What's the absolute best pre-Crisis DC comic?

>>149303801 (OP)
LOSH

Bronze Age Superman

>>149303801 (OP)
Challengers of the Unknown and >>149303836

>>149303836
>>149303843
>>149303850
Goddamn.

>>149303801 (OP)

>>149303801 (OP)
Legion of Super Heroes

>>149303801 (OP)
Batman

>>149304547
That was Denny Oneil right? I liked that.

>>149304257
I don’t understand the reaction.

>>149304684
Partly at least. O’Neil, Frank Robbin’s, David Vern, Len Wein, and Steve Englehart are the most prominent writers of 70s Batman

>>149304699
It all sucks.

>>149304752
Lol okay faggot here’s your last (You)

>>149303836
This. Number two would be DC Comics Presents.

>>149304710
>Englehart
This

>>149303801 (OP)
Pre-Crisis is mostly just kiddie slop. Made to be disposable and forgettable.

>>149305705
Fuck off.

>>149305705
There's a whole lot of comics made between Crisis and the end of the Silver Age.

>>149303801 (OP)
My favorite personally is black lightnings solo series from the late 70s but the best would have to be swamp thing and then probably all star squadron.

>>149303801 (OP)
Manhunter by Goodwin and Simonson

Brave and the Bold by Bob Haney

>>149304340
Fuck no.

>>149305705
Do go and pierce your throat on a rail spike, shit-for-brains.

>>149308441
So violent for a kiddie slop consumer.

>>149308752
That's because your judgment skills are slop to begin with so there's no loss there

>>149307445
Eh, I read this recently and I disagree. Jefferson acts crazed and obvious, and even puts his students in danger consequently, the villains don't seem credible, and the story is dreck. It gets even worse when Denny O'Neil takes over the last few issues.

>>149303801 (OP)
Legion, 1970s Batman and Deadman is pretty much the only Silver Age DC worth reading. The rest of it is just Mort, Schwartz and the like cycling through all their stupid stories about gorillas, baby versions of the heroes and dogs and cats and pigs and shit getting powers.

>>149307445
Isabella has never written a comic that's better than forgettable.

>>149303801 (OP)
New Teen Titans

>>149308923
That's a slop-brained take

>>149303801 (OP)
Brave & The Bold when it becomes Batman +guest star is pretty consistent in spinner rack quaility and fun. It helps that this was before Dickbats became a thing. Also the Bob Haney issues have a fun quirkiness to them.

>>149308923
Moviecasual take your youtube recommended reading lists and fuck off to /tv/

>>149308818
>>149308946
Again like I said this is my personal favorite

>>149303801 (OP)
The Fourth World saga of course.

>>149303850
Patrician

>>149303801 (OP)
>>149308923
Silver Age Doom Patrol is peak

Silver Age and early Bronze Age Flash was really fun too, especially when the Rogues finally team up

>>149303801 (OP)
Most people here have listed the best already so gonna mention the JSA relaunch with All Star Comics to All Star Squadron and Infinity Inc is fairly good. Infinity Inc gets kinda ruined by COIE though, not really enough to make it awful but enough to fuck with the entire theme of the book and ruin Roy's morale. And All Star Squadron gets relaunched as the shitty Young All Stars due to not being able to have the Trinity anymore.

>>149309538
I haven't completed the whole Fourth World, but reading Jack Kirby's Jimmy Olsen run was an amazing fun time.

>>149303801 (OP)
Jonah Hex
70s war comics
Warlord
Legion of Super-Heroes
Wolfman's Teen Titans
Englehart's Detective Comics
Barr's Batman
Moore's Swamp Thing
For the Man Who Has Everything
Vigilante
Camelot 3000

>>149308923
>1970s Batman
>Silver Age

>>149303801 (OP)
Ignore every post mentioning LoSH.
>>149309538
>The Fourth World saga
This is the correct answer.

>>149310631
>Ignore every post mentioning LoSH.
starting with this one

>>149303801 (OP)
Marston's original WW run

>>149305705
Weird take. Comics didn't magically start getting more mature or "dark" in 1985. The quality of writing in DC comics had been steadily improving since the late 1960s. There's not much difference in quality in a Batman comic from the 70s and 80s, they're both really, really good. They definitely started veering more "edgy" after TDKR and Watchmen, though. But not immediately.

