Saturday Talkback for 4-30-11 ~ Collected Editions

45 comments | Tags: Saturday Talkback

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Saturday Talkback for 4-30-11

We've never done one of these before ... let's see how it goes ...

Saturday Talkback -- the name says it all. Click the comment button, and you steer the conversation. What's on your mind? Just read a great trade? Terrible trade? Trade you want to see? Mad that SuperComicsNews.com just spoiled a story for you? Prefer hardcover/softcover/monthlies/digital? Think trades cost too much/not enough/should have glow-in-the-dark covers again? Anything you can think of -- it's Saturday Talkback! Have at it!

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45 comments:

Ken O said...: So what does everyone else do with their old trades when they upgrade to Omnibus/Library/Absolute editions?

BTW as someone who works on Saturdays, this is a fantastic idea.; 4/30/2011 08:48:00 AM
Jackie said...: @Ken O: I usually either give them to my friends or resell them to my local used bookstore.; 4/30/2011 09:17:00 AM
Jackie said...: Question: Is just me or just anyone else mad at how horrible the DC trade program is, especially the one year wait time for one hardcover to come out as a paperback?; 4/30/2011 09:19:00 AM
Bob Schoonover said...: @Jackie - The thing that kills me about the DC trade program is how much better the Vertigo program is (granted, they don't do HCs except in rare circumstances). Fables just had issue 104 come out, and the 15th trade (which includes 100) came out the same day. Perfect. The HC for Time and the Batman came out in Feb, and the last issue of that was published in August (I think).; 4/30/2011 09:31:00 AM
Jacques said...: @Jackie A year-long wait for a hardcover to go to paperback is pretty normal across the publishing industry. What frustrates me is the switch from one format to the other: Wonder Woman collections went from hardcover to paperback only for the last two, now back to hardcover for Odyssey. I also would have liked to see Brightest Day come out in two volumes instead of three. Justice League Generation Lost will be collected in two books, and for almost the same number of issues (24 for JL:GL, 25 for Brightest Day with the zero issue).; 4/30/2011 09:37:00 AM
Don Klees said...: Though typically a DC fan, I've picked up a few Marvel trades the last couple weeks. Legacy of Captain America was interesting but should have been larger book so they could do more than excerpts from some of the issues. The Ragnarok storyline from Thir is enjoyable. Roy Thomas' work was never especially ground-breaking (aside from his ret-cons of JSA history), but he knows these characters and what makes them tick. I wish there was more of that at work in the Marvel bull-pen these days.; 4/30/2011 09:54:00 AM
Anonymous said...: DC wants people to pay more for HC. I wish they would have Absoluted 7Soldiers. Where are HC of Animal Man,Doom Patrol,The Invisibles?; 4/30/2011 09:56:00 AM
collectededitions said...: @Ken O - I've been pretty lucky projecting books I think will come out in Absolute -- I waited to read Batman: Hush, DC: New Frontier, and All-Star Superman hoping for Absolutes, and those waits paid off. Granted, I never could've waited that long for Green Lantern: Rebirth, so now I have the stinky hardcover (*grin*) when I could've had an Absolute.

For Crisis on Infinite Earths, I own DC's slipcase hardcover from a couple years back, but I just bought the Absolute in addition.

@Jackie - Agreed the wait is interminable, especially since I don't think DC would lose money releasing books sooner -- you can't find many comics on the stands within months of their release, so it's not like they're waiting for all the monthlies to sell before adding the trade to the market.

The first Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors trade comes out seven months after the last issue collected in the book; I'd be eager to see that improved to five months, even. I wonder if it has to do with advertising, or when they have to announce what they're releasing to Diamond. It remains probably the frustration I hear most often from trade fans.

@Jacques - Superman/Batman, too, has wobbled back and forth between hardcover and paper. And don't even get us started on Justice League International going from hardcover to paper -- and those are pseudo-Omnibus editions!

@Don - I've never read a Thor book before, but I'm excited for the Thor movie; it just looks good. Mean to read Death of Captain America one of these days, and maybe Civil War ...

