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The Comics That We Keep

Being that we’re all comic book fans here, we all collect comics. But, I’m not talking about collecting comics. I’m referring to those comics we don’t bag, board and box away. I mean those comics that we keep on hand for easy and frequent reference and re-reading.

Some of these comics are easy to keep readily available on the shelf because they’re thick reprint collections or they have sturdier covers than the usual comic book. Still, many others are the usual flimsy comics. What they have in common is a unique feature that compels you to have them on the shelf as accessible as the dictionary and other reference books.

Here are some of the comics I keep on hand currently.

The Watchmen. There’s endless amount of reading here in the heavily detailed plot. I cannot say that I’ve even once read the pirates sequence. For some reason I never noticed the year-long series when it was first published. It somehow escaped my attention. So, the copy on my bookshelf is a trade paperback collection of the series.

The Dark Knight Returns. The art looks quaint some 17 years after it was published, but it’s still far better than the recent nonsensical sequel. This trend-setting book set the stage for the re-vamping of Batman, provided the atmosphere for the Batman movies, and was the springboard for the current dark and gritty DC Universe.

The Incredible Hulk: Future Imperfect. The Hulk meets his future self, a tyrant in a post-holocaust society. Time paradigms are aplenty as each Hulk ponders the outcome of either killing the other.

Jack Kirby’s Green Arrow. For sheer funky fun, this reprint of the King’s late 1950s efforts is great.

Fight Man. Evan Dorkin’s riotous mis-adventures of a failed super-hero who still lives with his mom.

World’s Funnest Comics. Another Dorkin venture in which those two imps ---Bat Mite and Mr. Mxyzptlk--- duel and tear apart the many different DC universes, dimensions, histories, planes of reality, time-lines, and worlds.

Kingdom Come. It’s not up on my shelf for its art, but rather for Mark Waid’s rather realistic theme of just how would the world cope with super-heroes constantly tearing each apart limb from limb.

The Kingdom. Did I mention the multitude of realities that the various DC Comics used to have? Here Waid attempts to resurrect them all by offering a wormhole between them all, a device DC could use to exploit them once again. Hasn’t happened yet, though. If all Waid had written for this series was the book on Offspring, Plastic Man’s son, that would have sufficed; it was that good.

Final Night. It’s only important for Hal Jordan sacrificing his life for the Earth and redeeming himself after the horrible editorial decision that trashed his Green Lantern career and him as a marketable character. I can’t say I find his current tour of duty as the Specter meaningful or satisfying.

You know, most of the stuff I listed above were published by DC. I guess DC has become more of a trend-setter than Marvel over the years. There are a lot of interesting comics being published these days by the small press (Tom Strong, Bone, Strangers in Paradise, et al), but no single issue or story arc over a series of issues has merited a spot on my bookshelf; they get bagged and boxed fairly quickly.

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