March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

A bit late, but I figured I would go ahead and start this quarter's thread for general comic book discussion. Enjoy!

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

I was just wondering at lunch if Invincible Ultimate Collection 5 was ever going to ship, then came back to a notice saying that the title was canceled. :( So what now, pick up the TPBs?

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

Hadn't heard this. Do you mean that the hardcover collection was cancelled or the series itself. Or both? Regardless, that sucks.

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

Jeez I was just wondering that myself....I'm not buying the trades so they had better get the damn HC finished at some point before i die.

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This particular collection was supposed to come out in the fall, then got bumped to Jan, then into limbo. I sure hope that doesn't mean the end of the HC series.

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The Invincible HC collections have been notorious for shipping delays. I don't get why that is? I'm sure the interest is there.

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I know I gripe about this all the time, but I was compiling my preorder list for Previews, and just saw the newest Marvel Premiere HC prices... basically four issues for 20 bucks a pop. Five bucks an issue. Then I noticed my last X-Factor premiere hardcover was 25 bucks for five issues and a one-shot (issues 46-50 plus the Layla Miller one shot). The previous one collected 7 issues (39 to 45) for 20 bucks. I guess there goes my obsession with getting all the premiere Hardcovers for X-Factor and New Avengers. That's gotta be more expensive than the actual monthly comic, right?

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

Yeah, the MPE pricing just went ridiculous. I switched over to the PE of X-Factor with the two volumes you mentioned as DCBS had them for 50% off.

I picked up the first MPE of Hickman's Fantastic Four (5 issues, $20), but won't get the second for that price (4 issues, $20). Hopefully it will eventually be collected as an Oversized HC, which for some reason are priced much better per comic, which hardly makes sense when the OHC is a superior format.

The new PE of X-Factor (Invisble Girl Has Vanished, issues 200-203) at least has a double sized issue in it, which had cover price of $5. Not sure why it they didn't include the Nation X X-Factor one shot though, as that isn't listed in the solicit for the Nation X OHC.

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

The title isn't cancelled, it couldn't be. It's one of Image's top sellers, and it's still being solicited nearly 6 months in advance. Although I jumped back on because the book became fun again. I love fun comics.

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It was only a matter of time before they started trying to charge more for the HCs now that they've got people used to buying them. I'm actually ok with the HCs costing more, as long as the paperbacks are reasonably priced.

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

Seems like the paperbacks will probably be 15 bucks for 4 issues, which is still not all that great. I actually like reading a bunch of comics at once, I don't really want a ton of thin tpbs.

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

Got Blackest Night #8 today and that comic has everything that has driven the comic book industry to the toilet:

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

Both of your complaints have been around for decades now, even during the boom years. How many of the big crossovers have really had any lasting effects? Invasion? Millennium? War of the Gods? Zero Hour? Sure, there are a few things that persist, but we don't really have wide scale changes like they always seem to advertise. Same with deaths. I've said it before, but die hard comic fans just don't want change (and I'm not much better... as much as I've enjoyed the Zero Hour and Waid/Kitson legion of superheroes, I want the Giffen/Bierbaums ones back) And because this is all work for hire, if someone really likes a character who was killed off by another writer, they just find any excuse to bring them back.

Although I love Geoff Johns, and I haven't read Flash yet, I just see no reason for Barry Allen to come back after all this time... Wally was perhaps the one replacement of an iconic DC character since the silver age to finally stick with fans, mainly because they allowed Barry to stay dead (the only other one I can think of, Tim Drake, is no longer Robin as well).

I find it funny that one of the main complaints about the tv show Heroes is that nobody stays dead, but that's one thing they do, intentionally or unintentionally, that stays true to their comic roots...

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

If anyone's going to Wondercon, I'll be your best friend if you can get me one of those limited edition Scott Pilgrim shirts. Lemme know...

