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Post by Hoosier X on Feb 8, 2024 22:44:02 GMT -5
I read the stories in the Batman Silver Age Omnibus vol. 1 from Detective Comics #244-246 and Batman #109-110. The super-villains of Batman's rogues gallery have been absent to this point (except that a bust of Two-Face in the Bat Cave was a key part of a story). The streak finally ends when the Joker shows up in a story in Batman #110. Also, Vicki Vale is in two stories after not previously appearing in this Omnibus. One formulaic type of story is "The [Some Number, Usually 100 or 1001] [Some Object] of the Batman." There's one about different Batarangs and another about inventions. Basically, the structure is that identify a particular Batarang/invention/etc. is key to solving a mystery. Batman and Robin recall adventures that involve a few different examples. Ultimately, they figure out which one and it helps them solve the mystery. I love the Batarang X story! Every time they say .. I hope we don’t have to use … Batarang X! … and they look ominously at the secret vault where Batarang X is locked up, I just crack up!
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Post by spoon on Feb 10, 2024 22:10:55 GMT -5
I read Shanna the She-Devil #1-5 and Ka-Zar: Lord of the Jungle #2 from the Women of Marvel Omnibus. Since a read a few issues of Ka-Zar the Savage recently, I thought this would something interesting to go back to. The five issues are the entirety of the series that introduced Shanna around the same time Marvel published The Cat and Night Nurse.
Carole Seuling and Steve Gerber handled the writing. George Tuska draws the first issue before Ross Andru takes over with Colletta inking throughout. Nothing here would light the world on fire, but there are interesting bits. Although I've heard the heroine called Dr. Shanna O'Hara, I learned here that her doctorate is a DVM. She was on track to make the U.S. Olympic team in gymnastics, but decided to concentrate on her schooling. She was working at a zoo, when some miscreant shot all the big cats to death except two leopard cubs, Ina and Biri. Ina is spotted, while Biri is a black panther (because they're just a recessive gene variation). Disgusted with the modern world, Shanna takes the two surviving cats to the Dahomey Reserve in Africa, wearing a portion of their mother's pelt for "sight-scent bonding." You see, there's a very important story reason why she wears a leopard-print swimsuit.
We get some attempts at real world relevance with stories about poaching and the trans-Saharan slave trade. We all get comic book ridiculousness in the form of heroin smuggled on a French rocket bound for the moon and a tribe of white people in African descended from refugees from Crete. That story heavily involves a cape buffalo, which is like a half-error. There are African buffalo around Shanna's stomping ground, but cape buffalo is a name and subspecies of that species that lives much farther south. In the Ka-Zar story, there appears to be a paleontological error, but it turns out that was part of an intentional plot twist. An Irish game warden named Patrick McShane (getting duplicative with the phonemes) serves as a love interest. It feels like he's just filling out an editorial mandate because he usually appears briefly at the start of end of an issue. It's not really a problem, because he ranges from boring to annoying and isn't much help. Multiple issue also feature an agent of SHIELD named Jakuna Singh. With his name, beard, and turban I'd expect him to be Sikh, but McShane calls him a Hindu. Shanna gets to visit a SHIELD aircraft of the conventional type, not the Helicarrier.
The visit to the SHIELD carrier features a guest appearance via video call from Professor X and FBI agent Amos Duncan (I thought his name was Fred in the X-Men comics). This story takes place in the era when X-Men was in reprints. I've read most of reprint era X-Men guest appearances in one form or another, but I'd never read this one before. It's not even in the X-Men Epic Collection dedicated to that period. Although it's just 5 issues, Shanna gives us to villains (mutants according to Xavier) that show up elsewhere after the series ends: Mandrill and Nekra.
