Quarter Bin #64 "Binge-worthy IX: An Indulgence"

Air #8 (Vertigo)

via Vertigo Comics

From 2009.

Air is the genius series that first introduced me to G. Willow Wilson, who has staged a remarkable comeback with Ms. Marvel.  You see, even though I love Air, there wasn't much of that going on during its original publication.  I named it twice to the top of my annual QB50 list.  I passed on scooping up this random issue a couple of times before finally deciding to buy it.  And once again I was reminded why I love Air so much.  Blythe has just experienced mystery lover Zayn's life firsthand, but there's very little time to reflect on that, because piloting the hyperprax method takes great concentration.  Did I mention Amelia Earhart was involved?  The whole experience was like following pirates of the imagination whose goal was to try and invent the future.  Hopefully Wilson's current success will help readers rediscover her masterpiece.

Detective Comics #648 (DC)

via Comic Vine

From 1992.

I picked this one up in part because of that gorgeous Matt Wagner cover, and also to hopefully catch a little of that early Tim Drake era, after he'd become the new Robin and before the whole Bane business threw everything into chaos.  I ended up gifted with an early Spoiler appearance.  Stephanie Brown's journey to becoming a permanent institution in the Batman mythos has been incredibly complicated.  At one point she succeeded Tim as Robin, was unceremoniously killed off, revived, and apparently rejected from the New 52 landscape until she showed up in the pages of Batman Eternal.  She's also been Batgirl, by the way.  But Spoiler is iconic all on her own, thank you very much.

Daredevil #323 (Marvel)

via Comic Vine

From 1993.

The only reason for me to have gotten this one, as it turned out, was because of the Scott McDaniel art.  Yeah, that cover promises Venom, and Venom was pretty big business for a while, but that's no reason to read this.  The Daredevil costume inside the issue is one of those variants Marvel tried in the '90s, including a return to his original look, but that simple red one is really all you need.  I had my first experience with McDaniel in the pages of Nightwing, which in a lot of ways might have been deemed in that first incarnation as a kind of DC version of Daredevil, complete with Blockbuster reinvented as a Kingpin figure with a similar singular focus on ruining the life of a pesky vigilante that went on to epic proportions (and under two creators: Chuck Dixon and Devin K. Grayson).  So to finally see McDaniel in the pages of Daredevil itself was worth the trouble of ignoring everything else about the issue.  And as it turns out, his work certainly evolved over the years.  I mean, I guess it figures.  But it's interesting to see it when it was less distinctive, though certainly recognizable.  I still can't believe that McDaniel has apparently angered the comic book gods and now can't get a regular penciling gig.  It boggles the mind.  He's got insane talent.

Elongated Man #1 (DC)

From 1992.

via Pinterest

After Identity Crisis, Ralph and Sue Dibney took on iconic proportions, for reasons most comic book characters probably wouldn't want to have associated with them even if it meant immortality.  Elongated Man is a peculiar relic of the Silver Age, a costumed detective who along with Plastic Man and Mr. Fantastic is best defined for an admittedly wacky superpower.  Being married always gave him special distinction.  This mini-series, spinning out of the infamous Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League era, is quite shocking for post-Identity Crisis readers, actually.  This debut issue sees the Dibneys in considerable discord.  The art is from the late Mike Parobeck, who would later achieve his greatest recognition in the pages of the comics spinning out of The Batman Adventures TV series.  I first saw his work in the pages of an attempted Justice Society relaunch from around the same time, and I always liked it.  Another crying shame in comic book creators taken too soon.  At this point he's been dead nearly twenty years!

Global Frequency #12 (WildStorm)

From 2004.

via Full-Page Bleed

Warren Ellis is the acknowledged master of the big concept in comics, the writer Jonathan Hickman and Rick Remender have been chasing and what Grant Morrison would look like if he weren't the personification of caffeine in the medium.  Maybe it's because his reign in that regard began while I wasn't reading them, but I always found it difficult to get into him.  Every now and then I'll check in with what he's done, and if I'm honest about it I'll admit I've never been disappointed.  Global Frequency is another such instance.  This is the conclusion of the story, with various characters converging in a sequence that in a movie would definitely have left my heart pounding as they try to disable a fail-safe weapon the United States military put in place years ago.

Grendel: War Child #1 (Dark Horse)

via Comic Vine

From 1992.

This is also technically Grendel #41.  Grendel, along with Mage, is the defining work of Matt Wagner's insufficiently-heralded career.  Wagner is one of the kings of the indy scene, a pioneer who helped pave the ground for Image (where Mage unfolded at one point), but now can't seem to get work unless it's related to some licensed property or another, which in itself is not a bad thing, but for a guy who's already struck gold twice on his own, it kind of comes off as a slap on the face.  Anyway, this issue is brilliant, explains the whole concept perfectly (instantly makes me want to read more), and somehow the issue is still stolen by an account of Grendel's recent print history at that time, being tied up in legal hell after Comico went out of business until Dark Horse finally came to the rescue and the issue you've just read has been made possible.  Anyway, Wagner is currently doing Grendel vs. The Shadow...

