CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!

New Gods: 33
Omega Men: 16
Atari Force: 10

Free of any NG-OM-AF content: Volumes 4, 19, 21, 24

Diclaimers: I did not double-check these figures. The New Gods include Mister Miracle and Forever People material, but not Jimmy Olsen Fourth World material, since that’s basically limited to Guardian and the Newsboy Legion, which both originated long before. For the Omega Men, I counted all the Vegan system nonsense.

But wait! It doesn’t actually end there, does it? There were updates!

The ’87 Update adds 5 pages of New Gods.
The ’88 Update adds 3 pages of New Gods.
Who’s Who in the Legion adds 3 pages of New Gods.
The 1990 “loose leaf” version of Who’s Who adds 28 pages of New Gods (this time I did count Jimmy Olsen Fourth World stuff, specifically Intergang and Cadmus Project; I also counted the DeSaad corrected reprint; obviously, those 28 pages are really sheets, and so could be counted as 56 pages, but I haven’t.)
The ’93 update doesn’t add any pages to any of the franchises.

So official Who’s Who releases final tally:
New Gods: 72
Omega Men: 16
Atari Force: 10

Make of that what you will.

First, I think the cover is badly laid out. I agree with the other guys who don’t like Orion and Per Degaton running on air (they aren’t The Trickster, George!). Plus, the background characters are just TOO SMALL!! And I agree with Shagg about the dog on The Penguin’s umbrella! He doesn’t belong there. This cover should have been more of an action shot of Penguin vs Nightwing, with the better characters (ie no Omega Men or Infinity Inkers) more in the background. As it is it’s just….meh. Nope.

I guess I’m in the minority of people who *liked* Nightshade’s purple and black costume. This classic one is okay, but I liked the body stocking, too.

Nightwing-Dick Grayson-Robin has always been one of my favorite characters, but I agree with Rob that the drawing is a tad dull. And is it just me, or is Robin drawn too small in relation to Batman? He doesn’t look like he would be 12 or so, but at that height he should be!

I never liked either Infinity Inc OR The Outsiders much, so after Nightwing I have to go seven pages before we get another character I really care about: Ocean Master. (Although I do agree that Obsidian is artistically cool. Anybody notice that his costume is patterned very closely after Hal Jordan’s?)

Ocean Master’s page by Craig Hamilton is gorgeous and is by far the best pic in the book.

Nobody mentioned that OSS was in a full issue of SHOWCASE (#104) besides being back-ups in GI COMBAT. That’s the only issue of their adventures I ever read, but I *really* liked it.

I always liked the Parasite, but I never knew if that look was him or was a costume. I thought it was him but then why does he have a blue stripe down his chest? If it’s a costume, why would he choose to wear such an ugly thing? It it was him, why would he choose to just wear swim trunks? Just like Ben Grimm and Namor, would he really go around all the time in just his underwear? Kinda weird.

The Penguin is well done by Howard Bender and Bill Wray. Very “Super Powers” ish; in fact, that Batman in the surprint is a JLGL stock art pose, isn’t it? I had one of those Penguin MEGO dolls as a kid, and Burgess Meredith was my 2nd favorite TV villain after Frank Gorshin. (I was yelling at the computer when Rob said Penguin was the first TV villain, haha! How could he have forgotten Jill St. John!?!)

Per Degaton is a one-trick pony of the worst kind. I am totally NOT a fan of “time paradox stories which in the end actually never happened” and he is featured in that type of story EVERY TIME. Sorry, nope.

The Persuader deserved a better page than this. He’s one of the most action-oriented villains the Legion has, and Ron Wilson has him just standing there! Hell, I could have done a better job that this!! PLUS, the characters in the surprint aren’t inked right!! Nope!

That’s enough of the N-O-P “nope” issue. Onwards to Phantom Girl!

The Night Slayer art is too small, but other than that, I like it.

I haven’t read my Outsider comics, but I always thought the themed villain teams like The Nuclear Family looked cool, but no clue if the stories are readable or not.

I am a fan of just about any version of OMAC. It was hands down my favorite of the New 52 and I was heartbroken when it was cancelled.

Just like the Outsiders, I’ve never read The Omega Men, but those are some beautiful designs.

Y’all were overly harsh about The Outsider. If we didn’t allow goofy story lines, there would have been no Silver Age, and that would be a dark world indeed.

I love Giffen’s art on Peacemaker. I would read his take on the character.

Rob, if you are interested in the “Where were you on the night Batman was killed?” Storyline, it is reprinted in full in the TPB The Strange Deaths of Batman. I’m sure that In-Stock Trades has a good price on it.

Shag, I appreciate your efforts to discover my secret identity, but, alas, I am not Richard Grayson. keep up the detective work though.

By the way, Shag, My gut instinct was to apologize for attacking you on the pro-nun-ciation thing, but then I realized that my attacks might give you a sense of what poor Jericho and the Forever People have to deal with from you every month.

I think the Charlton characters benefit most from having fans who were able to use them in high profile ways which helped build their brands for modern fans. Beyond the whole Watchmen thing, I am specifically referring to the use of Captain Atom and (especially) The Question on the Justice League Unlimited cartoon.

I’ve always attributed the return of the Sage Question and then the transition to the Montoya Question directly to the high profile use of The Question on JLU. I mean, to the point that the new Question is a character who debuted on Batman: TAS. That seems a bit on the nose to me.

I don’t know if that is an accurate theory or not, but I tend to agree with your assessment. Nevermind the fact that the only Charltons I buy are either their oddball horror/mystery books (Haunted, Many Ghosts Of Doctor Graves, etc.) and wildly scattered war comics (the Fightin’ quadrilogy, mostly), so my exposure to Charlton is limited at best.

It’s a personal bias; I will argue who is the coolest member of the Masters Of Disaster (clearly New Wave, because she’s just bananas), but can’t work up much of interest in the Fatal Five.

Given the parameters of the team, Persuader is probably the coolest member. His axe reminds me of the “mono-sabre” from the TSR Buck Rogers RPG, which is honed to an edge one molecule wide and can similar cut trough anything. Tharok reminds me of the cyborg guy who fought the Spider-Friends and X-Men in that one episode of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.