good afternoon all. first time here so it’s kinda funky being the first one to post on the thread. i just got my stash this morning and already read thru the highlights and feel like shiring my thoughts.
battle for the cowl 2: ahhh.. interm batman begins.. Dark Bats vs. Timbats. (canadian pun and nightwing VS. himself.
the good thing about this series is that it gives us a chance to see what the main characters actually do when they’ve lost thier father figure/support crutch. some step up.. and some, like gordon, realize that they’ve really let bats take up a lot of the slack.
my HOPES are that this really opens the door for a spring cleaning of the bat-universe and that some of the more positive elements such as robin becoming more assertive and alfred using his espionoge background stick.
it’ll be interesting to see what happens once Bruce comes back.
Exiles: ahhh finally we’re back on mission. i love ****** as the new timebroker and look forward to the next issue of exiles for the first time in a while.
Booster gold: the best book some of you have never read. (can you tell i like time jumping and alternate realities?)
they’ve taken a character that i would have considered unusable after the 90’s Justice League and done remarkable things with him. i would like to see them play around with the new multiverse a little more but that’s just the 70’s geekboy in me wanting to see if there’s an earth-1 out there.
not much stands out from Marvel this time other then the aforementioned Exiles and yet another installment of Marvel Zombies. i suppose i’m waiting for it to stop dark reigning and the sun to come out.
i haven’t read the first issue of the new Mike Grell warlord series or the deadpool:suicide kings yet so i’ll wait to post on them.
thanks for reading my babble.
TRINITY – Still fun, traditional super-heroics.
SECRET SIX – not so guilty pleasure. Especially loved Rag Doll’s dream.
GREEN LANTERN – I’d be more impressed if Johns wrote the Guardians with a modicuum of intelligence.
Dark Reign: Hawkeye – Alright, I gotta get this one off my chest. Say what you will about Civil War but one of its successes was complicating the moral landscape of superheroes. Iron Man wasn’t a bad guy. You might have disagreed with him, but he was still in the business of saving lives. Dark Reign took that complexity and gutted it entirely.
And to what end? To make superheroes lives more miserable? They were always bad! Iron Man wasn’t planting daisies in the (fantastic) Iron Man: Director of Shield series. Gwen Stacy didn’t need a crossover to get chucked off a bridge. Betty Ross got cancer all in one series (and she stayed dead gosh darned it). The real motivation, it seems, was to engage in a fetishistic adventure with villains dressed up as heroes.
I read other books but this one took all the steam out of me. And the worst part is I know I didn’t discuss the book on its own. The premise just bothers me too much.
Hmmm… I don’t think Dark Reign is particularly “gutting” anything set up by Civil War, in fact – to me – it seems like quite a plausible continuation of the themes that started therein.
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One of the things I’ve really enjoyed at Marvel over the past few years is the sense of overall cohesion there’s been, almost a sense that issues of individual titles come together to form chapters of a bigger cross title book that is part of an even larger ongoing series of books… Which probably works well for the trade-waiters, and is part of what puts Marvel streets ahead of DC for me.
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This particular five parter does have a distinct aroma of cash-cow about it, the protagonist is 101% unlikable, there’s a real risk of it turning into some tacky gore and violence blood-fest, and I’m not totally enamoured of how Norman is handles in his scenes, but in terms of seeing how the concept behind Dark Avengers is almost inevitably going to bite him in the ášš big-time it’s still interesting, and offers a scope for looking at that which would probably be cramped if it was shoe-horned into one of the ongoing titles.
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Cheers.
What I find more problematic with the going from Disassembled to House of M to Civil War to Planet Hulk to Secret Invasion to Dark Reign is that because Marvel is so interested in jumping from big storyline to big storyline that I’m not sure any of the specific stories have been allowed to fulfill their proper impact.
Planet Hulk was a complete bust, imo, because things basically went back to The Way It Was before the event started. Civil War has now also all but been chucked aside for Dark Reign – now Iron Man has to basically join the other side to fend off an even bigger jáçkášš in Osborn.
It now feels like Secret Invasion’s main purpose was to set up Dark Reign, rather than be important on its own. It, too, fell flat. (And I’m still waiting to see if they can explain apparent-Skrully-Mockingbird’s death in Avengers West Coast #100.)
Worse still was Spider-Man unmasking in Civil War. Marvel and Joe Q promised great stories after the fact. Instead, they went with the worst stories I can recall in One More Day, and all that promise of unmasked Spidey stories was waved off with a middle finger to the fans.
