Ideas for new Bronze Age TPBs

[Zonker]

DC and Marvel are aggressively reprinting the best of their catalog from the last 30 years or so, but I thought it would be fun to start a thread of ideas they may not have thought of yet.

 

Here's a beginning...

 

Sword of Sorcery- This was a 5 issue series DC launched to try to ride the Conan bandwagon. Adaptations of the Fritz Leiber Grey Mouser stories. Early work by Chaykin, Starlin and Walt Simonson.

 

Superman: Kryptonite No More- Reprinting the early stories by the great Bronze Age team of Julie Schwartz, Denny O'Neil, Curt Swan, Murphy Anderson. Superman 233 has been extensively reprinted, but the others have not. Would run from Superman 233-238 and 240-242 (239 was a reprint issue).

 

John Carter of Mars- Might pick up some interest from the current League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series. Is John Carter now in public domain??? Great backup stories from Kubert's Tarzan run, and later the Weird Worlds book. Some of Murphy Anderson's best art ever, later joined by Gray Morrow and others.

 

Batman: Underexposed. (or "Rarities" or "the B Sides" or some better title) The idea here is to focus on the work of the 70's not yet reprinted. Some ideas:

- Moon of the Wolf (Batman 255) by Wein & Adams (only un-reprinted Bat-Adams?)

- Judgement Day (Detective 441) by Goodwin & Chaykin (only Chaykin ever)

- Night of the Stalker (Detective 439) by Englehart & Amendola

- Houdini Whodunit (Batman 295) by Conway & Michael Golden

- The Batman & The Shadow (Batman 253 & 259) by O'Neil & Novick/Giordano

- Daily Death of Terry Tremayne (Batman 269) by Reed & Chua (Dashiell Hammett pastiche)

- A Clue Before Dying (Detective 459) by Pasko & Lopez (Ellery Queen pastiche)

- Heart of a Vampire (Detective 455) by Maggin & Grell (Grell's first Bat-art)

- Monster Stalks Wayne Manor (Detective 438) by Goodwin & Aparo.

 

Cheers,

Z.

 

 

[delekkerste]

Does anyone know if D.C. has reprinted those "New Wonder Woman" stories from the late 1960s/early 1970s? The ones with the great bondage & other covers that people on this Forum have been posting scans of (like #199) and where WW is wearing an outfit more like Diana Rigg in the Avengers than her traditional costume? I'd definitely like to check those stories out without having to track down the original issues.

 

Gene

[g-man]

something in the area of 178-200 perhaps? killer books. and most expensive in 9.4 or better. i am still looking for a #200.

another run is the brave & bold books pre-Adams.

 

[aardvark88]

DC should reprint the long running Fox & Crow humor stories in digest or squarebound format. Need to hook little kids into reading newsprint funny books.

[Zonker]

They've not been reprinted since the early seventies, although a half-dozen of the earlier issues were reprinted in a few of the later issues around #197-#198. Might be worth a shot since the current Simonson/Ordway/Russell WW features a kind of an homage to the Diana Rigg white-pants-suit era.

 

Cheers,

Z.

[Zonker]

DC should reprint the long running Fox & Crow humor stories in digest or squarebound format. Need to hook little kids into reading newsprint funny books.

 

Amen. Ditto for Suger & Spike (a pre-Calvin & Hobbes if ever I saw one). Wonder if DC did anything special with its recent reprint of #1? (Toys R Us promotion, Waldenbooks, etc.)

 

A couple more TPB suggestions:

 

- With the popularity of the JSA, now would be a good time for JSA: Super-Squad , reprinting the 70's issues pencilled and/or inked by the late, great Wally Wood. All-Star 58-65.

 

- A personal wish, may not fly commercially: a companion to the earlier "Art of Walt Simonson," I'd like to see an " Art of Michael Golden " that would reprint the Batman stories from the last 3 issues of Batman Family (2 of which have inks by Craig Russell), the Man-Bat backup stories from the same book, the last 2 issues of the first Mr. Miracle series, with inks by Russ Heath and fantastic stories by Steve Gerber, and the unpublished cover to the never-published Mr. Miracle 26 (seen only in the Cancelled Comic Cavalcade ashcan).

 

Cheers,

Z.

