Your 2015 Predictions, Part One: Space Oddity.

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AND SO IT BEGINS: my probably months-long attempt at going over your comic industry predictions for 2015 that you left on my site about a year ago. Let’s get started…and don’t forget to leave me your predictions for 2016 so we can do it all again next year!

• • •

Jack Feerick puts the fear into me with:

“Scott McCloud’s THE SCULPTOR will be shortlisted for the National Book Award”

Not that I can tell (if I’m wrong, let me know), but it did top the Publishers Weekly Graphic Novel Critics Poll. I liked it, too, and surely that’s better than some national award.

“Raina Telgemeier will be awarded a MacArthur Genius grant”

Alas, not this year, but I congratulate her on her overwhelming popularity and success…I certainly can’t keep her books in stock!

“Somewhat more pessimistically: The marvel movie bubble will develop some leaks. ANT-MAN will underperform at the box office, leading to a shake-up in the slate of upcoming films. BLACK PANTHER will be made as a miniseries for Netflix, with a drastically lower budget, while the INHUMANS and CAPTAIN MARVEL movies will be scrubbed entirely. (I would be delighted to be proved wrong about this.)”

Your parenthetical aside has been granted! Ant-Man‘s worldwide box office take of $520 million may seem short compared to all these billion dollar movies we keep seeing, but a half-billion bucks is still a half-billion bucks.

• • •

William Burns sets things on fire with

“Ms. Marvel goes to 4 dollars, and I start following it in trade.”

Sadly, it went to only a $3.99 cover price, so you’re a penny off! (Okay, okay, I know what you meant.) However, I have no idea if you started following the series in trade paperbacks, as my satellite cover of your home is on the fritz…er, I mean, because you’ll have to let me know yourself! Yeah, that’s it!

“Sandman: Overture will not finish by the end of 2015.”

It did finally finish last year. In fact, I had a brief discussion with one of my customers about just how long it did take. I could have sworn it was just over a year, but #1 came out in October 2013, and the last issue came out in September 2015, so it was just shy of two years. Yikes.

“Sterling Silver Comics is a major success!”

Well, my store is still open, after a year, two months and some change…so I’m calling that a hit!

• • •

Tony Isabella strikes like lightning with

“Someone will be offended by something that happens at a convention or is posted online.”

Oh, now, when does this ever happen? …Okay, I actually did a quick Googling to remind myself of any online hoohar that may have broken out over the last year, and found a few things. I’m just going to pick this planned Batgirl variant cover as our example. And yeah, folks were plenty offended, particularly since the victimized-Batgirl cover was in huge contrast to the actual tone of the book. I seem to recall someone posting an altered version of that image, where Batgirl’s terrified expression was changed to one of anger and determination, which could have been a possible fix to the problem, but, yeah, maybe it was best maybe to pass on that particular image this time.

“Roughly 50% of the time the something really will be offensive.”

Ooh, I hate to judge if something is actually offensive, because what may offend one person may not offend another, and who am I to say if someone else should or should not be offended by something? And I mean about things like “Batgirl cover art,” and not real world stuff like “violent abuse” or “pet mistreatment” or “Donald Trump” or anything else most people can agree is terrible. Do I think maybe sometimes people overreact to things? Sure. Am I going to solve anything by jumping in and saying “hey, you’re overreacting to that!” Nope, not in the slightest. Anyway, this is the sort of thing that could be hashed out by…

“There will be much volatile discussion of the someone and/or the something online.”

…and of course there is always extended discussion about this sort of stuff, and in a good, rational world, we could calmly debate the fine points of the topic du jour and each side can have its eyes opened to the positions of the other sides and perhaps we can come to a compromise, or we can agree to disagree, or reach some other peaceful conclusion. Sadly, today’s Internet is still mostly at the “let’s get all our pals to pile on and scream at folks and call people we don’t like rude names and maybe post personal information about them online” stage of debating skills, so it may be a while before we attain that idyllic state.

