It's much more. I have the entire 264 issue run and it's a rollercoaster where you can't guess what will happen next. 

I read the Superman: The Man of Steel vol. 6 TPB reprinting Action Comics Annual #1, Adventures of Superman Annual #1, Superman Annual #1, Action Comics #594-595, Booster Gold #23, and Superman #12. I think the only ones I'd read previously are the two-part Booster Gold crossover and the Silver Banshee story from Action. The cover of the Adventures Annual was so familiar, but the story, not so much. So I think it's just that house ads seared the memory of the cover into my mind.

It's the oddest volume in the bunch so far, because it's all over the place tonally. Part of that is how annuals feel different because of guest artists or writers. Also, a couple of the guest artists are people I associate much more with Marvel (Art Adams and Ron Frenz), so it just feels weird seeing their work here. I can't believe I'd never heard of the Action Annual given it's a Superman/Batman team-up. It feels weird in the way that trying to find a workable Superman/Batman team-up plot can feel. the plot seems to have an odd shape to it, but I like it. The Titano story in Superman is a bit too preachy. The Adventures Annual, guest written by Jim Starlin is disturbing and therefore very memorable. A couple of the annuals work in Sarge Steel cameos for all the hardcore Charlton maniacs who demanded it.

Was the Booster Gold crossover a last ditch effort to save his series, which was cancelled a couple issues later? It's another weird one. Of course it turns out that Booster Gold isn't the villain the story would let on, but he still comes across as peevish and resentful of Superman. Three-dimensional characters are great, but he doesn't seem likeable here. I bought a lot of Booster Gold comics off ebay a few years back and binged them. I don't remember them that much, but I remember liking it more than I did the issue of Booster Gold here. The art is a big contrast. Byrne draws a beautiful issue of action, but I found Dan Jurgens and Roy Richardson underwhelming in the BG issue.

Superman #12 is another odd one. It's a Lori Lemaris story that feels so tonally disconnected with the rest of what Byrne has been doing. At times, it feels like a Silver Age pastiche and I'm wondering whether Byrne took certain scenes from Lori's Silver Age origin. The issue is such an odd interlude that I've developed a pet theory. My guess is that Lori Lemaris must've been a personal favorite of Byrne's childhood fan days. Even though she may not fit in the post-Crisis Superman plans, Byrne may have wanted the chance to do one story featuring her before she written out. The mention of her death seems like an obliquely suggestion of another scene from Crisis being retained in some form in the combined universe, like earlier references to Chemo and Superboy. A framing sequence after the flashbook is very poignant and allows Byrne to draw a cool panel of sea life.

Byrne introduces some memorable villains in his run, and Silver Banshee is one of them. She has a great design. There's also a plot twist that I remember worried and then suprised me a kid. We get some big Lois Lane scenes. Byrne seems to change from issue to issue how close or adversarial Lois is with Clark. Or maybe this is another "it's complicated" relationship.

From X-Men Epic Collection vol. 5: Second Genesis, I read Giant-Size X-Men #1 and X-Men #94-95. These are all comics I've read multiple times before. I think this is the fourth different format I have GSX #1 in, and I've read all of them in Classic X-Men. But I figured I'd use some credit card points to have these stories together in a convenient package and without the additions from the Classic X-Men stories. Also, there's at least one Iron Fist issue here that I've only read in black and white via an Essential, and I wanted to get the materials in the back of the book, like the materials from F.O.O.M.

The main credits page of the TPB has a general disclaimed about the book containing negative depictions, mistreatment, and stereotypes. My guess is that primarily refers to how Sunfire and Thunderbird are portrayed as jerks, and that Professor X taunts Thunderbird about the state of the Apache to goad him into joining the team.

With re-reading, I notice different things. For instance, Nightcrawler is the character whose appearance changes the most of the first few issues. Although this is considered Wolverine's original costume, it looks different than what Trimpe drew over in Incredible Hulk. Cockrum basically creates the standard Wolverine look. Dragonfly hypnotizes Cyclops in #95, but it backfires because his eye movement cause his visor to open. The idea of eye movement opening the visor is news to me. The two ways I've seen Cyclops operating it is by pushing studs on the size of his visor or by pushing buttons on the palms of his gloves. Another aberration in a character's power is Nightcrawler teleporting into the NORAD bunker sight unseen. Although technically possible, it becomes established that he doesn't teleport blind out of fear of materializing in solid matter. Also in #95, Cat-Man derisively tells Wolverine that his own claws are real. There's no retort from Wolverine that actually his are part of his body.

A few miscellaneous notes on GSX #1. Sunfire is the first character to call Nightcrawler misfit. Nightcrawler talks about being unhappy in a freak show, but I think it's later established that he got to perform as an acrobat and felt appreciated. Or maybe it was periods of both. There's a citation to Wolverine's previous appearance, but not for Banshee or Sunfire. I'm not sure if I just learned that Sunfire had appearances outside of X-Men #64 prior to now, or if I just forgot. I think I'd assumed his Iron Man appearance came later.

