Did Batman completely dominate the Bronze Age?

[kimik]

[That being said, some of the O'Neil/Adams stories were weak as well. Flipper boy, anyone?

 

OMG, that has to be one of my most-hated BA books. First off, the kid freaked me out, and to make matters worse, the story was just so lame I couldn't believe it.

 

But on a positive note, that Man-Bat Marriage issue has to be one of my BA favorites. Even back then I knew what the reveal was going to be, but the art and pacing worked so well they pulled it off.

 

I liked the Tec #405 and #411 Batman lead stories as well, which were non-Adams interiors, and were the lead ins to Ras Al Ghul in #232. I thought Tec #403 was a decent read as well. The Batman stories tended to be better overall, IMHO, than what was offered in Tec at the time.

[PowderedH2O]

I think that the X-Men stories certainly had a big impact, but the Silver Age did not start in 1975. It started several years earlier. Amazing Spider-Man was a huge selling book with a loyal fan base and some fantastic storylines when X-Men was packaging reprints in the early 70's. Do a few years of phenomenal impact overcome a five year head start by Spider-Man? Not to me.

[jaeldubyoo]

Maybe X-Men didn't really dominate the market until later in the Bronze Age, but there's no denying its impact was felt for years after. I can't think of any one Bronze title that had such an impact in such a short time. All others pale in comparison.

[joe_collector]

If you look at the entire BA from 1970 to 1981, it has to be Amazing Spider-man, no question, and all this "Batman ruled the BA" is 20/20 hindsight BS based on "cool covers in CGC cases". From '76-on, definitely the New X-Men, but that's really only half the era.

 

Marvel was the company of the 70's, no question about it, and as far as DC was concerned, JLA was a much more popular book with my contemporaries.

[jaeldubyoo]

I don't disagree re: Batman/Tec - there were fits and starts here and there towards the late BA but the period post-Adams was weak for a few years.

 

No, I meant, during the Adams period, early-BA.

 

You realize Adams didn't draw a very high percentage of the interior Batman/TEC stories, right? There might be one Adams story, and then 6-7 other stories done by other people. Some months, Adams just drew the cover. And a lot of those non-Adams stories are similar to the SA-Elseworlds tales, with Batman doing outlandish stuff with terrible art and idiotic dialogue.

 

What has happened with BA Batman/TEC is that the covers have given people selective memory. They see the killer Adams covers, remember a few of the good Adams interior stories and the Manhunter mini-run, yet gloss over the other 90% of the early-BA stories, which stunk up the joint.

 

I can remember buying a short run of those books in the early-80's and being so excited to re-read the Man-Bat Adams run, then being to incredibly disappointed with the *rest* of the lame- stories I had to wade through just to get back to the Adams stuff. I also bought the DC Showcase reprints and it felt the same way, and even worse since the better-than-non-Adams-Batman Robin in College tales were deleted.

 

CGC and today's "look at the cover" mentality have been extremely kind to these books, especially the many issues without an iota of Adams interior art, but sporting a killer (and highly deceptive) Adams cover.

 

I totally agree with you about covers. Maybe i just "old school," but I preferred to buy comics with both cover and interior art by Adams. Back in the day, comics with both Adams cover and art were worth much more than a comic with just a cover by Adams. Admittedly, I love some Adams covers, but I always wanted to see way more art than just the cover.

[Ebel 1911]

If you look at the entire BA from 1970 to 1981, it has to be Amazing Spider-man, no question, and all this "Batman ruled the BA" is 20/20 hindsight BS based on "cool covers in CGC cases". From '76-on, definitely the New X-Men, but that's really only half the era.

 

Marvel was the company of the 70's, no question about it, and as far as DC was concerned, JLA was a much more popular book with my contemporaries.

 

I totally agree.

 

[Red_Hood]

If you look at the entire BA from 1970 to 1981, it has to be Amazing Spider-man, no question, and all this "Batman ruled the BA" is 20/20 hindsight BS based on "cool covers in CGC cases". From '76-on, definitely the New X-Men, but that's really only half the era.

 

Marvel was the company of the 70's, no question about it, and as far as DC was concerned, JLA was a much more popular book with my contemporaries.

 

This is how I remember it too. Along with JLA, I would also add Legion of the Super Heroes. It was very popular amongst my peers at the time. There was a lot of great stories in there.

[Ken Aldred]

I felt ASM dipped in quality for a while, quickly overtaken by the Claremont / Cockrum / Byrne X-Men, but managed a comeback to a degree when Roger Stern took over as writer.

 

I was also more into Legion than Batman or JLA, particularly the Bates / Cockrum and Levitz / Sherman / Giffen issues.

