The Classy Comics Podcast

Barry Allen and Wally West continue their groundbreaking adventures as they travel through time and battle epic villains like Captain Boomerang for the first time and a team up with the Green Lantern.
Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: The Flash is tied to a giant boomerang, twice and Kid Flash travels back to pre-historic times, twice. We'll talk about it, straight ahead in The Flash: The Silver Age Volume 2.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:As I discussed in a previous episode after many of the great superhero franchises of the Golden Age flamed out in the late 40s and early 50s, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman remain the really only consistent games in town when it came to superheroes. However, that changed when D.C. introduced Barry Allen as the Flash in Showcase number 4. The Flash was successful and with the Scarlet Speedster’s success, many more superheroes would be added to the roster of the D.C. Universe.
To understand what made the Flash successful, it's important to understand what the Flash didn't have. There wasn't great characterization or much characterization at all. That would be something really that Marvel would bring to superheroes with the emergence of the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man later on in the 1960s. What the Flash brought was mind-blowing imagination, when it came to the use of the Flash’s super speed as well as the rogues he fought. In fact, the colorful rogues of the Flash, Captain Cold, Mirror Master, Weather Wizard and the Prankster, remain popular to this day and they were really cranked out in the early years of the Flash’s comeback.
The Flash: The Silver Age Volume 2, comes after the Flash’s initial three trial appearances and his first thirteen issues have introduced so much but there's even more that gets introduced in this volume and we're going to discuss it. This particular volume collects issues 117 to 132. I won't try and cover everything in this book. It's a 400-page book plus, unlike say a modern comic where you have plots that take place over multiple issues, these are all self-contained or in many cases, they are two stories in a single issue so I won't try and cover everything. I will say that these are pretty lengthy issues when you take a look at them. Generally you're looking at about 23 to 25 pages, which is a good length for the early Silver Age books. They get a lot shorter during the Bronze Age.
The first big milestone comes in issue 117 of the Flash, the first issue collected in this book and it introduces Captain Boomerang. The story begins when a corporate honcho has the idea that his company could make a really big trend out of selling boomerangs, as yo-yos had recently been a big deal and they need to hire someone who is experienced throwing the boomerang. And so our villain is hired and uses the name Captain Boomerang. That's part of the plan and instead of taking this cushy corporate job, it’ll be like being the Marlboro Man. With plenty money coming his way, he instead turns to a life of crime using incredibly clever boomerangs in order to commit his crimes.
Flash actually thinks he's spotted Captain Boomerang at the scene of a crime but Captain Boomerang convinces him that he's innocent and that it would do harm to his elderly parents, who aren't his parents but two actors playing them and gets the Flash to go away but realizes he has to get rid of the Flash and how is he going to do that? He's going to tie him to a rocket-powered boomerang. Now when I asked my wife about this, she pointed out shouldn't a boomerang return back to where it was thrown and that's a good question.
However, this time the Flash to a boomerang solution is actually used by ...

Barry Allen and Wally West continue their groundbreaking adventures as they travel through time and battle epic villains like Captain Boomerang for the first time and a team up with the Green Lantern.

Affiliate link included.

Transcript:

Graham: The Flash is tied to a giant boomerang, twice and Kid Flash travels back to pre-historic times, twice. We’ll talk about it, straight ahead in The Flash: The Silver Age Volume 2.

Announcer: Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.

Graham: As I discussed in a previous episode after many of the great superhero franchises of the Golden Age flamed out in the late 40s and early 50s, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman remain the really only consistent games in town when it came to superheroes. However, that changed when D.C. introduced Barry Allen as the Flash in Showcase number 4. The Flash was successful and with the Scarlet Speedster’s success, many more superheroes would be added to the roster of the D.C. Universe.

To understand what made the Flash successful, it’s important to understand what the Flash didn’t have. There wasn’t great characterization or much characterization at all. That would be something really that Marvel would bring to superheroes with the emergence of the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man later on in the 1960s. What the Flash brought was mind-blowing imagination, when it came to the use of the Flash’s super speed as well as the rogues he fought. In fact, the colorful rogues of the Flash, Captain Cold, Mirror Master, Weather Wizard and the Prankster, remain popular to this day and they were really cranked out in the early years of the Flash’s comeback.

