[Powder Solvang]

I'm going to list some of my favorite comic book stories and comment on them. I encourage others to do the same. Your lists can be as long or as short as you wish. I'm going to list my top ten Golden Age stories and my top ten stories regardless of time period.

Top Ten Golden Age
1. The Marvel Family Battles The Sivana Family from Marvel Family 10 1947. The longest Marvel Family Story; too bad Fawcett didn't do more of this. Thanks to GoldenAger for a great upload of this one.
2. Riddle Of The Demented Dwarf from All Winners Comics 21 1946. The All Winners heroes in a team up story similar to the JSA in All Star.
3. The Monster Society Of Evil (The Mr. Mind Serial) from Captain Marvel Adventures 22-46 1943-1945 The epic of epics!
4. The Mightiest Team In The World from Superman 76 1952. The story thar led to a lot of great team up stories in World's Finest.
5. The Origin Of The Batman from Batman 47 1948. Bruce Wayne confronts the killer of his parents; good stuff.
6. The Day That Dropped Out Of Time All Star Comics 35 1947. Degaton was one of the few villains who was a worthy foe for the Justice Society.
7. The Human Torch vs The Submariner from Marvel Mystery Comics 8-10 1940. Fire and water.
8. The Experiment Of Professor Zero from Detective Comics 148 1949. I love the way Bill finger used giant props in his Batman stories. He out does himself in this story by having a mad scientist shrnk Batman and Robin to tiny size. Everything becomes a giant prop!
9. Captain Marvel And The Freedom Train from Captain Marvel Adventures 85 1948. CM battles Sivana in a book lenght epic.
10.Blueprint For Crime from Leading Comics 1 1941. The Seven Soldiers Of Victory Battle The Hand in their first story. Many years later the Hand would return to bedevil the JLA, JSA and Seven Soldiers in Justice League Of America #s 100-102.

Top Ten All Time
1. The Marvel Family Battles The Sivana Family
2. Superman's Race With The Flash from Superman 199 1967. There have been many Superman/Flash race stories but this imho is the best.
3. Captives Of The Cosmic Ray from The Flash 131 1962. I always liked the buddy stories with Barry and Hal.
4. Riddle Of The Demented Dwarf
5. Superman Red And Superman Blue from Superman 162 1963. My favorite imaginary story. Hey, wait a minute, aren't they all imaginary?
6. Crisis On Earth Prime from Justice League 207-209 and All Star Squadron 14-15 1982. Degaton returns in a five part story to menace the entire multiverse.
7. Crisis On Earth One/Crisis On Earth Two from JLA 21-22 1963. The first in a long run of Justice League/Justice Society crossovers.
8. The Monster Society Of Evil
9. Old Friends from Green Lantern Corps Quarterly 3 1992. One of the few post crisis DC stories I can stand. I like the way Alan Scott and Molly are portrayed in their golden years.
10. The Kryptonite Express from World's Finest 196 1970. Not that there's anything special about it but it's one of those summer comics I remember from my youth.

[darkmark]

Hard for me to think of just a top ten from the Golden Age, so you'll have to settle for what I can do here.  Let's go.

1)  FANTASTIC FOUR #48-50, the Galactus Trilogy
For me, and for many others, this was the keystone.  The first appearance of Galactus, a foe powerful beyond belief, seemingly beyond good or evil, and the Silver Surfer, an impersonal force-being who learned of humanity, both our own and his.  A lot of shades of the Prometheus story in this one, and more emotion and positivity than in a year of X-MEN.  The best that Stan and Jack ever got.

2)  THE SPIRIT, "Ten Minutes"
Eisner, Grandenetti, and probably Feiffer never got any better than they did in this seven-page tale of the ten minutes in which a "good kid" commits murder and tries to flee his inevitable fate.  I am still stunned by this one.

3)  MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER #1, Magnus's origin.
This is probably the most complete superhero comic I've ever read.  Great art, great writing, great world-building, a unique hero, a scary villain, a fantastic battle of man against machine, and all the heroism, villainy, and idealism that we loved back in the Conservative Age.  Read it and learn why we loved Russ Manning.

4)  WEIRD SCIENCE or WEIRD FANTASY (Don't have the info right in front of me), "Judgment Day".
This was written years before the antiracist days of the Sixties and it works.  An emissary from Earth comes to a world settled by robots and learns how far they have proceeded, socially, and how far they haven't, with a lesson we came to learn ourselves.  It might seem a bit naive and heavy-handed now, but it wasn't back then.

5)  TALES FROM THE TOMB #1, "Mr. Green Must Be Fed".
It's hard to single out one story from this wonderful tome, but I'll go with this one.  Written by John Stanley, drawn by Frank Springer.  A drifter is given a free night in a boarding house, and finds out everything is great, as long as he does NOT step on the rug beside the bed...  I'll leave the rest to you to discover.  One of the best horror stories in comics.