About the only thing that’s stuck is House of M and the lack of mutants. A bit overkill on how far they reduced the numbers, but all the follow up stuff has been very enjoyable. I’m genuinely curious to see where Messiah War goes.
One footnote about current X-universe though that I find awfully amusing: Cyclops has become defacto war leader for the mutant race. And yet, I recently re-read some stuff from the early 90’s: the big re-alignment that saw the launch of X-Men, New Mutants becoming X-Force, the “All New, All Different” X-Factor. What happened in there? Cable clamoring for mutants to become more militaristic and work to save themselves. It only took Marvel almost 20 years to actually following up on that. 😀
I think there’s an inherent Catch 22 in terms of how much lasting impact stuff like WWHuh? and Secret Infusion can have if you want to keep the “heroes in the real world” riff going and in a genre that (allegedly) picks up a new audience every few years. You either end up with what Ultimatum, Wildstorm and Squadron Supreme have done to their ‘worlds’ or you have to come back closer to the old status quo. I think the ‘books in the series’ hang together as well as is humanly possible within those constraints and there’s still a feel that what happened, has stayed happened.
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Apart of course from BND, OMD, OMFG. 🙁 You’re preaching to the choir there, mate. They missed a wonderful opportunity to look at how famous people live and get treated in society, which I think would have made for at least a year of interesting stories… I can follow the sales logic of “lets keep it simple and accessible for a new teen audience”, but this long term inmate has voted with his wallet and no longer buys any Spidey titles, so, Marvel please note, you really do win some and lose some…
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Cyclops.. this is not the Cyclops I knew and loved. Having him be a Skrull would have made soooo much sense. Having people think he was a Skrull would have at least made some sense. On t’other hand, the sense that he’s building a cult mutant militia in that California compound and the organic ways that can tie into Norman dropping the HAMMER on them has me really looking forward to the X-Men/Avengers stuff that’s in the pipeline…
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Cheers.
Yeah, I’m with Craig here. These Marvel events are getting out of hand, and each one is more poorly conceived and written than the last. Marvel is really alienating me because of them, to the point where I’m now down to just four Marvel books, and they’re all ones that take place on the fringes of the Marvel Universe (X-Factor, Runaways, Nova, and Guardians of the Galaxy). It also doesn’t help that they’re putting out like 90 books a month, which seems to dilute the line. It’s like the early ’90s all over again (except Fabian Nicieza isn’t writing half of them).
picked up the previews and was shocked at the amount of Dark Reign $3.99 mini series coming out in the next few months. Marvel has really gotten gready and as a fan of Dark Reign its going to be hard for me to pick and choose, but choose I must.
Loved Green Lantern and the intro to Orange Lantern.
Liked Booster Gold
Batman Battle for the Cowl was confusing for someone who hasnt read the RIP storyline (didnt he die in Crisis?)
Orange Lantern?
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Oooookay… I haven’t read any GL solo titles in, literally, years, so no right to mock or criticise but that sounds really, really, incredibly dire when you come across it cold.
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Yet I do love sf, and am thorughly enjoying the current Marvel re-vamping of it’s off-world characters… Anybody want to give, or point me at, the spoiler-light cuff notes on what’s happening in GL, or suggest the required reading list?
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Cheers
If you truly want the entire story of Green Lantern, you have to start with Green Lantern: Rebirth from 2004-5, then read all the trades after that. That is quite a few.
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But the shortest way to get current is to start with Sinestro Corps War, from 2007.
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And, of course, the easiest way is to read about it online. The problem with reading about stories online is that Spoilers abound. You will know all about the story without ever enjoying the reading experience. Cliff’s Notes are excellent ways to find out about classic stories, but there is no reading experience to enjoy. The twists and turns, the dread of doom, the suspense of the cliffhangers…that’s what makes stories enjoyable.
I think the overload of DR minis is one reason I decided to skip nearly them all, even though some looked good. I think I will wait for trades to see if they’re worth it.
Green Lantern–another excellent read.
Ascension 1, not what I expected, but I trust DnA to pull this off.
I picked up Showcase Presents the Doom Patrol Vol. 1; the Quantum and Woody “Holy S-Word, We’re Cancelled” trade and the Overstreet Comicbook Price Guide.
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I first learned of the Doom Patrol in the pages of New Teen Titans (#13), and was impressed to learn that they’d died some years earlier; and Holy Uncle Ben, Batman, had stayed dead. I’d only begun my comics collecting (as opposed to picking up sporadic titles here and there from time to time) with New Teen Titans #9; and while I had already encountered the concepts of Earth 1 and Earth 2, learning about the Doom Patrol opened up the DC universe even more for me.
