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  1. #1
    Astonishing Member Timothy Hunter's Avatar
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    Default Could You Stick To A Single Triangle Era Superman Title?

    How interconnected were the Triangle Era Superman titles? Could you read one title on their own and not the others with it mostly making sense?

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    Phantom Zone Escapee manofsteel1979's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Timothy Hunter View Post
    How interconnected were the Triangle Era Superman titles? Could you read one title on their own and not the others with it mostly making sense?
    There were times each book had its own storyline ,supporting cast members and niche within the line (mostly pre death of Superman), but in general,no. Particularly after the Death and Return Saga. There were a few exceptions over the years where there were self contained one issue and done stories and when plot threads had a "home" book,but they were very much intertwined.

    Around 2000 or so they made an attempt to separate the books under the stewardship of Jeph Loeb,Joe Kelly ,Mark Shultz and Joe Casey and do more self contained to each book story while coming together every few months for a crossover, but even then it was hard to just stick to one book each month. They eventually took the triangle number off the books and separated the titles for good around 2003.
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  3. #3
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    It would be like fast forwarding through a movie for five minutes every five minutes or so. At least concerning the major storylines.
    Last edited by The World; 04-02-2021 at 04:15 AM.
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  4. #4
    Father Son Kamehameha < Kuwagaton's Avatar
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    Assuming the story wasn't exclusive to the title, most of the time you'd get some small recap or context oriented conversation. Especially if you were to keep reading that title

    My entry into post Crisis Superman was #24-28 of volume 2 alongside Superboy #8 (Zero Hour) and some Conduit issue around the time the latter two were published. Overall it was a little hard to follow, but I was only about seven years old and hadn't ever heard of anything outside of what was shown in the movies or tv. Going back they're pretty easy to deal with just because I'm better at reading and have the internet.

    My back issue collecting began with the Man of Steel#6 though, the one where he's with Mr Z and hooks up with that island native. It was fun enough that I kept going but it was kinda bittersweet to get the context actually, because it was so fun just to read it like a random adventure, silver age style.
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    Fantastic Member The Cheat's Avatar
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    It was fine, they did a pretty good job of catering for people not reading all the titles. You'd get a quick recap of anything you needed to know, and they'd break any larger stories down into smaller sub-streams that would go into each book (so all the Steel stories in Reign of the Supermen would be in the same book, all the 60s stories in the Dominus story would be in one title, e.t.c.) The coordination in the Superman office was generally very good to excellent.

  6. #6
    Extraordinary Member DragonPiece's Avatar
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    I remember it being hard to understand what was happening if I missed even one triange issue when I was doing a 90s superman binge a few years ago.

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    Relaunched, not rebooted! SJNeal's Avatar
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    I'm a "No" vote.

    When I first started with the Super-books, I tried several times to stick to one title (always Superman or Adventures) but couldn't make it more than a few issues. I always ended up dropping another series (that probably needed the sale more) to re-add the remaining Super-books to my pull list.
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    I'd say in some respects it works better to read the one title, because it flows better when it's the same creative team. It's kind of uneven going from one title to the other to the other to the other, because each creative team is taking a different angle, so it feels disjointed. And if you're mainly interested in what one team is doing in their title, reading all the other issues in between, you're left in anticipation before you can back to that title and their approach. But I always did admire the delicate balancing act they all had to do--even if at times, I simply had to drop all the titles because it was costing me too much money.

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    Extraordinary Member Lightning Rider's Avatar
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    Does anyone have advice on how to collect this era?

  10. #10
    Relaunched, not rebooted! SJNeal's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lightning Rider View Post
    Does anyone have advice on how to collect this era?
    Buy them all.

    But seriously, the collections from this have always been sporadic, even in the 90's. If you're not opposed to singles, I think that's the best and most comprehensive/complete way to go.

    If you can't abide floppies, the only omnibus is the Death and Return of Superman one. Otherwise, we have 2 (soon to be 4) standard HC's that collect Byrne's run, which is immediately followed up by the Exile omni. None of that material is technically "Triangle Era", but it leads into it.
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  11. #11
    Father Son Kamehameha < Kuwagaton's Avatar
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    The Byrne hardcovers will be pretty much the only way to go when they're said and done.

