Man, I've actually been getting all excited about IC the past few days. The book was decent, but I think it was overshadowed by VU 6 and HOM 7. VU was definitely the best of the countdown minis imo. I was disappointed that they pretty much just focused on the Six and we didn't get too much of the large group of villains, but it was definitely entertaining. I just read the first issue of the original Crisis for the first time yesterday, so it was cool in VU 6 to see

Even though I'm enjoying the IC stuff a little more now and as much as I miss the Coipel of old, HOM 7 is still better than anything DC is putting out. It's nice to read the IC stuff and see things actually happen, but nobody at DC writes as well as Bendis. I hate to so often pit DC vs. Marvel, but it is really like night and day reading the comics from the different companies. You can get amazingly executed comics where nothing happens at Marvel or you can get comics with all kinds of crazy stuff happening over at DC, but it seems almost like an 8 year old wrote it.

I haven't even followed HOM. What's going on with it?

Wow. I feel totally opposite. Bendis use to write the pants off every writer in the business but for the past 3 years, I feel he couldn't write his way out of a wet paper bag. He's so overrated nowadays (IMO). Possibly because for a long while, he was writing almost every book in the Marvel U (I know. An exaggeration). But once he took on more and more books, his writing (in my eyes) began to suffer. I use to love Ulimate Spider-Man but the drivel he started to deliver on a bi-weekly basis just drove me away from the book. The first 3 issues of HOM were horrible. Typical Marvel-styled, art driven schlock we've seen from the "House of Ideas" since the 90s. I immediately dropped the title after that.

HOWEVER, that said, I will admit that issues 5 & 6 were better written and seemed to FINALLY reflect some sense of storytelling (I read them while waiting for someone at a Borders). Reminded me of what Bendis use to offer.

I have to say that Marvel has been FLYING down hill since Jemas left. And I thought the guy was a jerk! But since he's been gone, Marvel has returned to the crap they shoveled out right before they filed for Bankruptcy. While he was running the show, I bought more Marvel titles then I had in 10 years. Now, I'm down to The Ultimates.

As for no one at DC writing better than Bendis I'd have to offer up Johns, Morrison, Rucka and even Waid. Johns is the standout. He's an amazing writer who offers something new to the DCU while still honoring it's past. I can eat his JSA issues up like candy.

DC is rocking the foundations of it's universe this year. Marvel is still stuck in the 90s. It's nice to shake up your characters once in awhile instead of keeping them in the status quo. I'm hoping Marvel remembers that.

Again, these are only my opinions. Looking forward to hearing other views.

I'm right there with you, Johns was who I was going to mention, too.

But, I may bit a bit biased - as there isn't much for Marvel that I actually buy/read, while there's tons of DC stuff.

Here's the differences...
MARVEL
Daredevil
New Thunderbolts
Astonishing X-Men
Ultimate Spiderman
Ultimates
Supreme Power

DC
JSA - I don't care what anybody else says, this is DC's best book!
JSA Classified
Hawkman
Nightwing
Flash
Green Lantern
Teen Titans
Outsiders
Green Arrow
Supergirl
Wonder Woman
Birds Of Prey
...and all the recent Crisis mini tie in's, too.

Plus if you count the Wildstorm stuff, than I'd also have to add...
Planetary
The Authority:Revolution
Majestic

...I'm also very much looking forward to the upcoming Capton Atom mini-series, set in the Wildstorm universe. Should be interesting.

I'm still mulling over how I felt about "Infinite Crisis" #1 (loved "Villians United" #6 though). Wrote a long entry about it all on my blog that's too long to repost here, so if you want to read it head over <a href="http://spatulaforum.blogspot.com/">here</a>

Me too, but not because I don't think I liked it, but because a lot of it still went over my head. I've tried to stay up on the DC happenings in preperation for this event and I still came away (after the first read) a bit lost. Mainly because I still don't know a lot of these DC second stringers. I will say the art was fantastic and the scenes with the Trinity were well done. Diana with that cape on is so badass.

