Browsing Amazon's trades I found the following blurb from our own davidh!
So I added this book to my DC reading quest and really enjoyed it.

That Zatanna book is fun, and a good cross-section of Silver Age DC.

I just finished a collection of the Dr. Strange stories from the 1980s revival of Strange Tales, when the good doctor shared the book with Cloak & Dagger. Pretty good. It's one long story running through the entire 19-issue (half-length) run that features Dr. Strange embracing dark magic in an effort to protect the world from all sorts of nasties. It was pretty good.

I'm also partway through three different collections:
1. Infinity Gauntlet Aftermath, which collects the first half-dozen issues of Warlock & the Infinity Watch as well as the half-dozen Silver Surfer issues that followed Infinity Gauntlet. Fun early 90s cosmic Marvel.
2. Prince Valiant vol. 6 -- I just love Hal Foster's art. This volume covers 1947 and 1948, and features Val's adventures in America.
3. Stuff of Legend vol. 2 -- Stuff of Legend is a great book about a bunch of toys trying to rescue their boy from the Boogeyman. Really good stuff that I would recommend to anybody who likes Fables (start with volume 1 first, though).

Speaking of the Infinity Gauntlet, here's a great trilogy of hardcovers I just re-read recently (the hardcovers are out of print and go for a pretty penny), that need get collected together in an Omnibus.

This one pretty much sets up Thanos, along with some great Marvel cosmic stuff mostly concerning Warlock.



This one, as the title suggests, brings Thanos back and sets up his plan to rule the galaxy:



And this one brings the whole Marvel universe in on the final battle, which, unlike almost all Marvel "events", actually resonates and is a satisfying conclusion to the whole thing.



What's cool is how cohesive it all is as these books cover more than 25 years of Marvel history.
They kinda' undo a lot of this stuff, as each "Infinity" sequel was weaker than the last, but these on their own is one of the best cosmic stories out of Marvel, like ever.

I remember the first Infinity whatever being great, the first sequel as pretty good, and then the next one unreadable.

Starlin's Warlock run was awesome... I remember getting cheap backissues of it when I was a little kid and loving it. It was almost completely divorced from the regular Marvel Universe, and for some time I didn't realize it was even connected... I thought it was an alternate future or something.

I also loved Starlin and Lim's run on Silver Surfer, both before and after the Infinity Gauntlet, and even the first year or so of Warlock and his group.

Warlock also appears in the Guardians of the Galaxy post War of Kings (I think? one of the Annihilation sequels) though he's very different.

Great stuff, slop. There's a TPB called Avengers vs. Thanos that collects the same contents of that first Warlock Masterwork and also includes the Captain Marvel vs. Thanos storyline that introduced Thanos. Highly, highly recommended -- among the best things Marvel has ever published.

What's great about Starlin is that he laid the cosmic foundations for both DC and Marvel. I was always hoping they would put him on the Legion.

He did a great cover... for a reprint issue. The story was a Shooter-Swan classic, but it was still a reprint.



I'm not as well-versed in Starlin's Warlock and Captain Marvel output as I'd like to be (though I did get the original of Captain Marvel graphic novel). I bought the original run of this series as well:

I bought the Dreadstar omnibus on Comixology when they had a sale, but haven't gotten to it yet...

That is one awesome cover.

Starlin did a couple of issues of Legion in the late 70s -- 239 and 250-251 (he took his name off the latter, though -- it was originally done as a 64-page special and he didn't like the way they broke it up and cut it down to fit into regular issues).

It's the cover that made me a life-long Legion fan. It drew me to the spinner rack like a moth to the flame.

And the next issue, written and illustrated by Starlin, sealed the deal. A Legionnaire wanted for murder! Street-wise Ultra Boy! Bad-ass detective Chameleon Boy! The dogfight between Superboy, Mon-El, and Ultra Boy! I got on that bus and didn't get off until Zero Hour.

I just read Five Ghosts. Pretty darned good.

I forgot about 239--that was indeed a great issue.

I only remember the cover of 250-251 but remember it being pretty meh. Most of that Legion period was meh after EarthWar and before Levitz-Giffen came on.

