Another great article Tom! I really have enjoyed how you and your creative teams have brought back obscure golden age characters into the mainstream: like in the recent Marvel 1000 (the 3 X and the black mask) from Marvel Comics 1 but even (and I did not know they were pre-existing until i did some research) like John Steele and John Aman that Ed Brubaker brought back..and my personal fave the Roger Stern Marvels story where he made a connection between Makkari and some golden age speedster heroes (as we as his OG character that fits this mould - Dr. Druid).
Very cool and made me dig through reprints and back issues. Lots of fun. Roy Thomas was a master of this (as was more recently Jeff Parker with his wonderful Agents of Atlas series). Hope to see more of this as the Marvel U is a rich tapestry of cool sometimes forgotten characters.
You know I always wondered what happened with that Miracleman page, because even back then Moore's text flow was usually very easy to follow, but that panel, ugh. These days they would have discussed that and compressed the text into less captions, but back then even getting the art xeroxed was a pain, depending on where you lived.
This one is packed with interesting stuff! Miracleman absolutely blew my mind as a kid, and I'm very nervous/excited for whatever comes next. I found Miracleman after reading "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" which was the first comic book to evoke genuine emotion from little me and made me realize there could be more to comics than Green Lantern dodging yellow things, or whatever. Also, I think "Miracleman" is a better name for the character than "Marvelman," though that might be chalked up to preferring whichever you grew up with.
Like you, I secretly think I have the best idea for the direction Superman should take (I think my "Superman" movie would rock the box office!!!) Unlike you, I don't have decades of experience and a reputation as a master of comics... so while my (very cool) ideas will remain locked in my head excepting the occasional ramble to my patient girlfriend, I feel compelled to use this week's question to basically follow up on what you've already written:
What would you specifically do with Superman? Besides removing his marriage and child and returning his secret identity.
Been catching up on these as life has been busy. Really love reading all these and learning all this comic history!
A question came me to recently due to a little book sale in one of my college buildings, which contained the pleasant surprise of for some reason having comics -- not just those dreary textbooks. Anyways, I picked up quite a few of DC’s old Elseworld one-shots, alongside a tpb collecting Matt Wagner’s three part “Faces” story. How come one-shots like these aren’t really that common anymore? I know Marvel had some as well - I’m sure I’ve seen some Captain America/Punisher and Daredevil/Spider-Man ones here and there. Now they just aren’t that common. Does this boil down to the same issue with larger OGNs in that they are just too expensive, or has something in the publishing realm shifted? Going along with this, you don’t see to many small trade collections collecting short story arcs like “Faces” either.
Midway through typing this I realized some of my words should be eaten, as DC is currently doing their big “Batman: One Bad Day” thing which is comprised of a bunch of larger one-shots. So maybe they aren’t that uncommon anymore, but I’d say overall they’ve been relatively few and far between recently, and DC used to publish a lot more prestige one shots than just Batman.
Wow! I've been wondering about "Phil DePages" since 1997. That's a great little miniseries.
Another great article Tom! I really have enjoyed how you and your creative teams have brought back obscure golden age characters into the mainstream: like in the recent Marvel 1000 (the 3 X and the black mask) from Marvel Comics 1 but even (and I did not know they were pre-existing until i did some research) like John Steele and John Aman that Ed Brubaker brought back..and my personal fave the Roger Stern Marvels story where he made a connection between Makkari and some golden age speedster heroes (as we as his OG character that fits this mould - Dr. Druid).
Very cool and made me dig through reprints and back issues. Lots of fun. Roy Thomas was a master of this (as was more recently Jeff Parker with his wonderful Agents of Atlas series). Hope to see more of this as the Marvel U is a rich tapestry of cool sometimes forgotten characters.
You know I always wondered what happened with that Miracleman page, because even back then Moore's text flow was usually very easy to follow, but that panel, ugh. These days they would have discussed that and compressed the text into less captions, but back then even getting the art xeroxed was a pain, depending on where you lived.
This one is packed with interesting stuff! Miracleman absolutely blew my mind as a kid, and I'm very nervous/excited for whatever comes next. I found Miracleman after reading "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" which was the first comic book to evoke genuine emotion from little me and made me realize there could be more to comics than Green Lantern dodging yellow things, or whatever. Also, I think "Miracleman" is a better name for the character than "Marvelman," though that might be chalked up to preferring whichever you grew up with.
Like you, I secretly think I have the best idea for the direction Superman should take (I think my "Superman" movie would rock the box office!!!) Unlike you, I don't have decades of experience and a reputation as a master of comics... so while my (very cool) ideas will remain locked in my head excepting the occasional ramble to my patient girlfriend, I feel compelled to use this week's question to basically follow up on what you've already written:
What would you specifically do with Superman? Besides removing his marriage and child and returning his secret identity.
Long live Phil DePages!
Been catching up on these as life has been busy. Really love reading all these and learning all this comic history!
A question came me to recently due to a little book sale in one of my college buildings, which contained the pleasant surprise of for some reason having comics -- not just those dreary textbooks. Anyways, I picked up quite a few of DC’s old Elseworld one-shots, alongside a tpb collecting Matt Wagner’s three part “Faces” story. How come one-shots like these aren’t really that common anymore? I know Marvel had some as well - I’m sure I’ve seen some Captain America/Punisher and Daredevil/Spider-Man ones here and there. Now they just aren’t that common. Does this boil down to the same issue with larger OGNs in that they are just too expensive, or has something in the publishing realm shifted? Going along with this, you don’t see to many small trade collections collecting short story arcs like “Faces” either.
Midway through typing this I realized some of my words should be eaten, as DC is currently doing their big “Batman: One Bad Day” thing which is comprised of a bunch of larger one-shots. So maybe they aren’t that uncommon anymore, but I’d say overall they’ve been relatively few and far between recently, and DC used to publish a lot more prestige one shots than just Batman.