Hello and welcome back to another post by yours truly after a long gap.
With everything DCnU right now and the new 52 being the buzzword for months, it's time I think, to look to past runs that have been acclaimed as well as underrated - but largely uncollected or partly collected. Sadly, most trades of partially collected runs are also out of print. These runs were done at a time when a collection of back issues was rare unless alarmingly popular (Batman: A Death in The Family, Death of Superman, Green Lantern/Green Arrow). The trend of collecting back issues with any sort of regularity started just in the early 2000s, with Superman: Godfall and Batman: Hush, and for the most part, all the stories after these have been collected, albeit with a few exceptions. So the fault of these issues or the creative teams was, that they were just before their time. I have avoided citing multiple runs of the same character/title for the most part, mentioning other memorable runs under honourable mentions. Let's start with #10 to 6:
10. Green Lantern by Ron Marz, Darryl Banks and Romeo Tanghal
Fans were in a killer frenzy when DC decided that the era of Hal Jordan had passed. Then current script writer Gerard Jones turned in a last Hal Jordan script, which was rejected, and was drastically different compared to what finally saw print, by new series writer Ron Marz. Essentially, Ron Marz turned Hal Jordan into a psychopath who tried to use the ring's power to change the past, and lay waste the whole corps, leaving behind only Ganthet who delivered the ring to a young Kyle Rayner. And if you think this was a global event, it spanned only three issues.....which had more content than the recent War of the Green Lanterns (just sayin'). Then began the era of Kyle Rayner. The fall of Hal Jordon took place a little before 1994...
.and Hal Jordan returned in 2005 in Green Lantern: Rebirth. And Kyle was the titular character for the Green Lantern magazine. Most were written by Ron Marz, and serves as an excellent coming of age story. Trades were available for a few of them, all of which are out of print. The trades by Ron Marz printed are as follows:
Emerald Twilight/A New Dawn (also published separately as Emerald Twilight, and A New Dawn)
Baptism of Fire
After the initial part of John Byrne's reboot after Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Superman title was taken over by Roger Stern and Kerry Gammill, who brought in very nice done in one stories - for a time. Then started the 'triangle era' of Superman crossovers - stories continued from one title to another, a mess for collecting insignificant stories. Roger Stern managed to stay on the Superman titles, moving on to Action Comics and Superman: The Man of Tomorrow later on, but his initial run of stories with Kerry Gammill remains my favourite. The run has been partly collected, though in Eradication: The Origin of the Eradicator and Exile!
Honourable mention:
All the triangle era titles need to be collected - which would be a task. I especially enjoyed the work of Marv Wolfman, Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, David Michelinie and John Byrne. Specific arcs that come to mind are the 'Supergirl from Krypton' saga, wherein Matrix comes from the pocket universe earlier featured as being the universe where Superboy exists (see here) and Superman ends up executing three Phantom Zone prisoners; 'Dead Again', a twelve part story wherein a body is found in Superman's tomb and 'Peer Pressure', the story featuring the origin of Clark Kent's arch enemy from school, Kenny Braverman aka Conduit.
8. The Spectre by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake
Born out of a challenge wherein it was stated that it is impossible to write the Spectre beyond ten issues, this creative team broke all stops and continued for a healthy run that redefined the Spectre. It had a larger base grounded in theology, and the issues never ceased to surprise you. The first four issues were collected in a TPB called The Spectre: Crimes and Punishments, probably the only trade till date to feature a glow in the dark cover.
In the aftermath of the DCU mini series Legends was born this Dirty Dozen-esque team, under the command of Amanda Waller, consisting of criminals fighting in missions for the country. If everything went well, they were given their freedom. DC recently started collecting this series, and the trade for the first few issues is available and called Trial by Fire (review here). A second volume was solicited, but cancelled due to low pre orders. Another collection, From the Ashes, that collects a later series by John Ostrander and Javier Pina is also available. Co written by John Ostrander and Kim Yale is a four part Deadshot mini series, that also deserves a collection.
With everything DCnU right now and the new 52 being the buzzword for months, it's time I think, to look to past runs that have been acclaimed as well as underrated - but largely uncollected or partly collected. Sadly, most trades of partially collected runs are also out of print. These runs were done at a time when a collection of back issues was rare unless alarmingly popular (Batman: A Death in The Family, Death of Superman, Green Lantern/Green Arrow). The trend of collecting back issues with any sort of regularity started just in the early 2000s, with Superman: Godfall and Batman: Hush, and for the most part, all the stories after these have been collected, albeit with a few exceptions. So the fault of these issues or the creative teams was, that they were just before their time. I have avoided citing multiple runs of the same character/title for the most part, mentioning other memorable runs under honourable mentions. Let's start with #10 to 6:
10. Green Lantern by Ron Marz, Darryl Banks and Romeo Tanghal
Fans were in a killer frenzy when DC decided that the era of Hal Jordan had passed. Then current script writer Gerard Jones turned in a last Hal Jordan script, which was rejected, and was drastically different compared to what finally saw print, by new series writer Ron Marz. Essentially, Ron Marz turned Hal Jordan into a psychopath who tried to use the ring's power to change the past, and lay waste the whole corps, leaving behind only Ganthet who delivered the ring to a young Kyle Rayner. And if you think this was a global event, it spanned only three issues.....which had more content than the recent War of the Green Lanterns (just sayin'). Then began the era of Kyle Rayner. The fall of Hal Jordon took place a little before 1994...
