The Comic Book Thread (spoilers)

[StevenRichardsRules]

Comics I Read This Week (And What I Thought of Them Too!):

1 Month 2 Live #4 - Ugh, this series continues to piss me off (yet I am still hoping for a decent end, who's the idiot?). It's not outright bad, just kinda underwhelming. It's all SUPERHERO CAMEOS and predictable plot. "Oh, there's something that could cure my cancer? Let's go get it!", "Oh, there's evil henchmen of businessmen who happen to be after the same thing, let's fight!, "Oh, better use the something to save my adopted niece rather than myself. Wish I kept my Phoenix Down". This just kinda feels like a whole bunch of morals shoe-horned into a flimsy story. This normal guy should be fucking shit up! Tempted to give it an E but at least the wife and niece aren't so bitchy this time around. D at best.

Deadpool Team-Up 889 - The one with Gorilla Man. I don't know what it is that kinda put me off about this one. I think it may be the art. I really should have liked it more than I did, since some of the stuff was decently funny. Also, it had laserdactyls. The world needs more laserdactyls. Just wasn't feeling this one as much as I could have been (I am a shameless Deadpool fan-boy). C- for me.

Nemesis #3 - This comic clearly exists so that Mark Millar could write violent and fucked up stuff constantly. More power to him. Nemesis is a walking, talking badass. It's basically there for the segment of the population who, like me, enjoys to see insanely-powerful bad guys. However, the bomb-rigged vagina and the whole fertilized-by-her-gay-brother thing kinda skeeves me out. Ew. Also, why the hell did the wife get mad at the police chief? It's not like he did that. D+. There was too little drama or intrigue in this for me.

Batman: Streets of Gotham #16 - To the surprise of no one, this is really good. Like, really really good. The intrigue of new characters like Judson Pierce (making his debut, I believe) mixes well with ongoing storylines like

Hush as Bruce Wayne, the ongoing stuff with Jane Doe (it's minor but still interesting)

makes this such an good read. Out of everything though, the Two-Face story just keeps getting better and better. Plus, the art is really old-school. I'll give it a B since it is probably the best I've read this week.

Avengers Academy #4 - This might be, at least in my opinion, the sleeper hit of the week. I really like the whole concept (young villians created during Osborn's Dark Reign being trained as heros by Hank Pym and others). It has the potential to go down so many different roads. The whole Raft storyline has basically been to get us into the various new heroes, most of whom are not annoying (except Reptil, fuck him!). This issue managed to take the character I liked the least (well, second least) and make me interested in his story. Plus, I can't wait to see how they pay off the whole Osborn thing later (they definately aren't done with his interaction with the team). The dynamic is just very suspenseful, with the students believing (perhaps rightly) that their teachers are withholding information from them. C+

[GRIFT]

Ok, so the Punisher channeling Glenn Danzig on the cover of FrankenCastle #21 has totally made my day.

[StevenRichardsRules]

Not much out this week.

[Herr Matzat]

America is a place full of ideots.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/american-library-association/banned-books-2010-graphic-novels_b_740726.html#s145732

[MalaCloudy Black]

"Unsuited to age group", do people even realize that not every comic is aimed at 11 year old boys?

[stokeriño]

Maus: "Anti Ethnic"

*facepalm*

[Crybaby Bunting]

Damnit, Stoker beat me to it.

By that token I'm surprised that Persopolis hasn't been banned on the same grounds

[Crybaby Bunting]

Just a heads up to UK members (aka 1.5% of this thread ) Play.com are selling a bunch of comics cheaper than I've seen them before

Ghost World - £2.50 (been meaning to pick this up for a while, but £7 for about 100 pages? fuck right off )

We3 - £2.79 (looks alright and another one that price pissed me off with)

The Boys v.1 £2.99 (no clue about this, maybe other members know about it)

Scott Pilgrim v.1 movie tie in cover £2.50 (tempted to get just to give to my ex and get her into SP http://www.ewbattleground.com/uploads/emoticons/default_dry.png' alt='<_<'>)

Batman: Jokers Assylum £2.99 (I'm a sucker for anything Batman >_>)