Apparently, Shanna showed up in #1 of this Ka-Zar series, but we don't get that in this Omnibus. There are some bits of Savage Land lore that I'm familiar with from my X-Men reading: a mention of Garrok and an appearance by the Fall People. Even though it's Ka-Zar's book, Shanna comes across as the more likeable of the duo here. Shanna turns down Ka-Zar invitation to stick around and note states she'll be showing up in Daredevil. I read her stint in Daredevil years ago, but I can't remember much of it. Some of those issues are in this Omnibus; I'm debating whether to re-read them. It was the less grounded era of Daredevil; I think Moondragon had an arc in the book around the same time.
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Post by Mormel on Feb 11, 2024 8:50:12 GMT -5
I'm in the process of sort of concurrently re-reading Morrison's New X-Men and Casey's Uncanny X-Men, and reading Claremont's X-Treme X-Men for the first time. I'm somewhat surprised at how much I'm enjoying X-Treme so far. I've read Claremont's 9-issue Revolution run on Uncanny that came before this, and I've read his later 2004-2006 run on the same title, and enjoyed aspects of both, so maybe that's why it's easier to get into the groove of it. Maybe it's gonna implode by the end of the title, but it's been entertaining so far.
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Post by Batflunkie on Feb 11, 2024 22:43:14 GMT -5
Captain America (2005) #1-#4 and New Warriors (1990) #1-#4
So, after finally completing the long journey to read all of Captain America v1 and v3, I set my sights on Ed Brubaker's run. It's very close to how John Ney Rieber's run on v4 started with a lot of political intrigue and so far, I think the praise this title gets is rather well deserved, even this early on (even if the identity of the main antagonist is kind of spoiled these days)
New Warriors has been on my bucket list for quite some time. Much like how I read Excalibur purely for more Nightcrawler, I wanted to read New Warriors for Speedball (who might very well be my favorite underappreciated character in the entirety of the Marvel Comics Universe). Fabian's writing is excellent and gives a good effort on an otherwise overlooked book that might as well have been branded "Avengers: The High School Years". Also Bagley's art is very nice to look at, what more can be said in that respect? The title has a lot going for it and I look forward to reading more and I hope at some point New Warriors gets the Epic Collection treatment
Also re-read Tales Of Suspense #63-#66. As I might have said before, the WWII Cap stories are kind of a big comfort food for me
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,069
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Post by Confessor on Feb 13, 2024 4:23:19 GMT -5
I re-read Daredevil #1 for the umpteenth time last night... It's a really great first issue, but I think my favourite thing about it is the Bill Everett artwork. It's just so good, with an appealingly cartoonish bent juxtaposed with a gritty, noir-like atmosphere (a tricky balancing act). Actually, the earliest of issues of Daredevil all had great art from the likes of Everett, Joe Orlando, and Wally Wood. Issue #1 is such a strong debut, it's a shame that the book starts to lose its way a little after those first half a dozen or so issues (in my humble opinion, natch).
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Post by Ricky Jackson on Feb 13, 2024 10:44:42 GMT -5
LOVE the art on early Daredevil. You also get John Romita, fresh off years of DC romance comics, with an 8 issue run post-Wood that I really enjoyed. And then Gene Colon of course. Too bad the stories don't rise to that level. Ironically when the stories finally get better, IMO, under Steve Gerber, the art declines
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Post by spoon on Feb 13, 2024 19:05:37 GMT -5
From the Batman Silver Age Omnibus vol. 1, I read stories from Detective Comics #247-249 and Batman #111-112. Then, as a floppy I read Batman #255.
This batch of stories from the Omnibus is pretty light on sci-fi/supernatural elements. I'm finding the whole Omnibus in general is much lighter on Batman fighting aliens plots than I had anticipated. I'm wondering if that's been exaggerated or if it takes a while to get into that in the Silver Age. After so many stories with forgettable gangsters as villains, we finally get some debuting super-villains. Doctor Milo is a mad scientist typo who makes two appearances, but exchanges his bowl cut for a different style and reddish hair. Then, we get Signalman. There's also the Collector, whose basically just another random gangster, but with a mask. Professor Milo is the cream of the crop. He actually has some memorable schemes. Without reading any of his stories growing up, I had an outsized impression of his importance because he had a Who's Who bio. I also read like the story from Batman #111 about a group of big game hunters.
