QUESTIONS ON CATEGORIES
What is the “Historical significance” score?
The importance of the story to its universe. Does it introduce a new character or setting? Will it have major repercussions down the line?
A very important note: changes in the creative team have no effect on this category. It’s about the significance of what happens in the story, not about the impact that the writer and/or artist will have for the series or even for the industry.
Negative scores are reserved for special occasions, when the story absolutely breaks the established canon or characterization.
What is the “Historical significance” score?
The importance of the story to the character or the universe. If there’s a significant difference between the importance for the title character and for other characters in the story, it will be highlighted.
What is the “Silver Age-ness” score?
How much does this feel like a Silver Age comic book? Does the term even make sense? If you’re asking yourself why anything makes sense, it’s not Silver Age enough.
What is the “Does it stand the test of time?” score?
How much of the original story can be done today without changing stuff. This is NOT the same of a quality score!
Negative scores are reserved for stories with negative messages.
GENERAL QUESTIONS
Do you only review Silver Age comics?
Mostly. The Doom and Legion retrospectives are already beyond that (more on that below), and other retrospectives ventured in the same territory. As of now, stories published after the Silver Age are the exception.
Do you count continuity inserts?
This will vary case-by-case. The Doom retrospective already includes them; they might be covered for other series, especially if an effort is made to fit the comic inside the Silver Age continuity.
What do you define as a Silver Age comic?
DC COMICS
The general consensus is to consider Showcase #4 (1956), the debut of the second Flash, as the start of the DC Silver Age. However that’s not so easy for several series, mostly for the Superman books; it will be decided on a case-by-case.
Obviously anything published after Crisis on Infinite Earths (1986) is well past the “expiration date”… except for the Legion books (see more details below).
MARVEL
The Silver Age clearly starts at Fantastic Four #1. There is no general consensus on when it ends; the watershed is the death of Gwen Stacy in 1973, but different books hit the new era in different moments, so it will be on a character-by-character basis.
What comes after the Silver Age?
The following era is often called the Bronze Age, but I don’t use the classification since I don’t find it very useful: the Bronze Age doesn’t have a distinct feeling like the Silver and Gold Ages did, plus there is absolutely zero consensus on when it ended.
Stories after the Silver Age are classified by the decade of publication.
What are your sources for credits and continuity placement?
DC COMICS
Credits and publication date are mostly from the DC Comics Database
For the Legion retrospective, major help from the Publication History of the Legion Wiki.
MARVEL COMICS
Credits and publication date are mostly from the Marvel Database
Chronological placement mostly from SuperMegaMonkey
Can you review X comic?
As long as it is a Silver Age comic, probably yes. Ask it in the comments.
Also, if you’re a Patreon you can request ANY Silver Age story and I’ll review it.
Why don’t you give a quality score?
Every score in every category is naturally subjective, but a quality score would be meaningless. There are Silver Age stories that are badly written and badly drawn but that I love to death, and there are perfectly fine stories that I just don’t enjoy.
Your review didn’t cover X part of the story
I try to cover as much story as possible, but if you want to know everything that happens in the story you have to read it by yourself. But if you feel like I skipped something important (it happens!), feel free to point it out in the comments and I’ll probably update the review to mention it.
Will there be other retrospectives?
Nothing as deep and elaborate as the Legion and Doom retrospectives. Other characters get their own retrospective for a limited part of their history.
LEGION RETROSPECTIVE
What counts as Silver Age for the Legion of Super-Heroes?
That’s not an easy question. The Legion tends to do its own thing and the changes are pretty gradual; the transition should probably be considered somewhere during the Superboy era, but it’s hard to tell the exact point. For classification purposes, I’m placing most of the era under the Silver Age and what follows under the 70s.
What’s the deal with Crisis?
The Legion is a unique case for the pre-Crisis / post-Crisis classification.
Technically speaking there is a single continuity from 1958 to 1994, although it’s a tricky definition since there are retcons to major parts of the lore prior to 1986.
