Legends of the DC Universe 3-D Gallery

The book felt wrong somehow. Something felt off. The 3D just wasn’t right.

I flipped back to the credits, spread across the inside front and back covers.

Yup, no Ray Zone credits.

That explained everything.

When All-Star Art Goes Weirdly Bad

The Video Version of This Review

What’s In The Book

The book contains full-page images (plus a centerfold two-page JLA spread) converted to 3D featuring all the favorites of late-90s DC. If you were a reader of that era, you’ll be thrilled by the nostalgia kick that this book has.

All your favorites are here, from Young Justice to Robin, Lobo to the Morrison-era JLA. There’s a Birds of Prey page published a month before the “Birds of Prey” series started. More: Leonard Kirk’s Supergirl, Tony Harris’ Starman, Jim Balent’s Catwoman, etc.

It’s a Who’s Who of that era.

The credits scroll down the inside front and back covers, with helpful page numbering. And, yes, the page numbers are clear on every page so things are easy to find..

Let’s Start with the Cover

It isn’t in 3D. That’s an odd choice, but not altogether bad. I can picture the editorial meeting where it’s decided that having a clear cover visible on the stands was more important. The art’s red and cyan echoes might distract potential readers from picking it up. After all, nobody walks into the comics shop wearing a pair of 3D glasses.

They compromised, instead. The cover by Rodolfo Dimaggio and Robert Campanella features an assortment of DC’s best-known heroes. A thick black border runs around the cover, about a half-inch from the edge. On the front, Flash is jumping in front of that border and his shadow appears on the white border. On the back cover, Supergirl is doing the same, but even closer to the reader. Starman has his hand on the border.

Meanwhile, the other characters float around at distances behind them, many shrinking dramatically in size as they disappear into the background. I was reminded of The World’s Greatest 3D Panel Ever from “AV in 3D” with all of its layers of characters floating in the sky. I don’t think this one would have converted as well as that one, but it felt like a similar attempt.

They’re trying to simulate a 3D effect without the red and cyan effects. It’s clever. I’ll give them that. There’s no 3D version of the cover inside the issue, though. That’s a miss.

DC did a few of these gallery books back in the late 1990s. They were pretty cool. This one adds the 3D effect and includes two pairs of 3D glasses. The book runs 32 pages of pin-ups with no ads. The $2.95 price point is impressively good.

However, part of me wonders if it would have worked better in 2D. The 3D effects are not impressive. They’re jagged. They try too hard. They don’t work.

The Artists Knew What They Were Doing

These pin-ups were done with the 3D process in mind. Many characters are throwing or shooting things out towards the reader. Robin has one of his “R”-shaped shuriken coming atcha! Nightwing is throwing two of his batons/billy clubs towards you. Lobo’s hook is fully extended at the end of its chain and coming for your skull. Green Arrow is, predictably, shooting arrows off the page. Darkseid’s Omega Beams are coming directly to you. Hitman has his gun pointing out off to the side. Captain Marvel has his fist. Starman’s cosmic staff. Impulse’s right hand. Black Canary’s right foot. Aquaman’s hook hand.

Everything in this book leans toward the reader, even in the simplest images. Once you see that, you’ll see it everywhere.

Bonus points to Todd Nauck’s Young Justice pin-up, where Superboy, Impulse, and Robin burst through the movie screen of a 3D film. The people in the audience are wearing 3D glasses and the total image is hilarious. It does, however, suffer from being too busy. There’s a lot to take in with the image, and the 3D has trouble keeping it all apart.

Greg Luzniak and Mark Propst’s Lobo is a high point. Lobo is throwing his hook at the reader, with its chain whipping back to his wrist. Meanwhile, his dog — I forget the dog’s name now — is attacking the reader, teeth bare and paws up. Maybe it’s because the image is overall a gray tone with limited colors and no primary tones, but the 3D worked on it. All the extra business happening in the background is washed over in a single tone, which helps set it apart and keep it from competing. (It’s a Lee Loughridge-colored page.)

The Catch

The one problem a couple of artists run into is when they draw the prop that is supposed to pop off the page, but have it cut off by the edge of the page. It happens in the otherwise very successful Robin pinup by Staz Johnson, as well as the Hitman page by John McCrea. If the item isn’t complete inside the borders of the page or the panel it’s drawn inside, the 3D conversation can’t make it float up higher. It gets cut off as if it’s behind the page even though the red and cyan lines are trying to tell you it’s above.

The other issue I saw in more than a few pin-ups is just plain busy-ness. There’s too much competition on the page for your attention, particularly in a 3D book in full color. Some of these images would have worked better in black and white. With the 3D conversion, however, the pages look like total messes of lines competing with each other, characters crowded together, details vying for your attention, etc. Your eye doesn’t know where to go.

That includes all the line work in Batman’s cape by Mark Buckingham. Bart Sears’ double-page JLA spread has tons of flying characters, tall skyscrapers, and wings all over the place. Walter Simonson’s Fourth World pin-up has a gaggle of green creatures competing with the 3D effects. That one is particularly tricky because the blue lines of the 3D effect combine with the yellow background to create a green color that might be working against the conversion. I’m not sure.

However, even the simpler images suffer.

Could It Be the Glasses?

I tried taking a second look at the book through the 3D glasses that were provided. The cyan in those glasses does appear to be a little more blue than my regular 3D glasses. I can see it in the blue skies and in Superman’s costume. It gives the images a slightly cooler feeling and makes the costume blues even bluer, but it doesn’t impact the 3D conversion in any way.

Could It Be the Technique? Yeah, I Think So…

Ray Zone did not convert this book. The credits list 2 of the 3 colorists as “colored and separated by” for the team of Richard and Tanya Horie, and Lee Loughridge. Tom McCraw gets a batch of pages to color, but his separations are handled by Heroic Age.

1998 was relatively early in the computer revolution of computer coloring. There’s not much info about how to transform color comics into 3D comics. None of these colorists had worked in 3D separations as their regular job. They did as good a job as they could do. It’s not altogether bad, but it is disappointing.

It also shows that there is an artistry to separating 3D comics. It’s not enough to know where to put the red and blue lines. You need to know how many and how far apart and at what angles, etc. Even pages that are disadvantaged with busy art or poor layouts can be credibly converted to 3D by the right person.

I’m now worrying that good 3D comics died with Ray Zone. I’ve yet to read a convincing 3D conversion that wasn’t by him.