DC In The Dojo!

My personal relationship with DC Universe has always been a little complicated. Like many fans of my generation DC was the behemoth on the block that was fronted by the likes of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. And like most fans of my era DC comics were always around somewhere it seemed. I got plenty of a good DC by way of friends and relatives. As young fanboy though I took a cotton to Marvel, buying into Stan the Man's delightful gab and warm welcome to a burgeoning universe that took pains to be coherent. Then all of a sudden Jack "King" Kirby went to DC and I went along with him, and found much at the "Distinguished Competition" that I rather liked (since DC was making attempts to be more "Marvel-ish" at that time no doubt). I hung around and found fantastic values such as the quarter books with proper reprints and the 100-pagers that swept me up and away. For a period of time in the late 70's I though DC was doing the finest job in the business, but I guess I not in a mob with that attitude as the "DC Explosion" was soon followed by the infamous "DC Implosion" and forever after DC was a second-rater as Marvel zoomed into the stratosphere before beaching hard in the 90's. 

But in the 80's DC decided to clean up the shop and to that end they employed Marv Wolfman and George Perez, two up and comers with scores on "The New Teen Titans", to check all the DC closets and attics and garages and clear up the mess that accumulated over four decades. That became the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and it became a template for DC from that point on. The DCU became more of an artifact, something to be tinkered with and adjusted on a somewhat regular basis. Whereas the Marvel Universe kept growing organically (with more than a few weeds) the DCU was a machine that could be taken hold of and reprogrammed. There's no preference for me to either model, but I find I rather love a "Multiverse" (Spock with a beard is so cool.) and when DC decided they had a rich one and wanted to farm it I preferred things that way, both before and after the "Crisis". 

So this month I will be representing most of the rest of my "Crisis" posts from a decade ago (with some adjustments here and there maybe) and taking the rest of the time to dive into some DC books that I've been wanting to check into for many years in some cases. After the first opus by Wolfman and Perez we got some regular annual events and later still alternative versions of classic heroes by supreme talents like Alex Ross and Dwayne Cooke. I'm hankering to read some for the first time and some all over again.

"The Sunday Funnies" feature will give way this month so that I can showcase some of those sumptuous Taschen DC specials written by Paul Levitz. 

This month's "Showcase Corner" is occupied by the delightful romp by Roy Thomas, E. Nelson Bridwell and Scott Shaw (among others) - Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew. 

And there might be other dollops of DC here and there. So this month amigos it's all DC all the time. It could be worse -- I might've focused my attentions on...yuck...Image. 

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