In the 70s, some of the best drawn stories published by DC and Marvel were backup strips, or in some cases, ie George Perez's work on Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, were part of an anthology title.  

Many such stories have either never been reprinted, or have shown up only rarely over the years.  What are some you'd love to see again?

Here are a few of mine-

Marshall Rogers and Mike Grell from Detective Comics- DC has reprinted Marshall's Batman stuff from his run as the main artist on Detective Comics several times, but before that he was doing backup strips.  He and Grell penciled a series of backups featuring individual members of the Justice League fighting the Calculator.  Then in Detective #468 they all came together for a book length tale where they teamed up to beat him.  It was the best drawn Justice League story of the Bronze Age until Perez took over the main Justice League title.

Jose Luis Garcia Lopez on Deadman- When Adventure Comics was a "Dollar Comic" circa 1978 - 1979 Deadman was a regular feature, sometimes drawn by Jim Aparo, and other times by Garcia Lopez.  Both did a great job, but the Garcia Lopez version was right up there with Neal Adams.  Beautiful stuff.

Speaking of Deadman, he appeared as a backup in a few issues of Aquaman, drawn by Neal Adams.  

Mike Nasser on Legion of Superheroes- Nasser did a handful stories featuring individual Legionaires that were backups in the main Superboy and the Legion title. 

Perez on Sons of the Tiger, and Later White Tiger in Deadly hands of Kung Fu.  Actually that magazine had a bunch of great strips, including Rudy Nebres on Iron Fist and Jim Starlin on Shang Chi.

All worth tracking down if you haven't seen them.

I fondly remember Jim Starlin on OMAC in the back of KAMANDI for a short time.  When I first started reading comics, ACTION COMICS had a Green Arrow (in a war on drugs) back-up written by Elliot Maggin and very tightly illustrated by Mike Grell that ensured that I would love comics forever.  George Perez did a Firestorm back-up in FLASH for a while which was cool since I doubt he would have done a full FIRESTORM comic.  DC gave us tons of back-ups where they could try out new characters--Nemesis in BRAVE & THE BOLD, I...Vampire in HOUSE OF MYSTERY, and Mr. E in SECRETS OF HAUNTED HOUSE stand out in my memory.  Old favorites like Steve Ditko on the Creeper got a second chance in WORLD'S FINEST COMICS, as did the very enjoyable Shazam by E. Nelson Bridwell and Don Newton.

There seems to be a lot of talented artists who can't quite handle a full monthly book.  You would think that they would be drafted more often to do quality back-ups here and there.

Drawn elegantly by artists like DeZuniga, Redondo and Carrillo.

And I really enjoyed the Legend back-ups--Torch of Liberty in the back of DANGER UNLIMITED and Monkeyman & O'Brien in the original HELLBOY mini-series.

Depends on how far back you go. In the 60s Marvel had several titles that were double features- Amazing Adventures (Black Widow/Inhumans), Strange Tales (Human Torch/Doctor Strange), Tales to Astonish (Giant Man/Hulk), etc. 

In the 70s Marvel mostly used backups and anthologies for reprints, but not always. Marvel's magazine sized anthology books are one of the notable exceptions.  They contained new material that was often very good.

In that respect, although Marvel produced less backup material than DC, I think their strategy was better, because they reprinted great stuff that people would buy, and they didn't package it with garbage.  

I remember buying issues of Marvel Tales that had Lee & Ditko Spiderman stories as the lead feature, with Ditko's early Doctor Strange stories as a backup feature.

I think I still have an issue of Marvel Superheroes that led with a Jack Kirby X-Men story.  The main backup was Daredevi vs. Namor by Wally Wood, and the third feature was a Hulk story with (maybe) the first appearance of the Leader.

Those are much better packages than a really bad Flash story with a 6 or 8 page Firestorm backup, even though Firestorm had early Perez art. Having said that, those Firestorm stories were great, and are exactly the type of hidden gems this thread is about.

In the 80s Marvel seemed to shift strategies again, and started using quarterly anthology books like Marvel Superheroes and various holiday specials to showcase new talent.  Marvel Comics Presents was a notable exception, where they utilized some big name talent on rotating features.