman and late 60s DC in general (Hawk & Dove,Creeper,Secret Six,Bat Lash,Diana Rigg Wonder Woman etc).Tower Comics,Warren Mags,Underground Comics,Herbie the Fat Wonder,King Comics,Magnus,Mad Magazine
The 30s/40s were crude but had so much energy and nothing matches to its creativity
The rest of the decades had plenty of highlights but huge detractions.The 50s,of course,was the comics code followed by the worst years of comics.The 1970s had the comic package itself getting shabby-reduced page counts,flimsy paper you can see through,changing from metal to plastic platers making reproduction worse. And so many of the great titles from the 60s got very stale and repetitive in the 70s.The more current decades problems were rising prices,decompression storytelling,cynical short sighted,manipulative corporate management (gimmick covers,gimmick crossovers,gimmick numbering etc) |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2014 18:47:24 GMT -5
For those of you who rate DC in the 60s quite highly, what would you single out as (1) Luthor's best book and (2) Braniac's.
For me, I'd go with the 70s and 80s with choices like Action Comics #490 and #491 for Brainiac...where Brainiac tricks Superman into looking at Krypton explode and sets his eyes on fire...I mean, I thought what an evil bastard! I loved it. Action #544 would also score highly...new look Braniac, and Luthor destroys his own planet.
I'm hard pressed to find similar 60s moments...they were okay, but come on, a boxing match with Luthor on a planet with a red sun...ummm....(reminds herself it was the 60s...)
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Post by gothos on Jun 9, 2014 18:54:43 GMT -5
I'm actually going to defend Jack Schiff, even though his Batman material is the low point of the character's first fifty years. For starters, Schiff had been the editor on the Bat-titles since the late '40s, whch means he was responsible for some of the best Batman stories as well as most of the worst. Once the Comics Code was imposed, he and his writing staff were hamstrung. Suddenly murder mysteries and psychotic villains, the strip's bread and butter, were out. (It didn't help that sales on Batman and Detective were slipping year and year.) Something had to take their place and Schiff turned to his fellow editors to see what was working for them. From Weisinger he took the idea of building a family of characters around his lead - a dog, a female counterpart, an extradimensional trickster. From Schwartz he took the science fiction tropes that kept Mystery in Space and Space Adventures selling, even though neither he nor his writers were very good at them (his own "mystery" titles - House of Mystery, House of Secrets, My Greatest Adventure, Tales of the Unexpected - are vastly inferior to Julie's). The thing is, it worked! The appearance of Batwoman or Bat-Mite on a cover meant a sales spike. Finally, much of what we're blaming on Schiff is really the work of his assistant editors, George Kashdan and Murray Boltinoff. K&B served as the series' story editors, leaving Schiff to focus on what really mattered to him: the one-page public service ads that ran throughout the line and which reflected his own left-wing leanings. Now I certainly don't expect this to change anyone's mind on the quality of Schiff's post-Code Bat-books (knowing this stuff hasn't changed mine, after all) but you now at least know the context in which they were created. Cei-U! I summon the bad rap! I agree that there must have been a sales increase or the editors wouldn't have kept featuring Batwoman and Bat-Mite. We should keep in mind, though, that it was probably only a small spike, since the relatively low sales of the book overall *are cited* as the reason for the changeover to Julie Schwartz. One thing worth mentioning is that even before the Code a lot of Bat-stories were more gimmicky than the fairly hardcore (for a kids' comic) stuff from the early 40s, so in one sense Schiff was using a lot of the same gimmicks in the late 50's that he'd used in the early 50s. BUT-- and I think this is significant-- he and his fellow editors did start emphasizing villains in greater profusion than one saw in the early 50s . (I've got a list somewhere that attests to that.) A lot of them are losers, as bad as a similar largesse of gimmick-foes in the BLACKHAWK title-- anyone remember "the Wheel?" But even so, some of the goofy types, like Calendar Man and Signalman, have a dorky charm, and the revised versions of Mad Hatter and Clayface are substantial additions to the Bat-mythos. So it's inaccurate for fans to claim that Schiff was doing nothing but stupid aliens-and-monster stories. Under his "Silver Age" aegis, Batman's rogues gallery was built up quite a bit. Around the same time, we celebrate the classic Broome-authored villains for THE FLASH, but Schiff doesn't get credit for comparable deeds. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Jun 9, 2014 19:00:13 GMT -5
Luthor's Finest Hour  I never liked that clunky,ugly-colored super suit he wore in the later 70s. Always wearing his prisoner uniform in the 60s meant he knew subconsciously he'd get caught |
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