In Retroactive I’ll take you on a visual comic cover tour of the past covering all the covers for a particular series. Each entry will cover an entire year and I’ll always have one comic from DC and one comic from Marvel. At the end of each edition of Retroactive I’ll select my overall favourite cover for that year for each series. Last time on Retroactive we covered Detective Comics 1946 and Amazing Spider-Man 1970. If you need a refresher, just click HERE. Below you’ll find the two series that I’m currently covering. Click on that specific logo to be instantly taken directly to that series. The last section is reserved for my Top Picks from each year. Click the logo or travel to the third page to view them.
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Detective Comics 1947
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Amazing Spider-Man 1971
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The Speech Bubble 
My favorite Batman cover is Detective Comics # 120, because it reverses the abitual pattern of the first Detective Comics covers: instead of having the villain in a giant size and the heroes in a lilliputian size, we have exactly the opposite. It’s something new and unexpected, and I appreciated it.
As for Spidey, there’s no doubt that ASM # 100 is by far the best one, but at least 2 other covers are close behind.
ASM # 96 has a “pulpy noir feel” I absolutely adore: a dark city, some cops, a man apparently died… if the penciller had thrown in a man with a trench coat (and a cigarette in his mouth) in the background, it would have been a perfect pulpy noir cover.
The bronze medal goes to ASM # 93. Honestly, the only reason why I gave a prize to this cover is the presence of Prowler. Only in the Spider Man world there are a lot of more interesting characters, but I’m very fond of Prowler because of a wonderful story starring him as the leading character: “The Power of Resistance”, published in Web of Spider Man Annual 10 (June 1994). I had completely forgotten that story, and you made it come back into my mind. Thank you! Now I’m going to read that issue again. : )
“My favorite Batman cover is Detective Comics # 120, because it reverses the abitual pattern of the first Detective Comics covers: instead of having the villain in a giant size and the heroes in a lilliputian size, we have exactly the opposite. It’s something new and unexpected, and I appreciated it.”
That one is great, I’ll give you that. Penguin sures gets picked on this year. First caged and then electrocuted in #126. I also like DC #128 (Crimes in Reverse) where the Joker is holding the bank teller at gun point as he gives the teller the money.
The Prowler. Wow, that’s a character I haven’t seen in a while. Wonder what happened to him?
“I’m very fond of Prowler because of a wonderful story starring him as the leading character: “The Power of Resistance”, published in Web of Spider Man Annual 10 (June 1994).”
What’s it about, if you don’t mind me asking?
That story shows Prowler acting as a superhero. He tries to dismantle a gang, and, when he gets closer to them, he finds out that the youngest member of the gang is a boy Prowler used to know when he was a child, and lived in the same neighborhood of Prowler.
This discovery puts our hero in a difficult situation: what is the right thing to do? Putting that boy in jail with the other gangsters, or giving him a second chance, because he’s young and has a special connection with Prowler? That difficult choice is what made that story interesting. Do you want me to tell you the end of the story?
Is the answer “giving him a second chance, because he’s young and has a special connection with Prowler”? That’s what I think, am I correct?
Exactly. But, since Prowler is “not your typical superhero”, that choice was not that expected. That’s why Prowler was a perfect choice for that story: it would have been too predictable with Batman or Spider Man in the leading role, a character being more outside of the norms was needed to make it work. And it worked so damn well. Cheers to Mike Lackey for writing that.
Thanks for sharing!
P.S.: “a man apparently died” I meant to write dead.