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I have a digest-sized reprint of the first Doom Patrol story (and years later picked up the Grant Morrison run (I didn’t like the Paul Kupperberg retcon that instead of Robotman being the only survivor, Elasti-Girl was the only fatality, but I liked where Morrison took the book once he took over)), but, to the best of my recollection, haven’t read any of the other stories reprinted in that Showcase collection. I look forward to reading these adventures of this team I first learned of in the pages of New Teen Titans, which was long my favorite title.
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I enjoyed the Quantum and Woody trade I got last week, so when I saw another, I figured why not?
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As to the Overstreet Price Guide, I got it mostly out of habit and tradition. I don’t really need it, as I’m not planning (and never do) to make any large purchases or sell huge chunks of my collection. But I’ve always enjoyed seeing the photos of books I’d never likely see “in person”, like various golden age titles. And very often the articles about some aspect of comics history were both interesting and informative.
Besides, it’s a once-a-year purchase.
Anyway, I’ve been buying the Price Guide every year since #12 in 1982 (my Grandmother bought #11 for me (apparently right under my nose) as a birthday present at a small comic show at a local mall the previous year). I suspect I’ll keep buying it in years to come.
Rick
My own early experience with the Doom Patrol was mostly the same as Rick’s (read the new Teen Titans story and then read the digest. Not sure when I first learned about the New Doom Patrol, but I *think* it was before the Ambush Bug story reprinted 2 weeks ago in the Bug’s own volume. I no longer own the digest, which may be an asset now that I have the Showcase volume, as stories I’ve already read will probably seem new to me with the passage of time.
Also finally got the Marvel Universe A-Z hardocver v7. Mille the Model fans should love her updated entry, and Mephisto now has 6 pages.
Picked up “Showcase Presents The Doom Patrol”, and it’s really interesting, looking at that first story in light of Morrison’s eventual big reveal about the team’s origin. It’s surprising just how well Morrison’s shocking, “everything you know is wrong!” retcon fits with the very first story as written.
I’m about 300 pages into it now, and enjoying it. Those who say that Silver Age fans are all about nostalgia can take note of the fact that I’m reading this stuff for the first time, and think it’s better than about 75% of what’s currently being published. 🙂
Doom Patrol were great fun characters back in the 60’s, managed to miss out completely on the ‘relevance revamp’ of the 70’s, were bášŧárdìšëd into a poor copy of the X-Men in the 80’s and were very interesting in the 90’s for the first half of Grant Morrison’s run, before he got his head quite so far up his own rear-end…
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Those who enjoyed the GM DP might like to check out The Umbrella Academy minis from Dark Horse.
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I’ve been cutting back my pull list due to a lack of fun money, but I had to check out the 2099 book on the stands this week. Anybody else here try it out? I found the issue to be about a 5 of 10 overall, as there probably aren’t 2 characters in the world I’d rather see in a comic then Wolverine and Spider-man.
That being said, it was nice to see a return of Tyler Stone, Kron, Alchemax, Miguel O’Hara, Hulk 2099, Shakti Haddad, etc. If I remember correctly, Peter David did some of the best work in the original 2099 Universe.
Does anybody else miss that stuff as much as I do?
Northlanders is highly recommended, but be warned that it is not super-heroes.
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I’m looking forward to Green Lantern, Solomon Grundy (7-issue mimi-series), and Warlord (written by series creator Mike Grell).
So, end of a particularly crap week here, what do we have in the way of divertissements…
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Joint highlight award goes to Echo 11 and The Sword 16, two indie books striking quite similar chords… I love Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise, never felt he really had the right voice for Runaways, but am thoroughly enjoying Echo. Luna Bros; loved Ultra, lost the will to live about halfway through Girls but think The Sword is pretty nifty. Both books seem to benefit from being (I’m assuming) finite books with beginning, middle and end, both books pack a few minutes of action into these issues yet neither one leaves the reader feeling short changed… Ðámņ good stuff!
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Captain Britain/MI-13 would have made it a three way split at the top, but I’m just not buying into the whole Dracula/Vampires shtick this time around. I’ll stick with the book and hope they get back to more interesting stuff soon.
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War of Kings – Ascension is not bad… I’d like to know a bit more about who is ascending to what, but all things in good time I guess. Catastrophus is a bloody silly name though, even for this genre…
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Three for the chop though, Daredevil Noir is saying nothing new, Exiles v4 1 just hits the big red reset button on everything, and Savage She-Hulk is something I would have called clicheed 10 years ago… It’s unlikely I’ll continue with any of these.