6)  AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #18.
After breaking off a fight with the Green Goblin in the previous issue for personal reasons, Spider-Man undergoes a crisis of confidence and runs away from a pursuing Sandman, losing more face with John Q. Public.  J. Jonah is right there to joyfully capitialize on the proceedings.  Aunt May is sick, and Betty Brant appears to have found herself another guy.  Peter Parker throws his Spider-Man uniform in the trash.  And that appears to be that, till Aunt May herself sets him straight about the Parker grit.  One of the most triumphant last panels you'll ever see.

7)  WARLOCK #11.
Jim Starlin's groundbreaking run on WARLOCK was probably the best series of Marvel's Bronze Age, and that's saying a lot.  Faced with a corrupt and evil (but more powerful) future self, Adam Warlock, allied with Thanos, Pip, and Gamora, has to see and instigate his own final destruction.  This one is rivaled by his Gotterdammerung in AVENGERS ANNUAL #11 / MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE ANNUAL #2, but I think it edges the latter out a bit, IMHO.

  SHOWCASE #61, "Beyond the Sinister Barrier".
Gardner Fox and Murphy Anderson turn in possibly their best effort on this one, a tale of the Spectre which pits him against the cosmically evil entity Shathan.  You get the Big Bang a couple of times in this one, the origin of the positive and anti-matter universes, and possibly the only way to defeat a villain who can't be killed or possibly even harmed.  Probably the best Spectre story ever.

9)  STRANGE ADVENTURES #205, "Who Has Been Lying In My Grave?"
Deadman's probably my favorite character, and his origin story here by Arnold Drake and Carmine Infantino is still one of my all-time favorites.  The original STRANGE ADVENTURES series, particularly in the Adams days, is probably as close as we'll get to a successor to Eisner's SPIRIT.  Carmine's not Neal, but I still like this one best.

10)  NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #1:  "Who Is Scorpio?"
A Jim Steranko tour-de-force which meshes his greatest influences, Will Eisner and Wally Wood.  Fury meets his most enigmatic foe in a battle full of atmosphere and rococo art.  No way this one will ever be forgotten.

There should be a lot more here, but these are my ten favorites.  So I left out Miller, Moore, and Gaiman.  Sue me.

[Brainster]

Golden Age I'd mostly go with Batman stories:
Detective #211: The Jungle Cat-Queen
Batman #47: The Origin of the Batman
Batman #61: The Birth of Batplane II
Detective #79: Destiny's Auction
Detective #66, #68 and #80: Two-Face saga
Batman #55: Ride, Bat-Hombre, Ride

Others:
The Spirit: Ten Minutes
Uncle Scrooge #15: The Second-Richest Duck

Silver Age:
Detective #220: The Second Batman and Robin Team
Superman #149: The Death of Superman
Superman #162: Superman Red and Superman Blue
Flash #123: Flash of Two Worlds
Strange Tales 126-127 Dr Strange Versus Dormammu
Spiderman #33: The Final Chapter
Tales of Suspense #72-74: The Sleeper Saga (Yeah, the ending was mediocre)
Flash #147: Our Enemy, The Flash
Adventure #352-353: Sun-Eater Saga/Death of Ferro Lad
Fantastic Four #48-50: Galactus/Silver Surfer

Modern:
Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck (Don Rosa)
Starlin's Warlock series
Kree-Skrull War
Batman Dark Knight Returns
Watchmen

[OtherEric]

My personal top 10 list, which I've polished in my mind for years while waiting for somebody else to bring up the subject:

1) "Plaster of Paris"  A lot of the Spirit Stories are impressive; for whatever reason this one has always struck me as the best of the lot.  An utterly stunning first page leads into a story that may not have a lot to do with the Spirit but is pure Noir.

2) "The Second Richest Duck"  Uncle Scrooge 15 Uncle Scrooge, if not Barks finest creation, was the catalyst for his best stories.  And this one is an absolute delight.  Flintheart Glomgold is probably Scrooge's greatest antagonist; not always an outright enemy but a brilliant counterpoint.

3) "There Will Come Soft Rains"  Weird Fantasy 17 Adapted by Al Feldstein from the story by Ray Bradbury; art by Wally Wood.  I don't think anybody ever drew comics better than Wally Wood when he was having a good day; and this was a good day indeed.  A very offbeat and quiet story that has haunted me ever since I first saw it.

4) "Mystery of the Funny Faces inna Sand!"  Sugar & Spike 30 Part of this list is picking out my favorite creators and then picking a "best" for them; this one wins somewhat by default as it lets me get both Scribbly and Sugar & Spike onto the list with only one story.  I find it very hard to pick favorites on Sugar & Spike, anyway:  Pretty much every single story I've read has made me laugh out loud.

5) "Spider Man", Amazing Fantasy 15.  I normally don't like Spider Man nearly as much as Ditko's other work.  But if there has ever been a better Super-Hero story than this first one I really don't know what it is.  Lee at the top of his game.