The Flash: The Silver Age Volume 2, comes after the Flash’s initial three trial appearances and his first thirteen issues have introduced so much but there’s even more that gets introduced in this volume and we’re going to discuss it. This particular volume collects issues 117 to 132. I won’t try and cover everything in this book. It’s a 400-page book plus, unlike say a modern comic where you have plots that take place over multiple issues, these are all self-contained or in many cases, they are two stories in a single issue so I won’t try and cover everything. I will say that these are pretty lengthy issues when you take a look at them. Generally you’re looking at about 23 to 25 pages, which is a good length for the early Silver Age books. They get a lot shorter during the Bronze Age.

The first big milestone comes in issue 117 of the Flash, the first issue collected in this book and it introduces Captain Boomerang. The story begins when a corporate honcho has the idea that his company could make a really big trend out of selling boomerangs, as yo-yos had recently been a big deal and they need to hire someone who is experienced throwing the boomerang. And so our villain is hired and uses the name Captain Boomerang. That’s part of the plan and instead of taking this cushy corporate job, it’ll be like being the Marlboro Man. With plenty money coming his way, he instead turns to a life of crime using incredibly clever boomerangs in order to commit his crimes.

Flash actually thinks he’s spotted Captain Boomerang at the scene of a crime but Captain Boomerang convinces him that he’s innocent and that it would do harm to his elderly parents, who aren’t his parents but two actors playing them and gets the Flash to go away but realizes he has to get rid of the Flash and how is he going to do that? He’s going to tie him to a rocket-powered boomerang. Now when I asked my wife about this, she pointed out shouldn’t a boomerang return back to where it was thrown and that’s a good question.

However, this time the Flash to a boomerang solution is...

Come back to the late 1960s as the JLA/JSA battle strange black spheres and the sinister Dr. T.O. Morrow.
Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Host: Get ready for universe spanning crisis as we take a look at Crisis on Multiple Earths Volume Two, straight ahead.

[Into Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Host:During the Silver Age of D.C. Comics, as we discussed in another episode, a multiverse was established to exist with, particularly in the beginning, there being Earth-1 which was the home of the ongoing main D.C. Universe characters and then there was Earth-2 a parallel Earth with many similarities and a very similar history but with Golden Age heroes including Golden Age versions of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman who fought in World War two and contained the D.C.'s Golden Age characters including the Justice Society of America. As part of this multiverse those universes crossed over time and time again. It wasn't actually an annual tradition. For more than twenty years, there were annual crossovers between these two universes as adventures would begin on one earth and ultimately to adventures on the other or onto an earth unrelated to either of the two.
We’re going to take a look at some crossovers from late in the Silver Age. These are from 1967 to 1970 and this was at a transitory time for the Justice League of America where this book has the last two crossovers written by Gardner Fox and the first two written by Dennis O'Neil and the last story that was penciled by Mike Sekowsky and the first three that were penciled by Dick Dillon, who became the go to Justice League penciler for many years. The story's start out with Justice League 55 in 56 and the final two stories are from Justice League of America number 82 and 83. So, with that said we'll go ahead and get started with the first two-parter and all of these are two-part stories, so four of them, The Crisis That Struck Earth-2 and The Negative Crisis That Struck Earth-1 and the only thing I'm really going to complain about art wise in the entire book is the image for Robin's uniform. This is the first Justice League crossover to feature the Earth-2 Robin who is now grown to adult and has taken on an adult costume. However, that costume is just really awful. It combines the Batman and the Robin costumes in a way that just really clashes. He's got, from the Batman suit, the trunks, the boot, the utility belt and the grey bodysuit, as well as, the blue gloves but added to that, he's got the yellow cape and a very high collar. So, it's a ridiculous looking long cape and his emblem is a red crest with a yellow R and the Batman symbol in the middle of it. It doesn't look good on the cover. It looks a little bit better on the interior where actually the crest is different. It doesn't have the red circle in there, which makes the thing look a little less busy but I think the R is not very good.
A lot of times during that Silver Age, they would imagine Robin as an adult continuing to fight crime and they would imagine costumes that just really didn't fit an adult hero. It would either just be like Batman costume but with the number two on it to indicate that he is the second Batman rather than the first original Batman. Why this should matter to criminals? I don't know but I digress. I think the costume in this book is probably one of the worst but again that's the only complaint I have about the art in this book. Everything else is fine Sekowski and Dylan really know their stuff.
Alright, so now the plot. This begins with Black Energy orbs striking for average ordinary people and turning them into supervillains who have to be stopped by the J.S.A. However, when the J.S.A. fights them,

Come back to the late 1960s as the JLA/JSA battle strange black spheres and the sinister Dr. T.O. Morrow.