@Anon - Quite right, and I think this goes back to Jackie's point. DC definitely wants people to buy the HCs; that's why the paperbacks come out so far after the HCs (see Flash: Rebirth, only out in paperback this month!). Unfortunately, I've fallen for it; I buy a whole bunch of hardcovers (and I like 'em, even if my wallet doesn't). Hear, hear on a hardcover collection of Doom Patrol.; 4/30/2011 10:08:00 AM
Anonymous said...: Hey great blog! I just wanted to give a shout out about the new edition of the INCAL coming out soon. I got the oversized edition(which is actually the correct dimensions) that has the original coloring and its amazing.I wish more euro comics would be translated and presented in the correct ratios. Moebius is a living treasure.; 4/30/2011 12:22:00 PM
Anonymous said...: Does anyone think DC will put out a Morrison Batman Omnibus? I'd buy it !; 4/30/2011 12:28:00 PM
collectededitions said...: I entirely think DC will release a Batman by Grant Morrison Omnibus. I don't expect it any time soon, but it's obvious the fans want it.

@Anon - Who published Incal?; 4/30/2011 03:23:00 PM
Anonymous said...: The Incal was published by Humanoids and written by Jodorowsky and Moebius. I've been reading Tomb of Dracula lately and 70's Marvel had great coloring. So different from todays realism. When I was a kid in the 70's we never had tps or Hcs. Its a dream come true!; 4/30/2011 04:06:00 PM
Anonymous said...: Hey, fantastic blog! Love your reviews, they're some of the most thoughtful I've seen anywhere.

Possibly an odd question, but I'll throw it out there in case anybody knows: I've been reading Nightwing ongoing, and it's been over for a while now, but why's there just a single chunk of it that's not collected anywhere? It seems pretty eventful.; 4/30/2011 08:45:00 PM
D. Mark Simms said...: I've never upgraded a book that I own, or buy a trade when I had the singles (except once, accidentally, but even then it was over 15 years later). I would rather spend that money on a new story, rather than a new version of the same story.

I understand why DC waits so long with its trades, but I personally find it very annoying. I'm still waiting for the Blackest Night softcovers to come out this summer! I've toyed with the idea of switching to hardcover, but I don't like the higher price and I hate dustjackets. If they did more of the Supes/Bats jacketless hardcovers with their other titles, I probably would have switched.

I think they said Flashpoint (and tie-ins) were going to be released digitally just one month after publication. I have a feeling I'm going to bite on this (assuming $1.99 digital price) because I'm really looking forward to the series but am worried any surprises would be ruined by waiting 1.5 years for the softcover. I'm still bitter over the fact that I heard about Bruce Wayne returning before I had even read R.I.P. or Final Crisis.

Does anyone worry about gambling on waiting for a trade that may never come? For instance, I'm sure all of Flashpoint will be collected. But what about these DC Retro one-shots? I'm going to pick up the singles (of Batman, Flash, Green Lantern) because I don't want to risk it.

Finally, since this is a free-for-all, I was reading the Red Tornado mini-series from 2010 (a year after I bought it!) and in DC Nation, Didio mentioned that DC Legacies was coming out (which it did), but also an 18-issue Who's Who series, to start in May 2010! Whatever happened to that? I've had my eye on the DC Encyclopdia, but a more up-to-date Who's Who could be better.; 4/30/2011 08:46:00 PM
Anonymous said...: It really bothers me when DC switches from hardcovers to paperbacks, as they did on JLI. A uniform look when they are lined up on a book shelf is so much nicer.

On another note, how are people getting their pre-orders for DC hardcovers from Amazon delivered to them? Amazon has started getting much more aggressive on comic trade discounts for pre-orders, so I started ordering more from them in the past couple of months. But new hardcovers are now coming to my house from Amazon with no factory shrinkwrap at all. Is someone in Amazon's factory reading my "new" copies before sending them to me?; 4/30/2011 11:53:00 PM
Aalok Madhusudan Joshi said...: @Anonymous: I think the Nightwing case is true for a lot of series-once the characters have moved on, I think DC wants to forget the different versions of the character that ever existed,like now when Dick Grayson is Batman, they want to forget the Nightwing aspect, when Hal Jordan is Green Lantern, they want to forget the Parallax & Spectre aspect, same for Tim Drake/Robin/Red Robin. I think the only way we'll see these characters' series (except for digital of course) is years later, maybe 10 years or so, when they either come out as Omnibus or standard editions like the late 80s series coming out just recently, notably SUICIDE SQUAD, JUSTICE LEAGUE INTERNATIONAL & THE QUESTION.; 5/01/2011 03:45:00 AM
Hix said...: So many conversations of interest to me...

