Mark Brassington

This photo was taken whilst standing in the queue in New York for the Late Show with David Letterman in March 2004. I had only been in New York a few days and had yet to visit the famous Midtown Comics when I was standing in the eagerly awaiting the David Letterman show who’s guests that day were Ricky Gervais and Blondie. New York is an amazing place and whilst standing inline I was still taking in the sights when I noticed an odd thing – the building opposite had loads of comicbook pictures in the window and it struck me that they were only DC Comics pictures. I remember exclaiming aloud “That’s DC Comics!” My geekiness had really shone through that day.

When I eventually got to Midtown comics I grabbed the first DC Comic off the shelf I could find and checked the address – I was right. I stood across the street from the home of DC Comics. To be that was like most people meeting their favourite celebrities.

Now the disappointing news, at that time in my life I wasn’t a big DC fan. I was a Marvel. The comic that got me through my first ever comicbook shop was Spiderman, when I heard in 1997 that Spiderman was a clone I had to check this out and boy was I excited and also at that point in time was a mini series which still sits nicely in my attic – DC vs. Marvel. Although I was a to late to vote I wanted Marvel to win.

From the moment I entered Universal Comics in Staines I was a Marvel fan and have over the last 17 years pretty much had my hands on most of their shared universe whilst picking up the odd DC Comic and mostly their Vertigo stuff or comics from their Batman line especially Nightwing.

Then something happened in my own life – I had to give up comics. I got married, bought a house and had a baby. These together are all very expensive things and thus the luxuries had to be dropped. I have always wanted to come back but I am a completionist – I need to have every comic of a series of comics that I collect although even I had to make allowances for long running comics from the sixties. So I knew that the cost of covering my several years absence would be too much so I dabbled, whenever an issue #1 of something came out I picked it up and never returned for issue #2.

Then in September 2011 something happened, it was like DC had read my mind. It was like someone said “Mark you want back it but you don’t want to come in on issue #74 after three major crossovers and several characters dying and basically you have no idea whatsoever about what is going well we have something special planned for you!”

DC Comics reset / rebooted / relaunched their entire line of comics with 52 brand spanking new issue #1′s including Action Comics and Detective Comics which have been running since the forties. This is what I had been looking for – my way back in.

I collect about 12 of these 52 comics and believe me these are some of the best comics I have ever read.

These are my top DC Comics from the “The New 52″:

5. Supergirl

4. Catwoman

3. The Flash

2. Batman

1. Batgirl

Only 7 months in – still time to jump on board the brand new 52.