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

So I avoid most comics sites due to rampant spoilers (plus I collect mostly in tpb, so I'm behind anyway). But I do collect some comics monthly, and I'm a little confused:

a) Batman and Robin: is Quitely off the title except for covers, or is he coming back some time? Doesn't matter much, since the most recent artist is good, I'm just a bit surprised he hasn't come back yet.

b) JLA: Is it just me, or is this title a mess? I was looking forward to the lineup change, but in the last issue I got, everyone left and we have a team of Grayson Batman, Troia, Mikhal Starman, and a gorilla. At least they kind of explained where everyone went, but is this just a case of editorial decisions in other books killing the roster, or is this part of some master plan? It seemed like most of the issue was just jumping around, summarizing what was going on in other titles. Not what I expected at all.

c) JSA: The main title by Willingham has a decent story, but I can't see how this doesn't hit the magic reset button soon, and I didn't appreciate the deus ex machina that gave the baddies the win. The All Stars title is ok. But my real beef is with the Annual, which was more of an All Stars annual and didn't make any sense because I don't read Magog and don't plan to. Why did they split up this team again?

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Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

See, Mon-El supes (despite the horrid costume) was what I was looking forward to, and he disappeared in the last issue I read (#43).

They basically set up a lineup in#42 of:
Grayson Batman (still there)
Damien Robin (not sure where he went)
Troia (still there)
Mon-el Supes (they say in text that he went off with Superboy somewhere, but I don't think he's coming back to the team, is he?)
Hal Green Lantern (Barry came and took him away on some other mission)
Ollie Green Arrow (AWOL to go get revenge for Arsenal)
Black Canary (Went off to Birds of Prey)
Red Tornado (currently in pieces)
female Dr. Light (too busy with her son)
The Guardian (too busy)
Starfire (left heartbroken to go join REBELs?)
Cyborg (went to help Arsenal)

Last issue, they went on a mission and rescued Congorilla and Mikhal Starman. This issue, the team that goes out are these two guys plus Batman and Troia, since everyone else is busy. Ridiculous. They made a big deal of setting up the team last issue, and an even bigger deal that Dick is the one forming it, so he got the old Teen Titans together, and then this issue they're already disassembled. That's why I was asking if editorial was forcing Robinson to give up some of his roster. You'd think they would plan this kind of thing in advance, but then this is the same company that can't even complete storyarcs in a single title.

Speaking of rosters... what the heck is going on with "We are the X-men?"

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

Man, I was all about DC for awhile, but they've all but lost me entirely. I just do not care about anything they're doing right now, at all. I don't read anything monthly, and I'm only interested in reading stuff that is from the early 2000s right now. I hope they can do something to bring me back, but as it stands, it's just all blah to me.

Now, I'm not saying they're making bad comics. I wouldn't know, I'm not reading them, but I know they've lost my interest.

Marvel has me by the balls though. I'm chilling now, but I'm diving all the way back in when all the Avengers books relaunch.

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

I was trying to figure out a way to quit the Superman titles last year, and DC did me a favor by coming out with "A Year Without Superman" storylines in both Action Comics and Superman, so thanks, DC! Dropped Supergirl while I was at it. Now I just need to figure out a way to quit the Batbooks, but I'm still getting those for the time being with the return of Bruce Wayne underway.

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Justice League is a mess. I really wanted to like the title given who the creators are but it seems like it'll never find it's place because it's constantly sandwiched between events (Blackest Night, Rise & Fall, Brightest Day and now a JLA/JSA crossover). I think that's the reason why the last writer got fired because he complained that editorial was constantly messing with the title.

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Justice League, to me, is an inherently cooler concept than the Avengers. I like the Avengers a lot, but the JL is just badass. Even though that's the case, that book has been pretty pointless since the end of Waid's run, or somewhere therebouts. This whole current volume has been a mess in my eyes, and I think DC were fools for letting Brad Meltzer, popular as he is, restart the team when he only planned to stay on for 12 issues.

One reason why the Avengers are so popular right now is that that book has had consistency ever since Bendis took it over. Sure, the team changes, but the thru-line remains the same. I know people don't like Bendis, but I think he's a great writer. Everything he writes might not be a homerun, but I enjoy most all of it. And you cannot deny that he's worked wonders on the Avengers over the last few years, completely shjifting the focus of Marvel away from mutants and onto Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

What DC needs is another Grant Morrison type writer who is going to take over the JL, and not just bring back random characters like Geo Force only to bounce right after, but instead create a new team, and stick around and show us why we should care. The JL and JLU cartoons show how this concept can work. Morrison has showed how this concept can work. Waid has shown how this concept can work. So do it again. They need to go back and reread Waid's Heaven's Ladder storyline, and try and reproduce that kind of excitement.