To me, Cockrum inking himself in GSX and Sam Grainger inking him in #95 both work better than Bob McLeod inking him in #94. Count Nefaria's Ani-Men seem to be the same team as the Unholy Three from the earliest issues of Daredevil, albeit with more members. I thought maybe back then they were just people in costumes, but it's made clear in #95 that they are mutated by an experiment to give them their animalistic appearances. They want to be changed back.

Some may it sucks to create a character just to kill them, especially since Thunderbird was a rare (at the time) Native American superhero portrayed as a jerk. But from a narrative perspective, I think it kind of works in the way that icctrombone thought Tigra being portrayed as out of her depth in Shooter's Avengers worked. While I think it doesn't work as well with Tigra given her prior experience, the elements are all there to tell the story for Thunderbird. He's a novice. He feels like he has something to prove. He's constantly ignoring Cyclops's order and misjudging risks. Plus, we get to see how it comes from a tragic confluence of events. The X-Men leave the injured and unconscious Thunderbird and Banshee behind, because they think they have to Doomsmith Machine. But Professor X eventually informs them the detonation sequence was already disabled by the battle. If that had been communicated earlier, Cyke is not in a rush to leave Thunderbird and Banshee behind and they don't rush off alone to try to stop Nefaria.

But how the heck does Xavier use his powers to determine a machine is disabled? By the same token how does Cerebro detect Krakoa as a mutant in GSX when Krakoa isn't even a human?

It's interesting how Wein (who is created as plotter while Claremont is "writer" (presumably scripter) on #94-95) makes roster moves right away. We're made to understand that X-Men's roster has remained intact throughout the reprint era, with the exception of Beast leaving at the beginning of his Amazing Adventures run. How convenient and implausible that everyone except Cyke decides to leave at the beginning of #94! None of them decided to leave before? None of them still feel the pull to stay now? The decision needed more space to breathe. Also, writing Sunfire out so quickly feels forced. Why would he have joined in the first place if he felt that way? I think an interesting What If? idea would be that somehow Sunfire decides to stay. As a flyer, his presence at the battle against Nefaria would then be crucial in preventing Thunderbird's death. Because his overexposure had not arrived yet, Wolverine doesn't appear on the cover to #94 or #95, aside from the corner box/circle.

I also look at some of the extra in the back of the TPB. I've seen some of Cockrum's unused character sketches in the X-Men 30th Anniversary Magazine, but I think there's even more material here. Here, there's a lot of text making clear how many of these character designs were originally intended by Cockrum for LOSH or a spinoff. Maybe Marvel wanted to minimize that in the 30th anniversary magazine. 

I read those not too long ago and I have to say I didn't like them as much as I thought I would.. alot of it is pretty clunky. I did finally get the next Epic (Proteus, which was super expensive for a while and finally got a 2nd print)... I'm looking forward to that with the Legion stuff.

I finished the Sgt Fury epic I've been reading... it was ok for what it is.. superhero comics that happen to be set in WW II. Fury's team seem to have force fields and a weird hypnotic ability to get people to get into fist fights instead of using their guns . The issue where Hitler tries to shoot the Howlers on national TV personally is hilarious.

Got FF Vol. 4 up next, then X-Men!

I've also made some great progress on my 'to read' pile, which used to be a short box AND an overflowing milk crate.. not it's 1/2 a short box (that's stuff I want to finish getting the series of before I read) and the milk crate is only 2/3 full.   Very pleased!

I read the facsimile edition of Punch Comics #12 during my time away from the boards.



This is one of my all time favorite comic book covers, one I thought I would never be able to own, so I snapped up the facsimile edition when I saw it solicited by PS Artbooks. When it arrived I read it. It has a great cover. Nothing else about that comic is good. Every story in it was putrid at best. This Golden Age book has nothing classic about it, except the cover. I've bagged and boarded the book, and I will probably work out some way to display that cover, but I will never open that comic to read again.

-M

Ugh. Oops. I think that was probably a combination of Wolfman getting stuck in my head seeing him credited as editor starting with #95, as well the letter W, and blending them together in my head as writers with link careers. I'll correct that in my original posts.

Blue Devil #0-#4 and Captain Carrot #0-#2

What to say about these....Blue Devil has always been on my bucket list of comics that I wanted to read because I found the premise of a movie stuntman being fused to his powerful demon-like exo-skeleton to by a real world demon and having to cope with the hassles of living like that for the rest of his life rather interesting. It's not a particularly serious book and feels more like a throwback to silver age Marvel than a typical DC book of that era

Captain Carrot I had some reservations towards after wanting to fall in love with Peter Porker, The Spectacular Spider-Ham and just finding it rather dull, same goes for Thomas' writing style. Wasn't sure if this was going to be as "take it or leave it" as his time on Marvel's Invaders or DC's All-Star Squadron (I love and appreciate history as much as the next guy, but Roy kind of lays it on thick). Much like Blue Devil, it's not particularly serious and kind of has fun with it's own little world, which I appreciate