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Detective 395
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65 posts in this topic

It's almost like 255 was too late to be reprinted. In the sense that the treasuries were about over and 80s/90s reprints would be more likely to be something like All Man-Bat stories or 251 inserted in Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told, but a solo "werewolf" story just doesn't have a place to be reprinted.

 

I'm a big fan of 255. Every time I add one to the stock I reread it.

 

I don't think you can read any of these stories for the first time as a 40 or 50 year old and have them impact you the way they would if you were a kid or even maybe an 18 year old.

 

I think the idea of Tec 395 reading like a Hammer -script is a good one. If I had a copy handy I'd look through it to try to point out why I think it is a really classic story, if only for certain pages that are great, not necessarily the story as a whole.

 

I imagine you'd get a lot more letter column impact for Batman 217 over Detective 395. They probably ran one of those double letter columns for the reaction to 217.

 

Btw, I feel like 397 is a bit under-rated. No one ever talks about it but IIRC there are a few sort of interior monologue moments for Batman that are more bad and kind of a departure from what came before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

397 :cloud9:

 

...GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

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Batman 243 is another I'll reread every time, even more than 244.

 

Absolutely! I think so much of the appeal for me in the Ra's story is those issues between 232 and 244 (as well as the prelude in 'Tec 411) and how O'Neil weaves such an expansive, unlikely plot while patching together a fun cast characters. It always seems fresh and unpredictable every time I re-read it and is just soaked in Adams's atmosphere.

<3

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It's almost like 255 was too late to be reprinted. In the sense that the treasuries were about over and 80s/90s reprints would be more likely to be something like All Man-Bat stories or 251 inserted in Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told, but a solo "werewolf" story just doesn't have a place to be reprinted.

 

I'm a big fan of 255. Every time I add one to the stock I reread it.

 

I don't think you can read any of these stories for the first time as a 40 or 50 year old and have them impact you the way they would if you were a kid or even maybe an 18 year old.

 

I think the idea of Tec 395 reading like a Hammer -script is a good one. If I had a copy handy I'd look through it to try to point out why I think it is a really classic story, if only for certain pages that are great, not necessarily the story as a whole.

 

I imagine you'd get a lot more letter column impact for Batman 217 over Detective 395. They probably ran one of those double letter columns for the reaction to 217.

 

Btw, I feel like 397 is a bit under-rated. No one ever talks about it but IIRC there are a few sort of interior monologue moments for Batman that are more bad and kind of a departure from what came before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

397 :cloud9:

 

...GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

Just got a copy of 397 off the boards, I'll accelerate that to the top of the reading stack (thumbs u

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397 is one that I'd like to have in newsstand condition..... I just love the cover, and the story inside is well done and doesn't take itself too seriously...... understated but cool. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

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Yeah. Tec 397 is another book that was discreetly ahead of it's time. Most of the comics of the era didn't deal with what was essentially a demented stalker who had a sick (obviously sexual) attraction to a celebrity and lived in an equally sick fantasy world (I can imagine Garth Ennis's take on this story if he wrote it today). Might not have made it passed the code if it was any more obvious. Great color scheme on the cover too.

 

Besides a decent raw one (about 7.5), I have this slabbed 8.5 that I picked up a while ago as a place holder. As it turned out, the book is so nice in hand compared to the scan, I've decided to keep it. It's also really hard to find books from this era with such good page quality.

 

det1.10893a.jpg

 

Bats 243 brings up some special memories for me. My parents bought a copy of this book for me when I was in the 1st grade or so. Being Asian, it was quite a good experience for me to see an Asian character in a comic book that wasn't a bad guy. Seeing this character fighting side by side with Bats and handled in such a respectful way was something I had never seen before. You gotta understand this was still a couple of years before Bruce Lee took the world by storm.

 

Also, Talia never looked hotter.

 

A very tough book to find in high grade due the black cover. At least I haven't seen too many. I've got a nice raw 8.0-8.5 as well as this slabbed 9.0.

 

RAD1BF4720121219_164445.jpg

 

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Bats 255 is one of my all time favorite issues of the O'Neil/Adams run. Holds up even today in my opinion. Really odd that it was never reprinted until the Adams Collected trades.

 

255 is Len Wein. It was reprinted in glorious black and white in the beautiful Titan TPBs of the '80s. The Demon Awakes is the volume in which it appears. Comics.org might list other places it was reprinted. And yes, holds up!

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This is a great discussion.

 

I'm always struck by the effort Adams put into the floor on 243.

 

Thinking about Batman's internal monologue in 243, such as when they are running towards the mountain and he's thinking about the team he's assembled and the danger he's put them in, that's sort of what I was talking about in Tec 397. I feel like we were put more in Batman's mind than in previous iterations of the character.

 

As a younger person, reading this, you are thinking, wow, here's a hyper-competent, awesome man and this is how he thinks and approaches things...

