Parts 1-3 were good.

Parts 4-6 are going to suck ass because Reginald Hudlin is a piss-poor writer. I started reading part 5 today, and upon opening it I started to wonder if I forgot to pick up the previous chapter because I had no clue what was going on. Spidey's in Latveria? Why? I went and checked my back issues, and I had part 4. Maybe I forgot to read it. Nope, that wasn't it. Hudlin just sucks as a writer and has no sense of continuity. The editor of the series needs to be fired as well. At least after next week we'll have 3 JMS issues, which will be better. Then I have to put up with one more piece of shit Hudlin-authored Marvel Knights issue and I won't have to read his garbage anymore.

Here's a vague question to you DC fans. What books are must reads? I mean in general, not just current books. I'm getting a little bored with the Marvel-verse, and would like to read some DCU books. I've got Batman pretty much covered, but other than that I'm fairly clueless. I'd appreciate any suggestions.

I'd suggest picking up the first trades for Fable and 100 Bullets.

If you want to pick up books that are no longer running but are all available in trade form, Transmetropolitan and Preacher are superb.

That's a fairly large base to cover.

Vertigo probably has the majority of good DC titles.

Anyway, been away from comics for a while. It's been about 6 months since i've picked one up, and I have to say...

I've gradually been reading less and less comics every year, less mainstream and occaisionally picking up something that's creator-owned and stuff like that. Not that I have anything against mainstream comics...but it's hard to stick with a book longer than 6 months when they're so sporadic with scheduling as well as writer-artist teams.

Astonishing X-men was the only x-men book I could stomach reading in a while, and what Whedon did in the first 6 issues really reminded me why people like the X-men in the first place. They're cool. But the last 6 issues really reminded me why i don't like the X-men, and that is that they are too weak to survive what they have so conveniently, and they are sometimes so crazy it makes me wonder why they can even stay together without totally imploding (something that Mark Millar touched upon many times in UXM). The pacing is really good though.

Superman All-Stars is probably one of the best new comics i've read in years...it's such a pure superhero book on so many levels. That and it has this intense Silver-Age feel to it that actually works in spite of many previous attempts by modern scribes (Geoff Johns notwithstanding) to revive that intense imagination of the Silver Age. It's good to see Lex Luthor in a non-impotent form, and actual rationality occaisionally rear it's ugly head in a comic.

All-Star Batman and Robin seems to be getting universally panned these days. And I think I know why: because readers are now just realizing how absurd Batman has been all these years, and who better than Frank Miller to show up and rain on everyone's parade. The unabashed sexuality of the women, the homoeroticism, the childnapping, Batman being insane, Batman enjoying hurting people, Batman enjoying blowing things up, psychotic cops who carry uzis, and technology that is absurd, not in the sense that it's implausible, but in the sense that it's really unnecessary and maybe doesn't belong in Batman's world. That's the Batman we've apparantly been reading without knowing it.

Justice has the same problem with every Alex Ross work: instead of feeling like i'm being pulled into a world of pure imagination, I feel like i'm walking through a museum where everything is behind paned glass.

Other than there's not much to say. Seems like DC and Marvel are running their respective cash-cow crossovers, something that's come to annoy me very much in the last few years.

All superheroes are absurd, batman, superman, xmen, spiderman, all of them. The reason all star batman sucks is because it isn't well written. It's stupid. You read it and think I paid two bucks for this?
Miller is just too aware of himself when he's writing. I get the feeling after every issue he writes he takes a step back and rubs one out feeling very proud of himself.

Does AS Batman suck because it's not what you're used to or because it's bad storytelling? I'm not saying it's a great book, but a lot of people complain because it's a different take on Batman, one that goes against how he's been shown in the past. Personally, I don't mind the story so far. It's not great, but it's not terrible either.

A-S Batman makes Batman to be loonier than the loonies he goes after.

But it could be that Miller is trying to say that in trying to save Dick Grayson, Bruce saves himself as Grayson's presence in his life will humanize him as Batman was going a little nutty obsessing over eliminating crime in Gotham.

It's just bad storytelling. Miller is almost writing a parody of himself. Instead of writing batman like he is tough and a little crazy he's writing him like he's a wrestler.

He said that in Eisner/Miller people were coming up to him saying thay dont like DKSA and he would respond, thats because you're not 13 anymore, but I don't think I would have liked this at 13 either.

