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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 3, 2024 18:28:58 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #72 (March cover date, 1994)  This month we've got The Power of Shazam! hardcover graphic novel by Jerry Ordway, who is credited as one of the architects behind Superman's return to greatness. If I'm not mistaken, he also does a decent job of capturing the essence of Captain Marvel. Meanwhile, Anima becomes the first Bloodlines character to get an ongoing title. It ends after 16 issues. A bunch of shit has been happening in Green Lantern and it all culminates in issue #50. I think this is the storyline where Hal turns bad. There's a countdown to Zero Hour, which is kind of cool actually. John Francis Moore gives us a Superman prestige one shot called Superman: "Under a Yellow Sun" a novel by Clark Kent. They were pretty serious about this Green Lantern overhaul as they even cancelled Green Lantern Corps Quarterly. Valor dies in his title setting up a time paradox. Uh oh. This cover by Brian Stelfreeze makes me wanna lay down some cash.  Across the line, they're trying to integrate the Bloodlines characters into the fold. I have this over-riding memory of it not working, but they sure as heck tried. Green Arrow is holding a pair of guns. That book has gone downhill fast. What the f--- is this Guy Gardner Warrior getup? I had blotted that from my memory.  That's gotta be a top 10 worst costume of the decade. On the Vertigo side of things, does anyone remember Grant Morrison & Mike Millar's run on Swamp Thing cos I sure as hell don't. Research tells me that Morrison only wrote the first four part arc, and then Millar took over and the book was ultimately cancelled. All of which is probably why you don't hear much about Morrison & Millar's Swamp Thing. Hellblazer celebrates its 75th issue. There's a backup story where John meets Kit for the first time. Man, did I love Kit. Maybe one of my favorite all-time comic book characters. Yeah, I read that arc....wasn't good, wasn't bad, wasn't Moore. Can't understand why it didn't set the series on fire. oh, yes I can....the premise is that Alec Holland has been hallucinating all this time, thanks to some funky fungi and everything you know is wrong and all that lazy writing. I have sung the praises of Power of Shazam. brilliant stuff, combining the classic origin with the Republic serial and some modern stuff, like a logical reason why Billy Batson would follow a shadowy figure down into an abandoned subway tunnel. It also gave us an art deco Fawcett City, which was pretty sweet. I also had Under a Yellow Sun. It was okay; nothing special. Wasn't really worthy of Prestige Format; but, neither was The Unauthorized Biography of Lex Luthor. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 3, 2024 18:45:28 GMT -5
Ordway’s Shazam was by far the best the character had been since the Fawcett days. Maybe the only time he’s been good.
Kit Ryan it’s also one of my favorite characters. She was high on a couple of my CCF Christmas lists including “supporting characters” and “couples”with Constantine.
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Post by commond on Aug 4, 2024 15:54:56 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #73 (April cover date, 1994)  This month we have the debut of the Kyle Rayner Green Lantern, another seminal 90s moment. Lobo has another miniseries (this one has art by Kieron Dwyer.) There's a new ongoing title called Damage about a 16 year-old superhero. Seems like there was a bit of a youth movement going on. Damage will last for 20 issues. Looney Tunes is getting a new mag, and Batman and Superman have a nasty looking fight in Legends of the World's Finest #3 with both men drawing blood. On the Vertigo side, there's a Grant Morrison graphic novel painted by Jon Muth. Haven't read that one, but I liked everything Morrison had done for DC to this point. There's a preview for the new Sandman Mystery Theatre arc, The Vamp, which sees the return of Guy Davis to the book. It's also the first arc co-written by Steven T. Seagle.
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 4, 2024 21:56:11 GMT -5
Kyle Rayner ruined Green Lantern, until Hal Jordan came back and ruined Green Lantern.  I had Mystery Play. It was alright. Looked 'perty. I'd take it over Arkham Asylum or Morrison's Swamp Thing. |
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Post by commond on Aug 5, 2024 15:52:30 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #74 (May cover date, 1994)  Bronze Age kids have fond memories of Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, but where were you when Batman fought Spawn? Not buying the DC version if you were a 90s kid since the Image version was by Frank Miller and Todd McFarlane. Clash of the decade aside, DC has decided on an Elseworlds theme for this year's annuals, giving us a breather from company-wide crossovers. They're still trying to establish the Bloodlines characters from last year's annuals, however, with Gunfire being the latest character to get an ongoing series. It lasted 14 issues. Looks like I was right about the youth movement as the next blurb for the Ray states that "Robin. Superboy. Anima. New and powerful teenage heroes are rising across the DC Universe." I wonder if that was what readers wanted more of in 1994. I was teenager at the time, and I didn't have any particular desire to read about other teenagers with super powers. Marvel had tried to do the same thing earlier in the decade, so you figure there had to be some market research behind it, however I'd wager there were more adults buying comics than teenagers in 1994 at least at the specialty stores. Teenage superheroes can be done well as evidenced by Runaways and Ms. Marvel, but those books had better writing than the average 90s comic. On the Vertigo side, we have the debut of one of their more successful attempts at an ongoing title, The Books of Magic. It would run for a solid 75 issues until its conclusion in 2000. Less remembered is the Rogan Gosh one shot. This was a character created by the Skin pairing of Brenden McCarthy and Peter Milligan, who originally appeared in the British anthology magazine, Revolver. I believe this was a North American reprint of the Revolver story. That Star Trek cover is by Sienkiewicz, btw.