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Annoyance of the week is that Warren Ellis’ Ignition City apparently hadn’t come in by the time I hit the shop. One to look for in the coming days.
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Fanboy guilty pleasure of the week is (bizarrely) Pride & Prejudice 1, something so inately surreal that I just had to give it a shot, and quite enjoyed it. P&P seems to be striking various chords in the unusual media, there was a TV series over here called Lost in Austen, apparently now optioned as a movie, and there’s a book out that I pretty much have to read: http://www.amazon.com/Pride-Prejudice-Zombies-Classic-Ultraviolent/dp/1594743347
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Speaking of TV series, there’s a new Doctor Who special airing over here on Saturday, as well as a three part Red Dwarf episode airing on three nights over the easter holiday. Obviously, all you copyright respecting download avoiding chaps will have to wait simply ages for these to air over there, but at least it’s something to look forward to eventually…
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On which note of Britannic smugness,
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Cheers 😛
Well, many of us American Who fans have been taking ‘red eye flights’ (as some of us have termed it) for several years now. We’re an impatient lot. 😉
As in “Aye, right…” no doubt 🙂 At least that’s one mystery plausibly explained…
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After 35(ish) years of seeing most of da good stuff being published, released or aired over there long before it sometimes washes up in the UK, I’ll take whatever small victories I can on those once in a blue polka-dotted moon days that such a thing is reversible, with a tiny side-order of schadenfreude to go.. 😛
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Cheers.
Argh! Stash Friday is not a stash day when Friday is a holiday!
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Okay, so what have I read since last week…?
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The latest Franklin Richards one-shot: Never as funny as Calvin & Hobbes was (but then, what is?) but still an amusing diversion every single time.
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Star Trek – Mission’s End: Serviceable. However, I was led to believe (I think it’s somewhere in the title…) that this series chronicles the end of Kirk et al’s Five Year Mission. This story is set before Gary Mitchell went all Phoenix. Now, I’m guessing this is just some sort of lead-up (and the final page certainly implies that) but there’s nothing – absolutely nothing – to suggest that this is anything other than an untold tale of very-young-Kirk.
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JSA: I’m dropping this as it no longer has any interest for me. And, honestly, if Power Girl’s getting her own book, why do I need the rest of the JSA? 😉
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Irredeemable: Okay. Not the greatest thing ever written, nor even the greatest thing Mark Waid’s ever written, but I’m interested enough to see what happens next.
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Flash Rebirth: I totally ignored GL Rebirth a few years back (although I’ve heard it’s quite good) but I was interested in this because of its ties to Crisis (the first one – the good one). Pretty much a set-up issue although Ethan Van Scriver’s art is gorgeous. It’s a pity the colourist wasn’t putting in half as much effort 🙁
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And Peter J Poole – I hate you.
(We MIGHT get our new Doctor Who before Christmas….)
I believe the phrase I’m looking for is “Bwahahahaha…!”
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Cheers 🙂
For ST: Mission’s End, the first issue takes place at the start of the 5-year mission but issue two takes place 5 years later
David
Sorry for the out of topic message, just curious:
Any chance you’ll be blogging the TSCC finale PAD?
Secret Six #8: a lot of fun like the previous issues. Deviant sex*, deviant sex and violence (not necessarily related but not necessarily not related), what more can you decently ask ? Of course, all this would be irrelevant without strong characterization and it’s what we get here. The Tiny Titans homage is another strong point so go and support this title already !
Booster Gold was a lot of fun, the strongest script that Jurgens has turned in so far. This book has been hit and miss since Johns and Katz left, but I think it’s going in the right direction.
Battle for the Cowl 2 was instantly forgettable. It’s not bad, but I think we don’t need three months of “woe is me, I am the lost Nightwing, should I be Batman.”
My favorites this week (sing with me now):
Spider-Monkey– I admit it. I love Marvel Apes. I never read Marvel Zombies but am looking forward to Marvel Apes vs. Marvel Zomibes. Though I think it might just be a pit stop in the Zombies trying to reach Earth 616.
And while I got it a month late:
The Life and Times of Savior 27 #1. This was a tough book to get. My comic shop guys are usually very good. However I got the same type of run around on Savior 27 that many fans here get on Fallen Angel and the late lamented Soulsearchers and Company. The weekday clerks told me it didn’t exist or that Diamond didn’t carry it. I find this odd because it is probably one of the best stories to come from J.M. Dematies (without Keith Giffen) since Kraven’s Last Hunt. I was out at a comic show last weekend and found it for a buck. So on Wednesday I brought it with me to the comic store and told them: ‘See, it exists. Order it from now on.’
