DC Comics has a slick and very welcome new hardcover deluxe edition coming up on my birthday next year with Manhunter By Archie Goodwin And Walter Simonson. Priced at $17.99, the 112-page book brings out a lot of the classic original work from Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson from the early 70s as well as the silent epilogue produced in 1999 after Goodwin’s passing. With this coming early in Simonson’s career initially, it also had a lot of great work from Klaus Janson on the color design. These were all done as backup stories in the ongoing series at the time and I don’t think they’ve been collected like this before.
Collects stories from Detective Comics #437 – 443, plus the silent epilogue story first published in the 1990s.
Plot Concept: In 1973, revered comics writer Archie Goodwin teamed with rising star artist Walter Simonson for a short feature in Detective Comics called Manhunter. Conceived as a colorful contrast to the dark lead stories starring Batman, Manhunter was adventurer Paul Kirk, who criss-crossed the globe in an espionage caper, with the mysterious Council that trained him in pursuit. The story culminated in a team-up with Batman, during which Manhunter was killed in action. This brief but fast-paced epic won two Shazam! Awards, the 1970s equivalent of today’s Eisner Awards.
