The Comic Book Thread

Grant Morrison was probably the best thing to happen to X-Men. It's a real shame about the circumstances surrounding his run. On the subject of the artist delays, I don't know what Quietly was up to, but I do remember that being the time period of Marvel shoehorning in several new artists. I don't think that applies to New X-Men, I'm really just stretching for an answer here. I can say that I'm glad Morrison continued on with fill-in artists, over giving us The Ultimates treatment of anti-climactic and shoddy writing, with attempted compensation via splash pages.

On the subject of X-Men, I'm torn between Carey and Brubaker's work on their respective X-Books. And god help you if you're enjoying New X-Men Academy. That book is a fucking disaster. Though Joss Whedon's pop dialog is often over the line as far as cute goes to me, I do find it the lesser of two evils. "Two evils" being what I feel are the weaker of the X-Books out right now.

I can pick up Mike Carey's X-Men for what has been a rather action packed ride (I love Chris Bachalo's pencils, though I would call his work on it his best) and Brubaker's exposition is just tops. I'm usually more of a fan of slugfests, so admittedly I have a bias toward what Carey has been working on. Unfortunately, it rolls into the whole "Endangered Species" event and I'm pretty fucking tired of that sort of thing.

The internet isn't broken in half, but I'll forgive Bendis considering he's still more than just competent, and these crossovers are probably designed with "It prints money" in mind.

Eh, moving on, Matt Fraction's Punisher and Immortal Iron Fist are highly enjoyable, check your pulse if you have been ignoring them. Especially Iron Fist. Witchblade has actually been enjoyable under the hand of Ron Marz. Though he did change the owner of the Witchblade in a move similar to the whole Hal Jordan to Kyle Rayner event, he did turn the book around.

Moving away from the big two, my favorite comics out right now are Fell (Warren Ellis apparently saves his "A-Game" for this book) and Casanova (this one was recommended by a blog, most of my current pulls save for Fell are, and I haven't been disappointed). I'm getting into the short, self-contained stories these two comics represent. Both have excellent bonus content, showcasing art or how stories were put together, the ideas behind each issue.

More importantly, they're good comics. That's what we want, right?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Mucknuggle

New X-Men is a very solid title, I don't know why you dislike it so much.

The body count. I remember checking into X-23 and it basically revolving around "horrible things that happen to X-23." I really can't stand how a book about young X-Men can be so hopeless and contain so much death. The stories and the way they are told manage to be a turn-off to me, though I don't want to come off as a prude and blindly bash it I just can't recommend it. I can't make what I said earlier less abrasive, though I do want to say it really is hard for me to endorse or even be passive about the title. It is everything, I feel, that a comic of that nature shouldn't be. They're teenagers and I'm pretty tired of seeing this kind of stuff. I mean, Geoff Johns and Young Justice comes to mind when I think of New X-Men Academy.

And I completely forgot about Ultimate X-Men. Of all the Ultimate books, I found it to be the most inconsistent. I mean, my thoughts on Mark Millar aside, it was just hard to get seated in and read whole arcs. It just felt all over the place. I was interested in what Kirkman was going to do with Cable, though admittedly the whole "Future Wolverine" thing was a curve ball I wasn't quite able to deal with. What do you think of the book? Why so high on the list? Inquiring minds and such!

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Dwayne McDuffie's going to be writing JLA. Also, Mark Waid is back on "The Flash." Great news, unless you weren't a fan of Mark Waid's previous Flash run, I heard it wasn't well received. I can't think of a reason not to like McDuffie on JLA.

Quote:

Also, unless I'm mixing books up, Nightcrawler is currently getting into big trouble with the Morlocks in the Ult. book.

I know that Uncanny has some Morlock related event coming up, I think it's a gray area at this point.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I'm waiting for the conclusion for Secret Invasion. Bendis can do mini-series, but he's writing for the trade on this one, I feel. I say we talk Final Crisis instead, because holy shit. I've currently read or have been following Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol, The Immortal Iron Fist, the big 2's current big events, All Star Superman, and Batman R.I.P. There are a few others I've read, but nothing I've been too focused on compared to the above. Genius won Pilot Season, so I'm fairly excited about that.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

There were actually 2 winners for Pilot Season, Genius and Twilight Guardian.

