That’s another year gone by in my DC Comics reviews. 1989 had some cool (and iconic) stories, so I’m looking forward to seeing what 1990 will bring. There probably aren’t quite as many iconic storylines this year, but the Batman juggernaut will continue, fed by the popularity of the movie that came out in 1989. The Firestorm series comes to an end this year, otherwise there aren’t really any big changes, though I will shuffle my review groupings a bit just for balance. As usual, I’m using Mike’s Amazing World as a reference for the cover dates. The only discrepancy will be in New Titans, whose issues 67 and 68 both came out in July (with no issues in either June or August); I’ve moved #67 forward to June just to balance things out a bit.
Batman, Detective, Legends of the Dark Knight: Batman faces some new villains (Crimesmith and NKVDemon), as well as a slew of classic baddies (Joker, Riddler, Penguin, Scarecrow, Catman, and Catwoman). We also finally get Tim drake’s debut as Robin. Legends of the Dark Knight continues doing Batman stories set early in his history, including one with Professor Hugo Strange.
Justice League America, Justice League Europe: The League runs into Major
Disaster again (who forms his own Justice League Antarctica), as well as a more serious threat in Despero. And lets not forget the deadly menace of Wally Tortolini! The European branch tackles the Extremists and meets new characters like Beefeater. Metamorpho also gets to meet his kid.
New Titans, Legion of Super-Heroes, Suicide Squad: The Titans fight the 
Plague, Deathstroke, and the Royal Flush Gang, and Raven finally meets Mr. Right … who turns out to be very wrong. In the Legion’s far future we learn more about what happened in the five-year gap and some classic villains return (Mordru, Time Trapper, Roxxas). We also get some new faces (like Laurel Gand and Glorith) and the return of old favourites like Saturn Girl and a resurrected Mon-El. The Suicide Squad take on the Loa, Kobra and his minions, and Amanda Waller goes to prison. We also learn the truth about Oracle and a new version of the Atom joins the team.
Wonder Woman, Green Arrow, Firestorm: Diana has to face Eris, gets a return visit from Silver Swan, and teams up with Troia to fight Circe’s machinations. She also has to help Vanessa Kapatelis deal with a more
personal tragedy. Green Arrow finishes dealing with Warlord, gets involved with an oil spill near Alaska, and runs into Shado again. He also gets in trouble and has to be rescued by Black Canary, in a sort of reversal of the Longbow Hunters mini-series. In Firestorm, we get the conclusion of the Elemental War, more from Martin Stein and Killer Frost, and meet the Orishas and their dark counterparts. All this leads up to more classic villains (including Brimstone) appearing as the series ends with issue 100 … and a big change for Firestorm.
I haven’t read many of these before (only the Justice League titles), so I’m looking forward to checking them out. I hope you’ll join me starting on Monday with my first reviews for 1990, a trio of Batman issues.