In 1979, DC sought to recapture lost market share by placing their comics in the super-market checkout line. To do so required a smaller physical size, the "Digest". DC launched two lines of digests. The first, called Best of DC Digest, featured super-hero material. The second was Jonah Hex and Other Western Tales.

The Jonah Hex digest was 100 pages priced at 95¢. After 3 issues, DC pulled the plug on the western material and restarted their second digest line as DC Special Blue Ribbon Digest. Like Best of DC Digest, Blue Ribbon Digest centered on super-hero material but featured all reprints unlike Best of DC, which occasionally printed new stories. Each issue of Blue Ribbon Digest was devoted to a different theme unlike Best of DC, which featured a large amount of Superman material.

In 1982, DC cancelled its oldest running title Adventure Comics. 6 months later, DC cancelled Blue Ribbon Digest and revived Adventure Comics as a digest to replace it. Adventure Comics, primarily featuring Legion reprints, continued as a digest for 13 issues, reaching the milestone 500th issue.

In 1983, Adventure Comics was cancelled again (for good this time) with issue #503. Best of DC Digest remained in publication for 3 more years as DC's only digest comic. Adventure Comics Digest was replaced by a new deluxe Baxter paper format for reprints. The first new reprint series was Green Lantern/Green Arrow collecting Neal Adams and Denny O'Neil's classic run.