DC's still in "duck and cover" mode from the DC Implosion at this point. The quality's pretty low, but we're about to take a couple tenative steps forward.

Green Lantern's ditching Green Arrow and becoming a more cosmic hero again. The Legion (probably the best-written DC super-hero book around this time) is ditchin' Superboy and taking off solo.

Jim Aparo's art in Brave & The Bold still awes me. He and John Buscema are my favorite comic artists, I think.

Oh, and this Flash is the issue after Iris Allen is murdered. That's one spouse Identity Crisis won't get.

What amazes me about that is I had all of those except for the Wonder Woman issue. To me, that was a great time for comics. Flash, Green Lantern and the Legion were my favorites at that time.

As an aside, I've had a chance recently to chat through e-mail with Alex Saviuk who pencilled the Flash and Green Lantern issues. He was at the TampaCon I attended last weekend, but I didn't take the oppurtunity to talk with him in person. I am making plans to meet him at a future con and get a commission piece from him. That death of Iris run had me poopin' in my pants trying to figure out who the murderer was.

I'm filling in the gabs as I hardbind chronologically the comics of my childhood. I started with coverdate April 1979 and plan to go until 1986 or so. I'm still filling in blanks, but all these books, Marvel and DC, will be appearing, spread between volumes V and VI.

Anyone else think Dick Dillion was completely underrated? I love this guy on JLA and Green Arrow....

Dick Dillin's JLA is the JLA to me. Sometimes it depended on the inker, but his pairings with Frank McLaughlin and Dick Giordano were classic. What I look for in comic book art totally depends on the scenario. There are stories where anything less than a Perez or Alan Davis are unacceptable. Other times, for the month in and month out, I much prefer the dependability of those "hacks" Dillin and Swan.

Swan was fabulous.

Nowlan's another underrated guy.... loved his stuff.

Garcia-Lopez was DC's MVP at the time, though.

This weekend I picked up a number of Superman's from the late 70s at 3 for a $1. Lopez did 3 of the covers. He does a wonderful Superman. One of my first Action comics was drawn by Lopez.

As I'm going back through these, I'm loving Don Heck more than I ever did before.

Joe Stanton, not so much. ESPECIALLY when he inked himself. Some of that JSA stuff in Adventure Comics was sub-professional. I wonder how hard the DC Implosion hit these guys, 'cause I know Stanton's done some fine, fine stuff.

How many comics did Staton do on a monthly basis back in the Implosion era? Seems like he and Vince Colletta were the only two artists DC had on staff, with the occasional job by Don Heck and others.

Around this time, he's got JSA in Adventure (which may be done by this issue - my copy's not in yet), and IIRC, a story or two in World's Finest. He does a lot of covers (inked by Giordano) which come across better than his inside work.

That death of the original Batman story in Adventure ... hoo boy, was that some stinky artwork....

I think I had every single one of those books! As you said, this was when DC began to take some tentative steps towards increasing the quality of their books. Aparo, Dillin and Swan all did incredible work, and Dillin was indeed underated. Has anyone done more consecutive issues of one comic than Dillin did of JLA? The Superman issue where they finally enlarged the city of Kandor after about 20 years was a great story, too.

I'd say my favorite DC books during this period were B & B, DCCP, and the soon-to-be-Superboy-less LSH.

I think Dillin was a little less than a 100 issues on JLA, so Kirby would've beat him out with the FF run. A staggering run, none the less. There were also a couple of fill-ins and reprints while he was on JLA. (George Tuska did one or two issues.)

A lot of fans where upset when DC made the announcement of who they were going to keep after the Implosion.They let Michael Golden get away but kept Joe Staton who was not a fan favorite but was friends with a few editors so I suspect that may have had something to do with why he stayed at DC.What bothered me about Staton was that I really liked when Bob Layton inked him but he hated it and had him removed...... so off to Marvel he went.
I was never a big fan of Dick Dillin unless he was inked by Giordano but lately I have run across some back-up stories he drew of Hourman and Robin, which were inked by Murphy Anderson and I really liked them!
The covers Trevor posted were at a time where Marvel was just kicking DC's asses but they did have a few gems.The Legion and DC Comics Presents were very good and Brave And The Bold was always well done but you had to do a little digging to find the good stuff.
Mike Grell was the big star at DC but he could only do so much.
I just picked up the Superman vs Wonder Woman tabloid book and it has some really good art by Garcia Lopez!

I just realized that those are cover dated 25 years ago, but they actually came out in May. DC and Marvel's cover dates were three months ahead of schedule. The reason I'm acutely aware of this will be made known in another thread I'm about to start that references the next issue of Flash, #277.

*Bump* cuz I like looking at comics from decades ago and I actually had and still have most of these.

This was before my time. I was only 3. Neat to see them though. THe style and looks of some of the characters are a bit off to me (I don't warm up to that Superman)-my time had not yet come, and I much more familiar with Marvel from this time period. However, that is my style of Batman

A cool treat Trevor.

Ross Andru/Dick Giordano cover period with quite a few by Rich Buckler as well, it looks like. Just like Leo, I bought all of those except Wonder Woman. The Superman story was a favorite for a long time. The return of Kandor to full size.

Did that Superman issue have the Supermobile in it?

It's almost the same time period, but I think the Supermobile was mostly in Action Comics (ca. 481 or so, 1979).

The Supermobile stuff came out about a year earlier (sheesh... I was 16 then).

And a terrible story. I usually loved the Earth 2 stuff but that was god-awful.

Trevor, it's been interesting to see you build this collection over the years. I remember you talking about it at the JBF.

Long gone now, I'm afraid. I've ditched almost everything except a couple piles of Byrne stuff and the Archie Heroes stuff from the 60s and 80s - and those will go once I find people who want 'em.

All I'm keeping are the 60s Marvel Masterworks, and the EC Archives, whenever they hit the shelves.

I just sold 90% of my comics to a buddy of mine and he thought I was crazy. I would rather have the trades or digital copies right now.