6) "Mordru the Merciless!", Adventure 369 & 370.  Jim Shooter, for better or worse, did his best work when he was in his teens.  What needs to be remembered is he really did some truly incredible work then.  Add in some beautiful Curt Swan artwork and you have a story that leaves you believing that Lana Lang and Pete Ross really did deserve their honorary Legion memberships.  And trust me, I need to remember this story a LOT when they pop up pretty much any other time.  The second part also has the happy distinction of being the first Legion comic I ever read; even if I did find it in a swap meet in the mid-80's as a teenager.

7) "The Glory Boat", New Gods 6.  Similar to the Sugar & Spike, this one wins somewhat by default.  I think the Fourth World was Kirby's high point; and this one gets tagged as the most memorable of the set. 

"Pog", Saga of the Swamp Thing 32.  One of Alan Moore's less well known stories; it's also a loving tribute to Walt Kelly and his characters.  Just remembering it sends a chill down my spine.  (It's not a comic book as such, or Kelly would probably be on the list with "The Jack Acid Society Black Book.")

9) "Men of Good Fortune", Sandman 13.  A wonderful stand-alone story about two friends meeting in a bar every 100 years; with a perfect closing line.

10) The next one.  However much I enjoy those stories and the others I've seen, I'm always looking forward to reading something I haven't already!

[Powder Solvang]

Interesting lists; a little bit of everything.
Eric, I like your #10 choice!

[narfstar]

I thought I had responded to this but could not find my message.
My choices may seem fairly low brow but these SA jewels are what fueled my addiction.

I agree on "Mordru the Merciless!", Adventure 369 & 370 I remember being afraid of Mordru at the time.
FANTASTIC FOUR #48-50, the Galactus Trilogy I found the SS very compelling.
MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER #1 all around great character. Other choices in no particular order.

Crisis Between Earth-One and Two from JLA 46-47. Totally Blew me away at the time.

Adventure 344-5 The Super-Stalag of Space I could possibly choose half of the LSH Adventure run based on visceral feelings. I credit it with causing my perpetual entrapment into the fanatic that I am. Just looking at the covers to find the numbers for Super-Stalag gives those flashback feelings. It is hard not to include their first battle with The Fatal Five or the Adult Legion or The Legion of Substitute Heroes stories. Just plain luv em. I have to pick Mordru not really as a favorite but quality and Stalag for all those great throw away heroes intruduced and even killed off.

Captain Atom Faces Doctor Spectro from Captain Atom 79 a guilty pleasure.

I can not really choose but the first few issues of Conan are fairly equal as one choice.

Avengers #2 the Space Phantom. Even though I first read it in Marvel Super-Heroes #1 and found out the Hulk had ever been an Avenger.

Johan Hex 48 The Vulture Creek Massacre! Jonah Hex elevated Michael Fleisher to one of my all time favorite writers with a terrific run and this is a great example.

Modern series are usually story arcs or mini-series and I do not get many.
Mutant, Texas Tales of Ida Red    a fine fun read.

Herbie 14 Gangway for the Three Musketeers! Herbie rocks and how can you beat putting Magicman and Nemesis in a story with Herbie.

I will add more later as they come in site or to mind. I am not good at prioritizing likes and expecially across genres.

[OtherEric]

Johan Hex 48 The Vulture Creek Massacre! Jonah Hex elevated Michael Fleisher to one of my all time favorite writers with a terrific run and this is a great example.

Not one of my all time favorites, but the classic Jonah Hex is a grossly underrated series in general.

[John C]

I wasn't really going to get into this, mostly because I tend to avoid this sort of thing.  Also, I don't maintain any kind of list, so it's all off the top of my head, and I'm certainly overlooking stuff I love.  But I couldn't get it out of my head, so keeping all that in mind and the random-ish nature of the rundown...

(Oh, and pardon the semi-arbitrary Age breakdown.  It just made it easier for me to keep the stories straight, rather than throwing out a completely arbitrary list.)

Golden Age (1938-1954):
- Amazing-Man's origin, Amazing-Man Comics #5 (1939).  It's just that much fun, in a pre-comics Pulp-ish kind of way.
- Daredevil Battles Hitler (1941).  To be fair, it's not actually that well-written, but it's still a fun idea.  I was recently telling someone that I find it fascinating that Gleason, Feature, Harvey, and other companies floated teams, but the only Golden Age team that stuck was actually designed as a thin excuse to carry an anthology book!
- "That's Madelon!," International Comics #1 (1947).  EC did some nice non-horror work, and Madelon was...well, she's a photographer-slash-crime-fighter in France.  It sounds stupid, but it's a good superhero story, even if she's not one.
- "The Gun That Dropped Through Time," All-Star Comics #53 (1950).  It uses one of the most novel time travel models I've seen, and can only point to one possible precursor from the pulps.  Plus, it's a fun story.
- There are also a lot of Green Lantern, Flash, and Dr. Fate stories that I've enjoyed, but none stand out as individuals.

