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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 13, 2017 4:45:26 GMT -5
A good imitation of a classic is just that, an imitation, not a classic. It can still be entertaining and enjoyable, but something like that falls way short of my standard for a classic. I'd rather see creators emulate the creativity and vision of someone like Kirby than imitate the end result of what ended up on the page because of that vision and creativity. I'd rather read Kirby than a watered down imitation of Kirby any day of the week, no matter how good the imitation is. But that standard for me applies across the board, and stuff that may be "good" or "entertaining" comics are not classics to me if all they're doing is playing around in someone else's sandbox and coloring well within the lines without having any true vision or purpose but to be a shadow of what came before. -M I agree. I'd never rate it as a "classic" even though it's still probably the third best Thor run (I say this having never read the bulk of 70's Thor by the likes of Wein, etc.) I think there is a place for good "status quo" runs when it comes to mainstream comics, but it's certainly not something you'd want to see cemented for all eternity. Even Byrne's FF, which on the surface was a back-to-basics approach, soon branched out and expanded on the characters of Galactus, Doctor Doom, Invisible Woman, etc. I like/love ALL the Thor eras except maybe when Warren Ellis and Deodato made him into a male stripper  .  |
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Post by Warmonger on Sept 13, 2017 8:37:58 GMT -5
Punisher (vol 2) #1-59
Issue #60 is where Mike Barron (who I think was at the height of his booger sugar phase during this time) turned the Punisher black by having him visit a prostitute who also happened to be a world class underground pigmentation surgeon (yes...really).
Frank proceeeded to team up with Luke Cage to help take out a gang of thugs terrorizing the neighborhood.
It only lasted 3 issues, but Baron would leave the title soon after and thus began the total over-saturation of the Punisher in the early-mid 90's by a host of writers who didn't understand the character one iota.
Frank was essentially unreadable for the next decade until Garth Ennis came along and started his highly underrated Marvel Knights run, followed by the absolute powerhouse that was Punisher MAX.
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Post by Warmonger on Sept 13, 2017 8:57:14 GMT -5
Dreadstar #1-30
One of the greatest runs in comic book history and Starlin's magnum opus IMO.
Then came the complete mediocrity that followed. I only read an additional 6-8 issues afterwards before I dropped it entirely.
The 30th issue gave a more than satisfactory conclusion to the series and I liked how Vanth's future was left hanging in the balance. It should've ended right there.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Sept 13, 2017 9:20:00 GMT -5
I agree. I'd never rate it as a "classic" even though it's still probably the third best Thor run (I say this having never read the bulk of 70's Thor by the likes of Wein, etc.) I think there is a place for good "status quo" runs when it comes to mainstream comics, but it's certainly not something you'd want to see cemented for all eternity. Even Byrne's FF, which on the surface was a back-to-basics approach, soon branched out and expanded on the characters of Galactus, Doctor Doom, Invisible Woman, etc. I like/love ALL the Thor eras except maybe when Warren Ellis and Deodato made him into a male stripper . Those were dark days indeed. It still amazes me how far into 90's Marvel I continued to read long after things had gone sour... |
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Post by Nowhere Man on Sept 13, 2017 9:21:21 GMT -5
Punisher (vol 2) #1-59 Issue #60 is where Mike Barron (who I think was at the height of his booger sugar phase during this time) turned the Punisher black by having him visit a prostitute who also happened to be a world class underground pigmentation surgeon (yes...really). Wow. Never knew about this. I think I only had the Jim Lee issues of Punisher back in the late 80's. Could you imagine someone pulling this in the social media age? |
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Post by Warmonger on Sept 13, 2017 9:24:26 GMT -5
Punisher (vol 2) #1-59 Issue #60 is where Mike Barron (who I think was at the height of his booger sugar phase during this time) turned the Punisher black by having him visit a prostitute who also happened to be a world class underground pigmentation surgeon (yes...really). Wow. Never knew about this. I think I only had the Jim Lee issues of Punisher back in the late 80's. Could you imagine someone pulling this in the social media age? Trust me...it's as terrible as it sounds. |
