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Detective 395
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65 posts in this topic

Finally got one at Terry's con. Finally read the story "The Secret of the Waiting Graves" after hearing so much about it and it's importance and I was somewhat underwelmed. Art was great, story was ok.

 

Perhaps I need to read Detective 394 to see what kinds of stories were being published in that title at that time. Perhaps 395 was a huge departure.

 

 

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Admittedly I had the same reaction to the story, experiencing it several decades removed from its original publication. It's a bit cliche by our more modern standards for horror/suspense and I think it really doesn't much hold up compared with what O'Neil/Adams did just a few years on. It's more important to read it with the historical context of being a departure from the Silver stuff and setting the stage for what was to come over the next few years.

 

The cover's still pretty boss, though.

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Admittedly I had the same reaction to the story, experiencing it several decades removed from its original publication. It's a bit cliche by our more modern standards for horror/suspense and I think it really doesn't much hold up compared with what O'Neil/Adams did just a few years on. It's more important to read it with the historical context of being a departure from the Silver stuff and setting the stage for what was to come over the next few years.

 

The cover's still pretty boss, though.

 

Yes, I probably need to read issues before and after to put the story in proper historic reference. I have Batman #255 up next. I'm told that's another classic story.

 

Thanks for the response.

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Admittedly I had the same reaction to the story, experiencing it several decades removed from its original publication. It's a bit cliche by our more modern standards for horror/suspense and I think it really doesn't much hold up compared with what O'Neil/Adams did just a few years on. It's more important to read it with the historical context of being a departure from the Silver stuff and setting the stage for what was to come over the next few years.

 

The cover's still pretty boss, though.

 

Yes, I probably need to read issues before and after to put the story in proper historic reference. I have Batman #255 up next. I'm told that's another classic story.

 

Thanks for the response.

 

The thing that struck me when I read it was the first thing Adams and O'Neil did out of the gate was play with the concept of an immortal villain. While they say they weren't doing it consciously, I see it as a loose prototype for Ras al Ghul, and therefore much of what their Batman work together flourished into. I think it's an underrated bronze key with longer legs than GL76, iconic cover aside. I love GL 76, but ASM 96, another underrated bronze key, made that run possible.

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Admittedly I had the same reaction to the story, experiencing it several decades removed from its original publication. It's a bit cliche by our more modern standards for horror/suspense and I think it really doesn't much hold up compared with what O'Neil/Adams did just a few years on. It's more important to read it with the historical context of being a departure from the Silver stuff and setting the stage for what was to come over the next few years.

 

The cover's still pretty boss, though.

 

Yes, I probably need to read issues before and after to put the story in proper historic reference. I have Batman #255 up next. I'm told that's another classic story.

 

Thanks for the response.

 

The thing that struck me when I read it was the first thing Adams and O'Neil did out of the gate was play with the concept of an immortal villain. While they say they weren't doing it consciously, I see it as a loose prototype for Ras al Ghul, and therefore much of what their Batman work together flourished into. I think it's an underrated bronze key with longer legs than GL76, iconic cover aside. I love GL 76, but ASM 96, another underrated bronze key, made that run possible.

 

The art is top-notch for sure. I think the story falls flat, immortal villain or not. I'm sure it was a huge departure from the 60s goofy stuff. I'm I correct that this is the first story that takes a supernatural turn for the book?

 

Thanks for your response, Readcomix

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Reading a few "standard" issues from around the same time is highly recommended. These books were like lightning bolts...even when I first read them years later.

 

Batman 255 came at the END of the Adams run on Batman (last regular-series interiors, I think) and was still an amazing story.

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Reading a few "standard" issues from around the same time is highly recommended. These books were like lightning bolts...even when I first read them years later.

 

Batman 255 came at the END of the Adams run on Batman (last regular-series interiors, I think) and was still an amazing story.

 

I'll hunt down some of those standard issues and give 'em a look. Thanks.

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Reading a few "standard" issues from around the same time is highly recommended. These books were like lightning bolts...even when I first read them years later.

 

Batman 255 came at the END of the Adams run on Batman (last regular-series interiors, I think) and was still an amazing story.

 

I'll hunt down some of those standard issues and give 'em a look. Thanks.

 

Definitely worth hunting down the actual issues -- it's always fun to read the letters column to see reader reaction. I haven't looked to see which ones have the comments on Bats 217 or Tec 395, but those should be very telling.

