What is or was your touchstone book?

[SebastianS]

Green Lantern v3 for me. I felt the book was the cornerstone of the DCUniverse and after the title was cancelled in 2004 (before GL: Rebirth), I slowly started to move away from DC and eventually from comics in general.

[Lee Stone]

Mine was Justice League International.
I walked to the gas station every week to get comics and it was the first one I'd grab each month.

Later, when I dipped into pre-ordering, I used Westfield Comics and my monthly order consisted of JLI/A, JLE, JLQ and Mister Miracle. I often spent more in shipping than on the actual comics.

I would continue to get the JLI titles religiously until Spectacular brought the new line-ups and Jurgens.
I liked Jurgens' art, and loved Maxima getting added to the cast, but the characters' voices didn't sound right.
Giffen & DeMatteis' presence on the books was felt in that there was this sudden emptiness in the characters.

When it ended with #60, I went into withdrawals.
I couldn't find anything that appealed to me.

I would jump from book to book trying to find something.
Madman Comics would eventually make its way to fill the void, but then it, too, would disappear.

Love & Rockets would also briefly take its place. It didn't seem to keep a regular schedule, so it was hard to stick with it.

Meanwhile, I was getting into Vertigo and I think I started to close the door on superheroes with the demise of JLI.

[charliehustle415]

Great thread, for me it was definitely JLA by Morrison and then Batman by Morrison.

When they had delays or fill in writers I would just reread all the books to remind myself how amazing they are.

That was the last time I remember going to my shop right as it opened and devour the book in the sitting area and then rereading it when I get home.

[CaptCleghorn]

I don't really have a touchstone (never heard that term before) book. However, there will be minis that do that for me, as well as certain arcs in books. COIE, Watchmen, Morrison's Animal Man all qualified. Miracleman would certainly fit the bill now that it looks finally ready to resume.

[Refrax5]

What was that one series that you had to buy month in and month out? The one you would save to read last. The one that always brought you back to the comic shop even if there was not a lot else you wanted, and if it ended did it take a part of your desire to keep reading comics with it?

For me it was always the Legion of Superheroes. Through the original run to the Reboot to the Threeboot to the Retroboot that was my series. No matter what that was the one book each month (and twice a month when Legionnaries was going on) that I could not wait to get. Even when I didn't like the series that much like with the Threeboot I still stuck with it. When it was cancelled after the start of the Nu52 I was gutted. For the first time in decades "my" series was gone. Slowly I started losing interest in comics in general. I went from going to the shop weekly to once a month and then to maybe once every 6 months to finally just getting trades online here and there. When they brought it back I was thrilled "my" series was back until I realized it was by the writer I hated most in comics and it was another full on reboot. Finding that out just made me sad all over again.


So what is or was "your" series and if it ended did it sort of diminish your interest in comics as a whole?

The Flash and Green Lantern have always been my big two at DC. My interest in DC does wax and wane with those books depending on their quality and who the star is. With Flash, the star is less important, since I love all of the Flashes (I even read Bart's pretty terrible Flash series regularly), but GL depends somewhat on the lead. Hal is my main guy, although I love Alan and John, too, and I was a regular Kyle reader in the 90s. I don't really follow the others as much. I like them enough, but I'm not as invested in them.

But, yeah, Flash and GL are really my "home base" as a DC fan.

[Jim Kelly]

wrong thread

[Captain Nostalgia]

Initially the Legion of Super Heroes. I got into them at the early age of 8. They lost me with the zero hour reboot though....never truly came back after that.

That being said, if they dump Bendis's Legion and restore them, I will buy 10 issues of number 1 just to make a statement. (Okay maybe 10 is a little excessive, I'll do 5)

[Jim Kelly]

Rather than going through the long list of titles by year, I'll just give my first and my last.

The first would be DETECTIVE COMICS in 1967 - 1968. I got other Batman and Superman comics, but this was one I had to have because it didn't just star Batman and Robin, it also had the Elongated Man in the back-up feature. And Elongated Man is my favourite hero. The first issue I got was DETECTIVE COMICS 361 (March 1967)--which remains one of the best comics I have ever read. It's just too bad I didn't start a couple months earlier so I could have got issue 359, which was the debut of Batgirl.

The last was HAWKMAN in 2002 - 2004. The final issue for me was HAWKMAN 25 (April 2004) which was the last Rags Morales issue. That was the last comic I was still buying every month. Since then I have bought other titles, but there hasn't been one that has kept me going to the store each month to find it.

[Steroid]

There's several series I could name such as Johns' Green Lantern, Morrison JLA or Starman but the series that I absolutely and was gutted when it ended would have to be Resurrection Man. From the very first issue I was hooked and thought that Mitch was such a fascinating character.

[CellarDweller]

When I first started reading comics as a kid, the one that always got me to the store was The Super Friends. When that one was cancelled, I moved on to New Teen Titans.

[Sutekh]

Definitely the Levitz-era Legion of Super-Heroes from my teen years on, then the Wolfman/Perez Teen Titans relaunch.

After that, various other books, mostly Young Justice and All-Star Squadron / JSA books at DC, and then independents like Elementals, Warlock 5 and Southern Knights, Image like WildCATs, Cyberforce and the Darkness, and Marvel like Thunderbolts, New Mutants, New Warriors, New X-Men/Academy X, Runaways and Young Avengers.

Any of those titles would get me to the store on their release day, while others I could let sit for weeks before I felt the need to go check my pull-folder.

[Mike]

The New Teen Titans by Wolfman and Perez
The Legion of Super-Heroes, at the time, was a very close second.

[EmeraldGladiator]

Like the thread originator said the Legion from Superboy and the Legion until right before the Bendis Legion I never missed an issue of a version. The original/retroboot is my favorite but I enjoyed 5YL and the DnA eras as well. So from the age of like 7 to now (in early 50's). The same can be said for Green Lantern, while a Hal guy I have basically gotten everything from the early 80's til now, period, including side projects like the GLC, Mosaic, Guy Gardner, Ion, Far Sector. I love the concept. Finally the only other one I have to get regardless of creative team, is the JSA, from the All Star Comics late 70's issues, to Roy Thomas' All Star Squadron/Infinity Inc in the 80's, to finally the JSA getting it's own title during the Johns' era. I guess that is why I am a Geoff Johns mark because he is heavily associated with Green Lantern ahd Legion and the JSA.

[exile001]

The mainline Batman books were mine. While others had highs and lows I always got something positive from a Batman book.

That is until One Year Later, when I really disliked the Morrison/Dini era*. When Batman used a gun to shoot Darkseid I quit (US) comics until the New 52.

*I had really soured on DC as a connected universe during Infinite Crisis, which I truly believe to be an awful series, and then with One Year Later and the creative changes it brought.

[kcekada]

There has never been one, honestly.

Probably the longest run I own is from Avengers -- dating from mid70s to some point in the early 80s. I dropped the book during Walt Simonson's run. There is no point in continuing with ANY series if you're not enjoying it. Otherwise, I'd still be buying Avengers and X-Men (my favorite series from 1976 - 1983).

I was a huge Legion of Super-Heroes fan, despite DC's mismanagement of the property. I started during the Cockrum era (my favorite), but after he left -- I didn't collect every issue (Grell was an okay replacement -- he got better as artist after leaving Legion). I dropped Legion and all DC titles some time after the Implosion and read Marvel books exclusively. It was Wolfman/Perez Titans that drew me back. Once I read the conclusion of Great Darkness, Legion became a mainstay again, but I would still skip an issue if it didn't look interesting from browsing through it.