Very interesting how you mentioned that you found out about Barry Allen’s death in Crisis through Mayfair’s DC Heroes Role Playing Game. I had heard about the game in early 1985, but living out of the country at the time, I was not able to acquire it for a number of years (and it was the closest to owning the DC Style Guide by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez [praise is with his name]). When I first read about Allen’s death in the DC Heroes Flash entry, and remembering that the game was released in the US in summer of 1985, I was curious if the game had actually “spoiled” the death in Crisis #8 (which would have come out in August 1985). I recall that when DC revealed the Crisis #7 Supergirl death months in advance in the newspapers, they also mentioned there would be a “major hero” death in issue #8, but they were keeping that a secret.

So I checked with the only other person I knew that owned the game and lived in the US at the time, and he told me that he pre-ordered the game through Westfield Comics in March of 1985, expected it in June, but had to wait an extra two or three months for it. And yes, he didn’t receive it until after Crisis #8 was out. This made me wonder if DC arranged for the Mayfair game release to be delayed until mid- to late-August so as not to reveal Allen’s death before Crisis #8.

When you stated in the podcast that you had purchased the game over the summer and was startled by the notice of Barry Allen’s death in the game, I had initially thought that you may have proven my theory wrong, but then you said you purchased Crisis #8 in what seemed to be immediately afterwards, so my theory may still be right.

I am curious if you or anyone can confirm purchasing the game before August 1985, which meant that the game would have spoiled the Allen death for anyone who read that part of the Guidebook before Crisis #8 came out.

Best,
Xum

Quick comment re: Armageddon 2001, Captain Atom’s role in it, and War of the Gods. I’m a little surprised you didn’t mention it, since both the final issue of Captain Atom and War of the Gods had a Firestorm connection….

The last issue of Captain Atom was BOTH an Armageddon 2001 (demonstrated by a brief scene in the issue) AND a War of the Gods tie-in (this was actually called out on the cover). It featured a battle with Shadowstorm that was to create some of the ambiguity (which you referenced in the issue) about whether or not Atom was “good” or “evil” at the end, thus possibly leading to his becoming Monarch. Shadowstorm then appeared briefly in War of the Gods (for his last appearance to-date) to briefly zap Firestorm (the ONLY appearance of the Stein Elemental before Ronnie Raymond regained Firestorm’s powers in Extreme Justice).

I don’t know how common it is for an issue to crossover with multiple events simultaneously, but thought this was noteworthy.

My summer memory is of pickup up the JLA/JSA/LSH team-up vs Mordu in JLA #147! My first JLA/JSA crossover and my introduction to the Legion! Loved that story. I became a huge fan of the Legion in the late 70’s from that book, my intro to Mike Grell. Bronze Age JLA, JSA/All-Star Comics and LSH are some of my favorite comics!

RE: Batman’s No Man’s Land – this was actually the crossover that lead me to drop Batman. I just didn’t want to invest the time and money to pick up all the various parts of the series. However, I did pick up the Greg Rucka novelization in a discount bin years after the story came out. It was a great read! I then went on to read all of Rucka’s Atticus Kodiak books which I highly recommend. I’ve actually been picking up the No Man’s Land books in the quarter/dollar bins and will read it through one of these days!

RE: Discovery – I also have fond memories of the spinner rack. We had three drug stores in our small Canadian prairie town and it was always a gamble to see what issues would arrive and how long they would stay on the racks until I could afford to buy them. I remember pulling some issues off of the spinner rack and “hiding” them in the magazines so I could go back and buy them later.

I also loved the process of discovering back issues in the “used book stores” before comics book stores were mainstream. There was a great store in Edmonton called the “Wee Book Inn” which had a “Comic Book Annex” next door which stacks of poorly organized comic books. I’d spend hours digging through piles of comics to find an occasional gem. I remember finding Marvel Fanfare #1 with that great Michael Golden art and Claremont story. Great book!