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I enjoy reading the letter columns also! I'm reading the Spiderman omnibus vol #1 and it includes letters and that really puts thinks in perspective. Recognize some of the names: Cockrum, and some of the early zine guys

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I enjoy reading the letter columns also! I'm reading the Spiderman omnibus vol #1 and it includes letters and that really puts thinks in perspective. Recognize some of the names: Cockrum, and some of the early zine guys

 

...the letters columns were one of the reasons why I insisted on keeping back issues..... they're priceless..... I only own the FF and Amazing Adult Fantasy Omnibus, due to the cost and size..... but I'm considering the Ditko ASM volume. GOD BLESS....

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

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I love GL 76, but ASM 96, another underrated bronze key, made that run possible.

 

Doubtful. ASM 96 came out a year after GL 76. ;)

 

You're thinking of GL 85/86

 

Nope, just botched the chronology! Thank you!

 

All those books (GL run and the ASM 3-part) had important bronze impacts, as ground-breakers. I still think 395 is underrated compared to them. While it did not push back on the Code in the same way, it is Adams and O'Neil beginning to create their version of the Batman mythos, harkening back to pre-Robin and laying the path that the character continues on to this day.

 

It's not important in the same way as those boundary-pushers, but it's step 1 in a major turning point for one of the biggest of characters.

 

(Heck, looking at recent prices for the GL drug issues and the ASM run, one could argue they are underrated these days too, considering their importance as well. Not that value is the sole reflection of importance, far from it, but it is a barometer of recognition, I suppose.)

Edited by Readcomix
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Reading a few "standard" issues from around the same time is highly recommended. These books were like lightning bolts...even when I first read them years later.

 

Batman 255 came at the END of the Adams run on Batman (last regular-series interiors, I think) and was still an amazing story.

 

I'll hunt down some of those standard issues and give 'em a look. Thanks.

 

Sorry, I meant the ADAMS books were like lightning bolts. Although, to be sure, some of the "standard" ones were quite good, too. You had Simonson Batman in a couple stories. Archie Goodwin writing. Englehart. I very much enjoyed the David V. Reed "mystery" style stuff. All of this is slightly AFTER Adams first came in and reflected the influence O'Neil/Adams had on Batman... but the "standard" stuff around the time Adams first came in will definitely give you an idea of how radical and powerful the advent of Adams...later augmented by O'Neil and other writers...really was. And how much it influenced decades of Batman up through today.

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Reading a few "standard" issues from around the same time is highly recommended. These books were like lightning bolts...even when I first read them years later.

 

Batman 255 came at the END of the Adams run on Batman (last regular-series interiors, I think) and was still an amazing story.

 

I'll hunt down some of those standard issues and give 'em a look. Thanks.

 

Sorry, I meant the ADAMS books were like lightning bolts. Although, to be sure, some of the "standard" ones were quite good, too. You had Simonson Batman in a couple stories. Archie Goodwin writing. Englehart. I very much enjoyed the David V. Reed "mystery" style stuff. All of this is slightly AFTER Adams first came in and reflected the influence O'Neil/Adams had on Batman... but the "standard" stuff around the time Adams first came in will definitely give you an idea of how radical and powerful the advent of Adams...later augmented by O'Neil and other writers...really was. And how much it influenced decades of Batman up through today.

 

Copy. And thanks!

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Bats 255 is one of my all time favorite issues of the O'Neil/Adams run. Holds up even today in my opinion. Really odd that it was never reprinted until the Adams Collected trades.

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It's almost like 255 was too late to be reprinted. In the sense that the treasuries were about over and 80s/90s reprints would be more likely to be something like All Man-Bat stories or 251 inserted in Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told, but a solo "werewolf" story just doesn't have a place to be reprinted.

 

I'm a big fan of 255. Every time I add one to the stock I reread it.

 

I don't think you can read any of these stories for the first time as a 40 or 50 year old and have them impact you the way they would if you were a kid or even maybe an 18 year old.

 

I think the idea of Tec 395 reading like a Hammer -script is a good one. If I had a copy handy I'd look through it to try to point out why I think it is a really classic story, if only for certain pages that are great, not necessarily the story as a whole.

 

I imagine you'd get a lot more letter column impact for Batman 217 over Detective 395. They probably ran one of those double letter columns for the reaction to 217.

 

Btw, I feel like 397 is a bit under-rated. No one ever talks about it but IIRC there are a few sort of interior monologue moments for Batman that are more bad and kind of a departure from what came before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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