Recommended (or should I say "Essential")Reading

I kind of grew disenchanted with the whole super-hero genre, as I'm sure many others did, back in the 90's, and for the most part the only super-hero comics I read these days are reprints of stuff from the 60's through the 80's, especially Marvel's Essentials line and the Showcase Presents series from DC. Books in both lines consist of big 500 page, black and white volumes reprinting a specific series from the beginning. Almost all of the big two's classic Silver Age series are represented. Some have lamented the lack of color in these books, but where else are you going to be able to grab Jack "King" Kirby's entire run on Fantastic Four for under $100.
Just yesterday I picked up Essential Amazing Spider-Man Volume 9. The Essential Spider-Man series reprints Spidey's flagship title from the beginning, starting with the wallcrawler's first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15 and Volume 9 brings the series into the 1980's, picking up with ASM #186 (which, by the way, I picked up back in '78 when it was first published) and continuing through #210, with a couple of Annuals thrown in for good measure.
I also recommend the previous mentioned Essential Fantastic Four, as well as Essential Avengers, Essential Thor, Essential Daredevil, Essential Dr. Strange Volume One (featuring amazing, mind-bending work by Steve Ditko), and Essential Howard the Duck (forget the movie, which wasn't as horrible as people say but nowhere near as good as the stories in this volume, which perfectly capture the zeitgeist of the 1970's and provide a fascinating glimpse into the mind of the late Steve Gerber).
From DC, I recently acquired Showcase Presents Ambush Bug, which reprints just about every appearance of Keith Giffen's teleporting trickster, from his first appearance as an incidental villain in a Superman/New Doom Patrol team-up in DC Comics Presents #52 through a surprising appearance in The Daring New Adventures of Supergirl where he decides to be a hero and into a series of mini-series and specials up to 1992's Ambush Bug Nothing Special.
Other notable Showcase Presents series include Superman, Batman, The Brave and The Bold: The Batman Team-Ups, Teen Titans, and Justice League of America, as well as volumes for Blackhawk, Batman & The Outsiders and even Booster Gold.
During the last decade, it almost seems that comics writers have forgotten, or never learned, how to write super-hero comics. These volumes provide a glimpse into the form at its height.

- Posted by wastedpotential on 24 May 2009 08:47 am    -   0 comments