[Palooka slim]

There are lots of comics being reprinted now days in archives, essential and showcase style format, what comics do you most want given this treatment? my top 10  wish list - BLACK TERROR.JOHNNY DYNAMITE.AIRBOY.DAREDEVIL(golden age).LADY LUCK.POWERHOUSE PEPPER.KID MONTANA (by Morisi).I would also love a collection of O'neil and Aparo's WANDER which appeared in the back of cheyenne kid.PHANTOM-charlton's version with art by Aparo,Boyette and Don Newton.

[narfstar]

Wander would be cool. As a fan of the oddball SA, I would like Kona, Toka, Naza, Fab 4, and the Dell Monster Heroes from GK Prof Harbinger and Mighty Samson, Brothers of the Spear and Mars Patrol as well as their version of the Phantom with some of the all time best covers, MF Enterprises Captain Marvel and the incomprable and often overlooked Fatman the Human flying saucer. I have them all so probably would not buy but would like to expose the rest of the world. The Harvey Thriller heroes and the Archie heroes as well as Man from R.I.V.E.R.D.A.L.E. from Madhouse their offbeat heroes as well as Chester and Lester.

[Yoc]

Some nice choices PS.  Black Terror might be so-so until Meskin joins at the end.
Daredevil's would take several volumes but a 'best of DD vs the Claw' would sell and a 'best of Crimesmasher vs Iron Jaw' a good companion book.  Lady Luck and Powerhouse are crowd favourites.

My list -
Fiction House's Complete Matt Baker (we can dream right?), ME's Ghost Rider, Prize's Frankenstein, Charlton's Yellow Jacket, Sheldon Mayer's Complete Scribbly, Quality's Madam Fatal and Torchy, Harvey's Black Cat, Holyoke's Cat-Man, Lou Fine's very best at Fox, Centaur's The Shark and Iron Skull, Ziff Davis' Collected Dan DeCarlo, "Comics Rot My Brain - the best of the 'worst' precode stories published by Stanley P Morse" (I'd buy it!), "The Best of Everett Raymond Kinstler at Avon", Croydon's 'Complete Green Turtle Collection', MLJ's Forgotten Heroes like Bob Phantom, The Fox and Mr Justice.

How's that for a start?

[OtherEric]

Anything by Sheldon Mayer, almost anything by Walt Kelly.

We've gotten at least a few Scribbly stories in archive form, and Fantagraphics is putting out the nice "Our Gang" collections.  But there is way too little from either of them you can just grab off the shelf.

[rez]

MF Enterprises Captain Marvel

Is that the Captain Marvel that would have his hand disconnect and fly across the room punching the bad guy's lights out?

[OtherEric]

That would be it.

Fatman the Human Flying Saucer is an interesting book, but I don't know that I need to see that much more of it.  (I have issue 2 somewhere.)  Split Captain Marvel, I also have one issue.  And no need to see more.  It's not so bad it's good, it's so bad it's terrible. 

[darkmark]

One I'd vote for is JUST A STORY, an Eisnerish strip by Howard Nostrand that ran in the old COMICS CAVALCADE and eventually grew into Johnny Peril.  Another would be DR. DREW, the very Eisnerish strip credited to Grandenetti, along with the two Spiritesque episodes of Senorita Rio.  Maybe also the Fran Hopper Camilla stories from JUNGLE.  Definitely Dick Briefer's FRANKENSTEIN, and a companion Green Lama volume featuring the Raboy stories and maybe others from PRIZE (yes, Mac did some GL stories there, too).  BLACK CAT needs the definitive treatment.  Maybe Hunt Bowman from PLANET COMICS.  And some KID ETERNITY from HIT, especially the Raboy stories.  It's also time that Joe Simon let us have a Bulls-Eye collection, maybe filled out with some S&K stories from Prize and elsewhere.  Probably most of the rest has been mentioned elsewhere.  But why hasn't DC come out with Golden Age Aquaman and Green Arrow collections?

[OtherEric]

But why hasn't DC come out with Golden Age Aquaman and Green Arrow collections?

Probably because, despite their longevity, they weren't that good?  Not that that's stopped them on some other titles.

Actually, from what I've seen, both series would be better served by a "greatest hits" collection on the earlier material rather than an archive.  Unlike many of the GA characters, one or two volumes wouldn't cover their run.  (Anybody else have the Doctor Fate archive?  What a fun, massive collection.)  Then again, I would love to see archives of Scribbly, Genius Jones, Shining Knight, Johnny Quick, Zatara, Newsboy Legion, and so on, well beyond my ability to afford the books.

Archie and Marvel are both playing with Digital archives and releasing at least a little older material, I haven't signed up for either yet.  Once DC starts playing I'll be all over it, they have tons more material I want to see than the other two.

[narfstar]

I guess this thread needs split into SA and GA. With so much GA here already my mind went silver. And Eric regardless of how bad they were I LOVED them at ten years old. I have all the issues of CM and Fatman and even Super Green Beret. I loved the Dell monster heroes even with the terrible Tallirico art.