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Post by tarkintino on Sept 13, 2017 14:34:02 GMT -5
I tried to consider Amazing Spider-Man, but out of my league, will leave it up to someone with more expertise to decide!  #1 -#150. That period was followed by some gaps caused by Marvel spreading the character around too much (in other titles), and writers not knowing how to escape the need to top the drama of #121 - #122 (and the plots that influenced well up to #150). A few interesting issues would be found afterward, but its largely dry until the emotion-packed #200, then the short and sweet original Hobgoblin arc in #238 - #239 / #244 - #245+. That was the cap to anything that could be called the classic run. Batman (Silver-Bronze Age) #170 - #380 (give or take a couple of months) Detective Comics (Silver - Bronze Age) #327 - 600s |
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Post by tarkintino on Sept 13, 2017 14:50:18 GMT -5
Teen Titans ( Wolfman/Perez) 1-50 Ah, The New Teen Titans / Tales of the New Teen Titans is another series with a classic run--completely uninterrupted. I would also add Superboy / Superboy and the Legion of Super Heroes # 137 - #350 ...and Cap's run in Tales of Suspense: #58 - #99, and Captain America #100 - #220, although the solo series had a couple of mid-70s hiccups/missteps. |
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Post by chadwilliam on Sept 13, 2017 18:10:22 GMT -5
John Cleese has remarked that when test audiences were shown Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail, the crowd would laugh uproariously up until a certain point and then stop dead. Thinking that they may have put their best bits at the start of the film, Python rearranged the order of the scenes, tested the movie with another audience, and... same thing. People couldn't stop laughing for the first 30 minutes or so only to stop at roughly the same time previous audiences had in spite of them watching a different cut of the film.
I kind of wonder if that's the phenomenon I'm experiencing when it comes to Silver Age Superman. Up until about 1968, I think the Superman title (which ran concurrently with Action Comics of course, but those stories feel a bit more inconsistent to me throughout the Silver Age) was firing on all cylinders regardless of whether they were aiming for something profound (Superman 164's "The Showdown Between Luthor and Superman"), heartfelt (Superman 165's introduction of the Sally Selwyn/Jim White saga), epic (Superman 167's Luthor/Brainiac team-up), bizarre (Superman 145's "The Night of March 31st"), or a mixture of these (Superman 150's "When the World Forgot Superman", Superman 156's "The Last Days of Superman", 174's "Clark Kent's Incredible Delusion", Superman 177's "The Menace Called It!", Superman 198's "The Real Clark Kent!", Superman 199's race against The Flash, and so many more).
Around the 210 mark though, things really take a dive. Superman isn't all of a sudden resorting to trickery to protect his secret identity, but just to teach Lois a lesson. In Superman 210, he goes on a date with her as Clark, acts as obnoxious and cowardly as possible, and when Lois admits that she just isn't into him because of how meek he is - which is the effect Superman designed the Kent identity for - decides to teach her a lesson by faking his suicide and laughing behind her back when she's consumed with guilt.
Now, DC had done stories sort of like this before (though not because Superman simply felt like being a jerk) and while the premise was certainly repetitive, they usually made sure to execute the idea which some imaginative and original twists along the way. This issue however, just read like a cry for help.
Action Comics 388 serves as a spiritual successor to the April Fools tale "The Night of March 31st" (a joke issue in which every panel had something happen which broke the normal rules of a Superman comic such as having Luthor and Brainiac tell Superman that they've learned his identity by reading the latest issue of Superman comics) and should work, but whereas the inspiration is clever and fun, this one just feels like it's a random assortment of ideas mashed together without the internal logic of the original tale. It really feels as though the script would have read something like: "Panel One - Have Brainiac shoot Superman with a pea shooter. Panel Two - Have Lex Luthor fall though the ceiling with an afro. Panel Three - Have Lois and Sgt Rock engaged in a pie eating contest. You know, stuff like that for 22 pages".