The lack of shrinkwrap is a DC thing, not an Amazon thing. It's happened in the stores too.

I bought Starman in issues as it came out, in trades as they trickled onto the shelves in incomplete form, and finally in the new omnibuses. And I'd do it again (nah, just kidding! I gave most of the trades to a good friend who'd never gone past the second collection. The spare first two trades have just been gifted to the guys at the Noncanonical podcast, who were ranting about how much they didn't like Robinson's recent works, with no knowledge of what he'd done before.

I'm re-reading my way through Aquaman by Peter David as a possible Uncollected Edition of the future.

I worry constantly about trade-waiting titles into oblivion. I was really disappointed when The Great Ten was trade-skipped, so I bought all the issues. I have my eye on Weird Worlds as another likely victim of non-trading (really fascinated by Lopresti's Garbageman given his impressive contributions on Sludge in the 90's).; 5/01/2011 05:49:00 AM
Jacques said...: @Hix, according to Amazon the Weird Worlds TPB comes out in December... assuming they don't cancel it like Manhunter vol. 6, which still hasn't seen the light of day.; 5/01/2011 11:25:00 AM
MisterSmith said...: Just read a great trade? - I recently read the three trades of Dan Slott's Mighty Avengers run (which was recently recollected into an oversized hardcover). It worked a lot better for me in one sitting as opposed to reading it per month.

Terrible trade? - Not a terrible trade, but I was kind of disappointed with Kathryn & Stuart Immonen's Moving Pictures (published by Top Shelf). I'm not sure what I expected out of it, but I couldn't tell you much beyond it besides the most basic gist of the story.

Trade you want to see? An Ultimate Collection of Warren Ellis' Thunderbolts.

Prefer hardcover/softcover/monthlies/digital? - Digital + Softcover. As D Mark Simms stated above I hate hardcovers for the boosted price (unless it's an Absolute or Omnibus or something deserving of the higher price) and I LOATHE dustjackets. For the first volume of Darwyn Cooke's The Spirit, one of the few hardcovers that I own, it was in a store, completely wrapped and the dustjacket was still somehow damaged on the inside. At least the actual book itself had a cover on it...most of the time the publishers don't bother. Now this isn't the specific reason I hate them, but it's just an observation.

As for digital, I actually work on a blog taking content from Marvel's Digital Comics Unlimited website and making "omnibuses'" out of them. With over 9500 comics on the site, a little direction could be helpful. (Which, for those curious, can be found here): http://mdcuo.blogspot.com/

Jackie said: Question: Is just me or just anyone else mad at how horrible the DC trade program is, especially the one year wait time for one hardcover to come out as a paperback?

I don't read a whole lot of DC content in trade (outside of a few of the perennials and Vertigo) but that's something I've noticed that Marvel does a lot better. I remember Dark Avengers #1 came out Jan of 2009, the hardcover was out by mid-year and the softcover was available before the year was over.

Anonymous said: It really bothers me when DC switches from hardcovers to paperbacks, as they did on JLI. A uniform look when they are lined up on a book shelf is so much nicer.

