Today it´s been really steaming hot throughout the day. Since it´s been a while that I have written down my thoughts about the newest solicitations I thought today is just the right day to do it.
When I did my first section with comments on the solicitaions I thought it would turn into a monthly thing where I had the chance to rant about which comics I´m psyched about, what I can´t wait to read or just speculate about the books I don´t read. And which books I would add to my reading pile if I just had more money.
Right now I´m sitting at my computer while listening to episode 264 of ComicGeekSpeak while sipping on my lemon beer. So let´s see if I can finish this post ( and my beer ) before ten when I have to prepare to tape PRISON BREAK, NUMBERS and THE UNIT. I´m so glad that in Germany they send all good tv shows at the same day at the same time. Not that we would like to watch something good on Tuesday or Wednesday.
It´s like the next MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movie starring me trying to tape it all.
4 episodes. 3 tv series. 3 cassettes. 2 tv stations. 1 man trying to tape it all. How much can one man take before he goes ballistic ? Angry fat guy - movie at eleven.
Since I´m writing this post semi - drunk I hope there are not too many spelling errors. But let´s get to the solicitations.
The covers by Art Adams alone are worth the price of admission but since there is some old content the comic is not on my pull list. Because this falls clearly into the category where you want to see the actual comic before buying it. If I see it in the comic shop or at a convention I might buy it but I won´t buy it without knowing what´s inside.
Another comic I probably won´t buy. I´m a huge George Perez fan and for me THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD is one of the best series that has come out this year. I would say it´s in my top five list. But the hardcover is just outside my price range and I have all the issues anyway.
Speaking about THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD this cover has me all excited. I mean Wonder Woman AND Power Girl in one comic drawn by George Perez. What more can you want ?
The possibilities are endless : girl on girl action, wet t - shirts, pijama party and the likes. I smell boob war, brother.
I really would like to have this book on my pull list. Ever since the POWER OF SHAZAM series by Jerry Ordway BLACK ADAM has been one of my favorite characters. And even more so when they changed him from one - dimensional villain to multi - facetted struggling hero out of his time in the pages of JSA. Riding on the success of 52 where he finally got some recognition and it´s about time he got the spotlight in his own series.
The covers by Doug Mahnke look really powerful ( altough I think the art inside is done by someone else ) but right now I have to reduce my pull list not add to it.
Just an interesting cover. My brother bought the first issues of HEROES FOR HIRE because of the CIVIL WAR tie - in but it seems he has lost interest and has no plans to follow the series after that. I have no idea if the series is any good. One of the members is Shang - Chi who has been one of my favorite Marvel characters but the art I have seen so far has been rather unspectacular. Again I would have to see some issues at a con or at the store.
This is one trade I´m going to look for. I had HAWKMAN on my pull list put I canceled my subscriptio right before things got interested. So I had to get the RISE OF THE GOLDEN EAGLE story as a trade. Which by the way is one of THE best Hawkman stories ever written. And it should be a must - read for all comic writers how to use continuity.
Since then I have not read the title and from what I have read in an issue of DOLMEN about the Howard Chaykin run that might not have been such a bad thing. I still don´t know why Dc decided to let Howard Chaykin draw and Walter Simonson write since they could have sold ten times as many comics if it had been the other way around. From what I´ve read this was strictly the artists decision but I still have to wonder what could have been a good title. We´ll see who does what in this trade.
JSA is one of the best DC comics puts out and one of the comics that is actually on my pull list. Ever since the preview pics of this new incarnation I was anxious to find out how the Superman of KINGDOM COME would be involved in the new series. And after reading that the JSA´s craziest member made a little pit stop in the Kingdom Come reality I thought that was that but I never expected the Kingdom Come Superman to join the team. You just never know what´s going to happen on this book. And they have Power Girl on the team. Can´t get enough Power Girl.
Being on the subject of comics on my pull list I should really start reading THE MIGHTY AVENGERS. Right now I have the first three issues and I´m waiting for the fourth to start reading. But every new cover I see online just screams at me : Start reading bitch ! What are you waiting for ?
Issue four, brother. I swear I´ll start with issue four.
