90s Week: Back to the Drawing Board with Bruce Wayne

In 1995 a team of "archaeologists" at DC discovered Bruce Wayne's long lost collection of concept sketches for his costume. These sketches were released in the form of an Elseworld entitled Batman: Knight Gallery, and let me tell you, it has not aged well.

From these historic drawings we learn that:

a) Bruce Wayne was ahead of his time in terms of costume design;
b) Bruce Wayne has terrible ideas, and
c) Bruce Wayne draws a lot like some of the top artistic talent at DC circa 1995 (and also Jim Balent)

By the way, I hope you like pointy shoulders, because you are going to be seeing a lot of them.

My favourite thing about the above design is that the Bat-emblem is a brooch. My least-favourite thing is everything else. But as you will soon see, this is probably the best costume design of the lot.

The answers to his shoulder questions are yes, yes, and yes. Also: they look ridiculous. And I would have to think that his cape being feathered that way on the bottom would make gliding difficult. And it has an ugly belt and it's Not dark enough.

Well this gives "sharp dresser" a whole new meaning.

Ears better - more fierce & intimidating. Also, can make shish kabobs on them.

Some vision and snag concern re shoulder hooks & gauntlet projections. SOME?! SOME?! Nothing could be within a foot and a half of him without getting stabbed.

"Robin, you head that way and I'll...oh shit, sorry Robin."

And what are the shoulder spikes good for? Does he have a problem with seagulls landing on him? (Also, this one was designed by James "Jim" Balent, who I am sure needs no introduction).

Bruce is worried that this look is "too fancy." I am more concerned by the fact that it is "too stupid," "too ugly," and looks "too much like Batman is being sucked down the drain."

I don't really see how this design would hinder agility more than the pointy ones.

We have the hilarious bat-emblam-as-brooch look going on again here, and we have a right shoulder adornment that I cannot figure out at all. I am also not sure how he puts the boots on.

Oh, I don't know if it sacrifices all of the fear factor. I would be pretty scared if I saw anyone wearing this. Because they would look crazy. I am picturing this entire suit being made out of crushed velvet in royal blue and shiny grey.

Bruce Wayne and I clearly have different definitions of "good."

This is...I just...

And you know if 1995 dudes were looking at this page and saying "Oh man, that is so wicked!"

And in case you were wondering what it might look like in red:

How would he even fit in the Batmobile with those things on his shoulders?

But wait, it gets worse:

It certainly is memorable, but I don't know about striking. Confusing is a better adjective. Why would he need hooks all the way up his thighs?

I am trying to picture Batman, whenever this was supposed to be (the past), sketching this thing. And being ok with it. Considering it.

I think I am actually going to keep this page in a drawer somewhere so when my future children ask me what the 90s were like I'll just show them that. And they will cry.

I would say it is more than "verging" on the bizarre. It has kicked bizarre in the nuts and just kept running. As for not being terrifying, well...I wouldn't feel comfortable if I was cornered at a party by someone wearing it.

But how about the Donnie Darko rabbit look?:

It also looks very uncomfortable. And I doubt it breathes well.

Y'know, even if you did as he suggests and combine the best elements of each of these designs, you would still have a truly hideous costume.

There were also some Robin costume concepts, which were...not great...

So there are a bunch of reasons why the 1990s was an ugly and regrettable decade for superhero comics.To DC's credit, at least they just put out this Elseworld book of crazy 90s costumes instead of actually changing Batman's costume to one of these. At least until Azrael showed up.

A Bit of a 90s Palate-Cleanser.

Welcome to 90s Week at Living Between Wednesdays! This whole idea was inspired by a collection we acquired recently at Strange Adventures, where a guy who had been buying comics at another store for over twenty years had picked up his comics faithfully every week or so, read them once, then stored them back in the bags he brought them home in, receipts and all. Each of us picked a bag at random to review, which we’ll be doing later this week in lieu of reviewing new stuff.  Until then, we’ll be talking about all things 90s, so feel free to put on a Full House rerun, rock out to the Stone Temple Pilots’ Core, and strut your stuff in your HyperColour T-shirt. 

