Treasury Men in Action

 Two Dr. Who tv reviews next week, Real Frantic Ones. I'll also be looking at the giant-size Treasury and Tabloid editions of the Seventies over on my Materioptikon blog in the coming weeks. But thinking about that series of reviews made me wonder about the Treasuries that could have been...

Marvel tended to stick to their biggest stars for Treasury Editions -at least at first- including Spidey, the Hulk and Conan. It seems to me that in the middle of the Bronze Age, there were some obvious omissions...

Dracula Lives: surely the most successful horror star from the House of Ideas deserves a treasury? How about the first two issues of Tomb of Dracula plus Lilith's début from Giant-Size Chillers?

Red Sonja: I like Frank Thorne's Hyborian Hellion but for the spring of 1977, I'm suggesting  Buscema's "Curse of the Undead Man" from SSOC 1 and the "Tower of Blood" two-parter from Conan the Barbarian. ("Curse" was reprinted in 1977's CTB 78 but for my purposes, I'd have Roy the Boy choose something else, maybe Barry Smith's "Web of the Spider-God".)

Captain America: the Steranko Madame Hydra story featuring Rick Jones plus the Kirby Album issue. I feel this would have made a sound '77 follow-up to the Bicentennial special.

The Thing: Bashful Benjy team-ups with the Hulk, Man-Thing, Sub-Mariner and Daredevil from Giant-Size Super-Stars and Marvel Two-in-One. I'd release this one to coincide with the launch of the FF/HERBIE cartoon series in '78.

DC had a policy of mixing Golden Age facsimile editions with themed collections of reprints. To me, obvious contenders for tabloid editions in the 76-77 period include-

Swamp Thing: the Wein/Wrightson issues would be reprinted in the late 70s in any case. Why not see them tabloid-sized?

Kamandi : Kirby's work is impressive at tabloid proportions. Fans of 2001 and Bicentennial Battles might like to see the Sacker Sweepstakes in the giant format. Also, as a continuing title,  Kamandi had the most longevity of all the King's DC works.

Jonah Hex:  aside from the scarred gunslinger, it would be interesting to see other Western stars like Firehair, Hawk, Son of Tomahawk and Bat Lash.

Strange Adventures featuring The Spectre and Deadman: after the ghoulish excesses of Adventure Comics, reprints of Neal Adams' work on Spec and Boston would make a suitable Hallowe'en entry.

And what about the B- and C-listers of the Big Two? Would Dracula fans want to see more of Colan's Daredevil or Iron Man from the Sixties? Would Starlin fans want to see how Thomas and Kane first bonded Mar-Vell and Rick Jones?

With a tv series, the New Original Wonder Woman would have made for a successful tabloid, perhaps reprinting some of those crazy Kanigher/Andru strips. And with the Super Friends on tv, would Aquaman's reputation have benefited from reprints of his Skeates/Aparo quest for Mera?

Whom would you like to have seen get the Treasury Treatment? Subby? Ploog's Monster of Frankenstein? Forbush-Man?

Coming soon: does an angel contemplate my fate?

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