I've been on a nostalgia kick for quite a few months now, and it's been great. Reading classic comics, watching old movies and television shows, stuff that I loved, and still love. And, surprisingly, a lot of this holds up well, upwards of thirty years hence.
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In 1986, DC had a big initiative--post-Crisis on Infinite Earths, through the use of the Legends miniseries--restarting many of their trademark comics, including the Flash, the Justice League, Wonder Woman, and Superman. DC hired some well-known writers and artists to revamp many of these titles, along with some lesser-known creators, and, for me, it all worked amazingly well. I did a purge of my collection years ago, and, for the most part, all of these titles stayed in the longboxes, a combination of nostalgia and the staying power of these books.
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Of course, the flagship character for DC comics, and some might argue for comics in general, is Superman. And the Man of Steel was not exempt from the revamp. DC went all-in, hiring John Byrne--if not the most popular artist working at that time, he was at least in the top 3--away from Marvel Comics to herald their prime character. Byrne took over Superman, rebooting with issue #1, and Action Comics, the title that started it all. They were good, at the time, but the luster has dulled on Byrne's comics, for me. I tried reading some of these, and just put them aside without completing a single story.
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But the third title--Adventures of Superman--from writer, Marv Wolfman, and artist, Jerry Ordway, has been a fun title to revisit. The stories are fun, and Wolfman's exposition goes down far more easily than Byrne's, but the biggest take away, for me, has been how much I appreciate Ordway's rendition of Superman (and, in general, Ordway's rendition of any comic book hero). He, like my favorite Superman artist Jon Bogdanove, draws a muscular, bulky Superman, but one that feels anatomically correct, who does not overwhelm the panels too much (he needs to overwhelm a little, come on, he's Superman). Also, Ordway never skimps on backgrounds, and despite having some high-panel pages, the storytelling remains clear and crisp, with none of it becoming muddled in the art. It's a master class on comic storytelling.
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Byrne has become a legend--making his name in the 80s alongside George Perez, Frank Miller, and Walter Simonson, as the four big names working in comics at the time--but, for me, Ordway will always be the man when it comes to rendering the "new" Man of Steel for DC Comics in the middle of that decade.
-chris
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