Back Issue Bin 122 "The Batgirl of Burnside and other Throwbacks"

Batgirl #42 (DC)
(from September 2015)

The Batgirl of Burnside will be remembered as a turning point in DC lore, not only for permanently reviving Barbara Gordon's superhero career, but as part of the youth movement that also saw Marvel introduce Kamala Khan and a whole generation of young heroes, as well as inspiring the brief DCYou era.  I was already well into a more limited comics reading experience by the time Batgirl went to Burnside, but I appreciated the idea even if I didn't get a chance to read it myself.  (There's a silly notion that just because you haven't personally enjoyed something you somehow automatically count as uninterested; that's poor perception of economics.)  The Burnside revival began in Batgirl #35, and it was as much cosmetic as approach.  Babs suddenly looked youthful again, and she was given a bold new costume and art direction, the latter of which was another primary feature of DCYou.  This issue features a different redesigned member of the Batman family, namely Batman himself, or rather Commissioner Batman, James Gordon.  Y'know, Batgirl's dad.  Commissioner Batman was also a bold creative left turn, always meant to be temporary.  It was only fitting for Batman and Batgirl to team up during this era, so I'm glad it happened.

Batman #457 (DC)
(from December 1990)

Ah!  This was Tim Drake's costumed debut!  Tim Drake, otherwise known as the third Robin, after Dick Grayson and Jason Todd.  In the Rebirth era, continued efforts to distinguish Tim led to his "death" in Detective Comics, as part of the Oz arc that eventually revealed the mystery figure to be Superman's dad Jor-El.  Tim was originally designed to be a dynamic new Robin, a faithful partner of Batman in standing with tradition, but "Knightfall" and its aftermath actually shoved him into full-fledged independence.  He eventually assumed the mantle of Red Robin in an ode to Kingdom Come, even wearing the same costume Dick does in that comic.  In the New 52, even though he was the first Robin to have his own ongoing series, Tim had to make do with leading the Teen Titans while Dick starred in Nightwing and then Grayson, and Jason in Red Hood and the Outlaws while Batman's kid Damian Wayne costarred in Batman and Robin.  For a generation of Robin fans, Tim Drake is the Boy Wonder, so this is a landmark issue.  It's the first time the traditional costume gets a complete overhaul, too!

Captain America #698 (Marvel)
(from April 2018)

Okay, so this one's pretty recent, a victim of a cover tear and subsequent banishment to the cheap bin.  I love that stuff!  This is one of Mark Waid's early comics in the post-Secret Empire revival, Marvel's effort to redeem the character after spending roughly a year with him operating as a natural born agent of Hydra.  Waid kicks off an arc where Cap wakes up after having been frozen again, with America in the grip of tyranny.  Only Captain America can save the day!  Ironically!

Earth 2 #25 (DC)
(from September 2014)

After James Robinson set up the concept, Tom Taylor took over and got to use versions of Superman and Batman.  I loved the New 52 Earth 2.  The Society continuation wrapped up in the early days of the Rebirth era, but at that point really only the DC office cared, which was too bad.  The Earth 2 Batman was actually Thomas Wayne!  I don't know if this was inspired by the Flashpoint Batman, but it was fun to see DC revive the idea in some fashion.  Obviously Batman couldn't dominate the title, even if he makes the cover this issue, at least the Batman 75th Anniversary edition.  Because the issue also features Val-Zod, the Earth 2 Superman, finally decide to embrace being Superman, so he rates the standard cover.

And there he is!  Both the Earth 2 Batman and Earth 2 Superman had unique costume variants on the classic templates.  Thomas Wayne Batman had red where Bruce Wayne typically has white, and Val-Zod sports silver where Clark Kent has red, with a red substitute as the field behind the s-shield.  As events later developed, neither Thomas Wayne nor Val-Zod were adequate substitutes for the icons who died in the first issue, but Dick Grayson later assumes the mantle of Batman in Convergence and Earth 2: Society, marking a true progression in the lineage he only gets to temporarily fulfill in regular continuity.