For my introductory 90s Week post, I’m going to discuss five titles that may have slipped under some fans’ radar, as the creators of these books were generally known for more famous works. Obviously, it’s more fun to have a go at the crappier offerings of the decade, but we’ll get to that in due time, and I thought it might be nice to start things off on a more positive note. So, in no particular order…

Captain America by Mark Waid and Ron Garney: Taking the reins from longtime writer Mark Gruenwald, the new creative team hit the Star-Spangled Avenger like a much-needed shot of Super-Soldier Serum. Cap’s new adventures were tightly plotted and fast paced, reducing the character’s penchant for patriotic speeches and returning him to the frantic action he was originally known for. First, in Operation Rebirth, Cap and his back-from-the-dead love interest Sharon Carter were forced to team up with the Red Skull to stop a group of Nazis from using a Cosmic Cube to reshape reality to their purposes. In the second storyline, Man Without A Country, Cap was exiled from American soil for teaming up with the Skull, but he still had to find a way to stop robotic villain Machinesmith from assassinating Bill Clinton. Unfortunately, the poorly-timed and thoroughly godawful Heroes Reborn relaunch of Captain America derailed the Waid/Garney express just as it was building up renewed fan interest in the title. The duo returned to the book when Heroes Reborn ended, but the book never quite regained its momentum. The full run is once again available in the Operation Rebirth collection, and if you’re one of the many fans of Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting’s current Cap adventures, you owe it to yourself to check out the best the previous decade had to offer.

1963 by Alan Moore and Friends: If Supreme was Alan Moore’s tribute to the Silver Age of DC, then 1963 was his salute to the Mighty Marvel Age of Comics. Published as six separate issues with different protagonists taking part in a larger, interconnected plot, 1963 had a little something for everyone who loved the classic Marvel archetypes. Mystery Incorporated was his homage to the Fantastic Four, The Fury was an acrobatic wisecracker a la Spider-Man or Daredevil, and Horus: Lord of Light riffed on Thor and his godly supporting cast…you get the idea. The art chores were handled by a who’s who of past Moore collaborators, like Steve Bissette, Rick Veitch, and John Totleben. Presented as highlights from the fictional Image Comics published thirty years earlier, 1963 was to eventually contrast the heroes of a more innocent decade with the ultraviolent Image heroes of 1993 in a concluding chapter—the 1963 Double Image Annual. Image founders like Todd MacFarlane and Jim Lee were on tap to provide art for the issue, which sadly never saw print for a variety of reasons, including Moore’s falling-out with co-creator Bissette. Damn shame, though, since any one of these issues provides enough material for a dozen lesser writers to crank out stories for years to come…much like anything Moore writes, really.

Unknown Soldier by Garth Ennis and Killian Plunkett: While he and artist Steve Dillon were creating the most entertaining blasphemy ever seen month after month in Preacher, Garth Ennis still found time to revisit one of DC’s classic World War II heroes in this gritty, suspenseful four-parter. A lonely, Mulderesque FBI agent is put on the trail of Codename Unknown Soldier, a shady operative who vanished into obscurity following the end of WWII, becoming a covert assassin who took part in pretty much all of the US’s dirty dealings from 1946 to the present (the present being 1997, of course). It’s sort of like Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz’s Shadowplay—The Secret Team in Brought To Light crossed with a particularly great X-Files episode. Ennis adds a final twist to the mystery of the Soldier’s identity that is somehow both satisfying and maddening at the same time.