Affiliate link included.

Transcript:

Host: Get ready for universe spanning crisis as we take a look at Crisis on Multiple Earths Volume Two, straight ahead.

[Into Music]

Announcer: Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise, Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.

Host: During the Silver Age of D.C. Comics, as we discussed in another episode, a multiverse was established to exist with, particularly in the beginning, there being Earth-1 which was the home of the ongoing main D.C. Universe characters and then there was Earth-2 a parallel Earth with many similarities and a very similar history but with Golden Age heroes including Golden Age versions of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman who fought in World War two and contained the D.C.’s Golden Age characters including the Justice Society of America. As part of this multiverse those universes crossed over time and time again. It wasn’t actually an annual tradition. For more than twenty years, there were annual crossovers between these two universes as adventures would begin on one earth and ultimately to adventures on the other or onto an earth unrelated to either of the two.

We’re going to take a look at some crossovers from late in the Silver Age. These are from 1967 to 1970 and this was at a transitory time for the Justice League of America where this book has the last two crossovers written by Gardner Fox and the first two written by Dennis O’Neil and the last story that was penciled by Mike Sekowsky and the first three that were penciled by Dick Dillon, who became the go to Justice League penciler for many years. The story’s start out with Justice League 55 in 56 and the final two stories are from Justice League of America number 82 and 83. So, with that said we’ll go ahead and get started with the first two-parter and all of these are two-part stories, so four of them, The Crisis That Struck Earth-2 and The Negative Crisis That Struck Earth-1 and the only thing I’m really going to complain about art wise in the entire book is the image for Robin’s uniform. This is the first Justice League crossover to feature the Earth-2 Robin who is now grown to adult and has taken on an adult costume. However, that costume is just really awful. It combines the Batman and the Robin costumes in a way that just really clashes. He’s got, from the Batman suit, the trunks, the boot, the utility belt and the grey bodysuit, as well as, the blue gloves but added to that, he’s got the yellow cape and a very high collar. So, it’s a ridiculous looking long cape and his emblem is a red crest with a yellow R and the Batman symbol in the middle of it. It doesn’t look good on the cover. It looks a little bit better on the interior where actually the crest is different. It doesn’t have the red circle in there, which makes the thing look a little less busy but I think the R is not very good.

A lot of times during that Silver Age, they would imagine Robin as an adult continuing to fight crime and they would imagine costumes that just really didn’t fit an adult hero. It would either just be like Batman costume but with the number two on it to indicate that he is the second Batman rather than the first original Batman. Why this should matter to criminals? I don’t know but I digress. I think the costume in this book is probably one of the worst but again that’s the only complaint I have about the art in this book. Everything else is fine Sekowski and Dylan really know their stuff.

Alright, so now the plot. This begins with Black Energy orbs striking for average ordinary people and turning them into supervillains who have to be stopped by the J.S.A. However, when the J.S.A.

Batgirl solves a mystery at the local swimming pool and then reveals a dark secret.
Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: Barbara Gordon investigates ghost in a local swimming pool and then has to face some ghosts from her past. Join us as we take a look Batgirl Volume 3: Summer of Lies, straight ahead.

