In the heyday of the giant-sized Treasury Editions from Marvel and DC in the 1970s, there tended to be two kinds of Treasury Editions. There was the mindblowing “you never thought you’d see this” type featuring all-new story and art, like, say, BATMAN VS THE INCREDIBLE HULK:
And then there were the other kind, generally a loosely curated collection of reprints. When it comes to the reprint Treasury Editions, the DC ones were ussally a little more special, just because DC would take the extra effort to pack in a little something extra. For example. here’s Marvel’s GIANT SUPERHERO TEAM-UP:
It’s a fun book that delivers exactly what it promises and nothing more: team-up stories, reprinted from earlier issues, such as this Thiing/Namor clash from the pages of SUB-MARINER:
Or this even earlier Thor/Hulk smash-em-up from JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY:
DC, on the other hand, would really pack their reprint treasuries with unexpected goodies. Let’s take a look at THE AMAZING WORLD OF SUPERMAN:
There are some great Silver Age Superman and Superboy stories here, like this tale of a once-actuallly-in-the-works Superman theme park:
But this thing is also full of new material, like a lengthy behind-the-scenes narrative about how comics are produced:
And there’s also a really fun section on Superman’s Rogues Gallery:
(By the way, how the hell did the Puzzler make this list?)
Another great DC Treasury Edition is this JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA, which gets your attention immediately with this iconic cover”
Which was countered on its back cover with the same shot of their Earth-2 counterparts in the Justice Society. Man, did I love this when I was a kid.
And sure, inside were some great Silver Age JLA reprints:
But you also got some great extras like these Alex Toth character designs from the then-newly airing SUPERFRIENDS Saturday morning cartoon series:
That Toth Wonder Woman design is still one of my favorites.
This design made me wish for a monthly Alex Toth Green Arrow series. Such a clean, perfect design.
And see? Without this Toth background design, how would you ever know that just above the Troubalert viewscreen were “fluted radiating draperies”?
But my favorite extra in this book by far was this great double-page spread by Terry Austin and Dick Giordanoshowing the complete membership of the Justice League presumably setting up shop for the first time in the JLA Satellite. One of the few times you see part-timers like Metamorpho, Adam Strange and the Phantom Stranger actually just hanging out with the team.
Although did they have to show Zatanna as the one serving everyone coffee? If you ask me, that seems more like a Snapper Carr job…
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