The Essential Man-Thing, Volumes One and Two. By Marvel.
We only had a few issues of Man-Thing (#1 and Giant-Size
Man-Thing #3) when we were kids, but they were pretty good, and entered our own
personal mythology. I tried picking up issues over the years but never found
the entire run, so when these “Essential” volumes came out I had to have them,
even though they are only black and white reprints. It turned out there were a
lot more hippies and cultists in it then I thought. Well, that was the 70’s for
you.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Comics. Collection. Softcovers.
Jack Kirby’s The Demon. Introduction by Mark Evanier. DC
Comics.
I read the first issue back in 4th grade. Jerry
Williams brought comics to school on a regular basis (he had quite a
collection) and it was one of them. I suppose the very first picture of Merlin
drew me into it; I already had a Wizard Thing going on. Other images in it
stuck with me for years: Morgan La Fay’s ashen face under her golden mask, the
Demon (Etrigan) transforming into a man and walking away from the destruction of Camelot,
the look on Jason Blood’s face when he transforms into the Demon. It stuck with
me for years. He turned up now and then in other places, like the Batman
cartoons or in ‘The Sandman’. When I saw this archive, I had to have it. This
full-color treasury is a lot crazier and more occult than I remembered. I now
have a Demon action figure.
Ranking: Essential Nostalgia.
File Code: Comics. Collection. Hardback.
The Essential Howard the Duck, Volume One. Marvel Comics.
We were introduced to Howard the Duck in Man-Thing #1 and
followed his career in a very patchy way. The idea of a cartoon duck trapped in
a world he never made appealed to us as satire. I got this volume to check out
the entire saga, and found that it was, on the whole, not what I expected or
wanted. This black-and-white treasury pretty much ends with the last issues we
ever saw, so I never bothered with (if there ever was) a Volume Two. [Turns out
there is.]
Ranking: Essential Nostalgia.
File Code: Comics. Collection. Softcover.
Weirdworld: Warriors of the Shadow Realm, by Doug Moench and
Mike Ploog.
Got the three issues of “Warriors of the Shadow Realm” back
in the late 70’s. I knew there were other earlier tales scattered here and
there, and I tried following later stories through issues of “Epic”. Very happy
to find this color collection of reprints with the earlier stories and
“Warriors” in it; my old copies were getting pretty ragged! Ploog had done some
work for Bakshi on “Wizards” and “LotR”, and along with Moench they developed
this “High Fantasy” comic.
Ranking: Essential.
File Code: Comics. Collection. Softcover.
Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. DC Comics.
“Watchmen is an American comic book maxiseries by the British creative team of
writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons and colorist John
Higgins. It was
published by DC Comics in 1986 and 1987, and collected
in a single volume edition in 1987. Moore used the story as a means to
reflect contemporary anxieties and to deconstruct and satirize the superhero
concept. Watchmen depicts an alternate history in which superheroes emerged in
the 1940s and 1960s and their presence changed history so that the United
States won the Vietnam War and the Watergate
break-in was
never exposed. In 1985, the country is edging toward World War III with the Soviet Union, freelance costumed vigilantes have been
outlawed and most former superheroes are in retirement or working for the
government. The story focuses on the personal development and moral struggles of the protagonists as an
investigation into the murder of a government-sponsored superhero pulls them
out of retirement.” Has been adapted with limited success into a movie and a TV
series. Part of the Graphic Novel explosion that it helped launch.
Rankings: Keeper.
File Code: Graphic Novel. Softcover.
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