What comic books have you read today? Part two.19596
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michaelekrupp private msg quote post Address this user | |
I bid on a couple of the BVs but I haven’t won any. I did just win a lot of 20 Prince Valiant hardcovers on EBay that I am looking forward to digging into. I think they are supposed to arrive tomorrow! |
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| Post 326 • IP flag post | ||
 Beaten by boat oars
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Studley_Dudley private msg quote post Address this user | |
| From December before I got busy with life. Sable #11-17. Some solid stories here with Sable returning to SE Asia and a story where West German art thieves are gunning for him. Ten issues left in this series and it is a solid follow-up to Mike Grell's original series.        Night Thrasher: Four Control #1-4. Probably a set-up for Night Thrasher's solo series that comes out not too long after the miniseries ends. In any case, it's a well-written tale by Fabian Nicieza, with some inconsistent art by Dave Hoover. Unfortunately, I kept thinking of Batman as NT's back story draws too many parallels. I will say I enjoyed the writing as it pertained to NT attempting to reconcile his business side with his role as a hero and his personal life. Again, well done but just couldn't get the Caped Crusader out of my mind when reading it.     Mephisto vs #1-4. Al Milgrom and John Buscema craft an interesting story where Mephisto is challenging some of the Marvel superteams to look for the right soul to take. Through the process, he collects Susan Storm, Jean Grey, and Rogue before setting his sights on Thor. Long story short, he wants the soul of a god and is able to exploit all the weaknesses of the groups he is going against to do it. More of a psychological take with its exploration of morality and good-evil. Recommend.     |
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| Post 327 • IP flag post | ||
 I'm a McNugget guzzler.
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HeinzDad private msg quote post Address this user | |
I played ketchup the last couple days after I finally finished volume 1 of 100 Bullets. Here are a couple rando's.    Hellblazer concluded. I tend to forget that reading Constantine books one should go with the flow and not analyze everything prematurely. The answers always come at some point without spending so much time re reading to find them.  My normal Spawn goodness.     Incredible Hulk is legitimately my only Marvel title at this point. Boy, is it phenomenal, just give me this one title Marvel.   Aaron TMNT is still awesome.    DSTLRY mags.    I'm not so sure of those but these are continued reads I'll keep purchasing. The Spectragraph 4 is a conclusion that was a great story.    |
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| Post 328 • IP flag post | ||
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I'm a McNugget guzzler.
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HeinzDad private msg quote post Address this user | |
Pardon me, I’m remedial, but this just cracked me up. |
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| Post 329 • IP flag post | ||
 Miss Chanandler Bong
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jake private msg quote post Address this user | |
Pardon for defeating the purpose of this thread, but I plan to read my 3 month stockpile, since I will be home for a couple of weeks. Here is the first stack before I ran out of backing boards.                  |
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| Post 330 • IP flag post | ||
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michaelekrupp private msg quote post Address this user | |
I’ve been spending a lot of time in the world of 1930s newspaper strips lately. Reading the Phantom from the beginning has been fun. I didn’t know that Lee Falk had originally intended the Phantom to be an idle wealthy playboy type of character. Shortly after the series started he got the idea for the undying jungle lord, with the mantle being passed down through successive generations and quickly rerouted. Very highly recommended. I have also been reading Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse from the beginning of his tenure. Fantagraphics has done an excellent job putting this collection together. The background material is amazing and the strips are Mickey at his best. For me, these strips represent the real Mickey: cocky, adventurous, daring, moving from one grand adventure to the next. Also highly recommended.  |
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| Post 331 • IP flag post | ||
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Beaten by boat oars
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Studley_Dudley private msg quote post Address this user | |
Sable #18-27. The final ten issues of the series which ends on somewhat of a cliffhanger. There are two follow-up miniseries from IDW published in the mid-2000s which I am considering picking up. The overarching story is Jon's ex baby trapped him but deuced out because she disapproves of his lifestyle. The lesson is don't stop being who you are because some skirt wants you to be a soft beta bitch. Back to the content, Marv Wolfman takes off after issue 23 and Steven Kaye finishes off the series. The last three issues have a noticeable dip in the art quality. I enjoyed Julia Lacquement's coloring, but she couldn't save the visuals of the last few issues. For the most part, the series captures the spirit of Mike Grell's original series. If you like the first series, this will probably be up your alley.          Zatanna: Bring Down the House #1-5. Telling a story of Zatanna's childhood that impacts her present life, she finds herself having a stage show in Las Vegas while refusing to use magic. Eventually she has to fight a demon and lo, she uses magic again. The story isn't bad, the plot is relatively coherent, and the art is ok but fits the atmosphere of the story. The color palette is pretty cool in this series.      Spider-Man: The Arachnis Project #1-6. Spidey ends up in Washington DC when one of his former ESU professors has a student murdered. The prof ends up being involved with the Life Foundation and the Jury developing a cure for cancer based on some spider stuff. The story is well-paced with Andrew Wildman's art. Wildman's art is for the most part solid. I'm more familiar with his Transformers work so his designs with the Jury and anything mechanical was great. His Venom design was pretty bad but that's ok because Venom is kind of a lame character by this point in the 90s. Spidey fans might enjoy this.       |
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| Post 332 • IP flag post | ||
 I've spent years perfecting my brand of assholery.