[Into Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:I have to admit, prior to this volume, I was about on the verge of giving up on Batgirl and somewhat bummed that Batgirl and the Birds of Prey was being cancelled because to me that was the better book. First two volumes have been kind of directionless and have not really taken good advantage of the character but they intrigued me enough that I gave this one more try. So, Volume 3 of Batgirl is called Summer of Lies and it collects six issues. It features issues twelve through seventeen. The book starts off with issue twelve, which has Batgirl apparently going ghost hunting in Troubled Waters where some people are claiming to have seen a ghost at the local Y swimming pool and Barbara has to find out the truth behind what's going on. I really like this story with Batgirl taking on this investigation. It's a nice little mystery. It's a one-off story and it does show the character’s intelligence, which I think has been missing from some of the more recent stories in the Batgirl time frame. Here you see her using intelligence, wit and courage to solve the case. So, I enjoyed this one a lot.
The second one is The Truth About Bats and Dogs and this story finds Batgirl rescuing a little girl who's in trouble and she is looking for a famous dog that has gone missing and at the same time Catwoman is searching for one of her cats who has also gone missing and so the obvious result, after a little brief scuffle, is that it's time for a team up. Overall, I thought the story was good humored, it was fun, it was sweet, it pokes some gentle fun at some of our social media culture and the idea that both this missing cat and missing dog had tens of thousands of followers on this social media network. One thing I do like about Burnside, which is Batgirl’s hometown in the comics at this point, is that it does poke some fun at some of the more over the top sides of our urban hipster culture. So, I thought that was a really nice touch.
Then we have the heart of the book, which is the four issue story, Summer of Lies and essentially this involves a case from her early days which was also some of her earliest time knowing Dick Grayson coming back to haunt her and she has to figure out what's going on now and she has to reveal what happened then and the plot of the story is that Barbara has just moved to Gotham from Chicago with her dad, who is really over protective and nervous about letting her go around Gotham City. She gets a job at a Olive Garden knockoff where a fellow waitress befriends her and offers her a job as her assistant and only later does she find out that this is under false pretenses and something is going on and it's an interesting tale because she also has already got the Batgirl identity and she meets Robin with Dick Grayson in a robin costume, which is not something typically we see because Dick Grayson has been Nightwing for so long but here you get to see them interact and how they first met as teenagers as well as perhaps a chance to explore rekindling their relationship in the current comics though, I mean, I've been following Nightwing, so at this point Barbara Gordon is one of many entrants in the Dick Grayson sweepstakes. I like this one because it explores an area of their past that I find interesting. I think it can be tricky when you have comic stories that explore the past of characters when those are kind of overdone or we'...

Batgirl solves a mystery at the local swimming pool and then reveals a dark secret.

Affiliate link included.

Transcript:

Graham: Barbara Gordon investigates ghost in a local swimming pool and then has to face some ghosts from her past. Join us as we take a look Batgirl Volume 3: Summer of Lies, straight ahead.

[Into Music]

Announcer: Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho, here is your host Adam Graham.

Graham: I have to admit, prior to this volume, I was about on the verge of giving up on Batgirl and somewhat bummed that Batgirl and the Birds of Prey was being cancelled because to me that was the better book. First two volumes have been kind of directionless and have not really taken good advantage of the character but they intrigued me enough that I gave this one more try. So, Volume 3 of Batgirl is called Summer of Lies and it collects six issues. It features issues twelve through seventeen. The book starts off with issue twelve, which has Batgirl apparently going ghost hunting in Troubled Waters where some people are claiming to have seen a ghost at the local Y swimming pool and Barbara has to find out the truth behind what’s going on. I really like this story with Batgirl taking on this investigation. It’s a nice little mystery. It’s a one-off story and it does show the character’s intelligence, which I think has been missing from some of the more recent stories in the Batgirl time frame. Here you see her using intelligence, wit and courage to solve the case. So, I enjoyed this one a lot.

The second one is The Truth About Bats and Dogs and this story finds Batgirl rescuing a little girl who’s in trouble and she is looking for a famous dog that has gone missing and at the same time Catwoman is searching for one of her cats who has also gone missing and so the obvious result, after a little brief scuffle, is that it’s time for a team up. Overall, I thought the story was good humored, it was fun, it was sweet, it pokes some gentle fun at some of our social media culture and the idea that both this missing cat and missing dog had tens of thousands of followers on this social media network. One thing I do like about Burnside, which is Batgirl’s hometown in the comics at this point, is that it does poke some fun at some of the more over the top sides of our urban hipster culture. So, I thought that was a really nice touch.

Then we have the heart of the book, which is the four issue story, Summer of Lies and essentially this involves a case from her early days which was also some of her earliest time knowing Dick Grayson coming back to haunt her and she has to figure out what’s going on now and she has to reveal what happened then and the plot of the story is that Barbara has just moved to Gotham from Chicago with her dad, who is really over protective and nervous about letting her go around Gotham City. She gets a job at a Olive Garden knockoff where a fellow waitress befriends her and offers her a job as her assistant and only later does she find out that this is under false pretenses and something is going on and it’s an interesting tale because she also has already got the Batgirl identity and she meets Robin with Dick Grayson in a robin costume, which is not something typically we see because Dick Grayson has been Nightwing for so long but here you get to see them interact and how they first met as teenagers as well as perhaps a chance to explore rekindling their relationship in the current comics though, I mean, I’ve been following Nightwing, so at this point Barbara Gordon is one of many entrants in the Dick Grayson sweepstakes. I like this one because it explores an area of their past that I find interesting. I think it can be tricky when you have comic stories that explore the past of characters when those are kind of overdone ...

