Bronze Age Book Club: Man-Wolf

Here is another episode of Bronze Age Book Club. In this one we discuss Marvel Premier #45, the Man-Wolf/StarGod issue featuring a story by David Anthony Kraft and art by George Perez!

  Listen to "Episode 2: MARVEL PREMIERE #45" on Spreaker.

Bronze Age Book Club - Destructor #1

For those of you wondering what I've been up to since I stopped blogging, here is the first episode of a new Bronze Age Comics podcast group I've joined.

Listen to "Episode 1: DESTRUCTOR #1" on Spreaker.

Collected Comics Wishlist

I recently make a few new mockups for Marvel Omnibus collections I would like to see get made. Check 'em out:

Marvel Bronze Age Treasures

  

Marvel Bronze Age Monsters Omnibus

And finally, an Invaders Omnibus

Hope you enjoy seeing these!

FBU Videos on YouTube

Pierre has recently been on a kick of creating some cool videos of Flashback Universe stories and artwork on YouTube. Check 'em out!

Return of the Collected Comics Wishlist

We are definitely living in a Golden Age of repackaged comic book collections. Some of the books that have come out in the last year just blow me away. (A Master of Kung Fu Omnibus? A Task Force X Omnibus? Who would've thought those would ever be possible?) Yet, even in this gilded time, we seem to be missing a few collections I would like to see. So, in typical fashion, I mocked up some covers which will hopefully spur the powers that be to get moving on these books:

First up - A Shazam! Omnibus

Credit: That awesome Captain Marvel comes from DC Comics artists Tim Levins http://timlevins.deviantart.com/ 
Check out his Deviant Art page. He's a very talented artist with a lot of beautiful pages on his DA site.

Outside of the Omnibuses, I would also like to see some new Anniversary collections. Typically, these focus on the 75th Anniversary, but I've seen a few 50th celebrations here and there. In some cases, the 50th Anniversary has come and gone, but DC could accommodate us with 60th Anniversary editions.

What would you like to see DC come out with?

- Jim

Happy July 4th!

In honor of July 4th, I made a back cover to go with the awesome Freedom Fighters Lost 100 Pager (originally posted here)

Here is the back cover, with art by Pierre Villeneuve!

And here is the Front Cover with art by Seth Frail.

I'm also posting this cool WW II themed Pin Up Pierre made for a comic we were working on many years ago:

Hope you have a great 4th of July!

- Jim

No Doom Patrol in Justice League of America

Back in the 60's, the Justice League of America was the hot title for DC characters to appear in. During this time, they had a number of guest stars that joined the league. Yet in all that time, the Doom Patrol never guest starred. Check out this timeline:

I don't know why this might have been the case, but I can speculate on a few reasons:

1) Editors weren't used to the idea of books crossing over.
2) Having so many characters in a single title probably sounded daunting for both the artists and writers
3) The JLA editors probably just thought of featuring guest stars that were perspective members

For whatever reason, the Doom Patrol wouldn't end up guest-staring in the Justice League of America until 2004.

This was a lead in that introduced the team to a new generation of readers. In a perfect world, it would have given John Byrne a perfect kickoff for his take on the team.

Unfortunately, Byrne's take on the team just didn't click with readers at the time and the book was cancelled by issue 18.

Since then, there have been a few other attempts to revive the team, but they haven't been very successful either. Now we have a new version coming out written by Umbrella Academy's Gerard Way:

And while the version probably won't please the purist, I do think it will be worth checking out. The
Doom Patrol is a group that you can use to tell stories that might seem out of place in your typical superhero comic. I think that's a core trait to the team that has survived even into this jaded age.

- Jim