Gamblor187

I worked late, so I didn't get a chance to pick up my comics today. Since I'll be working late tomorrow, too, I probably won't get a chance to pick them up until this weekend. I'm hoping for a light week after last week's monster haul.

Last week I asked a question that was never answered.
A new Captain America miniseries started last week. Was the art supplied by John Cassady or will he just be working on the upcoming revamped monthly comic?

Also, last week, someone asked about when Geoff Johns' run on the Flash (no pun intended) started. His first issue was #164. Back issues seem to be pretty scarce. A lot of stores didn't order a lot, so now that the book is catching on it is hard to get the full run...expecially since there are no TPBs yet. I didn't start picking it up until about #172, and it took me a while to find all the issues I needed. Every store in the area was out, as were most online shops I checked. However, I do highly recommend www.gustycomics.com . That's where I got most of my back issues. Their shipping is a bit high if you're only getting a few issues, but there prices are excellent. (Most of Johns' Flash issues are selling for $1.91 - $2.13. Compare that to www.milehighcomics.com , who are asking $6.00 for Flash #173 and don't even have a copy in stock.) Gusty seems to have all of Johns' run in stock. (Pay no attention to the fact that most of the issues are listed as "Quantity Available:1". They seem to have almost everything listed that way. I've ordered backissues from them several times, and they've always had what I wanted in stock.)

jim

Liquid Death

Thanks for the Flash info

I picked up:

Generic Comic #6 - For $2, I really have alot of fun with the title - though this issue was a bit disappointing compared to the first 5.

Amaz. Spider-Man #38 - May and Peter have "the talk." A great and very heartfelt issue.

Ult. Spider-Man #18 - Still enjoying the title - would pick it up just for Bagley's art, whose Spider-Man I really missed after he left the title.

X-Force #124 - another great issue! I'm almost scared to pick up #125, coz I really like U Go Girl & Orphen.

Josh-da-man

Sessa17

Sorry Gamblor, never even noticed that question. The art was by a new talent (Danjil, something like that, I don't have the book in front of me.) And I must say I have only read 1 C.A. comic in my life & this issue was very good & I thought the art was fantastic. Not what you would expect on this title. Darko Macan writes this series which I think is suppose to establish the new darker direction the monthly will be taking the book. Aside from one dumb plot hole which I would discuss if you ever read it, it was a very good comic. Cassady will be the regular artist of the monthly(I've seen some of the pages and they are flat out STUNNING) & it will be written by John Nye Reiber(Books of Magic). It comes out in April & I cannot wait for it.

I've only read the first 2 books on my list out of what I picked up this week. I got. . .

Infinite Kung Fu #1, 2 & 3 - If anyone reads Wizard or Wizard Edge they may have read the Secret Stash article on this indie comic from Canada by the very talented Kagan Mcleod. As a kung fu movie fanatic I was really interested in finding this so I email the creator & he sent me the first 3 issues. I read the first one so far & it is awesome. Enormously influenced by 70s & early 80s martial arts movies this is a must have for anyone that is even slightly a fan of the genre.

Farscape: War Torn #1 - I almost always stary away from comic book adaptations of movies or TV shows but I love the characters of Farscape so much, any chance of getting further adventures of the crew I could not pass up. And I'm glad I didn't. This was a pleasent surprise from Marve Wolfman & even more suprising was the excellent art.

Doom Patrol #5 - Only 5 issues in and I cannot praise this book enough. Huat's art is amazing considering this is his first comic ever & Arcudi is really developing some great characters & stories unlike any other super hero comic.

X-Force #124 - What an awesome cover & usually I would always complain about a fill in artist but Darwyn Cooke is a perfect choice. Can't wait to read this.

Batgirl #25 - Again I just can't stress how awesome this comic is. This issue is the conclusion of a story line that started almost 2 years ago. this is a truly unique comic unlike any other mainstream super hero book.

Uncanny X-men #402 - This book has just sucked lately.

Superman #179 - Yet another issue whithout Ed McGuiness, the reason I buy this comic.

Alias #6 - I really enjoyed the first story arc & am looking forward to this new one.

greydt

Gamblor - To answer your question, nope, no Cassady art in the new Capt. America mini-series.

No question of the week?

What I picked up this week:

American Century #11: I've only had a small glimpse here and there of "American Flagg" and always liked what I saw, so I jumped on board when Chaykin started writing American Century. Since it's Vertigo, the sex, violence and language fits the story that Chaykin is telling. Also, I always seem to able to imagine the angry letters being sent about certain scenes or storylines in each issue...

Batgirl #25: A final showdown for Batgirl...haven't read it yet, although I look forward to the outcome.

Doom Patrol #5: Didn't know the old Doom Patrol, but I was drawn to the crisp clean art in this latest incarnation. The story has been accessible to a Doom Patrol newbie like me, and I've enjoyed the group dynamic of this group.