Crap! I hate UPS. I'm not at home at 11:00 so they'll attempt to deliver my DCBS package tomorrow. Why can't they just leave the thing on my porch like FedEx does? I've signed the damn waiver.

ARGH!

I'll have to agree that AS Batman is bad because Miller is just not a great writer anymore. Of course, I've found his writing to be bad ever since that horrible second Dark Knight series.

I wasn't terribly impressed with AS Superman. It has the right tone, but the art didn't blow me away, it read way too fast, and there wasn't a lot of meat to it. Seems like the title will be fun, but this first issue didn't showcase that too much.

So how much of a head start does Quitely have on AS supes? Are we going to see some fill ins around issue 7 or so? Or will they just delay the book until he catches up?

I'm not trolling, really, I'm just curious.

Death and Return of Superman was good.
Also, in the Flash, I think it was like issues 75-80, the return of Barry Allen.
I also like a lot of the Green Arrow stuff.

I have a discussion question. In the great pantheon of Batman artists, what do you guys think of Graham Nolan? He and Chuck Dixon had what I thought was a great run on Detective Comics of about 53 issues between 1992 and 1998. That's a nice-sized run by any standards, but especially by today's standards.

i thought he drew some fantastic renditions of Batman. His style always conveyed such a sense of dynamism. I've only collected Batman since 1988, and haven't read a lot of the older stuff. To me, his Batman is a very definitive rendition. I was very sad when he finally left 'Tec. I looked him up in the comic database and was disappointed to see that he hasn't done a regular monthly title since he left 'Tec, and in fact, hasn't done much comics work at all in the last 5 years.

Here are some of my favorite Batman covers by Nolan. Do you guys like them too?



Some more great covers, hotlinked:

http://image.milehighcomics.com/isto...627564.681.GIF
http://image.milehighcomics.com/isto...627564.683.GIF
http://image.milehighcomics.com/isto...627564.688.GIF
http://image.milehighcomics.com/isto...627564.701.GIF

Nolan was alright - he did cool stuff with mood and lighting, which is essential for Batman, but for me, his stuff was a bit too cartoony.

The definitive rendition of Batman for me will always be Jim Aparo (I think that also may be because Aparo was doing the book when I fiirst read it back in the mid-'80s).

I've always liked Neal Adams drawing Batman, especially those classic issues from the 1970's which re-defined the look and feel of the Batman titles for the next generation of comic fans.

Personally, I never liked Jim Lee's Batman. It was too much like Frank Miller's. Although I loved David Mazzuchelli's Batman. It pulled inspiration from a multitude of sources.

Nolan was good, as was Aparo. I also liked Breyfogle's run.

Aparo is my favorite Batman artist.

Irv Novick was also very good (and highly underrated).

Hm, cartooney is not something that comes to mind when I think of Nolan's Batman.

Aparo is definitely one of the greats. He must've done a zillion Batman issues. But sometimes, his Batman just seemed . . . stiff. Like that Detective Comics cover you posted, he looks stiff through his upper and mid-body. BTW, according to GCD, that first cover you posted is by John Byrne, not Aparo.

I always liked Breyfogle a lot too.

Any thoughts on Kelley Jones? I remember back around the Knightfall era, when he was doing covers for like almost every Bat book, and I (and everyone else, I suppose) thought they were so cool. And then, like a year later, he became the regular artist on Batman. And the interiors were so horrible, I dropped the book after like 2 issues. I couldn't stand it. Here's a Kelley Jones cover:



Everyone we've discussed so far is from before 2000. Are there any current Batman artists that anyone likes in particular? Personally, I can't think of any particular stand-outs. Jim Lee was all right, but I honestly didn't think his run was anything particularly special.

I'm most familiar with Breyfogle through Malibu's Prime, which was a great book. The Marvel re-start...eh...not so much.

I liked a lot of Malibu's Ultraverse, especially Night Man after Kyle Hotz started to do the artwork. Sure the concepts of a lot of the books were cheesy and smacked of direct Marvel rip-offs (Prototype = Iron Man, etc), but there were some real gems in there. Especially Firearm, written by James Robinson.

And what are your impressions of DCBS after your first shipment?

I'm a little torn. I'm not sure if I prefer getting a few titles each week or if I like getting a big box of 'em all at once. Saving $$ is sure a good thing.