>>149311726
DC Finest when

>>149311737
Silver Age DC is legit dreck outside of Legion and whatever war comics Kubert was illustrating. Yes it gets better in the 1970s but only once they started bringing over all the young guys who'd been run out of the chaos of post-Roy Marvel. There's a reason Marvel had the buzz back then and people remember a lot of the stuff compared to nobody remembering all the random gorilla Superman stories or whatever goofy bullshit Batman was getting up to. Fuck, even the teen comics are better remembered if only because Marvel's kept characters like Millie and Patsy around in various forms. Nobody remembers Romita's romance work for DC evrn though he did a lot of it. The 1950s in general were shit for the medium but by the 1960s DC was doing the same corny shit 99% of the time.

>>149308430
Took the words right out of my mouth.

>>149311726
That book is horrendous.

Some of the worst villains I've ever come across while reading a comic.

>>149313473

>>149313664
I'm sorry that you're a tasteless faggot.

>>149310631
Shooter and Levitz though.
>>149312608
Silver age DC ended around 1968 and all those kiddy comics DC was doing in the 60s were absolutely crushing Marvel. 60s Marvel is more remembered now because college+ aged losers were the ones who really liked those books, DC's popularity was with normies who grew out of superheroes.

>>149303801 (OP)
Justice League was my least favorite of DC’s Bronze Age titles. It was just so boring compared to the Avengers.

>>149314296
They weren't that good but you can tell that Grant Morrison was reading them as a child because he did better takes on so many of those concepts.
My favorites were the ones were the writer himself devotes an entire issue to how much he's in love with Zatanna or the one where Harlan Ellison is inserted in the story and pines after Black Canary and nearly kills Ollie over it, just not giving a fuck how weird it looks.

>>149314432
Man that time period was so bland. No wonder the Identity Crisis guy retcon stuff there to make it more interesting.
Ironically I was one of the few to like Justice League Detroit because it had stakes to kill off Vibe and Steel.

>>149314679
Identity Crisis was edgy manchild garbage and I'd take a million waifu stories over it.

>>149311726
>>149313664
My favorite is how Batman, the fucking leader, funder and organizer, is constantly compromised by Katana murdering mother fuckers and he just lets it go with a 'meh'. Every issue reads completely retarded lol

>>149303801 (OP)
Are they DC?

>>149314760
>Every issue reads completely retarded lol
I'm afraid that's on the reader (you). Batman kills in this, or didn't you notice?

>>149312608
That's a lot of words to say you're a Midwit

>>149314713
Identity Crisis is for adults, kid. Grow up.

>>149317106
Edgy manchildren like Dan Didio, yes, but DC had already been publishing a number of far more sophisticated books for over 20 years by then.

>>149315451
So it's retarded, and so are you. Got it.

>>149317106
I liked Identity Crisis

>>149318422
They were much less autistic about batmans no kill rule back in the day. Early post crises batman said he killed in self defense and that it was OK to kill in self defense.

>>149314432
>the writer himself devotes an entire issue to how much he's in love with Zatanna
I'm thinking based

>>149318422
Glad I could help you come to terms with your mental limitations.

>>149308430
>>149313473
No, my hecking capes need to be buddies.

>>149314237
>Silver age DC ended around 1968 and all those kiddy comics DC was doing in the 60s were absolutely crushing Marvel.
Your graph and thus point is deceptive. DC in the first half of the 1960s outsold Marvel for the simple fact that DC/National, through their distributor, was the company distributing Marvel's comics and limited them to a small number of titles (like 8-12). DC sold more because they, quite literally, were able to sell more comics while kneecapping one of their biggest competitors. In 1967, Goodman cut a better deal to allow more comics and in 1968 Cadence took over Marvel's distribution and freed them from DC's restrictions which led to all the split titles (Tales of Suspense, etc.) getting their characters like Captain America and Iron Man spun off into their own books (so now selling three—Tales of Suspense, Cap and Iron Man—where you originally had one). And wouldn't you know it, the lines on that chart align with that general timeline. By the early 1970s Marvel had pretty much surpassed DC, especially after rusing them with the whole cover price thing (both agreeing to up their prices to 25 cents with increased page counts, then Marvel dropping back down to 20 cents and slightly lower page count after a few months) which is when they basically took the lead from DC and never looked back.

Is 1973 to 1985 the worst period in DC's history? I don't know if I can think of anything great in that era. There's O'Neil/Adams Batman I guess? and Englehart/Rodgers is in that era, and Levitz comes in on Legion at the end of the 70s.