Captain Marvel gets a new haircut and takes command of a team of Candian Superheroes…IN SPACE!
Transcript:
Graham: Captain Marvel gets a haircut and a new look and also takes command of a space station. We'll talk about it ahead as we take a look at Captain Marvel: The Rise of Alpha Flight.

Announcer:Welcome to the Classic Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:After a critically acclaimed, if not always commercially successful, run on Captain Marvel, Kelly Deconnick left the book and the series was taken over by Tara Butters who wrote the Agent Carter series. So, we’ll take a look at what she did in this book Captain Marvel: The Rise of Alpha Flight which covers issues one through five of the relaunch Captain Marvel series.
Captain Marvel is Carol Danvers who began her career as Miss Marvel back in the 1970s. We reviewed Essential Miss Marvel Volume 1 talking about that series while she was a lot of identities became Miss Marvel again and then in 2012, she became Captain Marvel deciding that it had apparently been long enough since the death of Marvell for her to go ahead and claim that banner and she's been Captain Marvel ever since 2012.
However, it's been a bit of a rough road. She has dad a total of 5 different series. She had 2 series by Kelly Deconnick and then this series and then this was followed by The Mighty Captain Marvel, which was followed by another Captain Marvel series, though continuing on with numbering as if they were starting from scratch and she is due this summer and might actually be released by the time this episode is out, to have her own mini-series The Life of Captain Marvel, which is a relaunch and definitive origin story ahead of the Captain Marvel movie due out next year.
Alright, well that out of the way, let's take a look at this book The Rise of Alpha Flight. Well Carol has gotten a job as commanding a space station which is the galaxy's first line of defense and she leaves her erstwhile love interest Rhodey aka War Machine behind so that she can go up into space and actually this is the second straight volume that started her doing that. The second Kelly Deconnick volume had her leaving so that she could explore the universe in an Avenger starship and in many ways Deconnick was giving her much the same role as Captain Kirk. Here she is taking on command of a space station and it can be compared to Babylon 5 or it can be call compared to Deep Space Nine, if you want to stay strictly Trek-based.
She points to or new haircut, which is short as opposed to the traditional Carol Danvers style which tends to be on the long side and she tends to be skilled at putting it up if necessary but here they opted for shorter hair, which amounts to most over in new look and as far as that goes, it looks fine. It's a haircut that many women realistically wear and I can kind of see why she would go with it.
So, she arrives on the space station, which is staffed by the Canadian Superhero Team Alpha Flight. On the space station she runs into her biggest challenge which is her first officer Lieutenant Commander Abigail Brand, who is doubting her fitness and whether she's up for the job, particularly with the heavy diplomacy but thankfully for Captain Marvel, instead they encounter a ghostship that happens to have the Hala star on it, the symbol that she wears on her chest and she starts having visions of the original Marvell of the Kree.
Well, overall I felt the best character in this book was Abigail Brand. There were at least a couple different sides to her personality and she tended to be the most interesting and unpredictable character in the book with a lot of twists. Some people said her general style towards Carol is passive aggressive. I don't really see it that way.

Captain Marvel gets a new haircut and takes command of a team of Candian Superheroes…IN SPACE!

Transcript:

Graham: Captain Marvel gets a haircut and a new look and also takes command of a space station. We’ll talk about it ahead as we take a look at Captain Marvel: The Rise of Alpha Flight.

Announcer: Welcome to the Classic Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho here is your host Adam Graham.

Graham: After a critically acclaimed, if not always commercially successful, run on Captain Marvel, Kelly Deconnick left the book and the series was taken over by Tara Butters who wrote the Agent Carter series. So, we’ll take a look at what she did in this book Captain Marvel: The Rise of Alpha Flight which covers issues one through five of the relaunch Captain Marvel series.

Captain Marvel is Carol Danvers who began her career as Miss Marvel back in the 1970s. We reviewed Essential Miss Marvel Volume 1 talking about that series while she was a lot of identities became Miss Marvel again and then in 2012, she became Captain Marvel deciding that it had apparently been long enough since the death of Marvell for her to go ahead and claim that banner and she’s been Captain Marvel ever since 2012.