Now it’s great to find almost any issue on eBay or an online store but it was much more fun digging through back issue bins. I find that most stores these days don’t maintain much back issue stock and are focusing on new issues, trades, games and toys. I can understand the financial justification but I miss the bins!

Keep up the great work guys!
Phil

Chris

Sad Sack was Shag’s favorite, huh? Somehow that is appropriate. Beyond that, as far as trolling through Books-A-Million, I’m right there with him. Not so much BAM, but I have two used book stores here in Greenville which have tons of comics and collected editions. So I make a weekly trip to each of them in order to scan the racks and longboxes for hidden treasures. (Added bonus, I have about a hundred bucks in trade credit between the two stores, so I pretty much never pay money out of pocket in these places.) I’ve found such awesome stuff as all three HC volumes of The Life And Time Of Scrooge McDuck, The Complete Dirty Laundry Comics, all of the latter half of 100 Bullets, most of the back half of Marvel GI Joe, Frank Miller Visionaires Daredevil volume 1 (for 6 bucks!), all three volumes of Knightfall, lots of Classics Illustrated for my father, pretty much every Ghost Rider comic I own, and lots of other stuff. Gotta love it!

I also have a comics vacation story. Right around the time I was starting to get “real on” into the Marvel Universe (1993, I think), my family took a vacation at Walt Disney World, one of many we had there. On that trip, I got two multi-packs of comics from a vendor inside what was then Disney-MGM Studios. One set was Excalibur (issues 42-47, with writing and art by Alan Davis!) and Nomad (issues 1-3). I read the hell out of those comics, over and over. I was already an Excalibur fan, but I fell in love with the group from these issues… so of course Davis’ run ended soon after that, heh. And I still have a soft spot for Jack Monroe due to his Nomad days from these comics. Issue #2, involving rednecks who tie up animals to hit them with trucks, has one of the most obvious but at the same time most satisfying conclusions of my comics reading career.

As a guy who grew up as a Marvel reader who only got into DC following the return of Superman, Zero Hour was the first DC crossover I bought into. As a DC neophyte, I didn’t understand much of what I was reading, but I was so excited that I didn’t mind that at all. Of course, when I came back to it a few years ago, as a seasoned, “vet” DC reader… I still couldn’t make heads or tails of it. I personally think that Jurgens wrote a story which was designed for 10 or 12 issues, and was condensed down into 5 issues, so it’s somehow both too dense and too scattered at the same time. Like Frank, though, I did love the Zero Issues, including the Superman ones (Conduit!) and the Flash, plus it did launch Fate, whom Frank may also remember is a Character I Like (TM) from the old Comic Book Bunker blog. I’ll pick up just about any Zero Issue I find in one of my used book stores, heh.

Amusingly, I just read a summer crossover — a Marvel one, though, not a DC one: Rise Of The Midnight Sons! Man, I wish I had read this when I was a kid, because I would have eaten this up with a spoon. Ghost Rider! Johnny Blaze and his Hellfire Shotgun! Morbius! The Darkhold Redeemers! Blade! Hannibal King! Frank Drake! Lillith! The Lillin! Enough demons, violence, and horror to make Rob Kelly turn his nose up! What’s not to like?! 😀

Great show fellas, thanks!

I read Secret Wars in process from the third issue, and was more invested in the Marvel heroes. I only read one issue of Crisis in progress, the best, “Beyond the Silent Night.” I read more issues piecemeal over the years, and finally suffered through the whole spectacle when it was collected in 2000. Looks great. Reads terrible. Martian Manhunter got quality play, but his character-centric sphere were as absent here as in Who’s Who.

I read most of Legends around 1988, and enjoyed it at the time. It seemed smart to me then, but when I’ve revisited it, the series was rather basic and episodic. Legends reads like a recap of another series, but it has its moments, and swell art throughout. For my money, “The End of the Justice League of America” was better. In retrospect, the ground floor reboot of Wonder Woman was a mistake, and Byrne’s run was a mess.