There's also an around the world adventure and another ancient Rome time travel adventure involving the same scientist from earlier in the volume. A lot of stories in this era follow a formula of Batman doing something really weird, with a more rational motive explained at the end. From this genre, I really liked the one with Batman being replace by Starman (not one of the characters by that name people would know), which is one of the Milo stories. On the other hand, I didn't like the Batman and Robin wear medieval armor story. There's also a story where Bruce Wayne agrees to have Gordon frame him for murder to infiltrate a prison. It's an incredibly stupid plan that made the story a bad read.
I decided to take an interlude to the 1970s because the lead story of Batman #255 features the return of Professor Milo. This is the werewolf story I've always wanted to read ever since I saw panels from it in the Batman 50th anniversary coffee table book. Len Wein writes it and it has beautiful Neal Adams art. It's dark and moody. There a great climactic battle and an intriguing epilogue.
This issue is a "100 page super spectacular" and I read all the reprinted stories except one that I just read recently from the Silver Age Omnibus. There's a 1944 story in which Catwoman poses as a maid named Belinda to romance various butlers, including Alfred, and then steal from their households. Alfred later poses as Batman. It's fascinating when I hear people talk about the "good old days," because the last two pages of this story focus a lot on an off-panel spanking Alfred (as Batman) delivers to Catwoman. They make a point of how Catwoman is unable to even sit afterward. Here's the jilted spanking the woman who tricked him; it's an 80 year old story that clearly seems to have an S&M element to it.
There's a story reprinted from Detective Comics #363 by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino that's one of the earliest Barbara Gordon/Batgirl appearances. The key element is how Batman reveals his identity but pretends its a fake reveal to throw Batgirl off the trail. Also, I learned that Batgirl changes into her costume by reversing & modifying her civilian outfit in various ways (but wouldn't she want more than one outfit in her wardrobe). It's got an interesting plot about criminal scheme conveyed by code.
Then there's an early 50s Robin solo story from Star-Spangled Comics where he fights Crazy Quilt. I wanted to read a CQ story, but I'm actually more confused about what his deal is after reading this story. Finally there's a 1960s story by Fox and Moldoff pitting Batman and Robin against the largely unseen Outsider. Moldoff is pretty versatile in how he adapts to the Infantino-esque 60s style. This is an extremely trippy story in which the Outsider animates objects with particles from the dawn of evolution (which sounds insane, but I guess that's it). I'm pretty sure I've been spoiled on the Outsider's identity from reading Who's Who, which makes this story seem even weirder. This is also my first time seeing the comic book version of Aunt Harriet, who seems drastically different from the TV version.