Four Women #5: Haven't read this concluding issue to the mini series yet. I've had very little exposure to Keith (besides the first issue of Maxx), so this mini had a strange ambiance to it (although thinking back, maybe the Maxx did too ) I should have waited for the trade though.

SciSpy #1: Haven't read it yet, although the selling point of a James Bond-esque protagonist in the future sounded interesting.

Steampunk #11: Kinda like "Out There", not sure why I keep picking this title up.

Alias #6: I'm enjoying all of the MAX titles, although it's gotten past giggling like schoolgirl when reading cursewords in a Marvel comic... .

Fury #6: Still need to read. Conclusion of the MAX series. Since I'm a fan of Garth Ennis, this was a no brainer and it hasn't been disappointing to me yet.

Amazing Spiderman #38: Still need to read. Will only collect this title as long as J Michael Straczynski is the writer. Otherwise, not that big of a fan of the "regular" Spider-man series.

Ult. Spider-man #18: Still need to read. I like this re-vamp of Spider-man much better

Uncanny X-Men #402: My least favorite of all of the X-titles, I'm not going to bash Casey because I enjoyed his work on Wildcats 2.0. However, this title just hasn't been gelling, and having New X-Men as a point of comparison only makes things worse.

X-Force #124: Still need to read. I've been enjoying Milligan and Allred's work on this title and hope it keeps going.

Harlequin Valentine: They still had a bunch from last week, so I decided to pick it up. Haven't read through it yet, although the blurb describing it sounds good.


Apologies for not being more descriptive: I tend to read my comics in "spurts" so that after 5-6 issues, I read a bunch in one sitting. I'll add edited info above if I delve into the titles more


Trades:

Star Wars Tales v.1: Besides Dark Empire I & II trades, I haven't bothered with any of the Star Wars comics. However, I picked up the last Star Wars Tales issue when I heard Garth Ennis was writing one of the stories, and I enjoyed the variety of stories. So, I picked this one up and it looks like it has an interesting array of writers and artists (Sergio Aragonnes - of Groo fame - co-writes and draws one of the stories! )

Adventures of Barry Ween, Boy Genius v.1: I liked the sample Barry Ween story in the first issue of "Wizard Max" and decided to take the plunge. I didn't realized how foul mouthed Barry Ween was...hence, I like this trade and will be picking up v.2 & 3

AgtFox

madcougar

Anyone know when or if Marvel is planning a new X-force TB? I enjoyed the last one which included the first five issues of the new team. I would liked it enough to buy another one.

Al Infinitum

I'm going to break things up a little and not use any spoiler tags.

This week's theme is "second chances."

Starman: Night and Day

I read the Sins of the Father collection a while back along with The Golden Age and, although I found them really enjoyable, for some reason I didn't rush out to pick up the second volume of Starman. Gamblor's recent posts on the series got me in the mood to try the second volume. Glad I did, because I forgot how much I enjoy Robinson's revitilization of Golden Age characters. Honestly, my knowledge of comic history is spotty, but Robinson does something wonderful with his characters that evokes nostalgia even if you can't put the characters in their historic context. Highly recommended.

100 Bullets: Split Second Chance

Well, everyone talked me into picking this volume up, and I'm glad I did. My problems with the stilted dialogue in the first volume have all but disappeared here. I also saw what I thought was a fantastic story concept being derailed in the first collection, only to discover in this arc that the concept isn't actually meant to be the crux of the story. Comic book completists (the reason variant covers and horrid "secret origin" books sell so well) will lynch me for this, but I'd actually recommend starting with this volume. Azzarello really settles on an atmosphere here and, despite recurring characters, many of the references to events of the first book might actually work better as tantalizing clues rather than actual events. Another highly recommend read.

Powers: Roleplay

Although I'm a fan of Bendis and did really enjoy the Who Killed Retro Girl? storyline, I have to admit that I didn't find it entirely fulfilling. I'm not certain if the storyline itself just didn't strike me as being particularly memorable, or if the characters disappointed me on some level, but I was definitely hoping for a little something extra. That said, Roleplay is a definite step up from the already high quality of the first book. The plot here carries a little extra weight that balances the whole act out. Now, I continue to recommend the first arc (skipping an introductory storyline would be craaazy), but Bendis is developing his writing on this series and he has put me in high anticipation of the third arc. That's three for three this week: highly recommended.

Actually, I also finally read Maus 2 which is the only "sequel" for the week that I wouldn't recommend over the original. Still well worth your time, of course, but just a little off from the previous publication.

My reaction to Split Second Chance got me thinking about two other highly acclaimed series that I almost dropped after reading only the first book. I recommend skipping both Transmetropolitan: Back on the Street and The Authority: Relentless as they are both entirely unnecessary to your appreciation of the far more well developed second volumes. (I just realized that both of these series were written by Ellis. I quickly developed the theory that Ellis needs some time to evolve his idea for a new series, but was forced to discard that hypothesis due to his excellent work on the first Planetary arc.)