My brain would likely break in half if any series I was reading lost their uniformity like that. I remember I was debating buying The Immortal Iron Fist by Fraction/Brubaker/Aja Omnibus, but I opted not to, since I knew it was unlikely the Swierczynski issues would get the same treatment. Same for JMS' Thor along with Kieron Gillen's. Which is another reason why I stick with regular softcover trades as well as Ultimate Collections.; 5/01/2011 12:38:00 PM
Aalok Madhusudan Joshi said...: Why are most recent DC Bruce Jones works skipped collections? If memory serves, they skipped over VIGILANTE, WARLORD, MAN BAT & OMAC. The only works of his I've seen in collection are THE WAR THAT TIME FORGOT, NIGHTWING: BROTHERS IN BLOOD, THE WAR THAT TIME FORGOT & a villains secret files & origins from BATMAN: WAR CRIMES. I remember a character from there called David Sutabi, I don't recall seeing him later. What's more I remember Francine Langstrom & maybe one of Kirk Langstrom's children getting killed in the MAN BAT mini. I think I saw Francine later on, but I'm not sure. Any remarks about the canonicity & reasons for non collection of these series?; 5/01/2011 03:57:00 PM
Aalok Madhusudan Joshi said...: Ah yes also forgot his other collections like BATMAN/SCARECROW: YEAR ONE, CHECKMATE: CHIMERA & DEADMAN. His HULK was excellent, IMHO.; 5/01/2011 03:59:00 PM
Hix said...: I read Nightwing: Brothers in Blood from the library. That gave me a pretty strong hint as to why they stopped releasing trades of Bruce Jones' stories, but no clue as to why they kept letting him write them.; 5/01/2011 05:15:00 PM
Aalok Madhusudan Joshi said...: The NIGHTWING trade is an insult to the characters, even Red Hood. UNDER THE HOOD, both volumes of which I was re reading go for a much better read. Judd Winick's dry/witty sense of humour never fails to make me smile. I just couldn't take the haphazard placing of writers back then. I mean, after HUSH & BROKEN CITY, Winick gives us AS THE CROW FLIES, then Willingham ushers in WAR GAMES, for all of 3 issues, then Gabrych for one, then Winick for 7 issues of UNDER THE HOOD VOL 1, back to a single by Gabrych, 2 issues of WAR CRIMES by Willingham, back to Winick for UNDER THE HOOD VOL 2. The only consistency was Matt Wagner, who was the cover artist. I wanted to see the filler by Gabrych collected, but except for the crossover issues of War Games, we see no Gabrych based collections except a Batgirl, makes me wonder why.; 5/01/2011 05:47:00 PM
Aalok Madhusudan Joshi said...: On another note, ordered a few trades from amazon.co.uk, Titan Comics ISBN (through a local indian website) which were unavailable under the DC ISBN & also from Amazon. I noticed that a few of the books were actually Titan prints, while a few were DC prints, with a Titan ISBN, bar code & sticker. The Titan books have a very very lousy binding, comes apart reading it once. The paper is also slightly thicker which may also contribute to loosening the already defective binding. I got the following for self & friends:
Actual TITAN BOOKS print---->no DC indicia on cover:
BATMAN: CITY OF CRIME
BATMAN: UNDER THE HOOD VOL 2

DC COMICS with a TITAN sticker:
SUPERMAN: STRANGE ATTRACTORS by Gail Sinone, Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning with John Byrne
SKREEMER by Peter Milligan, Brett Ewins & Steve Dillon
KID ETERNITY by Grant Morrison & Duncan Fegredo
THE QUESTION VOL 1: ZEN AND VIOLENCE by Dennis O'Neil & Denys Cowan; 5/01/2011 05:54:00 PM
collectededitions said...: "My brain would likely break in half if any series I was reading lost their uniformity like that." Love it, MisterSmith.

I worry some trades may never come, but in a way I appreciate DC culling the herd for me like that. Left to my own devices, I'd probably buy pretty much everything DC publishes -- now, I'm not saying that what gets collected in trade is the best gauge of what does and doesn't deserve reading, but nothing's really been made of the Great Ten since that miniseries, for instance. It might've been great, but ten years down the road, will it matter if I bought that or not? Maybe not (or maybe) -- I figure I can always find something in the back issue bins or eBay with some years of searching if need be.

What burns me more, perhaps, is when a book is released in hardcover, but never sees paperback. I'm thinking of Flash: The Wild Wests specifically, a book where I think a bunch of us decided to wait for paperback, but the paperback never came and now the hardcover is sometimes hard to find.

@Mark - I think something happened between DC's Legacies plans and now. There was supposed to be Legacies (a new History of the DC Universe, if I recall correctly), Who's Who, and then maybe one more project -- but as it turned out, Legacies was hardly in continuity at all, and as you say, Who's Who is nowhere to be found. Something to do with post-Flashpoint continuity, maybe?

