iFlashback! March 3rd, 2004

It’s time for an iFlashback, a weekly feature in which we take a look at some comics that were on sale nine years ago. So jog down memory lane with me. The date is March 3rd, 2004 (it was a leap year in 2004, so we are a day off now) the number one film at the box office is The Passion of the Christ and these are some of the books that are on the stands at your local comic shop.

 

CaptainAmericaFalcon

 Captain America and The Falcon #1

By Christopher Priest, Bart Sears, Rob Hunter

PlasticMan4

Plastic Man #4

By Kyle Baker

Thanos7

Thanos #7

By Keith Giffen, Ron Lim, Al Milgrom

HardTime2

Hard Time #2

By Steve Gerber and Brian Hurtt

PhantomJack1

Phantom Jack #1

By Michael San Giacomo, Mitch Breitweiser, Jaime Jones

SupermanBirthright8

Superman: Birthright #8

By Mark Waid, Leinil Yu, Gerry Alanguilan

Robotexh

Robotech: Invasion #3

By Tommy Yune, Jay Faerber, Takeshi Miyazawa, Omar Dogan

SwampThing1

Swamp Thing #1

By Andy Diggle, Enrique Breccia

ThePunishermovie1

The Punisher: Official Movie Adaptation #1

By Peter Milligan, Patrick Olliffe, Scott Koblish

That was the week that was in comics! It was a pretty eclectic week huh? Early work from Mitch Breitweiser on an Image book that was originally intended for Marvel’s Epic line. We also have the return of Swamp Thing and the good old Marvel movie adaptation comic. So, did you read any of the books that came out this week? If so what did you think of them?

Comments

  1. I loved this Swamp Thing run, Enrique Breccia’s art is just insanely gorgeous

    • Swamp Thing belongs at Vertigo, Snyders run has proved that.

    • I really liked Andy Diggle’s run but the only Joshua Dysart story I really liked was his Arcane story. I loved the idea that he walked all the paths that he did for a reason and not just because different writers didn’t want to do the same thing I’ve and over.

    • Agreed, Swamp Thing does belong at Vertigo but I do love when characters from either the DCU or Vertigo pop up in one of the others pages, like in Alan Moores Swamp Thing vol4 now, he had Etrigan The Demon, Deadman, The Spectre, Dr Fate and the 1st appearance of John Constantine all in one vol, most of em in the same issues I believe, that’s good stuff.

  2. Hard Time was a great book, too bad the second collection never came out.

    As for Cap and Falcom, I would have bought it if not for Sears’ art. His character work has always made me nauseous.

  3. Kyle Bakers run on Plastic Man was just absolutely phenomenal. Just a great cartoon humor book. I miss it.

  4. I was a fan of Hard Time as well as the other DC Focus books. I definitely do not regret those purchases.

  5. Man i forgot about DC Focus.Interesting stories but they couldn’t find a place for them.Too “normal” for Vertigo and too dark for DC.And i was never a fan of Superman Birthright.

  6. I read “Plastic Man”, “Phantom Jack”, and “Superman:Birthright”. I didn’t care for “Plastic Man”, it seemed too much like an old Fox Kids show called “The Ripping Friends”, I dint mind the art but I just couldn’t get into Plas characterization. I’ve completely forgotten about “Phantom Jack” but it’s such a great read. I highly recommend volume 1 to anyone new to comics and/or sick of Cape stories. What can I say about Mark Waid’s “Superman:Birthright” that hasn’t been said before?

  7. How did I miss the Robotech comic back then? This wasn’t just a re-coloring of the old First comics (or was it Comico?) versions of Robotech, was it?

    How was that Thanos series?

  8. Was Phantom Jack any good?

    • I loved the first volume, really fresh stuff. It’s about a newspaper reporter who gains the ability to turn invisible. It’s not really a superhero type of comic (until the end of the 2nd volume), it’s more espionage/suspense. There’s even some typed short stories thrown in too, which are also good. Fun characters, interesting premise, it’s worth checking out. It’s actually written by someone who worked as a newspaper reporter too, so that adds another dimension to it.

    • Never a big fan of Bill Jemas, but I was sorry to see Epic ground to dust once he was gone… glad to hear something good managed to climb out of its remains…

  9. My LCS had both of the Plastic Man collection for like, half off so I got it for a super cheap deal. I love every single moment of Baker’s run and everyone needs to go find it and cherish it. Although I doubt you’ll find it for cheap as much as I did.

    Here are some other big events to occur on March 3rd:

    -1820: The Missouri Compromise if passed
    -1836: Texas breaks away from Mexico to become a Republic
    -1845: Florida becomes the 27th State
    -1923: TIME magazine is published
    -1931: The Star-Spangled Banner is adopted as the national anthem
    -1938: Oil is discovered in Saudi Arabia
    -1991: An amateur video shows Rodney King being beaten by the police

    Notable Births (Thought about doing this since the ‘who was born on our birthday’ discussion on the podcast)
    -Alexander Graham Bell
    -Charles Ponzi

    Notable Deaths
    -Herge

  10. Caps shield is obviously not flat but drawn way to oblong here but aside from that, the shading on both Cap & Falcon are very Finch like and look great, Falcons wings look better than usual.
    I have that Swamp Thing issue, the 1st issue of that Thanos run (he needs a better cemented logo like Venom has), hear Birthright is good, Phantom Jack looks like something I’d like and I had the 1st issue of that Plastic Man series which is exactly the kind of fun stuff they should do a little more of for all ages like Jim referred to in his article. I never read any of these.

  11. I read nothing on this list in 2004, I have no idea how I missed a Swamp Thing series.