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Post by DubipR on Aug 5, 2024 16:34:30 GMT -5
I bought both Batman/Spawn books. Both were terrible but I was dumb back then.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 5, 2024 17:54:07 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #74 (May cover date, 1994)Bronze Age kids have fond memories of Superman vs. Muhammad Ali, but where were you when Batman fought Spawn? Not buying the DC version if you were a 90s kid since the Image version was by Frank Miller and Todd McFarlane. I know where I was...I was not buying either of them. And I was still a bit of a Batman completist at the time (though I was slowly getting better). |
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Post by codystarbuck on Aug 6, 2024 13:26:54 GMT -5
I bought both Batman/Spawn books. Both were terrible but I was dumb back then. I bought both, because I thought the writers might do something with them. I was wrong. I was starting to figure out that Frank Miller wasn't all he was cracked up to be, as a writer. Depended on the material. I liked the Martha Washington stuff and The Big Guy and Rusty, the Boy Robot; but, Sin City got old, quickly, and was never terribly original or clever and nothing after ever did much for me. Miller on Spawn was better than McFarlane on Spawn; but still pretty "meh." Can't recall if he shoehorned prostitutes into the story or not. Rogan Gosh was, indeed, a reprint of the Revolver material. |
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Post by DubipR on Aug 6, 2024 13:40:53 GMT -5
I bought both Batman/Spawn books. Both were terrible but I was dumb back then. I bought both, because I thought the writers might do something with them. I was wrong. I was starting to figure out that Frank Miller wasn't all he was cracked up to be, as a writer. Depended on the material. I liked the Martha Washington stuff and The Big Guy and Rusty, the Boy Robot; but, Sin City got old, quickly, and was never terribly original or clever and nothing after ever did much for me. Miller on Spawn was better than McFarlane on Spawn; but still pretty "meh." Can't recall if he shoehorned prostitutes into the story or not. Rogan Gosh was, indeed, a reprint of the Revolver material. This is peak Miller. Like you mentioned, he was coming off huge comics for Dark Horse and it was holy moley, Frank's doing a Batman story with Todd. Should've been a slam dunk but sadly it wasn't. All I remember from it was the last page of the batarang hitting Spawn in the face, like a freeze frame ending of a movie. Ah, Miller on coke. A good time to be reading the ramblings of a looney. |
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Post by commond on Aug 6, 2024 15:54:05 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #75 (June cover date, 1994)  I don't know if we really needed to see Doomsday vs. Superman Part II but people bought it. "The Fall of Metropolis" begins in Action Comics #700. I didn't pay much attention to what happened in the Superman books after he returned, so these storylines are new to me. Milestone gets two new titles and something of a push from DC with a two page preview, covers by John Byrne and a poster by Moebius. The Huntress appears in a Chuck Dixon miniseries. Then PRINCE gets his own comic from Piranha Press. Not only that, but they reprint an earlier Prince comic from 1991. There's another long storyline in the Batman books called Knightsend, which followed on from Knightquest, which followed on from Knightfall, and so on and so on. Vertigo offers us a James Robinson & Alisa Kwitney Witchcraft miniseries with each issue focusing on a different member of the Three Witches from Sandman. The artists for the three issues are Peter Snejbjerg, Michael Zulli and Steve Yeowell with Michael Kaluta providing the covers. They also collect together Hempel and Wheatley's Breathtaker miniseries as a Vertigo trade paperback. This is the first time they've done something like this, but it makes sense considering they've been reprinting foreign material. That's a cool Spectre cover.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Aug 6, 2024 16:16:45 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #75 (June cover date, 1994)Vertigo offers us a James Robinson & Alisa Kwitney Witchcraft miniseries with each issue focusing on a different member of the Three Witches from Sandman. The artists for the three issues are Peter Snejbjerg, Michael Zulli and Steve Yeowell with Michael Kulata providing the covers. They also collect together Hempel and Wheatley's Breathtaker miniseries as a Vertigo trade paperback. This is the first time they've done something like this, but it makes sense considering they've been reprinting foreign material. The Michael Zulli issue of Witchcraft is absolutely gorgeous. As much as I hate Superman...I hate Doomsday a few orders of magnitude more. |