If you're not reading Brubaker's Captain America at the moment, you're missing out. A second plug goes to Iron Fist in that regard. If you passed on Civil War, you didn't really miss much of anything, though Secret Invasion is decent payoff given the lead up with Mighty Avengers and New Avengers. Dan Slott is fixing to pick up Mighty Avengers after Bendis, but the idea of Reckoning War makes my stomach turn and Slott isn't one of my favorite writers in any case.

Things at Marvel are solid as ever, though Final Crisis is definitely one of my favorite books at the moment. I don't read much independent these days, but that's mostly due to the ol' comic store being pretty far from my location. I'm mostly doing a lot of catch up in any case.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Green Lantern is pretty stupid at the moment. Pick up Batman or Ultimate Spider-Man or Blue Beetle or something not stupid if you need a superhero book.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by Zip

Brand new day sucked tho..

This man will only recommend you garbage.

Invincible from Image is a good superhero comic as well, that's what Zip was trying to reference while trying to tell you not to read something good.

FELIPE NO

Spidey is young again. Harp on continuity all you want (because it's meaningless), Brand New Day is fun to read. Yes, there are things that don't quite mesh with continuity, but this is the new status quo. Peter has his best friend back, is single, has a bunch of new but somehow similar problems to deal with... it's Spider-Man.

If the only thing you can throw at it is "It doesn't match up with the past few years", then you're missing the whole point of "The past few years haven't exactly been all that great." Brand New Day is worth your time, if you want to talk about how we got here, then you're not talking about Brand New Day and you want to have a discussion about continuity patch comics which is dumb.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Interrobang

It's that they threw out a large plot element of the last twenty years just so we could have a terrible redux of '70s "single and swinging" Spidey. It's not "fun". It's just crappy repackaging with additional retarded elements (Jackpot), most of which the nonexistence of the marriage is irrelevant to.

You're still talking about continuity, though.

Trying to call the book something it isn't is also excellent comedy. To say this book reads like it's from the 70s is a nice attempt at that (and a point), but ultimately how does this read like it's from the 70s? Because the material is similar in nature? I hate to break it to you, but cries of "It could have been interesting" regarding where Spidey was previously don't mean anything, because what we were getting was anything but.

You have a new and interesting cast of characters, and a hard reboot. This is the new status quo, accept it or stop buying the book. But don't try to justify your choice by calling the book something it isn't.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Long Halloween was good... it's all downhill for Loeb after that. Honestly, you can't look at his recent work and say it's been anything but painful, but we should spare Loeb the attention (unless it's gonna be hilarious jabbing like Ultimate Edit week at 4thletter).

Edit: Actually, I thought Spirit and Batman crossover was good.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Hush was mostly fluff, I'd kick it for being a mediocre story (though I did enjoy it and still could as a stand alone story). In the overall scheme of things Batman, it only introduced Hush, everything else was just so... unnecessary, all the villains appearing in this convoluted epic for no other reason than to be there for a dumb reason. You'll see the thinking and planning regarding plots just sort of dissolve for Loeb as his work goes on. I definitely recommend reading more stuff of his if you need to see how he fell off.

Most amazing jew boots

Wasn't one of my favorite works by Morrison, to be honest. If only because of how difficult it is to finish the damn thing. But it is worth finishing.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth

That's the book.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I finished up Secret Invasion 8 recently. If you dig Bendis' work as well as Marvel's current works with status quo, you'll likely enjoy what this books sets up for. However, the more important question is "Are you reading Hellcat, GFF?" If you aren't, do yourself a favor and pick it up so as to see what you've been missing out on. Books like Captain America and Immortal Iron Fist are constantly passed up for the "important tie-in" books we've been conditioned to read, so now's a good time to throw a shout out to your favorite solo character books as we transition into Dark Reign and some new single character comics such as War Machine and Deadpool.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?