Comic Book Discussion Issue #2

[Happenstance]

[gmac]

looks pretty good, starts this Sunday in America alongside the second series of Avengers.

[ReZourceman]

This sounds really great.

 

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=37908

[gmac]

sounds interesting, have you seen the Q&A from Kirkman?

 

full article here

 

a couple of my favourite parts

How do you feel about The Walking Dead being this huge thing and overshadowing your other stuff?

 

I haaate it. The tv show is like lightning striking. People don’t ask me about Invincible as much. So Ryan’s pissed.

 

Why is Invincible always so late?

 

Well, I think what happened — first of all, shut up. We had some issues we fixed them. And it’s not that Ryan’s slow, he’s just unable to compensate for my lack of professionalism.

 

My apologies to Ryan then.

 

Nah, he’s still a dick.

[Dan_Dare]

Rez, you'll be pleased to know I ordered the first Chew hardback. My body is ready.

 

Aaaaaaand it was too big to fit in my letter box. Bloody knew I should have ordered to work instead of home!

 

On the plus side, I borrowed Powers vol. 1 off a friend.

[ReZourceman]

Caught up on some recent stuff in the last week.

 

Super Crooks - Decent, but unquestionably should have been double sized. The ending fell flat/came far too quickly.

 

Avengers Assemble - Dreadful. Absolute tosh. Artwork was good/okay, but the story absolutely wreaked of cash-in, and I honestly thought Bendis would be able to hide that. But yeah, complete and utter fucking shit. Don't know who any of the characters are (maybe one is Nefarious?) but I don't know if we're supposed to. Took away all dramatic impact. Meh. Meh. No not even meh, worse than meh. Shit.

 

Saga - Fucking decent. Really loved it. So many characters, but done in a great way....unlike...

 

Ultimate Spider-Man TV Show - Too many characters. Thought it was okay, but no way near as good as I'd hoped.

 

Finished Near Death. Pretty god damn awesome. Exactly how the first 6 issues of any series should go - all self contained stories, with an overarching theme/story lock, but the final issue was immense, where it bought lots of the plot elements back together. Jay Faerber is a king. (spelling of his name?)

 

I'm picking up today. Got 6 weeks worth. Bluurrrhhhh.

[Happenstance]

Was the FF book worth reading? I read the first issue but dont remember a lot about it, I was just thinking about ordering the trade at some point.

[ReZourceman]

FF as in FF Season 1, Fantastic Four, Future Foundation or something else? I havn't been reading it though.

 

-------------

 

I picked up today, as said above. My comic guy was a bit of a legend today. Gave me a Invincible 75 poster he found, AVX1 despite only getting a few copies in and a variant issue of Spider-Man.

 

Read Invincible, obviously - really great issue. Dinosaurus....cannot believe how fucking great character he is. He is like...practically my favourite.

[Happenstance]

Future Foundation, you know....the one with FF on the front cover :p

[ReZourceman]

To be fair you could have also been talking about Amazing Spider-Man. Which recently should have been renamed "FF, featuring Spider-Man" :p

[Happenstance]

I think I may have read the first issue of ASM when he was shown a lot with them but i'd dropped it again until Spider Island, then again until this new ends of the earth or whatever its called.

[ReZourceman]

Childrens Crusade - Fairly good ending.

 

Avengers - Pretty good ending.

 

New Avengers - Fairly good ending.

 

X-Sanction - Pointless.

 

Avengers VS X-Men #0 - Good! The artwork was stunning, Frank Cho giving me a reason to high five him for his representation of Scarlet Witch.

 

Avengers VS X-Men #1 - Pretty...great/excellent. Good story, nice focus on characters and most importantly Romita's best artwork in a while. The Augmented Reality was a nice touch too, doesn't add a huge amount, but it is good, unique added content. That coupled with the free digital download, and you can't complain so much about the price point! Good Marvel.

 

 

Oh I forgot to mention something about Avengers Assemble - no adverts. Pleasant surprise.

[gmac]

first Wednesday of the month is always good for comics these days thanks to Animal Man and Swamp Thing!

 

Snyder and Lemire are weaving a very interesting tale here! Of course helps that the art is fantastic as well.

 

AvX has started off quite well, with the writing talent and artists drawing it I am hoping for something really great.

