The Comic Book Thread (spoilers)

[Johnny Latino Heat]

Saw this image on twitter and felt like sharing. I especially love Deadpool in this, but they're all great. In spoiler tags because of its size.

[Nick Adams]

Logan and X-23 are a little short, but that's still a great picture. Though of course Deadpool is only in there because he was aligned with Cable for a while - heck, the current run of Deadpool established that, NO, he is NOT an X-Men member. Heck, he isn't even a mutant - but breaking the fourth wall means he truly has an understanding of Deadpool's character.

[StevenRichardsRules]

Not sure if anyone's seen this already but I figured I'd share since it made me laugh:

Holy Musical B@man!

The whole thing is available on Youtube. Definitely worth a watch, especially if you are a big Batman fan.

[Cactus Drags]

Firstly, forgive me for not trawling through 50-odd pages. Lately my boss, an ex-colleague and I have been trading books - well, I say trading, they're way more into comics than I am (or have been), so I am essentially reading a bunch of stuff for free and not giving anything in return. I want to reciprocate, but I'm at a loss at what to buy. We've mostly been reading the Civil War stuff (plus Frontlines, I'm going throuh a bunch of X-Men stuff at the moment, house of M etc.) and a lot of Batman. First thing that got me into this was actually a couple of years ago when my boss first started with us, he walked in during my lunch break when I was reading Watchmen.

I'm currently borrowing X-Men Deadly Genesis and Endangered Species, and I have the first 8 or so issues of Batman new 52Night of the Owls/something (I'm not one for individual issues, I generally have just bought and read the paperback collections).

I have bought:

Nyx Wannabe and No Way Home

Deadpool Wade Wilson's War (I love the Deadpool character from what I've seen of him online, this was my first Deadpool, but I wasn't that impressed)

Superman Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader (Hated it, bought after reading the similarly titled Batman one)

Batman Venom

I've read (as far as I can recall, seriously, I need like a checklist or something)

Watchmen

Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader

Killing Joke

Frontlines 1 and 2 (in the wrong order, oops)

Civil War Wolverine and X-Men

Marvel 1602 (genius)

Er, the storyline with House of M in it, can't remember all the titles

Avengers Disassembled and something else either immediately before or after it (can't remember the name now)

Let's jut be clear before we have this conversation. I have no interest in Superman whatsoever. Excluding Red Son, which I hear is excellent and am currently waiting on.

[stokeriño]

If you've read Avengers Disassembled I'd recommend getting the New Avengers trades (when they, er, reassamble) from the beginning. They're pretty awesome and can lead you nicely past Civil War and into Secret Invasion/Dark Reign if you find yourself still interested.

* * *

I keep thinking about dipping my toe into the 'Heroic Age' after my Marvel TPB buying came to a halt at Siege (simply because I don't like buying the brand new hardback versions or the individual comics so had to wait for a backlog of paperback trades to build up anyway!), but then I can never quite bring myself to do so.

My collection currently sits pretty squarely between Avengers Disassembled > Civil War > Secret Invasion > Siege, with the main series being the Avengers (in their various forms), Captain America, Iron Man and Thor. I have picked up the main 'Fear Itself' trade in a shop and flicked through it, but other than noting that (yes, spoilers):

Sin is the villain, which is pretty cool, but for whatever reason I like her less now that she's all Red Skull-ified thanks to the aftermath of Cap: Reborn

and

Thor dies A-FUCKING-GAIN

...I didn't spot anything that grabbed and/or impressed me. :/ I've also been led to believe that the Captain America issues post-Siege go into a bit of a tedious rut with Baron Zemo etc. so have held off immediately getting them.

I dunno, it's odd. I've tried the odd Spider-man/X-Men/Fantastic Four/Ultimates/etc. trades in the past but none of them have stuck either. I may just have to buy the Cap/Avengers/etc. trades and hope I get enthused by something.

(P.S. I still miss The Sentry. )

[Regia]

If I wanted to start reading anything relating to Batman, where would be a good place to start?

Edited June 14, 2012 by regia

[Your Mom]

I just quit all my Batman books so I wouldnt be a good one to ask but I just got the American Flagg collection on my ipad and it sounds amazing.

[Hewey]

If I wanted to start reading anything relating to Batman, where would be a good place to start?

Year one is awesome, I'd definitely read that.

[Trench]

If I wanted to start reading anything relating to Batman, where would be a good place to start?

Batman from the new 52 has been pretty darn good. Nightwing and Batman and Robin are also good. I cannot say much about the other books from personal experience, but I have heard Batgirl was worth a try.

[GoGo Yubari]

If I wanted to start reading anything relating to Batman, where would be a good place to start?

Year One, The Long Halloween, The Dark Knight Returns.

[Cactus Drags]

If I wanted to start reading anything relating to Batman, where would be a good place to start?

Year One, The Long Halloween, The Dark Knight Returns.

Add these to the list I've read, knew I'd missed some.

[Nick Adams]

No Man's Land is a good read if you don't care about continuity. Get the new omnibus editions, though - you get a lot more out of them, there's only five trade collections instead of seven, and the entire No Man's Land story is presented, including Azrael and Shadow of the Bat. Same thing goes for Knightfall.

[StevenRichardsRules]

I loved No Man's Land. Probably one of my favourites, to be honest.

[TGC]

No Man's Land is a good read if you don't care about continuity. Get the new omnibus editions, though - you get a lot more out of them, there's only five trade collections instead of seven, and the entire No Man's Land story is presented, including Azrael and Shadow of the Bat. Same thing goes for Knightfall.

I totally agree with both of those recommendations. The entire Knightfall arc that went a few years long is worth the time to read them all. No Man's Land was good if only because it was something so very different and it was Batman and family alone on an island (literally pretty much) for a year or two. I haven't reread it since it came out in trade form a decade ago so it may feel a bit dated I guess, but it was epic.

[GoGo Yubari]

To me, Knightfall has a great first act but once you get past That Backbreaker it becomes a chore to get through. Still, that first act with Gotham overrun with every single Batman villain ever is incredibly fun.

[TKz]

Yeah, I really enjoyed the first bit of Knightfall, but once I read the second part, I had no desire to buy the third.

[TGC]

I do admit the second act is tedious and not spectacular, but the third act is also quite good I think.

[Your Mom]

The whole New 52 thing has turned depressing for me. I liked it and I think I started off reading something crazy like 12 or 13 of them. Now I read 3 and I'm not especially in love with any of them.

[GoGo Yubari]

I remain very happy to have not bothered with a second of it.

[Your Mom]

Yeah I guess my drop off kind of shows the quality of most of them