Untold Tales of Spider-Man Annual #1 by Kurt Busiek and Mike Allred: For a good stretch in the 90s, UTOS was the only remotely readable Spidey title. The stories were sandwiched between existing continuity from Spidey’s early years, and made for a good antidote to the Clone Saga and all the foolishness that came with it. However, everything awesome about the title was on full display in this double-sized issue, drawn by Allred and inked by Marvel vet Joe Sinnott. The story dealt with Webhead’s rivalry with the Human Torch, resulting in Spidey asking Susan Storm out on a date (mostly to piss off her brother). Sue, feeling neglected by Reed and not married yet, agrees to join the Wall-crawler at a local pizza joint. Meanwhile, the Torch summons Sue’s super-stalker, Namor, and tells him that Spider-Man has kidnapped her. Good old-fashioned misunderstandings and mayhem ensue. It’s pretty tough to read this issue without a big goofy grin plastered across your mug. 

The Copybook Tales, by J. Torres and Tim Levins: Back before 80s nostalgia, fanboy humour, and nonstop pop culture references were commonplace, Canadian creators Torres and Levins indulged in all of the above with this charming black-and-white series from Slave Labor Graphics (now available in one volume from Oni Press). The series followed the semi-fictionalized misadventures of two would-be comic creators, Jamie and Thatcher, caught between their desire to grow up once and for all and the relentless pull of nostalgia. Told both in flashbacks to the guys’ misspent youth scouring back-issue bins and agonizing over girls, and in the present, where they struggle with the perils of responsibility, The Copybook Tales wonderfully balanced nerdy humour, twentysomething angst, and a very relatable coming-of-age story.

IT'S 90s WEEK!

When the big hand is on Carnage and the little hand is on Azrael, that means it is 90s o'clock! And that means it is time to launch into Living Between Wednesday's first official 90s WEEK! We're gonna strap on a million buckles and belts, glue some spikes to our shoulders, grow our hair in the back and party like it's 2099 all week.

Can you handle it?

Archie Sunday: The Triple Threats of Riverdale

It's been three years since the first Disney High School Musical movie was released. Three movies later the kids have all grown up, and are moving on to star in indie films or more mature Hollywood fare. The trend is over.

That means it's the perfect time for Archie Comics to jump on the bandwagon.

 

The Archie kids decide to put on a High School musical, because that's what kids do these days when they're not texting jpegs on their mp3-pods. The gang throws around some ideas of musicals they could blatantly rip-off, and we get to see Archie being his usual skeevy self.

 

"The Little Mermaid—topless! Or The Sound of Music—topless! Les Miserables—only, here's the catch—the girls are topless!"

Christ. You know while Archie's saying that, he's just unabashedly staring at Betty and Veronica's boobs, never looking away, even when they're like, "Hello? My eyes are up here!"

Chuck and Nancy suggest West Side Story, which would rule!

Nancy is like, "By putting on this musical, we could subtly examine the racial tension experienced by members of the Riverdale community, and create a dialogue about how..."

And the rest of the gang is like, "Nope!"

Instead they decide on a Grease-style musical, 'cause that's real current. Every twelve-year-old girl these days has a poster of John Travolta on her wall.

The whole gang pitches in, with the regular cast of jerks—Archie, Betty & Veronica and Jughead—doing the music and choreography and relegating the rest of the kids to the crappier jobs. Dilton does the lighting, even though it's been established that he's an accomplished musician and basically a hit-writing machine. But make the nerd do the technical work, right Riverdale douchebags?

Moose and Midge collaborate on costume-making, which is actually pretty adorable. They slave away in front of sewing machines while Archie sits around going "What rhymes with Jalopy? Girl with no toppy?"

Archie actually complements Moose and Midge's hard work, albeit while staring directly Midge's chest. He inevitably ruins the moment by yelling, "I LOVE BAZOOMS!" and then doing a cartwheel off the stage.

So, their musical blows. It's completely derivative, and the lyrics are brutal.

Plus, Archie is popping boners through the whole thing.

Zac Effron, he ain't.

Quit Harshin' on the Comic Relief (and More!)

