PhantomStranger

Days of Future Past would be a year-long event today.

PhantomStranger

I've been reading Superman for All Seasons by Loeb and Sale. I was pretty disappointed in Loeb's take on Clark's years in Smallville and I'll be honest in saying that Sale's rendition of Superman does very little for me. This is my first time reading it, I guess this artistic style for Supes heavily influenced Quitely's depiction of the character in All-Star Superman. Clark is portrayed as a very confused, lost teenager as a senior in high school. He's barely given any dialogue to work with, practically turning him dim-witted and aloof. It's the Norman Rockwell version of an emo teen, years before we got an actual emo version of Clark in Superman: Earth One.

DC really needs to put a moratorium on any more re-tellings of Superman's origin and formative years.

Trevor

I read the first collection of Ennis' The Boys. It was good, I think, but I feel so dirty now.

davidh777

We were discussing this in the purchase thread a while back, but I did buy the Iron Fist Epic Collection as a replacement for my Essentials and read most of it on a plane trip. I really like the series, and the later issues were new to me, but it's Claremont and Byrne so I enjoyed it.

It's funny how strongly I associate the series with Gil Kane (who I respect but am not a big fan of) when he just did the first issue.

fujishig

I don't think it was because of the Image revolution; if you remember, a lot of those artists who fancied themselves writers were actually overly wordy in a lot of their series, explaining every little nuance (sometimes because they couldn't put panels together to tell a story, so they put words on splash pages).

I always thought it was the Quesada/Jemas era, where they were trying to do more mature books and thought it was more movie-like if the audience heard what the characters did (and to be honest, a lot of early comics had way too much explanation in order to cram things in, with people speaking in ways that they never would in real life). And I think Bendis kinda perfected this "real world speech" thing with the 'ums' and swearing and whatnot, even though his dialogue isn't always necessarily what people would really say.

If you want a really lengthy discussion with a panel of pros talking about the death of thought balloons, read this:

http://www.balloontales.com/articles/thoughts/

Sometimes, I long for the old days, but then I read stuff like old school Claremont and even though I still love it, man it's hard to go back. And when I do re-read old issues, I always think stuff like the Kree-Skrull War and other 'big' events seem super short when I read it collected.

One thing Claremont did really well was introduce overarching stories, and have plotlines running in the background for years and years. This eventually turned itself into unmanageable crossovers on the corporate level, but I think it's one of the things that made his Uncanny run so great, this feeling that they're not all just one and done stories and maybe the villain shows up later, but it's a continuing narrative.

Inhumans99

Gotham Academy

superduper

The Dark Knight

Inhumans99

Effigy: Idol Worship

terrycloth

Just read

The Dark Knight Returns for the first time

Preterite

Had the week off, and in-between cleaning and sorting my porn collection, I read the following:

Atomic Robo vol 1. It's pretty much just Hellboy in sci-fi drag, isn't it?

Princess Leia by Waid and Dodson. Nice little story that adds depth to Leia's character as she deals with the loss of Alderaan and her family.

Daredevil Vol. 3: The Daredevil You Know. Waid really turns the screws on poor Matt in this one. I need to grab the next volume to see how this works out.

Kanan - The Last Padawan: Gripping tale that's a lot darker than the cartoon. Like the Dark Times series from Dark Horse, it really sells just how grim things were for the Jedi after Order 66.

Sensation Comics vol 2: Really digging this series, where a variety of creators can cut loose and/or examine the iconic nature of the character (although the first story in this volume was too long by half). I love being able to jump into some superhero goodness without having to worry about continuity and crossovers, and I wish they would do minis for other heroes - Green Lantern seems like a natural for such a project.

Trevor

Wow, what'd you think?

boredsilly

Read the first chunk of Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-Man. First 12 issues and Spider-Men collected in one of those Ultimate Edition Marvel collections. This book is pretty goddamn fantastic. It reminds me a lot of the Batgirl run before the New 52.

Mike86

Star Wars: Princess Leia- wasn't too sure about it and haven't read any of the Marvel Star Wars books before this but I found this miniseries pretty enjoyable. Fun story that fills in what Leia was up to after A New Hope and her dealing with the destruction of Alderaan. I'd say it's worth reading and will probably get to the other Star Wars books at some point.

davidh777

When was that published?

Mike86

Came out this year.

fujishig

I had picked up all the minis, but my dcbs bundles didn't include the main Convergence series, and I didn't realize that until too late. Since the tpb that was coming out was cheaper than the singles (even on clearance), I went with that, and finally read it.

I shouldn't have bothered. What a waste of an event. Basically just an Earth 2 tale.

PhantomStranger

I am skipping reading Convergence. Pretty much everyone has said it's not worth reading.

davidh777

Currently reading Graphic Ink Darwin Cooke and enjoyed the Jonah Hex stuff, which I hadn't read before.

Thanks--never can tell with Star Wars.

Inhumans99

Guardians Of The Galaxy & X-Men The Black Vortex HC

fujishig

I heard this was terrible, but as I've collected the first few issues of both books, I'm curious what you thought.

Inhumans99

It was okay at best...for an event storyline that is supposed to be consequential I felt it was lacking in the gravitas department. I probably picked it up for 50% off from IST. The problem is that nothing was memorable.

You may have figured out that I suck when it comes to comic reviews (despite having a B.A. in English and being a 25+ year comic reader)...I provide no details as to why you should hate or love a book, but yes...the short of it is that you could take a pass on this storyline and not end up with a nagging feeling that you missed something important that happened in the Marvel Universe.

Inhumans99

Spider-Verse HC. I actually enjoyed it (although it took forever for me to finish it up), but yeah...odd that the story is printed out of order, so basically the final few pages in the hardcover end up leaving you hanging (again, odd that you basically end up reading the conclusion to the story maybe nearly 2/3rds of the way through the book).

I got it for probably 52% off, and I know some of you grabbed it from amazon when they had it for 20 something dollars, worth a read if you have not even removed the shrinkwrap.

I am currently working on The Sculptor by Scott McCloud...wonderul book, and I have less than 150 pages to go (out of nearly 500 pages). This book is also taking me a long time to finish, but this is due to my bad time management skills.

fujishig

There are a few problems with the Spiderverse book. Yeah, it's out of order, and commits the cardinal sin of making the ending stories inconsequential because you already knew what was going to happen. They give a reading order in the beginning of the book but they don't have page numbers so it's impossible to flip back and forth without a bunch of bookmarks. Plus they completely removed the Edge of Spiderverse from the collection, if only to milk the Spider Gwen connection (and having bought the trade, it's not really worth getting separately). "Hopeless" is misspelled on the spine.

But it has Leapordon so all is forgiven.

Inhumans99

- Finished The Sculptor...again, it was a great read.
- War Goddess V1 HC - I actually enjoyed the heck out of this, and lucked out when I picked up the signed edition for 70% off (now worth a lot more than I paid).
- At least two thirds through Grimm Tales Of Terror HC.

slop101

[Hawkeye Omnibus by Fraction & Aja]

I liked it, but I feel sorry for anyone who had to read this through monthly floppies - this was the very epitome of "writing for the trade". It makes for a nice graphic novel, but if I had to read this monthly, I would've given up less than halfway through.

And like I said, I liked it, but it's not as great as the praise it's gotten.