• • •

Steven Rowe rows his boat ashore with

“the direct market will continue to slowly shrink”

Well, I was all set to do some number crunching here, using sales charts from all over the place, but it looks like this site already did the heavy lifting. Looks like the direct market did grow over 2015…not a whole lot, but a little growth is better than a lot of shrinkage. …I could phrase that differently, but I’m not doing to. I’ll just let it dangle there.

“more retailers will start taking last week’s stock and setting up in flea markets or ‘antique’ malls in areas without comic shops”

Not really any industry stats for that, but it’s probably not an unheard-of strategy. Though I suspect more retailers are just throwing them online for cheap rather than going through the trouble of setting up an extra physical location somewhere.

“Some company will renumber a comic, and its sales will go down, not up.”

Renumbering a series midstream, for no particular reason, is usually a good way to kill sales momentum. Sometimes things will bump up just a tad for the initial couple of issues, but soon it’ll be back down again. Just picking one renumbered title as an example: Spider-Gwen. #5 of the previous series, according to that site I linked to previously, had estimated sales of about 67,700 copies. Issue #2 of the current Spider-Gwen series is at 62,200. Now that might just be the trend of attrition on this particular series…if they never restarted the series, that #2 would have been #7 and may have dropped down to 62,200 copies anyway.

But, yes, your prediction was correct in at least one instance. I’m sure every other renumbered title saw its sales just shoot through the roof.

• • •

Old pal Kurt Onstad bounces in with

“Sterling Silver Comics opens its first satellite store in Eugene, Oregon. (Don’t worry, I’m pretty sure I know someone willing to manage it for you…)”

Pffft, Oregon!? Like I’d put my fine establishment in just any state…!

• • •

Jer pushes the definition of “limit of three predictions” with

“Marvel’s Secret Wars event this summer will turn out to be weird and unsatisfying.”

Sadly, this prediction kinda breaks in the middle with the “this summer” thing, but with Secret Wars finally wrapping up this month, folks seem to be…okay with it, I guess. It sold well throughout the run, and my customers seemed to enjoy it. The lateness of the book kinda screwed with the timing of all the relaunches, but most folks appeared more bemused by the post-Secret Wars continuity books not actually being post-the-conclusion-of-the-actual-Secret-Wars-series.

“DC’s Convergence event this spring will turn out to be weird and unsatisfying.”

Yup. Though some of the individual mini-series were pretty good (like that Shazam! one), but the main series itself was kind of a dog, with an overcomplicated premise that didn’t seem to go anywhere.

“DC will try to soft-reboot their universe again after moving their offices out west. But they’ll screw it up.”

It was more of a “here are a bunch of new series” thing, and a lot of them didn’t really do well or last long, but at least they were trying something. The series that explicitly spun out of Convergence (like Titans Hunt and Lois and Clark) are doing okay.

“Marvel will continue giving head-fakes about a Crisis-style reboot of their titles, but they’ll go for something softer in the end that will let them clean up a few messes that have been made without making a giant reboot mess like DC manages to do every decade or so.”

It certainly wasn’t a line-wide reboot or anything, and I don’t know about cleaning up any messes, but it doesn’t look like they’re making too many new ones. I’m sure the messes will come, however.

“Ant-man will be the movie that finally allows people to say that having the Marvel Studios name on a movie doesn’t guarantee a hit as it underperforms the expectations people have for it (though it will end up doing reasonably well for a freaking Ant-man movie). Everyone will start talking about how the superhero bubble has burst and how Hollywood needs to find something new. (But you can go ahead and put down that my 2016 predictions will include Captain America 3 breaking some kind of records and having everyone talking about how superhero movies are awesome again, because that’s how movie reporting tends to go.)”

I don’t know that Ant-Man could perform under expectations, given that, as you say, it’s Ant-Man. Like I said above, it made a half-billion dollars, and it’s got a sequel coming, so I don’t think anyone’s unhappy. …Someone’s always saying the superhero bubble has burst. I say it a lot. I thought for sure the Avengers sequel put the knife in its back, but then Ant-Man ended up being really good, so I’m probably going to stop trying to second-guess this crazy industry.

