I just finished reading GODS AND MORTALS, the first of four volumes collecting George Perez's relaunch of Wonder Woman for DC Comics in 1986. It's a superb read -- Perez was at the top of his game, and draws the most stunningly gorgeous Wonder Woman I've ever seen. The book also captures that elusive, electric energy that was running through the whole DC line in 1986; as a preteenager reading books like Legends, the Superman revamp, the Giffen and DeMatteis Justice League, Suicide Squad, Green Lantern Corps, and so much more (funny how many more comics I read when the cover price was 75 cents and not $2.99...) I felt like I was witnessing a renaissance in the DC line that must have been just like the birth of the Silver Age.

But that's not actually what I want to write about. This collection, I think, represents the first time DC has used any of the hundreds (if not thousands) of pages of character studies that were drawn for its encyclopedic Who's Who series in another context. The last few pages of the volume reprint the (recolored) art and text from those entries, and it makes me wonder what else DC could do with the Who's Who art in its files. I've been very surprised, for instance, that DC hasn't put together a Jack Kirby portfolio with his late-career takes on just about all of the super-hero and adventure characters he did for DC over the years. They put together a collection of Kirby's Green Arrow stories, for Jebus' sake; surely there'd be interest in a collection of his Who's Who entries?