The Flash #48 (DC)
(from March 1991)

With no offense to William Messner-Loebs (help him here!), Wally West didn't properly become the Flash until Mark Waid started writing him.  That may have something to do with the fact that I was introduced to Wally as Flash by Waid's comics.  So I like to look into Messner-Loebs' work when I get the chance.  Among the interesting guest-stars this issue include Elongated Man Ralph Dibney (as a Flash continuity nerd it's surprising that Waid never got around to that) and a severely aged Vandal Savage (really want to read that next issue now!).  Plus Wally learning new things about his mom.  Waid was definitely part of the mythology movement that came to dominate DC, whereas Messner-Loebs embodied the more grounded ideas of the receding era that came before it.  It's not surprising their takes on Wally were different. 

Gotham Academy #7 (DC)
(from August 2015)

Batman tends to dominate DC's publishing schedule, as he's been their most consistent seller for...fifty years?  That's about right.  So that gives him a lot of sway, and gives creators a lot of space to play in.  This concept takes place in Gotham but doesn't necessarily involve Batman, although I chose this particular issue because it features his kid, Damian Wayne.  At this point, really only Grant Morrison and Pete Tomasi had written Damian, so this was an opportunity for a fresh set of eyes.  The result is a much softer version, which stands to reason, as Gotham Academy was itself a much more kid-friendly Batman comic.

Grayson #11 (DC)
(from October 2015)

It's sometimes easy to assume Tom King ended up getting the Batman assignment because of DC's respect for his Omega Men, but it's really down to his work on Grayson, where he got to explore the Batman landscape with a writing partner (Tim Seeley, who later built on Grayson's legacy with his Nightwing Rebirth material).  And King even had Mikel Janin on art!  Janin later proved to be a signature collaborator in the pages of Batman, too, of course, which makes it all the more obvious how important Grayson was for both their careers.  This issue, with a typically fantastic cover from Janin, helps the title reach a culmination of the Spyral arc it continued from Grant Morrison's Batman Incorporated (first volume).  Really, even I sometimes underestimate the importance of this groundwork material for King.  Someday I hope to read the complete run, add it to my King collection.  I have pretty much everything else already.



The Adventures of Superman Annual #3 (DC)
(from 1991)

The Armageddon 2001 annuals arc was one of the early themed events DC did that helped set the precedent for what it would later make an annual tradition in the New 52.  In fact, this particular arc is not all that different from Futures End, a kind of fast-forward.  Waverider, a character who could really use a revival, peers into the future of every hero trying to determine who becomes the villainous Monarch.  DC lore has it that it was originally intended to be Captain Atom, who in fact does become a different Monarch years later in the pages of Extreme Justice, but in the meantime it was switched to Hawk of Hawk & Dove (soon to appear on television!).  At any rate, it was never going to be Superman, right?  This issue instead focuses on the then-recent introduction of Maxima as an alien who fancies Superman to be her ideal mate.  Ah...they're later in Dan Jurgens' Justice League together! 

Adventures of Superman #632 (DC)
(from November 2004)

There's a number of things Greg Rucka is known for in his first run with DC (Wonder Woman, Gotham Central chief among them, and eventually Batwoman), but writing Superman isn't one of them.  And yet here he is!  There are two things to know about the issue: one is that Lois has been shot and is possibly dying (hindsight says probably not), and that Ruin is trying to become the next great Superman villain (hindsight says probably not, possibly owing to the fact that he's basically Lex Luthor).  Please also note Paul Pelletier on art!

Marvel Knights: X-Men #5 (Marvel)
(from May 2014)

Industry observers hailed Marvel Knights, along with the Ultimate line, to be one of Marvel's creative saviors in the early millennium.  Somewhere along the way both of them petered out, the Ultimate comics with a bang, the Knights with a whimper.  This is one of those projects that just kind of happened.  It's an ambitious attempt by new creators to give the X-Men new creative relevance (which was the Knights mandate as a whole) without necessarily reinventing the wheel.  Maybe the results this time were a little too woolly to stick the landing, too caught up with the emerging indy aesthetic Marvel would come to try and embrace across its line.  So it didn't really stick out.  But for an X-Men comic it still looks unique.  I think the problem mostly was that it tried to introduce new characters but didn't trust them to guide the story.  The X-Men gained new life when new characters started guiding the story.  Maybe time to try that again?