Just a quick one today, partially because I was slack on the reviews this week and so am appending them to this post and partially because I think that I'm going to save some of the things that I was thinking about this week for a future theme week (that's right, we got plenty of those suckers in the works. Just wait and see).

What I was thinking about was the poor neglected state of the comic relief character in comics. Derided (Bouncing Boy), abused (Blue Beetle), written out of continuity (Bat-Mite) or given a dose of grim 'n gritty (poor ol' Speedball), the comic relief character is not doing so well in current comics. This is a shame, I say, because done right a comic relief character can serve to take the starch out of even the most determinedly serious crusader for justice, something that some heroes (*cough*batman*cough*) sorely need from time to time.

And so I give you one of the very best comic relief characters ever, Mr. Johnny Thunder, a guy who has had virtually all of the above happen to him (I don't know about you but I reckon that Alzheimer's iss about as grim and  gritty as it gets). Back in the day, though, he was a force to be reckoned with, a bowtie-wearing sap who was too stupid to remember that he was virtually omnipotent with the help of his mystic pink thunderbolt. A guy whose idea of a good disguise a cap and gown, red hair and a black moustache, because the point of a disguise is for them not to recognize you, right? Johnny Thunder filled the role of the stupid but well-meaning doofus better than virtually anyone since, and for that I salute him.

But if you need any more proof that Johnny Thunder was comic gold, just check out his finest moment, from All-Star ComicsI No. 23, the first appearance of the Psycho-Pirate:

Eeee! Keep on buffoonin', Johnny Thunder.

And now:

John Buys Comics and Sends Geoff Johns Some Mixed Messages

Atomic Robo: Shadow From Beyond Time No. 3 (of 5)

Man, every time this comic comes out I’m just going to gush all over the place. I know that I have a lot of love for a lot of comics but I think that if I were able to compel everyone who reads this to pick up just one book then it would be this one. And this issue is self-contained enough to read by itself! Buy it… buuuuuuuy iiiiiiit…

And just in case my amazing powers of suggestion/persuasion aren’t enough, I’ll get you up to speed: Atomic Robo, brainchild of Dr. Nikola Tesla, is scrapping with a Lovecraftian horror that transcends time. So Lovecraftian, in fact, that it spent the first two issues possessing the head of HP Lovecraft himself, which is something that I have yet to see Cthulhu do. Having defeated the creature in 1926, Robo and some of his Fightin’ Scientists now have to fight a smarter iteration of the thing in 1957. Trust me, it’s delicious: terrific dialogue, crazy monsters, beautiful art, cheap 1950s gas… The Clevinger/Wegener/Pattison/Powell team are a comics-making juggernaut.

Buuuuy iiiiiit…

Blackest Night: Tales of the Corps No. 2 (of 3)

This is the comic that I specifically requested from DC and then completely missed when the first issue came out last week. I’m so good at this. Well, since I won’t be seeing issue numba 1 for a week or so yet I’ll just ignore its existence long enough to talk about this’un.

Yep, it’s a good time, just as I’d figured. It’s always fun to check out the backgrounds of some of the crazy aliens that are always flying around in the background of any scene of Lantern-on-Lantern violence. This issue we’ve got Red Lantern Bleez, the skeleton-wings lady (question: Red Lanterns are basically mindless rage-bags, so who creates those nifty custom costumes?), Orange Lantern Blume, the keen giant head that Larfleeze is all the time siccing on folks and… Carol Ferris.

Booooooooooooooooo…

Bad Geoff Johns! Carol Ferris has been a Star Sapphire for about 700 years already and this story contains nothing new or the least bit fun. I’m interested in this comic for crazy tales of crazy aliens, like I said above, not a pre-established character talking to a ring for eight pages. Seriously, this could have been edited down to about two pages (or possibly three panels: “Carol Ferris, joint the Star Sapphires!” “No!” “But if you don’t, Hal Jordan gonna die!” “Okay then!”) and stuck in any issue of Green Lantern or Green Lantern Corps from the last year. Or serialized over eight issues - it’s not like Carol is doing anything else in the DCU. Stop advancing your plot in my stand-alone! Whine! Complain!