What would you all think if DC went strictly non-continuity for a year? Stuff would happen issue to issue in individual series, but no crossovers, no events, and no referencing one series with another. If something contradicted, it would be worked out later, or maybe all the books would just be "imaginary stories" for twelve issues. Great and freeing, or too oddball?

As for Nightwing, I think after On the Razor's Edge (#52, #54-60), there was so much Nightwing being collected in the Murderer/Fugitive books (#65-66, #68-69) that it would've been hard to collect Chuck Dixon's last issues (he left after #70). Then Devin Grayson's run had crossovers with Joker's Last Laugh, Batman: War Games, and others -- I don't take this as an excuse that the series just fell off for forty issues, but I think it reflects the title losing its way a little bit, until it gained a more steady direction after issue #100. And, I think, there's enough controversy about the issues around Nightwing #100 that DC wouldn't at this point collect it anyway. Maybe we'll finally see these all in digital (maybe when someone one day picks up the Nightwing mantle again)?; 5/02/2011 04:54:00 PM
D. Mark Simms said...: I actually got tired of waiting for Flash: Wild Wests, as it became apparent that a softcover wasn't coming, so I tracked down backissues from comic store bins (and I think I had to complete it by ordering from Mile High Comics).

I would be fine with DC going non-continuity, but not a year of imaginary stories. I mean, I like a good Elseworlds tale, but I also like my stories to matter, too. :-); 5/02/2011 07:23:00 PM
collectededitions said...: Yeah, I wasn't thinking a year of Elseworlds, but like a Superman story where he loses his powers or a Batman story where he fights Darkseid, but it doesn't have to be reflected in other titles -- Justice League could still be whoever, and so on. Like, just everyone tell a self-contained twelve-part story set in modern times and afterward we'll pretend like they never happened.; 5/02/2011 07:39:00 PM
Aalok Madhusudan Joshi said...: Tracked down SUPERMAN: EMPEROR JOKER finally....it's a very thick book for 14.95 US$...besides I think this era was the one that warrants the maximum collections....pity the futurized Metropolis went away in MAJESTIC: STRANGE NEW VISITOR, but the new look Superman, epitomized by Ed McGuinness & German Garcia was tops. Right now, those were out in DC COMICS PRESENTS: SUPERMAN. I don't know whether they actually ended up collecting the uncollected issues. EMPEROR JOKER was an afterthought as it fits between CRITICAL CONDITION & PRESIDENT LEX, both of which bear the numerals 4 & 5 on the spines. I think the trade came out in response to a comment by Mxyzptlk in SUPERMAN/BATMAN: VENGEANCE that "You probably don't remember it as those stories haven't been collected in trade paperback yet." That is wicked sarcasm. Jeph Loeb wrote a few good tales when he was at DC, even his RED HULK reads fairly decent, at least the 1st trade.; 5/03/2011 02:33:00 AM
Aalok Madhusudan Joshi said...: I think they did that non continuity thingy before....maybe other characters factored into the play, but they weren't shown as were in their own storylines....BATMAN: HUSH & SUPERMAN: FOR TOMORROW....we see Nightwing, Birds of Prey, the JLA making appearances. Then again both were high radar books, no casual readers would pick them up if they had made them very continuity heavy. Yeah, I'm in for a year on such stories. In fact I wouldn't even mind if they gave their stories all at once, like seven ongoing plots in 52. Give them all at once in one book, dammit. Don't make me want to buy multiple books just for one storyline. And streamline the format. The JLI was sacrilege. The New Krypton was a bit tolerable (SUPERGIRL in softcover & the rest in Hardcover) hell I wouldn't have cared if they put the Supergirl issues IN the New Krypton hardbacks instead of separate collections or asked me to pay for Supergirl in HC but this makes me mad; 5/03/2011 06:53:00 AM
shagamu said...: I'm a fan of the Loeb era of the Superman books, too, and I think DC really dropped the ball when it came to collecting those stories. The Emperor Joker TPB may fill most of the big hole between Critical Condition and President Lex, but there are still some missing issues in there, and they made no effort to collect the stories that came out between Return to Krypton and Our Worlds at War. There's an even bigger hole between OWaW and Return to Krypton 2.; 5/03/2011 09:01:00 AM
John said...: Dear DC..... Please start putting the plastic wrappers back on your hardbacks - they get tatty in about 5 minutes on the CBS sheves with everyone flicking through them to the extent that anything thats been there over a week nobody wants to buy.

