They're next on the list after I finish up the originals.

Another weird thing about the Stevens comics is that the Shadow is a supporting character. I mean, making Bettie Page the girlfriend is kind of cute ... (who am I kidding, it's awesome) ... but adding in the Shadow seems like a bridge too far. The Rocketeer starts to feel like a supporting character in his own comic.

I find it quite a curious choice

Quite.

I really think the colors don't do the work justice... it's a shame.

I wonder why DC let it fall out of print. I think it's a solid companion piece for other books featuring a "future Batman" like Dark Knight Returns or Kingdom Come.

Great stuff. Newton was an underrated genius

Amazing that he started his funnybook career when he was around 40.

His career and Aparo's is strangely similar. Both artists started at Charlton around the same age, then moved to DC and was assigned Aquaman and then to a Batman book.

Both got noticed at Charlton while working on The Phantom as well.

That's it! I knew there was another and I couldn't remember what it was.

BTW, I was very disappointed in the Charlton Phantom book. The reproduction quality was terrible -- you only needed to see the "original art" pages they printed to see how much of Jim's work was lost in the translation. I wish I could return it.

The poor printing just speaks "Charlton" to me. This is a company that used a giant typewriter with an ugly, cold letter style to type the lettering directly into the balloons on the pages of art on other books.

The DC Archives of Ditko's Charlton work didn't look like this, though. It looked crisp and clean.

Yeah, those books are probably the best overall package of all of the DC Archives.

Indeed, they are awesome.

I am now reading the "Rocketeer Adventures" comics. They are reminiscent of the Tom Strong issues where there would be three eight-page stories, with each one set at a different point in Tom Strong's fictional history.

These comics do the same thing, bouncing around and showing different stories that suggest there is a long, storied career for the character that we're just getting glimpses of. (Some stories even go so far as to label themselves "part 6" of an ongoing serial and things like that ... )

Kind of cool. So far none of these stories seem to be referencing each other, but of course they all reference the original Stevens material.

Great selection of folks working on these, too. The first volume has stuff by Darwyn Cooke, Ryan Sook, Mark Waid, Gene Ha, Mike Allred, Bruce Timm ... And the second volume (still in progress) has stuff by Walt Simonson, Chris Sprouse, Kyle Baker ...

Too bad they're going to screw it all up in the fourth issue by having John Byrne show up.

"Screw up"?

Or do you mean "PERFECT"?

Best PERFECT ever, HR!

Don't you want to see the Rocketeer take out Hitler?

Hm, that would be cool.

Avengers: The Crossing omnibus completed.

I actually enjoyed it. I didn't worry about things i didn't like (eg insectoid Wasp) because I knew it was just for a couple of issues til Heroes Reborn, and the excellent Busiek/Perez run.

I liked the heavy focus on Iron Man, and again, same thing. It was only for a couple of months, and again, Busiek/Chen did a pretty damn good Iron Man series. And the Heroes Reborn Iron Man wasn't that bad. It wasn't great, but I've come to enjoy it, and I don't hate the armour like I used to.

Read Unwritten #38. Still my favorite comic book going.

Finished the first trade of American Vampire. Yeah, it's awesome.

Shadow #3.

The Shadow is just a good dadburn funny book.