Doug Moench

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

DC has begun a new reprint series called "DC Finest." Despite the name—which would seem to indicate some kind of selectivity—its aim to comprehensively reprint everything DC has ever published in various lines. One of those is the "Events" line, which reprints not just the headline event stories, but integrates them with their myriad tie-ins. Crisis on Infinite Earths has of course been reprinted many times, but never show more with all of the "Special Crisis Cross-overs." The core series is twelve issues long, but estimates are that its DC Finest reprinting will run four 500-page volumes! I've read Crisis a couple times before, so here I won't focus on the core story, but the various included stories.

A lot of the included issues are of Roy Thomas's Earth-Two titles: here we get issues #50-52 of the WWII-set All-Star Squadron and issues #18-19 of the present-day Infinity, Inc. (There's also Justice League of America #244, which is the second half of the story begun in Infinc #19, the last-ever JLA/JSA team-up.) Both of these titles were significantly affected by the Crisis and did a lot tying into it, so their inclusion here makes sense... though I know from past experience I will definitely be bored of A-SS's Shanghaied into Hyperspace! story by the end of it. Overall, though, no complaints; these are exactly the kind of stories that ought to be included in a book like this.

We also get a bunch of one-off stories from various titles: Fury of Firestorm #41, Green Lantern #194, and Wonder Woman #327. The Firestorm one is fine, it basically just shows how Firestorm is recruited by Harbinger in more detail, which isn't particularly interesting but I guess the kind of thing you'd expect a Crisis Cross-over to do. The Green Lantern story is kind of complicated, as it's clearly very enmeshed in the ongoing stories of Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and Guy Gardner, but I'm always happy to see some Joe Staton artwork, and I'm curious to see how it continues in later volumes. (There's a funny bit of continuity massaging; as John thinks to himself that he usually doesn't wear a mask anymore but he's going to put one on before journeying to the Monitor's satellite, presumably because George Pérez drew him with a mask.) The Wonder Woman story is clearly the wrapup of an ongoing story, and therefore pretty confusing on its own.

There are a couple inclusions I didn't get. There weren't any Crisis ties in Detective Comics #555 that I detected, nor in The Losers Special, even though that does have the Crisis Cross-over branding on the cover.

The real highlight of the book, though, are the Batman issues: we get a continuous six-part Batman story from Batman #389-91 and Detective #556-58. The Crisis connection is technically slight, in that there's just the red skies from the Crisis... but man these stories (from the team of Doug Moench and Tom Mandrake, somehow pumping out an issue every two weeks) are great! Jason Todd is Robin, but this is before Jim Starlin turned him into an obnoxious asshole; here he's a kid trying to find his way in rough world, bereft of strong parental figures to give him guidance. Like some of the other stories I've read from this era, we're clearly at a transitional point between the Silver Age aesthetic and the Frank Miller one; unlike those other stories, I thought this really worked. It's high melodrama, but it doesn't take itself too seriously; it's dark without being grim; it's not afraid to be goofy but we get solid psychological depth for all of the principal characters. Sure, the only Crisis element is that the skies are red... but it's so beautifully used, creating a funereal atmosphere. These stories are also included in a Batman "DC Finest," Red Skies, and after reading this, I'm sorely tempted to pick up that, because I'd love to see more Moench and Mandrake on Batman.

My only quibble with this volume is the sequencing doesn't always make sense; Detective #558 ends with Batman hearing Joker has escaped, leading into Crisis #2... but for some reason the story is placed after Crisis #2. Similarly, I think the Wonder Woman issue is also in the wrong spot. On the whole, this isn't high art, or often, even medium art, but if the point of superhero comics is their sheer interconnectedness, the creation of a massive tapestry of events that becomes a pleasure in itself, then this book captures that exceedingly well. I hope that Part Two is solicited sooner rather than later! show less

This is just a monster of a collection. 1100 pages. It's gotta weigh four pounds. It's hyooooje!.