Not too familiar with usual pricings but these seem like 'might as well' purchases http://www.ewbattleground.com/uploads/emoticons/default_biggrin.png' alt=':D'>

EDIT: and now it turns out that almost all of those prices WERE mistakes and have gone up to £5 each :/

Edited October 5, 2010 by The General

[Crybaby Bunting]

Another "get this before Amazon changes its mind"

From Hell by Alan Moore. £3.50

I fucking hate Amazon, I literally ordered this yesterday for £12 >_<

[TGC]

Another "get this before Amazon changes its mind"

From Hell by Alan Moore. £3.50

I fucking hate Amazon, I literally ordered this yesterday for £12 >_<

Does UK Amazon not offer you the most recent purchase price? Or did you already pay for it and have it shipped out? And if so I would assume you could contact them and you might have a chance to get it for the new lower price.

Also I found From Hell to be boring as all fuck.

[Crybaby Bunting]

I'm not too bothered really, it's clearly a misprice so it's not as if Amazon will change my order to a mispriced order just because >_>

Saying that, I ordered another copy for a gift

[Herr Matzat]

I´ed like to plug this kickstarter project. Looks brilliant. But only 11 houres to go, get in while you still can!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/337503446/cursed-pirate-girl-our-generations-alice-in-wonder

[Hewey]

So I'm looking for some good Batman and Daredevil books. I don't know any of the Daredevil ones except the Omnibus that a buddy recommended, but that's a little pricey at the moment. And Batman, I'm planning on ordering Hush, The Long Halloween, Dark Victory, The Killing Joke, Dark Victory, Arkham Asylum and The Dark Knight Returns. I got all the Batman Chronicles as well, but other than that, I really don't know what's good Batman stuff. Can anyone help me out?

[the machine]

So I'm looking for some good Batman and Daredevil books. I don't know any of the Daredevil ones except the Omnibus that a buddy recommended, but that's a little pricey at the moment. And Batman, I'm planning on ordering Hush, The Long Halloween, Dark Victory, The Killing Joke, Dark Victory, Arkham Asylum and The Dark Knight Returns. I got all the Batman Chronicles as well, but other than that, I really don't know what's good Batman stuff. Can anyone help me out?

Can't really help you on the Batman front as I'm not a big fan and hated Arkham Asylum (the comic, not the amazing game it was turned into), but as far as Daredevil goes there's basically Frank Miller's work on the character and then there's Bendis and Brubaker's run and about 20 years of nothing important in between. Bendis' work is probably what was collected into the omnibus that was rec'ed to you, as it's probably his best mainstream superhero stuff by a wide margin. He and Maleev had an amazing run on that book. Brubaker's stuff was solid but not quite as strong, and has the additional disadvantage that nothing makes sense if you don't go back and read at least some synopsis of Bendis' work. There's also Kevin Smith's "Guardian Devil," which is some of his strongest comic book work, which isn't saying much since the last few projects he's put out have been unbelievably awful. Marvel's current EIC handled the art chores during Kevin Smith's run, so the art was very good. As far as Miller goes, his actual run as an artist begins in Daredevil: Visionaries part 1, which is mostly pretty standard super hero stuff from the late 70's/ early 80's. He takes over the scripting in volume 2, introduces Elektra, and everything starts being really Frank Miller-y from then on. Miller also did a "Year One" type story for DD called "The Man Without Fear" with art from John Romita Jr. Miller also scripted Born Again, the story where the Kingpin discovers Daredevil's identity and promptly ruins DD's life. It also featured art from the same guy that did Batman Year One. Elektra: Assassin technically isn't Daredevil but it's from that same era and has Bill Sienkiewicz's art along with Miller's writing.

If you can put up with incredibly campy material, there's also Stan Lee's work on the book in the 60's. It wasn't a huge seller for Marvel but their bullpen was so talented that it still had amazing art for stories about Matt tricking his friends into thinking he was really his cool brother "Mike Murdock" who wasn't blind but just wore sunglasses a lot. But Wally Wood and John Romita are pretty great artists if you can stomach Stan Lee's prose.