When I see this cover I have to say I really whish Tom Grummet would do the interior art also. What is he up to anyway now that he is not the regular artist of THUNDERBOLTS anymore and has finished the BARON ZEMO mini series ? I think he does one issue of mystic arcana but he deserves a regular title.
Just looking at the cover makes you wish he was doing some kind of Avengers book. I haven´t read any of the new Marvel Adventure books but I am looking for them on the next cons. Especially the one where all the Avengers get M.O.D.O.K.fied.
Another title that I would like on my pull list but which hasn´t made the cut due to monetary reasons. I got the first four issues rather cheap at Essen last year and I read the fifth one as a german translation. So far the story by Chris Claremont read like a rehash of old storylines and the art was rather mediocre. Nothing too thrilling and I ahd some trouble to distinguish certain characters. I mean before it´s mentioned in the book you don´t recognize the villain who is supposed to be an evil Professor X.
From what I have seen in the solicitations over the last year there is some art by Scott Eaton so atleast on that front the title improves a little. Maybe I will get lucky this year in Essen again.
Judging from the covers ROBIN is one of the better series of Dc. Every single cover makes me want to go and buy the book - even without word ballons. The only problem is that the art inside does not deliver what the cover promises. So for the moment it´s on my radar but not on my reading pile.
If you have read my post about She Hulk you know that this book is going down the toilet - at least artistic wise. Apparently the sales are still pretty good but the story and art is just terrible. I´m desperate. This series is on my brothers pull list but I´m still desperate. I´m so desperate that I´m hoping Peter David will save the title.
And that´s saying quite much if you know my relationship with Peter David. For me there is some great work by him but also some awful work depending how much of his ego he managed to get under control. Because I´m not mad at him because he´s a hack and he doesn´t know better. No. If he really tries and goes for it Mr. Peter David can deliver some instant comic classics like HULK : FUTURE IMPERFECT. The problem is when he´s not trying. Let´s hope he puts some effort into it and saves the title. I mean after the train wreck Dan Slott made I´m willing to give almost anyone a chance.
With this wonderful David Finch cover for Namor 5 I wrap up this post. My beer is empty and I have ten minutes till I have to change the cassette to tape THE UNIT. So that´s all for today.
New to the blog ? Everything you need to know about TALES FROM THE KRYPTONIAN :
Today we come to the last part of this series. And it´s about time. Time really does fly when you´re having fun reliving your youth. But it´s really good to unwind from time to time and take a look back to get a little perspective ( my favorite scene in the JLA / JSA comic by Carlos Pacheco ).
Just take a break to remember past comic greatness. Because no matter what people say not all the best comics where made in the last ten years. There are some fantastic stories and universe spanning sagas that todays readers can´t even imagine. And not all of them are from the mind of Jack Kirby.
But first I want to put a little plug here for BRAD SUCKS. Sometimes I get so busy with all the comics and whatnot that I totally forget to feature people I want to help in getting a wider recognition. Right now I´m sitting at my computer, typing this post and I´m listening to brad sucks on my headphones.
It has taken some years for the music industry to accomodate to the wants and needs of their customers instead of criminalising them ( which they still heavily do ) so that now there are a lot of sources for legal downloads from the internet. And besides what people may tell you there is indeed free music available on the internet that doesn´t force you to resort to illegal downloads. With the global availibility of the internet it has become one of the most important advertisement platforms especially for little known musicians.
A lot of these musicians have put some of their music on the net for all to download, listen to and trade with your friends. But BRAD SUCKS has even gone one step further. He has put all his songs on the net. And you can not only download it you can also remix it. In fact people are encouraged to remix the songs and send them back to him. And he puts the best remixes on his website. So you can download the songs, remix them and if you want to buy a CD you can also do that on the website. I´m not talking about what kind of music he makes because with all the remixes the spectrum is just too big. So here are the links
That was the plug for today and now let´s get to the main course : Superboy and the Legion of Super Heroes who appeared in the SUPERBOY comics in Germany. Or like it was called here SUPERMAN PRESENTS : SUPERBOY.
Maybe they wanted to make sure readers knew that all this was somehow connected to Superman. I guess that they thought as long as the name Superman was on the title it would sell. Because the other comics had the same logo on the cover no matter if it was SUPERMAN PRESENTS : GREEN LANTERN, SUPERMAN PRESENTS : WONDERGIRL ( how Wonder Woman was called in Germany and which they had to change to Wonder Woman again when the REAL Wondergirl started appearing in german DC comics ) or SUPERMAN PRESENTS : THE FLASH.
Who was called DER ROTE BLITZ in Germany which means THE RED FLASH. I guess that they thought it was unfair that the other heroes had such cool names like Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Black Canary or Red Tornado. They feared that poor flash would be so depressed that he would need some serious therapy - and who wants to read that in a superhero comic ( that´s not Dr. Blik Superhero shrink ) ? So they gave him a longer name and called him the Red Flash.
Now I think that the writers at DC had a reason why they called him just THE FLASH without any mention ot the color. For one while the dominating color of his costume was red there was also yellow. So they would have had to call him the Red and Yellow Flash - what would have been even longer. And a guy who´s as fast as the Flash needs a short name because he´s gone before you even finish saying it. Even the name Flash is too long because he´s gone if you blink. The best thing would be just one letter like F. Or two letters like they later on did with XS a.k.a Jenny Sparks.
One thing I always liked about the Flash comics ( besides the many covers with word ballons on them ) where what I call " caption hands ". Now when drawing the comic you have to make sure that you tell the reader in which direction the reading flows. And sometimes captions can help with that through their placement. In the pages of the Flash comic they even went a little further and had little hands at the end of the captions that pointed to the action. Like it would show you where the action was. That was totally FUCK YEAH !
A little less in the veins of " Fuck yeah ! " and more with the likes of " The pain ! " were some of the germans names for the Rogues. Like the german name for Heatwave : HITZEMANN. No, really. To american ears it might sound cool but for me this is the source of endless hours of entertainment. Right now I´m cracking up. It´s just too funny. Hitzemann. Bwahaha.
But back to the Legion of Super Heroes. I always liked the team books much more than the books about individual heroes because you can shift the focus to the different members and always have different people on the team which provides a constantly changing team dynamic. You can have heroes who mesh perfectly or who are like oil and water. And who in the end have to overcome their individual differences and find where they agree to fulfill their mission. Everything for the team.
Which was something the stories emphasized : not the individual hero was important but the team. That was always the most important part. Sometimes it was the hero with the most boring and unspectacular powers who saved the day ( and the universe ).
Teamwork. Man, I loved the book. And still do. There is a current incarnation of the Legion out there that´s really good. The only thing I miss are the german names for the Legionnaires. And while Timber Wolf, Shrinking Violet or Light Lass are their real names they will always be Waldwolf, Winzwanda and Federleicht in my heart. They are just much cooler for me. Sometimes the names were confusing because I never found out why Lightining Lass was called Blitzjunge but Starboy kept his name in the german translation. And Karate Kid was called Karateboy. Which is the reason that it took me years to understand all those " Wax on, Wax off " jokes.
While I have been writing these posts I have reread a few of the comics ( the ones I still have ) and they still kick ass. There are some strange things like the rule that Legionnaires who lost their powers or control of them had to leave the Legion. Which kind of makes sense since they always resembled a military unit ( be all you can be ) and the non - superpowered characters who accompanied them on missions or helped them out from time to time like Rond Vidar were never official members.
So it´s no wonder Brainiac 5 put the hynpno - whammy ( no, that´s not the scientific term ) on Shrinking Violet when she was on the verge of losing her powers. Well, Brainy was never the poster child for good manners.
Another thing that´s unintentionally funny from today´s point of view is the story when Phantomgirl becomes a murder witness and her brother who tries to protect her by piggy - riding Sunboy´s body gets trapped and Sunboy gets turned into a walking eclipse. To subdue him Elemental Lad turns his uniform to - asbestos !
Now shouldn´t he know that stuff causes cancer being in the future and all ? Or is the life of his teammate more important that his own health ? Wow, that´s what I call taking on for the team. I just hope the little kids didn´t try to imitate that. I´m just waiting till some of the continuity buffs like Mark Waid have that pop up in current issues. They could change his name to CANCER GETTING LAD.
But the Legion was not the only series that piqued my interest. There was another series that combined elements of science fiction and superheroes. But it also added the elements of hard boiled crime stories and cop movies : Green Lantern.
Or like it was called in Germany : Grüne Leuchte. Which had a better ring to it than the original translation Grüne Laterne that Williams used when they edited the series. Maybe they thought it sounded to dorky. Or maybe they didn´t want their readers to make the wrong associations because in Germany the prostitutes always waited for their customers under lanterns - red lanterns for that matters. So the term " red lantern " became a part of the german slang and there was even a erotic pulp series called Rote Laterne. So maybe they just wanted to avoid a ton of bad jokes.
I think I must have started to read the series on a regular basis after the HARDTRAVELLING HEROES run by Neal Adams because the regular artist on my first issues was Mike Grell.
Who was also the artist on many issues of the Legion. Now I have written before that my fascination with the Legion was heavily influenced by Mike Grell who redesigned the costumes and such but that´s not true. No, sometimes our mind plays tricks on us and we see remember like we want them to be rather than how they really were. Like the comic readers who have convinced themselves that all comics written before 1981 were utterly awful I was totally convinced that it was Mike Grell who had put me on the path to the Legion.
So you can imagine my surprise when I found out it wasn´t so. A few months ago I was at my emergency comic shop to get a present for my brother and going through the archive editions of the Legion. I was looking for some stories I remembered but when I finally found them I realized that they were not by Mike Grell but by Dave Cockrum. Like on Uncanny X - Men Dave was the genius who redesigned the costumes and gave the whole team a overhaul. And like in Uncanny his contribution had been overshadowed by the fanfavorite artist who followed him.
And I should have known better since it´s widely known that Mr. Cockrum was a huge Legionfan. He even modeled the Imperial Guard of the Shiiar after them.
Anyway, at that time you could only get Green Lantern as part of a package deal because he had also Green Arrow as a co - star.
Well, to say the truth there was also Proty, Hal´s alien monchichi chia pet but I like to ignore that.
Which then turned the series into the ultimate space cop buddie movie. You had the straight shooter ( no pun intended ) who always tried to obey the rules in Hal Jordan and the trouble maker and political activist in Oliver Queen. For me the decision to turn Ollie from a two - bit Batman ripp - off ( complete with his own arrowcave and arrowplane - well, that last one was brilliant.....aeroplane - arrowplane....get it ? ) to a unique character who always clashed with the rest of the League because he always wore his political heart on his sleeve was one of the best decisions DC ever made.
Unlike the decision to get rid of the impurity against yellow. Which back in the days was in full effect.
Humans are flawed. They have strenghts and weaknesses but they really grow as a person and as a human being when they learn to overcome their weaknesses and triumph nevertheless. That´s something that for me is also true for real good storytelling. So the fact that the ring was vulnerable to yellow made the stories better in my opinion. You really were sweating with your hero because you knew he could be harmed.
When DC changed that with Kyle Rayner they destroyed the Green Lantern mythos. I know, a lantern as inept and useless like Rayner had enough troubles without the impurity. He probably would have gotten himself killed after three days if they hadn´t lifted the impurity. And he probably would have gotten his ring stolen after two days if they hadn´t invented the specification that the ring could only be used by someone who had the same DNA.
No, I really don´t like Kyle Rayner. So let´s not talk more about him and return to the time when Green Lantern was good......and I was young ( since there were some good runs later on ).
Joe Stanton was the artist at that time and Green Lantern was going up against guys like the Black Hand and Goldface who were serious villains. Especially Goldface. I mean he was covered in gold from head to toe. And gold is yellow.
Yellow. The only thing the ring was powerless against. How could Hal possibly win ?
At first Joe Stanton´s art style seemed a little weird to me but after a few issues it had already grown on me. Now my heart jumps for joy whenever he decides to grace the pages of an issue of Green Lantern. Like in the incomparable GUY GARDNER : REBORN ( THE best Guy Gardner mini series !!! ) or the Guy Gardner solo series that followed.
Looking back at the covers I have to say that from all the superheroes Green Lantern had the ugliest aliens of them all. The mother of all ugly sumbitches. The mackdaddy of vomit. The pimp of puke. They really put the " Ugh ! " in " ugly ".
Wow, now that´s a face not even a mother could love ! Maybe that´s the real reason why the Qwardians were so pi$$ed off at the Guardians. Not because they were exiled in their anti matter universe or something but just because they were so......ugly. And the Guardians were just little smurfs with big heads. Like on Jimmy Neutron.
Hmm, maybe that´s the reason Jimmy´s so intelligent. He´s not really human much rather of Guardian offspring. That would explain a lot.
But they were not the only ugly aliens. No sir.
Not by a long shot.
But Green Lantern was not all about yellow impurities and ugly aliens. There were some rather good looking aliens like Katma Tui or Arisia. There were some cool looking aliens like that crystal guy lantern or that lantern that looked like a tiger or lion. Of course there were some stupid lanterns like the squirrel lantern that got turned into roadkill by a truck.
No, there were some cool aliens too. And the coolest of them all appeared also on the book for the first time.
THE OMEGA MEN ! They were like Hal´s little Justice League. His own superteam in the series. They even had their own Superman like guy with a cape and everything. And they fought against the baddest of the bad. Or better the number two since there were guys who were even worse. I remember that the enemies of the Omega Men were some guys called the Citadellians who had kind of an evil empire that tried to rule the universe - what else. And they all had psychic powers because of their hyperevolved brains. They had really big heads. Bigger than the Guardians. We´re talking about Johnny Neutron big.
Anyway, some of them met their demise at the hand of a group of aliens ( I forgot their name ) who ate brains. I vividly remember the panel where one of them was licking his lips after putting his hand on the head of one of the Citadellians while he was looking at him with gleeful eyes and saying : " My, what a big head you have. "
I guess the Citadellians don´t watch that many zombie movies. " Brains, brains. "
If there ever was a superhero team at DC deserving a relaunch it´s the Omega Men. They had a big part in Andy Diggle´s fantastic ADAM STRANGE miniseries Planet Heist but they should get their own series. Oh, wait ! I forgot. They got their own series. Yup, I just was blocking it out because the art gave me a heart attack. No, really. Okay, DC, what I wanted to say is the Omega need their own book....that doesn´t suck. Is it that hard to get a good artist on the book ? I mean.....what´s Joe Stanton doing at the moment ? Maybe he has some free time now and could do a monthly book. He CAN do a monthly book. That would totally rock. I would buy that book.
Of course you had to have Guy Gardner guest starring from time to time but that goes without saying. And why is it that Guy doesn´t have his own book ? He should have his own book together with Power Girl drawn by some babe artist. I mean you just have to put the two of them on a bench waiting for the bus and you have enough material for a four issue miniseries. Comedy gold. Instant comedy gold I tell you.
And that ends our little trip to the wonderful world of the german comics of my youth. I hope it´s been at least of a little interest or has brought back some memories ( like it sure did for me )but at least it boosted the regularity of this blog. I mean for four days this blog was daily ! That´s a record. But don´t think that´s going to become the norm here. This weekend I have to finish ( or was it swedish ? - sorry, little inside joke ) the stuff for the tax declaration....which I should have done last week. So next time on this blog - which should be no sooner than Monday - we will return to our normal shinenegans. Maybe even to the comic salon in Barcelona.
Today´s clips are from BRAD SUCKS only in case you are still undecided. So here are some clips to help you make up your mind. The first one is " Making me nervous ".
The second one has the title " Dirtbag " and as a tip : check out the " Fear is the Key " remix. From all the remixes this is by far my favorite.
And the last one is called " Overreacting ". So if you like what you hear check out the website. You can find the links on the top of this post.
Wow, if I continue at this rate this blog is going to be a daily blog after all.
Let´s see if this new format of shorter posts where you don´t have to scroll down for hours gets a better response from my readers. Because recently I have seen some other blogs and man, some of them have posts that consist of two lines and a picture. Wow, that really made me feel like the ultimate overachiever. So here´s the next installment of my shorter but much more frequent blog. Let´s see how long that lasts.
Now as promised in my last post ( from Yesterday, yay ) I wanted to include some Batman. Because I did not just read Superman I also read Batman. Of course there were the BATMAN SUPERBAND which was probably not called BATMAN BATBAND because that could confuse the retailers. And it´s a little over the top.
Like the pocket books the BATMAN SUPERBAND also had coupons for the Supershop which you could collect and then send them in for posters, stickers, masks, a secret writing set and such stuff. I was heavily into collecting and I sent them in for a Batman poster, a Superman poster and a Green Lantern poster - which were all drawn by Neal Adams. And a poster that showed the Batcave.
There were different coupons in the various DC publications depending on the cost of the comic. The 32 page comics like SUPERMAN BATMAN had 1 point coupons, the pocket books had 2 point coupons and the albums had 3 point coupons. That´s how little kids learned economics.
I was always looking out for comics by Jim Aparo like this that had a team up of Batman and Rose / Thorn. His elegant style and smooth lines always appealed to me and he drew the costume the right way : with the long ears and the yellow batsymbol on the chest.
Another one I WOULD like to have is this one that judging by the cover includes at least one Earth 2 story.
I don´t know if it´s drawn by him ( since I don´t have it ) but if that´s the case I definitely want it. Or DC could put it in a SHOWCASE. Which they should do anyway. They should put all the comics by Jim Aparo in various SHOWCASES.
But the holy grail of all Jim Aparo comics is this one : BATMAN SUPERBAND 3 - BATMAN UNTER MORDVERDACHT.
Now this is an example where you should not judge a book by it´s cover because you can´t see that this comic includes one of the best - if not THE best - Batman stories ever made. The story is called " Batman under suspicion of murder " and the first three chapter have the best art by Jim Aparo I have ever seen. And the story is also great.
His old adversary Ras al Ghul manages to get Batman framed for the murder of his daughter Thalia and even Comissoner Gordon is convinced of his guilt. This one has it all : the villany and madness of Ras al Ghul, Batman trying to solve crime while on the run from the police.....even Batman breaking into prison. The last chapters are not by Jim Aparo but by Ernie Chan who also does a good job. Like all german translations you keep wondering if there were some pages cut, some panels replaced or such but apart from that it´s the best of all Batman abums.
If you don´t have it you should definitely buy one. You should be able to get it cheap at conventions since it´s not very new. Another indispensable comic for every german comic collection is this one.
It has the essential Ras al Ghul story done by Neal Adams and has been probably reprinted a dozen times. You should get at least one version.
Another one of my favorite comics this time because of the Batvillain : Der schwarze Spider. It always was a little strange that they translated the name Black Spider that way. They should have kept it Black Spider or called him Schwarze Spinne and not this halfassed thing. I guess they didn´t want readers to confuse him with Spider - Man who was called Die Spinne in Germany. Maybe they feared that readers would think he was related to Spidey or maybe the name Die Spinne was copyrighted.
To me it didn´t matter what he was called since I liked the character anyway. He has just one of the coolest costumes ever.
This was also one of my favorite Batmancomics which had more to do with Black Canary guest starring and the fact that she was drawn in underwear in the comic.
Helloo nurse ! Now instead of writing a review about the story I´m just going to post a link to a post of Dave´s Longbox where he puts it into words much better than I ever could why this comic rocks.
Now besides the albums and the pocket books Batman also appeared in his own series BATMAN SONDERHEFT ( Batman Special ) where evil henchmen threw flaming metal thingies with faces on him.
And that´s all I recall from that issue. Really. The flaming metal face thingies. I guess it was asign of popularity that they decided to give Bats his own series. Apparently it wasn´t enough to have him appear as a co - star in SUPERMAN BATMAN anymore. And so he took the centerstage like in this story where he worked for the Guardians.
And he had a crossover with the Legion of Super Heroes.
Now I don´t want to be meanspirited but that´s one buttugly helmet that guys wearing. No wonder he´s a villain. I mean with a headgarment like that he surely was the buttend of all jokes in the schoolyard. Now if that´s the kind of fashion that the people of the future wear it´s no wonder that generations of comic writers tried to retcon them out of existence.
But what really made me go out and seek the Sonderhefte was BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS.