.and Hal Jordan returned in 2005 in Green Lantern: Rebirth. And Kyle was the titular character for the Green Lantern magazine. Most were written by Ron Marz, and serves as an excellent coming of age story. Trades were available for a few of them, all of which are out of print. The trades by Ron Marz printed are as follows:
Emerald Twilight/A New Dawn (also published separately as Emerald Twilight, and A New Dawn)
Baptism of Fire
Emerald Allies
Emerald Knights
Honourable Mentions:
Gerard Jones run was plain old school Hal Jordan fun, represented by the following trades:
Emerald Dawn I & II
Honourable Mentions:
Gerard Jones run was plain old school Hal Jordan fun, represented by the following trades:
Emerald Dawn I & II
Road Back
9. Superman by Roger Stern and Kerry Gammill
9. Superman by Roger Stern and Kerry Gammill
After the initial part of John Byrne's reboot after Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Superman title was taken over by Roger Stern and Kerry Gammill, who brought in very nice done in one stories - for a time. Then started the 'triangle era' of Superman crossovers - stories continued from one title to another, a mess for collecting insignificant stories. Roger Stern managed to stay on the Superman titles, moving on to Action Comics and Superman: The Man of Tomorrow later on, but his initial run of stories with Kerry Gammill remains my favourite. The run has been partly collected, though in Eradication: The Origin of the Eradicator and Exile!
Honourable mention:
All the triangle era titles need to be collected - which would be a task. I especially enjoyed the work of Marv Wolfman, Dan Jurgens, Jerry Ordway, David Michelinie and John Byrne. Specific arcs that come to mind are the 'Supergirl from Krypton' saga, wherein Matrix comes from the pocket universe earlier featured as being the universe where Superboy exists (see here) and Superman ends up executing three Phantom Zone prisoners; 'Dead Again', a twelve part story wherein a body is found in Superman's tomb and 'Peer Pressure', the story featuring the origin of Clark Kent's arch enemy from school, Kenny Braverman aka Conduit.
8. The Spectre by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake
Born out of a challenge wherein it was stated that it is impossible to write the Spectre beyond ten issues, this creative team broke all stops and continued for a healthy run that redefined the Spectre. It had a larger base grounded in theology, and the issues never ceased to surprise you. The first four issues were collected in a TPB called The Spectre: Crimes and Punishments, probably the only trade till date to feature a glow in the dark cover.
Honourable Mentions:
J. M. DeMatteis' criminally uncollected run of The Spectre, featuring Hal Jordan, is also woth checking - you'd need a background check on what happened to Hal Jordan upto that point, coming soon in another post.
Doug Moench’s run on the Spectre is good, but of a different genre altogether, more of Weird Mysteries than Spine Chilling terror. The art by Gene Colan for this series justifies a collection any day.
7. Green Arrow by Mike Grell, Ed Hannigan, Dick Giordano, Lurene Haynes, Rick Hoberg and others
7. Green Arrow by Mike Grell, Ed Hannigan, Dick Giordano, Lurene Haynes, Rick Hoberg and others
Mike Grell started Green Arrow with a three issue mini titled The Longbow Hunters. The story was refreshingly mature, had better art (by Grell himself) than any title in the market at that time, and revealed an intriguing character, the archer/assassin known as Shado. Black Canary got assaulted, which seemed like a controversial and necessary decision then. Grell continued writing, though he did the art only for the covers, for a wonderful run of eighty issues, where Oliver Queen was never called Green Arrow in the book (except for the cover), none of which were collected. The trade of Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters was printed (though is currently out of print), and apart from jaw dropping art by Grell, it contains awesome colours by Lurene Haynes. Well worth the effort of looking for a copy.
6. Suicide Squad by John Ostrander, Kim Yale and Luke McDonnell
In the aftermath of the DCU mini series Legends was born this Dirty Dozen-esque team, under the command of Amanda Waller, consisting of criminals fighting in missions for the country. If everything went well, they were given their freedom. DC recently started collecting this series, and the trade for the first few issues is available and called Trial by Fire (review here). A second volume was solicited, but cancelled due to low pre orders. Another collection, From the Ashes, that collects a later series by John Ostrander and Javier Pina is also available. Co written by John Ostrander and Kim Yale is a four part Deadshot mini series, that also deserves a collection.
What can you do to have a look at these series, other than go through the agony of collecting the single issues, or even worse, the out of print paperbacks (I say because some of these series, the collected editions are more difficult to score than the single issues)?
Write on DC’s forums, facebook page, talk to the big guns you see at conventions, and let them know that this is what you want.
Write on DC’s forums, facebook page, talk to the big guns you see at conventions, and let them know that this is what you want.
Stay tuned for the concluding post next week.
2 comments:
Ostrander's run on Martian Manhunter also hasn't been collected iirc. That needs to be fixed.
Not much of Ostrander material has been collected by DC. The most glaring example is Suicide Squad, which, for a second I thought DC has rectified, just to hear the second trade cancelled. I like his Martian Manhunter, just as I liked his Firestorm and Manhunter. If you're an Ostrander as well as a Western fan, you'll definitely love The Kents - probably the best of Ostrander's works I've ever seen.
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