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DrWatson private msg quote post Address this user | |
| The 1974 Iron Fist series. It's okay. Nice art. The story is mediocre. I can see why it was cancelled after 15 issues. Suffers from the 70s Stupid Villain Syndrome. Issues 14 and 15 are the best. | ||
| Post 333 • IP flag post | ||
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Studley_Dudley private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by DrWatson That seemed to be the MO with some of those BA series. Ms Marvel, Savage She-Hulk, Thing etc have their moments and some good character development but suffer from the D Squad villains showing up. |
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| Post 334 • IP flag post | ||
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Spider-Man: Lifeline #1-3. A throwback art style by Steve Rude and a solid script by Fabian Nicieza highlight this three-issue series. Hammerhead is looking to use the Lifeline Tablet (apparently something from back in the early ASM run) to become a vessel of omniscient power. Curt Connors/Lizard is helping Hammerhead, albeit reluctantly. Entertaining and recommended read.   Nightcrawler v2 #1-4. Part of the Icons line from the early 2000s. Don't let the cool cover art fool you. The interior art is ass. Bad pencils, too heavy on the inks. What it lacks visually, it makes up for in story as Kurt is looking to stop a human smuggling ring. Refreshing to see a super-hero tackle a more grounded topic that one would think more suited for the Punisher.     Thing: Freakshow #1-4. It begins with a flashback sequence and some self-loathing in the present by Ben. He decides to leave the FF and ends up in MI vice NC by boarding the wrong train. He stumbles into a power struggle between the Kree and Skrulls and hijinks ensue. Definitely a more light-hearted entry into the Icons series.     |
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| Post 335 • IP flag post | ||
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I'm a McNugget guzzler.
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HeinzDad private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I was slacking and didn't post my weekend reads because it was 26 books to scan. My highlights were Hello Darkness 1-6, the new Sabretooth series, and Hellhunters, the latter 2 being the marvel titles I'll continue. Hellhunters is written by Phillip Kennedy Johnson, the writer of the current volume of Hulk. Which is awesome. I'm excited about this one. The low lights were Mystique 1-3, and the creep shows and epitaphs and suspense stories. Those are getting canceled. Here are Sunday thru today. These will catch me up until next week so I'll be onto 100 Bullets volume two until then.   This one really pisses me off. There were 6 issues for the year anthology style. This was the last one with all the stories coming to an end. Turns out one story was printed twice and one story had one page printed. Of course the story missing was my favorite and at 10 bucks a piece I feel like finding someone to bitch at.  These seem to be from across the pond. The cover price is in lbs and the writers have all been British except for Vaughn. I have really enjoyed them, especially for the price. It looks like we have two stories in each book so far.   |
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| Post 336 • IP flag post | ||
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Studley_Dudley private msg quote post Address this user | |
| I've been behind on my pull list for a few months now so getting caught up. Public Domain #10 and Domain #5. The conclusion to this arc of Public Domain (assuming it is an arc because it ends on a cliffhanger), finds the co-creator of Domain at a crossroads as the team wraps up SDCE (SDCC for real-world parlance). This is a good series. Domain #5 is the meta-book related to what they're working in Public Domain, and it looks like creative had fun making this. Both are enjoyable series.   Creepshow #2-4 + 2024 Holiday Special. They're fine but once #5 hits my mailbox, that will probably be it on Creepshow. It's entertaining but a quick read at $4/book and no overarching story make it expendable at this point. Although, this panel in #3 hit close to home       Cauldron of Horror #6. Fun but the art was straight dog crap throughout all segments in this issue.  Spider-Man: Revenge of the Green Goblin #1-3. More of a Norman Osborn story, this story frustrated me at the end due to apparently being a partial cliffhanger continued in two other issues of Spider-Man but by a different creative team. Roger Stern pens a solid main story of Norman attempting to exact revenge on Peter using hallucinogens in toothpaste. You read that right. Norman also finds love. Interesting but should have had a more definitive conclusion.    