Month: February 2018

100 Issues Ago October 2009

First in a possibly new sporadic series of vaguely linked posts! Collect them all!

I came across this “100 Issues Ago” panel in an old Justice League of America and thought I’d tidy it up and re-purpose it. If one month = one issue, what was I reading 100 Issues Ago?

Of the 24 issues I picked up in October 2009, 22 of them were from DC (there was one each from Avatar and Dynamite) and while that puts us knee deep in Blackest Night and just after Final Crisis, I had to pick this issue of Power Girl as the highlight of that month. There was plenty of other good stuff out – Blackest Night, Secret Six and The Boys, but there were also some . . . less worthy titles like Final Crisis Aftermath: Escape and the dreadful Justice League: Cry for Justice.

The Palmiotti and Gray written, and Amanda Conner illustrated, Power Girl was a fantastically fun run of 12 issues, the team leaving after that, and it’s a shame the title didn’t get as much attention as their later (and just as good) Harley Quinn received.

I know I said it recently, but if you haven’t, pick up the Power Trip collection that contains the whole run – if you like good, fun comics with excellent art, you could do a hell of a lot worse.

Superman’s Punching Car!

Here’s another ad from the 70s (yeah, I’m going through a chunk of old comics and keep finding these things!)

I think it’s safe to say that the Batmobile is probably the most well known superhero themed vehicle; sure, many people will know of Wonder Woman’s invisible plane, but when the majority of super-powered heroes can fly and/or run very fast, they don’t need a car, motorbike or helicopter. I’m not sure what use a Daily Planet delivery truck would be to any hero, but we’ll let that one slide for the moment as there’s one vehicle in that lot that caught my eye, as you can probably tell from this post’s title:

Superman’s punching car! (I have no idea if that’s the real name for it)

In what world would a car/plane hybrid that has retractable punching arms on the side be any more use than Superman himself?

Think about it – Supes is flying around in his punching car-plane-thing and comes across a villain that needs a damn good thrashing. What’s he going to do? Use the mechanical arms on the side of that thing or just get out and punch the damn thing himself? He’s Superman, for Rao’s sake!

This makes no sense and makes Clark Kent very grumpy.

Batman Vs Superman

Here’s a couple of ads that ran in Justice League of America #124 from November, 1975:​

Arguably the two premier DC heroes, showing off to the readers where they can be found.

I’ve just had a look at Previews for the April listings and thought I’d update those ads:

We’ve gone from six titles each in 1975 to four for Superman and eight for Batman; it would have been nine but it looks like he’s not in April’s Detective Comics.

I bet Superman can’t wait for Brian Michael Bendis and his big relaunch . . .