And it's fun to revisit these stories, forty-odd years after I first began visiting my local Braemore Variety Store on the way home from Grade 7. That variety store holds a special place in my heart and my history. It's where I first discovered Star-Lord, Howard The Duck, and a bunch of Marvel's larger black & white magazines, like The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu.

I was never a Kung Fu fanatic. I show more didn't watch the David Carradine series, it took me two more decades to see a Bruce Lee movie...I simply wasn't the target audience for this series.

But, hot damn, I loved Shang-Chi and Iron Fist.

This series shows the very worst of Marvel's 70s output, with the abysmally banal Sons of the Tiger. Those stories are just bad. The writers could never get their shit together enough to actually do something with them (at least, not in this collection). And, though I've always admired George Perez's art, he seemed out of his element here, and he was constantly paired with substandard inkers, which muddied his normally-crisp lines.

The first few Shang-Chi stories aren't the best either, but when the ridiculously talented Rudy Nebres stepped in as artist, the book simply exploded and became a gorgeous treat to behold.

Overall, it's a fun book, but good lord, I can't imagine paying $160 for this collection. Thankfully, I managed to find it on sale for $50. show less

The first thing to note is that the issue I read was the original Curtis Magazine (Marvel's magazine format, black & white line of slightly more "mature" comics). So, screw this Kindle edition crap, and screw the Dynamite reprints. I'm going back to the source comic, that I happily paid my entire $1 for at the counter of Braemor Variety, back in 75 when I wasn't quite 13 yet.

But still, at the tender age of 12, I was already a Doc Savage fanatic, having discovered him two or three years show more before when I stumbled across the Bantam reprints with those amazing James Bama covers.

I mean, this was as close to heaven as I'd experienced in a dozen years. Doc Savage...in his own comic.

And you know what? 45 years later, the damn thing holds up, and holds up well. Doug Moench and John Buscema and Tony De Zuniga may not have necessarily totally captured how I saw Doc and his crew, but they were close enough. And Moench, while obviously having to appease the comic book crowd by tossing in some costumed villains, overall captured the spirit, tone, and most importantly, the sense of adventure of the original Lester Dent (writing as Kenneth Robeson) novels. Something that somehow seems to be missed in most of the graphic novel adaptations and original stories I've come across.

Honestly, Marvel, I think, deserves a lot of credit for their work on some of the licensed characters they had, especially Doc Savage, and the Robert E. Howard characters of Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane, and Bran Mak Morn.

This was a blast, and I can't wait to revisit the next seven issues. show less

This edition of Prey collects two stories; the first, "Prey" (duh), follows on pretty well from Matt Wagner's two Dark Moon Rising stories even though they were released later; Batman and the Monster Men ends with Hugo Strange becoming a television psychologist, and that's exactly what he's doing here, and even though nothing in "Prey" indicates they've battled before, nothing indicates they haven't, either. "Prey" is a solid early days of Batman story, capitalizing on Batman's early show more inexperience, and giving him an effective villain in the person of Strange, who actually in working psychologically here, unlike in The Monster Men. My favorite bit is something you could only pull off in the comics medium; Strange is frequently seen talking a blond woman in his apartment, but it's very late in the game that you learn she's only a mannequin. Only in comics would a mannequin be indistinguishable from an very complacent person.

The second story is "Terror," which is set about a year later, when Batman's rogues gallery was much more developed. (It takes place between Batman: Year Two: Fear the Reaper and Absolute Batman: Dark Victory, which are coming up later in this readthrough.) Both Scarecrow and Catwoman play key roles in the story. Unfortunately, it feels much less focused than its predecessor, and Strange is shockingly eliminated about halfway through. Effective as a "twist," and the repeated image of his corpse is haunting, but I kept on expecting him to come back to life somehow and set this story back on the path it seemed to begin on. A waste of a good villain if nothing else.

Batman "Year One" Stories: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence » show less