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good afternoon all. first time here so it’s kinda funky being the first one to post on the thread. i just got my stash this morning and already read thru the highlights and feel like shiring my thoughts.
battle for the cowl 2: ahhh.. interm batman begins.. Dark Bats vs. Timbats. (canadian pun and nightwing VS. himself.
the good thing about this series is that it gives us a chance to see what the main characters actually do when they’ve lost thier father figure/support crutch. some step up.. and some, like gordon, realize that they’ve really let bats take up a lot of the slack.
my HOPES are that this really opens the door for a spring cleaning of the bat-universe and that some of the more positive elements such as robin becoming more assertive and alfred using his espionoge background stick.
it’ll be interesting to see what happens once Bruce comes back.
Exiles: ahhh finally we’re back on mission. i love ****** as the new timebroker and look forward to the next issue of exiles for the first time in a while.
Booster gold: the best book some of you have never read. (can you tell i like time jumping and alternate realities?)
they’ve taken a character that i would have considered unusable after the 90’s Justice League and done remarkable things with him. i would like to see them play around with the new multiverse a little more but that’s just the 70’s geekboy in me wanting to see if there’s an earth-1 out there.
not much stands out from Marvel this time other then the aforementioned Exiles and yet another installment of Marvel Zombies. i suppose i’m waiting for it to stop dark reigning and the sun to come out.
i haven’t read the first issue of the new Mike Grell warlord series or the deadpool:suicide kings yet so i’ll wait to post on them.
thanks for reading my babble.
TRINITY – Still fun, traditional super-heroics.
SECRET SIX – not so guilty pleasure. Especially loved Rag Doll’s dream.
GREEN LANTERN – I’d be more impressed if Johns wrote the Guardians with a modicuum of intelligence.
Dark Reign: Hawkeye – Alright, I gotta get this one off my chest. Say what you will about Civil War but one of its successes was complicating the moral landscape of superheroes. Iron Man wasn’t a bad guy. You might have disagreed with him, but he was still in the business of saving lives. Dark Reign took that complexity and gutted it entirely.
And to what end? To make superheroes lives more miserable? They were always bad! Iron Man wasn’t planting daisies in the (fantastic) Iron Man: Director of Shield series. Gwen Stacy didn’t need a crossover to get chucked off a bridge. Betty Ross got cancer all in one series (and she stayed dead gosh darned it). The real motivation, it seems, was to engage in a fetishistic adventure with villains dressed up as heroes.
I read other books but this one took all the steam out of me. And the worst part is I know I didn’t discuss the book on its own. The premise just bothers me too much.
Hmmm… I don’t think Dark Reign is particularly “gutting” anything set up by Civil War, in fact – to me – it seems like quite a plausible continuation of the themes that started therein.
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One of the things I’ve really enjoyed at Marvel over the past few years is the sense of overall cohesion there’s been, almost a sense that issues of individual titles come together to form chapters of a bigger cross title book that is part of an even larger ongoing series of books… Which probably works well for the trade-waiters, and is part of what puts Marvel streets ahead of DC for me.
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This particular five parter does have a distinct aroma of cash-cow about it, the protagonist is 101% unlikable, there’s a real risk of it turning into some tacky gore and violence blood-fest, and I’m not totally enamoured of how Norman is handles in his scenes, but in terms of seeing how the concept behind Dark Avengers is almost inevitably going to bite him in the ášš big-time it’s still interesting, and offers a scope for looking at that which would probably be cramped if it was shoe-horned into one of the ongoing titles.
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Cheers.
What I find more problematic with the going from Disassembled to House of M to Civil War to Planet Hulk to Secret Invasion to Dark Reign is that because Marvel is so interested in jumping from big storyline to big storyline that I’m not sure any of the specific stories have been allowed to fulfill their proper impact.
Planet Hulk was a complete bust, imo, because things basically went back to The Way It Was before the event started. Civil War has now also all but been chucked aside for Dark Reign – now Iron Man has to basically join the other side to fend off an even bigger jáçkášš in Osborn.
It now feels like Secret Invasion’s main purpose was to set up Dark Reign, rather than be important on its own. It, too, fell flat. (And I’m still waiting to see if they can explain apparent-Skrully-Mockingbird’s death in Avengers West Coast #100.)
Worse still was Spider-Man unmasking in Civil War. Marvel and Joe Q promised great stories after the fact. Instead, they went with the worst stories I can recall in One More Day, and all that promise of unmasked Spidey stories was waved off with a middle finger to the fans.