>>149320228
No, it's 2011-present day

I don't want to make a new thread
is Dini's run on Detective Comics good?

>>149320228
>and Levitz comes in on Legion at the end of the 70s
Legion was still good before that with Cockrum and Grell on art. Legion was basically the most consistently good superhero book DC had until 5YL.

>>149320228
We're in the worst period of DC right now.

>>149320486

There's that weird period in the late bronze age that's not great though, The Reflecto Saga is the big storyline of the era I think of, right before Levitz starts proper. I agree it's DC's most consistent good book until Giffen leaves 5YL

>>149320228
The bat-books were never bad, bronze age Superman was also solid for the most part, Cary Bates Flash that started in 1971 only got better as it went along, Michael Fleisher's long Jonah Hex run that ran through Weird Western Tales/Jonah Hex, O'Neil's Richard Dragon, the Death of a Prince saga that ran through Adventure Comics and Aquaman, Camelot 3000, Omega Men, Vigilante...
Lot of good books getting published, they just didn't sell Marvel numbers.

>>149320332
Yeah it was great.

>>149314296
Yep.
There’s a reason why JLI is the oldest JL book people actually recommend, outside of JSAfags recommending the old JLA/JSA crossovers.

>>149320332
Make a new thread. More comic threads are always welcome.

>>149320645
>The bat-books were never bad
Batman Family begs to differ.

>>149321047
I remember trying to read Englehart's JLA and compared to anything he was doing at Marvel it was dull. I don't know how editorially driven stories were still at that point in comparison how they were in the '60s though.

>>149303801 (OP)

>>149319466
>he's retarded and illiterate
Checks out.

>>149322201
It's not that good and it falls off a cliff the second Perez leaves. So fast and so far that I assume Perez was actually a co-writer which would make sense because Wolfman isn't a particularly good writer on his own.

>>149320228
Everything in that period was pretty much peak comics.

>>149322243
Not quite. The peak came after.

>>149322233
It's bad when Perez was on it too. You and most others were just dazzled by the pretty art.

>>149322229
That's a lot of projection there

>>149322201
>Roy Harper got to fuck Troy and Starfire
When is Raven's turn?

>>149303801 (OP)
>multi title
Fourth World
>single title
I'm partial to Kamandi

>>149323528
good picks

>>149304257
>>149304752
>>149305705

Kys

>>149303801 (OP)
For the Man Who Has Everything: Superman Annual #11

>>149320508
New 52 era and it's fallout were way, way worse. Absolute run has been pretty great for the most part.

>>149323528
Kirby's shit sucked. He wasn't any good without being filtered through Lee. Also the DC readers thought his art was ugly which is why his work sold like shit and his return to Marvel flopped and likewise readers then hated his work and would bitch about it in letters pages.

Ditko's Doctor Strange completely mogs anything Kirby did.

A few other worthwhile ones that I haven't seen mentioned are the Steve Skeates Aquaman stories, Sword of the Atom and Enemy Ace.

>>149324803
Sure thing, NPC

>>149324692
Post crisis

>>149304340
Am I dumb if I actually like this run? …. I know the politics are retarded but I like O Neil and Adam’s a lot and I dunno I thought it was a fun little team up besides it selling like shit, like obviously I’m not gonna say it’s the greatest thing known to man but I guess it’s a guilty pleasure of mine

>>149325067
You're dumb, yes. Not because you like this, or any other run of comics. You're dumb because you felt the need to ask instead of just having conviction in your hobbies and needing any outside approval to like whatever you want.

>>149324935
Crisis on Infinite Earths finished March 1986, Superman Annual 11 was September 1985. Also it was Mongul's last appearance in pre-Crisis continuity before he was rebooted as the ruler of Warworld.

>>149324803
Ditko's Strange is boring.

>>149325256
You're boring.

>>149311717
one of the best picks so far

>>149320228
there's a handful of great comics during that period

>>149324935
not even close to true

>>149325256
false

>>149313664
What, you don't like hamfisted political stereotypes in villain form?

Nuclear Family were an interesting idea but they don't really fit what the Outsiders had going on.

>>149313664
>>149314760
So people were lying when they said this was one of the best DC books of the 80's? I'd been interested in checking it out because I like the uniquely 80's DC books, but if it actually sucks, I'll pass.