“The CW will introduce a character into Arrow/Flash as a backdoor pilot for another spinoff series. Not sure what it will be, but I’d be surprised if they weren’t brainstorming a third spinoff for the CW at this point. (It should be Wonder Woman, but it won’t be.)”

Legends of Tomorrow, debuting this Thursday on the CW!

• • •

Brian doubles up with

“Following the end of his AVENGERS runs and the conclusion of the SUPERIOR arc, Jonathan Hickman takes over as the writer of IRON MAN and actually manages to portray Tony Stark as a real futurist (as well as surprising folks in the twists taken as writer in his first real solo Marvel book)…”

As well all know, Iron Man relaunched with Brian Michael Bendis as the new writer, and reaction to the book itself has been mostly positive. The overordering of the first issue was a potential marketplace problem, but I’ve kept my orders on the book at reasonable levels, and it seems to be doing okay.

“After CONVERGENCE, DC Comics rebrands their ‘New 52’ books into two competing lines: one set published out of NYC follows the old continuity while another published out of LA follows the new continuity. ‘East Side’ versus ‘West Side’ leads to much fantasy violence in annual crossovers – the Teen Titans are the first to have caps put into their asses…”

I’m going to put this under “predictions I’m glad didn’t come to pass,” because if you thought I had a hard time explaining continuity issues to folks now….

“GOTHAM is quickly shown to be happening in a parallel universe to the Batman we’re used to, when young Bruce Wayne is killed, Oswald Cobblepot become the Joker, Renee Montoya grows a broomhandle mustache, and Jim Gordon becomes a bat…”

TV continuity is always going to be a little off from whatever passes for continuity in the comic books, but points to you for the “Jim Gordon becomes a bat” guess. Wrong medium, but close enough! I do recall a popular theory was that the Cobblepot character was going to become the Joker. That actor would certainly make a good one!

• • •

Erik weirdly asks

“The Tumblr-verse will explode in outrage over an offensive storyline in a Marvel or DC book. Six weeks later we will have forgotten all about whatever it is we were so worked up about.”

Yeah, probably. A little Googling brought up some Tumblr anger over various comic issues over the past year, some of which I’d forgotten about, which shouldn’t diminish these particular irritations. Like I said in response to Tony’s predictions above, it’s not for me to say what other people should be artistically-offended by. But, it’s the nature of the Internet news cycles that today’s outrage gets shoved right into the memory hole by whatever new annoyance that comes down the pike.

• • •

Signal Watch ticks off the following:

“In the wake of the move to LA and the routine failure of New 52 titles not featuring Superman and/or Batman, ‘Convergence’ will conclude with the launch of a multiverse of DCU’s for readers to pick from. DC’s continuing success with the DC Originals licensed products will drive a secondary DCU that’s more all-ages than the New 52 content, and we will see a return of red shorts Superman a gold-tiara’d Wonder Woman who is more likely to use the lasso than swords.”

I’d enjoy having a regular, continuity-lite, kid-friendly series of superhero comics from DC, but I suppose the publishing arm would rather have a consistent presentation of their trademarks via their New 52 relaunch rather than admit defeat and reinstate previous versions of their characters. I’d be surprised if this didn’t happen sooner rather than later.

“Somehow, DC will still make a mess of this. Probably by decapitating the Wonder Twins in the first issue.”

I’d hate to see that happen to Zan and Jayna. Maybe to Marvin.

• • •

Interstate Shogun crosses the line with

“the new Star Wars movie will suck even more than Episode 1. It’ll make 2 billion at the box office, though. Marvel’s Star Wars comics will also pretty much suck too.”

I think we were all pleasantly surprised that the new Star Wars flick turned out to be pretty good. Can’t believe R2-D2 is now the new Emperor…I never saw that twist coming. You’re dead on about it making 2 billion in the box office…I think it’s just about there even as I type this. Marvel’s comics have been quite good as well, in my opinion.

