Comments | about_faces: Cover Gallery: The Bronze Age, Part One (1971-1979)

about_faces

Cover Gallery: The Bronze Age, Part One (1971-1979)

Dec 26, 2010 03:50

I love old comic covers. The great J.M. DeMatteis recently described the allure of classic covers as being "like cosmic portals, opening up doorways to other dimensions; colorful parallel universes far preferable to the one I inhabited ( Read more... )

irv novick, neal adams, jim aparo, robin(s), rogues gallery, bronze age, joker, denny o'neil, covers

Comments 23

captaintwinings December 26 2010, 10:13:43 UTC

The Joker's team-ups always seem to devolve into bickering like an old married couple. I'm not sure what that means.

surrealname December 26 2010, 18:22:37 UTC

it means everyone but the joker is stupid.

thehefner December 26 2010, 20:01:45 UTC

Even Lex?

surrealname December 26 2010, 20:02:20 UTC

ESPECIALLY LEX!

Thread 12

sara_lakali December 26 2010, 17:18:41 UTC

I may have said this before, but that first one was my first comic book. If I still have it (doubtful), it has lost its cover and first five or six pages, which is why I didn't go looking for it to scan it for you.

thehefner December 26 2010, 20:04:21 UTC

Oh man, what a great first issue to have, too! While I would have preferred scans of the actual issue, with yellowed paper and everything, I've got two different reprints on hand, so it's okay.

Even if you only had the issue in scraps and fragments, I'd still want to get them framed or put in a scrapbook or something. Maybe use them in an art project, but I dunno, something has always appalled me about people using actual comic book pages in art or wrapping paper or something.

killermoth December 26 2010, 22:34:43 UTC

Man, this is great! I realize I'm lucky to have a lot of these (many of them for a long, long time)-Batman #258, 100-Page Super Spectacular #20, DC Super-Stars #14, Joker #1, B & B #130 and JLofA #125! I'm a bigger Two-Face fan than I thought!
I've always wanted the Titans issue, but have never been able to find it at a price than I thought was affordable. Also, I just know the story's gonna be disappointing.
Oh, and totally agree with you about O'Neil/Adams-I think their subsequent work on Batman more than bears out your thesis. As much as I love Batman's long history, I think of the Englehart/Rogers run as the beginning of "my" Batman.

thehefner December 26 2010, 22:45:52 UTC

Well, tell ya what: once I can track down a copy of the preceding issue, I'll post the Teen Titans story. May be a while, though. :)

And I must give credit where it's due: without O'Neil/Adams, the Englehart/Rogers run would never have happened. Denny and Neal were trailblazers to a new era, and deserve to be recognized as such. But their stories were hardly timeless, flawless classics, even by the standards of comics from the era. Meanwhile, the Englehart and Rogers run feels fresh and exciting today. Why it's not being pushed alongside Year One and Long Halloween as an essential book for new readers looking for Batman stories is beyond me.

killermoth December 27 2010, 00:02:06 UTC

Absolutely. And a new reader wouldn't have to be exposed to Miller's misogyny or Loeb's inability to tell a coherent story, which is a definite plus in my book.

Don't get me wrong-I like the O'Neil/Adams run. In fact, one of my earliest exposures to Batman was the Power Records adventures, so my formative impressions of Batman were very much Adams' interpretation. And how come Harvey was never in those? I'm sure an audio version of Two-Face would've scarred four year-old me for life (no pun intended!)

thehefner December 27 2010, 00:11:28 UTC

How misogynistic was Year One? I'm trying to remember. I dunno, Selina may have been a prostitute, but she certainly wasn't a victim, and that origin is no worse than her previous origin: a stewardess with amnesia who kept trying to get Batman's attention.

As for the other characters, Sarah Essen and Barbara Gordon weren't... well, I'm not sure they were stellar, but they didn't strike me as offensive. Holly was shrill and annoying, but then again, so are many girls her age.

Harvey always seemed to get the short end of the stick, possibly because--as you note--there's not exactly a way to make him kid-friendly. Kind of strange that the Joker is, though. Personally, I'd find a murderous clown far more traumatic.

Thread 5

lego_joker December 28 2010, 00:14:59 UTC

I've been thinking...

Is there any painless way for one to retcon the dumber Two-Face appearances in continuity (The Face Schism, etc.) into impostors?

abqreviews December 28 2010, 23:43:11 UTC

>Is there any painless way for one to retcon the dumber Two-Face appearances in continuity (The Face Schism, etc.) into impostors ( ... )

thehefner December 29 2010, 04:59:49 UTC

I don't think it's lazy at all, honestly. It could make the Charlatan a truly formidable villain, while also single-handedly fixing much of the continuity bullcrap in comics. Unless you had a specific story to tell with one of those older stories being revealed to be Sloan, you could even leave it to the readers to decide when it was Sloan and when it was really the villains. It's all-purpose!

thehefner December 29 2010, 04:57:04 UTC

Lord knows I've considered that one! It would be a perfect easy way out, if anyone thought to actually make that canon. The likeliest candidate could be Paul Sloan(e), either in his original form or as the Charlatan, living out Harvey's life with none of his self-doubt. Indeed, any of the times we see Two-Face acting gleefully evil, I could easily imagine that being Sloan rather than Harvey! Try to imagine Sloan in the Two-Face role in Robin: Year One, and it works!