Other than that, good comic.

Gotham City Sirens No. 2

SECOND ISSUE OF JUDGEMENT: Well, there’s more T&A in this issue, fer sure, if I’m counting that against it. Which I think I am, because my cynical side claims that the T and the A are two of the major reasons that this comic is being produced. But there’s a lot of Harley Quinn, and I even liked her in Countdown. Does that balance? Even if it’s mostly her T and her A? Guh.

Anyway, here I am getting caught up on ideological issues when I should just settle this on the concrete evidence of the paper artifact in my hands. Well, how is it, Johnathan? Enh. It looks nice but the plot is pretty unenthralling, to say the least. I liked Catwoman’s lie about Batman’s identity and I like the Grey Hoodie Gang as minor antagonists but the main bad guy is Hush (minus 50 points) who is masquerading as Bruce Wayne (minus 7 million points for needlessly complicating things in the Bat-family books just as they seem to be running smoothly) and if there’s any one villain that should have been killed off by now, it’s Hush. Black Lanterns? Anybody?

Hey, maybe it’ll get good someday but I’m not willing to stick things out. So yeah, I’m saving four bucks next month.

JUDGEMENT PASSED.

Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds No 5 (of 5! Woo!)

Heee! Final Crisis is complete! In the most awesome way possible!

Man, forget drawing every Legionnaire over the course of the series, I think that Perez might’ve done it in this issue alone. This is definitely a fantastic effort by everyone involved, and Johns has managed to clear up all of the lingering loose ends regarding the Time Trapper, Superboy Prime, Superboy Regular, the Legion and its place in the various multiverses…

And speaking of the multiverse, the implication of all of the alternate Legions showing up is that they all exist out there somewhere - even the 5 Years Later Legion, which some were speculating that the Action Comics Adult Legion had retconned out of existence. Hooray for inclusiveness!

And hooray for three Brainiacs 5! Hooray for the ultimate fate of Superboy Prime! Hooray for stopping while I haven’t really spoiled anything!

Hooray!

We Kill Monsters No. 1 (of 6)

There are a lot of small comics companies doing a lot of nice work lately, for which I am highly thankful. Of all of these, Red 5 Comics might just be starting to pull ahead of the pack in my eyes. To begin with, they have Atomic Robo, which you may recall me gushing at length about earlier. And now here comes We Kill Monsters.

I can't say what it is about a comic where two auto mechanic brothers discover the existence of a race of blue-blooded, three-eyed monsters and start fighting them with pickup trucks and shovels and the mutated arm that one of them has acquired. Oh wait - I did say it. Blue-collar monster fighting by a couple of well-written characters, yeah. Plus the art and the colours are loverly.

Oh, and there's a romantic subplot shaping up, if you're into sappiness. Not that I am. At all. (sighhhh... they look like they'll make such a nice couple...)

The Life and Times of Savior 28 No. 4 - Still liking this, but remind me never to read it last. This is a damn depressing comic at times.

Green Lantern No. 44 - Zombie Martian Manhunter Vs. Green Lantern and the Flash! Highly enjoyable! Terrific ending! Scar vomits more than ever! That last one was not a point in the comics favour!

Dethklok Versus the Goon - Well, I love Metalocalypse and I love The Goon, so how could this go wrong? Well, it didn’t, but it didn’t go completely right either. Everyone was acting on character and there were some good lines and the expected massive bloodshed. It just didn’t… mesh. I think it’s the fact that Dethklok was wandering around in the Goon’s world without adopting his art style, which is just rude, not like that nice Hellboy character who visited a few years back. So: good enough but not as good as I’d hoped.