“my Sandman Overture prediction. I correctly predicted last year that the series would not end in 2014 and the odds are about even that it could run on into 2016, culminating in a gold plated Absolute Edition with hand tooled leather pages by JH Williams and an original haiku personally inscribed by Gaiman himself.”

As noted above, it did finish in 2015! And I have no doubt there will be some super high-end collected version…DC ain’t shy about repackaging their Sandman books.

“The Ant Man movie will sink the Marvel movie franchises.”

Boy, you guys had it in for this Ant-Man movie. Clearly none of you counted on the sheer power of the Garrett Morris cameo.

• • •

Okay, enough prediction fun-time for today. Back soon with more!

My grandmother.

filed under Categories obituary 27 Comments

My grandmother, Beulah Sterling, passed away Sunday afternoon in her own home at the age of 96. She had a good, long and active life, always surrounded by lots of family and friends. When Grandpa retired early, he and Grandma spent the next couple of decades traveling all over the world, and making even more friends in every country they visited. Grandma always made sure to send me postcards from whatever far-flung destination they visited. When they visited Scotland in the late ’70s, they brought back for me a Loch Ness Monster souvenir book, which I’ve still got around. Yes, Mr. Skeptical-about-Stuff is still hanging onto an old booklet about Nessie.

She still lived in the same Oxnard house that was basically built for her and Grandpa back in the 1940s. She was even still driving herself around up until a couple of years ago, when hearing and eyesight issues made her give that up. Even up until just within the last few months, she was still up and around doing things and going places…her housekeeper Susan even drove her out to my new store shortly after it opened so she could check it out. Every time I saw her after that, she always made sure to mention how happy she was that I had my own store, and how glad she was she was able to see it. Even in the last few weeks of her life, bedridden and fading, she would smile as she told me how much she liked visiting my shop.

She was always kind and friendly and supportive, and always kept up on everything the family was doing. Visits with her would bring me the latest updates on the latest goings-on of relations, near and distant. Occasionally I would bring her some of the classic strip reprints to look at, such as the Fantagraphics Mickey Mouse volumes, and she would be amazed that such things existed. She’d say that she never imagined there’d be such nice books collecting together the strips she used to read in the old newspapers.

When I saw her last, just this past Saturday morning, even though she was unable to sit up or talk, she still gave me a big smile, letting me know that she knew I was there and that she was glad to see me.

One time, she told me that planned on being around ’til she was a hundred and ten, so we wouldn’t be rid of her anytime soon. Well, she didn’t quite make that goal, but you know, 96 ain’t too shabby, I think.

Goodbye, Grandma.

• • •

As you might imagine, this has put me a bit off current postings for the site. I’ll be back later in the week for business as usual, but in the meantime, spare a thought for your loved ones, either departed or still with us.

And there was that business in New Frontier, yes, I know.

filed under Categories collecting 7 Comments

Before we begin, don’t forget to give me your 2016 comic industry predictions so that I can talk about ’em in 2017. NOW BACK TO THE POST, WHICH IS ALREADY IN PROGRESS:

So my old pal Brandon asked me on the Twitter the other day if I’d ever written anything on this here comic book blogging website about DC’s 1960s “War That Time Forgot” series in Star Spangled War Stories.

Now, “The War That Time Forgot,” for those of you who don’t recall, revolved around a lost island where U.S. soldiers would occasionally find themselves stranded, and oh yeah, there were dinosaurs on that island, too, resulting in situations not unlike this one:

ssws133
And honestly “soldiers fighting dinosaurs” is second only to “Native Americans fighting dinosaurs” when it comes to the Best High Concept Comic Book Premise of All Time.

As it turns out, for me personally, as a collector, I had room for only one “________ fighting dinosaurs” comic book in my ongoing quest of unknowingly building stock for the eventual opening of my own comic book store, and Turok Son of Stone was the funnybook what got the nod. That’s not to say I didn’t try…I did have a few of those Star Spangleds in the Vast Mikester Comic Archives over the years, but had long since traded them off for other comics more to my liking. Not that I didn’t like them…they were goofy fun, and well drawn as DC’s war books often were, but I decided I couldn’t collect everything and decided to part with them.

