THE MARVEL ANIMATED UNIVERSE PART 2 - THE X-MEN

Well! It was last July that I wrote a fairly long post about my dream Spider-Man cartoon series, an adaptation of the Silver Age comics by Steve Ditko, Stan Lee, and John Romita; a series that would have been set in the sixties (or at least in a pre-digital world). At the time, I said it was part one of a two-part series, and the second installment would cover my ideal X-Men animation. But, while I thought about it quite a bit in the subsequent nine months, I never got around to putting fingers to keyboard to write about it... until now.

Look, I loved the X-MEN cartoon in the 1990s. It was my companion through middle school and high school. And I really enjoyed its continuation, X-MEN 97, on Disney Plus. (Though that series is perfect encapsulation of why I loathe the current streaming model for TV series -- we had a ten episode season one in 2024 and we are still waiting for season two, two years later!! It's idiotic.) The X-Men series, at least for it's first season, took one of the most appealing aspects of the comics of the era -- namely, serialization -- and translated it to the small screen. To a kid who had never watched the likes of ROBOTECH, this was groundbreaking.

But X-MEN wasn't perfect; far from it, in fact. Even as a teen, I found it odd that the group was made up of a bunch of then-popular characters like Gambit, Rogue, and Jubilee, waltzing around like they'd always been there. Later in the series, this premise was walked back and it was established that there had been at least one prior iteration of the X-Men -- but at least early on, we were meant to believe that Wolverine and Gambit were among the first X-Men, fighting alongside Cyclops and Jean Grey against Magneto. It was weird.

And as with Spider-Man, I've long wished for an X-Men series that hewed more closely to the original comics. However, where the Spider-Man show I ruminated on last year was a somewhat straight adaptation -- not issue-to-issue, but simply in terms of the major storytelling beats -- this hypothetical X-Men cartoon would take a different route, at least at first. We would begin with the same basic premise as Spider-Man; a 65-episode series comprised of five 13-episode seasons. The first two seasons would focus on the original X-Men, and the final three would cover the era of the "new" X-Men.

ON THE PASSING OF GERRY CONWAY

It was announced last week that legendary comic book writer Gerry Conway has passed away at age 73. I posted something resembling the following in a thread on the subject at the MARVEL MASTERWORKS MESSAGE BOARD, where I do most of my comic book opining these days under the name "MCRE" -- but I wanted to publish my brief (yet ever so slightly expanded) thoughts here as well for posterity, because while I've frankly read relatively little of Conway's massive comic book output over the decades, what I did read left a big impression on me. Obviously there was his BATMAN/DETECTIVE COMICS run, which I wrote about in-depth here as my last major project before going into semi-retirement. I think anyone who read those posts would come to the conclusion that, while there may have been bits and pieces I didn't love, overall, I found it an exceptional stretch of Bat-stories.

But a few decades before I read those Batman comics (yet a few years after they were originally published), there was another Conway run that made a massive impression on me. If you were to ask me what formed the foundation for what I think Spider-Man is "supposed to be" when I was a child, I'd easily rattle off Roger Stern's Hobgoblin stories from 1983 (which were some of the earliest comics I owned as a child when I could barely read), the Lee/Romita newspaper strips I had via the 1986 BEST OF SPIDER-MAN book I mentioned numerous times when I looked at the strips years ago, the Lee/Romita AMAZING SPIDER-MAN issues circa the "Petrified Tablet Saga" (issues 68 - 75) which I owned via digest reprints circa 1987-88, and Gerry Conway's WEB and SPECTACULAR from 1988 - 1990, which I was reading as it came out.

I was around 10-12 years old when that combined WEB/SPECTACULAR run was published, and having returned to it some years ago as an adult, I think it remains a high watermark for Spider-Man (and is my number one vote every year in the "Most Wanted Omnibus" polls). When discussing that run with Tom DeFalco for the COMICS CREATORS ON SPIDER-MAN book, Conway said that his editor allowed him to write the books as a soap opera about Peter Parker and his supporting cast. In other words, per Conway, he came up with all the sub-plots first, then wrote the superhero stuff around them. As far as I'm aware, this was a pretty novel way to write a superhero comic at the time (though perhaps Chris Claremont had beaten Conway to it by a few years), and it's really the best way to write a series like Spider-Man, in my opinion. And that isn't to say the superhero stuff was an afterthought in those issues! To this day, because of their influence on me when I was a child, the sagas of Tombstone (in SPECTACULAR) and the Lobo brothers (in WEB) remain "iconic" Spider-Man storylines in my mind.

So I'm pretty bummed about this, but nonetheless thankful for all the joy Conway gave me over the years.

I'M STILL ALIVE...

Well! Things have certainly dried up around here since a year ago, when I thought I'd be able to manage one post a month! I managed January, February, and March, skipped April, posted in May, skipped June, posted in July, and then vanished for the remainder of 2025. I can make no excuses, though I feel like one of those 90s comic artists you would read about in WIZARD, who constantly missed their deadlines because they were playing videogames or whatever. That's about where I am... as I said around this time last year, I still want to do this blog; I just have a hard time lately finding the motivation to do it. I haven't even mustered the effort to reply to some comments that have rolled in over the past half-year!

So at this point I don't know what to say. I don't think I'm officially retiring or throwing in the towel, but despite my own wished to the contrary, I am most likely on a long-term sabbatical. And who knows; maybe that sabbatical will turn out to be permanent? I can't say for certain. I wouldn't be surprised to see a new post pop up at some point around here, but by the same token, I also wouldn't be surprised if this is the last word at this site! I guess we'll all just have to wait and see what happens next...

JULY 2025 - THE MARVEL ANIMATED UNIVERSE PART 1

Marvel cartoons have existed practically since the dawn of the Marvel Universe in the 1960s, when Grantray-Lawrence Animation produced THE MARVEL SUPER HEROES and THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, while Hanna-Barbera gave us THE FANTASTIC FOUR. Over the decades, many more series followed. I have particularly warm and fuzzy memories of watching SPIDER-MAN AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS and THE INCREDIBLE HULK on NBC Saturday morning in the early eighties, catching the "Pryde of the X-Men" pilot episode for an unproduced X-MEN cartoon later in the decade, and then eventually, in the 1990s, watching a semblance of a united Marvel animated universe (if only by dint of the various shows using all the same voice actors for episodes with guest appearances) with X-MEN and SPIDER-MAN on Fox, FANTASTIC FOUR and IRON MAN in syndication, and THE INCREDIBLE HULK on UPN.

And there have been many, many more Marvel shows since then, including the unparalleled and cancelled-far-too-soon AVENGERS: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES, whose first season I wrote about here years ago, during the height of COVID lockdown time.