However I don’t consider the “Five Years Later” period (1989-1994) to be part of the same continuity since it includes MASSIVE changes to the continuity.
Will you cover post-Crisis Legion stories?
Eventually.
What’s up with the status of X as a Legion member?
My criteria for a few Legionnaires may not follow the standard lore.
PETE ROSS: he’s typically considered a honorary member following Superboy #98. However, in that story he receives “a pass to the Super-Heroes Clubhouse whenever the Legion meets”, and Peter remarks that “some day I can attend a meeting of the Legion as an honored guest”.
A guest is not a member so I am not counting him until he is called a member within the story (not the letters page!), and that means he’s not added to the count until Adventure Comics #370
Except that’s not really correct! As reader Commander Benson pointed out in the comments to Superboy #98, Pete Ross is actually identified as honorary in a caption to Adventure Comics #323. There’s really no point in updating the member count between #323 and #370, but keep that in mind.
COMMAND KID: as much as I hate that story, he is a full member in Adventure Comics #328.
DYNAMO BOY: even worse, he is a full member in both Adventure Comics #329 and Adventure Comics #330
DOOM RETROSPECTIVE
What counts as Silver Age for Doctor Doom?
I consider Fantastic Four #200 to be the last Silver Age story for Doctor Doom.
Will you review Doctor Doom’s appearances after the Silver Age?
I already am! The Doom retrospective doesn’t have a clear ending point, so it does continue beyond the Silver Age.
What’s your take on the whole “how severe are Doom’s scars” thing?
As much as I don’t want to contradict Jack Kirby, his idea that Doom only has a very minor scar is not consistent with the high number of stories that show people absolutely horrified when Doom takes off his mask. Ironically, the first person to do this is Jack Kirby himself in Fantastic Four #10.
Will you cover non-canon versions of Doom?
Some version do show up in the What If? section, although it’s by no means comprehensive and doesn’t want to be. For the time being I will not be covering the Doom 2099 series: while it’s in my favorite top three interpretations of Doctor Doom, it falls a bit out of the scope of the project so it’s a very, very, very low priority.
Will there be a cutoff date for the retrospective?
Probably by the time the retrospective reaches the 2020s, as issues need some time to breathe before a retrospective makes sense. We’ll see.
JIMMY OLSEN
Do you only review the regular series?
The main retrospective includes both the “Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen” series and its continuation “Superman’s Family”, which keeps the numbering but rotates Jimmy with other Superman characters. Additional appearances from other series might be added later.
Do you cover the Jack Kirby run?
Yes! It starts with Jimmy Olsen #133. Kirby fans beware: I’m not very kind on his run.
Do your really hate Silver Age Jimmy Olsen or is this just for laughs?
Yes.
VILLAINS ORIGINS
What is included in the retrospective?
Most of the big name supervillains introduced from the Golden Age and up to the early 80s.
Shouldn’t this be called “Villain first appearances”, since several of them don’t actually include any origin?
I like the title better. Plus most villains get multiple origins and I would have to review all of them!
You skipped X villain, why?
There may be various reasons. Just ask in the comments and I might add it to the schedule, even if one of the following answers applies.
1) The first story wasn’t particularly interesting or at least I didn’t have anything interesting to say. For example, this is the reason why I skipped the Golden Age version of Clayface.
2) The villain is not a recurring foe, or is not the most well-known version. There are exceptions to villains that are otherwise historically significant, like Penny Plunderer.
3) I just plain forgot! It happens.
4) It’s a Spider-Man villain. Nothing against them, far from it, but most of them debut in a way that is already very similar to the established version… and that takes away 99% of the fun of doing the retrospective.
Will you review more Golden Age stories, outside of the villain origins?
Possibly. The problem with the Golden Age is that, outside of Superman and to a lesser extent Batman, finding good reprints or good scans is not always easy. But I have a soft spot for just how bonkers Golden Age Wonder Woman is, so I’ll keep an eye open for that.