It start with this - Monday in the comments section, I wondered what Bob Harris, the new Editor in Chief at DC had been doing since he left Marvel back in 2000, and Reno filled me in (Thank You Reno!)...
Harras was in charge of DCs collections (TPBs, hardcovers, and the like) for the past five years (I think)
In thinking about it - that makes a lot of sense to me as I can see how DC has made several improvements to their collected editions in the past 5 years with a couple that feel like they were ideas borrowed from Marvel's collected editions.
For one, the big black and white DC Showcase editions must have been inspired by the Marvel Essentials editions. Unless I'm mistaken, the first one was the 2005 Jonah Hex DC Showcase which came out the same week the new Jonah Hex comic was launched. (I've always thought that was especially well executed publishing launch.)
The other idea area Marvel seems to have influenced DC is in the idea of collecting classic storylines in hard cover collections. Marvel does this with their excellent Marvel Classic Premiere editions and DC has a few in their DC Classics Library.
I'm a total sucker for these collected editions! I love getting all of the old stories bound in a hardcover with nice paper (though you could argue the Marvel paper is better than the DC versions...) And while Marvel seems to be doing a great job putting out new ones (at a pretty brisk clip) DC is painfully slow updating their catalogue. (Which reminds me - I wonder if Harras was the guy who cancelled the Captain Marvel vs the Monster Society collected edition?)
And this brings me (finally) to the point of today's post: I have a few requests for storylines I would like to see collected. For instance, how about one that collects the fun-filled Futureshock storyline from Marvel Team Up?
For those of you not familiar with this bit of Marvel history, this was a time travel story that starts with Spider-man and the Scarlet Witch journeying back to the Salem Witch trials to stop a villain named the Dark Rider. As the story progresses, the battle is joined by the Vision, Dr. Doom and Moondragon. While the heroes are triumphant in defeating the Dark Rider, there is a subplot involving Cotton Mather that ends in an especially Bronze Age fashion that has always stayed with me. (I won't give it away here.)
After the fight, Dr. Doom thanks Spider-man for his assistance in the battle by having his time machine bounce the webslinger into the future Marvel universe of Killraven (and eventually) Deathlok.
Spanning six issues this strikes me as the perfect length to be collected in a Marvel Classics Premiere hardcover. Here's my mockup of the cover...
I think the timing to put out such a volume would be perfect as Brian Bendis (of all people) just *recently* referred to this storyline in the pages of the recent Avengers...
I don't know if Marvel will actually make this MCP hardcover, but if they do, I have more when they are done.
How about you? What classic storylines from Marvel or DC would you add to the Collected Classics Wishlist?
- Jim
2 comments:
That Marvel Team-Up storyline was the first time I read a Spider-Man comic! Those were good times...
I also think the first Showcase Presents that DC put out were the Superman and Green Lantern ones, since they have a special introductory price of $9.99.
Anyway, I'd really like to see a collected edition of Michelinie and Newton's NEW GODS (although I know that's highly improbable, since DC seems to have largely ignored that storyline).
Or maybe a "Best Of" collection of either Don Newton or Jose Luis Garcia's DC work. :)
I'll second Reno's nomination of the New Gods material, though I'm sure its noncanonical now. It seems like editorial policy at DC is to let whatever writer is taking over the New Gods to strip things back to "only Kirby" so we get a succession of revamps.
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