Comics - what are you reading?, your thoughts Options

[Everlong]

Kapow! ComicCon, London Business Design Centre 9th-10th April 2011

Mark Millar has been tweeting about it these last couple of weeks. I'm personally going to wait to see what other guests will be there (though it's looking good already) but I thought you guys would like to know, if you hadn't already heard about it.

[ella]

Cheers Everlong - will probably have a wander along to that.

Steve and I have recently decided that our relationship has reached the level that we can make the hige commitment of pooling our comic collections.... ;-)

Seemingly the only comic vendor in the Thames Valley area is a stall on the Saturday market in Wycombe. We have bought him out of bags and boards and now have a nicely stored collection of about 350 between us. Mostly Image, plenty of DC and the odd Marvel and Indie. Spent Steve's birthday in the comic shops of Manchester adding to the collection as well. DMZ, the Walking Dead and Spirit being the newest additions. Along with the start of Northlanders, a chunk of Lobo and Fray from the lovely market comic man.

[Ade]

While comics have never really been 'my bag', I am currently galloping my way through The Walking Dead series that my friend lent me - six volumes out of ten already - good stuff. Can't wait for Darabont's adaptation to arrive on DVD.

[Starscream`s Gho...]

I've been catching up on Green Lantern, seeing as I've started to purchase it regularly now, starting with the Sinestro Corps War and Blackest Night.

It's very good.

[monkeyman]

Can you recommend some good story arcs for GL? I've been interested in getting into it for a while but I'm not sure where to start.

I've been reading a lot of comics recently. Might post my thoughts later.

[Silky]

100 bullets is quite possibly my absolute favourite. Followed very closely by Fables.

Also a huge fan of The Walking Dead, Preacher, and Hellblazer.
A friend of mine used to hang out with Garth Ennis. True story.

This post has been edited by Silky: Feb 22 2011, 04:32 PM

[Sostie]

I honestly thought Crossed and the follow up Crossed: Family Values pushed the depravity envelope as far as it could go. Wrong. The new seies Crossed: Psychopath opens with a moving depiction of a gang bang involving 4 men, a vulture and a dead stag!

[NiteFall]

I just finished reading Stormwatch, and it really does undergo a noticeable increase in quality when Warren Ellis takes over and starts setting up for Planetary and The Authority.

[Silky]

The new seies Crossed: Psychopath opens with a moving depiction of a gang bang involving 4 men, a vulture and a dead stag!

Just an average night out in Essex there.
Not even a weekend.

[GundamGuy_UK]

I went on a Batman binge and bought Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, Arkham Asylum, and Long Halloween.

I just need to get The Killing Joke now.
Anything else you guys would recommend?

This post has been edited by GundamGuy_UK: Feb 24 2011, 04:44 AM

[Silky]

I went on a Batman binge and bought Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, Arkham Asylum, and Long Halloween.

I just need to get The Killing Joke now.
Anything else you guys would recommend?

All those ones. Secrets is pretty good. As is Gotham by Gaslight, a 'what-if' Victorian Batman.

[monkeyman]

I really enjoyed "Hush" Joe.

spoilers ahead probably. 

Old Man Logan
Its the future, Wolverine has aged, his healing factor has degraded, nearly all the heroes have been killed and Logan won't fight for a reason you don't find out until later. 
Mostly good, at least in terms of concepts and some of the events. Mark Millars dialogue and narrative text is nearly always terrible and it's no different here but the overall story, and especially the event that occurs that makes Logan never want kill again was awesome. It did end a bit flatly though

Exiles
A bit like Sliders or Quantum leap. Marvel heroes are pulled out of their realities to help fix anomalies in reality that could cause the end of realities/universes. Once the problem in one reality is fixed they teleport to the next to fix it. If one of the members dies they are replaced by someone else. 
This was 100 issues long and I'd say about 85 of them are really damn good, evoking some of the same feelings I got when reading the Age of Apocalypse saga for the first time. 
In other places some of the arcs go on too long, or seem pointless or are just dumb; and towards the end of the run the writing is awful, characters act and talk differently from how they have in previous comics and it's quite jarring. 

I guess it suffers slightly from the fact that some of the roster is always changing, so you care less for newer members until they are inevitably replaced; Morph is never (really) replaced though and it's always great reading a comic with Morph in. 

