So i buy big stacks of dc comics every week, have sence the late seventies. I like the big arcs, but my absolute FAVORITE dc comics stories are the single issue PURE character development stories. I am a total sap.
Before Batman’s *almost wedding there was a single issue of “double date” where Lois and Selina get to just double date, as the significant others of batman and superman and they all know. There is no villian in the story. Best exchange is between Selina and Bruce, while she is pressuring him to invite Lois and Clark to the wedding: Selina: He’s your BEST friend! Bruce: He’s not really my “friend”. Selina: oh come on what other friends do you have, and your sons don’t count. Bruce: Alfred is my friend. Selina: You PAY Alfred! Bruce: Jim Gordon is my friend. Selina: Jim Gordon doesn’t know your name.
Perfect character driven stories.
The Doom Patrol show really gave us this pathos.
Some of the best Superman stories are a single issue of him just being nice.
The moment Batman was screaming at his son for breaking his house grounding (as his mother out a hit out on him), after Damian had been almost KILLED in the gotham sewer. Batman yells “What was so important in that sewer!” Damian holds out his green robin glove and in it is one of THE pearls…that fell from his grandmother’s neck all those years ago in crime alley, and says “I had found this for YOU father…” and Batman goes from rage to shock in a single panel. He falls to his knees and pulls his son, the only Wayne heir close into him in a weepy bat-hug. (and you KNOW the batman is crying)
Those are the best stories. The universe is falling apart ALL the time, i am rather desensitized to it. It’s the “who they are” stories is why i stay. I am here for the weddings, and the funerals, and the awkward first dates (talking to you Sisco Ramon), and for what ever inappropriate thing Guy or Booster is gonna say next.
That’s just why i love DC comics. It’s not the “Boom & Zap”, it’s the big dysfunctional family.
which is also one of my favorites.