I have heard Johns say that things will make more sense after the second issue to people who don't follow dc at all, so I'm hoping by then I'll be up to speed. But in the mean time I'm going to rely heavily on fan made annotations/breakdowns and such.

well, first question is.. Are you familiar with the multiple earths? It's pretty much a key to know the history of earth prime Superboy earth 2 superman and the other players.

I only had a loose understanding of them before tonight, however Newsarama posted a great breakdown on all that stuff today which was really insightful.

After reading IC #1: the tpb of Crisis on Infinite Earths I picked up from the Chicago WizardCon just got moved to the top of the reading pile.

Response I received from DCBS on this:

I figured as much. I mean, didn't issue 10 just ship? That means they have to get out 4 issues in the next 60 days or so to be on time. And that ain't gonna happen.

Thanks for posting the info.

I just had a couple of books cancelled on DCBS and then I had to re-order. They were Green Lantern #7 and Superman/Batman #24 I think. Anyway, with an email they added them to the next orders. Truly a great online store. I absolutely love ordering from them. It's so simple.

If you've never read Crisis on Infinite Earths (or have the TPB but never had time to read through it), here's a good run down of the series (issue by issue).

Please note, there are spoilers for CoIE.....which you might need to know for IC.

http://www.monitorduty.com/mdarchive...stlers_g.shtml


and here's a more indepth look at the original Crisis and it's crossovers....

http://www.io.com/~woodward/chroma/crisis.html

Thanks for the links! I'll read them tomorrow when I should be paying attention in class -wink-.

I ordered Walking Dead #22 in May and it's finally shipping today. This is getting a little silly. :lol:

I caught up with Fell #1 and read through 1-4 of Gravity, and both are top-notch books, though Fell was a bit hard to follow occasionally.

Anyone read NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDEY? The new #1 by Peter David? Is it worth tracking down and getting into the entire 12-issue event?

The last time I read a Spidey "event" was Maximum Clonage (and before that was Maximum Carnage). Suffice to say, I'll be skipping "The Other." I think 4th Rail had a review up tho for Spidey #1.

I haven't read FNS (or any Spider-Man outside of Essentials in years, for that matter), but if you're interested in David's take, keep in mind that he's writing all 3 Spider-books this month and then taking two months off. JMS and the regular writer on MK Spider-Man (I forget his name) will each write all 3 Spider-books for one of the next two months, and then three months from now, PAD will pick up with FNS #4. So if all you're interested in is PAD, theoretically, you can avoid the whole event (or check out the first 3 issues to see if you want to stick with the event).

I read the first issue. A lot of set-up (obviously, for a 12 issue event), but still worth the read.

I sort of liked the art on FNS #1. Reminded me of the 80's.

Does anyone else ever miss the old days when you were completely surprised at what you found on the comic shelves each week? Seems like anymore, since we have Previews and the Internet, that the excitement surrounding a particular issue usually comes several months before you actually read the book. So when you do read it, it's almost anti-climatic because you already have an idea of what comes next.

Seems to me that this new information age is sort of dampening my enjoyment, at least as far as the excitement of discover goes.

:lol:

House of M continues to be a worthless train wreck. The only reason I didn't drop the entire series was because I ordered them through my local comic shop, and I won't stick them with books just because Marvel screwed up. As I said a few months back - if you're going to have crossover issues, not only should they have something to do with the main story, but the crossover issue should be accessible to people that have never read the book before. 90% of the House of M crossovers were total nonsense. Actually, the whole House of M story seems like total nonsense that will be totally irrelevant by the end of the year just like every other Marvel crossover.

On the DC side of things, Infinite Crisis. Hey, DC... if you're going to have your big storyline cross over into other books, how about F***ING TELLING US WHAT THEY ARE?????? I didn't appreciate having to track down the vital Superman and Wonder Woman crossovers on the secondary market. I don't like walking into the comic shop on a Sunday and looking at the new books for the week and wondering if maybe a crossover that I didn't know about has sold out already.