Chamber #1-4. Chamber goes undercover to attend ESU after several mutant students are bombed. While investigating the incident he does a lot of detective work. The art is decent, but Brian K Vaughn's script is the real winner. He fleshes out a solid story with Chamber leaving no stone unturned to uncover the truth.     Longshot #1-6. The coupe-de-ville of my recent reading excursion. This is an excellent series. Ann Nocenti's writing combined with Arthur Adams' pencils and Christie Scheele's colors make this series. TLDR version is Longshot finds his way to Earth with no memory of who he is while being trailed by Mojo's goons. He spends time uncovering memories and fighting bad guys. Appearances by She-Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Spider-Man don't overshadow Longshot's series. I really want to say how much I appreciate Christie Scheele's color palette on this series. The red-pink for flashbacks, the yellows for Mojoworld, and just the regular colors for present. It all worked. Highly recommended.       |
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| Post 337 • IP flag post | ||
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michaelekrupp private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by Studley_Dudley I wanted to weigh in on this a little bit since I have been reading quite a bit in my Bronze Age Marvel Masterworks lately. I agree that there was some drop off between the Bronze Age and the Silver Age, and a lot of that had to do with stupid villain syndrome. I am not sure if this was because Stan Lee had already sewn up all the good shticks by that point, or if it was just that Lee had a knack for creating memorable foes that is unmatched in subsequent eras. This is not to say that Stan never laid any eggs, but his batting average was exceptional. Another factor that seems to hurt the overall quality of the Bronze Age as compared to the Silver Age is the seemingly endless rotation of writers and artists. In a lot of 70s Marvels, they couldn’t seem to get through a single story arc with the same writer and artist in place. It seems to me that after the restrictions of how many books Marvel could put on the stands was lifted in 1968, they started pumping out as many books as they could, whether or not they had the talent in place to meet the demands that created, particularly after the prolific Lee reduced his output. I’m not knocking them for it, it’s really an example of capitalism at its finest, and I’m certainly not arguing that reading BA comics isn’t worthwhile. I do think there is a noticeable difference, particularly with Marvels, when comparing the two eras and the cause is rooted in those two factors. The best comics of the Bronze Age were the ones that had consistent creative teams for extended periods. In addition to reading BA masterworks, I have also been reading some early SA stuff, particularly X-Men and Avengers from #1 up. My main takeaway here is that the Avengers really weren’t the Avengers until Captain America was added. In the earliest issues they were more like a collection of individuals that really never seemed to gel into a cohesive unit. The addition of Cap was like waving a magic wand. Suddenly they were a team. Not only a team but the greatest team! Amazing! I am not sure why the original X-Men were a sales flop. The early Lee/ Kirby issues are quite good. I would argue that X-Men 1-3 were actually better than Avengers 1-3. I guess the inclusion of the already established characters led more readers to plunk down their 12 cents for Avengers instead. Something else that jumps out at me in rereading these is that Stan Lee was very clearly overworked at this point. He doesn’t appear to have done any proofreading at all. Twice in Avengers #6 he refers to Rick Jones as Rick Brown. In an earlier issue he refers to the Hulk as Dr. Don Blake, and later as Bob Banner. These issues are full of these kind of mental errors. It was obvious that Stan was juggling so many characters and storylines that he was having trouble keeping track.   |
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| Post 338 • IP flag post | ||
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Studley_Dudley private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Still working through the pull list and other stuff. Wolverine: Revenge #3. Logan takes on Colossus and Deadpool in this issue. Good action and a well-written interaction between Logan and Wade. I don't remember if there was a real plot to this story.  Transformers #14-16. Some cool stuff. Some humans find Starscream and attach his remains to a Cobra HISS tank. This creates some humorous moments and Starscream pretending to be thankful to the humans for fixing him. The Combaticons form Bruticus and start brawling with Devastator while a subplot involving Cliffjumper on Cybertron is supposed to result in a new toy/character. So that means the jerkoff flippers will probably buy up all the upcoming issues so that they can buy new sheets for their rented futons while living in their parent's basement. Also, Megatron should be making his long-awaited return.    