About the only thing that’s stuck is House of M and the lack of mutants. A bit overkill on how far they reduced the numbers, but all the follow up stuff has been very enjoyable. I’m genuinely curious to see where Messiah War goes.
One footnote about current X-universe though that I find awfully amusing: Cyclops has become defacto war leader for the mutant race. And yet, I recently re-read some stuff from the early 90’s: the big re-alignment that saw the launch of X-Men, New Mutants becoming X-Force, the “All New, All Different” X-Factor. What happened in there? Cable clamoring for mutants to become more militaristic and work to save themselves. It only took Marvel almost 20 years to actually following up on that. 😀
I think there’s an inherent Catch 22 in terms of how much lasting impact stuff like WWHuh? and Secret Infusion can have if you want to keep the “heroes in the real world” riff going and in a genre that (allegedly) picks up a new audience every few years. You either end up with what Ultimatum, Wildstorm and Squadron Supreme have done to their ‘worlds’ or you have to come back closer to the old status quo. I think the ‘books in the series’ hang together as well as is humanly possible within those constraints and there’s still a feel that what happened, has stayed happened.
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Apart of course from BND, OMD, OMFG. 🙁 You’re preaching to the choir there, mate. They missed a wonderful opportunity to look at how famous people live and get treated in society, which I think would have made for at least a year of interesting stories… I can follow the sales logic of “lets keep it simple and accessible for a new teen audience”, but this long term inmate has voted with his wallet and no longer buys any Spidey titles, so, Marvel please note, you really do win some and lose some…
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Cyclops.. this is not the Cyclops I knew and loved. Having him be a Skrull would have made soooo much sense. Having people think he was a Skrull would have at least made some sense. On t’other hand, the sense that he’s building a cult mutant militia in that California compound and the organic ways that can tie into Norman dropping the HAMMER on them has me really looking forward to the X-Men/Avengers stuff that’s in the pipeline…
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Cheers.
Yeah, I’m with Craig here. These Marvel events are getting out of hand, and each one is more poorly conceived and written than the last. Marvel is really alienating me because of them, to the point where I’m now down to just four Marvel books, and they’re all ones that take place on the fringes of the Marvel Universe (X-Factor, Runaways, Nova, and Guardians of the Galaxy). It also doesn’t help that they’re putting out like 90 books a month, which seems to dilute the line. It’s like the early ’90s all over again (except Fabian Nicieza isn’t writing half of them).
picked up the previews and was shocked at the amount of Dark Reign $3.99 mini series coming out in the next few months. Marvel has really gotten gready and as a fan of Dark Reign its going to be hard for me to pick and choose, but choose I must.
Loved Green Lantern and the intro to Orange Lantern.
Liked Booster Gold
Batman Battle for the Cowl was confusing for someone who hasnt read the RIP storyline (didnt he die in Crisis?)
Orange Lantern?
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Oooookay… I haven’t read any GL solo titles in, literally, years, so no right to mock or criticise but that sounds really, really, incredibly dire when you come across it cold.
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Yet I do love sf, and am thorughly enjoying the current Marvel re-vamping of it’s off-world characters… Anybody want to give, or point me at, the spoiler-light cuff notes on what’s happening in GL, or suggest the required reading list?
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Cheers
If you truly want the entire story of Green Lantern, you have to start with Green Lantern: Rebirth from 2004-5, then read all the trades after that. That is quite a few.
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But the shortest way to get current is to start with Sinestro Corps War, from 2007.
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And, of course, the easiest way is to read about it online. The problem with reading about stories online is that Spoilers abound. You will know all about the story without ever enjoying the reading experience. Cliff’s Notes are excellent ways to find out about classic stories, but there is no reading experience to enjoy. The twists and turns, the dread of doom, the suspense of the cliffhangers…that’s what makes stories enjoyable.
I think the overload of DR minis is one reason I decided to skip nearly them all, even though some looked good. I think I will wait for trades to see if they’re worth it.
Green Lantern–another excellent read.
Ascension 1, not what I expected, but I trust DnA to pull this off.
I picked up Showcase Presents the Doom Patrol Vol. 1; the Quantum and Woody “Holy S-Word, We’re Cancelled” trade and the Overstreet Comicbook Price Guide.
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I first learned of the Doom Patrol in the pages of New Teen Titans (#13), and was impressed to learn that they’d died some years earlier; and Holy Uncle Ben, Batman, had stayed dead. I’d only begun my comics collecting (as opposed to picking up sporadic titles here and there from time to time) with New Teen Titans #9; and while I had already encountered the concepts of Earth 1 and Earth 2, learning about the Doom Patrol opened up the DC universe even more for me.