I also really like that arc. I read it in the TPB then wasn't sure whether I'd want to reread it as part of the HC, but I enjoyed it the second time too. It offered something different from the main plotline and had some emotional heft to it as well.

Yeah, I'm not sure if Pacheco was trying to emulate early Marvel style or something, but his art definitely didn't seem the same. Peterson was still good, though. The tie in issues included at the end of this volume... well, let's just say I would have been pretty upset if I bought those for full price because I was collecting the individual series. They were kinda absorbed into the price of the hardcover so I can't complain too much.

Even with the supplemental stories, seems like there were a lot of gaps. It's kinda mentioned, but who was the mysterious figure that zapped Spider-man? And then how did he get captured after that?



Is this really how they're handling the Superior Spider man stuff? He seems like regular old Peter Parker in all the crossover titles, but then in his own title he cops an attitude and has an internal monologue? I had completely forgot about that "twist" until I got to the tie in issue of Superior.

What makes this worse than Flashpoint or AoA is that they have not one but two crappy futures, which made this seem more like a couple of arcs of the Exiles than a major crossover. Though you knew at the very beginning that this wasn't going to stick. Having read absolutely nothing about this crossover before, I was really surprised that that was the direction they went in for this.

The upside to this is that they didn't completely change characters that have a history, so at least they learned from Heroes Reborn and didn't get, say, McFarlane, Larsen and Silvestri to reboot their universe. Though they did bring back which was also a big 'meh.' I realize the whole thing with Gaiman, but still.

And those annoying AR codes... finally downloaded the app, and the way it works is kinda cool, but there's such a delay in loading from scene to scene that it's annoying and useless while reading a comic.

I also picked up and read the Nova hardcover by Loeb and Mcguiness... when left on their own to do outlandish stuff, I like them as a team.

I have a deep-seated hatred for Loeb. Just such a shitty writer. I wouldn't hate him so much if he wasn't so successful, landing high-profile work, but he's just terrible.

Just wrapped up Morning Glories Vol. 5 - Tests. It would be phenomenal to have some answers after two years.....sigh.

I saw that Amazon listed a Harbinger Deluxe HC encompassing the first couple of volumes from the Harbinger relaunch. Any opinions on that? I'd be going into it blind.

Just finished the first new 52 Animal Man trade and loved it.

Currently reading Girls and it's great as well.

I just finished Epic Iron Man: The Enemy Within. It reprints the first half of Denny O'Neil's run from the early 80s. Great stuff chronicling Tony Stark's descent into full-fledged alcoholism and Rhodey taking over as Iron Man. I hope Marvel releases the next volume soon.

Finished:

As a kid, I was completely fascinated by these books. This was the mid-80s, and at the time, every character didn't team up to take on some universe-threatening villain every month, like they do now. Over the years, I collected various issues of Secret Wars and Secret Wars II. This was the first time I read the first series in its entirety, and, well, it was mostly terrible.

At first, it hit a lot of my nostalgia buttons, so I was willing to forgive a lot of things, like shabby artwork and goofy dialogue. But after a while the whole thing became pretty tedious. It would have worked better as maybe four or six issues, but 12 issues is just too much to spread such a flimsy story. Each chapter is basically all the superheroes and villains just wailing on each other.

The trade I read had some fun supplemental material about the genesis of the book and toyline. It was meant to be a collaboration between Marvel and Mattel, but the toys tanked pretty hard. The comics did well enough to spawn a sequel. I vaguely remember The Beyonder walking around in a leisure suit and, like, gerry curls?

Secret Wars is like Watchmen compared to Secret Wars II. The first one was a fun gimmick, its sequel one of the worst crossovers in comics history.

Yeah, I remember that. I got an issue of it in a multi-comic pack. Man I miss those things. Tried some fun comics from those. Some stinkers, too.

Today, I finished Suicide Risk Vol.1 from Boom! I honestly was very lukewarm on this. I may or may not check out the second volume on it. I think I really like the idea more than the execution...

Just got through reading Bomb Queen Omnibus V3.

Finished The Walking Dead Book 1 last night. It is nice re-reading where it all started off. I haven't read the beginning in probably two years.