Moore is interesting in that everything he's done has come from something else. So the most original man in comics, isn't that original...except he is. If you think about it, most all of his major works are based on some other property. He really should be the posterchild for public domain.

Y: the last man TPB #4 "safeword" - I'm so glad i started picking this up, I continue to be impressed with it. Every week I go to the lcs and buy my books and one of these trades and every week I wish I had bought 2 of them. I think this was my favorite arc so far, the Agent 711 stuff was great. the characters are developing, this really is great. Thank you to all of those who recommended it.

Uncanny X-men 287-291 "the extremists" - I am slowly getting back into X-men, I am a few issues behind on the other X-men comic, but what i have been reading of it has been all over the place. I enjoyed this arc it was straight forward and seemed to be leading somewhere. Prof X seems like he is becoming what he has fought against all along and Nightcrawler is concerned. next month kicks off "messiah complex" I guess we'll see if it is just another sloppy event or something worth while.

Criminal TPB #1 "coward" - I picked this up because of a recommendation on this board, and I didn't care for it. I don't know why, i wanted to like it, but when I put it down i wasn't wanting more. Does it get better, was this the set up and it gets good as more issues go on, or if I'm not into it now, will i most likely not get into it.

EVERY creator takes their ideas from outside sources. Sorry, but there is not one solitary creator out there who creates everything entirely out of nothing. Alan Moore is just well read so most of his ideas are new to comics, and he takes very few ideas from other comic book creators.

I know that most popular media is built on the back of the things that have come before, but a lot of Moore's work is a direct reworking of something. Don't get it confused, I'm not taking anything away from the guy's work, but I just find it interesting.

I mean Lost Girls literally takes a set of old characters and puts them in a sexual situations. Watchmen reworks the Charlton characters. Tom Strong is an interpretation of Doc Savage. League of Ext Gents is another instance of taking characters and putting them in new situations. His mainstream work obviously used long existing characters, with Moore putting unique twists on them.

I know he's written completely original stuff (as original as can be anyway), it's just interesting to see how he gets legs out of looking back at old and sometimes unused ideas/characters.

Barda

Give it a year, 'Robo.

Yeah, I guess no one is ever really dead in the DCU.

I'm 2 weeks behind. I assume this happened in "Death Of The New Gods". Is this series any good? I'm trying not to add any new books, but I've always been a fan of the New Gods.

I don't see a "Previews" post on the front page, so I'll post my question here.

I'm looking to pick up the new Sinestro War Green Lantern HC that was solicited in October's Previews... however, I've only read the rebirth TPB and the first couple of Green Lantern Corps tpbs.

1) Is the new Green Lantern series only available collected in Hardcovers?
2) Are there only 3 of them before this Sinestro War one
3) How many Green Lantern Corps ones are there? I think I've read the miniseries collection and the first regular series collection (the one that has Guy on vacation).

Yeah...it is kind of interesting. Also there's Miracleman/Marvelman.

It kind of makes me wonder if Alan Moore really had a desire to work on some of those comics directly but the property owners wouldn't let him so he did his own versions with his tweaks. I do know that he wanted to use the old Charlton characters directly in Watchmen, not make it an homage (or whatever you call it) to them. And he probably wanted to work on Superman but after his falling out with DC he had to take his ideas to Supreme.

I guess the unique ideas he brings to the tables are not new and intriguing characters, but new ways of looking at them and interpreting them.

I talked to Jim Starlin at Wizard World Chicago this summer. I made a comment to the effect that the mini seemed kind of silly since we all know the New Gods will be back sooner or later, and he said something like "No, no. This time they're really dead and won't be back."

This from the man who is most famous in comics for killing Captain Marvel (back from the dead), Adam Warlock (ditto), and Thanos (ditto).

(On the plus side, he did say he'd like to do another Dreadstar story at some point).

Marvelman/Miracleman was a direct continuation of the British version of the character.

Watchmen was pitched as involving the Charlton characters. DC decided to have him change the characters since the story would have rendered the Charlton "unusable." Nowadays, they would just release it as an elseworld. Or release it as is, claiming it was in continuity, then ignore it next time they want to use the characters.

Supreme was a Superman rip-off, but Liefeld is the one who ripped off Superman. When he hired Alan Moore, Moore decided to run with it.

V, Promethea, Top 10, Big Numbers, Halo Jones, D.R. and Quinch -- all of these seem like pretty original concepts to me.

Sorry, I hope I didn't spoil it for you. I figured it was pretty much out right now.

To be honest I haven't read it and as a matter of fact I didn't even order issue #1. I totally blanked and missed it. I had been hearing she was dead and then I they said it in one of the Countdown issues. That Forager chick told Jimmy Olsen.

Yeah i had read somewhere that DC Editor(s?) simply no longer see a need for the New Gods and the characters associated with them or some shit like that, and felt they needed to go away.

What a coincidence -- I no longer see a need for Dan DiDio.

Jack Kirby's original run on the Fourth World books was phenomenal, as was Walter Simonson's run on Orion. The New Gods can be a first-rate book of DC is willing to devote the resources (quality creators plus advertising) to make it so.

ok, maybe it wasn't Dan DiDio

Death of the New Gods

Granted, it's Wiki but...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_The_New_Gods

Background

Jim Starlin stated in interview that: "I sort of think of this project as putting an ending to Jack's New Gods' saga. Since Kirby's initial run on the characters others have presented them with mixed results. Looking back I'd say at least half of the past New Gods series have done more harm than good. So for me, Death of the New Gods is half honoring Jack Kirby, half mercy killing."[1]

In the same interview, he stated that: "They started building [the weekly series] Countdown around Death of the New Gods because it was way ahead of everybody else. They started catching up with me, and I'm having to change my ending to adjust to what they're doing in Countdown. Up until now, I've been telling everybody I'm killing them all. One survives. And he was going to have a good death. I had to keep him around until the end."[1]

When they say "they're really dead this time" that only means as long as they (the specific writers and editors) have creative control of the characters, which can change at any time. That's why deaths (and most other big shake changes) are not permanent in the comics world... there's usually no cohesive vision that controls the character's life, especially for work-for-hire situations like this.

Yeah, that's one thing I don't really care for about mainstream comics. In the late 80's they figured the multiverse needed to go away. People then come into "power" at DC and are like, "nah, the multiverse is kinda cool, lets bring it back!" and do. And so on and so on, with all different properties, characters, and situations.

I do like that all of comics history can be fair game at any given time, but sometimes it can be aggravating. It definitely seems like both companies are relying on deaths more than ever after Identity Crisis.

Ok, I confess that I've always had a "Mancrush" on the "Kingdom Come Superman" because he's sooo awesome and dark. So seeing him pop up in JSA was really cool. I just hope they don't drop the ball and give us a crap story.

I find all this crossing over into elseworld stories by DC to be really weird, but awesome just the same. I wish they would bring back that line. It was hit and miss, but when it hit it really hit.

I think elseworlds was really just an excuse to keep telling multiverse stories, and now that the multiverse is back, it's not necessary anymore.

Methinks that a forum is as lively as its members.

Anyhoo, November begins in 30 minutes my side of the pond. Someone can start a November thread in a few hours and maybe liven up this place