Scott and Dan pick the comics they’re most looking forward to…
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Dan Greenfield, editor, 13th Dimension
Batman #4, DC. A new villain — the Minotaur! Looking forward to it! (There’s also a third printing of Batman #1 out this week, with two covers.)
Plus, this issue’s Jorge Jimenez Bat-Gadget variant (just one of many covers) is all about the utility belt:
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Detective Comics #66 Facsimile Edition, DC. 1942’s first appearance of Two-Face! (Every Golden Age first appearance issue gives me hope that we’ll eventually get the inexplicably-not-offered-yet Detective Comics #168, the Red Hood issue.)
This comes with the requisite foil and sketch covers, but also a Mondo variant by Brett Parson:
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JSA #14, DC. The second part of Jeff Lemire and Gavin Guidry’s JSA: Year One. The first issue was rock solid, so they’re off to a good start. I have nothing but high hopes for this.
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Limited Collectors’ Edition #C-43: Christmas With the Super-Heroes, DC. A treasury Facsimile! The first of four coming between now and February! The only thing surprising about this one — which has a heckuva lineup, including the 1969 classic The Silent Night of the Batman, by Mike Friedrich and Neal Adams — is that this is the second Christmas treasury DC put out in the ’70s. (This one was released in 1975, but there was one in ’74. Maybe it’s a 50th anniversary thing?)
Anyway, DC has been slightly recoloring its treasury Facsimile covers. Not all of them, but this issue actually had a darker shade of green. Perhaps it’s to ward off scammers? I wonder.
Scott adds: I simply cannot resist a holiday Treasury Edition.
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Batman: The Demon Trilogy, DC. A new edition of the hardcover collecting the 1980s-’90s Son of the Demon, Bride of the Demon and Birth of the Demon, which in sum work well as a direct sequel to Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams’ original Ra’s al Ghul saga of the early ’70s. The trilogy captures the Bondian quality of the Batman-Ra’s conflict and reminds us that the Demon’s Head really should be reserved only for rare stories of a certain scope. (Few villains in comics have suffered more from overuse.)
The stories can be a little uneven, and you do wish that Adams had contributed, but the creative teams are first rate, including Mike W. Barr, Jerry Bingham, Tom Grindberg, Norm Breyfogle — and O’Neil himself.
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The New Teen Titans: The Judas Contract Deluxe Edition (New Edition), DC. I don’t know how many times this Marv Wolfman/George Perez classic has been reprinted, and I don’t care. I’ll recommend it every time. Seminal. (And features Nightwing’s first appearance, natch.)
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DC Manga Box Set, DC. I didn’t care much for Batman: Justice Buster and didn’t finish it out. But the Joker and Superman books are flat-out great. Both premises are hilarious. With One Operation Joker, Batman is turned into a baby and the Clown Prince of Crime, knowing he just cannot thrive without the Dark Knight, is forced to raise him as a single dad, so he’ll grow up to become his adversary. It’s funny, yes, but surprisingly moving. Superman vs. Meshi is a culinary tour of real-life Japanese chain restaurants, complete with menu selections. (After all, it’s easy for Clark Kent to fly to the Land of the Rising Sun on his Daily Planet lunch break.) Warm, witty, and the Man of Steel is clearly patterned after Christopher Reeve. Lots of guest stars, plus, Superman and Batman go out to lunch! A joy.
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Archie Christmas Spectacular One-Shot, Archie. I’m always down for the Official Comic Book of Christmas…
… especially when there’s a Dan DeCarlo pinup variant:
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Teen Titans Go! #10, DC. More Christmas fun! With the Doom Patrol, no less!
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Fantastic Four #6, Marvel. Nice couple of variants, among the many, with this one. A John Byrne and a Joe Jusko.
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All-New Wolverine Modern Era Epic Collection: The Four Sisters, Marvel. I’m pretty sure this was the first Tom Taylor-written series I read on the regular. Naturally, it’s terrific. His pairing of Laura Kinney and Nightwing (illustrated by Bruno Redondo) was the standout of the recent Batman/Deadpool #1, too. No surprise there.
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Scott Tipton, contributor-at-large, 13th Dimension
DC Finest: Superman — The Invisible Luthor. Some great early Luthor appearances here, plus rarely reprinted gems like World’s Best Comics #1, and New York World’s Fair #2.
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Namor, the Sub-Mariner Epic Collection: The Invasion of New York, Marvel. Sub-Mariner creator Bill Everett returned to the series in the ’70s for a chaotic and rarely reprinted run, presented here!
Dan adds: My fave Namor outfit.
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Solomon Kane: The Original Comics Omnibus Vol. 1, Titan. The 1970s Marvel Solomon Kane comics are a longstanding blind spot in my reading; this should rectify that nicely.
December 1, 2025
Here’s hoping for LCE C-34, the other “Christmas with the Super-Heroes,” next year.
And who knows, maybe we’ll get the *five* Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer specials someday too.
December 1, 2025
In my opinion, this week’s C-43 Christmas With the Super-Heroes facsimile is the one to own over C-34, as C-43 includes the little seen Superman’s Christmas Adventure. This story has not made it into an omnibus or Finest as it was originally published as a promotional giveaway used by department stores and other merchants. I’ve seen the idea floated to create a book, perhaps a DC Finest, of Superman rarities such as this. I’d buy that in a heartbeat. Until then, I’m buying C-43 this week.
December 14, 2025
But it was reprinted in A DC Universe Christmas TPB in 2000.
December 2, 2025
If anyone bought the 2017 Deluxe Edition of The Judas Contract and is on the fence about double-dipping and buying the 2025 Deluxe Edition…BUY IT. I just flipped through my copy and it is a HUGE upgrade. Like, night and day different. Better paper. Better printing. And I can’t be certain, but it looks like it was remastered from new high resolution scans of the original artwork (plus it looks like there’s a gallery of about 30 pages of original artwork in the back of the book).
The remastering makes the most difference on the two Brother Blood issues that were inked by Romeo Tanghal. I was never a huge fan of Tanghal’s inks on George Perez because his ink lines always looked too fat and muddy to me (including the 2017 Deluxe Edition). Looking at what I’m assuming is a remastered scan in this new printing, the linework is crisp and clean. The ink lines feel like they better capture Perez’s fine linework. And because of the better paper in the 2025 Deluxe Edition, the colors sit much better on the page than they did in the 2017 book (the printing in the 2017 book looked really garish to me). It really has to be seen to be believed. It’s that much of an improvement.
Since it was announced that the upcoming Absolute Editions of Crisis on Infinite Earths and John Byrne’s Man of Steel are also being remastered from new scans of the original artwork, this has me really excited for how those books are going to look.
(Most of the original artwork in the gallery in the back of the book is credited to Heritage Auctions. I’m wondering if DC and Heritage have entered into a deal where, as original DC artwork comes on the market for auction, Heritage provides DC with new hi-rez scans in order to rebuild their own digital archive from better source material.)
December 2, 2025
Looking closer, the book has also got the five-page Titans cameo by Wolfman and Perez from World’s Finest #300, which is something I knew about but had never actually seen before (and, as far as I know, has never been reprinted before).