Justice League Europe #7 (DC)

From 1989.

via comiXology

Here's the Giffen/DeMatteis era in full bloom, two series strong and crossing over for the first time.  After Jurgens did his version and then later incarnations diluted the potential of having a non-all-stars version of the Justice League and we (happily) got Grant Morrison's JLA, it began to seem as if the whole run had been repudiated, but then the reunions began (and now we have Justice League 3000, which I've finally read for the first time).  It might be sometimes hard to remember that not only was Batman present in these comics, but he was definitely the Batman you are probably thinking about, not Adam West and definitely the Dark Knight.  Other than the "One punch!" moment with Guy Gardner, yeah, he was still around.  And in this issue, doing his level best to counteract...everyone else.  For me, it's inconceivable to even try to pretend these comics didn't happen.  The line-up is classic in the same way the New Teen Titans were, and the many times Booster Gold and Blue Beetle have popped up together prove all over again that it's not all just "Bwa-ha-ha" but rather a solid era that left a positive impression on the landscape...

Spider-Man Unlimited #8 (Marvel)

via Martwa Strefa

From 2005.

Here's one of those Joe Hill comics.  Hill's the son of Stephen King, and the father helped inspire the son to write books, and I figure the son helped inspire the father to write comics.  This early example is a little goofy, but it does feature the art of Seth Fisher, another comic book creator who left us far too soon.  Dying at the very start of 2006, which made much of his last work, Fantastic Four/Iron Man: Big in Japan, published posthumously, he was also known for Green Lantern: Willworld and The Flash: Time Flies.  The issue also contains the work of Ryan Sook, whose clean work I've always admired, and is perfectly suited to Spider-Man.  Sook probably comes closest to evoking the Stuart Immonen I know and love from his Superman era.

The Spirit #6 (DC)

via Comic Vine

From 2010.

I picked up a couple of Spirit comics because at the time I was reading a book that reminded me that there were Spirit comics that were probably similar to it.  Yeah, so this issue in particular I grabbed because of the backup from Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, the 100 Bullets team that have otherwise worked together a number of other times as well, and now I've caught a few of those instances for myself, even though I never got into 100 Bullets itself (when it reached the hundredth and final issue, I tried to catch that, but didn't manage to).

The Spirit #8 (DC)

via Xplosion of Awesome

From 2011.

But to speak of The Spirit itself for a moment, of course this is the legendary Will Eisner's most famous creation, a pulp fiction vigilante who has since joined a whole collection of migratory characters constantly shuffling from company to company.  It's not that this isn't good material, because it is.  I wonder if it had been published under the Vertigo imprint that it might have had a different fate, or perhaps simply unconnected to the rest of the "First Wave" line.  Who knows?  One thing is for certain, however, and that the sneak preview included at the back of the issue for Scott Snyder's Batman debut in the pages of Detective Comics was another recent reminder that I've probably way too harsh on Snyder in recent years.  Expect friendlier coverage on that front in 2015...

Superboy #82 (DC)

via Scans Daily

From 2001.
I read Superboy pretty religiously after it launched in the wake of "Reign of the Supermen."  Karl Kesel and Tom Grummett did some truly excellent work (to say nothing of the brilliant Superboy and the Ravers spin-off).  When I gave up reading comics in 1999, the series was in the middle of its "Hypertension" arc that was one of the first times DC had allowed the concept of the multiverse return after Crisis on Infinite Earths theoretically ended it forever.  I'd highly encourage DC to print up some trade collections from the Kesel/Grummett years.  This particular issue doesn't involve Kesel or Grummett (except the latter on the cover), but it at least continues the feel of that era in its story, unlike later issues (before its eventual cancellation with #100, in which it had transformed into a completely unrecognizable series, alas).  The highlight is a conversation between Roy Harper (known variously as Speedy, Arsenal, and Red Arrow) and Jim Harper (known as Guardian), something I'm not even sure had ever been thought of before, but there's Jay Faerber doing it, at the moment he had his apparently fleeting moment to work in the mainstream.

The Adventures of Superman #476 (DC)

via Boosteriffic

From 1991.

The "Time and Time Again!" arc was something I remember seeing advertised when it was later republished in a trade collection.  It was the first notable arc Dan Jurgens orchestrated, and it involved Booster Gold, his most famous creation, and the Linear Men, and even the Legion of Super-Heroes.  I wonder in hindsight if there was any discussion among fans that maybe this material was a little similar to the far more famous "Days of the Future Past" arc from X-Men, because there are definitely similarities.  Either way, it's a reminder of how much Jurgens used to have fun with his Superman.  When he wasn't, ah, killing him...

Superman #193 (DC)

via We Shop

From 2003.

Here's Scott McDaniel again, being far more familiar in his art this time than the previous Daredevil work, because of course this is after the Nightwing material I remember so fondly (among other work, including The Great Ten).  The writer for the issue is Steven T. Seagle, whose most notable Superman story is actually a Vertigo graphic novel entitled It's a Bird..., which was released a year later and details his reluctance to tackle the Man of Steel creatively.  One of the best comics I've ever read, too.  This issue, meanwhile, seems to involve Superman and Lois Lane's daughter.  But I'm sure there was some other explanation...

The Twelve #12 (Marvel)

via Science Fiction

From 2012.

Ha.  Realizing the publication year is just one of those ironies about this issue that is only just now dawning on me.  2012.  Of a series called The Twelve, twelve issues long, and here its twelfth issue.  The other layer is that the series was famously delayed for quite a while two-thirds of the way through, seemed like it was never going to finish.  And now several years later I catch this final installment, again, as a random discovery in a back issue bin.  It remains a favorite comics memory, a variation on Watchmen from a more sober perspective, wondering what would happen to a whole generation of WWII heroes reawakened, years after Captain America received similar treatment, with all their stories opening up again and not to their benefit.  The best I've ever seen from J. Michael Straczynski.  Artist Chris Weston, who at one point cobbled together a one-shot all on his own just to keep awareness of the project alive, also worked with Grant Morrison on The Filth.