The Comic Book Thread (spoilers)

[Kane's Mullet Slacker]

So I just caught up on v3 of X-Factor and I love this book. I really loved PAD's run on v1 of X-Factor and this series is great. His humor and characterization of these c-list characters really drew me in. Who knew Shatterstar could be entertaining?

[HailtotheYo]

So I just caught up on v3 of X-Factor and I love this book. I really loved PAD's run on v1 of X-Factor and this series is great. His humor and characterization of these c-list characters really drew me in. Who knew Shatterstar could be entertaining?

Shatterstar was my favorite character of XForce ... even with Liefeld doing most of the lifting.

[Johnny Latino Heat]

Yeah, X-Factor's one of my favorites right now. I always did enjoy PAD's books. I hope he'll make a full recovery.

[Kane's Mullet Slacker]

Yeah, X-Factor's one of my favorites right now. I always did enjoy PAD's books. I hope he'll make a full recovery.

I do as well. PAD is one of my favorite comic book writers.

X-Factor spoiler:

Also, I like how Rob Liefeld was all butt-hurt when PAD revealed Shatterstar is gay

[Johnny Latino Heat]

Yeah, X-Factor's one of my favorites right now. I always did enjoy PAD's books. I hope he'll make a full recovery.

I do as well. PAD is one of my favorite comic book writers.

X-Factor spoiler:

Also, I like how Rob Liefeld was all butt-hurt when PAD revealed Shatterstar is gay

Isn't Shatterstar bissexual, though? I seem to remember him being at odds with Rictor because he kept looking at girls in a lascivious manner.

[Kane's Mullet Slacker]

Yeah, X-Factor's one of my favorites right now. I always did enjoy PAD's books. I hope he'll make a full recovery.

I do as well. PAD is one of my favorite comic book writers.

X-Factor spoiler:

Also, I like how Rob Liefeld was all butt-hurt when PAD revealed Shatterstar is gay

Isn't Shatterstar bissexual, though? I seem to remember him being at odds with Rictor because he kept looking at girls in a lascivious manner.

He wants to experiment and even offered Layla Miller to have a threesome with he and Rictor.

[HailtotheYo]

Anyone else reading New Avengers ? I'm loving it.

[The Future]

I like Justice League Dark, I didn't really know any of the characters aside from Zatanna when I first started but I really got into Constantine and am planning on starting his own series. It's a fun story they're very very different from the JLA and the offbeat settings and how they have the paranormal co-inciding with normal superhero life is pretty snazzy.

Read The Long Halloween today for the first time, I can see why it's so highly rated...loved it.

[TKz]

Man I read the first Justice League of New 52. What a pile of shit. Isn't Darkseid the biggest bad in the DC Universe? And they take care of him with a team that's never worked together before? Awful set up, this felt like it should've been the end of a much longer set up, instead it was just a rushed piece of crap. This is a pretty fucking bad introduction to DC for people that weren't familiar with it before. Compare that to The Ultimates #1, for example. It's basically the same story, a huge threat forces these heroes to come together for the first time. But it wasn't shit.

So disappointed. I've tried a fair bit of the New 52 DC stuff and outside of the Batman and Batfamily titles, like Nightwing and Batgirl, it's all been completely boring.

I also wasn't too happy with the Death of the Family.

I felt like it was supposed to have long term repercussions, at least as much as there can be in comics, but it didn't really change much at all. So the other Batguys are all kinda meh on Batman now because Joker said some mean things. The set up was great and Joker was fantastic, as was the idea behind his motivation, but I felt like nothing happened at all. If they're apparently going to kill off Damian Wayne, they could have at least used this for that. I know Joker killing a Robin has been done before, but this could've been different. I much preferred Night of the Owls.

[Skummy]

There's a new (sort of) League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen; Nemo: Heart Of Ice. It was promoted as a mash-up of Captain Nemo and H.P. Lovecraft, and it's basically that, but as with the League as always, there's more than that. There's bits of Poe and Jules Verne in there, pretty much any great "Antarctic Mysteries" fiction gets a representation, along with Frank Reade (and a sly wink to how derivative that character was), Jack Wright, Tom Swift and Citizen Kane (!).

