BATMAN #47 FACSIMILE EDITION DC COMICS
More good old nostalgia from the Golden Age of comics. And, whether we realized it at the time or not, this one issue was going to bring some closure to the Batman. Well, at least until other writers started adding to his origin tale, or revamping it, or updating it, or just totally rewriting it all together. But here, Bill Finger, along with Lew Sayre Schwartz and Charles Paris, not only give us a more in-depth look at the tragic life of Bruce Wayne but bring us the conclusion to the Batman’s quest. His parents murderer is finally caught and executed! This, along with a Catwoman story and an outside of Gotham story fill out the issue nicely. But by far, the best part of the issue is the ads. Not so much ads but short one page stories where the company mascots deal with all sort of trouble. Sam Spade for Wildroot Cream Oil, Bazooka the Atom Bubble Boy for Bazooka Bubble Gum, Popsicle Pete meeting Baseball star Bob Feller, and “U.S.” Royal using his jet propelled bike to stop a lunatic! In these days, advertisers really knew how to appeal to their audience. 9 out of 10 Grahams.
GODZILLA #4 IDW PUBLISHING
While after a poor start in issue #1, the story has started to include Godzilla more. So that’s a plus. But while G-Force’s meta-humans are fighting (and I use that term loosely) we finally get a new kaiju for Godzilla to trade blows with. Unfortunately, he doesn’t show up until the last page and it’s nothing to get excited about. I gave issue #1 a 5 out of 10 Grahams and I can’t say that this title has improved any. 5 out of 5 Grahams.
VAMPIRESS CARMILLA #28 WARRANT PUBLICATIONS
More black & white tales of horror in a 1970’s magazine format. Sounds good to me. Plus some of the tales present some interesting takes on classic fairy takes. Don Glut and Nik Poliwko’s version of Snow White is interesting. While J.W. Ford and Mikael Bergkvist’s look at a very famous sword makes for a fascinating prequel. And no one is going to complain about a Dr. Frankenstein during the Spanish Civil War by Bambos Georgiou and Mansyur Daman. A bunch of fun horror hosted by an enchanting young lady. 9 out of 10 Grahams.
DOCTOR WHO THE PRISON PARADOX #1 TITAN COMICS
The 15th Doctor may no longer be on Disney Plus but he has returned to Titan Comics with companion, Belinda Chandra. Dan Watters story flows like an actual televised episode with all the classic tropes. While investigating the missing Earth, Belinda is captured and the Doctor follows to the Shadow Proclamation orbiting prison of Panoptopolis. We get the Doctor rescueing his companion without access to the Tardis. We get a grouping of former alien lifeforms along with serveral in the backrounds. An apparent madman in charge with an underlying feeling that something else is going on just underneath the main story. A good start to what seems to be a classic episode. 8 out of 10 Grahams.
DC FINEST SUPERFRIENDS FURY OF THE SUPER FOES TPB
No matter what version of the Super Friends cartoon you grew up with, they were a huge part of growing up in the 1970’s and 80’s. The original series, the All-New Super Friends Hour, Challenge of the Super Friends, The World’s Greatest Super Friends, SuperFriends, The Legendary Super Powers Show, and Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians combined to cover a 12 year run from 1973 to 1985. And starting in August of 1976, DC Comics decided to capitalize on it’s success. And collected here is the first 26 issues along with some of the oversized Collector’s Editions. And with the heroes getting Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog as trainees, so did the super-villains as we were introduced to Toy Boy, Kitten, Chick, Honeysuckle, and Saradine. (And before we go any further, let me remind you that this was a simplier time.) Issue 3 featured cameos by many of the Justice League. Golden Age Heroes TNT and Dan the Dynamite, Dr. Mist, an early variant version of the Global Guardians, all showed up. The Super Friends comic was not only kid friendly but was a great introduction to the much larger DC Universe. But what was also insane was that the comic gave us the answer to what happened to Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog as at the end of issue #9 Marvin is deciding whether to accept the scholorship offers he has recieved to Ive, Raleigh, and Gotham Universities and Wendy was admitted to the Amazon College on Paradise Island. It also introduces us to the Wonder Twins and gives up the reasoning for the switch in characters on the cartoon. By the way, fun fact, in case you didn’t know … Wendy is the niece of Harvey Harris, a detective who once trained Batman when he was still a teenager. It was postulated in an editorial column that she may have been the Earth 1 version of Wendi Harris Tyler, wife of the first Hourman. Marvin (who was given the last name of White in the comics) was the son of Diana Prince, the nurse whose name Wonder Woman took when she came to Man’s World, and her husband Dan White. This one can’t help but get a 10 out of 10 Grahams.