Liquid Death

I read about this in Wizard and can't find the book ANYWHERE - I even put it as a saved email search on eBay and nothing...does Mcleod have a website he's selling the books through??

kevin75

can you give a quick summary of what happened in the talk between aunt may and peter? i didn't get to the shop early enough and it was gone.

ultimate spider man was really good. the scene near the end where mj was helping peter was so simple yet so effective. i wish that the entire series could be that simple but unfortunately gwen will interfere soon.

Liquid Death

www.herorealm.com has a really good review of ASM #38.

Here's a summary, with tons of spoilers that I imagine will ruin the impact of the book if you read this first:

Sessa17

He does have a website but I could not find where to order books on it from. So I just email him, & he told me to just send hime 4 bucks an issue but all he had left in stock were issues #1 & #3. I enjoyed them very much, but I am a huge fan of Kung Fu movies. Here's his address.

[email protected]

Still haven't read my comics from last week, going to get to them finaly tonight.

Gamblor187

It's been a busy week. I didn't pick up my comics until yesterday because I've been working so much, but today was my day off, so I settled down and read them all in one sitting. (Very rare for me.)

Fury #6 - Somewhere in this miniseries, there lurked an interesting story, but Garth Ennis wasn't the man to bring it to us. I don't mind profanity, but when it's every other word in a comic, it just seems like shock value and is another reason that comic books will never get any respect. (I say this knowing full well that most comic books deserve no respect.) The final showdown between Fury and the main vilain was pure Ennis overkill. Great art by Darrick Robertson, though. Not worth picking up the book (I still have no good reason for picking up all 6 issues), but great art nonetheless.

The Amazing Spider-Man #138 - I'm still not sure that I like these developments, but it was done quite well.

Ultimate Spider-Man #18 - Bendis is as wordy as ever in this issue (and that's not a complaint), but the big attraction here was the big action scenes. Very well done!

X-Force #124 - Yet another great issue. I was a bit let down by the art, but that's probably because I'm such a big Allred fan. This would be the book of the week if it wasn't for the return of........

Stray Bullets #23 - I wasn't too happy when David Lapham announced that this book would be going on a bit of a hiatus. The book is always late and the idea of waiting a year for a new issue was excruciating. Still, I must admit that Lapham seemed to be running out of steam before this break. During the break, we got the superb "Murder Me Dead" and now "Stray Bullets" returns with one of its best issues to date....with a nice tie-in to issue #1 to boot. (Note to Garth Ennis: This is how a "mature" title should be done. There's plenty of violence and profanity, but never at the expense of the story or the development of the characters.)

Question Of The Week:

Does anyone hate Garth Ennis (at least everything after the first two-thirds of his run on "Hellblazer") more than I do?

jim

Liquid Death

The only exposure I've had to the character was the prison arc (Hard Time, I think). While I liked it (to a degree), I had a hard time getting what was going on during some of it. I always meant to purchase the Ennis stuff (Dangerous Habits came highly recommended) but I never got around to it.

Gamblor187

Actually, I love "Hellblazer" when it's done right, and I think that some of the work that Ennis did on "Hellblazer" was quite good. The first 2/3 of his run features some of my favorite "Hellblazer" storylines. (The last 1/3 of his run can be pretty awful.)

My question, which I phrased quite poorly, was simply asking if anyone hates Garth Ennis' recent work more than I do. I have edited to my post to make the question to make the question a bit more clear. (I don't think that I succeeded.)

My question wasn't entirely serious. I just didn't have a question of the week topic and threw that one in because I made some negative comments about Ennis in my post.

Also, none of this was meant as an insult to Ennis fans. I was just venting a little.

jim

Sessa17

I will share with the venting & also I don't mean to insult Ennis fans. I hate him as much if not more but I base my hatred from Preacher. Flat out brilliant, amazing, grabs you & does not let go story that I feel stands stongly with the greatest stories ever written in this medium. And I honestly feel Ennis has been riding off the success of that book ever since.

I have not read everything he has done since but everything I have read I felt is just a rehash of an idea or entire stories or characters lifted from preacher. Hitman basically stars the exact same character as Custer minus the religious elements. Punisher I know many loved but I just though it was awful & nothing new for Ennis. Fury I mean come on, a character named F^ck face. That is real original. Just a Pilgrim, again different settings this time, but the same old basic characters & story. Be it a great trick, I really feel Ennis is a one trick wonder & pretty much a very tired & cliched writer.

Liquid Death

Of the stuff by Ennis that I've read, I enjoyed (immensely) Preacher and the first mini of the Punisher. I haven't liked much of the Punisher ongoinging, either of the Adv. in the Rifle Brigade series, or Fury. Just a Pilgrim was merely ok.