2018.027 Batgirl: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol 1

Batgirl: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol 1
Written by: Frank Robbins, Elliot S Maggin, Bob Rozakis, Gardner Fox, Mike Friedrich, Denny O'Neil
Illustrated by: Don Heck, Mike Grell, Carmine Infantino, Frank Springer, Gil Kane, Bob Brown, Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, Pablo Marcos, Curt Swan, Jose Delbo, Irv Novick, Dick Giordano, Vince Colletta, Sid Greene, Murphy Anderson, Frank Giacoia
DC Comics

133 Justice League Of America: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol 1

I'm dying.  Or at least it feels like I am.  I woke up Sunday feeling under the weather.  Monday was bad enough that I told work I wasn't coming in Tuesday.  It's now Friday and I still haven't gone back to work.  I think I'm on the verge of kicking this finally.  But as I've sat home sick, I've been reading.  Because there hasn't been anything else I've felt up to doing.  The first thing I grabbed was this beauty.  850 pages (give or take) of Bronze Age JLA goodness.

This volume picks up roughly where the Archive books ended, so I'm happy for the continuity of the reprints.  Black Canary has just left Earth 2 and joined the JLA.  It's been fun watching her in these comics most of all.  She developed a superpower but is having no luck controlling it.  In a couple issues she practices her canary cry, but with no luck.  Later on, her canary cry gives her psychic powers (which were quickly forgotten about).  Most of the use of her actual canary cry takes place in the Green Lantern book.  In this run of JLA, with the exception of her botched attempts at it, she uses it only once in a blink-and-you-miss it scene.

Otherwise, this was a joy to read.  The book has two running themes, I've noticed.  The front half of the book has a ton of stories about the ecology, the environment, civil rights, that sort of stuff.  The second half, however, is all about pure super-heroic action.  I guess I never realized how much I loved Len Wein's contribution to the series until I reread these stories.

I have nothing bad to say about this book.  Nothing.  It's a pure joy, plain and simple.  So much Dick Dillin beauty, too.

Justice League Of America: The Bronze Age Omnibus Vol 1

Writer: Denny O'Neil, Mike Friedrich, Len Wein, Robert Kanigher, Gardner Fox

Artist: Dick Dillin, Neal Adams, Murphy Anderson, Ross Andru, Nick Cardy, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Mike Sekowsky, Joe Giella, Dick Giordano, Bernard Sachs

DC Comics

022 Batgirl: A Celebration of 50 Years

DC has published a whole line of these Celebration books.  From what I understand, this is the last one, at least for a while.  And what a note for them to finish this up on.  Batgirl: A Celebration of 50 Years should be the gold standard on how to assemble one of these books.  In it's limited space (less than 400 pages), it manages to cover the true spirit of Batgirl.  While it's the Barbara Gordon Batgirl who graces the cover and is the best known Batgirl, there have been others and they are all represented here.  The book starts off with a Betty Kane Bat-Girl story before devoting the most space to Barbara Gordon.  It also covers Helena Bertinelli's very short run as Batgirl as well as Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown before returning to Barbara Gordon.

The one thing I found odd about this collection is the placement of a story from Batgirl: Year One.  It's the second story in the Barbara Gordon section.  While the stories presented are in chronological order of when they happened, I would have preferred this story to show up at the end of Barbara's section, not the beginning of it.  But that's a minor nitpick.

I love that they've included the story of Barbara running for Congress (and winning!) as well as a story from Batman Family.  I'm still holding out hope that DC will reprint Batman Family in some shape someday.

At work during my lunch breaks, I'm reading a volume of Batgirl featuring Cassandra Cain, so expect a post about that shortly.  I enjoyed the Cassandra stories in this volume.  Until I started reading the trades collecting her run, I really had no experience with the character.  Stephanie Brown never truly felt like Batgirl to me.  While I enjoyed the stories, I think I would have liked her in her Spoiler identity better.  She just felt hollow to me as Batgirl.

The one story I didn't really care much for in this volume was The Last Batgirl Story.  It was a special published back in the day.  DC was retiring Batgirl (see The Killing Joke) and issued this special as a grand send off.  Only it was awful and felt like a bad inventory story rather than a last hurrah.

This book is everything!

Batgirl: A Celebration of 50 Years

Writer: Bill Finger, Gardner Fox, Scott Beatty, Chuck Dixon, Frank Robbins, Bob Rozakis, Barbara Randall, John Ostrander, Kim Yale, Greg Rucka, Kelley Puckett, Dylan Horrocks, Bryan Q. Miller, Gail Simone, Cameron Stewart, Brendan Fletcher

Artist: Sheldon Moldoff, Charles Paris, Carmine Infantino, Sid Greene, Marcos Martin, Alvaro Lopez, Gil Kane, Don Heck, Irv Novick, Vince Colletta, Trevor von Eeden, Rodin Rodriguez, Barry Kitson, Bruce Patterson, Brian Stelfreeze, Karl Story, Greg Land, Drew Geraci, Mike Deodato, Sean Parsons, Damion Scott, Robert Campanella, Rick Leonardi, Jesse Delperdang, Tim Levins, Lee Garbett, Don Davis, Aaron Sowd, Trevor Scott, Pere Perez, Ed Benes, Babs Tarr

DC Comics