My Collection - DETECTIVE COMICS [1937 Series]

Detective Comics [1937 series]
98 issues [1969 - 2000]
391, 414, 435, 444 - 445, 468, 476, 483 - 487, 491, 494 - 506, 508 - 516, 518, 524, 526, 549 - 550, 569, 571 - 575, 579, 583 - 588, 590 - 596, 598 - 628, 634, 641, 655, 657 - 658, 678, 750

Back to the hodge-podge collection. That stretch from #494 - #526 are the ones I bought as a kid. There's some good stuff there, but I have to say for the most part I liked the character of Batman more than a lot of the actual stories. Mostly Don Newton art, which is okay, but Gerry Conway stories which don't seem to have aged too well. Picked up a handful of back-issues later, especially a few with reprint back-ups and some of the Dollar Comics issues (from back when "Dollar Comic" meant "3 books for the price of 2 1/2" instead of "bargain priced") that I was lucky to find fairly inexpensive.

Started buying it in the late 1980s, when Norm Breyfogle was the main artist, and I really liked his work. Still do, and consider him one of my favourite Batman artists. Alan Grant wrote most of those, and I found that a bit uneven, a few interesting stories, nothing really great but only a few really bad stories. Only picked it up a few times since then.

Might still winnow this down a bit, keep some of the best from each era, maybe cut the total I have in half. Not really looking at too many back issues.

A few highlights of issues I'm sure to keep:

#414 - O'Neil/Novick lead, Robbins/Heck Batgirl back-up, reprints by Vern/Toth and Fox/Infantino, all wrapped up in one of the better Neal Adams covers. Good eating.
#445 - A chapter of the excellent Wein/Aparo Bat-Murderer storyline, plus a whole bunch of reprints of various characters in a 100-page giant.
#487 - O'Neil/Newton on the lead, a Ditko Odd-Man story, several other good stories all under a Garcia-Lopez cover.
#500 - As good as a 500th issue could be, with Brennert/Giordano's "To Kill a Legend" taking the lead and then six other good stories, including creators like Joe Kubert, Carmine Infantino, Walter Simonson and others.
#512 - Just an okay story, but for the 45th Anniversary they got long letters from Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel, Creig Flessel and Sheldon Mayer. One of the few books I'm keeping almost solely for the letter column.
#590 - My favourite of the Breyfogle issues I have, with a good single issue story set in London.
#604 - #607 - One of the better storylines in the Breyfogle run, with all the various Clayface characters in one story, which made good use of Breyfogle's skills.