I think after EMH ended, Marvel dabbled with what you might call a shared universe again, with shows like ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN, MARVEL'S AVENGERS, HULK AND THE AGENTS OF S.M.A.S.H., and GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY all having some degree of crossover. But Marvel has never done -- and, as you'll soon see, likely never will do -- a shared animated universe in the way I'd like to see it done. I've written about this concept before, in comments on posts over at Gentlemen of Leisure, but I decided I should consolidate my thoughts and post them here, if for no other reason than posterity. So what you're about to read are some of those afore-mentioned comments, expanded and updated.

Again, it's unlikely to ever happen exactly this way, but my dream will always be to someday see animated versions of the Marvel characters that adhere to the established comic book continuities of their early years. Now, I'm not saying I want straight page-to-screen translations of every issue from the 60s; but more like picking and choosing the things that worked best and making them into a pre-planned, cohesive story, while respecting the general original chronology laid out by Kirby, Ditko, Lee, Romita, and the rest.

Now, I know I'm already dating myself with this, but let's say Marvel/Disney is going to produce a Spider-Man cartoon using the long-established "magic number" of 65 episodes -- in this case, a pre-planned five-season series of thirteen episodes per season. The show would start with Spider-Man established; no need to revisit his origin. Peter Parker is, say, a high school junior with maybe a year of adventuring and fighting common criminals under his belt. Our first season would basically adapt the first half of Steve Ditko's run. Again, there's no need to cover every single issue; just hit the major highlights -- the first appearances of the Chameleon, Vulture, Doctor Octopus, Sandman, the Lizard, Electro, the Enforcers, Mysterio, the Green Goblin, and Kraven would be sufficient, with Ditko's sub-plots threading through all the episodes in a serialized fashion. Perhaps the season ends with the Sinister Six story from the first Spidey Annual.

The first thing to note is that certain characters should be introduced in our series sooner than in the comics. For example, there's no reason not to have Robbie Robertson working at the Daily Bugle from the first episode. Norman Osborn could start to show up earlier than in the comics as well, in order to better plant the seed that he will eventually be revealed as the Green Goblin. But the flip side of this is that we don't want to mess with the continuity too much. Peter Parker absolutely did not go to high school with Mary Jane Watson and Harry Osborn, and it drives me nuts every time adaptations in various media have them at Midtown High with him. We'll get to them eventually; no need to shoehorn them in too soon.

And the main way our series would be different from a lot of cartoons would be that it passes in real time, with each seasona accounting for a school year in Spidey's life. So season 2 would pick up a few months after the end of season 1, with Peter starting his senior year in high school. This season would continue to adapt Ditko stories, but with more of an organized crime bent, featuring the story of the Big Man and the Crimemaster, more of the Enforcers, the Green Goblin trying to take over New York's gangs, and perhaps some foreshadowing of the Kingpin. Plus the debuts of a couple new villains like Scorpion and the Spider-Slayers, as well as return engagements from the major villains -- Kraven, Sandman, etc. -- and it would all culminate with a 2-part season finale featuring Doc Ock, adapting the classic "Master Planner" story.

At this point, the series moves in a new direction. When season 3 opens, another summer has passed and Peter is starting college at Empire State University. Certain high school cast members are gone (Liz Allen, Sally Avril), replaced by the afore-mentioned Harry, Mary Jane, and of course Gwen Stacy. This season opens with the transition from Steve Ditko to John Romita -- a 2-parter featuring the unmasking of the Green Goblin. From there, the remaining 11 episodes of the season adapt the early John Romita material; the Rhino, the Shocker, the "death" of the Vulture, and the returns of stalwarts like the Lizard and Kraven. The season likely ends with another classic, "Spider-Man No More!", showing us the Kingpin in full for the first time, after we've heard thorughout the season that someone has been villing the mob boss void left by Crime-Master and the Big Man, as well as the disappearance of the Green Goblin following the season premiere.

By now, you know the drill. Another summer time-jump and we reach season 4, in which we adapt more John Romita stories. This is a Kingpin-heavy year, as were the comics around this time. The Kingpin appears in, or has his hands in, nearly every episode. But there's still time for appearances by Doc Ock, the Vulture, and Mysterio. I imagine the season might end with a Green Goblin return, adapted from the story in SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN Magazine #2.

And that brings us to the fifth and final season, which spends nearly its entire run-time on the classic "Petrified Tablet" story, featuring a gang-war between the Kingpin and Silvermane, and ending with Silvermane's death.

Now -- this isn't perfect; it's really me coming up with all of this off the cuff while looking at AMAZING SPIDER-MAN covers for inspiration. But you get the idea. Five seasons, following Peter from the midpoint of high school to the end of hus junior year of college (and if the series is successful enough, maybe we get picked up for another 65 to cover his senior year and a few years of graduate school). The show would stick to adapting the Silver Age stories as best it could, with certain modifications to allow for better pacing, foreshadowing, and so forth. And -- this is a big one -- I would actually set the series in the sixties, when the comics were published! Or, at least, in a pre-digital world. I find that as I get older, I feel everything is better if it's set in the era when it was created. I read someplaced that the current PEANUTS cartoons produced for Apple TV have a mandate not to use any technology created after the 1970s. I think that's a great rule of thumb for everyting, everywhere, all the time, but for now we'll just apply it to these fictional Marvel shows!

(Yes, I said "these" -- I'm not done yet! Next time, I'll talk about my hypothetical X-MEN series!)

Anyway, like I said up top, there's no way this actually happens. It's not commercially viable enough. It's too niche. Audiences nowadays want their Miles and their Venom and their Spider-Gwen and their Silk and so on and so forth. And setting in the sixties probably loses a lot of the young viewers such a show would need in order to survive. So this concept will always remain nothing more than a pipe dream for me! (At least until the day A.I. can create bespoke content on demand with no regard for corporate ownership.)

This post went pretty long, so I won't bore you with any other content, other than to note that I'm still reading the newspaper strip adventures of Rip Kirby! But I think I went pretty in-depth on what I liked about that last time, so I won't go into it again. Maybe next month I'll have moved along to something different?!

MAY 2025 - I DON'T WATCH TV ANYMORE

At least not like I used to. I grew up watching TV. As a child, I was enamored with my Saturday morning and weekday afternoon cartoons, as you might expect. Everything from HE-MAN AND THE MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE, THUNDERCATS, and TRANSFORMERS to SUPER FRIENDS to THE SMURFS and GARFIELD AND FRIENDS. I also followed the adventures of THE DUKES OF HAZZARD and THE A-TEAM in live action. I watched TV all the time through elementary school, high school, and college. I took in the TV shows my parents grew up with via "Nick at Nite" and weekday syndication (I have very specific memories of watching THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW anytime I was home sick during elementary school). There were the TGIF sitcoms on ABC (PERFECT STRANGERS was always my favorite). Must-See TV on NBC. STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION and DEEP SPACE NINE during the nineties "Golden Age" of first-run syndication. In terms of animation, you had BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES, X-MEN, and SPIDER-MAN on Fox Kids when I was in middle school and high school. Then DRAGON BALL Z and GUNDAM WING, among many others, on Toonami during college and beyond.

