PhantomStranger

I remember greatly enjoying House of M, it might be the last Marvel crossover I really liked.

slop101

Finally finished this:



It's basically one of of the ideas they used for the Captain America movie, where it turns out that Hydra's infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. since WWII, finally doing away with the organization, and Nick Fury puts together various teams to battle these threats in Shield's absence.

I liked it, mostly. Especially that it's one complete story. The main thing I didn't like was how decompressed the whole storyline was. It was about 30 issues that could've been 10 or 15 issues without missing much, if anything. I guess that's Hickman's thing. Another thing I didn't care for was the resolution; Otherwise, a good ride that I'd recommend. That is, if you can find it at a reasonable price. I guess, it went out of print while I was reading it.

Trevor

Read the first Nightwing collection from 1995 I think. I didn't care for the art, too pretty-boyish, but the story was better than I expected.

slop101

Just finished this bastard:



It's good. It's really fucking good! In fact, it's probably the best X-book I've read since the classics. And what's great about it is that you don't really need to be too up to speed on the more current goings on in the X-books as it's basically a continuation of a lot of the classic storylines from the '70s, '80s and '90s. It's not decompressed like a lot of current books; it hits the ground running, without letting up. A lot happen in each chapter/issue. Characterization is solid. Art is mostly great as well.

Anyways, if you're at all interested in the X-Men, I highly recommend you pick up this Omnibus, especially since it just went out of print!

PhantomStranger

And you just so happen to have a copy you can sell us at double the price, now that it's out of print. I see your game...just joshing with you.

slop101

Ooh, I ain't selling it! Although you can find new copies for just under cover price still. But probably not for long. It seemed to sell out a little quicker than most Omnibus do.

Inhumans99

Planetoid

fujishig

Finally got through the Dark Avengers hardcover. There are a couple of issues of the series missing because it crosses over with X-men, and you'd think they could have just included it here but why miss a chance to sell another hardcover (which is probably out of print). Plus you're missing a huge chunk of the story because Siege is so pivotal. But I appreciate that Bendis made this team of villains posing as heroes work, and that his longform storytelling could actually work because he wasn't shuffling members of the team around due to other events.

rocket1312

I just finished this one as well. I read it on Marvel Unlimited to see if I wanted to pick up the now out-of-print omnibus. While overall I enjoyed it, I'm glad I didn't spend the money on the actual book.

Things I liked (mostly already mentioned by others):

-It's basically a self-contained story with a definitive beginning and end. It suits the omnibus format perfectly.
-It pulls more from 80's/90's X-Men continuity (and some Morrison) than it does from more recent stories. It's pretty much tailor made for someone like me who hasn't followed the franchise for some time to just jump right into.
-Despite the grim nature to the book, there is some fun stuff. Lots of alternate reality/time travel silliness to be had.
-Underused (imo) characters like Angel and Psylocke get some good characterization. Even Deadpool, who I've read very little of, gets some depth and isn't treated as strictly a comedy character.

Things I didn't like:

- It's a very violent series with liberal amounts of blood/gore. It's certainly more violent than any x-series I've read before. The older I get, the less interested in that sort of thing I am.
- I feel like I'm one of the last adults willing to defend the character of Wolverine, but at a certain point, enough is enough. I was tired of him almost instantly. Maybe I just can't accept any version of the character besides Claremont's. Every time it was mentioned that he was an Avenger, it made my blood pressure rise just a little.
- Likewise, Fantomex is a character that works ok within the context of Morrison weirdness, but take him out of that environment and he just doesn't cut it. His "misdirection" powers got old pretty quickly and all I could think of was the overused mask gimmick in the Mission: Impossible movies.
- I've never been a huge fan of the Captain Britain mythos, so that part of the story was a bit of a slog for me.
- The story's accessible because it's pretty much detached from anything else going on in the Marvel Universe, but it's so detached that it almost feels like an elseworlds story or something. Compare that to other semi-recent runs like Morrison's or Whedon's which feel singular and somewhat detached, but at the same time being vital pieces of the ongoing narrative.

Like I said, I enjoyed it overall, but it's not something that will get added to my personal x-canon. It has a lot going for it, but I don't know if it's the mix of characters involved or the general tone of the series. Something didn't click for me. Still, I'd be interested in checking out Uncanny Avengers to see where Remender goes next. Does anyone have anything to say about that series?

davidh777

Just read this light-hearted fluff:



I recently read the Marvel Fanfare TPB, and one of the backup stories was Hawkeye working in corporate security and called into question by a mysterious masked man. This four-issue miniseries (which I never read back in the day) expands on that idea. Nothing great, but entertaining, and I like the Hawkeye character. What I like about the TPB is that it also includes Hawkeye's '60s debut in Iron Man, the first appearance of the Mockingbird character, and some other stuff.