Marvels #1-4. Surprisingly I've never read this until now. I've had several copies of various issues over the years but never sat down to read it. A great story involving the street-level view of significant GA, SA, and BA events from the Marvel Universe through the eyes of freelance photographer Phil Sheldon. Beautiful art, great writing. There is a real humanity to it and after spending time in the news business, it resonated with me. Highly recommended.     Machine Man #1-4. Ah, the future according to the 1980s! MM is found by a group of salvagers in 2020 and reassembled. MM helps the group against a mean ol' corporation determined to get rid of MM. It's entertaining and Barry Windsor-Smith's art is pretty good throughout. Some sharp copies that I acquired from @esaravo a few years back.     |
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| Post 339 • IP flag post | ||
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michaelekrupp private msg quote post Address this user | |
Hermes Press, the company that has been reprinting the Phantom newspaper strips from the beginning is also doing Mandrake the Magician. The first two volumes are currently available with volume three coming next month. Phil Davis’ art, while pleasing, is not quite up to the standard of Ray Moore’s art on the Phantom, but Mandrake is proving to be an excellent read! Mandrake actually predates the Phantom and there are many who would argue that he is the first super hero in comics. Before I read this volume I was firmly on the side of the Phantom in this conversation. Mandrake, to me, was a magician, a hypnotist and an adventurer, not a super hero. It is true that that is how he had been presented in the stories I had previously read, all of which were from a later era than these 1930s stories. After reading the early adventures, I find my opinion changed. Mandrake clearly possessed super powers, far beyond hypnosis and parlor tricks. In the initial story arc he turns men into pigs, others into bunches of sticks. He brings back from the dead a 7000 year old Egyptian sorcerer to destroy a cloud of flesh eating termites! Clearly this guy had super hero game, way before anyone else. I highly recommend both Mandrake and the Phantom complete newspaper dailies. The books are pricey, no mistake, but they are well worth the price. Delving deeper into the 1930s newspaper comics has been an awesome experience for me. It truly was the golden age of the adventure comic strip. So much quality material is out there waiting to be discovered, with many strips being re-presented in formats that is worthy of the material. |
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| Post 340 • IP flag post | ||
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| As 1963 rolled into 1964, Stan Lee was hard at work on solidifying the concepts and characters presented over the last several years into a single coherent universe. This is clearly evident in Fantastic Four 25-28, which feature guest appearances by almost every Marvel character. In FF 25 the Thing and the Hulk have what is still their greatest battle. The Hulk returns to New York looking to smash the Avengers, who he believes betrayed him by giving him the boot and stealing his sidekick, Rick Jones. He encounters the Human Torch first. The Torch ends up in the hospital from the fight and the Thing shows up to try to stop to stop the rampaging Hulk. Reed Richards is out of the fight with a deadly fever contracted from a strange virus which he came into contact with while trying to concoct a cure for the Thing’s condition. The Thing and the Hulk wage a battle for the ages, tearing up the city as they go. (Apparently there were large swaths of 1960s New York that were abandoned and awaiting demolition.) The Thing tries everything he can, but is unable to defeat the more powerful and tireless Hulk. In issue 26, Reed and the Torch check themselves out of the hospital and rest of the FF join the battle, along with the Avengers. Even the combined might of these two groups cannot subdue the Hulk. Rick Jones saves the day by forcing the Hulk to change back into Bruce Banner, who disappears. In issue 27 the Sub-Mariner returns, and the FF have their first encounter with Dr. Strange. In issue 28 they meet the X-Meh and, after battling each other, join forces to defeat the Mad Thinker and the Puppet Master. The only major Marvel character not to appear in these four issues is Spider-Man, who had previously interacted with the FF and the Torch in particular on numerous occasions (and who definitely didn’t need sales help). Daredevil, who made his debut in the midst of these issues, did not make an appearance, but the FF did appear in the second issue of his mag. It was fun to revisit these issues which, in addition to being great comics, lay the foundation for what we now call the “Marvel Universe”.     |
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