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I have a digest-sized reprint of the first Doom Patrol story (and years later picked up the Grant Morrison run (I didn’t like the Paul Kupperberg retcon that instead of Robotman being the only survivor, Elasti-Girl was the only fatality, but I liked where Morrison took the book once he took over)), but, to the best of my recollection, haven’t read any of the other stories reprinted in that Showcase collection. I look forward to reading these adventures of this team I first learned of in the pages of New Teen Titans, which was long my favorite title.
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I enjoyed the Quantum and Woody trade I got last week, so when I saw another, I figured why not?
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As to the Overstreet Price Guide, I got it mostly out of habit and tradition. I don’t really need it, as I’m not planning (and never do) to make any large purchases or sell huge chunks of my collection. But I’ve always enjoyed seeing the photos of books I’d never likely see “in person”, like various golden age titles. And very often the articles about some aspect of comics history were both interesting and informative.
Besides, it’s a once-a-year purchase.
Anyway, I’ve been buying the Price Guide every year since #12 in 1982 (my Grandmother bought #11 for me (apparently right under my nose) as a birthday present at a small comic show at a local mall the previous year). I suspect I’ll keep buying it in years to come.
Rick
My own early experience with the Doom Patrol was mostly the same as Rick’s (read the new Teen Titans story and then read the digest. Not sure when I first learned about the New Doom Patrol, but I *think* it was before the Ambush Bug story reprinted 2 weeks ago in the Bug’s own volume. I no longer own the digest, which may be an asset now that I have the Showcase volume, as stories I’ve already read will probably seem new to me with the passage of time.
Also finally got the Marvel Universe A-Z hardocver v7. Mille the Model fans should love her updated entry, and Mephisto now has 6 pages.
Picked up “Showcase Presents The Doom Patrol”, and it’s really interesting, looking at that first story in light of Morrison’s eventual big reveal about the team’s origin. It’s surprising just how well Morrison’s shocking, “everything you know is wrong!” retcon fits with the very first story as written.
I’m about 300 pages into it now, and enjoying it. Those who say that Silver Age fans are all about nostalgia can take note of the fact that I’m reading this stuff for the first time, and think it’s better than about 75% of what’s currently being published. 🙂
Doom Patrol were great fun characters back in the 60’s, managed to miss out completely on the ‘relevance revamp’ of the 70’s, were bášŧárdìšëd into a poor copy of the X-Men in the 80’s and were very interesting in the 90’s for the first half of Grant Morrison’s run, before he got his head quite so far up his own rear-end…
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Those who enjoyed the GM DP might like to check out The Umbrella Academy minis from Dark Horse.
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I’ve been cutting back my pull list due to a lack of fun money, but I had to check out the 2099 book on the stands this week. Anybody else here try it out? I found the issue to be about a 5 of 10 overall, as there probably aren’t 2 characters in the world I’d rather see in a comic then Wolverine and Spider-man.
That being said, it was nice to see a return of Tyler Stone, Kron, Alchemax, Miguel O’Hara, Hulk 2099, Shakti Haddad, etc. If I remember correctly, Peter David did some of the best work in the original 2099 Universe.
Does anybody else miss that stuff as much as I do?
Northlanders is highly recommended, but be warned that it is not super-heroes.
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I’m looking forward to Green Lantern, Solomon Grundy (7-issue mimi-series), and Warlord (written by series creator Mike Grell).
So, end of a particularly crap week here, what do we have in the way of divertissements…
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Joint highlight award goes to Echo 11 and The Sword 16, two indie books striking quite similar chords… I love Terry Moore’s Strangers in Paradise, never felt he really had the right voice for Runaways, but am thoroughly enjoying Echo. Luna Bros; loved Ultra, lost the will to live about halfway through Girls but think The Sword is pretty nifty. Both books seem to benefit from being (I’m assuming) finite books with beginning, middle and end, both books pack a few minutes of action into these issues yet neither one leaves the reader feeling short changed… Ðámņ good stuff!
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Captain Britain/MI-13 would have made it a three way split at the top, but I’m just not buying into the whole Dracula/Vampires shtick this time around. I’ll stick with the book and hope they get back to more interesting stuff soon.
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War of Kings – Ascension is not bad… I’d like to know a bit more about who is ascending to what, but all things in good time I guess. Catastrophus is a bloody silly name though, even for this genre…
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Three for the chop though, Daredevil Noir is saying nothing new, Exiles v4 1 just hits the big red reset button on everything, and Savage She-Hulk is something I would have called clicheed 10 years ago… It’s unlikely I’ll continue with any of these.