Note that the AVENGERS at the top of the cover is just marketing.

fujishig

Just read the first volume of Amazing X-Men: the return of Nightcrawler.

I'm a sucker for Mcguiness art (he's still the closest thing to the late, great Weiringo we have), Firestar, Nightcrawler, and callbacks to Davis-era Excalibur, so this was right up my alley. A fun book, an interesting cast of X-men and flashbacks to the era of Claremont-era X-men with actual characterization. So how quickly down the line does this book get bogged down with continuity and crossovers and stuff?

rocket1312

I finally finished off this beast last night. I was never particularly interested in the Fantastic Four. The concept/characters just never really appealed to me. Other than the odd issue here and there, the only FF I've read was Waid and Wieringo's run from a few years back. I picked up the Byrne omnibus because I'm a Byrne fan from X-Men and I've always heard good things about his run. Also, I was able to pick it up for under $50.

After finishing the whole thing, I can say that it was a worthy investment. Even though I still have little interest in Fantastic Four as a brand/franchise, I had a blast reading this thing. Late 70's/early 80's Marvel really is my personal sweet spot, both in terms of style and content. Byrne was at the absolute peak of his powers and his artwork is a joy to look at in the oversized format. I know some criticize his writing, but I don't really have any complaints. The four leads aren't given a whole lot of depth/characterization, but the stories are so fun that I didn't care either way. It was a great blend of self contained issues and serialization that is sadly missing from today's industry. Also, the fact that he was writing, penciling, and inking the book by himself with no fill-ins is pretty astonishing. It's just really nice to see a long, multi-year run with a consistent creative team.

I don't have much if anything negative to say, other than that the book gets off too a bit a of a slow start due to the fact that the early issues collected are from Byrne's early stint as artist only. There are some gaps in the story since non-Byrne issues aren't included. However, once he takes over the writing, things really pick-up. One other tiny nit-pick I have is that he takes some obvious shots at Chris Claremont towards the end of the volume. Byrne didn't like the way Claremont wrote Dr. Doom in X-Men 145-147 and completely retcons that story. The X-Men story is pretty inconsequential and the retcon is admittedly kind of funny, but Doom then goes on a rant about how much of a pussy Magneto has become lately. I've never understood Byrne's hatred for Claremont's more nuanced version of Magneto. If I thought it was all in good fun, I'd probably laugh it off, but Byrne being the cantankerous sort that he is pretty much guarantees that he was doing it to pick a fight. Oh well. The book is still great. I hope I can find vol.2 for a decent price sometime soon, although I think the print run was much more conservative than on vol.1 so it may never make it to clearance prices.

slop101

I'm still pissed that Marvel made him take out Jack Kirby from that cover (he was in the upper right, between Silver Surfer and Stan Lee).

fujishig

Uh... wasn't that rumor debunked? Kirby was having problems with them at the time, but IIRC he asked that his likeness not be used on the cover.

On a side note, who criticized Byrne's writing? His stuff at that point in his career was incredible. I didn't notice a dip in Byrne-ness until post Next Men... for instance, I collected his Wonder Woman run but was surprised at not enjoying both his writing and his artwork as much as before (and around that time Claremont was doing Sovereign Seven, which had a similar reaction from me at the time)

rocket1312

It was actually Kirby who asked to be removed from the cover. I forget the specific details, but Kirby and Marvel were fighting (again) over royalties or original artwork or whatever and Kirby didn't like the fact that Marvel was using his image to promote their comics.

Still, the fact remains that he's missing from the cover and it's pretty obvious that *something* was supposed to be filling that space.

rocket1312

I can't point to anything specific, but I can say that in my internet travels I've come across many people who don't think he's a good writer. I've read numerous comments along the lines of "he's a great artist, but I don't like his writing." To be honest, I haven't read much of his written work, so I don't really have much of a reference point. I can say that I enjoyed his Fantastic Four quite a bit and while he was never the credited writer, I'd say a lot of the success of the Claremont/Byrne X-Men was due to his influence on the writing. On a side note, I recently picked up the essentials of the Claremont/Byrne Iron Fist and Marvel Team-Up and I'm eager to dive into both of them.

fujishig

Hmm... I wonder if it's more a backlash to his more current works. I'm not saying his FF work is above reproach, but I put it in the same strata as Claremont on X-men, Simonson on Thor, Miller on Daredevil, Michelinie on Iron Man etc., where it may feel dated at times but it's because, well, it is, and so many copied them afterwards.

