All-Star collection

[gentlesatirist]

Kudos to DC for collecting the first several issues of the 70s All-Star Comics revival, along with DC Special #29 (Origin of JSA) into a single TPB.

These comics had an enormous impact on me as a kid, and looking at them now, it's easy to see why, especially in #s 58-61. Gerry Conway wrote some exciting stuff, and Wally Wood's powerful inks over pencils by Ric Estrada and Keith Giffen created a look that was different from the standard fare of the day. Simultaneously a bit more cartoony, but a bit more real.

Does seem a bit like DC wasn't quite sure what to do with the title over its 17-issue run in 1976-78. Initially, Power Girl, Star-Spangled Kid and Robin were added as a "Super-Squad" to add youth to the JSA lineup. But Robin vanishes after the 2nd issue, and after the great 2-part battle with Vulcan (the action sequences here really drew me in as a kid and still do as an adult), we get a storyline involving the likes of Superman, Hourman and Shining Knight (!)

It stumbled a while - art-wise and story-wise - right when Joe Staton took over until he hit his groove and started doing great work. They can probably finish off the run with a second TPB if this one sells well. Also features great new cover from Brian Bolland.


- FE
Wickliffe OH

[gentlesatirist]

...you'd be hard-pressed to find a better continuous run of cover art in the 70s than All-Star #s 58-65 : 8 issues of covers from the likes of Grell, Chua, Wood, Buckler that are all exceptional.

And in hindsight, using Superman as soon as issue 62 might have been done out of concern that sales already were slipping. They were including him as a logo figure as of ish 63.

(Somewhere in there, Paul Levitz also picks up the writing from Conway.)

Issues 66 and 67 wobble a bit, then 68's got a good Psycho-Pirate story and 69 has the great "old JSA vs. new JSA" battle instigated by police commissioner Bruce Wayne when Power Girl is seriously injured by Gotham PD. Lord, I loved that issue as a kid. Some of the best action sequences of Joe Staton's career.

70-73 almost read like a Wildcat/SSK/Huntress team book, then 74 brings back the whole team before the series gets whacked by the DC Implosion, to resurface for a few more appearances in Adventure Comics.


- FE

[crankyoldman]

I hadn't heard that they were collecting this yet. As a kid, I read issues 62, 64 & 65, which was quite unusual, since I'd only started reading comics about a year or two earlier and almost never "clustered" so closely in a single title what with all the other temptations about. They must have made a special impression on me. These were also my first introduction to Wally Wood.

I was actually a bit disappointed years later when I finally tracked down the earlier issues. Maybe it's just that they don't have the sheen of nostalgia, but I don't think the Gerry Conway issues are as good as the Paul Levitz ones.

So many things about this and the other JSA comics of the period arouse fond memories: the various stories about the later years of the Golden Age Batman, the way Giffen and Wood drew Superman to look like a Joe Shuster version, Wildcat's feuding with Power Girl, etc. It's a shame that all this was dispensed with a few years later. Of course, the style of comics changed too, and I might not care for the new ones even if they hadn't done CRISIS, but dumping Earth 2 like that has always seemed such a waste.

(Oddly enough, the things I liked best about DC Comics seem to be precisely the things they decided to destroy: Earth 2, the Legion of Super-Heroes and other Weisinger-era Superman devices, the Green Lanter Corps). I guess people just weren't buying them, but I remember them fondly.

[Sir Tim Drake]

(Oddly enough, the things I liked best about DC Comics seem to be precisely the things they decided to destroy: Earth 2, the Legion of Super-Heroes and other Weisinger-era Superman devices, the Green Lanter Corps). I guess people just weren't buying them, but I remember them fondly.

They never destroyed the Legion-- a bunch of DC comics editors couldn't succeed where Darkseid, Mordru, the Fatal Five, and the Legion of Super-Villains failed. The Legion remains alive and well... even if they may not be the exact same characters you remember.

[JKCarrier]

They never destroyed the Legion

I think being stuck in Perpetual Reboot Hell qualifies as a fate worse than death.

[gentlesatirist]

...take over the All-Star scripting? Issue 66?

For some reason DC has stripped away credits from the individual stories in the TPB. It's probably related to royalties.

And Wally Wood drawing/inking Superman in the style of Jerry Shuster is indeed very cool.

Did Wood handle complete art chores for any of these issues? I know he did a couple of covers by himself.

The King Arthur/Vandal Savage storyline is brilliant, because it let Wood do super-heroes as well as non-superhero knights in shining armor. Great stuff.


- FE

[Cei-U!]

...take over the All-Star scripting? Issue 66?

For some reason DC has stripped away credits from the individual stories in the TPB. It's probably related to royalties.

And Wally Wood drawing/inking Superman in the style of Jerry Shuster is indeed very cool.

Did Wood handle complete art chores for any of these issues? I know he did a couple of covers by himself.

The King Arthur/Vandal Savage storyline is brilliant, because it let Wood do super-heroes as well as non-superhero knights in shining armor. Great stuff.