Golden Age, Honorable Mention:
- "The K-Metal from Krypton" (1940).  Never published by DC, but the story has been recently reconstructed and is not only good, but shocking in seeing what Superman's creators would have been willing to do with the character's world, had they not been editorially overruled.  Comics in general would certainly have been very different, had this hit the stands.
- All-Negro Comics #1 (1947).  I obviously haven't read any more of it than has been posted here, but it was a good idea and seems pretty well executed.

Silver Age (1954-1970):
I can think of surprisingly few Silver Age stories that stand out as "the best."  I know the early DC stories almost by heart, at this point, and am fond of just about all of them (Atom, Hawkman, Green Lantern, and the Flash, I'm talking about).

Silver Age, Honorable Mention:
- As Narfstar mentions, "Crisis Between Earth-One and Two," but I have to admit that even this is mostly in retrospect, because it's exactly the plot of "Crisis on Infinite Earths," but digestible and written more smoothly.
- Unnamed Blue Beetle stories, Captain Atom #83-86 (1967), and leading into Ted Kord's series.  I've got nothing against Charlton's prior Beetle, but these stories are quite good.  This is actually "honorable mention" because it doesn't fit stylistically with the Silver Age, in my opinion.  It's very much a post-Code-change storyline about a hero who isn't in the good graces of the people, yet.
- "Doom, What Is Thy Shape?," The Brave and the Bold #76 (1968).  The Plastic Man that DC should have been using all along.  It's here, because the next part of the story doesn't show up for another couple of years.

Bronze Age (1970-1986):
- "C.O.D. Corpse on Delivery," The Brave and the Bold #95 (1971), which I won't spoil for anybody...even though I already have.
- "The Assassination Of Batgirl!," Detective Comics #491 (1980), made Batgirl a hero for anybody who had any doubts.  Unfortunately, the writers liked the doubts better.  Oh, well.
- Like Powder said, "Crisis on Earth-Prime" (1982) might be my favorite, period, though maybe mostly via nostalgia.  Besides being a huge, complicated story, I'm pretty sure the middle chapter was my first non-Batman comic.  And I didn't know about anything like a "comic shop," so there were also no such things as back issues.  I spent YEARS trying to find the first two chapters of that story, and became a permanent fan of the Golden Agers.  Feel free to throw that in the face of anybody who says that the DCU was impossible to follow before Crisis on Infinite Earths "fixed" it.  I was nine, and was perfectly happy following the story across four Earths, three decades, five or so teams, and divergent timelines in a story I only read starting halfway through.
- "Night of Passion...Night of Fear!," The Brave and the Bold #197 (1983).  Alan Brennert tells us how Earth-2's Batman and Catwoman fell in love.  Brennert writes far too few comics, and his entire output could easily make it to my list; as it is, one other will.
- "Generations," Infinity, Inc. #1-10 (1984), which gave some new depth to Earth-2 than a bunch of Golden Agers who are inexplicably not retiring.  Unfortunately, the series didn't really hold together afterward, but these are the only books I can ever remember being impatient for the next installment.

Iron Age (1986-2000):
- "Gray Life, Gray Dreams" and "Gray Madness," Justice League #5-6 (1987).  This was before Giffen and DeMatteis degenerated down to effectively self-parody, and while there are funny moments, the story hits pretty hard.
- "Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot...," Christmas with the Superheroes #2 (1989).  The other major Alan Brennert story, where dead and forgotten Supergirl reminds Deadman what being a hero is about.
There were a lot of creative ideas running around these days, but they were never really implemented correctly (Byrne's Krypton) and were saddled with obnoxious heroes (Miller's Batman), so there isn't much I particularly enjoyed about these days.
But as an "honorable mention" series, Steve Englehart had an amazing run on Green Lantern Corps, running through "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossovers through the series cancellation.  There were some nicely creepy possibilities that were never quite brought to the surface, implying that there was something huge in the offing for the Green Lanterns.  A shame it never materialized.

Modern Age:
- "The Century War," JLA 80-Page Giant #3 (2000).  I should hate this.  It's clearly a bunch of fanboy "shout-outs," winks, and nods wrapped up in the sort of story that we were never supposed to see again after Crisis.  And yet, it's brisk, clever, and even sweet.
- "Soul War" (2003), JLA/Spectre mini-series.  Again, this should've been complete garbage, but it's actually the story that sold me on the possibilities of the (then-)current versions of DC's lineup.  It also explained and resolved the reasons for Batman whining every time Hal's name came up in conversation.  It's a pity that nobody at DC read this...

And, of course, there's plenty of stuff I haven't read, which I'm sure is fine storytelling (my knowledge of Marvel is minimal at best), and since this was mostly off the top of my head (a dicey proposition with Internet access), it's also poorly edited and probably overlooks stories that I've read and enjoyed, and might even be better than those I've listed here.  Sorry on all counts.

I have no apologies, though, for not listing anything by Moore, Miller, Wolfman, Morrison, or any of the other fan favorites over the years.  I have literally never read any of their work that I could honestly say that I enjoyed.

[OtherEric]

I just hope more of the K-Metal story turns up; with that said it's amazing how much we do have of it.  Oh, and we also just got more art from the lost JSA story in the latest Alter Ego; I had to update my incomplete CBZ of that book as well.