In the UK it also means the titan sticker goes on the actual dust cover rather than the wrapper, so it's perminant.

I'm sure it only costs about $0.01 per copy :)

This seemed as good a place as anywhere.......; 5/03/2011 09:37:00 AM
shagamu said...: Good thing I only buy DC hardcovers online. They may come without the shrinkwrap, but at least I know they weren't read by anyone before me.; 5/03/2011 11:26:00 AM
Aalok Madhusudan Joshi said...: Curious. I am currently missing ENDGAME & RETURN TO KRYPTON of the Loeb era. I didn't know there was a RETURN TO KRYPTON 2. What is collected in the trade, there is only 1 I presume? The Wiki for the trade shows this as the contents: Action Comics #776, 793; Adventures of Superman #589, 606; Superman vol. 2, #166-167, 184; Superman: The Man of Steel #111, 128
Am I right in assuming that the earlier issues are from Return 1 & the later Return 2?; 5/03/2011 03:04:00 PM
shagamu said...: Yes, Return to Krypton and its sequel were collected in a single trade, even though they're almost one year and a half apart. Just another example of how DC mangled the Superman trades from that era.

There are 3 missing issues between No Limits and Endgame, too.; 5/03/2011 03:54:00 PM
Aalok Madhusudan Joshi said...: I suppose a lot of issues haven't been printed in trade, I realise that now. In India, we did get monthly DC Comics way back from 2002-2006 ish and for a time, they were publishing Jeph Loeb in monthly format. They did publish trades of NO LIMITS! & ENDGAME but they also published in single format the issues that introduced the new Toyman, the issues where Clark Kent & Lex finally come headway post Our Worlds at War when Luthor asks Lois to kill one story. Those were pretty good stories, maybe before Return to Krypton II, as I recall they skipped that & started back with Steven Seagle & Scott McDaniel's run. I tried to see what the aftermath of the Luthor story was but I saw that there was no headway....yet to read Ending Battle but the real meat of the story came later in SUPERMAN/BATMAN: PUBLIC ENEMIES which they published subsequently. So, despite having the individual trades, count me in for the new look Superman (1999-2002, or was it 2003? I consider it ended when Loeb left.); 5/04/2011 12:10:00 AM
Aalok Madhusudan Joshi said...: On another note, Justice Society of America by Geoff Johns reads pretty well (THE NEXT AGE, THY KINGDOM COME & BLACK ADAM AND ISIS). Are the later issues holding up ?
Also, I'm following Black Adam's journey from JSA to 52 to Countdown (I just can't manage to locate the trade of BLACK ADAM: THE DARK AGE) to Justice Society of America. Anything else I'd do good to pick up?; 5/05/2011 12:51:00 AM
Aalok Madhusudan Joshi said...: Inside of the Slipcase, do ALL the absolute editions except Sandman have a dust jacket? Seems pretty pointless, when I saw the copy of ABSOLUTE RONIN I bought today has one.; 5/07/2011 03:28:00 PM
abu george said...: @ Aalok - I too became a Black Adam fan following 52 and en joyed his JSA apperances. I was lucky to come across that BA trade at my LCS for $20. I notice it's going for like $40 online.

I dislike dust jackets. Of the Absoluts I have, they all include a dust jacket except for New Frontier & Long Halloween. I recently bought my first absolutes a couple weeks ago and they are pretty nice, some a little expensive but they are put together well -- except for the dust jacket, and I can do without the ribbon.; 5/07/2011 03:53:00 PM
Aalok Madhusudan Joshi said...: Here in India we have no concept of a LCS. The high end bookstores carry trades & that's about it.Trades come here maybe a month to six months after they release officially. No monthlies here, but mail order sites get you all stuff that's in print.So that makes nil chances of my finding the black adam trade now, but I've heard only great things about it.