As for other things I'm reading...

Ghost Rider - I love Garth Ennis, but this series is looking really bad. For christ's sake, the first issue barely had Ghost Rider in it.

Squadron Supreme Nighthawk & Hyperion series - I'm not happy that they're removing the book from the MAX line, but as long as JMS sticks with it, so will I.

The Spider-Books have been good, and I'll stick with all the Ultimate line (with the exception of The Ultimates, which I can't stand).

I'm trying to get back into the DC stuff. My problem is that I've been out of the comics scene for about 5 years, so it's hard to go back and catch up on all the titles that I want. Lucifer and 100 Bullets are at the top of my priority list though.

I know what you mean. But in Dc's defense, their books had stuff on the cover indicating it was a "tie-in". Plus DC's site had lotsa info on what would be "tied in" months in advance.


Stick with it. Now is probably the best time due to changes coming about.

DC also just solicited a TPB of the Superman and Wonder Woman tie-ins, so if you can bear to wait until January, you can get them all in one place with no worries.

I didn't care for Ghost Rider #1 or #2 either. Barely any Ghost Rider is right! Snooze fest.

Anyone seen Sessa lately?

The stuff on the cover helps the person that's showing up on the day new comics are released, but for people like me that can't make it to the shop until the weekend, it doesn't help us when the title is already sold out (as was the case of the Superman / Wonder Woman issues).

I also hadn't been to the DC site... but how much trouble would it be to either put out a promo sheet like Marvel did with House of M, or inside each of the 4 mini series (or now in the Infinite Crisis series itself) a little blurb on the last page as to what issues the series is crossing over with this month?

Again to be fair to DC (and I didn't much like it at the time, but they did gime readers a heads up) is if you were reading OMAC they told you at the end of issue #3 or #4 that the story continued in Supeman and Wonder Woman(which is kind of what you asked for, no?). What probably happened is a lot of comic shops were taken by surprise at just how much of the story was in that Wonder Woman book and sold out quick because they didn't have enough information (outside of thinking it would loosely tie into the OMAC story) to change their order numbers accordingly. I would not be oppossed to a promo sheet of some kind that said what all tied into the Crisis and how "crucial" it was to read, but by reading the news sites and some message boards I pretty much know what I want to read and what I have to read. These universe spanning crossovers always lead to headaches really -wink-.

I know some here hate it, but I really love what Winnick is doing on Batman. Batman has long been one of my favorite characters, but his core books have mostly been lame. Winnick's book is really fun and who ever thought Black Mask would be so entertaining? I still don't know where the story is going, but I'm certainly enjoying reading it (in fact I nearly wet my pants when . Plus the art really works for me. I remember trying to read some "No Mans Land" stuff (the story and idea behind it all appealed to me) but being turned off by some terrible artwork in a few of the books.

House of M? WTF? I'm reading this story and feeling absolutely nothing. The big twists? Didn't even register with me. The are is nice but that's about it. There haven't even really been any "holy shit!" moments in this. Meanwhile you have Marvel Team-up which is an under the radar book that is delivering what a Marvel wide company crossover should be and hardly no one is reading it. MTU has had quick a few "Holy shit!" and "...cool!" moments. I really wish DC would put a book out like this after Batman/Superman has run it's course.

And does anyone else not like the practice of having a cover artist? Some books it makes sense (like Fables, Y The Last Man, Sandman, etc where the art style is so different from the inside work) but otherwise it just seems like false advertising to me. If the cover art is going to be comic bookey, then they should have the inside guy draw it so that readers can know right off the bat if they inside art appeals to them. All of this is talk is Gotham Knights fault. I really liked the cover art and flipped through the book (stupidly hoping to find more of it) but instead found this boring unappealing shite. Boo to cover artists.

The whole Omac thing did take everyone by surprise, seeing as no one has ever cared for Omac despite many attempts to revive it.