Invincible No. 64 - Kirkman you crazy bastard. Good show.

Batman: Streets of Gotham - I'm playing catchup on a lot of fronts, it seems. Just read the first two issues and they weren't bad, thhough I'm sad to see that this is where that Hush malarky started up. In any case: it's a good look at Gotham as a whole, with alla its crazy vigilantes and villains and crazies. And the Manhunter backup is really super fun. Hooray for the return of Jane Doe!

Action Comics No. 879 - Good stuff, same as always. I just want to note that the Captain Atom backup is great! It makes no sense but I know that it will eventually! I love that sort of thing!

Wednesday Comics No. 3 - Upside-down Batman! Dr. Canus! Pa Kent's facial expression! Java's inquiry! Strange Adventure! Future Flash! Two separate alien insect monsters! And all the rest! Definitely enough delight for my dime.

Superman/Batman No. 62 - A couple weeks late on this one but I'd just like to pipe up and call it a fun little story.

Good night everybody!

It's Our Third Anniversary!

It's Living Between Wednesdays' Third Anniversary!!! To celebrate we are looking back at our favourite LBW posts of all time.

AND...we are also having a contest! All you have to do to enter is leave a comment at the end of this post with a link to your favourite comic blog post(s). It can be your own blog, it can be someone else's blog! We are celebrating the comic blog community here! The winner will get a SIGNED copy of Dawyn Cooke's new book, Parker: The Hunter, and a SIGNED copy of Faith Erin Hicks' awesome book, The War At Ellsmere! Probably some other goodies too!

Big thanks to everyone for reading this blog, and leaving comments, and thanks to all the comic creators who have allowed us to interview them. Extra big thanks to Paul Pettipas for building and maintaining this site for us for zero dollars, and to Matt for designing the logo. And a special shout-out to the guys at The Dollar Bin for being so supportive, the Newsarama bloggers for linking to us pretty regularly, Chris Sims' at the Invincible Super Blog for sending a lot of traffic our way, and especially Calum Johnston at Strange Adventures comic shop for being awesome all the time.

So here we go with our favourite posts. I have "remastered" some of the older ones to include alt-text on the images! Enjoy!

FROM RACHELLE:

HOT Action Comics

This stands as the most viewed post in LBW history. It got linked on a lot of sites, including a lot of sex and erotica sites, and still gets lots of hits every week (mostly on the old site). It also gets a lot of traffic from people searching for "superman porn."

Can We Talk About Something Else?

This was one of the first big deal posts that I did, in that it got linked from a lot of places and it brought a lot of traffic to my site. For that reason, I will always be fond of it.

Rating The Super Hunks: Daredevil and Rating The Super Hunks: Namor

The Rating The Super Hunks feature is one of my favourite things to write, but these posts also take me a really long time (mostly because of all the image hunting). These two are my favourites. And the Daredevil one took me hours and hours and hours because I was obsessed with having a perfect cross-section of images from different eras.

The Prop Comedy Stylings of Superman

World's Grossest Detective

Superman Plays British

The DC Showcase Presents books are obviously very inspiring to the humour-based comic book blogger. Of all the posts I did that used panels from the Showcase books, these are probably my favourites.

Superman and Batman Quit Earth, Not Each Other

Gigantic Fun With the Super Sons!

I really can't say enough about how awesome Bob Haney is or how thankful I am that he wrote comics and that I can blog about them. Bob Haney makes my job easy. I've done a lot of posts about Bob Haney comics, but these two are my favourites.

Superman Gives Batman His Heart

The Bride of Batman

World's Finest #71: Teaming Up to Confuse Lois

I would be pretty content just writing a blog about Superman/Batman team-ups. I have done a ton of posts about the World's Finest duo, so it took awhile to find my favourites, but I would say these three stand out.

Who Needs an MBA?

This post did not seem to get a lot of attention or views, but I really like it. I wrote it from the computer lab at school.

