Previous Post > > And actually, DC took a cue from Marvel in the past year or two and started doing the same thing (they're called Showcase Presents). > > Actually DC did it first with their Jack Kirby Fourth World trade paperbacks before the Essential line started. Although the Fourth World tpbs were black and white with grey tones. Oh I'm sure many companies had B&W volumes before Marvel...but I meant in terms of a singularly branded line of big fat collections of assorted vintage books...Essentials came first and Showcase followed suite (between Marvel & DC of course). > > Scott > "Probably the most famous speech from the GREEN LANTERN/GREEN ARROW story is the black guy coming up to Green Lantern and saying 'You helped the green guys, you helped the purple guys, you helped the blue guys. What have you done for the black guys?' And my answer would have been, I saved the world 15,000 times, duh. I didn't go out to save the white guys, I saved the world. So get off my back." > Marv Wolfman Check it out: Shu and I (and FLCL) teamed up!

Why, does Marvel and now DC have to have collections of their great heroes reprinted in black and white?

It makes no sense at all to me. Not counting manga, color is an essential part of a comic book. You might even say that it is the most essential part. Without color you do not have anything but black and white doodles. Even the best artists at Marvel and DC usually cannot do without color. Color is the blood of the American comic book.

Further, I have never seen a single Essential Collection sold anywhere at any time. I have not even seen an Essential Collection even picked up.

Image came out recently with gigantic trade paperback collections of Tomb Raider, Witchblade and The Darkness containing a great deal of issues with all of them in color. These collections are like one thousand pages long and again in color.

Marvel has no excuse to be making their cheap colorless Essential collections.

If the original colors of some issues came out looking bad, they should just fix the colors.

No one wants to read about a phantom Spider-Man with no colors, an Iron Man with no Iron, a Captain America with a blank shield, and a Hulk without his Gamma Radiation, this is just insane.