Then the early twenty-first century brought me THE OFFICE, PARKS AND RECREATION, 30 ROCK, MODERN FAMILY, and more in the comedy genre, as well as 24, PRISON BREAK, LOST, and a slew of other network dramas with a similar serialized feel. In a way, these were -- to me, at least, someone who didn't watch the pay cable channels like HBO and Showtime -- the precursors to "prestige" or "peak" television. Which I'm not sure why we call it that; it was never all good -- but by the later part of the 2000s, I was watching it. I was engrossed with MAD MEN, BREAKING BAD, and THE WALKING DEAD on AMC, and JUSTIFIED on FX, as well as -- having finally gotten an HBO subscription -- BOARDWALK EMPIRE and GAME OF THRONES.

I watched a lot of TV around that time, in the aughts and into the teens. And I liked most all of it. MAD MEN is one of my all-time favorite television experiences ever. I love that show; at the risk of a little hyperbole, I'd even say that I cherish it (or at least I do the first three seasons; I find that my interest plummets the further the narrative moves into the sixties). Likewise, JUSTIFIED, which I adored. GAME OF THRONES was great for the first several years. BREAKING BAD was amazing, but not something I'm particulary attached to; I can't really ever see myself watching it again. And I will never understand how THE WALKING DEAD became the cultural juggernaut that it remains to this day. I gave up on that one a few seasons in; it was too dark and depressing for me. The final scene I ever watched was when a certain baseball bat connected with a certain beloved character's face, and I never looked back (though I did often question why I had even stuck with it for that long, in hindsight).

MARCH 2025: I TAKE THINGS TOO LITERALLY

And we're back! So far, so good with this new format. And this month I even have something of interest (at least to me) to talk about!

Not too long ago on the Marvel Masterworks Message Board, in a discussion about X-Men Omnibuses, the dreaded Chuck Austen was name-dropped. I was there when Austin's run on UNCANNY X-MEN was published. I read it. I actually thought it started off okay, but it quickly went off the rails and ended as one of the most rightly reviled stretches in the title's history. However -- even when it was briefly good, it wasn't what I was expecting.

See, in advance of his run, Austen did an interview with WIZARD magazine where he said that to prepare, he had gone back and re-read the 1970s Chris Claremont/Dave Cockrum issues. I'm assuming he was a kid when that material was published, because he seemed to consider it the X-Men's gold standard, even more than the subsequent Claremont/John Byrne run. So naturally when he said this, I figured, "Great! He'll probably bring back Banshee and redeem him from Joe Casey's character assassination. Maybe they'll even visit his castle! Maybe they'll fight Count Nefaria or something. I bet we'll get some good swashbuckling Nightcrawler action. Ooh, maybe he'll even bring back Eric the Red!!

None of that happened. In fact, Austen's run bore zero resemblance to the Claremont/Cockrum run I loved. Aside from Nightcrawler and Wolverine, it was a completely different cast. The stories did not in any way, shape, or form, call back to that classic run. It didn't "feel" like the run in terms of style, either.

FEBRUARY 2025

Happy belated New Year, everyone! Today is the first day of the rest of this blog's life. I'm still trying to figure out the new format, but at present I think I'm going to go with sort of an "Items of Interest" approach with little mini-headlines. For example...

A BOLD NEW ERA CALLS FOR A BOLD NEW BANNER!
Which is what I'm working on my spare time at the moment. I've been using those ol' John Byrne corner box heads from the late seventies/early eighties for quite a few years now, but I feel like it's time to retire them and sort of... personalize things a bit more. See, I don't talk about it all that much around here, but I like to draw. And so I figured maybe the banner should reflect that. To that end, I'm doing brand-new corner box heads in my own style, which will adorn the new banner once they're finished. Here's a sneak peek at the penciled versions of some of them:

(You'll note that I've started with the "unafilliated" characters and the Fantastic Four plus FF-adjacent characters. But there are more coming! I'm working on the Avengers right now.)

Now when I say "my style," I should clarify what I mean. I generally draw more cartoony than this, but I want to keep with the general aesthetic I've had here since the beginning. So cartoony is out, at least for this project, as I utilize my seldom-employed "super-hero" style -- which looks vastly different from my "everyday" drawings, and which takes about three times longer to boot! You may be able to tell that I'm obviously heavily influenced by Byrne (as well as some of my other favorites; Alan Davis and Mark Bagley top of the list), so ultimately what you see up top will not look all that drastically different from what you're used to. The main difference will be that I drew it myself!

But the other difference is that I'm changing up some of the looks and characters you'll see up there. I thought, after so long with the Bronze Age dominating the banner, that perhaps it's time I presented this blog adorned with the stars of "my" Marvel -- which is sort of a mix of eras. So you'll see the X-Men of the nineties, Avengers of various eras, some characters (chiefly Power Man, Iron Fist, and Moon Knight) who had their heydays in the seventies and early eighties, and some characters very much of the period when I read Marvel religiously in my teens, such as the Scarlet Spider, "Professor" Hulk, and the Thunderbolts. It'll be eclectic, but I think it will nicely represent my ideal or "iconic" Marvel Universe. I'll go into more detail when the banner is finished and published.

In other news...

WHAT HAVE I BEEN READING LATELY?
This site was always, first and foremost, about examining comics, graphic novels, and the like. And just because I've decided to retire from writing long-term in-depth posts about same, doesn't mean that I've stopped reading them! So as I put up these monthly-ish posts, I'm going to try to mention things I've read lately. We'll start with a tome I finished a while back: FLASH GORDON VOLUME 4: THE STORM QUEEN OF VALKIR from Titan Books. This installment picks up where my Flash Gordon review of a number of years past ended. Creator Alex Raymond has left the strip, turning artistic duties over to his former assistant, Austin Briggs. Scripter Don Moore remains aboard.

This was an odd one. For those who read along with my Flash posts way back when, you might recall that when Raymond departed, all seemed well for our hero and his friends. Ming the Merciless had been vanquished some time earlier, and more recently, Flash had also defeated a new warlord named Brazor to restore peace yet again to Mongo. Thus the next volume, which collects all of Briggs' run on the Sunday strips, begins with a bit of a clean slate, and an odd status quo -- Flash is the president of Mongo.

