I got a big shock out of the April 2007 solicitations list released by DC Comics earlier this week. The list of what's coming out a few months from now includes a book I'd given up all hope of ever seeing reprinted: The Batman volume of Michael L. Fleischer's "Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes."
Originally published in the mid 70s, the tome was the ultimate reference up to that point on the Batman character and his comic book exploits. It's an amazing piece of work, as are Fleischer's other volumes dedicated to Wonder Woman (marketed as "The Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes Vol. 2") and Superman (sold as "The Great Superman Book.")
Fleisher, as Bronze Age comics fans likely know, is/was a pretty fine comics writer himself.
Being a cash-poor 10 or 11 year old at the time, I missed the Encyclopedias when they first came out, but bought all three via used bookstores and eBay a few years ago. Had I known DC intended to republish them...
But, at any rate, here's what newcomers to the books can look forward to: Each volume is as an honest-to-goodness encyclopedia covering aspects of each character's personality, supporting cast villains, secret headquarters and special equipment and synopses of their exploits.
The entries are written as if the characters actually exist. For example, the entry for ACE (the Bat Hound) reads, "the courageous brown dog--owned first by engraver JOHN Wilker and later by BRUCE Wayne--the functions periodically, from June 1955 onward, as the canine crime-fighting compation of BATMAN and ROBIN."
Pretty much anything that happened or was mentioned in an issue of Batman, Detective Comics, All Star Comics, The Brave and Bold and World's Finest Comics during Batman's first three decades is recounted and cross-referenced. The same is true for Superman and Wonder Woman in their various comics titles.
An issue-by-issue synopsis of all Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman adventures is offered in each book. The entries, however, end in the mid 60s. I suppose getting any more up to date would've been complicated and perhaps too recent for Fleischer to satisfyingly recount. Emulating Marvel Comics, DC's continuity started getting pretty complicated by the mid 70s and continuing or updating these book would've been a challenge.
Fleischer, for example, doesn't get into the whole business of Earth 1/Earth 2 and multiple versions of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, etc., and probably wisely so. Deciding where the cut off was between the "old" and "new" Batman, etc., would've been a nightmare repaid only in fanboy complaints.
Instead, we get a nice reader's companion to each character's adventures from the late 1930s/early 1940s to the prime of the Silver Age, illustrated with lots of great black-and-white panel reproductions from the original stories.
In a way, it makes great sense for DC to reprint them now as they make great companions to the DC Archives and DC Showcase collections. I just figured that, if they ever got republished, it would've been done in the fan press or something, by TwoMorrows or someone like that. So good on DC!
What I'm interested to know--I don't know who to contact at DC or how to reach Fleisher (although I'd love to print an interview with him about these books), is whether other volumes of the "Encyclopedia" might ever see print.
In the Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman volumes from the 1970s, Fleisher mentions several other planned books, including guides to Green Lantern, the Flash (both Golden and Silver Age?), and "group" volumes dedicated to Captain Marvel/Plastic Man/The Spirit, Doctor Fate/Hawkman/Starman/Spectre and Marvel Comics' Captain America/Sub-Mariner/Human Torch. I'd love to see these!
UPDATE: Fleischer's Wonder Woman and Superman encyclopedias are being reprinted. Click the links to pre-order from Amazon.
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