The surprise, for me, was that it deals with the second Captain Nemo - the daughter of the original Nemo - who had been briefly introduced in the wider series. I think it probably works better for that, as it expands the universe more than if it were an "untold" story of the original Nemo.

It's good fun, and hopefully the first of many "expanded universe" additions to the series, though probably a little too short.

[TKz]

I might have to check that out, I don't honestly have much of a clue about Lovecraft stuff outside of the basics of what it is, but I love the idea of it. My all time favorite comic book story line (The Thanos Imperative) deals with a pretty lovecraft based enemy, where in an alternate universe called The Cancerverse, which is described best by the wiki: "A universe where "death was defeated", the Cancerverse is a reality where nothing dies and life has expanded exponentially, resulting in a universe-wide living corpse". And because of that, all of the heroes in that Universe have essentially become taken over by a lovecraftian nightmare. It's pretty much the Marvel Cosmic heroes vs. an entire universe of Eldritch Abominations. Which is my favorite kind of abomination. The ensuing battle is so important and big that it features a fleet of over 100 different Galactus' fighting on the good guy side.

[Skummy]

I'd definitely recommending reading Lovecraft, as I think he's fantastic, and it'll definitely help with the countless writers who reference him. But it's not essential for understanding of the League book, though; some of it would make more sense if you'd read him, I'm sure, but for the most part it's presented as "UNIMAGINABLE HORROR AND MIND-BREAKING INSANITY", which if you know even the basics of Lovecraft, is enough.

The ensuing battle is so important and big that it features a fleet of over 100 different Galactus' fighting on the good guy side.

That's bad-ass. I love anything like that as a way of selling a big event.

Probably my favourites are in one of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing comics when, in explaining the gravity of a situation, one of the Arkham staff says "...The Joker stopped laughing", or a couple in Neil Gaiman's Eternals; "Galactus remembered what it was to be afraid", or how, just for a moment, The Watcher had to look away. Does so much more with a single sentence than some comics would do in a hundred issues.

[TKz]

Yeah, stuff like that is fantastic. In a Universe where there's always some threat to everything ever, when they can present a threat as truly horrible, it really makes the whole story feel important. If you like that sort of stuff, you should definitely check out the Marvel Cosmic side of things, Skummy. It's great in a lot of different ways, it serves as an introduction to plenty of heroes that many aren't familiar with and every story has this great vibe of "Okay, I know we've seen Dr. Doom try and destroy the earth, but this is serious". It starts with an enemy from the Negative Zone making his way through the galaxy and wiping out everything in his path. Like Galactus on crack. Further evidenced by the fact that he kidnaps Galactus and uses him as a power source.

I'm pretty sure an argument could be made that the 6 Marvel Cosmic events are the best things to ever come out of Marvel. It's just so cohesive and well planned, with each stage of the way being fantastic. But then, it's hard to recommend unless you either have a ton of money to buy every tie in issue, or don't mind torrenting comics and reading them on your PC.

[HailtotheYo]

Further evidenced by the fact that he kidnaps Galactus and uses him as a power source.

What is this ?

I want.

[TKz]

The whole thing starts with the "Annihilation" story and spans through the modern Guardians of the Galaxy, the main Annihilation chapters, the origin of Nova (or, Richard Rider as Nova Prime) and a bunch of collections of 4, including guys like Silver Surfer and Ronan the Accuser. It then continues into Annihilation: Conquest, War of Kings, Realm of Kings and finally The Thanos Imperative. It's some of the best content Marvel has ever produced. Like I say, sadly it'd be a huge pain to follow all of it if you were to buy all the comics, but if you're not opposed to torrenting them, you can find it by searching "Marvel 6 Cosmic Events" on most of the big torrents sites. It's all arranged in the correct reading order, too.

[HailtotheYo]

When did all of this take place ? I've heard of the Thanos Imperative .. is this from the mid 2000's ? If so, that would explain why I have no clue.

[TKz]

Yeah, started in 2006 and ended in 2010.

[HailtotheYo]

Ok, did some surfing but I'm at work and can't get on every site that comes up.

Is there somewhere that has these listed in chronological order ?

[TKz]

This seems to summarize it pretty accurately:

http://i.imgur.com/6SMOq.jpg

[HailtotheYo]

Thanks