As a nod to the 75th anniversary of the first appearance of Batman, my latest Gimmick or Good column at Comics Should Be Good looks at the first issue of the Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight series. This comic, from 1989, is considered by some to be the “first” gimmick cover in the industry. While other comics sported different covers for the direct market and newsstand, LOTDK had four different colored variant “collector’s edition” covers.
For a full listing of my Gimmick or Good columns, click here.
Chris Sims mentioned a couple weeks ago how Batman: Year One was so revolutionary that it inspired a whole sub-genre of “Year One” stories, and LotDK was a spearhead of that movement. It’s an interesting line of thought, though upon reflection, 1989’s Batman film was probably just as much of a factor.
My personal favorite LotDK stories were Venom and Going Sane. Good stuff.