It's a crying shame that Alan Brennert wrote so few comics; the few he's done are pretty uniformly wonderful.

[darkmark]

Alan has written prose novels and stories, though, and they're in the same gentle and poignant frame as his comics stories.  I like him a lot.

[Mr. Izaj]

 This is going to be a hard call, but here are a few of my favorite Golden Age stories at the top of my head:

"The Case of the Patriotic Crimes" (All-Star Comics #41 {June-July 1948}) ; I have very special memories of this Justice Society of America story because it was the very first Golden Age JSA story I had ever read (I first read it when it was reprinted in Justice League of America (first series) #113). And it is also one of the best stories of this classic strip.

"The Crime of the Ages (All-Winners Comics #19 {Fall, 1946}); Of the two All-Winners Squad stories that were published, this one is my favorite. Bill Finger took what he learned from writing the Seven Soldiers of Victory and applied it to this super team composed of seven of Timely/Marvel's notable Golden Age heroes (Captain America and Bucky; The Human Torch and Toro; the Sub-Mariner; the Whizzer; and Miss America) and created a great story doing it. Loved the touch of them fighting among themselves early on in the story (showing the editorial touch of Stan Lee) predated what Stan Lee would put into his Fantastic Four and Avengers stories in the 1960's.

"The Mosconian Threat" (Top-Notch Comics #s 5-7 + Pep Comics #s 4 & 5); Probably the very first cross-company storyline ever published. MLJ writer/editor Harry Shorten rewrote the rules when he not only teamed two of MLJ's top heroes - The Shield and the Wizard - for this multiple issue storyline that spanned five books, he also managed to put two minor strip characters - Keith Kornell (from Top-Notch) and Lee Sampson (from Pep) and involve them in this storyline as well. And to think this was overshadowed by the more celebrated Human Torch vs. Sub-Mariner duel from Marvel Mystery #s 8-10 which came out around the same time.

"Exiles in Time" (Leading Comics #8); One of my favorites of the Seven Soldiers of Victory strip. Here the Dummy (an old foe of the Vigilante) sends the SSOV back into time in order to keep them from interfering with his plans. Considering that I happen to be a fan of time travel stories this is one of those better ones. This story also prophencised what eventually happened to the Law's Legionaires in Justice League of America (first series) #s 100-102.

And that's just scratching the surface.

[Powder Solvang]

  I spent YEARS trying to find the first two chapters of that story, and became a permanent fan of the Golden Agers. 

I can relate,lol!
In 1968 I read the first half of the reprinted Riddle Of The Demented Dwarf (aka Menace From The Future World)  in Marvel Superheroes 17. Unfortunately the story was continued in MSH#18 which I missed! It wasn't until many years later when ,as an adult, I got interested in comics again and collected both issues.

[bchat]

Feel free to throw that in the face of anybody who says that the DCU was impossible to follow before Crisis on Infinite Earths "fixed" it.  I was nine, and was perfectly happy following the story across four Earths, three decades, five or so teams, and divergent timelines in a story I only read starting halfway through.

I really got into the DCU during Crisis on Infinite Earths, where every issue seemed jammed packed with multiple Earths, some just debuting during the series and some already well established, and I had no problem whatsoever following what was going-on.  I had even missed issue 1 (which I wouldn't get until years later) and picked-up issue 2 because I wanted to know why a monkey was wearing a cape, why Green Lantern wasn't Hal Jordan and why Superman looked so old.  In fact, by the end of that series when everything became one Earth, I was disappointed because places like Earth-2, Earth-3 (the CSA became my favorite team of villains), Earth-X, Earth-S and Earth-4 (the first time I'ld seen Captain Atom, The Question, etc) sounded interesting to me and I wanted to see more of them.

[OtherEric]

Crisis on Infinite Earths was, in and of itself, a wonderful story.  The problem was it fixed a non-existent problem and the follow-up to the fix was so broken it created worse problems than what it claimed to solve.  The story itself was great, though.

[bchat]

Crisis on Infinite Earths was, in and of itself, a wonderful story.  The problem was it fixed a non-existent problem and the follow-up to the fix was so broken it created worse problems than what it claimed to solve.

I would definitely put COIE on any "Favorites List" I might try to come-up with (I refrain from doing so only because it would be incredibly long and feature mostly stories from the 1980's on up). Legends was ok at the time but I have trouble getting into now.  Zero Hour had its moments, like the psuedo-return of Batgirl, but outside of that I feel it's a rather weak effort.

I think one of the big problems, which has been pointed-out by fans and creators alike, was that DC did such a terrible job handling their books post-Crisis by not simply starting over from "Day One" all at once.  The idea of "ret-cons" in general annoys me to no end, but to continuously do it over a period of years, invalidating stories that were supposedly set in the post-Crisis universe just made the books harder to get into compared to the "mess" they had before.

