Martinex1: It's the time of year for frightening thrills and morbid chills! Happy Halloween BABsters!This round of our $1 Challenge focuses on the rather common cover theme of heroes in the cemetery. Considering that super-heroes never stay dead, they sure spend a lot of time at the grave sites. For the Batman and Daredevil, it may seem like a more natural locale, while other covers may be more surprising. Needless to say, both DC and Marvel seem to favor the setting.
So it is time to pay the ferryman - four quarters for four comics and safe passage. Are these offerings tricks or treats? Which do you think are the best? Did you read any of the stories and did they live up to the dramatic covers? Make your selections, share your choices and your greatest fears!
I have had or have read nine of the books pictured. All of the covers are "grabbing", some moreso than others. I really like the cover to Batman #293 (I think that's it), and of course all of the covers to "Kraven's Last Hunt" were spectacular -- Mike Zeck at his best.
ReplyDeleteTough to choose right now, but I may be back later. Great topic for Halloween!
Doug
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ReplyDeleteI had six of these. Still have the RIP Bruce Wayne Batman (part of the R'as al Ghul sequence; great stuff) and the Seven Soldiers of Victory from the JLA (a friend in middle school gave me that, and only many years later did I read the second part of it).
ReplyDeleteI had a LOT of Batman comics with scary covers. That seems to have been a pretty constant motif with him: in a tomb, chased by something disembodied, at a gravesite. Those motifs suited him well, as he embodied a scary set of images while applying his solid logic to sorting through a terrifying quandary.
That Spiderman issue was awful, part of the truly dreadful run by Marv Wolfman.
Great topic Martinex1, that Cap 113 issue was my 'first comic' and back when I was six, I always thought it was weird to have such a dark cover like that for Cap, especially after the Marvel Superhero cartoons.., ahh, my first exposure to the great STERANKO.
ReplyDeleteAnywho, another great one (still in Bronze Age era..?) was WCA 39, with our favorite Swordsman rising out of the grave.
I think I have eight of the issues pictured, myself. One of them, Batman #. . .252? (w/ the Spook) was a pure, pure "Cover Made Me Buy This Book" purchase. And man, that potential's sky-high with this motif, isn't it?
ReplyDeleteSo, ruling out what I have already, and going only with a 12-year-old's "Ooo, what's THIS about-?" reaction, I'm gonna buy:
Captain America 113 (which DID once own, in fact. . . )
New Teen Titans #13
Sub-Mariner #22 (the house ad for this issue imprinted it in my brain forever)
And the Metal Men issue-- which looks like it came out of a much, much later era. . . nice!
HB
I've read a lot of these. Being a Spidey fan, I'll take the two Kraven's Last Hunt chapters; I'll skip Amazing #181 because (if memory serves) it's just a retelling of Spidey's origin. I'll also go with that Batman issue with the Spook (I always liked him) and the New Teen Titans one with the "dead" Cliff Steele/Robotman on the cover.
ReplyDeleteMartinex, another one that came to my mind: Web of Spider-Man #63
Mike Wilson
A very appropriate selection today, Martinex1! You really 'dug deep' for these 'killer' covers! As I have the Spider-man stories, I will 'cough up' a buck for Daredevil 158 ( a truly great story). Also Cap 113 ( WOW what a cover), and the two JLA issues. Also, I'll lay off the 'frightful' puns and mention one other such cover: Amazing Spider-man 400. A fine, touching story despite the almost immediate retcon...
ReplyDeleteOf the issues portrayed, I have eight of them: Web of Spider-Man #32, Amazing Spider-Man #293, Batman #291, Daredevil #182 and #158, Marvel Two-in-One #63, Captain America #113, and Superman #215.
ReplyDeleteTo me, the most ghoulish of these are the Spider-Man issues from "Kraven's Last Hunt." I received the trade paperback of this dark six-part tale in November 1989 or 1990, I can't recall which year just now. But the covers for these issues weren't just a deceptive teaser to get the reader's attention--Peter Parker really had been buried by an insane Kraven, and he had to dig his way out by hand. Such a moody, bleak--and yet compelling--story. Perfect grim tale to read on Halloween.
I may be in the minority opinion here-- but I really didn't care for Kraven's Last Hunt at all. Relentlessly dark and, since it was spread over (I think) three titles for two months, it was like the Spidey vibe that we were familiar with and looked forward to was just wiped out for an extended period of time and replaced with the cresting craze of "dark & gritty". I think we had a bleak and rather amateurish Pete-in-a-mental-institution arc at some point in this era; and possibly the Death of Jean DeWolf? Bleah--
ReplyDeleteHB
Oh, but I so love JLA 103! One of my first comics as a kid and my introduction to Rutland, Vermont and their Halloween parade. I didn't find out this issue was part of an unofficial crossover with Marvel until years later. Does anyone know how long it's been since Rutland made a comics appearance?
ReplyDeleteThanks all for playing along.
ReplyDeleteHB - I do agree with you a bit. I think Zeck's art really lifted the story. The covers alone have become iconic. I did like a lot of the story and did not mind Pete being thrown into darker circumstances and challenged in ways he wasn't before, but for me the finale and the demise of Kraven was overwhelmingly bleak. I thought it would have been better if Spidey helped Kraven see a brighter future and through his attitude toward responsibility and wit actually helped Kreaven somehow. As you said - followed by "Mad Dog Ward" - it set a bad tone for Spidey for at least that year.
Logan - I don't know the last time Rutland made an appearance - I haven't followed modern comics as fervently - but my last recollection probably goes back to the Defenders.
Happy Halloween.
Hunh-- y'know, in my mind's eye I could swear that there must have been at least a couple of DEADMAN covers that used a gravestone/graveyard motif--- but I'm not findin' a one. Seems like a no-brainer, doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteHB
My first thought was Daredevil and the tombstone, The Night Stalker one, Web Of Spider-Man and the New Mutants. Then I thought; "Prowler, it's Halloween! Be something different!!!"
ReplyDeleteSo I went with the Metal Men, Dig Now Die Later, that Teen Titans one and the Superboy one. Did I get it right? Was that how DC went? This is so weird.....
Then my thoughts naturally went to pie........mmmmmm.
Okay, Halloween joke: Why don't skeletons have babies? Cause skeletons have hollow weenies!!!! HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!!!!
(It was late at night on the open road,
Speeding like a man on the run,
A lifetime spent preparing for the journey;
He is closer now and the search is on,
Reading from a map in the mind,
Yes there's the ragged hill,
And there's the boat on the river.
And when the rain came down,
He heard a wild dog howl,
There were voices in the night - "Don't do it!"
Voices out of sight - "Don't do it!
Too many men have failed before,
Whatever you do,
Don't pay the ferryman,
Don't even fix a price,
Don't pay the ferryman,
Until he gets you to the other side;
Don't pay - the ferryman!")
PS: Dressed as a Robot R2 Droid.
Happy Halloween everyone!
ReplyDeleteOK now on to this rather macabre list - I'd go with the Spidey cover with Kraven of course, then Batman #20, he looks great leaning on that tombstone, DD #158 and #182, two great covers also.
- Mike 'I chopped down a tree in a cemetery yesterday' from Trinidad & Tobago.
Nice topic!
ReplyDeleteThe "deaths" of the Metal-Men ceased to have any impact after I realized that at least one of them would "die" every few issues. Oooooooooohhh how tragic and terrible. .... um what? They are robots? And we just need to rebuild poor little Tin?! Huzzah!! So the next time poor Tin bites it, it is a non-event.
Same syndrome for Red Tornado and to a lesser extent the Vision.