But the thing about news sites and message boards... it might be hard to believe, but there are still peopel w/out access to the internet and / or don't know their way around it. DC is really shooting themselves in the foot by not advertising the crossovers. Anywho...


I love the character, but the one thing that annoys me is how the other DC heroes allow him to get away with this shit. They find out he's keeping secret files on them, those files get in the hands of Ra's al-Ghul, and the league is nearly killed because of it. They find out he's kept a spy satellite system to watch them, Checkmate takes control of it, many heroes are killed.

What do they do? They shrug their shoulders and say "ah, it's just what Batman does."

No. Booster Gold had the right idea when he tried to blow Batman's head off. For a more "realistic" story, more heroes need to be gunning for Bats, convinced that he's become as much a threat to them as the bad guys.


There are big twists in House of M???? :)

Seriously, I thought that series was just one big opportunity for Bendis to wave his prick around or something.


As for the cover artist thing, at least with Marvel & DC books, you can pick them up off the shelf and look inside. You can't do that with the small press books when you're putting together a Previews order, which is what stopped me from buying small press 6 or 7 years back. I ordered around $100 of indy books, based on the story description and cover art. Got them in, and found that I had wasted at least 3/4 of my money on garbage that had a great cover but the insides were drawn by a spastic 6 year old on a sugar rush.

Interesting take. I'd read that. :up: The funny thing is when i read OMAC I thought, "man didn't they already do this in Tower of Babel?" I still liked it though. Anyway, I don't know if you've been paying attention but many "DC fans" and even some of the girls around here have been cryin' about the DCU getting "too dark". :rolleyes: I think Heroes going after Bats would send those babies right over the edge. :lol:-ohbfrank-

Thank GOD She-Hulk is back and Bobillo is doing the art.

See I thought he was totally justified in Babel (maybe my bias coming through?). I know the JLA is all about trust, honor, and all that good stuff - but how many times has a hero gone rogue (even if being manipulated by a bad guy)? So I thought the whole JLA's take on it was kind of lame. They should have been telling Bats it was a good idea and maybe he should have been up front about it, not get all angsty about it. However the story was great, so all is forgiven.

Essentially Batman represents man in the JLA as much as Aquaman represents the sea, so he's going to do what he see's fit to make sure these "gods" can be taken down if it comes to that. OMAC...? Yeah I can't explain that one away. That was too much of a Batgod move.

However I would totally be up for people gunning for Bats or at least standing up to him. They would all get their asses handed to them, but it would be cool to see -wink-. Seriously, it doesn't make sense for EVERYONE in the DCU to be scared of him and I can only think of a few characters that actually stand up to him (let alone shun him).


I call it a twist because calling it by it's true name would surely be edited on these boards. I would have been pissed if I payed for this.

And She-Hulk is back? With the original artists? WHOO!

I agree. I've seen many stories, some even recent, where Powerful heroes have questioned or at least commented on how their great powers must have "checks and balances". The funny thing is after what was done to Bats his paranoia was justified in both Babel and Identity Crisis.




yeah they've been really showing the contrast and "creative differences" between Bats who deals in Fear and the Lanterns who deal in fearlessness.

Anybody know where we're at with Astonishing X-Men and The Walking Dead? They're both well-behind by now aren't they?

Walking Dead, yes.

Asonishing X-men, nope not even close. Astonishing is on hiatus for a bit and no issues past 12 have been solicited so nothing could possibly be late.

Tower of Babel was such a great story... and yeah, I thought the same thing about re-hashing a story with the OMAC series, even though I enjoyed it.

I've heard that the DC universe might take a step back from being "too dark" after Infinite Crisis is done. I hope that isn't the case. Actually, I'd like to see them adapt an imprint like Marvel has done with the MAX line and put some of their mainstream characters into that. Green Arrow, one of the Bat titles, anything they do with Lobo, etc.

I thought Whedon had been signed for another 12 issues, so I wasn't sure if there was going to be a break or not.