COIE, to me, is one of the shining examples of how comic companies pay more attention to what the "vocal minority" says they want, rather than paying attention to what the "silent majority" proves they want when they voice their opinions through their wallets.  DC paid attention to what a small but loud group of people were complaining about and probably lost more readers than they gained by getting rid of the multiverse.

What I liked about the idea of DC's multiverse was that it gave characters like Captain Marvel, Uncle Sam and the JSA their own place to shine, where each could be the greatest heroes of their world, instead of what came after Crisis, which is a bunch of characters that, basically, play second-fiddle to Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc, etc.

And maybe this isn't the place to ask, but since it's on my mind at the moment, can someone please explain to me why DC Comics licensed the MLJ heroes from Archie Comics when they're already Public Domain characters?  That just doesn't make sense to me.

[OtherEric]

To be fair, the "Vocal Minority" complaining about the multiverse was generally the comic creators, as I understand it.

Archie still has the trademark on the MLJ heroes; which is separate from copyright.

[John C]

As far as Crisis goes, I don't think it holds up nearly as well as we all remembered it.  I enjoyed it at the time for showing a lot of good things (and I still enjoy it as a "guided tour"), but The Story is, basically:  Destruction of something we fans hold dear, combined with and followed by some melodramatic whining, a big fight (wherein someone is about to give up but is convinced otherwise) that spills over and defeats the Anti-Monitor.  Then they do it again five more times.  If you throw in an occasional sacrifice of characters that, at the time, nobody really cared about (which is why Wolfman was permitted to kill them in the first place), that's shockingly close to the first eleven issues.  And the dialogue doesn't help, either.

As for its origins, I actually found the story's first rumble, and I'm not even convinced (as Eric suggests) that there was a vocal minority of fans clamoring for it.  I forget the issue number and don't have my collection on hand, but there's an issue of Green Lantern with an enlightening letter column.  Some kid writes in to ask about Hal's recent meeting up with...I forget who, frankly.  Said kid goes on to question why Hal had supposedly never met the character before, when, in fact, they worked together in the big Showcase #100 blowout a few years earlier.

No big deal, right?  The right answer is, of course, "oops" or "eh."  But here's where it gets interesting.

The response, by Marv Wolfman (who was GL editor or assistant editor at the time) rants about how the Showcase issue couldn't have been official because it included characters like Binky and Space Cabbie, and what's wrong with DC as a company is a lack of commitment to a consistent, single timeline or definition of "canon."  And then, bless his heart, he goes on in Luthor-like fashion about how he has a secret plan to fix everything and he'll show everybody how the DCU is supposed to work.

In other words, the only person who was confused by the Multiverse was Marv Wolfman, and what confused him the most was the presence of Binky and His Buddies in the same universe as Green Arrow.

The aftershocks, in my opinion, weren't too bad, either, at first.  There was a substantial glitch on Wonder Woman, in that only Perez thought that the Post-Crisis DCU had no history (hence his Diana showing up "now" for the first time).  But otherwise, the policies in place seemed to be pretty consistent...up until everybody started getting new histories, a few years later.  Emerald Dawn and Hawkworld alone are still confusing people, and the writers insist on "fixing" things by writing yet more stories that are supposed to be even more definitive than last time.  And, of course, a parade of pocket dimensions, alternate timelines, Hypertimelines, Elseworlds, divergent futures, and now a new multiverse or two.

As for the MLJ deal, it's technically the Archie "Adventure Series" characters, not the MLJ incarnations proper.  Plus, Archie owns all the trademarks.  So, it makes a certain amount of sense to license them, especially since (as I understand it) Archie approached them with the idea.

[bchat]

Archie still has the trademark on the MLJ heroes; which is separate from copyright

Yes, I understand the difference.  AND ... I apologize for taking this topic off-course.

As for the MLJ deal, it's technically the Archie "Adventure Series" characters, not the MLJ incarnations proper.

If that's the case, that DC is using the later versions, then I guess it makes a little more sense.

  Plus, Archie owns all the trademarks.  So, it makes a certain amount of sense to license them, especially since (as I understand it) Archie approached them with the idea.

Was Archie Comics still actively using all of the Trademarks somehow?  I don't keep up on what they publish, so I honestly don't know.  I know they came-out with a tpb for the Shield some time ago, but was there other books using the names?

Maybe I'm answering my own question here, but I was just browsing my pc and came across the image that was published when the announcement was made, an image that has Batman fighting Black Hood and Shield while Fly Man is looking to be joining the fight.  If Fly Man isn't Public Domain (which he probably isn't, since Archie Comics had smartened-up by then), and DC was interested in using all of the characters, then I can understand licensing characters even though they didn't really have to.

Speaking of Favorite Stories (which I wasn't, but ... ) I would say Mr Justice vs The Green Ghoul is at the top of my list for Golden Age stories.

As far as Crisis goes, I don't think it holds up nearly as well as we all remembered it

I read it every once in a while and enjoy it each time.  It's a good story that's fun to read, which is all a comic has to do.   The fact that it's been negated by tons of comics that came afterwards is neither here nor there for me.