It's funny. The Justice League is DC's premiere team, but over the last decade they've been easily outclassed by both the JSA vol 1 and vol 2 runs, John's Teen Titan run, and Simone's Birds of Prey and Secret Six teams.

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

I think part of the issue is that JLA is made up of the big guns, and the big guns have always had something or other going on that take them away from the title or otherwise screw them up. Even Morrison's run had electric supes in the middle of it. But I expect the editorial team to look far enough in advance to let the writers know who's going to be around, and who's going to change. The constant changes issue to issue are just grating to me, and I stuck it out through the Vixen round 2 issues to get to this crap.

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I feel like JLA should just sort of happen in it's own bubble. If you take into account what's happening in all of the heroes solo books, it will get weighed down. They should take the Astonishing X-men approach. Understand that these characters have other lives, but they won't be reflected in this book. Sort of the way Superman/Batman used to be.

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I just read a recent issue of House of Mystery (great book by the way) that had Sam Keith doing the back-up story in it. Damn I miss that guy's art.

. . . thats all I got.

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

Didn't Sam Keith do some Batman Confidential issues?

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

Waid certainly took that approach with JLA. He pretty much ignored everything else happening in the DCU at the time, and just wrote good stories. I think because he realized that when you looked at the sales numbers, the JLA outselling nearly all the individual titles combined, pretty much showed that since those books didn't have an audience, it didn't matter to keep up to date with strict continuity.

I'm glad to see someone else likes Bendis as much as I do, despite all the hatred he's received from fandom (who, incidently, keep buying EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HIS BOOKS). Powers hooked me early on, and his incredible run on Daredevil is probably one of the best mainline superhero series i've read in the past 15 years. And looking at the history of that book before he jumped aboard, it was nearly a decade of mediocrity. Although I don't like everything he does, I do want to say, he's one of the best writers out there.

My feelings on Avengers Disassembled were really mixed because I felt the whole exercise was just a way to revamp the entire series. But his run on Avengers was one of the best. Even Busiek near the end of his run was beginning to feel very, very, tired. And don't get me started on Johns' run. Heroes Reborn was better than that shit.

If there's one writer that I feel is overrated nowadays, is Geoff Johns. The guy's writing has been very stilted to begin with, and it's only gotten worse over time. He also tries to be very "epic" with his stories, but it always seems to fall flat. He's better with tightly focused stories, and he does sci-fi incredibly well, probably the best i've seen since mid 80's Marvel and DC. He also tries the surrealistic bent that Morrison is renowned for, but just can't pull it off. If anything, the greatest flaw in his writing is that his stories are just plain boring.

As for the JLA, I dropped that book the moment Joe Kelly came aboard. He writes all his characters exactly the same. If it weren't for the costumes and powers, you'd have no idea who was who. Although you can't entirely blame him for how badly that book turned out. The editorial staff were basically turning it into the comic version of the JL cartoon.

I've never liked Brad Meltzer's writing. Identity Crisis was just sadistic and stupidly written, and his JLA is incredibly narcissistic and self-important. I've never seen someone pat themselves on the back so much for their creative "writing" and knowledge of the DCU.

If DC wants to gets our attention again, they might want to stop sidelining all the big guns. The reason why characters like Vixen and Vibe and Gypsy are unpopular is because no one's given us a real reason to care about them, or even bothered to give them a decent mythology (which really, is why people read comics). Instead, they just keep creating or resurrecting obscure characters and expecting us to care about them just because the writer thinks we should.

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

I've been re-reading a lot of the Marvel big event books for the past couple of days and have a question:

When the hell did the anti-registration superheroes forgive Tony Stark for being an asshole and being the principal figure in the chaos that became their lives? I mean, Iron Man:

1- Was the one that created the Illuminati
2- Sent Hulk to a distant planet
3- Was the one that helped pass the Superhero Registration Act
4- Convinced Spider-Man to reveal his identity, which lead to the shooting of Aunt May
5- Started arresting and persecuting everyone that didn't want to register
6- Help create a Thor clone that killed Bill Foster
7- Indirectly helped in Captain America's assesination
8- Brought to himself the events of World War Hulk
9- Brought to himself the events of the Skrull Invasion

I've been reading the past 5 issues of Invincible Iron Man and Siege and everyone, including Cap and Thor, help bring him back from the dead/coma and then teamed up with him like nothing had happened for the past several years. I would love to see the fallout of all the shit Stark created make his character a pariah in the Marvel Universe, where no one liked him, trusts him and wants to deal with him. The only way readers could feel some sympathy for the character would have been if he lost everything, including his wealth and worked on getting it back.

