DC Retroactive: The 1990s

When the DC Retroactive comics were announced, I was pretty excited. It sure did sound like a great idea to reunite creators to tell “one last story” within the framework they provided for a given era. Then they started rolling out at $5 a pop. It’s certainly a reasonable price, since each of these books is both a new 20 plus page story with a bonus reprint from the creators’ original run. I thought I would be grabbing some of the 70s and 80s era comics, but I wound up having a hard time justifying spending the $5 to get a new story and a reprint of something I already had kicking around in the collection.   So I thought the only one I would wind up with was the 90s Batman, which I had been very eagerly awaiting, given my love for Grant and Breyfogle Batman stories. 

But I wound up with four of the 90s books and I really enjoyed them! Full disclosure: I loved these comics because they brought back a little smidgen of what comics were like when I first started reading them. DC had a great idea here.

Without further ado...

DC Retroactive: Batman 1990s

So as I mentioned, this was the one book I was really looking forward to out of the bunch. It’s kind of funny that Alan Grant’s story almost crammed too much into the twenty some-odd pages. Overall, I don’t think we were treated to Grant’s best work here. There was some painful dialogue and heavyhanded narration. But you know what? I didn’t even really care. Norm Breyfogle was awesome as he always is. He got to do a lot of his signature Bat details here, from the cape to the nightvision eyes to Batman’s acrobatic kick from the ceiling. I really hope that DC would be able to convince these two guys for a miniseries, like they recently got one of the 90s’ other most celebrated Bat teams to do (Doug Moench and Kelly Jones). 

The reprint: Detective Comics #613, 1990. It’s an issue called “Trash.” It’s a stronger effort from the writer, and while Breyfogle is still great here, we can see how much he has improved with time. This story plus the new one? Easily worth the $5.

DC Retroactive: Superman 1990s

I mentioned that the story seemed just slightly off in the Batman comic. Well, this one felt completely ripped out of the early 90s run by Louise Simonson and John Bogdanove! It kind of made me wonder if it was really a lost script. Superman has the mullet, the cloned Lex Luthor is pissed off, everyone is talking about Doomsday, yep, everything is perfect here. The story features the return of Cruiser, a big bad monster who can burrow through anything. It causes a lot of destruction throughout Metropolis and even burns Supes’ hair off (though strangely, not his costume).

The reprint: Superman: The Man of Steel #12, 1992. Here’s another reason why this Superman Retroactive was so successful in my eyes. The reprint perfectly dovetailed with the new story. In this older story we see a previous appearance of Cruiser. It might be beneficial to read this story and then move onto the next one.

DC Retoractive: Green Lantern 1990s

Ah, Kyle Rayner. You were the first Green Lantern I knew about when I started reading comics. I know a lot of people didn’t like you. But I always thought your costume was really cool and I liked that you were “the Last Green Lantern.” Now everything has been retconned. Hal is back, the Corps is back, and though you still exist, you’re nothing compared to what you used to be. That makes me kind of sad. But hey, DC got Ron Marz and Darryl Banks back together to tell one more story!

Simple story here: Kyle is on guard duty at the JLA satellite and Effigy shows up to wreak havoc. So this comic really gets you right back into all of the details, such as Kyle’s always entertaining narration, his inventions with the ring, and Effigy’s never ending rage. Once again, this could have been a “lost issue” of the original Marz run. 

Reprint: Green Lantern #78, 1996. This was a nice “who I am” issue. This is why I was lamenting the fact that Kyle isn’t very important anymore. He was such a well fleshed out character, and because of the strange cyclical nature of comics he’s now been pushed out of the way for Hal Jordan to come back. It’s just a shame. Maybe DC can start a good trade paperback run of the 90s Green Lantern now? I really hope that sales of these Retroactive books are able to get DC thinking about more collections to put out.  How long have people been clamoring for Grant and Breyfogle Batman trades?

DC Retroactive: Justice League America 1990s.

“Together again for the last time (we hope!)--Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire.”

That should pretty much be enough said on the subject. The Justice League comics these guys put out were so, so good. It was pretty daring, doing what they did. Taking the biggest team of costumed heroes on the planet and turning their story into a humor book and a soap opera while keeping just enough of the classic superhero action. 

This might have been the best of the Retroactive books that I read. It’s just hard to beat the great scripts that Giffen and DeMatteis put together, where everything is so witty and carefully orchestrated. And then there is Kevin Maguire, who is really one of the most talented people who has ever drawn comics. Nobody can beat him on making these characters seem real.

The story: the Injustice Gang is up to no good, as usual. A Godzilla-sized parademon destroys a lot of stuff, and everything is cleaned up by the end. Again, pretty simple, but just enough to make everyone happy and remember a bygone era of Justice League history. Great comic.

The reprint: Justice League of America #6, 1992. When I started reading this, I hadn’t realized its significance as the last comic the three guys made before moving on to other projects. That gave it some context for me. It’s an issue that is really just catching up with all of the characters. Although I haven’t read probably half of the stories they did together, I imagine this comic was a nice bow tie to the Giffen/DeMatteis/Maguire days.

So overall, I am so glad that DC put together this line of books. Who knows, maybe now I will track down some of the 80s and 70s Retroactives as well. I’ve already found the ones that mean the most to me though. As DC gets ready to move into a brand new era this week, it was really nice to see them spending time looking back on the past. Thanks for the memories...

Batman: Holy Terror

Here's the second installment of my "DC Elseworlds" series of posts: it's a short review for a short book.

It was a good idea to get Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle to do something for the Elseworlds imprint, or really to kick it off, since this was the first comic to be published bearing the Elseworlds logo. They were pretty popular as a Bat-team back in the day. They took full advantage of the Elseworlds framework and clearly took a wild idea and ran with it. In Holy Terror the modern world is a very different place because Oliver Cromwell didn't die (excuse my shoddy observance of the history of England) when he did in reality but lived on to see old age. The resulting change in history is that theocracy spread throughout the world, even to Gotham City. 

Bruce Wayne is on track to becoming an ordained minister, but then he finds out the truth behind the deaths of his parents: they were not simply gunned down as he was led to believe. Rather, they were executed by the state for giving medical attention and support to social deviants who sought "counter-reproductive" lifestyles. Bruce wants revenge on the society that would allow for such discrimination.

So it isn't explicitly said, but this is a story of ideologies: religious conservatism vs. all that is deemed "immoral" by the same theocratic Bible-beating leaders. Batman is a force of chaos against the order imposed by the church-run state. He finds that fighting an ideology is not nearly as simple as fighting a person or even a group of people. He resolves to fight even though he knows it will be far from easy.

I definitely understood why this graphic novel is generally held in high esteem. There's a lot to think about with this story, and the Grant/ Breyfogle team is really at the top of their game here. For added fun, there are plenty of DC characters who make appearances throughout the 48 pages. Society's "freaks" are not looked upon favorably in a world that favors conformity.  There's a strange sort of Justice League that forms in Holy Terror.

Any complaints? Well, this story could have really filled so much more than just a thin 48 pages. There are some later Elseworlds projects that are pretty lengthy, and this one, the first one, really tries to cram too much into too little. So I guess we can all be glad that Holy Terror was both good and successful because it allowed other projects of more ambitious lengths to be created. I'm sure that by the time you get to the end you'll be saying "Hey, I want to read more about this Batman who roams around Gotham wearing a priest collar!"