[John C]

Was Archie Comics still actively using all of the Trademarks somehow?  I don't keep up on what they publish, so I honestly don't know.  I know they came-out with a tpb for the Shield some time ago, but was there other books using the names?

I think they keep them in circulation JUST often enough to keep the trademarks active.  In fact, that seems to be almost their only use in the last twenty or so years (DC's !mpact books excepted, of course).

Maybe I'm answering my own question here, but I was just browsing my pc and came across the image that was published when the announcement was made, an image that has Batman fighting Black Hood and Shield while Fly Man is looking to be joining the fight.  If Fly Man isn't Public Domain (which he probably isn't, since Archie Comics had smartened-up by then), and DC was interested in using all of the characters, then I can understand licensing characters even though they didn't really have to.

That's pretty much it, I think.  I haven't read the books in question, but Fly Man, Jaguar, and probably quite a few others are still under Archie copyrights.  They may also want to use/adapt the '60s stories for the others, in theory.

Especially if it was Archie's idea, I doubt they paid much for the license, anyway.

[darkmark]

The MLJ heroes AREN'T public domain characters.  Archie uses them every now and then (most recently in ARCHIE'S WEIRD MYSTERIES) in order to keep their copyright valid.  Mark Waid, I think, who was working at Archie and DC at the time, brokered a deal in which DC would be allowed to use the names of the MLJ characters but not the characters themselves.  I think that doomed it.

[John C]

The MLJ heroes AREN'T public domain characters.  Archie uses them every now and then (most recently in ARCHIE'S WEIRD MYSTERIES) in order to keep their copyright valid.

That's trademark, actually, not copyright.  The copyrights on many of the MLJ books have expired for lack of renewal and are in the public domain, so therefore the characters as they appear in those books are, as well.

Mark Waid, I think, who was working at Archie and DC at the time, brokered a deal in which DC would be allowed to use the names of the MLJ characters but not the characters themselves.  I think that doomed it.

There was apparently a lot more to that story.  There was a changing of the guard in either marketing distribution who was strongly against the imprint and pulled support.  Hence the odd quasi-reboots (away from kid-friendly) and the quick backing away from non-traditional distribution (like supermarkets, which was the original plan).

Had they gotten the books in front of real customers (rather than the three or four existing Archie superhero fans), it wouldn't have mattered how close the books were to the originals, and I honestly don't think that the Siegel-style Fly Man would've, well, flown in the '90s.

[Mr. Izaj]

 Since we're on the subject of MLJ heroes - and since I mentioned the Mosconian Threat storyline as a favorite - here are some more of my favorite Golden Age MLJ stories (in no particular order):

  "The Crime Behind the Noose" (Pep Comics #38); Of all of the Hangman stories published, this is one of my favorites.  Some of his stories come off as excellent noirish detective stories which show the Hangman as a detective solving baffling crimes with only the most minute of clues. And this one - in which the Hangman tries to find a photgraph which will solve a baffling murder - is one of the best.

  "The Riddle of the Hun" (Shield-Wizard #7); The Shield's first battle with the most frequent of his later foes, the Hun. A story that - along with the Shield story from Pep #29 - I suspect had some involvement from Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Not only is the cover of that issue - in some quarters - is attributed to them, I suspect they might have co-plotted the story along with editor Harry Shorten. Artwise the first two chapters looked suspiciously like Simon's work (with an assist from Irv Novick). But the rest of the story is by Irv Novick, drawing in his new Kirby influenced style (I suspect Simon and Kirby might have helped Novick absorb some of their ideas about comic book storytelling around this time).

  "The Skull Walks the Last Mile" (Top-Notch #19); The story in which the Black Hood finally brings the Skull to justice, but not without some major twists and turns.

   "The Origin of the Hangman" (Pep Comics #17); The story that not only introduced the Hangman, but also told of the death of the Comet (the first major superhero death in comics). The story aslo set the tone fro the rest of the feature.

  "The Pawn of 'Satan' " (Pep Comics #3); Jack Cole's classic tale of how the Comet - under the hypnotic influence of Zator - turned bad. The sequence on page 5 of that story - particularly the layout of that page - is worth the price of admission alone. This story probably features some of Jack Cole's best work up to that time.

And I'm only scrating the surface.

[m_w_eris]

I believe all of Stanley's wonderfully loopy horror stories are available at the great John Stanley tribute site, Stanley Stories -- definitely worth a bookmark.

Hard for me to think of just a top ten from the Golden Age, so you'll have to settle for what I can do here.  Let's go.

1)  FANTASTIC FOUR #48-50, the Galactus Trilogy
For me, and for many others, this was the keystone.  The first appearance of Galactus, a foe powerful beyond belief, seemingly beyond good or evil, and the Silver Surfer, an impersonal force-being who learned of humanity, both our own and his.  A lot of shades of the Prometheus story in this one, and more emotion and positivity than in a year of X-MEN.  The best that Stan and Jack ever got.