A large portion of these stories have been reprinted in one of DC’s black and white “Showcase Presents” softcovers. My pal Brandon hopes for a second volume, but the Showcase line’s output has slowed down considerably, and despite that, I don’t think there really are enough of the War That etc. tales to fill a second volume, unless DC padded it with other oddball stories from their war books. There ain’t no shortage of those, surely. TWTTF was revived a couple of times in G.I. Combat and Weird War Tales, so maybe those can be plugged in as well. And there were more modern revivals in a couple of DC mini-series from within the last decade or so, but those wouldn’t fit tonally.

That’s all probably moot, anyway, as unless there’s a War That Time Forgot: The Movie And/Or TV Show on the CW Starring Good-Looking 20-somethings Playing Teens Playing Dinosaurs in the works, a Showcase volume 2 or some kind of color omnibus aren’t going to happen. NOTE TO READERS: this is where you jump into the comments and tell me that Amazon has a Volume 2 listed for a 2018 release that I somehow missed in my Googlings.

I do remember, at the previous place of employment, that we received enormous numbers of requests for these throughout the 1990s and maybe into the 2000s, and DC’s war books were hot hot hot. I don’t know if that’s quite the thing any more, as I can’t recall the last time we had folks banging our doors down for them, but I imagine there’s still some brisk business to be done in old dinosaur war comics. I mean, c’mon, “dinosaur war comics” is a phrase that forever pays…surely they’re still circulating among fans new and old.

One weird thing is that in the middle of all those War That Morris Day and The Time Forgot comics was one issue that skipped that regular feature in favor of one of the greatest comic book stories of all time:

stspgor
Possibly the only story better than soldiers or Native Americans fightin’ dinosaurs is that. In case you’re wondering…yes, I had that issue in my Star Spangleds and kept it when I sold off the others. I have the complete Sgt. Gorilla run, and couldn’t bear to break it up.

 
 

images, ahem, “borrowed” from the Grand Comics Database

Following his bliss.

filed under Categories self-promotion, sir-links-a-lot

Just another brief reminder to get your 2016 comic industry predictions in, so that, assuming the asteroid doesn’t finally strike and Trump doesn’t become president, we’ll all still be around to discuss them next year.

And over at Trouble with Comics, we discuss our favorite funnybook first issues. The character featured in my favorite may not be a surprise to most of you, but the specific first issue might.

I also wanted to note the passing of Thomas Bartkowiak. This isn’t someone from the comics industry…rather, this was a member (and de facto leader) of RadioTiki, a podcast from before, I believe, the term “podcast” even really existed. I stumbled across it in iTunes’ “Eclectic” category of streaming radio stations sometime in the early 2000s, and it was just a bunch of pals from the Chicago area, shooting the breeze and discussing pop culture and their own lives and being hilarious at it. It was a biweekly show early on, but in recent years it was on the “whenever we could find time to get together” schedule, but I appreciated whenever they could do it and never missed an episode. Tom was always energetic and funny and a delight to listen to. I didn’t interact directly too much with the show, but I did have a couple of my emails read “on the air,” as it were, and when I mentioned that I managed a comic shop, Tom asked what new Neil Gaiman comics were out. I happily sent him a set of the then-new Gaiman-written Eternals series, which he seemed pleased by. It was the least I could do for the hours of enjoyment RadioTiki had provided me by that point, and would continue to provide me long past that.

My condolences to his friends and family and fans. So long, Tom…thanks for all laughs!

“Thank God we can’t tell the future. We’d never get out of bed” – Tracy Letts

filed under Categories predictions, reader participation 52 Comments


And away we go again, for that most anticipated event in what’s left of the comics blogosphere, the Progressive Ruin Foretell-the-Future Hootenanny! Please leave your comic industry predictions for what may happen in the far-flung future of 2016 (“aren’t we already in 2016?” “SHHHHH”) in the comments section for this post while hopefully not completely ignoring these simple rules:

1. Don’t read the other predictions before entering your own.

2. Don’t criticize other people’s predictions.

3. Don’t predict any real person’s death.

4. Limit of three predictions per person, please! (Seriously, just keep it to three…and if you have only one, that’s fine. Really. ONE’S GOOD.)