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Annoyance of the week is that Warren Ellis’ Ignition City apparently hadn’t come in by the time I hit the shop. One to look for in the coming days.
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Fanboy guilty pleasure of the week is (bizarrely) Pride & Prejudice 1, something so inately surreal that I just had to give it a shot, and quite enjoyed it. P&P seems to be striking various chords in the unusual media, there was a TV series over here called Lost in Austen, apparently now optioned as a movie, and there’s a book out that I pretty much have to read: http://www.amazon.com/Pride-Prejudice-Zombies-Classic-Ultraviolent/dp/1594743347
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Speaking of TV series, there’s a new Doctor Who special airing over here on Saturday, as well as a three part Red Dwarf episode airing on three nights over the easter holiday. Obviously, all you copyright respecting download avoiding chaps will have to wait simply ages for these to air over there, but at least it’s something to look forward to eventually…
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On which note of Britannic smugness,
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Cheers 😛
Well, many of us American Who fans have been taking ‘red eye flights’ (as some of us have termed it) for several years now. We’re an impatient lot. 😉
As in “Aye, right…” no doubt 🙂 At least that’s one mystery plausibly explained…
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After 35(ish) years of seeing most of da good stuff being published, released or aired over there long before it sometimes washes up in the UK, I’ll take whatever small victories I can on those once in a blue polka-dotted moon days that such a thing is reversible, with a tiny side-order of schadenfreude to go.. 😛
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Cheers.
Argh! Stash Friday is not a stash day when Friday is a holiday!
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Okay, so what have I read since last week…?
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The latest Franklin Richards one-shot: Never as funny as Calvin & Hobbes was (but then, what is?) but still an amusing diversion every single time.
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Star Trek – Mission’s End: Serviceable. However, I was led to believe (I think it’s somewhere in the title…) that this series chronicles the end of Kirk et al’s Five Year Mission. This story is set before Gary Mitchell went all Phoenix. Now, I’m guessing this is just some sort of lead-up (and the final page certainly implies that) but there’s nothing – absolutely nothing – to suggest that this is anything other than an untold tale of very-young-Kirk.
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JSA: I’m dropping this as it no longer has any interest for me. And, honestly, if Power Girl’s getting her own book, why do I need the rest of the JSA? 😉
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Irredeemable: Okay. Not the greatest thing ever written, nor even the greatest thing Mark Waid’s ever written, but I’m interested enough to see what happens next.
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Flash Rebirth: I totally ignored GL Rebirth a few years back (although I’ve heard it’s quite good) but I was interested in this because of its ties to Crisis (the first one – the good one). Pretty much a set-up issue although Ethan Van Scriver’s art is gorgeous. It’s a pity the colourist wasn’t putting in half as much effort 🙁
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And Peter J Poole – I hate you.
(We MIGHT get our new Doctor Who before Christmas….)
I believe the phrase I’m looking for is “Bwahahahaha…!”
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Cheers 🙂
For ST: Mission’s End, the first issue takes place at the start of the 5-year mission but issue two takes place 5 years later
David
Sorry for the out of topic message, just curious:
Any chance you’ll be blogging the TSCC finale PAD?
Secret Six #8: a lot of fun like the previous issues. Deviant sex*, deviant sex and violence (not necessarily related but not necessarily not related), what more can you decently ask ? Of course, all this would be irrelevant without strong characterization and it’s what we get here. The Tiny Titans homage is another strong point so go and support this title already !
Booster Gold was a lot of fun, the strongest script that Jurgens has turned in so far. This book has been hit and miss since Johns and Katz left, but I think it’s going in the right direction.
Battle for the Cowl 2 was instantly forgettable. It’s not bad, but I think we don’t need three months of “woe is me, I am the lost Nightwing, should I be Batman.”
My favorites this week (sing with me now):
Spider-Monkey– I admit it. I love Marvel Apes. I never read Marvel Zombies but am looking forward to Marvel Apes vs. Marvel Zomibes. Though I think it might just be a pit stop in the Zombies trying to reach Earth 616.
And while I got it a month late:
The Life and Times of Savior 27 #1. This was a tough book to get. My comic shop guys are usually very good. However I got the same type of run around on Savior 27 that many fans here get on Fallen Angel and the late lamented Soulsearchers and Company. The weekday clerks told me it didn’t exist or that Diamond didn’t carry it. I find this odd because it is probably one of the best stories to come from J.M. Dematies (without Keith Giffen) since Kraven’s Last Hunt. I was out at a comic show last weekend and found it for a buck. So on Wednesday I brought it with me to the comic store and told them: ‘See, it exists. Order it from now on.’