While the title of this issue is a bit misleading – it is distinctly not a true facsimile edition – it’s nonetheless fantastic to see this wonderful story back in print. The volume of Marvel Team-Up began in 2005 had a number of really inviting issues, Marvel Team-Up #14 was and remains the cream of the crop for that 25-issue run.
Unlike their science fiction- and horror-themed anthologies, Alien Worlds and Twisted Tales, which were produced by Bruce Jones, Vanguard Illustrated was produced in-house at Pacific Comics. Edited by David Scroggy, who would later become very well known at Dark Horse Comics, this anthology was about upcoming creators, and often mixing that new talent with established professionals.
This one, subtitled Secret Origins: Super-Villains, is a treasure trove of vintage origin stories and key appearances of such villains as Lex Luthor, the Joker, Captain Cold, and Dr. Sivana, among others. For longtime DC fans, this is a welcome trip down memory lane. For those of us who in our youth skewed more toward Marvel, it’s a change to the characters in their best Golden Age and Silver Age incarnations.
Often adapted, Beowulf is probably the best-known epic Old English poem. The subject of multiple translations and frequent scholarly discussion, its true origins are unknown, although there is a manuscript which dates to between the years 975 and 1025.
In the early days of both licensed comics based on video games and the growing use of original graphic novels, 1983’s Star Raiders (DC Graphic Novel #1) is fairly unique in that it is both animals at once. Following DC’s first Atari Force series and preceding its second one, this European album format (a 64-page 8-1/4” x 11” softcover) is solidly entertaining and rises well above many later attempts to bring story development and strong characters to early video games.
In 1984, David Singer’s Deluxe Comics launched Wally Wood’s T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. Printed on nice paper and aimed clearly at the burgeoning comic book specialty market, Singer and company attempted to replicate the caliber of Tower Comics’ all-star line-up with one of their own.
In the aftermath of the recent Marvel Versus DC and DC Versus Marvel: The Amalgam Age omnibus editions, the Batman/Deadpool and Deadpool/Batman crossovers, and the recent facsimile edition of the original Marvel-DC collaboration, Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man, there’s a good deal of interest in the stories that preceded the modern iterations of DC and Marvel getting together.
Originally published as a two-issue mini-series under Marvel’s Epic Comics imprint, Silver Surfer: Parable teamed Lee with French artist Moebius (Jean Giraud) for an out-of-continuity retelling of the Surfer’s rebellion against Galactus on behalf of the mostly undeserving people of Earth.
Sometimes we look at comic book series or mini-series and we sort of know immediately why it hasn’t been put out in a hardcover or trade paperback collection. At other times, though, we’re left scratching our heads and wondering why it hasn't been done. Of course sometimes there are reasons behind the scenes, things the public never hears about, but sometimes it’s just plain... weird.
A killer has returned (or is it killers?), odd alliances are made (and smashed and remade), and long-kept secrets are revealed in Batman: The Halloween – The Last Halloween. What started as the final collaboration between writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale (May 1, 1956 – June 16, 2022) turned into a phenomenal tribute to the late illustrator and a worthy end to their years-long collaboration on the early years of the Dark Knight Detective.