It really feels as if at some point, Weisigner and company lost interest in the character. The Silver Age for Superman had been a place where it seemed as if everyone had an identity, a quirk, and a reason for being. Suddenly, we're getting stories that feel as if they're copies of stories already told and when I say copies, I mean copies of stories that are being vaguely recalled at best. I mean, Superman 224's Imaginary Tale about Superman and Lois having a genius baby has so much effort put into it that the writer named their imaginary baby "Baby". At a time when they could have published an encyclopedia on all of the denizens of The Phantom Zone, Smallville, and Kandor they had introduced in the past 10 years alone, this is kind of stuff they were churning out before the end of what had been such an imaginatively rich and prosperous decade.
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Post by dbutler69 on Sept 14, 2017 13:45:27 GMT -5
Avengers #45-297.
X-Men #94-175 (though I could be generous and include #56-66)
Fantastic Four #44-94
New Teen Titans #1-50
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Post by Cei-U! on Sept 15, 2017 9:36:15 GMT -5
Putting together a list of DC comics I consider "classic" is gonna be a lot tougher than doing Marvel was. To simplify matters, I'm only going to list Silver and Broze Age books. Even that will be a challenge, as I've only read a vast majority of these books once (and, in the case of the war titles, sometimes not even once). So here's my preliminary take, posted with the understanding it will be amended and expanded as I go along:
Adventure Comics #340-361, 431-440
All-Star Comics #58-65 plus DC Special#29
All-Star Western #10-11
Angel and the Ape #1-3 plus Showcase #77
Anthro #1-6 plus Showcase #74
Aquaman #11-56
Atari Force #1-13
Atom #1-11 plus Showcase #34-36
Bat Lash #1-6 plus Showcase #76
Blackhawk #251-273
Brave and the Bold #50-200 (my favorite run of comics!)
Captain Action #1-5
Challengers of the Unknown #1-8 plus Showcase #6-7, 11-12
DC Comics Presents #1-4, Annual #1
Demon #1-7
Detective #439, 469-479 I'll be adding to this but this is what immediately came to mind
Doom Patrol #86-121 plus My Greatest Adventure #80-85
Flash #104-174 plus Showcase #4, 8, 13-14
Forever People #1-11
Green Lantern #1-48, 76-89, 133-151, 172-186 plus Showcase #20-22
Hawk and the Dove #1-5 plus Showcase #75
Hawkman #1-21 plus Brave & Bold #34-36, 42-44
Hot Wheels #1-5
Infinity, Inc #1-10
Justice League of America #1-65, 100-117, 200 plus Brave & Bold #28-30
Metamorpho #1-4
Mister Miracle #1
Mystery in Space #53-90 plus Showcase #17-19
New Gods #1-11
New Teen Titans/Tales of the Teen Titans #1-50, Annual #1-3
Night Force #1-10
Phantom Stranger #4-26
Ragman #1-5
Rima the Jungle Girl #1-6
Sea Devils #1-10 plus Showcase#27-29
Shadow #1-12
Showcase #55-58
Star Trek #1-5
Strange Adventures #205-216
Superman #233-242 More to come here
Swamp Thing (1972) 1-10 plus House of Secrets #
Swamp Thing (1982) #20-64, Annual #2
Tales of the New Teen Titans #1-4
Teen Titans #1-7 plus Showcase #60
Untold Legend of the Batman #1-3
Weird Western Tales #12-38
World's Finest #71-108, 141-173
To be continued...
Cei-U!
I summon the brain strain!
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Post by dbutler69 on Sept 16, 2017 9:53:54 GMT -5
I like/love ALL the Thor eras except maybe when Warren Ellis and Deodato made him into a male stripper . Well, that's the 90's for you. |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,215 
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Post by Confessor on Sept 16, 2017 10:08:12 GMT -5
I like/love ALL the Thor eras except maybe when Warren Ellis and Deodato made him into a male stripper . Well, that's the 90's for you. All I know is that, from the look of it, my '90s were a hell of a lot better than Thor's |
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Post by dbutler69 on Sept 16, 2017 10:41:13 GMT -5
Well, that's the 90's for you. All I know is that, from the look of it, my '90s were a hell of a lot better than Thor's Being the 90's, I'm only surprised that he doesn't have a gun. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Sept 16, 2017 10:53:31 GMT -5
All I know is that, from the look of it, my '90s were a hell of a lot better than Thor's Being the 90's, I'm only surprised that he doesn't have a gun.  |
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