You may be wondering, isn't there someone more qualified to be president, like maybe Prince Barin and/or his wife, the reformed daughter of Ming, Princess Aura? When we last saw them, they were indeed leading a council that ruled over Mongo following Ming's overthrow. But Barin and Aura are nowhere to be seen in these stories. At all. They were regular recurring cast members for years while Raymond was on the strip. True, they'd drop out of sight for (sometimes very long) stretches at at a time while Flash went off his various expeditions, but they always came back. Yet here, in a run of four years, we never see or even hear of them once. It's bizarre, especially considering the original scripter is still on board!

So instead we have President Flash ruling Mongo and battling the latest warlord to challenge the peace: this time, it's Ming's heretofore unknown son, Kang the Cruel. Kang is the regular antagonist through Briggs' full run, though there are many stories interspersed between his run-ins with Flash. Stories in which Flash and Dale find themselves in strange lands, where strange princesses fall immediately in love with the dashing Flash. I guess even with a new artist, some things never change!

In the end, Flash defeats Kang and once again restores peace to Mongo, and continues on as president. Oh, and Professor Zarkov, as always, drops in and out of the story, frequently disappearing just long enough that you think the creators might have forgotten his existence, until suddenly reappearing.

Like I said, it's kind of odd, and it's just a long rehash; four more years repeating everything Alex Raymond did during his decade on the strip. I get that newspaper strips were disposable entertainment; you read your daily paper and threw it away, and I get that there would always be new readers who might have missed all this stuff the first time around. And further, I get that Raymond's run was a full ten years long, and Moore's is four or so. But nonetheless, the blatant reptition is kind of crazy! You'd think they'd at least try to do something different now and then.

ANYTHING ELSE?
For now, I don't think so. I'm easing into the new format here, so I'm going to keep this post fairly brief. (This was brief?!) Next month, I think I'll have more to talk about, so I hope you'll join me!

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO MY FINAL POST...

...I couldn't pull it together! I started writing it, more than once. I had the thoughts in my head, but I couldn't get them out in a coherent fashion. I think partly it was simply because I didn't want to admit to myself that I was bringing this thing to an end. But also, I think on some level it was because I really and truly wasn't ready to stop. Like I said last month, I still have the desire and interest to do this. It's just been hard to find the will to do it.

Which got me thinking: maybe it's not that I'm burnt out on blogging. I absolutely still want to blog. Maybe I'm just burnt out on the grind of writing about long runs, one issue at a time. In fact, I think I'm burnt out on writing about short runs too, in the more freewheeling format I have employed on occasion for mini-series, one shots, etc.

So maybe what I really need is not to retire from blogging entirely, but rather to change my format and schedule. To that end, I've been thinking. When I first started this site, it was absolutely primarily intended to discuss comic books. But there was also other stuff. Occasional posts about Marvel movies or various TV shows or even once or twice, a novel. All that stuff fell by the wayside pretty quickly as I decided to focus entirely on comics, but it was there originally.

So now I'm thinking that maybe I get back to posting about whatever. An occasional comic, something I've watched, something else I've read, and so forth. And on a less demanding schedule than once a week. Right now, I'm imagining something like once a month or every few weeks. Heck, I don't even think the schedule would be set in stone. The posts would likely be longer, and in more of a "catch-all" vein -- rather than each post being about a single subject, it would be a number of things on my mind at that particular moment.

Now -- I think (or perhaps I should say that I know) a lot of people came here for the comic book stuff. After all, that was, as I said, this site's ultimate raison d'etre once I settled into my groove. So to those who aren't interested in sticking around to see where we go from here, I understand completely. But if you've come to like my writing over these past twelve or so years, then I hope you'll at least stick around to give the new format a chance.

And to be sure, there will always be comic book (or comic book adjacent) content here. Just not the way it used to be. So let's give it a try, shall we? A bold new era for "Not A Hoax" begins next week, and I hope you'll join me for it!

THE UNBOXING: 2024

One more bit of business before we wrap things up. Back when I had the time and motivation*, I used to do a regular monthly feature here where I went through the assorted trade paperbacks and hardcovers (and later, digital comics as well) that I acquired. Then I stopped, in large part because Marvel and DC drastically scaled back releasing things I was interested in, but also because I essentially ceased buying trades, preferring hardcovers whenever possible. However, I did start working The Unboxing into my annual "Happy New Year!" posts, going through notable items I had picked up over the prior year. But since next week's "Happy New Year!" will also double as my farewell, I don't really want to clog up the proceedings shilling a bunch of books. However, I did pick up some great things over the past year and would like to share them here for those interested. So, let's go for it right now, shall we?

(Note: The following will include, in addition to the afore-mentioned books I own, books I have pre-ordered for the coming months as well, given it's unlikely I'll be doing another of these posts next year!)

We'll start off, as always, with the most prolific publisher on my bookshelves, Marvel. From January through to today, I've grabbed the following volumes from the House of Ideas:

