Comic Book Resources

Cool.

Probably slightly more costy than buying the original issues on E-Bay 0r Mile High, but it’ll be nice to have ‘em all in one place. And it’s a great book that deserves to be reprinted.

Now if we can only get DC to looses up it’s restrictions on the other end and print some Golden Age material in showcase format.

Yup. This was announced yesterday in a press release along with some other surprising collections, like the first six issues of the Levitz/Giffen Legion run.

Its not surprising though. Ostrander’s upcoming Suicide Squad mini will be coming out around the same time as the Showcase volume!

Wonder if it’s just a straight reprint of the first 24 issues, or if they’re collecting it sensibly and including the JLI issue that was the other half of that crossover and the Doom Patrol/Suicide Squad special…

(The Deadshot mini is too much to hope for, or maybe in a showcases is too little to hope for for it other than in an actual, color trade.)

(The ideal volune would include those two and run all the way to #26, just before the Janus Directive starts and tell the whole Rick Flag story. But the listed pagecount isn’t enough to get to #26 at all, let alone including those side-stories. Of course, they could stop earlier still, at #20, before the Senator Cray story starts up, and in that case include the also-by-Ostrander Firestorms in which the Squad appeared.)

(The Suicide Squad/Captain Atom/Spectre/Detective Comics ‘crossover’ during Legends isn’t at all essential; the squad’s part (in fact, all four parts) is self-contained as a part of a company-wide crossover can be.)

This book has been annouced for November.
From Blog@Newsarama:

SHOWCASE PRESENTS: SUICIDE SQUAD VOL. 1 TP
Writers: John Ostrander, Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and Paul Kupperberg
Artists: Luke McDonnell, Keith Giffen, Erik Larsen, Dave Hunt, Karl Kesel, Bob Lewis, Al Gordon and Malcolm Jones III
Collects: SUICIDE SQUAD #1-18, the DOOM PATROL AND SUICIDE SQUAD SPECIAL, and a story from JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL #13
$16.99 U.S., 528 pages

AWESOME.

meh, when they bother to reprint more than just one issue of JLI, *then* I’ll get excited.

as for suicide squad, never really got into it.

Ooh, maybe next they’ll release Ostrander and Mandrake’s Spectre run! I’ve been nagging them about that for years.

This just proves it–DC is reading my website! (Well, this and the inclusion of ‘Showcase Presents: Batman and the Outsiders’.) And it’s not unusual at all that it’s not up on DC’s website; Previews is two months in advance, DC’s website is three months in advance, and Amazon’s listings usually go a couple of months beyond that.

Which does sometimes lead to listing of products that never come out, but Marvel’s usually worse about that than DC…where’s my ‘Essential Rampaging Hulk’ and ‘Essential Golden Age’, dammit?

Yes, I saw it yesterday on Newsarama. And in the very same DC press release posted there, DC announced this one too, which really excites the grammar-school kid who lovd this series. I doubt it will hold up as well as Suicide Squad, but still …

SHOWCASE PRESENTS: THE SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER-VILLAINS VOL. 1 TP
Writers: Gerry Conway, David Kraft, Bob Rozakis and Paul Levitz
Artists: Pablo Marcos, Rich Buckler, Arvell Jones, Dick Ayers, Mike Vosburg, Ric Estrada, Bob Smith, Vince Colletta, Bob Layton, Joe Rubinstein, Bob McLeod, Jack Abel, Romeo Tanghal, Joe Orlando, Frank McLaughlin, Ernie Chua and others
Collects: THE SECRET SOCIETY OF SUPER-VILLAINS #1-15, DC SPECIAL #27, DC SPECIAL SERIES #6, SUPER-TEAM FAMILYI #13 and 14, JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #166-168 and a story from CANCELLED COMICS CAVALCADE #2
$16.99 U.S., 520 pages

Rebis, thanks for posting that! We finally get to read the CANCELLED COMICS CAVALCADE #2 story! hooray!