[supermatt]

So I'm a big fan of the ultimate universe, and as such I was thinking about picking up Ultimatum, which appears to have quite alot of negativity attached to it. Is it worth picking up or should I just skip it altogether?

[Hewey]

So I'm looking for some good Batman and Daredevil books. I don't know any of the Daredevil ones except the Omnibus that a buddy recommended, but that's a little pricey at the moment. And Batman, I'm planning on ordering Hush, The Long Halloween, Dark Victory, The Killing Joke, Dark Victory, Arkham Asylum and The Dark Knight Returns. I got all the Batman Chronicles as well, but other than that, I really don't know what's good Batman stuff. Can anyone help me out?

Can't really help you on the Batman front as I'm not a big fan and hated Arkham Asylum (the comic, not the amazing game it was turned into), but as far as Daredevil goes there's basically Frank Miller's work on the character and then there's Bendis and Brubaker's run and about 20 years of nothing important in between. Bendis' work is probably what was collected into the omnibus that was rec'ed to you, as it's probably his best mainstream superhero stuff by a wide margin. He and Maleev had an amazing run on that book. Brubaker's stuff was solid but not quite as strong, and has the additional disadvantage that nothing makes sense if you don't go back and read at least some synopsis of Bendis' work. There's also Kevin Smith's "Guardian Devil," which is some of his strongest comic book work, which isn't saying much since the last few projects he's put out have been unbelievably awful. Marvel's current EIC handled the art chores during Kevin Smith's run, so the art was very good. As far as Miller goes, his actual run as an artist begins in Daredevil: Visionaries part 1, which is mostly pretty standard super hero stuff from the late 70's/ early 80's. He takes over the scripting in volume 2, introduces Elektra, and everything starts being really Frank Miller-y from then on. Miller also did a "Year One" type story for DD called "The Man Without Fear" with art from John Romita Jr. Miller also scripted Born Again, the story where the Kingpin discovers Daredevil's identity and promptly ruins DD's life. It also featured art from the same guy that did Batman Year One. Elektra: Assassin technically isn't Daredevil but it's from that same era and has Bill Sienkiewicz's art along with Miller's writing.

If you can put up with incredibly campy material, there's also Stan Lee's work on the book in the 60's. It wasn't a huge seller for Marvel but their bullpen was so talented that it still had amazing art for stories about Matt tricking his friends into thinking he was really his cool brother "Mike Murdock" who wasn't blind but just wore sunglasses a lot. But Wally Wood and John Romita are pretty great artists if you can stomach Stan Lee's prose.

Thanks a lot for the help man, I'll look those Daredevil ones up.

[Gabriel]

Not that this has anything to do with comics themselves, but I thought I would pop in here and let everyone know that I'm working with the owner of the video store I work at, to bring in comic books and related items. We're putting the finishing touches on a deal with a distributor right now and it's looking like we'll be able to stock the store with my stuff just before Xmas. I'm really excited about that.

Would anyone here be interested in helping out a fellow EWBer and order their trades through me?

[Benji]

Does anyone know of anywhere that sells the entire Sonic The Hedgehog Comic from back in the 90s? Specifically the ones where in Issue 100 Robotnik was defeated.

[stokeriño]

You mean the British Sonic The Comics, as opposed to the American ones...

I doubt there's anywhere obvious and official that sells them. I know a friend of mine went to a Sonic the Hedgehog convention in London this summer (yes, they still have those apparently) and bought a bunch of old STC issues there. Dunno really.

Interesting coincidence: issue #100 was the last one I ever read (having started from #1 back in 1993). I had been meaning to stop for a while by that point, because it was 1997 and I was a 12 year old who associated Sonic comics with kiddiness that I felt I ought to move on from. But I kept going until issue #100 and that seemed like a great place to stop.

[Benji]

If nowhere sells them in trade, does anyone know of any websites that have them uploaded? I remembered about them the other week and asked my mum if she still had them in the attic since she hoards everything. But turns out she sold them for a sizeable sum on eBay since I had the entire run >_<