I’ve loved comics since before I could read them on my own. Growing up, I had a filing cabinet full of comics.
One of the drawbacks of having comics as a kid is that kids aren’t good at taking care of things and I read my comics until many of them fell apart. But just because they were ripped and cover-less doesn’t mean that I didn’t love those books. When my family moved from the Bronx to Miami, I threw many of my old beat up comics away and only a handful survived the move.
Since, that move I’ve established a new collection, long boxes full of comics are piled up in my home-office and dozens of trade paperbacks line the shelves. Nowadays, I find myself reading each comic and filing it away and maybe reading it once or twice more, if I’m particularly wowed by it. But the comics from that filing cabinet the Bronx, I read over-and-over again, the panels are burned into my brain. Where they better comics than what currently comes out or do I remember them fondly the same way a girl in her late 20’s remembers the Backstreet Boys, not because they were good but because they were popular during her formative years?
I’m determined to find the answer. None of my comics were particularly special, most were single issues, not worth much money. I decided to find as many as I can on Amazon, Ebay and conventions and pick them up, not to send them away to get graded but to read them and see if they hold up to my childhood memories.
I am Matt Masdeu and I am the Re-Collector!
My favorite story was “The Hand From Nowhere” it was 50s Batman at its most ridiculous and it’s typical pre-Crisis Luthor. He goes out of his way to come up with an overly elaborate scheme , involving fake aliens and a giant hand to steal something that could could have been stolen in a more traditional fashion and cost a lot less to implement the plan.
Like I said about last week’s entry, I like stories of Batman out of his element, overmatched and out of his comfort zone. Last week’s issue dealt with Batman dealing with an alien invasion and this week features him dealing with a supernatural threat and has to find a way out of a hopeless situation.
Back in the 90s, DC ran different themes with its annuals, one year it was Elseworlds stories, one year it was an alien invasion with Armageddon. In 1993, it was Bloodlines. DC had a universe-spanning annuals theme that featured aliens attacking humans sucking out their spinal fluid and leaving the the unlucky ones that survived with superpowers. It was meant to create new, exciting characters but the only notable character that came from this storyline was Hitman. This book features Jean Paul Valley, Azrael, as Batman but before he adopted the entire costume.
This book was disappointing to me as a kid. There was no villain. It was Batman vs a generic bad guy. As a kid,the last thing you want is a Batman comic that doesn’t utilize Batman’s extensive rogue’s gallery. It was like watching the WWF and instead of getting Hulk Hogan vs. The Undertaker, you get the Undertaker vs. some guy in a satin baseball jacket, with a mustache and a mullet. It didn’t seem like a challenge to the hero.
