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.

Following the extra-sized, standalone Conan the Barbarian #25, writer Jim Zub and artist Fernando Dagnino launched “The Conquering Crown” as a three-part arc that concludes in #28, a spectacular issue that starts with Gerardo Zaffino’s moody, evocative cover and goes from there.

In Fortune and Glory: The Musical, we find Bendis still early in the Marvel phase of his career, and he’s been recruited to write the book for Marvel’s ambitious Broadway debut (and eventual trainwreck), Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.

Because the original Marvel Comics incarnation of Battlestar Galactica started unevenly, many fans had given up or never even checked out the title by the time the June 1980 issue, Battlestar Galactica #16, arrived on the scene. And if so, boy, did they miss a gem.

This issue also reveals another piece of the puzzle about the Unknown War as it introduces Geiger readers to The Northerner, a Union soldier from a reality in which the South won the Civil War. The next issue promises his origin.