 

Really enjoyed ASM and Daredevil as well, they've been 2 of Marvel's most consistently good books lately

 

Invincible was good as well, still getting used to the new colourist, book looks completely different in some parts, and as Rez says, Dinosaurus is awesome

Can't wait for the Ottley/Walker arc that will be for the upcoming

Flaxian Invasion

 

 

Oh and the end of the latest Chew arc was amazing, needs me some Guillory art!

 

And I see Flex Mentallo has finally seen the light of day in collected form, did consider picking it up, but decided against it for now.

[Paj!]

When are the first trades from nuDC coming out? As in for each series, like the first 6 issues collected? I need.

[gmac]

think they're starting to come out from next month

 

list here from last year, think it's still fairly up to date though

[bryanee]

The Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon was below average, not a patch on Spectacular. The latest episode of Young Justice had Josh Keaton who voiced Spidey in Spectacular do the voice for a Spider-man type villian in YJ, was a pretty cool easter egg.

[Happenstance]

This thread needs more conversation, its dropping too far down!

 

Go with DCnU I guess. Which titles from the initial 52 are people still reading? For me its:

 

Batman

Nightwing

Batgirl

Teen Titans

Superboy

Superman (kind of glance through)

Aquaman

Justice League

Green Lantern

[ReZourceman]

Yes, not enough conversation.

 

Batman

Aquaman

Flash

Justice League (read a few pages of this issue. Love the artist)

Green Lantern

Green Lantern Corps

Green Lantern New Guardians

Red Lanterns

 

Which for the most part I'm very impressed with. GLC is a touch slow, a touch fillerish...I appreciate the story its telling and I like the development and focus on John, but its just not massively exciting and has taken too much time over the first arc.

 

Red Lanterns has been great, multiple storylines and Rankorr is from the county over from me, Hertfordshire LOLZ. And Atrocitus walking around with Dex-Starr on his back is COOL.

 

New Guardians is wicked, and the artwork is fantastic, by Tyler Kirkham. I'm friends with him on FB, he recently posted about how much he loves Image.....I (today) proposed he draw my comic, hahaha.*

 

GL is awesome.

 

Batman is fantastic, Snyder is re-writing the Batman genre, making it smart, easy and exciting. Capullo is perfect. The pair should NEVER ever leave the book. An Owl enemy(ies) could have been silly, but Talon looks UNBELIEVABLY sick, as in Batman-arch-nemesis levels of greatness, and the rest of the owl folk are creepy. Its basically flawless. FCO is good, although less impactful on such a dark book. He is great though.

 

Aquaman I adore. Feels like early/mid Green Lantern, building a large mythos, whilst also being more concentrated and obviously with a smaller cast, which is just fantastic AND its is very very very very very refreshing to see (and with Batman) a AAAA++++ artist staying on the book for more than just the first arc, with no fill ins (well there was one issue, but Reis did layouts and the inker looked extremely similar. So loving it.

 

Flash is brilliant. Never enjoyed the character so much. Somewhat convoluted storyline at times, but doesn't dampen enjoyment. Great, unique panel layout, great art.

 

What did you think to AVX Happenstance?

 

*D-Listers, about a villain who kills all the heroes, so its just D-Listers left, one guy who grabs a group of supers and takes from zero to heroes. I wrote the first issue script this weekend, very happy with it generally....it would make for a fairly great/perfect ish issue 1, if I do say so myself, with action, character, introduction and a couple of neat little cliff hanger type elements at the end.

[Happenstance]

Im enjoying AVX more than I did with Schism. Only real complaint would be that it felt things kicked off a bit too quickly considering these two groups are friends but with the way Cyclops has been written over the past few years its at least in character for him. Oh and I still hate Frank Cho's version of Cyclops, not just skinny but he looks like hes got cancer or something, glad he only did #0

 

Romita's art as you said was excellent, its because Scott Hanna is back inking for him. Everytime we notice Romita's art has improved lately its because Hanna was inking that issue. Those two should always work together.

 

While I am enjoying the DCnU so far, it still feels a bit sad that the Batman books and the GL ones could have carried on in the old universe easily. I just feel like more things should have changed, reeks of favouritism to me.

 

Aquaman is awesome. Im glad that character is finally being taken seriously, he deserved it after a good showing in Brightest Day. I'll be interested to see how much of the old continuity is still around for Aquaman and Black Manta for this newest arc considering the death of Aquaman and Mera's son. Also the new Aqualad from Brightest Day seems to have vanished.

