158 The Silver Age Teen Titans Omnibus

This book is pure, unadulterated joy.  Plain and simple.  The original Teen Titans stories.  Nick Cardy artwork.  Everything good in the world all wrapped up in a beautiful package.

The book collects about 900 pages of Teen Titans comics.  The Brave & The Bold appearances, the Showcase books, the first 24 issues, a Brave & Bold Batman team up and the whole run of the first Hawk & Dove book.

It so much fun revisiting these cheesy as hell stories.  The first half (or more) are just so god awful, they're good.  The book was clearly a victim of it's era, but it was also written to appeal to 8 year olds, who I'm sure looked down on these scripts as being too juvenile.  LOL.  About half way through the book, the stories start taking a more serious vibe, written less for 8 year old and more for a general comics audience.  These are the stories I loved the best.  The Bronze Age Omnibus will have more of this type of story in it, which I'm so looking forward to revisiting.  

Teen Titans has been my favorite series ever since the first issue I bought.  It was #44, the revival issue.  I was living in Bethel, CT at the time and that is my strongest memory of the entire time I lived there.  Discovering this book.  I was probably 8 or 9 at the time (wait, I just googled it.  I was 10.)  It left a lasting impression in my head, 41 years later.

The Silver Age Teen Titans Omnibus

Writer: Bob Haney, Steve Skeates, Neal Adams, Steve Ditko, Mike Friedrich, Gil Kane, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman

Artist: Nick Cardy, Gil Kane, Irv Novick, Neal Adams, Steve Ditko, Bruno Premiani, Bill Molno, Lee Elias, Bill Draut, Sal Trapani, Jack Abel, John Celardo, Wally Wood

DC Comics

143 Tales Of The Batman: Gerry Conway Vol 1

When I think of Gerry Conway, I don't necessarily think of Batman, but as it turns out, he's written his fair share of Batman stories.  Everything in this book I've read before.  Most everything I've read I read when it was brand new.  There are a couple exceptions, but very few.  This book has a nice mix of stories from Batman, Detective Comics, Batman Family, Brave & The Bold, World's Finest and Man-Bat. 

A couple of the stories in here I have very strong, fond memories of, though I had no idea they were Gerry Conway stories.  The first being the story from Batman Family #17.  And it's not even the story itself that I have really fond memories of, but the entire issue.  I remember all the stories kind of blending into one another.  The story reprinted in this volume has one of my favorite BatFam sequences ever. Huntress breaks into the Wayne Foundation building and is quickly "discovered" by Batman and Robin.  It's the first meeting between Batman and Huntress and I love it.  Batman brings Huntress to meet Kathy Kane, who in turn takes Huntress to meet Batgirl.  That story isn't in this volume, though.

Another story I have very fond memories of is from World's Finest #250.  I don't think the story is nearly as good as I remember it, but I'm a sucker for anniversary stories with lots of guest stars.  This tale isn't just the Superman/Batman story you'd normally get in World's Finest.  It also stars Green Arrow and Black Canary and the WWII Earth 2 Wonder Woman, all who also had features in World's Finest.  I do love these kinds of stories, whether they are successful or not. 

This book also has a fair amount of Brave & The Bold stories.  I love those tales.  LOVE THEM!!!  Especially the ones that are the more impossible ones, like Batman teaming up with Scalphunter.

I wouldn't say there's anything in this book that's outstanding, but it's a great read cover to cover nonetheless.

If DC is going to reprint more Gerry Conway stuff, I hope their next project is the Fury of Firestorm series.  That, to me, is classic Gerry Conway.

Tales Of The Batman: Gerry Conway Vol 1

Writer: Gerry Conway

Artist: Steve Ditko, Ernie Chan, Michael Golden, George Tuska, John Calnan, Jim Aparo, Don Newton, Jose Luis Garcia Lopez, Carmine Infantino, Rich Buckler, Al Milgrom, Frank McLaughlin, Vince Colletta, Dave Hunt, Dan Adkins, Steve Mitchell

DC Comics

021 Batman Arkham: Man-Bat

Another Batman Arkham volume.  So soon after the Poison Ivy one, too.  Like the other volumes in this series, it collects stories about one particular Batman villain.  I use villain loosely here, because I don't consider Man-Bat a real villain.  He started off as a good guy and has slowly, over time, lost more and more of his sanity and humanity and has become closer to an adversary (not villain) to Batman.

This is one of the best volumes of the Batman Arkham run, if you ask me.  Maybe it's because there are fewer Man-Bat stories to choose from.  Maybe it's because I fucking love Man-Bat.  Maybe both.  But the stories in this book at pretty great.  Starting with his debut (drawn by Neal Adams!!), continuing on to his extremely short lived regular series (two whole issues), adding in his mini-series (which ran longer than his regular series!) and other appearances.  This was a lot of fun for me to read and I powered through the entire thing in one sitting.  My attention span isn't that big, so that's a real statement for me to make.

My one big gripe with this book is the story from Secret Origins written by Jan Strnad.  In it, Man-Bat's story is retold pretty much as it happened, but Strnad added in a piece to tie Man-Bat's backstory in to Batman's backstory that I feel is completely unnecessary.  Suddenly Bruce Wayne and Kirk Langstrom had met as children and Bruce remembers him to this day.  Stupid and unnecessary.  Distracting.

I'm not too keen on the New 52 version.  More specifically the fact that Francine Langstrom is a villain from the get-go.  Again, stupid.  He had a perfectly good backstory that shouldn't have been fucked up by the New 52, but tptb let it happen anyway.

All in all, this is a keeper.

Batman Arkham: Man-Bat

Writer: Frank Robbins, Gerry Conway, Martin Pasko, Jan Strnad, Chuck Dixon, Dan DiDio, Frank Tieri

Artist: Neal Adams, Steve Ditko, Pablo Marcos, Kevin Nowlan, Flint Henry, Quique Alcatena, J.G. Jones, Scot Eaton, Dick Giordano, Al Milgrom, Ricardo Villamonte, Eduardo Barreto, Nathan Fairbairn

DC Comics