GA I have to agree with Yoc on two of my favorites Yellowjacket and Green Turtle and any Centaur superhero. Of course with me the problem of archives is overload. What I loved in small doses may get boring quickly in large

[Yoc]

I think a single thread is just fine narf.  We are just 'pie in the sky' going here, right?
I agree too much of a 'not-so-good-thing' can be at turn-off.  'Best of' for so-so characters would likely be fine.
Aquaman and Green Arrow fall in there.  Robotman, Vigilante and WildCat might be worthy of the full run treatment.

-Yoc

[narfstar]

I was not referring to the need to split the thread just the archives within. I guess I need to go read some more Vig, Robotman and Wildcat if they are mostly all good. Believe it or not, for as much as I hate non-powered kid sidekicks, I liked the few Little Boy Blue stories that I have read. I can take stories in context of their own little unverse. If Blue and his boys had appeared with powered characters then I would not have liked it.

Another archive character would be the unusual Duke of Darkness. I believe he was the inspiration for Ditko's Nightmare in Doctor Strange

[OtherEric]

I would love to see more robotman; I've never heard anything but praise for the character.  And Meskin was really on his game with Vigilante.  But I've seen at least a couple real stinkers with Wildcat.  He does show up as one of the characters in the "All-Stars" archive, and I would love to see a second collection of that.

Actually, I'm being quite unfair when I call Aquaman and Green Arrow "bad", they're not.  But there is a lack of innovation between stories from what I've seen; the dozen or so precode appearances of each I've seen tend to run together a lot.

[Palooka slim]

Yes I agree That black cat deserves archive treatment, i cant believe i forgot it, Lee Elias is one of my top 10 fav golden age artist.

[phabox]

I believe one of the guys here had been working towards a digital Black Cat Collection, even bought and scanned a good number of issues towards that goal.

Not heard much of him recently but he did manage to put together an incomplete 'rough draft' version and should he ever want to complete it I'd love the opportunity to contribute to it.

-Nigel

[Astaldo711]

The Geek!
Seriously though, I always liked Pep Comics with the shield. I had a reprint a while ago that I read the heck out of.

[Yoc]

I think the Kirby era Green Arrows were collected somewhere no?
I understand they had some wild ideas for the character and were told to keep it simple.

Sorry Narf, yes you are right - as SA, GA edition would be needed for long running characters like Green Arrow and Aquaman.  The Martian Manhunter had a long and varied history as well but was he interesting enough to warrant a collection?

-Yoc

[OtherEric]

I think there are two books with the complete Kirby Green Arrow; there was an inexpensive color collection in 2001 and as far as I know they're all in the Showcase Presents Green Arrow as well.  They're from 1958 or so, firmly into the Silver Age.

[narfstar]

The Martian Manhunter had a long and varied history as well but was he interesting enough to warrant a collection?

-Yoc

You must remember that I view comics with the mind of my ten year old self where the more offbeat the better. I first read MM in House of Mystery (other than JLA) as a back-up to Dial H. I got the previous issues when I could. The really early issues were so bad they are now good. MM's exact powers had not been firmly established so he could do almost anything the writer wanted but light a match and you could put him down for the count. I have only been able to read a couple stories at a time in my Showcase edition.

[John C]

The Martian Manhunter is on his second Showcase volume.  I don't recall it being much better in color, so I'd give it a shot if you're at all interested.

I've never understood the draw for Green Arrow, personally, but would love to see more of the early Aquaman.  But I can see why DC would stay away, since they've spent decades showing us how he's not really a worthwhile property.

This may be the fact that my earliest exposure to the Golden Age was All-Star Squadron, but I definitely second Robotman (especially if they could find an editor who'd be willing and able to talk about the Binders' Adam Link stories in context--actually, context is what the DC Archives tend to ignore, which is a shame), and would also appreciate Tarantula and Johnny Quick, who've both impressed me quite a bit in the few original stories I've seen.

Generally, I tend to think that the rule for collections should be that the material isn't widely available otherwise, though.  So I wouldn't mind seeing anything from Slam Bradley to the Inferior 5, whereas I have no idea who greenlit the Outsiders Showcase.

[narfstar]

I have the Aquaman Showcase. I find his early SA stories a lot of fun. I am not an Aquaman fan so ony got it because it was on sale cheap. I was surprised to find I liked it better than I expected and more than some others.

[OtherEric]

The thing with Martian Manhunter is that the stories that probably most deserve a complete collection are the House of Mystery and last few Detectives, rather than the earlier ones.  The Idol-Head of Diabolu and Vulture arcs were an interesting idea for the time, providing an over-arcing threat while allowing most of the stories to stand on their own. I'm not sure how the earlier stories are; DC seems to love reprinting the first two over and over but not bothering with anything past that.

[phabox]

Silver Age Aquaman DID benefit from some top notch artists, they don't come much better than Ramona Fradon, Nick Cardy and Jim Aparo.

Green Arrow did'nt do to bad with stints from Kirby and Lee Elias but The Martian Manhunter seemed to draw the short straw artwise unless you happen to be a Joe Certa fan.

-Nigel

[JonTheScanner]

Unfortunately, I'd take Joe Certa over many of the artists drawing today.  He may not have been dynamic, but his people looked like people, thy had individual faces you could recognize, etc. etc. etc.

[phabox]

I make you right there Jon.

-Nigel

[Astaldo711]

I haven't read enough GA books to have a favorite. I know I liked the artist that drew a Hawkman story I read. Some of the art is so bad the same character looks like a different person on each panel.