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Post by Batflunkie on Feb 15, 2024 9:54:27 GMT -5
Howard The Duck #10-#12
After walking out on a fight with Le Beaver, Howard has a complete mental breakdown where he's trying in vain to figure out where he went wrong since he ended up in Cleveland. After he wakes up (an issue later might I add), he mistakenly takes a trip back on a bus and is harassed by book salesmen. He encounters a girl named Winda Wester on the trip who is under the impression that she's possessed by demons as well as the Kidney Lady. Howard gets into a fight with K.L. and a tire bursts on the bus, causing it to wreck. Howard, Winda, and The Kidney Lady are brought before a court to state their case and Kidney Lady wins the judge over by telling him a story (her own story) about a poor farmgirl who was romanced by a travelling book salesman who wined and dined her only to leave for the army. Howard and Winda are sentenced as mentally ill and taken to the psychiatric ward. Howard, still reeling from the breakdown, is heavily sedated and Winda learns that her parents abandoned her on the bus ride to Cleveland
Pretty good series of issues I thought with Gerber and Colan in top form
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,069
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Post by Confessor on Feb 16, 2024 6:59:14 GMT -5
More early Daredevil with issue #8... This is the first appearance of the mighty Stilt-Man, one of my favourite C-list superhero losers. I know, Stilt-Man is a bit of a lame and ineffectual supervillain, but he has a realy nifty costume. In particular, is helmet incorporates some kind of gas mask, which I've always thought looked very cool. This is a cracking good issue, with fantastic Wally Wood artwork. Stan Lee does a great job of making the reader think that poor old Wilbur Day is the one being victimised by industrialist and inventor Dr. Carl Kaxton, before turning that on its head and revealing that it is in fact Day himself who is the villain of the story and the one inside the Stilt-Man costume. There's plenty of superhero daring-do in this issue, along with some nice soap opera-style romance in the Matt Murdock-Karen Page-Foggy Nelson love triangle. The issue ends on a moralistic note, like some of those early, pre-FF Marvel sci-fi tales, with Day getting zapped by the shrinking ray from his own "molecular condenser" weapon and shrinking down to nothingness. Thankfully for comics fans everywhere, Stilt-Man would be back. All round, Daredevil #8 is a brilliant and really fun slice of Silver Age goodness.
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Post by Batflunkie on Feb 16, 2024 9:12:52 GMT -5
Captain America (2005) #5-#12
Keeps getting better with every issue. I particularly liked the House Of M tie-in inside #10 with Steve not getting frozen and continuing to live on as an astronaut and pro-mutant supporter
I do have a nagging suspicion regarding The Winter Soldier though. With all the cosmic cube stuff going on, did someone re-write the timeline and allowed Bucky to live in the plane crash?
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Post by kirby101 on Feb 16, 2024 9:50:09 GMT -5
More early Daredevil with issue #8... This is the first appearance of the mighty Stilt-Man, one of my favourite C-list superhero losers. I know, Stilt-Man is a bit of a lame and ineffectual supervillain, but he has a realy nifty costume. In particular, is helmet incorporates some kind of gas mask, which I've always thought looked very cool. This is a cracking good issue, with fantastic Wally Wood artwork. Stan Lee does a great job of making the reader think that poor old Wilbur Day is the one being victimised by industrialist and inventor Dr. Carl Kaxton, before turning that on its head and revealing that it is in fact Day himself who is the villain of the story and the one inside the Stilt-Man costume. There's plenty of superhero daring-do in this issue, along with some nice soap opera-style romance in the Matt Murdock-Karen Page-Foggy Nelson love triangle. The issue ends on a moralistic note, like some of those early, pre-FF Marvel sci-fi tales, with Day getting zapped by the shrinking ray from his own "molecular condenser" weapon and shrinking down to nothingness. Thankfully for comics fans everywhere, Stilt-Man would be back. All round, Daredevil #8 is a brilliant and really fun slice of Silver Age goodness. Correction, the dialog might have been by Stan, but at this point 100% of the plot was Wally Wood, so that plot twist was Woody, not Lee. Credit where credit is due.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,069
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Post by Confessor on Feb 16, 2024 12:45:07 GMT -5
Correction, the dialog might have been by Stan, but at this point 100% of the plot was Wally Wood, so that plot twist was Woody, not Lee. Credit where credit is due. I'm not convinced that's true. So, unless you can produce evidence in the form of old documentation or similar concerning the plotting of Daredevil #8, I'm gonna go ahead and assume that the plot was likely influenced by both of them. I know that Wood told Comics Journal that he wrote every Daredevil story that he worked on, but he's not a reliable source. In that CJ interview, he's moaning about Stan doing nothing and then a couple of paragraphs later he's saying that he got a writing credit for Daredevil #10 because Stan let him write that one by himself. Well, what's the differance between DD #10 and all the other issues then, Wally? It just doesn't make sense. God knows I love Wally Wood's art, but he wasn't a reliable source and he was also a depressive alcoholic with an axe to grind. So, given that the Wilbur Day/Stilt-Man twist is a major plot point, I think it was probably Lee's idea --even if he was only producing a vague outline of the story and leaving Wood to fill in the rest. It's that pivitol to the story as it unfolds. EDIT: This should probably go in the Stan Lee thread!