[joe_collector]

This is how I remember it too. Along with JLA, I would also add Legion of the Super Heroes. It was very popular amongst my peers at the time.

 

Definitely, and I just mentioned JLA as one of the BA books that was far more popular than Batman, but Legion is definitely up there too. People forget how popular Legion was, and how insanely valuable and collected the SA Legion appearance were, making their first appearance more valuable than Showcase 4 in the early-to-mid-80's.

 

Until the revisionists came around, Showcase 4 was just another tired GA rehash, while Legion and Manhunter, both two new creations, got more collector attention.

[underthebigw]

The Adams cover mania is a fairly recent trend. Back in the day, a premium was placed on books where he did the interior art.

 

I don't think that's correct, or if it is, it's a matter of degrees. If I recall ( I don't have time to dig out my old Overstreets), but all of the Adams covers were broken out as nearly as 1975. My memory is that they commanded $3 a book in NM at the time (which outraged older collectors), regardless of cover or interior Adams art. I know by 1977 I had a list of all Adams covers and interiors that I brought to flea markets and comic shops.

 

What was interesting, is that despite this, the books were impossible to find-not doubt a matter of collectors not parting with them and demand not truly being strong enough to pull them out of collections. It was much easier to find the Oneill/Adams issues of GL/GA

[divad]

It was very popular amongst my peers at the time.

 

Among

[solarcadet]

Neal Adams books are in high demand worldwide: original and foreign editions

 

the keys 227, 232, and 251 are even more scarce in Mexico, Brazil, Sweden, Germany, Lebanon, Netherlands, France, Belgium, India, and Australia

 

 

[Brian48]

Well, they're doing REALLY well over at CL tonight. Somebody's spending some money out there.

[Zonker]

The Adams cover mania is a fairly recent trend. Back in the day, a premium was placed on books where he did the interior art.

 

I don't think that's correct, or if it is, it's a matter of degrees. If I recall ( I don't have time to dig out my old Overstreets), but all of the Adams covers were broken out as nearly as 1975. My memory is that they commanded $3 a book in NM at the time (which outraged older collectors), regardless of cover or interior Adams art. I know by 1977 I had a list of all Adams covers and interiors that I brought to flea markets and comic shops.

 

 

"He who has the time-- and the access to old Overstreets-- will win the debate."

 

My first Overstreet was the EC one, #9 from 1979. But I have managed to pick up a few earlier ones, such as the Spirit issue #6 from 1976.

 

Batman 221-231 were 40 cents in Mint

Batman 232,234,237 "-Adams stories" $1.60 in Mint

Batman 243-245 "-Adams stories" $1.60 in Mint

 

The Adams covers were listed at the bottom of the entry for the title, but commanded no premium. That's almost certainly where you got your flea market list, though. (thumbs u

 

But I'll stand by my statement that until recently, it was almost always about the interior artwork. The Jeff Jones covers to Wonder Woman 199 & 200 being notable exceptions to this rule.

[joe_collector]

But I'll stand by my statement that until recently, it was almost always about the interior artwork.

 

This is a natural by-product of entombing comics, and that's why I feel that "First Cover Appearance" books are quite undervalued and should see a huge bump in the coming years.

[RockMyAmadeus]

The Adams cover mania is a fairly recent trend. Back in the day, a premium was placed on books where he did the interior art.

 

I don't think that's correct, or if it is, it's a matter of degrees. If I recall ( I don't have time to dig out my old Overstreets), but all of the Adams covers were broken out as nearly as 1975. My memory is that they commanded $3 a book in NM at the time (which outraged older collectors), regardless of cover or interior Adams art. I know by 1977 I had a list of all Adams covers and interiors that I brought to flea markets and comic shops.

 

 

"He who has the time-- and the access to old Overstreets-- will win the debate."

 

Zonker is quite correct. There was no premium for Adams covers without interiors (though, oddly enough, even if he only did a few or even one interior page...see Justice League #94 and Green Lantern #88...commanded the same types of premiums.)

 

Adams did literally hundreds of covers in the late 60's/early 70's, with long stints on Batman, Supervoy, Detective, Action, Superman, etc.

[divad]

You know it's funny, when I was a kid I didn't really pay attention to who the artist was . . . but I knew what I liked. Invariably, I surrounded myself with Kirby, Ditko, Romita, Steranko, Neal Adams and Barry Smith

[joe_collector]

You know it's funny, when I was a kid I didn't really pay attention to who the artist was . . . but I knew what I liked.

 

Later on I did, but it still amazes me that I was able to pick up virtually every 1970's Byrne book released - I must have looked through the comics on the shelf and those caught my eye.

[solarcadet]

 

Ras al Gul face (#8) on Strange Adventures