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

Walking Dead #71: This book has returned to my pull lists, and it's gotten amazingly good. The social commentary is back with a vengeance, the storyline is engaging, and the characters are developing a real depth to them. I'm glad he trimmed down the cast, although the prison arc required a large cast of characters. It wasn't going to be running around, hiding from zombies forever, and this storyline is probably what's going to be the coda of the series.

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I forget, was part of what he did because he was under Skrull influence? Of course, this is a world where Norman Osbourne got a ton of power because he had the perfect photo op.

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Nope. That's would at least redeemed him, but he wasn't a Skrull, wasn't under their influence and the Stark technology is what facilitated the Skrull's Earth invasion.

This pissed me a lot. Tony Stark has been at the center of all the Marvel chaos for the past 6 years. A lot of people should be at odds with him for all his unforgivable actions and yet, everything is going back to normal after Siege.

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Possible Iron man spoiler follows. Just read the page on wikipedia and it said that


Maybe that's the reason?

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The memory loss may be a part of it. Also, there's an Avengers mini coming soon from Bendis that takes place sometime before the upcoming Avengers reboot. Iron Man, Thor and Steve Rogers are trapped together on an alien planet for several months and learn to love one another again.

I'm not making that up.

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Well, too bad Stark doesn't remember, but the logical storyline would let you believe that the rest of the Marvel Universe, including all regular civilians, remember all the shit Stark made.

Again, the rest of the Marvel Universe was affected by Stark's action and remember very well the mess he caused. Why would Bruce Banner, Spider-Man, Bill Foster's nephew, Daredevil, Wolverine, Luke Cage, Iron Fist or any of the dozen of superheroes in the Marvel U forget all the pain Stark caused the past couple of years?

One of the things I liked about DC is the consistency they have of Batman disliking Hal Jordan, especially after Jordan became Parallax. That shows some type of continuity and logical, human reasoning behind the storylines.

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Because this is the start of Marvel's Heroic Age. That's why it's so easy to forget. It's all bright and shiny now.

Seriously tho, I don't know. Once Siege is over, my Marvel input drops to 1 title.

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I dropped almost all my Marvel titles after One More Day and the conclusion to Civil War. It just got way to confusing continuity wise. That and the few other books that I did enjoy dropped in quality significantly.

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Yes, this is the answer as to why Stark is apparently is forgiven by everyone like nothing happened. Really, the Siege ending to the seven year story arc is just lame.

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I can't even begin to express how underwhelmed I am with the conclusion of the Marvel and DC "epics".

Final Crisis blew chunks. Blackest Night/Brightest Day do too. Flash Reborn was incredibly boring.

The conclusion to World War Hulk was typically anti-climactic. Secret Invasion, Dark Reign, and Seige sucked too. Nothing has made sense in the MU in years, especially after all the effort they put into streamlining things with Zero Hou- I mean, Heroes Reborn. At least DC is streamlining their continuity.

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I really enjoyed issues 2 and 3 of Siege, but 4 did seem like it was missing something.

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I don't know why I keep doing it...Grant Morrison is killing me...

I know people love him, I picked up Final Crisis earlier this year and hated it; no, worse than hated it; i didn't understand most of it...I just don't get him I guess (although I thought A.S. Superman was excellent)...so I'm at the LCBS today and I see the Batman: the return of Bruce Wayne comic, and I'm like "okay, I'm interested, because maybe he is just crazy enough to pull off "the Omega Sanction that traps the organism in a series of alternate realities, each worse than the previous one." but again, I don't get it...I'm lost...

Re: March/April/May General Comic Discussion (Spring Break Edition)
 

I'm waiting for 2 more issues before I make judgment.