The Comic Book Thread (spoilers)

[GoGo Yubari]

Since I went to a comic shop and wanted to buy something I got the first issue of the Bendis X-Men comic. Much better than I anticipated, and much less Bendis-y. I don't think it's good enough to sustain me spending $4 an issue on it, though.

People have been talking up the Hawkeye comic but I never fucking see it in stock.

[Your Mom]

Same here with Hawkeye. I have been looking for a new book since I stopped Spiderman

[HailtotheYo]

Hawkeye is wonderful. Got lucky, guy at my shop recommended it and I put it on my scrip list from the get go. Good thing ... I've seen issues 1-3 hitting 70+$ on Ebay.

[Your Mom]

Hawkeye is wonderful. Got lucky, guy at my shop recommended it and I put it on my scrip list from the get go. Good thing ... I've seen issues 1-3 hitting 70+$ on Ebay.

Yeah I saw the same thing. Going to check my shop next time we go. Otherwise I might just wait for the trade in March

[Trench]

I just looked on EBay and saw Hawkeye early issues first print for like 3.50 and so, are they really going for 70+ as well?

[HailtotheYo]

I just looked on EBay and saw Hawkeye early issues first print for like 3.50 and so, are they really going for 70+ as well?

Issues 1-3 are selling for 10 or more .... issues 4-6 are still available at cover or close in some auctions.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/Comics-/63/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=hawkeye+2012

That said, I went to Hastings and found issue 2 for cover. Freaking Hastings ? wtf ?

[Your Mom]

Got issue 1 and 2 of Hawkeye at cover price

[HailtotheYo]

Just read Superior .... I liked it, quite a bit actually. If they keep up the dynamic they had in this issue with his attitude and the interaction with the other bad guys, that'd be so bad ass. Really enjoyed Avenging SM 15.1 (bridge issue from ASM 700 to Superior) and am glad I have the sub. My local shop is already pricing the last few issues they have at 15$.

All New Xmen is a great read as well.

[Your Mom]

Just read Avenging Spiderman 16. I thought I might stick with it since I already have the first 15. Yeah...no. Take your "superior" Spiderman and shove it Marvel. I'll be back when the next movie comes out and you come to your senses.

[Kane's Mullet Slacker]

I aquired issues #1-6 of Hawkeye but I haven't read them yet. I've heard good things about it though.

Uncanny Avengers #3 is finally being released next week.

[Skummy]

2000AD's "Ballad Of Halo Jones", by Alan Moore, is getting reissued in May. I'm a huge Alan Moore fan, and grew up with 2000AD comics, and I can safely say that Halo Jones falls well within the best output for both of them. That's pretty heavy praise from me. If you've never read it before, I'd recommend the new release to just about everybody.

[Kane's Mullet Slacker]

I'm a fan of Alan Moore's work (Watchmen (of course) and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) but I've never read 2000AD or Swamp Thing for that matter.

[Skummy]

Swamp Thing is fantastic; I was a massive nerd for the character as a kid, as I used to watch the cartoon series and the whole concept was a good mix of hackneyed environmental messages and kind of faux-American gothic stuff, which is the sort of thing I just ate up back then.

But reading Alan Moore's run on it was a complete revelation. I re-read "Volume 1" of his run a couple of months back, and plan to get through Volume 2 within the next week or two. It's an absolute masterclass on how you reinvent a character without alienating or angering the existing fanbase, as well as just telling a solid story, dealing with the perennial DC Comics elephant in the room of "why don't they just wait for Superman to fix it?", introducing the character of John Constantine, and featuring some absolutely stunning artwork and brilliant use of the comic book format.

2000AD is patchier; it really depends on what your taste in sci-fi is. A lot of it I find pretty tiresome now, and it has a tendency to fall into self-parody. If it weren't for nostalgia, I'm not sure how much of Judge Dredd I could even stomach. There's some great stuff they put out, though; Strontium Dog, The Life And Death Of Johnny Alpha, and more light-hearted Alan Moore stuff like Future Shocks, but Halo Jones is, to me, probably the best thing to come out of 2000AD, and one of Moore's best creations. It's a really strong sci-fi story, with one of the few genuinely sympathetic, strong female heroines in comic books.

In general, though, 2000AD is a bit of an anachronism, and largely irrelevant. I'm sure they still do some good stuff, but every time I've picked up an issue in the last few years I've just found it baffling, and I'm consistently amazed they're still around. They can be a breath of fresh air from Marvel and DC, though.

On the topic of Constantine, is anyone reading Justice League Dark? I'm a huge fan of the old Vertigo stuff, so that's about the only new DC line that's caught my interest. Is it any good?

[TKz]

I finally read Ultimate Comics: Ultimates 19! I love the Ultimate Universe. And man, my favorite thing about it is the way they handle introducing characters already established in regular Marvel. Reed Richards as this universes Kang the Conquerer was fucking wonderful and now they're bringing in the original, brown and grey haired Nick Fury as the apparent leader of Hydra! Awesome. I hope it turns out that he's a good guy and becomes the regular Nick Fury for the Ultimate Universe, seeing as regular Marvel has decided to replace their Nick Fury with his black son that looks just like the Nick Fury from the films. >_>

[Gabriel]

I loved the Ultimate line for the first few years, but found that they just seemed to kill off a lot of characters for no reason other than to establish the universe as different from Marvel's 616.

I know that the idea was to have a different take on the characters, but I don't like the mass killings they did (almost all at once, during the Ultimatum story). I was enjoying the different takes on characters that they had, the re-telling of old stories with new twists and so-on. Not that I won't read the Ultimate line anymore, it's just hard for me to want to get back into it, knowing that I enjoyed what they did in the beginning, and then just kind of blew the whole thing apart.

[TKz]

Eh, I don't mind it. If anything, it's nice to see characters stay dead.

[HailtotheYo]

I never got into the Ultimate line because it felt forced to me. This is one area that DC is better than Marvel in my opinion. The Earth 2 stuff does it right. Things are just different, period. You recognize people but it's not what you know. The Ultimate line, for me, seemed like they tried way too hard ....

[Kane's Mullet Slacker]

I just finished reading issues 1-6 of the new Hawkeye series and it's fucking fantastic. I love it. I can't wait for issue 7.

As far as the Ultimate line is concerned I read the first two books of The Ultimates but I fell off after that. I've read the first few issues of Ultimate Spider-Man as well but that's as much of the Ultimate line I read.

[Your Mom]

Anything I need to know before reading Young Avengers? I just thought it looked cool so I bought the first issue

[HailtotheYo]

Just managed to find 4 copies of Daredevil 21 and 2 copies of Hawkeye 2 and 3 at Barnes and Nobles. cover for all 8 books. Happy camper.