This volume collects Weird Science #12-15, and #5-6, though if you can follow the numbering sequence on this title you’ll want to consider joining our Overstreet Advisors group. The series had previously been known as Happy Houlihans, Saddle Justice, and Saddle Romances, and after #23 would be known as Weird Science-Fantasy, again ostensibly continuing the numbering. These sorts of changes were generally done to avoid the cost of purchasing another mailing permit, which were a premium expense against the thin margins of publishing comics in those days.

Geiger #19 puts a spotlight on one of the recurring characters, The Glowing Woman, Ashley Arden, another person seemingly afflicted in a similar fashion to Tariq Geiger. As we’ve seen in her appearances to date, she has a very different demeanor than Geiger, and she definitely has her own agenda. This story demonstrates that and offers insight as to how she got that way. 

Decades ago, Paul Barry’s deep sea exploration crew was lost under inexplicable circumstances, and he’s spent the intervening years plagued by guilt and not knowing what happened. Now not only has their vessel been found, the crew is alive and they appear not to have aged a day in the interim. It’s a massive mystery, one that unfolds beautifully in the hands of writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, artist Tony Aikins, and colorist Paul Mounts. 

Corto Maltese: Under the Sign of Capricorn, the initial offering of the imprint, was the first of 12 volumes which collected writer-artist Hugo Pratt’s seminal work. The first book collects Pratt’s first six interconnected short stories: “The Secret of Tristan Bantam,” “Rendez-vous in Bahia,” “Sureshot Samba,” “The Brazilian Eagle,” “So Much for Gentlemen of Fortune,” and “The Seagull’s Fault.”

It’s very hard to replicate the impact, however, of the 1976 collaboration of DC Comics and Marvel Comics on their first high profile crossover, Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man. In those days, such a thing was just about completely unheard of. It’s impact was bigger than it’s Treasury-size format.

The first chapter of a four-issue mini-series from writer-artist Howard Chaykin took on three seemingly impossible tasks and made them look easy. While it took until the last page of this issue to show it, it brought The Shadow from the 1930s to the then-present (1986) and did so convincingly. It set the stage for an origin tale that combined many of the disparate story elements – many of them conflicting – that had been sown over the years and pulled them into one story. And it made a whole new generation of fans aware of just how cool The Shadow could be.

Like the first two issues, Planet Death #2 puts the spotlight on Corporal Scott, apparently the lone survivor of a planetary invasion force that went up against a surprising and overwhelming barrage of alien enemy fire. He’s left to single-handedly fight his way to the failed invasion’s objective, a seemingly impossible task