However, it’s been a bit of a rough road. She has dad a total of 5 different series. She had 2 series by Kelly Deconnick and then this series and then this was followed by The Mighty Captain Marvel, which was followed by another Captain Marvel series, though continuing on with numbering as if they were starting from scratch and she is due this summer and might actually be released by the time this episode is out, to have her own mini-series The Life of Captain Marvel, which is a relaunch and definitive origin story ahead of the Captain Marvel movie due out next year.

Alright, well that out of the way, let’s take a look at this book The Rise of Alpha Flight. Well Carol has gotten a job as commanding a space station which is the galaxy’s first line of defense and she leaves her erstwhile love interest Rhodey aka War Machine behind so that she can go up into space and actually this is the second straight volume that started her doing that. The second Kelly Deconnick volume had her leaving so that she could explore the universe in an Avenger starship and in many ways Deconnick was giving her much the same role as Captain Kirk. Here she is taking on command of a space station and it can be compared to Babylon 5 or it can be call compared to Deep Space Nine, if you want to stay strictly Trek-based.

She points to or new haircut, which is short as opposed to the traditional Carol Danvers style which tends to be on the long side and she tends to be skilled at putting it up if necessary but here they opted for shorter hair, which amounts to most over in new look and as far as that goes, it looks fine. It’s a haircut that many women realistically wear and I can kind of see why she would go with it.

So, she arrives on the space station, which is staffed by the Canadian Superhero Team Alpha Flight. On the space station she runs into her biggest challenge which is her first officer Lieutenant Commander Abigail Brand, who is doubting her fitness and whether she’s up for the job, particularly with the heavy diplomacy but thankfully for Captain Marvel, instead they encounter a ghostship that happens to have the Hala star on it, the symbol that she wears on her chest and she starts having visions of the original Marvell of the Kree.

Well, overall I felt the best character in this book was Abigail Brand. There were at least a couple different sides to her personality and she tended to be the most interesting and unpredictable character in the book with a lot of twists. Some people said her general style towards Carol is passive aggressive.

DC Superheroes crossover with Looney Tunes so get ready for Bugs Bunny meets the Legion of Superheroes, Lobo takes on the Road Runner, and get ready for the newest noir classic, Batman v. Elmer Fudd.
Affiliate link included.
Transcript:
Graham: Be very, very quiet. We’re reviewing comic crossovers. Join us as we take a look at D.C. meets Looney Tunes straight ahead.

[Intro Music]
Announcer:Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho here is your host Adam Graham.
Graham:The idea of the D.C. meets Looney Tune series was pretty simple. Essentially, you would have a 30-page story that was told more in a typical D.C. comics style and then after that you'd have about an 8-page story that was much more Looney Tunes and cartoony. So, the trade paperback of D.C. meets Looney Tunes contains all 6 issues and so we start out. The first issue is Legion of Super-Heroes/Bugs Bunny Special #1. This story really does seem like it is probably not set with the modern-day Legion of Superheroes but rather the counterpart from the 1980s. The plot is that Supergirl is dying and so they try to summon Clark Kent from Smallville to come and help. Now the reason I say this looks kind of like a Bronze Age issue is because Supergirl’s wearing her outfit. The outfit very much looks like something from the 1970s and instead of Clark Kent though, they get bugs bunny, who happens to have some carrots that give him temporary superpowers and I’ll be honest that this story is probably the weakest in the collection. It shows less thought and really doesn't do a whole lot, particularly with Bugs Bunny. There are some funny bits but it's not that funny and so oftentimes the humor in this first issue seems to be a bit one note mainly in allegiance of superheroes are angsty and there’s angstiness going around which again I think would probably fit more with a Bronze Age characterization. The art is nice but this one was pretty mediocre and not only that, but for the Looney Tunes comic they just repeated the D.C. Comics on a story in a more Looney Tune-ish fashion. Again, not a whole lot of imagination went into this.
Next up is Martian Manhunter and Marvin the Martian #1 and in this story, Marvin is actually from another dimension and travels to the D.C. Universe to destroy the earth. The art I like in this. They've made some small changes to his costume, made it a little bit more detailed than you see in the Looney Tunes cartoon. It's a nice look. The story itself is OK. It's better than the Bugs Bunny one but the essential point of this is that despite not being understood by people of earth, nevertheless the Martian Manhunter defends earth and there's very little humor in this story and so I don't think it has enough points to fill up its pages but I did like the second, The Looney Tunes story which was amusing. Essentially imagines Marvin discovering that he and the Martian Manhunter exist in the same world and wondering why don't I have all these superpowers. It's a cute story, not great, but I enjoyed it so this one was OK but nothing special.
The next one, and in this book it's interesting that the story seemed to almost be arranged in order of quality. Next up we have Wonder Woman/Tasmanian Devil and this story actually does show some thought and manages to put Taz within the world of Amazonian myth and that at one time Taz met Wonder Woman but she tricked him and so he's a little sore at her and then Wonder Woman comes to him and says that she really needs his help to save her people from Circe. Now why Taz said yes? I don't know but I do like the story and the art is good. They do modify Taz just a bit so that he looks more like a real Tasmanian Devil. The little short Looney Tuneseque story, is a cute story where Wonder Woman retells Taz a myth i...