Levitz came aboard with #62.

Credit where credit is due: It was Keith Giffen's choice to draw E2 Supes in the Shuster style but Wood, who'd made the same choice back in Captain Action #1, was the perfect inker for it.

Wood handled the full art for #64-65

I can't believe they stripped the credits out of the collection.

Cei-U!
I summon the chicken-fit outshit!

[Bill Angus]

I *thought* I'd heard that the credits were in the lead pages (prior to the actual stories) - though I do know I read a recent interview with Levitz where he also regretted the decision to strip the original credits out. He did present some sort of explanation (& I don't believe it had anything to do with royalties).

[gentlesatirist]

...are all rolled together on a title page, listing Levitz and Conway as writers and Estrada, Wood, Giffen and Staton as artists, but there's no detail on who did what and on which issues.

To me, it seems like it would be more work for DC to remove this info from the original pages and cover up the blank space than it would have been to just leave it in. Which makes me think there's some legal and/or financial reason why it was done.


- FE

[gentlesatirist]

...did Wood come to be drawing and/or inking a mainstream comic in the mid-70s? He wasn't doing a lot of that type of work around that time, was he?


- FE
Wickliffe OH

[Cei-U!]

...did Wood come to be drawing and/or inking a mainstream comic in the mid-70s? He wasn't doing a lot of that type of work around that time, was he?

He was inking Ditko on Stalker and that Atlas Spider-Man knock-off during that period. He also inked some of the Garcia-Lopez Hercules Unbound around then. If memory serves, Wood was using his mainstream work to fund his self-publishing projects.

Cei-U!
I summon the paycheck!

[gentlesatirist]

...I think I've got some issues of those titles stashed in a box somewhere.

Was thinking of Stalker recently when checking out some 70s-era DC cover scans. Aside from Claw, Stalker had the most promise of that DC 70s sword-and-sorcery glut, when they dropped a half-dozen Conan/caveman titles on the market all at once, few of which lasted more than a year.

- FE
Wickliffe OH

[MDG]

Yeah--I remember the house ad DC ran that showed their successful line of superheroes, successful line of mystery hosts/characters and then the "proud introduction" of fantasy characters. Aside from Warlord, they were all gone pretty quickly.

On Ditko: I'm thinking that his return to DC might have coincided with the end of Cannon and Sally Forth in armed services papers.

MDG

[dr_cyclops]

I remeber buying these issues for 25 cents an issue out of the bargain boxes of the late 70s. Buying them again for 50 cents an issue in the 80s. Finally, buying them for $1 an issue in the early 90s. Suffice it to say, I don't have these issues anymore. Now, I have the TPB collection and the printing and paper quality is FANTASTIC! Nice cover too.
Woody's work on this series shows just what a fantastic superhero artist he was.:cool: Shame about the credits in this collection.:(

[crankyoldman]

I HATE it when they strip credit boxes from individual stories in these collections.

HATE it!!!

[gentlesatirist]

...come up with the real, true reason they do it?

Again, my guess would have something to do woth royalty payments and/or legality of ownership.


- FE

[Bill Angus]

...come up with the real, true reason they do it?

Again, my guess would have something to do woth royalty payments and/or legality of ownership.


- FE

No... though I did find the quote I mentioned earlier (sadly, it was more apologetic than explainitory):

I apologize for the lack of credits on the individual stories, an error I persnally found heart-breaking because of its effect on the Origin, which also had a dedication to Shelly and Gardner. The second volume will in some fashion include the credits fro the first, which will be restored if we ever do a second printing. If you have a credits question, these issues are up on the comics.org database, though without perfect data.

[dan bailey]

He was inking Ditko on Stalker and that Atlas Spider-Man knock-off

The Destructor, issue 1 of which I picked up today for a buck at my lcs, along with the initital ishes of The Scorpion, Grim Ghost & Wulf the Barbarian (Morlock 2001 was in the same pile, but I've already got it), along with -- breaking the theme here -- DC's 1st Issue Special #5 with Kirby's Manhunter, just because I loved the cover when I saw it in the spinner racks as a kid but never picked it up (unlike those Atlas titles, all of which I bought when they came out).

[dan bailey]

I think being stuck in Perpetual Reboot Hell qualifies as a fate worse than death.

No doubt I'm the only one who initially read that as Perpetual Robot Hell ... which I have to say sounded pretty freaking awesome & made me wonder if I should begin immediately catching up on the last couple of decades of LSH stories.

[gentlesatirist]

...as to why the title dropped Robin as a main character after only 2 issues? Were there just too many characters lying around and he was the odd one out?

This run of issues also established the Wildcat character much more strongly than it had been in the past, probably due in part to Bob Haney's continuity-busting use of the character in Brave & Bold.

Wildcat's use in the 70s All-Star made the character come alive for new readers and doubtlessly helped him play such a large role in the 90s JSA re-launch.


- FE