• AMAZING SPIDER-MAN OMNIBUS Vol. 6: I'll keep buying these numbered AMAZING SPIDER-MAN OMNIBUS volumes for at least one more installment. This book collects Marv Wolfman's run on Marvel's flagship here from the late seventies, and so the next book should cover Denny O'Neil's run, and will hopefully line up with the SPIDER-MAN BY ROGER STERN OMNIBUS Marvel published many years ago.
• CAPTAIN AMERICA BY MARK GRUENWALD OMNIBUS Vol. 1
• CAPTAIN AMERICA BY MARK GRUENWALD OMNIBUS Vol. 2: After years of publishing Mark Gruenwald's long CAP run via the Epic Collection trade paperbacks, Marvel has finally seen fit to give this material the Omnibus treatment. Gruenwald is the definitive CAP for me, so I'm in for all the books in this series, which should be three in total (though I will admit that I would've preferred it be split into a set of four, as the first book, which I already have, is extremely thick, and I so I expect the second, coming this summer to be equally cumbersome.
• IRON FIST: DANNY RAND: THE EARLY YEARS OMNIBUS: I have no idea why it took Marvel so long to get this material into an Omnibus! They published it in an ESSENTIAL volume many years ago, and then in two MARVEL MASTERWORKS well over a decade ago at this point. After that came an Epic Collection in 2016 -- but finally, in 2024, we have received a proper oversized hardcover collecting this classic material by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, among others.
• NEW WARRIORS CLASSIC OMNIBUS Vol. 3: Not a lot to say about this one, other than that it's nice to see the series finally finished! Marvel published volume 1 some time back, then... nothing. Until they reprinted it in 2023, then published volume 2 this year, followed by the final installment in the coming year.
• SPIDER-MAN BY DAVID MICHELINIE AND MARK BAGLEY OMNIBUS Vol. 1
• SPIDER-MAN BY DAVID MICHELINIE AND MARK BAGLEY OMNIBUS Vol. 2: I love Spider-Man by Stan Lee and John Romita. I love Spider-Man by Roger Stern and his various collaborators, chiefly John Romita, Jr. But Spider-Man by David Michelinie and Mark Bagley -- this is my Spider-Man. This was the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN I read every month in middle school and early high school, my "Personal Golden Age". So when Marvel announced this two-volume series, there was no doubt I was going to pick them up. Volume 1 came out this year, and volume 2 is coming in 2025.
• WOLVERINE/GAMBIT: VICTIMS GALLERY EDITION: Last year I noted that I had picked up (or was planning to pick up) the Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale Gallery Editions of SPIDER-MAN: BLUE and DAREDEVIL: YELLOW. I passed on HULK: GRAY and DAREDEVIL: YELLOW, because I'm not as big a fan of those two. But WOLVERINE/GAMBIT: VICTIMS, the duo's very first work at Marvel from the mid-90s, has been a favorite of mine since it was published when I was in high school, and I'll be very happy to own it in this gigantic format when it releases in 2025.
• X-MEN 2099 OMNIBUS: I read three series in Marvel's 2099 universe in the nineties -- SPIDER-MAN, DOOM, and X-MEN. Marvel published the first of those in Omnibus format a couple years ago, and now we have the third. My recollection is that X-MEN 2099 was my favorite of the three series, so this is one I'm quite happy to own and look forward to reading. (As for DOOM; that's getting an Omnibus release as well, in 2025! I just haven't decided if I want it. While I liked the early issues by John Francis Moore and Pat Broderick, eventually Moore left the series and Warren Ellis took over, and I strongly disliked his run -- so I'm not certain I want to bother with this one.)
• X-MEN: MUTANT MASSACRE PRELUDE OMNIBUS: This book, reprinting a bunch of UNCANNY X-MEN, NEW MUTANTS, and X-FACTOR issues, among varius mini-series, annuals, etc. from the mid eighties. is ginormous. Like, way, way, too big. But it fills an important hole in the X-Men Omnibus collection, so I had to get it. I may sprain a wrist whenever I finally read it, but at least I have it.
• X-MEN: ROAD TO ONSLAUGHT OMNIBUS Vol. 1: Years ago, I opined that the year between "Age of Apocalypse" and "Onslaught" was one of my favorite periods for the X-Men. I can't quite explain it; I just really enjoyed that period. I bought the three ROAD TO ONSLAUGHT trade paperbacks Marvel published around that time, but we've now reached a point where they're upgrading the material to an Omnibus, so yes, I'm buying it. It'll take two hardcovers to encompass the contents of those three trades (with a few things added that the trades skipped), and I'll be extremely pleased when I have them both on my X-shelf!
• X-MEN: THE HIDDEN YEARS OMNIBUS: I loved John Byrne's HIDDEN YEARS series. I know it has its detractors, but for my money, it was the best X-title coming out at the time. Certainly it was the one I looked forward to reading most every month, So, even though I owned this series in two trade paperbacks, I was more than happy to "double-dip" on the Omnibus this year.
• X-MEN: X-TINCTION AGENDA OMNIBUS: A long time ago, Marvel released an X-TINCTION AGENDA hardcover. It collected that event, and nothing else, and it fit neatly between the two X-MEN BY CHRIS CLAREMONT AND JIM LEE Omnibuses. But now, Marvel has expanded the contents of that book to include several odds and ends from that era, including some annuals and limited series, so naturally, in order to ensure my hardcover X-Collection is as complete as possible, I had to pick this up.

Then, from the Distinguished Competition, a smaller handful of books:

• DC/MARVEL: THE AMALGAM AGE OMNIBUS
• DC VS. MARVEL OMNIBUS: I don't think anyone imagined these two books would ever happen. When George Pérez was dying and Marvel and DC wanted to honor him by rereleasing JLA/AVENGERS, it took small armies of lawyers on both side to make it happen; and even then the result was a simple trade paperback with a microscopic print run. But something obviously changed, because here we are in the year 2024 (soon to be 2025), with nearly all of the Marvel/DC crossovers issued or about to be issued in Omnibus format!
• SPY VS. SPY OMNIBUS: I read MAD magazine sporadically as a child, and my favorite feature was always the Spy vs. Spy strip by Antonio Prohías (though I didn't know his name back then). So, on a lark when DC reissued this Omnibus recently, I picked it up.
• SUPERMAN: THE TRIANGLE ERA OMNIBUS Vol. 1: Having read the initial Post-CRISIS Superman material some years ago, I've had an interest in continuing with it. At one point, DC had released a hardcover called THE EXILE, which picked up immediately after John Byrne's run ended, but I passed on that volume (though it did get a reissue this year). But recently, DC released this ostenisble first book in a series collecting the so-called "Triangle" period of Superman (called such due to the fact that every issue of the Super-titles featured a little triangle on its cover telling readers where it fit into the year's reading order). At some point, I will read this and decide if I want to keep going with it.

And as always, I have a few titles from a couple of indepenent publishers, Clover Press and Fantagraphics, respectively:

• TERRY AND THE PIRATES MASTER COLLECTION Vol. 7
• TERRY AND THE PIRATES MASTER COLLECTION Vol. 8
• TERRY AND THE PIRATES MASTER COLLECTION Vol. 9
• TERRY AND THE PIRATES MASTER COLLECTION Vol. 10: I mentioned last year that I'd started grabbing these books reprinting Milton Caniff's magnum opus newspaper strip, TERRY AND THE PIRATES. Throughout the past year, I've acquired (or will be acquiring in coming months) four more volumes in the series. I believe after volume 10, which is due out in March, there will be only two more books to finish the series.
• CARL BARKS DISNEY LIBRARY Vol. 1: PIRATE GOLD
• CARL BARKS DISNEY LIBRARY Vol. 2: FROZEN GOLD
• CARL BARKS DISNEY LIBRARY Vol. 3: MYSTERY OF THE SWAMP: As always, I continue to pick up Fantagraphics' Carl Barks books, which have finally, thirteen years after the series started, moved backward to collect Barks' earliest Duck stories!

But that's not all! After all the above, I've saved possibly the best for last: from IDW, we have a doozy: the JOHN ROMITA'S AMAZING SPIDER-MAN DAILY STRIPS ARTISTS'S EDITION. I found about this volume under some sad circumstances; in 2023, the day John Romita Jr. announced his father had passed away, I was reading tributes to the senior Romita online and stumbled across the fact that this book was forthcoming, and I immediately pre-ordered it. I've mentioned more than once on this blog that John Romita is by far my absolute favorite of all the Silver Age Marvel artists. Above Kirby, above Ditko, above Buscema, in my pantheon, there sits Romita. (And Romita's inks made all his peers in the 60s Bullpen look a million times better, too!) I wanted to publish a post here when Romita died, but I had already praised him at length in my look back at the Spider-Man newspaper strip, among other posts here, and frankly, I was too dismayed by his death to prepare any sort of coherent post about it.