I’ll start looking at your predictions last year for 2015 in the next week or so, and we’ll see how everyone did. Or at least see how much attention I’ve been paying to industry events as I fumble to properly respond to everything.

Anyway, you guys ‘n’ gals always put in a great effort with your prediction submissions, and I really appreciate it. I look forward to your submissions for this year, so go ahead and dump ’em, or gently place them, in this comments section. As usual, thank you so much for your participation!
 
 
 

image from Adventure Comics #317 (February 1964), reprinted in Legion of Super-Heroes Archives Vol. 2 (1992), by Edmond Hamilton and John Forte

Merry New Year!

filed under Categories happy new year 5 Comments

Salutations and my best wishes for a wonderful 1794 to all my Progressive Ruin readers! Let us welcome the new year in the traditional way, with this picture of Commander Pavel Koenig from everyone’s favorite sci-fi franchise, Space Wars:

pavelk

May you have a happy celebration wherever you live, work or shop. Catch you on the flip flop, pals!

I mean, if someone were to buy me an original Action Comics #1, I wouldn’t say no.

filed under Categories Christmas, collecting 6 Comments

So for this week’s Question Time over at ye olde Trouble with Comics, we were asked about the greatest comics gift we’d ever received. (You can read Alan’s response, posted separately as a Stan Lee’s Birthday special). As per usual, I delved into the inquiry at length, relating a gift I received when I was but a young Mikester. But it got me thinking about the number of comic book gifts I actually have received over the years.

As I say in my excessive preamble to the response over at TWC, I usually didn’t get comics as gifts because either 1) I bought what I wanted during my trips to the comic shop, or 2) I bought what I wanted during my work hours at the comic shop. I sorta feel funny asking other people to buy me comics, a habit that continues to this day as I was recently admonished for not informing a certain significant other that a book set I’m thinking about buying for myself could have been a good Christmas gift for her to get for me.

That said, there have been a couple of comic book presents I’ve received over the years. The most recent were a handful of Starman trade paperbacks, catching me up on the James Robinson series I’d just started reading, but that was some years ago.

A few years prior to that (which may have been just before my entry into comics retail) was a massive tome that caught my eye after being drawn back into world of Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge comics in the mid-1980s. It was Don Rosa (whose work I’d enjoyed in various fanzines) that got me back into the Disney books, but that got me to rediscover Carl Barks, and boy, when I saw this book on the shelves at the comic book store:

uslifetimes
I had to have it. Several classic Barks stories, fully recolored, in a nearly 400 page volume that stands 13 inches tall. It’s something else. One thing I remember is that my mother, who used write inside any books purchased as gifts “to my son, Christmas ’82” or whatever, told me that she specifically didn’t write anything inside this book if I ever decided to resell it. Well, fat chance of that happening…even having nearly all the stories inside reprinted elsewhere, this is a special enough item that I don’t want to let it go. There’s even an introduction by George Lucas, with whom some of you may be familiar.

And earlier than that, I received this book as a gift for my 12th birthday:

greatsupermanbook
This extensive encyclopedia helped put some of the pieces together on Superman’s early adventures, which I was only getting here and there in assorted reprints. It certainly helped explain who, say, the Ultra-Humanite was, after I read his reappearance in a Justice League/Justice Society crossover event. And they’re not kidding about the “book length biography of Superman” — Superman’s entry, and nearly every other character’s entry, is essentially a chronological summary of purt’near every appearance of that character. I spent many hours perusing this book, and it wasn’t so long ago that DC reprinted this in softcover, so you can check it out yourself if you’d like. This is a precursor, in a way, to the Marvel Universe/DC’s Who’s Who comics, though the Great Superman Book is a little more convenient in giving specific issue numbers for story events beyond just first or last appearances.

