Exploring Pre-Crisis DC

I haven’t read much DC at all let alone Pre-Crisis, but Chuck Dixon turned me onto writer and editor Archie Goodwin, stating Goodwin is to him, the greatest comic writer of all time. I read some of his shorts he wrote for Steve Ditko from Creepy/Eerie, and found a book “Tales of the Batman” on ebay which has a bunch of Archie’s work.

I have to say this is heavy writing, but the craft is good and the stories are pretty interesting.

But a lot of people write off Pre-Crisis DC entirely as not important, not there for continuity, just as stuff that doesn’t matter as DC really rebuilt their whole universe in the 80s.

The thing is — they re-rebuilt their whole universe so many times lately, does continuity and all that really even matter at this point?

There’s a lot of good stories out here in the old days, ones that made heroes heroes, and are why I’m interested in making comic culture great again. Obviously with the Epic Collections, I’ve read a LOT of Marvel from the 60s-70s era, and I see why these books became the cultural stalwarts they are today, even if creators today aren’t taking good care of those creations.

Have you read much Pre-Crisis DC? Be interested to know some recommendations.