>>149326277
Yes, people were lying, nobody actually liked it even if they thought they did, and that guy in a bhutanese image board is the one telling the truth.

>>149326277
The only people who actually like that book are the 15 Katanafags on the entire board, see >>149314760. A really old joke on /co/ was people claiming Geo-Force was their favorite character due to nobody actually liking Outsiders and him killing himself in the late 00s.

Even Infinity Inc is more well liked if we're talking strictly C list DC 80s teams due to a lot of the team showing up in JSA books.

>>149326378
I like the Outsiders book more than I liked the NTT at the time, mainly because the characters had strong personalities with different philosophies that managed to get along, without unnecesary soap opera drama. Compare the writng quality in both books during the crossover, Wolfman's comes across as very much of its time, while Barr's, while still comic-booky, flows more naturally.

>>149314713
>crash pounding
this guy.

>>149320140
>rusing them with the whole cover price thing
wtf based and jewy

>>149314713
I'm glad the generation that read this dreck is already yelling at clouds.

>>149326523
It was controversial even when it was coming out.

>>149324925
Forever People and New Gods were cancelled after 11 issues, Mr. Miracle after 18. A lot of people who would eventually work for DC really loved them which is why those characters have been omnipresent for a long time, but the masses didn't care for them.
>>149325256
Started out pretty humdrum but it really picked up with the longrunning Baron Mordo saga.
>>149326277
Eh just give it a try and see for yourself. Some people like Barr, some people hate him.

>>149303801 (OP)

>>149325256
Yeah, I don't know how people can like it. It's got like a short 2 page sequence once every few issues that;'s interesting, rest is dreck.

>>149327565
This.

>>149326378
>15 Katanafags
That's a lot of Katanafags.

>>149326378
If no one liked Outsiders then the original run wouldn't have lasted from 1983-88, it wouldn't have had The Outsiders running concurrently with Batman and the Outsiders starting in 1985, and the original title wouldn't have gone until reprints for eight issues after the story had ended in 1986 so it could loop into The Outsiders which had started earlier with a timeskip. On top of that it got a revival series in the early 90s that lasted two years. Pretty solid fanbase for a while, just couldn't last forever, it was Mike W Barr's baby.

>>149320228
>I don't know if I can think of anything great in that era.
The fuck? Saga of the Swamp Thing?

>>149303801 (OP)
World of Krypton

>>149325067
The art is great.

>>One hundred forty nine million three hundred three thousand eight hundred and one

Guys, in my long absence from this place that I'm certain is being broadcast through at least a billion people's motor neurons in wonderfully quaint Europe, I've had time to realize the answer to a long standing mystery.

A cour is a french word, and owing to it not originating in Louisiana is therefore suspect.
Now I don't need to tell you specifically Ryuk why french words have fallen in value this century. But certainly you never see American comics translated in french anymore. If you have, I might just assume you've been taking antipsychotics, and would like your based take on the subject. Know for a fact that when MY people say that word, it is a backhanded compliment.

A compliment children involves addition.
Yesterday I subtracted a mans life whom I probably bumped shoulders with in my storied youth.
Would you prefer I subtract you from history retroactively?

I am in fact good numbers confirm.
Urban dictionary defines Cour as FUCK AND RUN KIDDO.

All comics henceforth I decree shall contain blatant capitalist advertisements and eyepopping three d pages because poundsign this brand of lipstick on a drug addicted pig. Can you even fathom that many metal soda cans?

Oh right, flip this upside down so they can scan it properly without getting their wrists in a twist.

>>149326496
>wtf based and jewy
The story goes that in 1971 Marvel and DC had a gentleman's agreement to raise the prices on their books to 25 cents along with a page increase to 52 pages. But after a month, Marvel cut back to 36 pages and dropped prices to 25 cents while DC, for various reasons, was stuck at the 25 cent price tag for a year. At the same time, Goodman started offering distributors a bigger cut of the sales prices so they were more keen to stock more Marvel books and that's when Marvel overtook DC.

Although this casts a lot of doubt on that version of the story.
http://marvelsilverage.blogspot.com/2020/04/exposed-myths-of-marvels-silver-age.html

Actually going by that, the ABC (an independent auditing board) numbers show that Marvel had passed DC by 1967. A lot of the numbers more widely reported are based on publisher statements and it could be a full year before they'd get the real final numbers so those statements would likely be made with inaccurate or outdated information. Marvel's sell through rate (i.e. what customers were buying, not just what was being ordered) was something like 70 or 80% vs. DC's 40%.

