DC Comics In the Seventies and Their Place in my Head

I got out my copy of "Batman in the 70s" TPB yesterday. DC has done a series of these with Superman and Batman. 50s, 60s, 70s. a kinda taste of each decade. the 50s stuff seems interesting to me as a novelty. DC in the 60s is very hit or miss and stands DEEP in the shadow of marvel. the 70s, however are a different story. Like Denny O'Neil or not (and i have mixed feelings), he did much to put DC on the path to 'interesting' and off the expressway to 'dated'.

For me, this is the era where i discovered super heroes. the super friends, mego toys, etc. all of this came from this era. also the drawings that were constantly used for merchandising were often Neal Adams or Dick Giordano. My Superman curtains were done by neal adams, NOT Dick Sprang. this is how i came to identify these characters. my mom likes to tell a story about how she made this awesome superman cape, but when i put it on, it was the wrong length and the only reason i knew this to be true was the work of these and similar artists which taught me what these characters looked like, and in my mind, that was gospel.

Anyway, this really created a tie for me...the root, in my early childhood. I find that these stories hold up remarkably well compared to many before and after, especially to my modern eye. By the 80s i was a Marvel fan. if you asked me who my favorite characters where, you'd get a list of DC characters, but if you looked at what i bought, it was marvel. Gorj. and i have talked about how in the Mid 80s Marvel and DC did a collection of comics outlining their characters and their various histories and abilities. this was a real education for me, and as i looked at both, i found the DC stuff to be remarkably more interesting and the marvel characters (except for the big guns) to be mostly clownish. While i read marvel almost exclusively, the history of comics to me seemed to be all about DC. when i thought back to the comics i remembered from Stuckey's grab bags, they were all 70s DC. they all seemed dark, ominous, and interesting. House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Detective Comics, Brave and the Bold, World's Finest. it was like someone had discovered dark ink. These are the comics i seem to covet most. Fortunately for my wife, there are nearly none of these at my local comic shop, so i rarely get to buy any, even just to read and give away.