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Post by spoon on Feb 17, 2024 23:55:01 GMT -5
I finished off the Batman Silver Age Omnibus vol. 1 by reading stories from Detective Comics #250-257 and Batman #113-116. I will forgo my previous overly detailed posts, but we get more sci-fi than in some earlier portions of the omnibus with travel to another dimension and another planet and some visitors from the future. There are also return appearances from Batwoman and Ace the Bat-Hound. Although the "girls can't be super-heroes" thing has been downplayed in Batwoman's most recent appearances, in this one Batman goes back to being a dick toward her in the end. We also get stories featuring Fat-Man and the Bat-Ape, both of which were better than I expected.
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Post by Hoosier X on Feb 18, 2024 18:32:44 GMT -5
I also read Detective Comics #238-240 and Batman #105-106 in my continuing Omnibus reading. The cover to Detective #239 has a very distinctive appearance with its washed tones. A recurring theme of these stories is impersonation. Robin pretends to be not-Robin pretending to be Robin. Batman impersonates people and pretends someone else is Batman. Alfred disguises himself as part of a sting. Also, Batwoman returns to action through a loophole, as she goes to a costume party as Batwoman before stumbling into a case. We also get stories with a robot Batman and a Batman of the future. A recurring theme for me is how confusing it is to figure out Bat-History when the stories don't have issue citations. When a villain is described as having faced Batman in the past or past cases or referenced, I don't know whether these things actually happened in past issues or the backstory has just been invented for the basis of the current story. In most instances here, I'm guessing it's the latter. I purchased Detective Comics #240 and I’m hoping it shows up in the mail pretty soon. I’ll probably be reviewing it on one of the Batman threads. I would be very interested in reading your thoughts on that story is you have the time or the inclination to take another look at it and write a short review. The Batman story is “The Outlaw Batman.” I was thinking that I might have read it at some point, but I looked online and it appears that it had never been re-printed until it appeared in the omnibus that you’re speaking of. So this will be the very first time I’ve ever read it
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Post by spoon on Feb 18, 2024 20:36:01 GMT -5
I also read Detective Comics #238-240 and Batman #105-106 in my continuing Omnibus reading. The cover to Detective #239 has a very distinctive appearance with its washed tones. A recurring theme of these stories is impersonation. Robin pretends to be not-Robin pretending to be Robin. Batman impersonates people and pretends someone else is Batman. Alfred disguises himself as part of a sting. Also, Batwoman returns to action through a loophole, as she goes to a costume party as Batwoman before stumbling into a case. We also get stories with a robot Batman and a Batman of the future. A recurring theme for me is how confusing it is to figure out Bat-History when the stories don't have issue citations. When a villain is described as having faced Batman in the past or past cases or referenced, I don't know whether these things actually happened in past issues or the backstory has just been invented for the basis of the current story. In most instances here, I'm guessing it's the latter. I purchased Detective Comics #240 and I’m hoping it shows up in the mail pretty soon. I’ll probably be reviewing it on one of the Batman threads. I would be very interested in reading your thoughts on that story is you have the time or the inclination to take another look at it and write a short review. The Batman story is “The Outlaw Batman.” I was thinking that I might have read it at some point, but I looked online and it appears that it had never been re-printed until it appeared in the omnibus that you’re speaking of. So this will be the very first time I’ve ever read it Sure. Do you want me to post it in your Batman review thread or in this one? Do you want me to wait until your copy arrives so it'll be a Siskel & Ebert thing, or should I just post my review whenever?
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