Comics and Graphic Novel General Discussion!

[MadeManG74]

Waaait a minute? Aaron? As in Jason Aaron? Holy shit, I just finished reading his run on Punisher Max (I posted about it right here) and loved it.

Fukken' Sold! Thanks Cosmic! *goes to ebay*

[max_cady]

@Soup

That's why I'm looking foward to the reboot. No more Damian Wayne, please!

[SOUP]

@MadeManG: Sorry. Can't help much on the Ghost Rider front. I think the only Ghost Rider issues I have are from a crossover with the X-Men in the early 90's.

@max_cady:
I've been doing a lot of checking into the whole DC thing. Looks like they're emphasising the fact that it's a "relaunch" instead of a "reboot".
Basically they're keeping a decent amount of current DC continuity (the rainbow corps in Green Lantern), and Damian Wayne is still Robin. Dick Grayson's Nightwing again too.

Here's the full list of titles with Writers/Artists:

Justice League #1: Geoff Johns, Jim Lee
Aquaman #1: Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis
Wonder Woman #1: Brian Azzarello, Cliff Chiang
The Flash #1: Francis Manapaul, Brian Buccellato (both on script and art)
The Fury Of Firestorm #1: Ethan Van Sciver, Gail Simone (writers), Yildiray Cinar (art)
The Savage Hawkman #1: Tony Daniels, Philip Tan
Green Arrow #1: JT Krul, Tony Daniels
Justice League International #1: Dan Jurgens, Aaron Lopresti
Mister Terrific #1: Eric Wallace, Roger Robinson
Captain Atom #1: JT KRul, