Posted: 21 July 2016 at 11:12pm | IP Logged | 9
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An issue of Jimmy Olsen reprinted the first two stories featuring Superman & Jimmy as Nightwing & Flamebird in Kandor. That absolutely knocked me for a loop as a young reader.
The JSA run in All-Star Comics leading up to the death of the Earth-2 Batman was huge for me. I eagerly followed every summer crossover and very much enjoyed following the team wherever they went. Being older, they were to be accorded more respect, I felt as a kid, and I did so. Crisis threw everything into a non-stop randomizer where anything that happened could be made to un-happen, then re-happen only maybe uglier this time, or good guys could be cynically rewritten as having been scumbuckets all along... Ah, but before everything could be made neverwas or simply foul, that JSA run was a goldmine for me. The Psycho-Pirate story which led to a trigger-happy guy on the GCPD opening fire on Power Girl... whoof. And the reaction everyone has later when Superman, the original, comes through the wall... Damn it, these characters commanded respect. Truly, there's been nothing like that run since. What others felt was present in Waid & Ross's "Kingdom Come," I found here long before then.
X-Men by Claremont & Byrne- I came in when the team was held captive in Magneto's volcano base, stuck around for the Savage Land story, vanished for awhile and came back for the upshot of the Dark Phoenix Saga and basically stayed for years afterwards based on the memories of the power in those early issues. Man, those characters really hit home. When Hank and Jean returned to the mansion with only the ghosts of the others on the cover of #114, I could feel that ache and grief...
Showcase 94-96: The New Doom Patrol- Another storyline connected with inconsolable loss and grief and the aftermath thereof, and again, these people will pick themselves up and go forward, no matter the cost. Before the first issue, I bought comics occasionally. A few this month. A few months without any. After it, I went hardcore junkie, buying as many as my parents' income would allow. Maybe some other story would have triggered the same reaction later, but this is the story that turned me into a full-time comics reader. To this day, I still love that Rog-2000 inspired version of Robotman.
Daredevil #192: What would it take to make a good man go wrong? How do you put him back together once he's decided to make a mistake, knowing it's a mistake? One of the very few comics that's ever made me cry. An oft-overlooked issue by Alan Brennert. One of the most honest and genuine issues looking at these characters I've ever read.
Swamp Thing #32: "Pog" Hit me like a falling stack of bricks. Loved it. Again, one of the very few to bring on tears. So much fun to read throughout, and then... Then... See also Moore's "In Pictopia" from Anything Goes #2.
Looking back... I miss giving a damn about characters and story. It'd be nice to find a book again that made me think the creators did.
Doug, I remember that story very well! I only ever read one-third of it as a kid, having traded comics with a friend to get the issue. I tried catching up with it years later, as an adult, and found out it was STILL issues and issues later before they told us how Moon Knight got out of that death-trap! :-)
Edited by Brian Hague on 21 July 2016 at 11:18pm
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