But the fact remains that I have long considered the Spider-Man newspaper strip to be the pinnacle of Romita's work with the character. It's breathtakingly beautiful, and to own so much of the "original art" in a massive tome liked this is something I had dreamed of but was never sure could actually happen. The fact that it did, and that I own it, is still a little hard to believe. This volume is one of the crown jewels of my comic collection.

And that's it; the final Unboxing is in the bag. Come back next week for my final Hail and Farewell post.

---

*That's "motivation", not "interest". I have always had interest in doing The Unboxing. I just never actually feel like doing it.

THE END...?

I think I've known this day was coming for a while now, but I had trouble admitting it to myself. However, I've reached a point where I havd no choice but to "rip off the Band-Aid" and just come out and say it -- "Not A Hoax!" is coming to end.

I suggested things were going this way in a comment on BATMAN #357 a couple weeks ago, and today I'm confirming it. But for those who are curious as to how and why, I figured I might as well throw a few more words out there onto the web before I call it a day (or a decade, as the case may be).

For many years, whenever time permitted, I have worked pretty far ahead of schedule on this blog. There was a period, shortly after the birth of my son, where that wasn't possible, and I was stringing together posts basically the night before they were to be published for a while. But eventually I corrected course (partly due to scaling back my output from two days a week to one; a schedule which had itself been reduced from a whopping three days a week when the blog first started), and got back to a point where I was way ahead of schedule again. All those posts on AVENGERS by Bob Harras and Steve Epting? Every single one was written before the first one even went up here. And the same held true for Gerry Conway's Batman. I had all the posts written somewhere around the fall of 2023 -- and as such, I decided, as I often did when I found myself with a large enough cushion, to take a brief break before moving on.

The problem is, the break never ended! I was going to get back in the saddle at the beginning of 2024 to start whatever my next project might be, but when January rolled around, I wasn't ready yet. But I figured it was no biggie; I was still a full year ahead of schedule, so I'd take a few more months off. Then before I knew it, it was spring and then summer, and I still wasn't ready to start! But again, I knew I still had half a year left, plenty of time. Yet I still just never did anything.

And so, as of last week, I exhausted my full cushion and have nothing to follow it. And while the above may sound like procrastination, I don't think that's the right word to describe it. I still want to do this. I have any number of series and runs that I would love to read and write about! I spent much of the past year thinking about what to do next, bouncing around between two or three ideas, and fully intending to commit to and start one of them. But the issue is less that I've been putting the work off and more that I just don't have, I dunno, the will to do it. I absolutely and unequivocally want to do one of those handul of ideas I was bandying about -- I just don't feel like doing it.

I think maybe I'm just burnt out on the whole process... the reading, the writing, and the work that goes into gathering and uploading screencaps. (And yes, I'm saying this with a straight face after mocking up that fake Spider-Man cover you see above. If nothing else, I do want to go out with a bang -- and doing that took far less time than it might have taken to read and prepare a full post about the same issue!)

But -- I did stick that question mark in my post title up top. Is this really the end? I don't know. Maybe it's just an extended hiatus. Maybe I'll find that motivation I've been missing, and want to get back into this in another six months or a year or whatever. Or maybe I retool my format and do something else with this blog. But if it is over, eleven-plus years, looking at many long runs and countless short ones, across multiple titles and publishers, seems like a pretty good body of work. I've never considered myself a particularly scholarly or professional reviewer, and I have always worn my heart on my sleeve with regards to the stuff I love (and for that matter, the stuff I hate), so there is absolutely bias of some sort in nearly every post you'll find here. But people seemed to like what I did, and I had a lot of fun doing it (until I finally ran out of steam).

All that said, I've got one post left. I have always begun each year with a "Happy New Year!" post that functioned as sort of a combination year in review and look forward, and I see no reason not to do the same this year, as a way to cap things off. So I'll be back in two weeks, on December 30th, to do just that. Let's save our tearful goodbyes until then, okay?!

DETECTIVE COMICS #526

Presenting: the 500th appearance of the Batman in the pages of DETECTIVE COMICS.

"ALL MY ENEMIES AGAINST ME!"
An ending -- and a beginning, presented by:
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Don Newton & Alfredo Alcala
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: Penguin arrives at a meeting of Batman's enemies called by the Joker. Joker explains that Killer Croc is out to kill Batman, and wants to beat him to it. Catwoman, present but hiding, leaves to warn Batman. Talia, in attendance, voices her objection and the villains turn on her, but she escapes by using Captain Stingaree as a shield when Mister Freeze tries to blast her. Talia and Catwoman both soon show up at the Batcave to warn Batman, though the Caped Crusader needs to separate them from fighting each other first.

Meanwile, Dick Grayson is on his way home from the Circus when Waldo the Clown and Jason Todd catch up with him. Waldo tells Dick he has the license plate of Croc's right-hand man, Slick, so Dick has Waldo and Jason come back to Wayne Manor with him. Meanwhile, Commissioner Gordon arrives at the theater where Joker's meeting was held, with his daughter, Barbara, tagging along. They're shocked to find Captain Stingaree frozen inside. Barbara finds a cigarette on the ground and leaves to change into Batgirl. Dick, Waldo, and Jason arrive at Wayne Manor, where Alfred tells Dick that Batman just left with Talia and Catwoman. Batgirl then appears and shows Dick the cigarette, which she believes belongs to the Pengin. Robin and Batgirl head out on their motorcycles, asking Commissioner Gordon to put out an APB on Slick's car.

Batman, Catwoman, and Talia arrive at an abandoned train station leased by the Riddler, and find him inside along with the Cavalier, the Mad Hatter, and the Scarcrow. The heroes defeat the four villains easily, though the Hatter vanishes. Meanwhile, Jason Todd finds the entrance to the Batcave and figures out that Bruce Wayne is Batman. Out in the city, a mocked-up Bat-Signal summons Batman, Catwoman, and Talia to Gotham Park, where Signalman, the Spook, Mister Freeze, and Black Spider are waiting for them. The trio makes quick work of the villains, and Batman finds a piece of a city map in Signalman's pouch.

The police have found Slick's car at the Gotham Zoo, where Robin and Batgirl arrive to join them. Gordon leads them into the reptile house, revealing that Croc has fed Joe and Trina Todd to the crocodiles. Robin leaps into the pen and swats the reptiles away, dragging the Todds' bodies away from them. Meanwhile, Joker visits Croc at the Gotham Men's Club and tells him that the other villains are trying to kill Batman before he can. In the Batcave, Jason finds an old Robin-esque costume and puts it on. Just then, Batman, Talia, and Catwoman return to analyze the map. Jason sneaks into the Batmobile's trunk while the Batcomputer informs Batman and friends what part of Gotham the map depicts. The trio heads out again.

