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 1951 and Amazing Spider-Man 1975. 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 1952
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Amazing Spider-Man 1976
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The Speech Bubble 
I completely agree with the ASM cover you chose, because I’m an avid reader of whodunit novels, so the word “whodunit” on the cover is more than enough to catch my attention.
I love this cover also because it makes us think that Spidey will have to use some of his detective skills, and this is something Marvel should make him do more often. Usually in Spider Man’s stories there’s a villain messing up, Spidey notices him while he’s flying from one block to another, throws him some punches and the 20 pages are filled. No mistery, no investigation, no psychological analysis. Batman’s comics usually have all these things – in fact, I like them a lot more than Spidey’s ones. Not only because they have more psychological deepness, but also because of the darker atmosphere, the more interesting villains, Batman not having superpowers… now that I think about it, there are a lot of things that make Bruce a more intriguing character than Spidey. I couldn’t imagine they were so many until now.
As for Detective Comics, I pick issue # 179. Batman’s life as Bruce Wayne is an almost unexplored field, so, when a writer decides to focus on it, he does something different – and I love brave people who have the courage to do something unusual, to swim against the stream instead of going with the tide.
The situation shown in that cover is at a standstill: as the thought bubble points out, Bruce can’t expose the fake Batman without revealing his own identity. That cover makes you wonder “Which deus ex machina can unblock the situation?”, and this is the second reason why I loved it so much.
“As for Detective Comics, I pick issue # 179.”
That was in my Top 3 for sure along with #187. The thing that intrigues me (besides the imposter) is Bruce Wayne being Mayor. Never knew this happened! Thanks for sharing you selections. Always appreciated and always informative.
Thank you as well for your replies! : )
My Batman pick is #184 – it just pops out to me. No dialogue either, when did dialogue captions on covers become out of style, or are there still some out there? Just noticed the spidey mobile riding across a side of a building in #160 .. that cover makes more sense now.
“My Batman pick is #184”
Ah the debut of Garfield Lynns aka the Firefly! The rainbow colours he is emitting really do catch your attention.
“No dialogue either, when did dialogue captions on covers become out of style, or are there still some out there?”
No, unless it’s trying to directly homage yesteryear, dialogue on covers is never seen. Gets in the way of the art, I guess.
Ah the Spidey-Mobile. Speaking of, check out:
http://temporalfluxinfinity.tumblr.com/post/21714401663/batmobile-vs-spidey-mobile-by-daniel-james-cox for a fun drawing of the Spidey-Mobile racing the Batmobile!
Batmobile is in the lead! And Spiderman is about to get run over? 🙂