DC Superheroes crossover with Looney Tunes so get ready for Bugs Bunny meets the Legion of Superheroes, Lobo takes on the Road Runner, and get ready for the newest noir classic, Batman v. Elmer Fudd.

Affiliate link included.

Transcript:

Graham: Be very, very quiet. We’re reviewing comic crossovers. Join us as we take a look at D.C. meets Looney Tunes straight ahead.

[Intro Music]

Announcer: Welcome to the Classy Comics podcast where we search for the best comics in the universe. From Boise Idaho here is your host Adam Graham.

Graham: The idea of the D.C. meets Looney Tune series was pretty simple. Essentially, you would have a 30-page story that was told more in a typical D.C. comics style and then after that you’d have about an 8-page story that was much more Looney Tunes and cartoony. So, the trade paperback of D.C. meets Looney Tunes contains all 6 issues and so we start out. The first issue is Legion of Super-Heroes/Bugs Bunny Special #1. This story really does seem like it is probably not set with the modern-day Legion of Superheroes but rather the counterpart from the 1980s. The plot is that Supergirl is dying and so they try to summon Clark Kent from Smallville to come and help. Now the reason I say this looks kind of like a Bronze Age issue is because Supergirl’s wearing her outfit. The outfit very much looks like something from the 1970s and instead of Clark Kent though, they get bugs bunny, who happens to have some carrots that give him temporary superpowers and I’ll be honest that this story is probably the weakest in the collection. It shows less thought and really doesn’t do a whole lot, particularly with Bugs Bunny. There are some funny bits but it’s not that funny and so oftentimes the humor in this first issue seems to be a bit one note mainly in allegiance of superheroes are angsty and there’s angstiness going around which again I think would probably fit more with a Bronze Age characterization. The art is nice but this one was pretty mediocre and not only that, but for the Looney Tunes comic they just repeated the D.C. Comics on a story in a more Looney Tune-ish fashion. Again, not a whole lot of imagination went into this.

Next up is Martian Manhunter and Marvin the Martian #1 and in this story, Marvin is actually from another dimension and travels to the D.C. Universe to destroy the earth. The art I like in this. They’ve made some small changes to his costume, made it a little bit more detailed than you see in the Looney Tunes cartoon. It’s a nice look. The story itself is OK. It’s better than the Bugs Bunny one but the essential point of this is that despite not being understood by people of earth, nevertheless the Martian Manhunter defends earth and there’s very little humor in this story and so I don’t think it has enough points to fill up its pages but I did like the second, The Looney Tunes story which was amusing. Essentially imagines Marvin discovering that he and the Martian Manhunter exist in the same world and wondering why don’t I have all these superpowers. It’s a cute story, not great, but I enjoyed it so this one was OK but nothing special.

The next one, and in this book it’s interesting that the story seemed to almost be arranged in order of quality. Next up we have Wonder Woman/Tasmanian Devil and this story actually does show some thought and manages to put Taz within the world of Amazonian myth and that at one time Taz met Wonder Woman but she tricked him and so he’s a little sore at her and then Wonder Woman comes to him and says that she really needs his help to save her people from Circe. Now why Taz said yes? I don’t know but I do like the story and the art is good. They do modify Taz just a bit so that he looks more like a real Tasmanian Devil. The little short Looney Tuneseque story, is a cute story where Wonder Woman retells Taz a ...