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Post by chaykinstevens on Aug 6, 2024 16:43:45 GMT -5
Vertigo offers us a James Robinson & Alisa Kwitney Witchcraft miniseries with each issue focusing on a different member of the Three Witches from Sandman. The artists for the three issues are Peter Snejbjerg, Michael Zulli and Steve Yeowell with Michael Kulata providing the covers. They also collect together Hempel and Wheatley's Breathtaker miniseries as a Vertigo trade paperback. This is the first time they've done something like this, but it makes sense considering they've been reprinting foreign material. I think you mean Michael Kaluta. I vaguely recall reading somewhere that the collected edition of Breathtaker had a different ending from the original series. Does anyone know if that's correct? |
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Post by commond on Aug 6, 2024 16:52:48 GMT -5
Vertigo offers us a James Robinson & Alisa Kwitney Witchcraft miniseries with each issue focusing on a different member of the Three Witches from Sandman. The artists for the three issues are Peter Snejbjerg, Michael Zulli and Steve Yeowell with Michael Kulata providing the covers. They also collect together Hempel and Wheatley's Breathtaker miniseries as a Vertigo trade paperback. This is the first time they've done something like this, but it makes sense considering they've been reprinting foreign material. I think you mean Michael Kaluta. I vaguely recall reading somewhere that the collected edition of Breathtaker had a different ending from the original series. Does anyone know if that's correct? The preview says it includes four new pages of story material that significantly expands the ending. They were supposed to do a sequel but had a problem with the Vertigo people. They tried to crowdfund the sequel years later but I don't know how far they got with it. |
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Post by commond on Aug 7, 2024 15:35:27 GMT -5
DC Direct Currents #76 (July cover date, 1994)  Fairly quiet month. The lead feature is a DC vs. Milestone crossover that didn't move the needle despite Superman being DC's top seller at the time. There's more hype for Knightsend in case you haven't tapped out by now. A checklist for both crossovers is conveniently included on page 4. There are also some trade paperbacks, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, which collects stories that allegedly inspired the TV show, and another volume of Batman Adventures. The solicitations are just a mess. There are crossovers in the Milestone books, the Superman books, the Batman books, as well as Zero Hour tie-ins and Elseworlds annuals. It's no wonder I checked out in '94. Vertigo has a graphic novel from Dean Motter and Sean Phillips and a Dr. Occult one shot.
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Post by tonebone on Aug 8, 2024 15:22:16 GMT -5
I bought all the Big Books. Super fun and a nice introduction to some artists I didn’t already know. I feel like I got a few from the remainder section of B&N. The rest were EBay back before shipping charges went nuts. Yeah, we got a couple of the later ones in the Bargain section. For a time there, we were getting quite a lot of comic book-related material for that area and the company had a license to reproduce a couple of reference books, for a while. At different times, we got the Don Martin boxed set, the Fantagraphics Complete Willie & Joe (the Bill Mauldin cartoons), the Taschen DC 75 years book, the Les Daniels collector set versions of his Superman and Batman books, some of the Big Book series, a bunch of trades for the Now Comics Speed Racer series, with some of the most amateurish art I have ever see in a published comic, Gene Simmons' Dominatrix trade, the Kiss collected book and a hodge podge of Marvel trades and some DC. For whatever reason, the Big Books were classified for the Humor section, rather than the Graphic Novel section, like everything else. Usually, we only carried the newspaper stuff in the humor section, apart from the Disney and Archie reprints. At one point, we got in the Dark Horse trade collection for Richie Rich and maybe one of the other Harvey reprints and they were classified for the Young Reader section. Usually that was for newer stuff and any kind of classic reprint was either humor (for newspaper strips) or Graphic novels, for comic book stuff, regardless of the original target demographic, since they are nostalgia collections. I think the only people who looked at the Richie Rich book were adults, as kids had no frame of reference. Good collection of stories, too,,,including a couple I distinctly remembered reading. I bought the Kiss Kompendium from the BN Bargain section... for about $12 if I remember correctly... it weighs about 250 lbs. |
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