I haven’t watched classic Trek since I was a little kid, so in my adult experience, my preferred series is Deep Space Nine. TNG was too safe and repetitious, while Voyager only had one decent season.

I made it about halfway through Millennium buying it weekly off the newsstand. I liked a number of the satellite books and the premise, but the execution of the central book lost me. Inker Ian Gibson had a major positive impact on the pencils, but Joe Staton had no business on this type of project. Staton had been working with Englehart on Green Lantern, and I recall he was fast, so that’s probably what the deal was. I liked the Belle Reve sub-crossover best, which contributed to my buying the Manhunter spin-off.

Invasion! was WAY too expensive at $2.95 an issue, and by that point I was only occasionally reading Batman, so I skipped it. The mini-series did get me back into Justice League International after I’d let the title lapse, because its tie-ins were some of the best issues of the entire run. I’ve read Invasion! since, and while it was cute to send all of DC’s Silver Age aliens against Earth at once, the book’s a slog.

I initially passed on the similarly pricey Armageddon 2001, plus it looked boring. I liked many of the related annuals though, and got rooked into buying the bookend finale, which was lame. I wouldn’t have been happy to lose one of my favorite DC heroes, but at least I knew who Captain Atom was– a credible threat. The isolated What If…? tales were far better than the event that prompted them, especially the JLI ones, which allowed the creators to do their desired ending to the run in the midst of “Breakdowns.”

Whoa– big leap over crossovers here. The New Bloods would not be pleased. Omitted two of my favorites.

Zero Hour f@#$ing sucked, and I’ll tell you something else I’ve held back on– Dan Jurgens is dull. You guys can wax his car all you like, but it’ll never change from a Chevy Tahoe into a Ferrari. I learned more about what the “Crisis In Time” was meant to accomplish from related magazine articles than the actual book. DC got lucky that I decided to go all in on “Zero Month” despite how bad the mini-series was, because those #0 issues were good enough to hook me on numerous titles for years.

For a change, I liked Underworld Unleashed and its direct tie-ins, but wasn’t much for the monthly titles in affected. The art was good by the standards of the day, the fluorescent ink was nifty, and it was a horror story for super-heroes. The downsides were the ruining of Blue Devil, the killing of Mongul, Neron=Mephisto, and the premise being a rip-off of “Acts of Vengeance.” This was during my card collecting frenzy, so I of course have a full set of DC Villains: Dark Judgment.

DC vs Marvel was predictably mediocre, if only because of the inclusion of a certain common denominator, Dan Jurgens art. I liked the Claudio Castellini drawn pages. As I recall, Peter David only took on the assignment under the stipulation that Aquaman beat Namor, a sham. I wasn’t online in 1996, so I don’t recall an internet component. At my shop, we collected paper ballots, which I was supposed to mail in but to my eternal shame never did. My main memory of the series is frustration with the bogus outcomes. I had a set of these and the Amalgamumamum cards, which were fun. The single Amalgam issues were interesting when creators drew out the similarities and differences of the combined characters, but I’m glad that got put to bed after the second round, with the novelty wearing off fast. Ron Marz seemed to be the main champion of Access, who he revisited in the first sequel.

Pablo Cruise, eh? Never heard of him – summer 1978 in the UK was You’re the One That I Want and Rivers of Babylon all the way. Class!

I loved the rest of the podcast. My fave ever crossover was Invasion, with its well-worked story, massive instalments, tremendous spin-offs – who doesn’t love LEGION ’89? – and the Blasters (their time will come!).

No Man’s Land was pants. Gotham cut off from the world by the US and no heroes helping? Ridiculous. Every Gotham villain having it’s own gang? Snoozeville Arizona.

I’d forgotten about Ghosts too!