One thing I found odd at the time was that the cut-off date for materials referenced in the book was, with few exceptions, the mid to late 1960s despite being published in 1978, but now that I think about the amount of time that had to be spent researching this book (i.e. the “seven years” they mention right on the cover), they had to draw the line at some point. Still, sort of odd to have no entries for “Morgan Edge” or “Darkseid,” but this is still a wonderful reference book for the Golden and Silver Age adventures of Superman.

There were others in this series, covering Batman and Wonder Woman (and also reprinted by DC in the last few years) but I don’t think I ever saw them in the wild when I was a kid. Which is just as well…just one of these volumes kept me busy enough.

And I think that was it for funnybook presents. I mean, I did keep bugging Santa for a Yummy Fur #9, but I ended up having to buy it myself. Which is just as well, since I was beginning to get odd looks at the mall whenever I sat on Santa’s lap to ask for it.

Spoilers for a DC Comics Christmas story from the late 1980s.

filed under Categories dc comics, publishing, supergirl 6 Comments

christmaskaraSo Roel asked, regarding my link to last week’s Question over at Trouble with Comics, just why that particular Alan Brennert Christmas story with Supergirl and Deadman was referred to as “infamous.”

To be honest, I didn’t think much about that particular description…I just figured it had something to do with the pre-Crisis Supergirl appearing in the post-Crisis universe and someone somewhere, either a pro or a fan, got bent out of shape over it or something. And, it appears, after being pointed in the direction of this article by my fellow Troublemakers, that there more hoohar swirling about this particular comic than I realized.

The article itself focuses on the (basically confirmed) idea that folks in charge of the Superman comics weren’t terribly enthused about the pre-Crisis, totally-wiped-from-continuity Supergirl all of the sudden being brought back for a Very Special Story that was not under the purview of the Super-editorial offices. And if one were to look to the comments on said article, rumors aplenty are to be had about what may or may not have happened in regards to the release of this particular story…rumors that I’ll thank my kind readers not to reproduce in my comments section here, please. But anyway, there’s the “infamous” bit of business about it, I suppose.

I also saw elsewhere (in a post on a comic news site that has since been deleted, it seems) some commentary inspired by the Trouble with Comics Question column, wondering just why this specific Supergirl/Deadman story is held in such high regard. I personally think it’s a good, strong story (in a comic filled with some top-notch funnybookin’), in which Deadman learns a Very Important Lesson that just because no one knows about the effort and sacrifice one makes to do the right thing, doesn’t mean that doing the right thing isn’t important or unappreciated. For Deadman, who is literally an invisible spirit that the living world can’t know about, it’s an idea he needs to learn to accept, that he isn’t any less a hero just because his heroism is unrecognized.

For the reader, who is presumably aware that this is the Supergirl who was written out of the DC Universe due to the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths, we are reminded that just because the characters don’t “exist” in “current continuity” anymore doesn’t mean those stories suddenly stopped meaning anything to us, now. It’s hard not to read a sort of implied criticism in this story about how stories and characters “count” or “don’t count” in terms of where they fall vis-à-vis universe-wide continuity-changing events. This comic is copyrighted 1988 (with a cover date of 1989), so this was only a year or two past DC’s kinda/sorta linewide reboot in Crisis, which would make Supergirl’s appearance here one of, if not the, earliest return of a pre-Crisis character that specifically references the pre-Crisis universe. Kind of a surprise kick in the pants to folks still getting used to the New DC of the “there’s-no-stopping-us-now” variety.

I don’t know that really explains why this is as highly regarded as it is, beyond it being a well-written comic with great art by Dick Giordano. It could be seen the sort of fan-targeted deeply-referenced insular story that isn’t good for the long-term health of the medium, with a punchline that only makes sense if you were there for Crisis and can understand just who that blond gal is talking to Deadman. But it is a nice Christmas gift to those fans, a quiet metatextual reminder after the bombast of the crossover event, that those characters and stories may be in the past, but they’re not forgotten.

Plus, who doesn’t love a good Deadman story? C’mon, let’s get serious here.