Oh yeah, anyone who hasn’t read Ostrander’s Suicide Squad should. It’s one of the best post-crisis books DC put out.

I loved the original series–some great stories–you might even see my name in there somewhere.

i love the showcase/essential format! this is just the sort of book that it was invented for.

(here is hoping some forward thinking indy freindly publishers get on the bandwagon.. nexus? jon sable? grimjack? zot?)

YES

Back when the Showcase Presents line was first announced — with a clear early focus on Silver Age and Bronze Age material — I was desperately hoping some of DC’s more recent properties would get the cheap black-and-white love, and Suicide Squad was the first title I wished for.

I’m really hoping we’ll get New Teen Titans in this format, as well… and yeah The Spectre and Martian Manhunter would be great as well, but that’s probably hoping for too much.

I’m thinking the art might look better in B/W. It was hard to deal with for me, but I stayed for Ostrander.

SSoSV: “and a story from CANCELLED COMICS CAVALCADE #2″

I have read the story via scans on a webpage (now down). Issue #16 was penciled & inked but not colored, and issue #17 was never inked. I can only assume issue #16 will be the one they print, and not 17. Info about the actual stories can be found at:

Issue 16: http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/bobro/96139800056090.htm
Issue 17: http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/bobro/96199065378826.htm
The back-up stories planned for those issues: http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/bobro/96260760084029.htm

It would be nice if they also put the alternate first issue story that they had published in their DC Fan Magazine, “Amazing World Of DC Comics”.

Anyone know if “DC SPECIAL #27″ os oncluded just because it has Captain Comet? Or is there any SSoSV stuff in that issue, too?

Suicide Squad is great news, but I’m actually more excited about Captain Carrot and Batman and the Outsiders.

But what I really want is Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld!

I’m still holding out for ‘Mazing Man, done up all proper like it should be…

Oh HUZZAH!

meh, when they bother to reprint more than just one issue of JLI, *then* I’ll get excited.

Good point. I was under the impression that there was some royalty problem that stopped them from reprinting comics from this era unless there was a really big demand for them, but if (as this shows) they can then I’d have thought Giffen’s Justice League would be top of the list.

Although personally I’d prefer to keep the colour. Low quality colour (as they originally were) would be fine - like The Return of Superman TPB

Dan

Patrick:
SHOWCASE PRESENTS: MARTIAN MANHUNTER VOL. 1
Written by Jack Miller and others; Art by Joe Certa and others; Cover by Certa

Collecting stories from the late 1950s starring this charter member of the Justice League of America! Adopting the Earthly identity of Police Detective John Jones, the super-hero known as the Martian Manhunter uses his incredible strength, shape-shifting abilities and other powers to combat crime!

DC Universe | 544pg. | B&W | Softcover | $16.99 US

On Sale July 25, 2007

Going by the context of his statement, I think Patrick was specifically referring to the Ostrander/Mandrake MM series, but any spotlight on the character is fine by me. I’d like to see some more reprints of his 90’s series as well, plus the minis from ‘88 and ‘92.

I would point out that the ‘Showcase Presents’ series is in its relative infancy as yet–they’re just getting to the second volume of Batman in June, so getting to the 90s MM series might take a while. But the fact that they’ve got a Volume One does imply that later volumes will follow if it does well, so your dream of 90s Martian Manhunter may yet become a reality.

Ditto with Keith Giffen’s Justice League–my guess is they’d want to go in order, so you’d probably see it around Volume 10 or so. (They’re at 2, now.) Then again, Marvel cut straight to the Claremont X-Men, so you never know…

And I’m guessing that DC is going back to the people they have the higher-royalty deals with, and explaining that the economic realities of comics publishing nowadays makes the old deals unfeasible, and asking people to voluntarily renegotiate their contracts and accept a lower royalty rate. With, I’m sure, the incentive being, “It’s either a lower rate and we reprint the work and you get money, or you stick with the higher rate, and you get a larger percentage of nothing because we can’t reprint the work and make money at that royalty rate.”