 

Perhaps in earlier comics his thoughts were either "gosh, how can I convince Batwoman that I only promised to marry her under duress" or something ilke that. And his thought process wasn't internal but external, in the way he explained things to Robin.

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I'd have to review some of the Brave and the Bolds but I think it's this more serious, internal approach to Batman that sets apart O'Neil scripts from Bob Haney and another reason why 395 is important.

 

The Haney/Adams BBs don't hold up as well on the whole, but then again I suppose that's understandable since they were written for a slightly less mature audience of that era. The only exception to this is the award winning #79, which is actually not a bad story even by today's standards. I view this issue as a key personnally and one of my favorites. Art wise, BB #93 is Adam's best of the run. Doing both the pencils/inks, you can see how much more mature he'd gotten since BB #79.

 

In an interview, Adams said he insisted that Batman followed two simple rules when he took over the penciling/inking job on this title. They were 1) Batman only appear at the night and 2) only come/go through a window instead of door. I re-flipped through these books after I heard that and indeed it does make difference in furthering Bats away from the campiness of the time. In that same interview, it's what eventually got Adams the gig to work on the other Bat titles when the fans starting writing in.

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I just read DC's The Shadow #1 (70s) and the art was killer and the story sucked. I'm thinking about collecting the run (I believe there were only 12 issues) but with the 1st issue story sucking that bad, I'm kinda hesitant to read the rest.

 

I never read the Batman book with The Shadow crossover so I can't say if it's good or bad. I think there is a Batman crossover in The Shadow book, also.

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I never read the Batman book with The Shadow crossover so I can't say if it's good or bad. I think there is a Batman crossover in The Shadow book, also.

 

Let's put it this way, Irv Novick is no Mike Kaluta.

 

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I never read the Batman book with The Shadow crossover so I can't say if it's good or bad. I think there is a Batman crossover in The Shadow book, also.

 

Let's put it this way, Irv Novick is no Mike Kaluta.

 

Damn his work on the Shadow book is mind-bogglingly good!

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I never read the Batman book with The Shadow crossover so I can't say if it's good or bad. I think there is a Batman crossover in The Shadow book, also.

 

Let's put it this way, Irv Novick is no Mike Kaluta.

 

I can't remember which issue I was reading last night, but I could've sworn it was Adams art: Batman's particular gesture and the familiar swoosh of the cape were dead-on. I flipped back to the title page and sure enough it was your homey Irv. I can't for the life of me remember which book 'cause I seriously thought to take a picture of that one panel and post it (after you beat him down so ruthlessly in the "artist you don't like but have a bunch of issues of" thread), but it seems like it would've been mid-70's. Did Novick perhaps try to cop a bit of that Adams style in the wake of the Neal-volution? Again, I feel Irv was a solid artist, but this particular panel was real Neal.

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I never read the Batman book with The Shadow crossover so I can't say if it's good or bad. I think there is a Batman crossover in The Shadow book, also.

 

Let's put it this way, Irv Novick is no Mike Kaluta.

 

I can't remember which issue I was reading last night, but I could've sworn it was Adams art: Batman's particular gesture and the familiar swoosh of the cape were dead-on. I flipped back to the title page and sure enough it was your homey Irv. I can't for the life of me remember which book 'cause I seriously thought to take a picture of that one panel and post it (after you beat him down so ruthlessly in the "artist you don't like but have a bunch of issues of" thread), but it seems like it would've been mid-70's. Did Novick perhaps try to cop a bit of that Adams style in the wake of the Neal-volution? Again, I feel Irv was a solid artist, but this particular panel was real Neal.

 

Novick/Giordano art was actually quite serviceable at times. GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

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I never read the Batman book with The Shadow crossover so I can't say if it's good or bad. I think there is a Batman crossover in The Shadow book, also.

 

Let's put it this way, Irv Novick is no Mike Kaluta.

 

I can't remember which issue I was reading last night, but I could've sworn it was Adams art: Batman's particular gesture and the familiar swoosh of the cape were dead-on. I flipped back to the title page and sure enough it was your homey Irv. I can't for the life of me remember which book 'cause I seriously thought to take a picture of that one panel and post it (after you beat him down so ruthlessly in the "artist you don't like but have a bunch of issues of" thread), but it seems like it would've been mid-70's. Did Novick perhaps try to cop a bit of that Adams style in the wake of the Neal-volution? Again, I feel Irv was a solid artist, but this particular panel was real Neal.

 

You misunderstood my answer in the other thread. I was giving a direct answer to that poster's particular question. Of all my books, Irv is my least favorite artist when it comes to volume of presence in my collection. I primarily collect BA Bat books so his work shows up a lot. I really couldn't have answered Frank Robbins, whose work is just horrible to me, but is only in a handful of books. You will note I also applauded Novick as being a real workhorse for DC. He is serviceable, but I would definitely put him below either Adams or Aparo. I would lump Jim Mooney in the same category as well, but his volume of work is not as great as Novick's.

 

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