[gmac]

@Happenstance

 

from the DCnU I'm still reading:

Justice League

Justice League Dark

Animal Man

Swamp Thing

Frankenstein: Agent of SHADE

Demon Knights

Batman

Batman & Robin

Batgirl

Batwoman

Aquaman

Green Lantern books

Flash

Action Comics

Superman

 

probably going to prune a couple more soon, but I do enjoy them all.

 

My favourite books from DC just now are probably Animal Man and Swamp Thing. Snyder and Lemire are at the top of their game just now

Edited April 10, 2012 by gmac

[ReZourceman]

I cannot remember if I mentioned it, but Frank Cho's Scarlet Witch was giving me an absolutely ferocious and uncontrollable erection. And I do dislike to be one of those horny comic book nerds, jacking it to comic book artwork.....BUT.....fuck, that was sexiana!

 

@Retro_Link join us in the comic thread and we'll be glad to give you some advice on what to read.

 

Good mix of different genres, styles, companies and general reading recommendations for beginners. Some obvious choices. All obvious lol;

 

1) Invincible. Colourful, action packed, unpredictable, brutal, gorey, gorgeous, funny, emotional, romantic, thrilling and absolutely fantastic super hero comic book.

 

2) The Walking Dead. An amazing, epic, depressing, thrilling drama with zombies.

 

3) The Boys. When super heroes get out of hand, who keeps them in check? The Boys. An action packed, thriller, black comedy, extremely rude and violent. A slightly toned down Garth Ennis provides arguably his best work, in a modern setting.

 

4) Batman. New run by Snyder and Capullo. Good comics. Its slick, cool and stylish and its Batman. You know what you're getting, but it also feels completely fresh.

 

5) Ultimate Spider-Man. Good Spider-Man comics, start from the beginning.

[Retro_Link]

@ReZourceman @Happenstance Yeah I think I'll take your advice up in a few weeks when I'm done with Uni.

 

I know Invincible is apparently amazing, but tbh I think I'd rather go with one of the characters I know and have a love for so... Iron Man/Thor/Cap/Avengers [/batman].

 

Also think I'd probably rather start off with one of the big stories/graphic novels of some kind.

 

---

 

Wouldn't mind swinging by an epic London comic book store of some kind at the meet, as I'd quite like to get a piece of artwork.

[gmac]

Romita's art as you said was excellent, its because Scott Hanna is back inking for him. Everytime we notice Romita's art has improved lately its because Hanna was inking that issue. Those two should always work together.

 

it's amazing how much better JRJR's art looks when he has a good inker.

 

as I said in my post further up the page, I have high hopes for AvX considering they're throwing the full top tier writing and art talent at it, so hope it doesn't end up being too many cooks spoil the broth.

 

Also hope it doesn't just end up being a copy of Civil War

 

I preferred the first half of #0 as I felt the story worked a bit better but #1 was great, although it did seem a bit weird that the Avengers showed up on mass this early, 11 issues to go

 

Ends of the Earth (ASM) is also shaping up really good, Doc Ock going out with a bang

[ReZourceman]

It is done. IT IS DONE.

 

P.S. you will fall in love with Invincible quickly, and your love will be stronger than that of the others. But yes thats fine. From the ones you listed I recommend,

 

Invincible Iron Man (by Matt Fraction, started in 2007. Been near flawless)

Errrmm. I havn't read much Thor. Reading "Reborn" this week.

Captain America : Winter Soldier

New Avengers

Batman. DCnU, (By Snyder and Capullo) currently on issue 7. Or one of the thousands of renowned Batman graphic novels that I'm not a gigantic fan of. :p

 

Doc Ocks new look/mech costume is fucking beautiful, as was the Sinister Sixes punking of the Avengers, and Spideys costume/counter measures. Really good.

Edited April 10, 2012 by ReZourceman
Automerged Doublepost

[Happenstance]

Ok then, some of the good trades:

 

Captain America - Winter Soldier Ultimate Collection

New Avengers - Breakout

Thor By J. Michael Straczynski Volume 1

Batman - Year One

Batman - Dark Knight Returns

Batman - Hush

Ultimates Vol.1

 

Even though you didnt mention him id also recommend Ultimate Spider-Man Ultimate Collection Vol.1