I can´t tell how much I liked this new team. All the members were so cool and new...well, for me anyway. I don´t know if I ever read a comic with Black Lightning before so for me it was if he was somebody new. I was so fanatic that I even bought this single issue ( that was a crossover with Teen Titans ) three times. Once I bought the german translation which I think I lost and later on I bought the original issue twice.
All the members were so cool : Metamorpho, Halo, Katana with her funky asian samurai style and Geo - Force. They even went to ancient egypt.
I know I still have that issue and it´s in good condition. Because last time I was rearranging my comics I accidently found it. I´m not so sure about the first issue of this two parter but I definitely still have this one.
Now of course BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS was not merely contained in the special issues, albums and pocket books. Because apparently Ehapa wanted to expand their comic book line due to the big success of Batman. And so they had a new format that was called Batman Extra. The comic was a pocket book but instead of the regular 100 pages it packed a whopping 164 pages. Now that´s some heavy entertainment.
In this comic Batman and the Outsiders fought the Cryogenic Man who was basically a walking freeze dryer who replaced his injured body parts with that of his fiancee and her parents. Man, that´s cold. He kept them in suspended animation and was in contact with them telepatically. And he told them that the world was a radioactive wasteland after a thermonuclear attack on the United States. So when they found out that they not only were missing some essential body parts but that they also missed all the episodes of Magnum they were a little miffed and french fried the sucker. Toasty.
At that time I was probably reading more Batman than Superman. In any case I wasn´t a regular reader of SUPERMAN BATMAN anymore. Not that I was such a regular reader. But at that time I was even less so. What chaged all that and made me come back to the series was a cheap marketing ploy.
Yup, 16 pages extra. They weren´t in full color just blue paper with black print on it but I didn´t care. 16 pages extra. And all for the regular price. Happy, happy. Joy, joy.
Well, they were not really 16 pages since they were put in the middle of the comic and the first page was always a mock - up front page of the Daily Planet ( which by the way was called " Die Rundschau " in older issues of Superman Superband ) which meant one or two pictures and the rest was text.
The story was produced exclusively for the german comic version but it was done entirely by american artists. Now this is especially interesting for comic readers and comic collectors in the States because although the story in the blue pages tied into the normal continuity of the time it never was printed outside of Germany. Which must have caused some strange references and in - continuity moments that nobody outside of Germany understood.
The art in some of the issues were done by Gene Colan who at that time was not one of my favorite artists. I somehow realized that he had a very unique style but I was much more into the art of Jim Aparo and Jose Luis Garcia Lopez or George Perez. And at that time Gene Colan was in most of the Batman comics. I remember the only ones that I kind of liked were the ones that were inked by Alfredo Alcala who also did some outstanding issues of THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN.
Of course they eventually returned to the normal comic format of 32 pages but I still continued to read the title.
Sometimes it was because of the story and the art but sometimes it was because of the extra goodies. At that time I was heavily into movies and movie posters. Because at that time it was not as common as today to buy movies on videocassettes ( remember that was before DVDs ) so if you wanted to relive the movie experience the only thing you got was the movie poster. I collected all the movie posters I could get so if a comic included something like the GREMLINS movie poster that was good enough for me.
I don´t know if I still have the Gremlins poster. Don´t laugh. Gremlins was the Matrix of our generation. I know I have a huge stack of movie posters that I never had the chance to put on my wall. And now that I don´t have my own room I never will.
And that´s all for today. Before I wrap this post up I wanted to mention that additionally to the Superband there were also two more album sized Superman publications. One was SUPERMAN SONDERBAND ( Superman Special ) that of course had a sister publication in Batman Sonderband.
The other album sized Superman publication was the aptly named SUPERMAN ALBUM. So at the height of Ehapa´s publishing schedule you had the Superman Taschenbuch, the Superman Extra ( also a pocket book ), the Superman Superband, the Superman Sonderheft and the Superman Album.
Not to forget the SUPERMAN BATMAN comic that came out twice a month. That´s quite a lot.
And that does not include all the other titles like Superboy and the Legion of Super Heroes......about which I´m going to write tomorrow. I promise.
