What a great idea. These were uniformly excellent covers, with the Batman covers working best, since he hews closest to that pulp hero aesthetic anyway.

All of them were good, though, with Green Lantern and Aquaman being other standouts.

Looking at the Superman covers, while they are very well done and obviously are intended to evoke Doc Savage (the way the Batman covers evoke The Shadow), just makes me sad. I read the Superman books for years, since the Byrne reboot. If it had a Superman symbol on it, it was mine. Good stories, bad stories, it was always entertaining and always Superman.

Then came Electro Boy. I cannot believe there was seriously someone who thought this was a good idea. It made me stop buying the Superman books on a regular basis.

What a missed opportunity, as those covers would have looked so much better with the real Superman. Grant Morrison’s JLA stories would have looked a hell of a lot better, too, though he came closest to making the idea work.

Sorry, years later that still sticks in my craw.

I’d like to see this idea revisited or a collection of the stories made available. The great thing was, not only did they have these amazing pulp-style covers, the stories were written and illustrated to evoke that feel as well. Many of them worked extremely well with, again, the Batman stories being among the best.

This was unquestionably my favorite old DC annual theme; the Batman & Hitman annuals in particular I remember being pretty good.

Wow! I’d quite buying comics for a few years by ‘97, so I never knew about these… I’m not a big fan of annauls generally, but these are pretty cool (”blue lightning” Superman aside). Were any of these books good? I mean, on the INSIDE… I’d honestly be interested in tracking some of these down, especially the Bat-books.

I know both books went downhill in most people’s eyes, but I really do miss both Legends of The Dark Knight and Shadow of the Bat… (SIGH).

Although the new Bedard/Morales arc on Batman Confidential FINALLY has me interested in that title, I don’t see why they simply didn’t keep LotDK going, and work on retooling that book to find its past glory.

I’ll second the love for those Hitman and LOTDK annuals - both are terrific, along with the typically stellar Starman annual. I don’t remember too many others specifically, but JLA features a pretty swell Martian Manhunter story.

In any case, I’m sure these can all be found cheap, and the talent roster is generally top-notch. Totally agreed that these should be collected as trades - they’re both neat, accessible stories and an interesting snapshot of where DC was in 1997.

I would have likely never read any ERB if it wasn’t for the Green Lantern annual.