    But right now only half collected, you could also get the Man of Steel volume 9 trade and that leads into the Exile omnibus. Like SJNeal said it's technically not the triangle era but it's the beginning of it. Right now there's a pretty huge gap after Exile. The George Perez hardcover, Panic in the Sky, and "Superman and the Justice League" cover a good amount and are pretty recent releases. Then there's the Death and Return story, but just a few story arcs collected after that like Trial of Superman, Wedding and Beyond, Zero Hour (I think), and Superman Blue.

    The City of Tomorrow hardcover collections started recently and they're great. New reader friendly but that is the end of the era.
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  12. #12
    Astonishing Member Yoda's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by SJNeal View Post
    If you can't abide floppies, the only omnibus is the Death and Return of Superman one. Otherwise, we have 2 (soon to be 4) standard HC's that collect Byrne's run, which is immediately followed up by the Exile omni. None of that material is technically "Triangle Era", but it leads into it.
    There's an Exile Omnibus that collects Adventures #445-460, Superman #23-37, Action Comics #643-646 and Action Comics Annual #2. So you can get from Man of Steel '86 through those pretty easily. Beyond that yeah, there are really sporadic collections. Panic in the Sky is pretty easy to find, and I had a lot of luck finding a lot of other ones. But most are currently out of print.

    If you just want to read that era, a lot is available on DC Infinite or Comixology. But there are definitely some holes.

  13. #13
    Astonishing Member Clark_Kent's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lightning Rider View Post
    Does anyone have advice on how to collect this era?
    The only way to collect it all is to go the floppy route. There's the Exile & Death/Return omnis, but tpb's are few and far between. They released a few that are long out of print (Time & Time Again, Eradication, Krisis of the Krimson Kryptonite, a few others). A few other collections were started but abandoned after one volume (Superman Blue). Not a ton of love from DC for Triangle Era collections.

    In 2019 I finished collecting every Post-Crisis Superman appearance between the end of the Exile Omnibus and the start of the Death/Return omnibus and had them custom bound. 6 large omni-sized hardcovers, and I love them. I was also able to slot in things like Armageddon 2001, Eclipso: The Darkness Within, and other appearances. Lots of fun to put together and it's the best way to have them in my opinion. A little expensive, but worth it for my favorite era.

    Slowly working on Post-Death collecting with a plan to bind later. I'd say I have about half of the issues from the end of 'Return' through the end of the Triangle era. I'm thinking about continuing forward to Superman 200 for a stopping point.


    As to the OP's question, I wouldn't recommend reading only 1 title. The Triangle era was, for all intents and purposes, a weekly Superman book that ran for like 12 years or something. You wouldn't read just every 4th issue of '52' or 'Batman Eternal', for instance. The creative teams on the super titles plotted everything together so closely that you can really only tell you've entered a new issue because the art changes. The writing, on the whole, is almost seamless. You pick up on pet characters eventually...Simonson and Bog used Keith a lot while others didn't, for example...but it's all very seamless. DC Infinite has a section where you can read by story arc, and they have the Triangle Era in 3 parts and the majority of it is in there, I think. For $7, it's a cheap way to get into it.
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    Extraordinary Member superduperman's Avatar
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    The short answer is no, you couldn't. All the books were interconnected. The idea was that you had to buy all of them to follow the story. At one point in the mid-nineties they had something like five books. But back then they were only something like $1.50 each.
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    Quote Originally Posted by superduperman View Post
    The short answer is no, you couldn't. All the books were interconnected. The idea was that you had to buy all of them to follow the story. At one point in the mid-nineties they had something like five books. But back then they were only something like $1.50 each.
    Only you say, but back then a buck fifty seemed like a lot for a comic book. I remember when they jumped from 1.25 to 1.50 (with a higher Canadian price), I dumped all of the Super titles and most of the Bat titles, because it made it too expensive to get all of them and yet it wasn't easy to drop just a few titles and keep buying the others because they were interconnected.

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