My view at buying a high end product is that I should not have to worry about damaging the product. I liked the direct leather book in Sandman, but the RONIN I bought yesterday has a dust jacket.; 5/08/2011 04:28:00 AM
collectededitions said...: The Jeph Loeb/Joe Casey/Mark Schultz/Joe Kelly Superman era remains one of my favorite Superman eras. The collective titles got a burst of energy with Ed McGuinness's artwork and some fancy lettering and such. After a good long while when the focus of the Superman titles wasn't Superman (the Kandorian behemoth Scorn, anyone?), Loeb and company brought Superman back to the forefront, with plotlines focusing on Superman, Lois, Lex, and Metropolis, and a heavy dose of mystery and politics. Pure heaven.

Unfortunately the collections are kind of spotty (even with DC Comics Presents), skipping over large chunks of Lex's presidency and the run-up to Our Worlds at War, as well as the elements that lead to Lex's fall. My belief is that the team didn't ultimately get to tell all the stories they wanted to, as the Return to Krypton story is hastily resolved, as were elements of Lex's presidency and Clark's work at the Daily Planet.

Speaking of Loeb, that run went right into Superman/Batman, which has never had dust jackets for the hardcovers but rather a glossy printed exterior. My guess is that doesn't look "professional" enough for DC selling their comics hardcovers in bookstores, but I'd prefer it on all the books -- no flimsy dust jacket to worry about.

@Aalok - I don't like Geoff Johns's Justice Society of America as much as his JSA; my preference. As you saw Monday, I liked Bill Willingham's Axis of Evil that followed Johns's run, but overall I'm not as enthused about the series as during the Stealing Thunder era. I think the series needs to become more relevant, with more recognizable characters -- Power Girl, Hourman, Mr. Terrific, Dr. Mid-Nite, not King Chimera, Mr. America, Lightning, and Cyclone (if they're all even still around).

On a separate note, it's a week later now, and this "talkback" conversation is still continuing, which is great. This thread will remain open for a while, and then go to moderated comments; haven't decided if I'll leave it open then, or close it. What do you think? Would you want to see another open talkback post later on? Do you like it open for anything, or would a response topic be helpful?

Thanks all for participating, and by all means, keep talking!; 5/11/2011 10:16:00 AM
Aalok Madhusudan Joshi said...: Complete randomness feels nice.; 5/11/2011 03:46:00 PM
D. Mark Simms said...: If the DC hardcovers used that Superman/Batman (and Superman: Earth One) jacket-less style, I'd be more inclined to buy them, although I still like the cheaper price of the softcovers.; 5/14/2011 05:59:00 PM
abu george said...: I just saw for their September solicits that the paperback edition of the JLA deluxe edition will include "several" Mark Millar issues not collected in the deluxe editions.

Thx for the low blow, DC. Why were these not collected previously in the deluxe editions? Based on this edition, I'm assuming the future volumes will also collect the other non-Morisson issues by Waid and others.

For a second it seemed like your trade dept. started impressing me; I'm excited for the Flash ominibus, the Hawkman one, and a few others and then you go and do this...really?

On the plus side, maybe this shows that you've heard and listened to complaints about the previous deluxe editions not collecting the non-Morisson's. This could also mean -- possibly, but seems unlikely -- that we could see a deluxe edition of the missing issues. I think a fifth volume including all the non-Morisson issues and the Midsummer's Nightmare trade would make a nice collection. Morisson does talk about that story in one of the intros to the book; 5/17/2011 10:21:00 AM
shagamu said...: I think these "issues" written by Millar are actually the short stories he did for JLA Secret Files #1. One of them is about Superman testing his new electric powers, and the other one is about the Martian Manhunter as the southern hemisphere's main super-hero. They only amount to 9 pages, and I found them pretty forgettable.

It would be nice if the softcover versions of the next volumes collected Waid's and Millar's fill-in issues, though. I think a deluxe collection of those missing issues is a lot less likely.; 5/18/2011 09:41:00 AM
collectededitions said...: abu george is right that this is a perfectly rotten example of being careful what you wish for. We wanted those JLA books to have all the issues; now they might, but unfortunately only in the paperbacks.

Indeed DC could make this right with another hardcover or too, but I don't think it's in the offing.; 5/24/2011 04:25:00 PM

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