BATMAN #359

"HUNT"
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Dan Jurgens & Dick Giordano
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: Batman invades the Gotham Tobbacconists' club and questions its head, Filbert Hughes III, regarding Killer Croc. Meanwhile, Croc has summoned all of Gotham's gang bosses to his hideout at the zoo, where he announces his intention to take control of the mobs. But the men are unimpressed, telling Croc that they still follow orders from the incarcerated Tony Falco. Batman drops off Hughes and his bodyguards with Commissioner Gordon, while Croc sneaks into Gotham Jail and murders Falco. Guards spot Croc and try to stop him, and the alarm is raised. Batman responds and battles Croc, but is again defeated by him.

The following night, at the Sloan Circus, Trina and Joe Todd spot Croc's associate, Slick, pocketing extorted protection money. When Slick leaves, the Todds follow -- but Slick realizes they are after him. Meanwhile, Batman meets with Commissioner Gordon, who fills him in on Croc's history. Elsewhere, Dick Grayson arrives at the circus, but is informed by Jason Todd and Waldo the Clown that Jason's parents left in pursuit of Slick. Panicked, Dick leaves. At that moment, the Todds follow Slick into the zoo and to the reptile house, where they find Croc and a roomful of mobsters waiting for them. Croc declares that he will show them what fate he has in store for Batman.

Continuity Notes: I still think Curt Swan accidentally looked at reference Rupert Thorne when drawing Filbert Hughes, because the resemblance is uncanny. And now Dan Jurgens is following Swan's model, so the Thorne Clone lives on!

DETECTIVE COMICS #525

"CONFRONTATION"
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Dan Jurgens & Dick Giordano
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: Batman emerges from the river where Killer Croc vanished, and informs Robin and Commissioner Gordon that there is no sign of the villain. But as Batman climbs out of the water, he is secretly observed from the shadows by Croc himself. Later, following a date with Vicki Vale, Bruce Wayne wanders Gotham's waterfront and suddenly realizes that he noticed Croc but didn't register it at the time. He changes back to Batman and hads for the river, then tracks Croc into the sewer. But Croc gets the drop on the Masked Manhunter, nearly drowning him and then vanishing again. Batman searches for Croc and is ambushed again, then Croc disappears once more. Then, when Croc attacks from hiding a third time, Batman forces them both toward a large storm drain, which gives way and allows Batman to escape into the river. Batman emerges from the water in a riverside park, and vows that next time they meet, he will take Croc down.

Continuity Notes: The issue opens with some footnotes, as we're first given a brief summary of DETECTIVE COMICS #524 and BATMAN #358 when Batman describes to Robin how Croc killed the Squid and how Batman tracked him to his home. A page later, Batman tells Robin and Gordon about Croc letting him escape from the Squid's mob, again in DETECTIVE 524.

Bruce meets Vicki for a date and when she observes that he seems distracted, he tells her that he's thinking about Selina Kyle's obsession with him. He tells Vicki that Selina "needed" him to much, and he doesn't want to be needed by anyone -- which is what he likes about his casual relationship with Vicki. This naturally leads Vicki to bawl him out and then storm off.

BATMAN #358

"DON'T MESS WITH KILLER CROC!"
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Curt Swan & Rodin Rodriguez
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: Killer Croc busts into the Gotham Tobbaconists' Club and demands to be recognized as the new gang leader of Gotham City. Meanwhile, Batman and Commissioner Gordon observe the Squid's autopsy and Batman traces the bullet used in the mobster's assassination to a unique experimental rifle, only two of which still exist, both in Gotham. Batman visits an underworld gunsmith named Specs, who uses one of the rifles in an attempt to kill the Caped Crusader -- but Batman evades him and captures Specs, taking him to the Batcave. There, Batman and Robin interrogate Specs and get the name of the other rifle's owner: Croc.

Later, the men of the Tobbacconists' Club order Croc to steal an experimental Air Force computer from S.T.A.R. Labs in order to test his skill. Meanwhile, Batman scours the city in search of Croc. At S.T.A.R., Croc infiltrates the facility, takes out several scientists and Air Force soldiers, and absconds with the computer. Elsewhere, Batman beats up a street gang and learns that Croc lives in a section of Gotham called Hell's Point.

Croc delivers the computer to the Tobbacconists, who give their blessing for him to operate in Gotham on a "provisional basis." Later, Croc returns home to find Batman lurking in his apartment. Infuriated that Batman would invade his home, Croc blows the place up and makes his escape into a nearby river.

DETECTIVE COMICS #524

"DEATHGRIP"
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Don Newton & Dick Giordano
Letters: Todd Klein | Colors: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: Batman is dumped in the Squid's squid tank, but manages to escape by kicking the squid and sending it into a frenzy that distracts the Squid and his assembled mobsters. Upon realizing Batman has escaped, Squid sends his men to find the Caped Crusader. But one man refuses -- Killer Croc, who leaves instead, but not before the Squid sees his face and threatens him. Outside, Croc notices the wounded Batman lurking by a chimney up above, but walks away rather than raise the alarm.

Later that night, the Squid gives a speech to his assembled men, while Croc walks up to a nearyby rooftop and assembles a sniper rifle. As the Squid talks, Croc aims and fires. The bullet pierces the squid tank and wings the Squid, then Batman bursts into the room. The Squid challenges the Dark Knight one-on-one and beats him, then draws a revolver and kills him. Then, suddenly, the Squid realizes his fight with Batman was a hallucination, and that he is actually lying on the floor, dying from Croc's bullet. Croc packs up his rifle and departs. The next morning, Batman and Commissioner Gordon watch as the Squid's corpse is taken away, and Batman presents Gordon with the bullet that killed the criminal, telling the commissioner that when they find the high-powered rifle that fired it, they will find the Squid's killer.

BATMAN #357

"SQUID"
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Don Newton & Alfredo Alcala
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: Batman takes down a gang of drug dealers and asks them who is taking over Gotham's mobs. The leader of the delears says that it's the Squid. Later, a mobster named Joey Taylor is cornered by a motorcycle gang looking to take over the mobs as well, but the Squid and his henchmen appear and save Taylor, sending the bikers into retreat. Meanwhile, Batman and Commissioner Gordon discuss the Squid's incursion.

At the Squid's aquarium hideout, he demonstrates to Gotham's assembled mob brass the price for failure to serve him by executing a gangster named Eddie Colson in a squid tank. Late that night, Batman meets with reporter Olivia Ortega to hatch a plan to save Gotham's former top gangster, Tony Falco, from assassination at the Squid's hands. The next day, Ortega interviews Falco, who is subsequently sentenced to eighteen years in prison. But as soon as Falco is placed in a paddy wagon, the Squid breaks him out and takes him via speedboat to his hideout. But there, the Squid reveals he has deduced "Falco" is actually Batman in disguise. Squid's men gang up on Batman and knock him out, and when the Caped Crusader comes around, he is thrown into the squid tank.