[mcd-migration]

I'd like to see an " Art of Michael Golden " that would reprint the Batman stories from the last 3 issues of Batman Family (2 of which have inks by Craig Russell), the Man-Bat backup stories from the same book, the last 2 issues of the first Mr. Miracle series, with inks by Russ Heath and fantastic stories by Steve Gerber, and the unpublished cover to the never-published Mr. Miracle 26

 

Throw in the Golden lead story to the Batman Summer Spectacular from 1978 & you'd have a classic! A couple of other books i'd like to see would be a compilation of the 7 Soldiers of Victory backup series that ran in Adventure Comics when Aquaman was the lead feature ( about for or 5 issues). Also, a backup run in Detective Comics from the 70s that featured all the "B" rated characters (Martian Manhunter, Hawkman, Black Widow, Green Arrow, etc.) of the JLA with art by a young Marshall Rogers & Mike Nasser. These also would not be profitable, but I would have liked to see the run in one book.

 

Mark

[blowout]

I would like to see some of the great Marvel 70's horror runs reprinted. Tomb Of Dracula & Werewolf By Night especially.

[Zonker]

Y'know, I think I like your idea even better: a true "B-sides" compilation that rescues a lot of great back-up strips from oblivion.

 

- as you mentioned, the first Marshall Rogers work in Detective 466 (Green Arrow) 467 (Hawkman). Throw in the full-length conclusion of the Calculator story in 468 as well.

 

- the Mike Golden Man-Bat stories from Batman Family, including a great crossover with the Demon in #17.

 

- Mike Grell's earliest work, the Aquaman 3-parter behind the Spectre in Adventure Comics.

 

- More early Grell: the GA/Black Canary backups from Action Comics.

 

- Black Orchid strips in the back of Phantom Stranger, I believe the final contribution of Shelly Mayer to the world of super-heroes (he did the scripts, with art by Redondo and DeZuniga; I was mis-remembering this as by Grell).

 

- Speaking of Phantom Stranger, I don't think the Kaluta Spawn of Frankenstein strip has been reprinted.

 

- the final Neal Adams Green Lantern in Flash 226 (a throwaway story, but worth it for the art)

 

- Overlooked Gray Morrow Vigilante stories from Adventure and World's Finest.

 

- Jim Starlin's Omac in the back of Warlord.

 

Round it out with a couple of stories from House of Mystery / House of Secrets, and you'd have a great anthology.

 

Cheers,

Z.

[chromium]

I've waited for years for Marvel to reprint the Master of Kung Fu series in TPB...

 

And then out of the blue Marvel's Tom Brevoort came out with this :

 

"Master of Kung Fu reprints or collections are not likely to happen--the Fu Manchu rights issues makes these stories difficult if not impossible to reprint."

 

So a few weeks ago I decided to to go after an original full run of MOKF...

 

Too bad actually, it will end up costing me more and Marvel won't make a dime out of it...

 

[Zonker]

Couple of Marvel-novice questions....

 

Has the Killraven/War of the Worlds material ever been collected? (I'm a big P.Craig Russell fan)

 

How feasible would it be to TPB the real X-Men Hidden Years stories (not the John Bryne ret-con). What I mean is a compilation of all the X-Men appearances in other books that occured between X-Men 66 and Giant Size #1. Would that run to hundreds & hundreds of pages? Could the stories be extricated from the host book's convoluted continuity?

 

Cheers,

Z.

[bronze]

Moon of the Wolf (Batman 255) by Wein & Adams (only un-reprinted Bat-Adams?)

- You may well be right about the above.I don't think theres anything left but that one.

 

 

Judgement Day (Detective 441) by Goodwin & Chaykin (only Chaykin ever)

However Howie zapped off another Bats in issue # 296 of "Batman" in the late 70's,or was that Sal Amendola? Dang! I think it was Sal!!

 

Heart of a Vampire (Detective 455) by Maggin & Grell (Grell's first Bat-art) Yes,basically it was Grells first time with Bats,but technically,he first saw the light of day with Robin and Batgirl in "Batman Family" #1,which preceeded 'Tec 455 by several months,but hey

 

I think that Brown and Andersons work on the ' 70's Superboy should be collected

as well as Aparos work on B&B from the early '70's.