Captain America #33 in 30 Seconds

This was an entry I did for Chris Sims' annual contest in 2008. I am especially proud of it because it earned comments from both Steve Epting AND Ed Brubaker!

The Supergirl From Krypton Meets Her Asshole Cousin

I am surprised that it took me so long to do a post about this comic because it is one of my favourite all-time stories (to make fun of).  

Thunder=Stolen

I want to acknowledge this one because Dave did such an awesome job on the fake Marvel variant covers. Unfortunately, we ended up posting this the same week that Chris Sims posted his own version of Marvel Hobos. Because he spies on me.

I also want to acknowledge my favourite Johnathan posts (which is really hard because they are all so good. I think these three certainly merit special mention:

The Hair Continuum

Thinking Hypothetically: The JSA (Part 1)

Thinking Hypothetically: The JSA (Part 2)

And Tiina's recent post on Heart Throbs #119 was definitely great:

Fun With Romance Comics: Two Awful Girls for Every Dumbass Boy!

FROM DAVE (VIA RACHELLE):

YOU THINK YOU GOT WHAT IT TAKES?!

Dave told me that this is his favourite LBW post because it's about the greatest thing that ever happened to him (he may not have said exactly that). I still love this commercial, though, and a brush with a local celebrity is always exciting.

FROM TIINA:

Happy three year anniversary, Living Between Wednesdays! Our blog is a toddler! Although in blog years, it's probably in its early 30s, makes a comfortable salary at its graphic design job, just bought a house, but still parties pretty hard on the weekends.

Since the early days of LBW, I've always loved Rachelle's Archie posts. Archie Sunday: Rockin' With Dilton has everything you'd expect in an Archie comic: the Riverdale kids being sociopaths, tired cliches and totally unbelievable plot lines, and Dilton being rad.

My favourite thing I've posted since I joined the LBW team is the post about the New Kids on the Block and Richie Rich team-up. Because it's as awesome as it is nonsensical.

FROM JOHNATHAN:

Sheesh, three years? I've been flailing around on the Internet for that long? Makes a guy feel... venerable. And speaking of flailing, here are some posts that I especially liked that I found while haphazardly trawling through the archives:

Review of Future Current Events - Mostly I like how the graphic on this one turned out - narcissism! Geoff Johns' Legion of Super-Rejects under a microscope!

The Forbidden Loves of Superman - It's only shame that keeps him in check, so heap it on.

Review of Something Very Perplexing - Old ads make for many questions.

A Look at the Nineteen-Nineties - See how Captain Atom chairs a budget meeting! All the thrills of the 90s, today!

Review of Burial Customs - What do you do with a dead Legionnaire? Shoot them into space, of course.

Review of the Legion of Super Heroes - Epically long, so I have to make sure that it gets read.

Future Zoo: Review of the Parakat - Superboy used to run into a lot of variations on the tiger, for some reason. Here's one from the super-fun first appearance of Star Boy.

Review of Juvenile Humour - I can't always be highb

Review of Some Robots - Part three in a series that asks, "how much can Johnathan talk about robots that appear in a single panel each?"

Make Dragons History (Ed. - Hey, that's one of my posts! Thanks Johnathan!) No problem! I liked it!

Review of the (Best Ever)s - They really were.

Super Human Detritus of the Thirtieth Century: Alaktor and his Marvel Belt - I like Alaktor because he's not even very good at being a villain.

Most of these, you'll notice, are mine, from back in the "Paul and John Review" days of yore. This is mostly because I am disorganized and had to go with what I remembered. Rachelle has some damn fine posts out there that I just didn't get to go through in time to single out, while Tiina and Dave have been delivering solid stuff from day one. I think that Dave has basically managed to sell me something with every other post, in fact. Go team!

And of course our greatest adventure was when we unmasked the Phantom that was haunting Old Man Johnston's Comic Shoppe.