Oh it also suffers a bit from the fact that between issue 99 and 100 there is a crossover comic (5 issues "X-men die by the sword") you are supposed to read to understand the 100th issue, I didn't have these at the time so it felt like such a damp crappy way to end.

There are lots of cool moments: John Proudstar (turned into War by Apocalypse) defeating The Hulk, Sabretooth becoming "The Silver Sabretooth", Hyperion in every comic he's in. Proteus messing everyones day up,a world of Wolverines, Galactus the healer of earths...

Excellent overall. And really cool seeing alternate reality versions of well known heroes/villains (much like in AoA [In fact Blink and Sabretooth from AoA feature predominantly]).  

World War Hulk
Meeeehhh. 
Excellent idea, executed terribly. 
Basically in the comics (Planet Hulk) preceding this collection; Stephen Strange, Tony Stark, Reed Richards and Black Bolt trick the Hulk into entering a ship which they fire into space, it's meant to land on a planet empty of "intelligent life" and just have plants and animals, it somehow ends up landing on a planet full of warriors ruled by a king who makes the Hulk fight in gladiatorial battles. 
The Hulk eventually kills him, becomes king, gets a wife and knocks her up; then the ship he arrived in explodes killing his wife, unborn child and millions of others. 
He blamed Stark etc so heads to earth for vengeance. 
It's just shoddy. I read it expecting to see some cool fights but there's barely any, or they happen "off screen". 
Hulk goes to Black Bolt first, Black Bolt uses the full extent of his power, we see the Hulk getting knocked back....then it essentially cuts to New York and Hulk holding Black Bolts battered body up threatening to do the same thing to the world if Stark etc don't hand themselves over.  
I wanted to see the fight and how the Hulk beat him. There are some cool fights but there's far too much of that. And the series really consists of so many crossover comics with the art and writing all over the place I just didn't really enjoy it. 
Hayleigh and I had a good laugh at the sound effects when he's fighting sentry at the end. I believe one of them was "Vajzzzzzzzzzzz"

Just read the Wikipedia Synopsis, it's better. 

Batman: Year One
Excellent read (Tis only 4 issues), I didn't realise how much Batman Begins had taken from it. Gordon is a badass too. 

The Dark Knight Returns
I read this a long time ago and didn't remember much of it. 
It's very good, even if the art Is a bit  dated. It's always fun to see Batman beating the shit out of Superman. 

The Dark Knight Strikes Again
It's a sequel to Dark Knight returns and it's bloody awful. Terrible writing, story and the art in particular was just horrible. There's a few good moments like the start with the atom fighting bacteria in a Petri dish and a few other interesting concepts but mostly; it was just a disappointing mess. 

I started reading the Knightfall saga (the one where Bane breaks Batmans back). I thought I'd read this before but I don't recognise any of it. I was trying to figure out why Batman was wearing an armband with the Superman symbol on it then realised it must be taking place at the same time (well, just after) the Death of Superman. So I've decided I'm going to read that next and then hop back over to Batman and read No-Mans land.
Knightfall is awesome right up until Bane Is defeated by Azreal and now I've just lost all interest. I'll probably stick with it as I want to see Bruce Waynes return to Batman, but it's become a bit boring. 
Also, in places it's incredibly camp. 

Uh....apologies for the big Walls of text and probably using the words "good", "cool" and "excellent" far too much.  

[Starscream`s Gho...]

Can you recommend some good story arcs for GL? I've been interested in getting into it for a while but I'm not sure where to start.

I started off with the 'Sinestro Corps War' special, which then led on to GL #21. Then onto all of Blackest Night. (It's all in TPB, I found it online too if you want to try before you buy).

[Hobbes]

I went on a Batman binge and bought Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, Arkham Asylum, and Long Halloween.

I just need to get The Killing Joke now.
Anything else you guys would recommend?

Killing Joke, Long Halloween and DKR are all absolutely excellent. If you like Long Halloween, check out Dark Victory, which is another Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale collaboration which I enjoyed very much.

[GundamGuy_UK]

Thanks for the recommendations, guys. I'm probably just going to read those four and then buy another batch of four or five after that.

I might get The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen too, because I've been wanting to read it for a while now. That's two books, isn't it?