Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,200 
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Post by Confessor on Feb 10, 2024 0:12:44 GMT -5
I forgot about "10 Nights of the Beast". I absolutely loved that arc as it was coming out. Don't think I've re-read it since the mid-90s, so no idea how it would hold up, but it was great at the time.
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Post by driver1980 on Feb 10, 2024 8:10:43 GMT -5
I’d also like to commend “Blind Justice” (was that 1989 or 1990?). I did revisit that a while back, and I felt it held up pretty well.
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Post by Hoosier X on Feb 10, 2024 10:03:52 GMT -5
I really like the Two-Face story in Detective Comics #580 and #581. At the time, I was reading fewer comics and I wasn’t liking the Batman books as much as previously, so I quit reading Detective. #580 was my last issue for a long time.
More than 20 years went by before I read the conclusion in #581.
It’s got both the Two-Faces! Harvey Dent and Paul Sloane! Sloane is the actor who had his face disfigured for real while he was playing Two-Face for a TV production.
Why shouldn’t there be two Two-Faces running around Gotham City? They are at odds in this story, but quite honestly I think Harvey would be thrilled with the idea of two Two-Faces.
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Post by driver1980 on Feb 10, 2024 10:37:31 GMT -5
I really like the Two-Face story in Detective Comics #580 and #581. At the time, I was reading fewer comics and I wasn’t liking the Batman books as much as previously, so I quit reading Detective. #580 was my last issue for a long time. More than 20 years went by before I read the conclusion in #581. It’s got both the Two-Faces! Harvey Dent and Paul Sloane! Sloane is the actor who had his face disfigured for real while he was playing Two-Face for a TV production. Why shouldn’t there be two Two-Faces running around Gotham City? They are at odds in this story, but quite honestly I think Harvey would be thrilled with the idea of two Two-Faces. That story is new to me, so that’s one to track down. Thanks. I like the idea of a TV production within the fiction we love. Reminds me of how I recently found out that within The Real Ghostbusters, the 1984 Ghostbusters movie is a work of fiction. Bizarre. |
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Post by Hoosier X on Feb 10, 2024 11:01:51 GMT -5
The original Paul Sloane story is from Batman #68 from 1951. It’s been reprinted several times.
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Post by chadwilliam on Feb 10, 2024 19:08:07 GMT -5
A great decade if you know where to look, though I'd stay far away from many of the stories which are held up as classics from that time. If the decade is defined by The Joker sexually assaulting Batgirl and Commissioner Gordon or clubbing Robin to death with a crowbar, for instance, then the period is just worthless torture porn in my eyes. Remove those iconic and classic stories from the mix though and let "Dreadful Birthday, Dear Joker", "Last Laugh", The Prankster team-up in DC Comics Presents #41, the Batman/Hulk crossover, etc. serve as the centerpiece of the decade, then the era shines.
Dark Knight Returns deserves all the praise its gotten but none of the emulation.
Jumping between Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle on one title and over to Jim Aparo on another every month was bliss, though I wish someone had explained to Jim Starlin how diplomatic immunity really worked since he seemed hellbent on using it as a get out of jail free card again and again in his tales.
"To Kill a Legend" is probably my favorite Batman story (again, Alan Brennert wrote some of the best Batman stories of the decade - of any decade, in fact - but how many readers even know about them?).
If this were a thread focused on Batman in the 1970s, Englehart and Rogers work would undoubtedly be mentioned (and deservedly so) for their Hugo Strange/"Laughing Fish" storyline, but I'd argue that Gerry Conway and Don Newton's sequel is equal to what their predecessors accomplished.
Batman and the Outsiders never did anything for me, but the Earth Two/Earth One Batman tale from the comic which introduced them - and also written by Mike Barr - is my favorite anniversary issue of any title. And yes, that goes for the tour de force which is Batman #400 which seems to be another story which gets overlooked since over things going on with the character in 1986 (and I'd argue the same for Max Allan Collins' Tommy Karma two-parter from Batman #402 and 403, as well).
And then there's the movie...
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Post by driver1980 on Feb 11, 2024 7:13:36 GMT -5
In many ways, for me, there was a lot of variety during that decade. Here in the UK, London Editions Magazines had the licence to reprint DC adventures, so in addition to 70s tales, they reprinted a lot of 80s stuff. On TV-AM, the 60s TV series was repeated, plus there was the darker stuff such as “Blind Justice” and the Burton movie.
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