2)  THE SPIRIT, "Ten Minutes"
Eisner, Grandenetti, and probably Feiffer never got any better than they did in this seven-page tale of the ten minutes in which a "good kid" commits murder and tries to flee his inevitable fate.  I am still stunned by this one.

3)  MAGNUS ROBOT FIGHTER #1, Magnus's origin.
This is probably the most complete superhero comic I've ever read.  Great art, great writing, great world-building, a unique hero, a scary villain, a fantastic battle of man against machine, and all the heroism, villainy, and idealism that we loved back in the Conservative Age.  Read it and learn why we loved Russ Manning.

4)  WEIRD SCIENCE or WEIRD FANTASY (Don't have the info right in front of me), "Judgment Day".
This was written years before the antiracist days of the Sixties and it works.  An emissary from Earth comes to a world settled by robots and learns how far they have proceeded, socially, and how far they haven't, with a lesson we came to learn ourselves.  It might seem a bit naive and heavy-handed now, but it wasn't back then.

5)  TALES FROM THE TOMB #1, "Mr. Green Must Be Fed".
It's hard to single out one story from this wonderful tome, but I'll go with this one.  Written by John Stanley, drawn by Frank Springer.  A drifter is given a free night in a boarding house, and finds out everything is great, as long as he does NOT step on the rug beside the bed...  I'll leave the rest to you to discover.  One of the best horror stories in comics.

6)  AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #18.
After breaking off a fight with the Green Goblin in the previous issue for personal reasons, Spider-Man undergoes a crisis of confidence and runs away from a pursuing Sandman, losing more face with John Q. Public.  J. Jonah is right there to joyfully capitialize on the proceedings.  Aunt May is sick, and Betty Brant appears to have found herself another guy.  Peter Parker throws his Spider-Man uniform in the trash.  And that appears to be that, till Aunt May herself sets him straight about the Parker grit.  One of the most triumphant last panels you'll ever see.

7)  WARLOCK #11.
Jim Starlin's groundbreaking run on WARLOCK was probably the best series of Marvel's Bronze Age, and that's saying a lot.  Faced with a corrupt and evil (but more powerful) future self, Adam Warlock, allied with Thanos, Pip, and Gamora, has to see and instigate his own final destruction.  This one is rivaled by his Gotterdammerung in AVENGERS ANNUAL #11 / MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE ANNUAL #2, but I think it edges the latter out a bit, IMHO.

  SHOWCASE #61, "Beyond the Sinister Barrier".
Gardner Fox and Murphy Anderson turn in possibly their best effort on this one, a tale of the Spectre which pits him against the cosmically evil entity Shathan.  You get the Big Bang a couple of times in this one, the origin of the positive and anti-matter universes, and possibly the only way to defeat a villain who can't be killed or possibly even harmed.  Probably the best Spectre story ever.

9)  STRANGE ADVENTURES #205, "Who Has Been Lying In My Grave?"
Deadman's probably my favorite character, and his origin story here by Arnold Drake and Carmine Infantino is still one of my all-time favorites.  The original STRANGE ADVENTURES series, particularly in the Adams days, is probably as close as we'll get to a successor to Eisner's SPIRIT.  Carmine's not Neal, but I still like this one best.

10)  NICK FURY, AGENT OF SHIELD #1:  "Who Is Scorpio?"
A Jim Steranko tour-de-force which meshes his greatest influences, Will Eisner and Wally Wood.  Fury meets his most enigmatic foe in a battle full of atmosphere and rococo art.  No way this one will ever be forgotten.

There should be a lot more here, but these are my ten favorites.  So I left out Miller, Moore, and Gaiman.  Sue me.

[CharlieRock]

My favortite Golden Age comics is probably going to be Wonder Woman . William Moulton Marston was a really good writer there. If I had to narrow down to one particular storyline then let it be the WW #3 where Baroness Paula von Gunther was rehabilitated into an Amazon scientist from a Nazi Villain Mastermind.

I'm just starting the Starman vol.2 series starring Jack Knight. I was really impressed with issue #4 where a billionaire sends a ruthless employee named "Sands" to get a magical Hawaiin shirt from Jack's antique store. It turns out the shirt is a portal into "heaven" and the confrontation between Sands and Starman is rather unique. After a brief altercation Starman actually sells the shirt since he does not want to possess a dimensional doorway to anywhere. (Starman/Jack Knight is a reluctant hero in this volume). It was one of the better comics I've read in a while and I'll compare it to Fables or Gaiman's Sandman any day of the week for sure.

[beowulf]

I compleatly agree with enjoying the superhero team up of a Green Lantern and a Flash (Golden or Silver)

Despite the popularity, I never saw the point of either a Superman/Batman pairing or a Green Lantern/Green Arrow one.

(Superman/Green Lantern): "I'm going to fly around the Earth and try to find the villian."
(Batman/Green Arrow): "Uh, okay. I'll just wait here and play with my (utility belt/trick arrows).

Rather than:

Green Lantern: "I'm going to fly around the Earth and try to find the villian."
Flash: "Done. He's hiding out in Peoria."