You’re thinking
Maybe if you said goodbye
You’ll understand the reason why
The love you had felt so cool

Oh, but it’s all right (all right)
Once you get past the pain
(Past the pain)
You’ll learn to find your love again
So keep your heart open
‘Cause love will find a way

Sometimes we all
Feel a need to change
Our love we have to rearrange
And move on to something new
Yes, you do

Your dreams feel like
They’re falling apart
You need to find a brand new start
But you’re almost afraid
To be true to yourself

Whoa, but it’s all right (all right)
Once you get past the pain
(Past the pain)
You’ll learn to find your love again
(Find your love again)
So keep your heart open
‘Cause love will find a way

Love will find a way
Love will find a way

Yeah, so now don’t
Don’t be afraid of yourself
Just move on to something else
And let your love shine through again

Yes, cause it’s all right (all right)
Once you get past the pain
(Past the pain)
You’ll learn to find your love again
(Find your love again)
So keep your heart open
‘Cause love will find a way

It’s all right (all right)
Once you get past the pain
(Past the pain)
You’ll learn to find your love again
(Find your love again)
So keep your heart open
‘Cause love will find a way, oh

Yes, it’s alright (alright)
Don’t be afraid
‘Cause it’s alright (alright)
Yes, it’s alright (alright)
Keep your heart open
‘Cause love will find a way

Something I’ve come to find strange, however, is how satisfied I could be with only half a story. This would happen a lot with the various issues of All-Star Squadron I’d find at whichever store I happened to be in. The covers to that title were always so striking. I remember picking up #35 which I to this day, think is THE best comic book cover ever. It was the 2nd part of a battle between the All-Stars and the mind-controlled Marvel Family. There were a couple of familiar characters featured prominently on that cover, Superman, the Marvels, Wonder Woman, but tucked away in the background near the bottom was this other character. He had a ring which was making a green bubble to contain the blue marvel, much like the Green Lantern from Super Friends would do. It was the 1st time I ever layed eyes on the garish, yet strangely beautiful
costume of the ‘new’ (at least to me) Green Lantern.

Anyway, here I had the resolution to this adventure, and ithe days before I new what a ’back issue’ was, or before I knew that there were whole stores devoted to pretty much just comics, I was somehow OK with only 1/2 the story.

Another Squadron issue I picked up was #48 which has
a striking cover depicting a group of heroes, Dr. Fate (whom I met previously in an issue of JLA), Firebrand, and Robotman squaring off against this shiny knight, who according to the cover blurb (’The Shining Knight is BACK! But this time, he’s on the OTHER SIDE!), I could assume must also have been a good guy. I easily jumped back in to the adventures of the All-Stars – this Shining Knight beats up a warrior who when unmasked is revealed to be – King Arthur?! Cut to the other group of heroes from the cover battling there way
through the flak in the skies over Britain – they hook up with the Blackhawks (nice outfits), and a charged by Winston Churchill, himself, with the task of looking into the Knight’s disappearance, the group takes back off into the sky. The issue wraps up as the
a plane in which ride Blackhawk and Hourman crashes in a fiery explosion (there’s no way they could escape that, right?), Robotman
and Firebrand are taken out by a Merlin robot, and the Shining Knight [under the spell of this King Arthur, who is (again?!) unmasked and is revealed to be this other guy, Wotan] about to deliver the beatdown of all beatdowns to last man standing, Dr. Fate! What a mess – but what a cliffhanger!

Being as young as I was, and not having mastered the rhythm of a new comics cycle, I missed the next issue. I did manage to get my hands on a copy of #50 a couple of months later, and saw that everyone had escaped in one piece, and the Shining Knight was again on the side of the angels – but the resolution to that standoff – I sat on that cliffhanger for 20 years! And 9 year old me was somehow OK with that!

Despite having finally purchased #49 within the last 5 or so years, I honestly, cannot remember how the situation resolved itself. I can recall just about every panel of that previous issue, however, which I had read to pieces so long ago.