>>149332394
That should be dropped prices to 20 cents. Basically the (possibly apocryphal) version of history goes that Goodman outplayed DC through wiley chicanery. making them raise their prices while he never had a real intention to do so and knowing they'd be stuck. DC's books technically had more content but Marvel's were cheaper for a full year and thus Marvel pulled ahead of DC. Reality is possibly entirely different.

>>149327551
Sure thing, NPC.

>>149322758
We don't describe the contents of our posts here, anon.

>>149324803
Bullshit from an obvious non-reader. Kirby's Jimmy Olsen is pure inspired KINO.

>>149326277
It is interesting and worth a look, but don't expect good comics.

>>149327551
>Marty Pasko criticizing anybody's writing
Holy fuck the lack of self-awareness and humility. Fuck that worthless hack.

>>149333091
He was an all right meat and potatoes guy.

>>149327565
/thread

>>149333091
Pasko also crapped on Alan Moore's Swamp Thing.

>>149332909
What was the story with his penchant for this kind of collage stuff. I dig it, I just want to know where it came from.

>>149335505
Trying and failing to be artsy because he was just a grumpy old jew obsessed with Chariot of the Gods.

>>149335674
You're a gigantic faggot.

>>149305705
big nolan and snyder fan, i take it?

>>149336453
I prefer post-Crisis, pre-9/11 comics.

>>149335505
this is amazing, I like art that pushes new boundaries in comics

>>149337996
Some people don't like that. They prefer stagnation.

>>149338788
well, I DONT PREFER THEM

>>149325256
You suck.

>>149335505
I think the King himself credited The Fantastic Voyage as stirring that particular creative stew.

>>149327610
Bless you for being honest.

>>149325256
you have dogshit taste

I like all comic eras

>>149340242
liar

>>149314237
My knowledge of the business side of things isn’t great, what caused that huge drop in Marvel’s sales in 1957?

>>149340917
NO I DO LOVE IT ALL

>>149340934
In 1956 Goodman shit down his distribution company to go with the largest one in the country just in time for it to get buttfucked into oblivion by the government for monopoly practices. Goodman doing that burned goodwill with the wholesalers so he was forced to go to the distributor that DC owned who forced him to cut his titles down from 50-60 to 8. This led to the layoff of everyone at Atlas besides Stan and a few others.

>>149326049
>one of the best picks so far
surprised more people haven't mentioned it

>>149309960
Silver and bronze age Rogue team ups were fantastic.

>>149303801 (OP)
I'm about to finish my Silver Age DC marathon and so far the only things I really liked were the Doom Patrol and Deadman runs.

>>149342466
Deadman was basically proto-bronze age anyway considering the Neal Adams art and the darker tone that was so unlike most comics of the time.

>>149303801 (OP)
It all stinks

>>149343088
That's you, troll. Take a shower.

>>149311726
>>149313664

i wouldn't say it was 'horrendous', but it was just an entirely unnecessary book. they probably wanted to create essentially a second teen titans. Batman doesn't belong on a team like that but they just slapped the characters together and turned it into a team book.

>>149343664
All comics are unnecessary desu

>>149325067
It's really charming and sincere in a way most things people would label as commie propaganda are not. It's not my favorite but I have a huge soft spot for it.

>>149343664
>>149343751
Anyway it turns out the answer is "a request from a foreign market" https://comicsalliance.com/mike-w-barr-on-batman-the-comics-alliance-interview-part-two/
>What happened was that one of DC's foreign publishers, I think it was in South America, was publishing four Batman books as a weekly title. It was Batman, Detective, World's Finest and Brave and the Bold, published weekly as a Batman title. So when Brave and the Bold was canceled, they wanted another Batman title to take its place, and I suggested Batman as the leader of a team of heroes.

>DC was very fond of Jim, Jim having been a very loyal employee over the years, so they agreed that this would be Jim's next assignment. Jim was a little leery at first of the idea of taking on a team book, but I think he saw this as the wave of the future and then grew to like the new characters as well. He said to me, "Let's have a lot of the Batman in there," and I said "Well, sure, we can do that."

>>149342466
No Superman/Action Comics?

>>149344870
Silver Age Superman and Batman are both awful.

>>149345294
Silver Age Superman was the peak of his popularity. You had to have been a kid at the time to truly appreciate it though.