ciaraldi@rochester.UUCP (12/08/84)
From: Mike Ciaraldi <ciaraldi> I got the first issue this week, covering Abel through Auron, with stops at Atom, Aquaman, All-Stars, and Air Wave. Comparisons to the Marvel Handbook series are inevitable, so here goes: The art is much bigger, more varied, and more interesting in the DC versions, ragther than the deliberatley standardized poses in Marvel. The printing of the art is good, but at least on my copy the text was VERY blurry.
ciaraldi@rochester.UUCP (12/08/84)
From: Mike Ciaraldi <ciaraldi> Sorry for the partial article that got posted. Here's the whole thing... I got the first issue this week, covering Abel through Auron, with stops at Atom, Aquaman, All-Stars, and Air Wave. Comparisons to the Marvel Handbook series are inevitable, so here goes: The art is much bigger, more varied, and more interesting in the DC versions, ragther than the deliberatley standardized poses in Marvel. The printing of the art is good, but at least on my copy the text was VERY blurry. The text is much more concise than Marvel, laying out only the bare essentials of powers and history. There is deliberately not a strength rating, e.g "can lift (press) 75 tons". There are only a few references to the alternate Earths, e.g. the original Atom is listed as Earth-2 and Alley-Cat-Abra is listed on Earth-C, but the All-Stars and Amazing Man are not marked in any way as being on another earth. They do say that the original Air Wave is an earth-changer: "Sometime after World war II, Jordan traveled from Earth-2 to Earth-1 under as yet unexplained circumstances. Jordan married Helen, and raised a son, Hal." Fair enough, but how did Hal (grGreen Lantern) Jordan get to be his cousin? GL is also listed as the cousin of the young Hal jordan, the present Air Wave. Also, Aquaman is listed as living in Atlantis, with no special notation. I had always assumed he is from Earth-1, and was probably one of that Earth's first heroes, since he is a JLA member, has been active since the Forties, and has no Earth-2 counterpart. But, an Aquaman shiowed up as a cameo in All-Star few months back. Where did he come from? Anyway, a good job overall, and I look forward to the rest. I suspect that most the Earth-1+2 stuff will be taken care of in the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" sereis that starts in a few weeks. Mike Ciaraldi ciaraldi@rochester seismo!rochester!ciaraldi