Continuity Notes: Commissioner Gordon undergoes a physical exam at City Hall following his first thirty days back on the police force. The doctor orders Gordon to quit smoking and puts him on a diet, reminding him that he's not a young man anymore -- indeed, she lets us know that the commissioner is sixty years old.

DETECTIVE COMICS #523

"INFERNO"
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Gene Colan & Tony Dezuniga
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: In Gotham City, a fist punches its way out of a manhole. Three days later, Batman joins the police to investigate a department store robbery where the place has been utterly demolished. Batman leaves with a severed mannequin head, swinging past an asphalt plant. Inside, the men who committed the robbery watch Batman go. With them is the hulking Solomon Grundy, who has broken a mannequin he took from the store and wants "more toys."

In the Batcave, Batman has found mold on the mannequin head which he believes to be Grundy's genetic material. Then the Batcomputer alerts him to a robbery in progress at a toy store, and Batman heads into Gotham to find Solomon Grundy playing with dolls, and the men he was with lying dead at his hands. Grundy slaps Batman aside and leaves, but Batman follows the brute to a rug factory. Batman lures Grundy into an oven, where the creature burns to ash.

Continuity Notes: Batman indicates he learned of Solmon Grundy from Superman, who battled the creature in SUPERMAN #319.

The gangsters with Grundy are led by one "Doc" Heller, who, before his demise, chats with a mystery man in a trenchcoat named "Croc". Croc had interest in joining Heller's gang until Heller linked up with Grundy. Here, Croc tells Heller he's changed his mind, and leaves the gang.

BATMAN #356

"THE DOUBLE LIFE OF HUGO STRANGE"
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Don Newton & Dick Giordano
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: Inside Wayne Manor, Hugo Strange dons the costume of Batman as Alfred and Dick Grayson look on. Later, Bruce Wayne leaves a date with Vicki Vale and nearly passes out driving home. He regains his senses to find himself parked in front of Wayne Manor. Bruce goes inside, where Alfred greets him with tea -- but Bruce refuses to drink the tea when he realizes it's drugged. Alfred then tries to stab Bruce, and Bruce knocks him out. Then suddenly, Alfred appears behind Bruce to offer him tea, and when Bruce turns, he realizes the Alfred he just fought is gone.

Later, Vicki arrives at Wayne Manor, where she is greeted by Alfred and Dick, who are concerned that Bruce never came home after leaving their date. Dick changes to Robin and heads out to track Bruce's comlink. Meanwhile, Bruce takes a shower and is attacked in his bathroom by Robin. In the ensuing struggle, Robin is killed and Bruce stumbles out of the bathroom in shock, where he finds Dick in the hallway. Inside the bathroom, a hidden panel swivels around, concealing the "dead" Robin, which is disposed of in the Batcave by Alfred at Strange's order. Upstairs, Duck attacks Bruce, and Bruce throws him down the stairs, where his head deatches, revealing him to be a robot. Bruce descends to the Batcave, where Strange, in his Batman costume, is waiting. He hands Bruce a Batman costume and as soon as Batman is dressed, the two begin to fight.

As they struggle, Robin appears, confused at the sight of two Batmen.. Strange, believing him to be one of his robots, orders Robin to kill Batman -- so Robin punches Strange and then Batman unmasks him. Furious, Strange activates his ersatz Wayne Manor's self-destruct system, and the house explodes. Later, back at the real Wayne Manor, Batman and Robin save Alfred from being killed by a Bruce Wayne robot, then settle in for some tea.

DETECTIVE COMICS #522

"SNOW BLIND"
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Irv Novick & Pablo Marcos
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne Roy | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: In the Himalayas, Batman and his guide, Chi, are nearly buried by an avalanche. Batman spots a large figure escaping into the night, then he and Chi find a shelter and settle in for the night. As they rest, Batman recalls the circumstances that brought him to the icy mountains: in the Gotham Picture News, he spied a photo of Klaus Kristin, the Abomninable Snowman, traveling with a group of Tibetan pilgrims. Batman took the Batplane to Tibet, where he linked up with Chi and began his search for Kristin.

Morning comes and Batman and Chi continue their trek. Eventually they find Kristin at the Lake of Buddha. Batman attempts to apprehend Kristin, but he and his quarry fall into the lake and Batman is knocked out. Kristin saves him but is shot by a Tibetan guard in the process. He falls into the water and swims away. Batman and Chi follow him again, to Mount Kalais, where the Abominable Snowman attacks on a mountain path. The Snowman defeats Batman, then lumbers away. But Batman survives and again takes up his pursuit.

The Caped Crusader finds Kristin in a small Buddhist shrine, where the Abomnibale Snowman also shows himself and attacks again. Batman blinds this Snowman as he realizes that he must actually be Kristin's father, the true Yeti. Kristin, dying from his gunshot wound, begs Batman to let him stay. The Yeti picks up his dying son and walks away, leaving Batman to watch their departure.

BATMAN #355

"NEVER SCRATCH A CAT"
Writer Gerry Conway | Artists: Don Newton & Alfredo Alcala
Letterer: Ben Oda | Colorist: Adrienne | Editor: Len Wein

The Plot: In her apartment, Selina Kyle rants about Vicki Vale dating Bruce Wayne. Later that night, as Bruce and Vicki cruise along beside a waterway, Cartwoman drives up in her "Cat-illac" and runs them off the road. Suddenly realizing what she's done, Catwoman dives into the river after them. Meanwhile, Bruce extricates Vicki from his car and they swim to the surface. Two Good Samaritans take Vicki to the hospital, while Bruce watches Catwoman drive off.

After staying by Vicki's bedside for two days until she awakens, Bruce heads for the Batcave and changes to Batman. He bids goodbye to Alfred and Dick, then heads for Selina's apartment. There he finds her pet panther, Diablo, alone and unfed since the night of the accident. Batman knocks out Diablo, then searches Catwoman's records and finds a receipt for rental of a warehouse facility. Batman heads there and finds Catwoman, who attacks him. As they fight, she raves about how much she hates him for ruining her life, but ultimately stays her hand before killing him. Batman apologizes for breaking her heart by dating Vicki, and the two make amends.

Continuity Notes: There are a handful of footnotes in this one: early on, we're told to see the previous issue of DETECTIVE COMICS for Bruce and Vicki enjoying breakfast as they talked about Selina's harassment of Vicki. Later, we're told that Rupert Thorne killed Commissioner Pauling in BATMAN #354. That issue is referenced again when Alfred reminds Bruce about his recent gunshot wounds. Further, another note points to the past two issues for occasions where Robin masqueraded as Batman to help him out.