The second SP Jonah hex volume keeps getting listed in places, but then again does the canceled Suicide Squad title.

The Hex volume stops being Jonah Hex about two thirds of the way through and fills it out the page count with another western serial that isn't half as entertaining and those "contractual problems" were the reason I've heard of for this odd break and lack of any further volumes.

500 pages of Aparo B&W art? Who'd need a reason to justify THAT?

(Same deal with the second Brave & The Bold volume)

I think DC should put out a couple of volumes of the romance comics myself. and maybe a couple of their various Archie knock-offs like Life With Scooter. Alas, we'll likely not see volumes for the Bob Hope and Jerry Lewis comics....

The ultimate Showcase Presents would of course be DC Showcase Presents DC Showcase.

Yes, I probably am.

I'd love to know more about this Hex legal issue...but being married to a lawyer is the reason for that.

So much of the material back then was fresh, original, and inventive in a way that even guys like Grant Morrison are just aping now. Modern comics writers are just recycling the back-catalog of ideas that Lee, Kirby, Ditko, Kanigher, Haney, Thomas, Broome, Fox, et cetera were coming up with fresh every month. Realizing that I'm reading non-stop regurgitations of the Silver Age has been what's turned me off modern superhero comics, not a general lack of appreciation for the medium. If I want Silver Age comics, they're publishing 1500 pages a month of it (sometimes 2000), and that's all I need.

Someday, someday I'll get around to explaining Silver Age DC superhero comics and how they work. It really isn't obvious to folks used to the modern, more filmic and soap-opera based modes of storytelling.

Oh there definitely is and perhaps its most annoying when an Essential volume contains perhaps 1/3 material worth checking out and 2/3's "We've got to get something on the newsstand!" garbage. Monster of Frankenstein is a great example of this phenomena. I'll still buy an essential if I'm getting that much material that I want but I wouldn't touch one for, say, a one or two issue run by a creator. I'm going to have to think hard before buying Defenders Volume 4 when it gets released...

For the person looking for Essential Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD there is a nice full color trade of all of Steranko's work available for $20. Per page it winds up being twice as expensive as an Essential but it's color and has the good stuff. I'm holding out for a hard cover edition of it since at the rate those are getting done Marvel has to do sometime.

And I'm still unclear on where the great material in the Showcase line is. Very little in that line rises above level of light historical interest and silver age fun (something which has its place). I'm willing to give the Phantom Stranger a chance and Jonah Hex is an obvious one (wasn't there some kind of legal problem which caused the volume to be split there and is holding up later volumes?). If that Suicide Squad volume would ever get released it would be an obvious one...

Obviously comic book fans are a lot more charitable to older material.

Call it "more charitable" I guess. I call it "more likely to ignore."

I though the first Human Torch run was terrible. I absolutely loathe the Kannigher/Andru Wonder Woman, an' think it's a waste of both men's considerable talents. While there's a big contingent of us who really admire the Dick Sprang era Batman, I've never read the later stuff that ended up in the Showcase volumes, and I very rarely hear it discussed. Hoppy the Marvel Bunny went way downhill after he got demoted to Magic Bunny.

The good stuff gets championed, but there doesn't seem to be much point in freaking out about bad comics made by people who are long dead or in their eighties.

But I don't think all of the old material is stuff that you need to be feeling charitable to appreciate.

For instance, most of Roy Thomas and Steve Englehart old Marvel stuff is very good. And they wrote a lot of stuff in a lot of titles. And that is not even mentioning Steve Gerber or Jim Starlin or Don McGregor or the early Claremont. I think there is a lot of post-Lee/Kirby Marvel stuff that is "worthy".

Yep, there is stuff that really is rubbish though. It's very subjetive, but I think Gerry Conway and Len Wein's Marvel work is mediocre at best.

I think Kirby on super-glossy paper would not only “feel” wrong, but not even look as intended.

Agreed, I felt that way about Dark Horse's reprints of Kubert's Tarzan run.

There's always going to be something that's essential to someone. I'm this far away from downloading scans of Nth Man and making my own Essentials volume on Lulu.

I'm very much an Essentials/Showcase Presents junkie, although I don't get everything, and I do seem to be leaning more towards Marvel than DC (which I did when I was a kid, too.) I have the six FF volumes, the eight Amazing Spider-Man, even the three Spectacular Spider-Man volumes (which reveal how rough things were getting, although things could get worse, as we all know.) I also picked up the three Defenders volumes because, well, Gerber, which explains the Man-Thing volume. One volume of Iron Man, all three Dr. Strange.... No Howard The Duck, as I have those in the original.

With DC I'm a bit more towards the fringe -- I have both Teen Titans volumes, one Flash, one Green Lantern, one Wonder Woman (sad to see they started with the fifties reboot), and I would hardly pass up the Supergirl book, or the first Legion volume. But I just picked up the Metamorpho volume, I have the Batman & The Outsiders collection (a chorus is heard going "Whyyy?"), Booster Gold (really the odd man out in this lot), Phantom Stranger, Elongated Man....

One of the things I like about these volumes is that I feel no guilt whatsoever about throwing one in my backpack and reading it in a cafe, or the park, or wherever. A couple of the more cheaply acquired titles have a slightly battered air to them as it is -- a couple are ex-libris. For me that's okay...mainline that nostalgia fix, baby, although they're too thick to roll up and stick in a back pocket (though this does belie the actual care I take of them; no drop-kicking the books into the yard during a rainstorm for me!)

I won't buy every volume that comes out, of course; amongst other things I don't have the room, and for another some things don't get my attention (no Superman, no Batman, no Hulk, no Captain America, and I'm steering clear of X-Men, far clear of Wolverine, so on and forth.) I just want to know where the hell Essential Nick Fury: Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is...!

My students are gluttons, too. Their preferred format is the manga digest, so they're used to seeing comics in big B/W chunks. Their favorite Essentials are Power Man and Godzilla, though if there's a Marvel movie out that's getting a lot of push on TV they'll look at that stuff too. But Essential Iron Man is really kind of a letdown for the kids that just want "more" after the movie. The obscure stuff interests them, though.

You rang?

First off, Marvel is drawing from a much smaller pool of material than DC, and they've already published most, if not all, of their good stuff. Marvel began the Essentials in 1997 and have about 115. DC start in 2005 and already has half that number -- and they've peppered their line with both marquee names (Superman, Batman, Justice League) and obscurer stuff (Haunted Tank), barely scratching the surface with their vast archive of material.

But my point is... why not? I see no big deal with DC and Marvel reprinting the hell out of their archives, even if it's the "silly" stuff. Everyone likes something different (I'm a huge fan of the 60s Titans even though I recognize how ridiculous it all is), there's material for everyone out there with no need to spend hundreds of dollars on back issues. Hey, and Ant-Man has to be "Essential" to somebody.

"(anyone complaining about the paper quality being “newsprint” needs to dig out a newstand comic from as recently as 1980 to see the difference in weight)"

Agreed. The selling point to me is that I want the material reproduced in a way that evokes the original. I think Kirby on super-glossy paper would not only "feel" wrong, but not even look as intended. That's why the heavily-inked Golden Age material -- think the early Kane/Finger Batman stories -- will never be printed as Showcase volumes. The material would be virtually unreadable.

So many fans spend so much time complaining about paper quality that I wonder if they throw their books across the room in their spare time since they're so concerned with durability. If anyone REALLY wants their collections published in the best possible condition they need to start buying as many Absolutes as they can. If the demand for highest-quality collections is there, trust me, they will publish them. Wait, can't afford that? Then please, stop complaining.