I mean, Starlin wrote stuff like "Death of the New Gods" recently but his classic stuff still holds up.

PhantomStranger

I think Byrne was a solid writer, though I can't really point to any run of his outside of the Claremont years that I consider top-notch writing. Looking back, I appreciate his Superman run much more now than I did when it was ongoing. I would have liked to see Byrne tackle the Legion of Superheroes.

rocket1312

That's probably part of it. There's also the personality factor at play. Some people just flat out hate the guy.

Oh, I would too. It wasn't breaking new ground the way Miller and maybe Claremont were, but it's still really fun stuff. It's interesting that you mention Micheline in that group though. I'm just finishing up his Iron Man omnibus (Well, not really...I'm reading it via digital.) and in my opinion it does not stack up to those others you mentioned. I'll post more later when I finish the last 6 or 7 issues.

davidh777

I loved the Byrne run. I read FF in the '70s then returned to comics in the '80s, and I picked up Byrne's run because it looked so intriguing, especially that issue 236. It was fun stuff, with a retro feel. I bought most of the TPBs which went on longer than I did with the floppies, and also bought the Omnibus 1. I should read it someday, though the TPBs are so much easier to handle.

I still have my original 236, and the cover looks like this:



I have to admit that I'm intrigued by this new TPB which seems to have the same retro feel. I know nothing about the run, and have only read a bit of the Simonson Thor run--need to fix that!

fujishig

I mentioned M's Iron Man run only because I fondly remember it and it seems underrated now... though that omnibus is in my stack! I basically have:

New Warriors Omnibus (because it was cheap)
Michellinie Iron Man Omnibus
Glory The Complete Saga
Secret Warriors Omnibus
Infinity Gauntlet Omnibus
Mark Waid Daredevil hardcovers 2 and 3
JSA omnibus v. 1

in my big stack of books to be read. And I just bought the Sin City digital collection, so there's that. And I think I'm only on Hellboy Library volume 2.

The real thing keeping me away from these is that it's so much easier to pick up the iPad and read either something from my comixology backlog or from Marvel Unlimited (well, MU isn't exactly easy to navigate, but convenient).

Because of a comixology sale I did re-read the complete Marvel-published Transformers series, then the IDW Regeneration follow up. Man that book is dated, but still pretty good for a comic book tie in (though really, Shooter and co. were the ones who designed the backstory for the toy/cartoon characters, so maybe we can consider the comic to come first).

davidh777

Addendum that one of the final stories was an Avengers issue from the Byrne era featuring a largely Hawkeye solo feature in which he takes a job as ... a security guard! I'm now wondering why they didn't include the Marvel Fanfare story here since that's more directly aligned with the main miniseries. Maybe you don't want THREE Hawkeye-as-security-guard stories, but in that case maybe you leave out the Avengers one since it was probably not as widely read.

Inhumans99

Juice Squeezers

davidh777

Excellent second volume

I notice there's a deluxe HC coming out in December of the first two volumes.

Gamblor187

I've got about $35 in credit with Amazon and need help deciding what to get. Here's what I'm looking at.

Fear Agent: Library Edition Volume 1 - I just got caught up on Black Science and love it, but I've never read anything else by Remender. I'm leery about jumping right in with a deluxe hardcover, but it costs the same as buying the first three trades.

Mind Mgmt - I've never read anything by Matt Kindt other than an occasional DC issue, but the concept is intriguing.

The Spectacular Foes of Spider-Man - I'm on a Spider-Man kick lately (Older stuff. Nothing current) and I hear that this book has a bit of a Hawkeye vibe. (Love that book.) I read the first trade of Nick Spencer's Morning Glories but didn't care for it.

Hellboy: Library Edition Volume 1 - One of my favorite books but my single issues and trades are starting to fall apart from reading them so often. (Dark Horse trades seem to be bound with a glue that disintegrates after one reading.) What's the quality of this deluxe edition and how bulky is it?

Or I may just pick up the last two trades of Gotham Central, I have the first two trades. I liked them but wasn't blown away.

Of course and other recommendations are welcome.