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DC Comics: A Celebration Of The World’s Favourite Comic Book Heroes by Les Daniels (book review)

I have to confess I picked up this book, ‘DC Comics: A Celebration Of The World’s Favourite Comic Book Heroes’ by Les Daniels, several years ago because it has an Alex Ross cover. There’s a double-page spread at the back of the book of his, too. Bear in mind this book is some 21 years old now and the focus is on DC Comics characters more than creators so there is a wealth of comicbook covers, films and merchandise from the early days to the 2001. However, with what we know now, a lot of events have been given a sanitary wipe on accuracy. When it glosses over Mort Weisinger’s attitude, let alone Bob Kane taking all the credit for Batman so keep your bottle of salt ready. Considering how Dave Cockrum updated the costumes and 30th century designs for the Legion of Super-Heroes, he gets no mention at all. It isn’t like there wasn’t room in the only two pages allocated to them. Apart from the main five, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash and Green Lantern, other characters are lucky to get a couple pages.

What does make this book useful is seeing the things around the comicbooks here. Obviously, the various films and serials in the cinema and TV but, also as I said, a lot of merchandise. Batman bread did raise an eyebrow, although I think we only see a taster here. Daniels comment that the merchandise was making DC Comics more money than their comicbooks is telling but look 21 years down the line and how much money the films make in comparison with an even wider audience. In a wider examination, I suspect this is true of all core characters story source. Arthur Conan Doyle would be immensely wealthy had he lived today.

Looking at this book in its entirety, DC Comics has several phases of growth, each building on each other. If it hadn’t been for their implosion, Jeanette Kahn’s tenure would have been unblemished. With their move into comicshops, I was surprised there was no mention of the double issues and different paper qualities for the ‘Titans’ and ‘Legion Of Super-Heroes’, where they also jumped 12 issues. It was quite startling at the time, far more than the various mini-series that came out. Then again, back in the day, in the UK, there was a greater dependence on comicshops if we were to get imports.

If you’re reading this book as a means to get a total history of DC Comics then this might not be the book to read. As a highlights book up to the turn of the century, then it is useful but not comprehensive. It certainly needs a new book for what followed in the next 21 years. Alas, Les Daniels is no longer amongst the living. There is, however, a lot more merchandise, films and TV series since then. Having a taste for the roots might at least point you in the right direction.

GF Willmetts

August 2025

(pub: Virgin Books, 2004. 272 page illustrated softcover. Price: varies. ISBN: 0-7335-0905-9)

UncleGeoff

Geoff Willmetts has been editor at SFCrowsnest for some 21 plus years now, showing a versatility and knowledge in not only Science Fiction, but also the sciences and arts, all of which has been displayed here through editorials, reviews, articles and stories. With the latter, he has been running a short story series under the title of ‘Psi-Kicks’ If you want to contribute to SFCrowsnest, read the guidelines and show him what you can do. If it isn’t usable, he spends as much time telling you what the problems is as he would with material he accepts. This is largely how he got called an Uncle, as in Dutch Uncle. He’s not actually Dutch but hails from the west country in the UK.

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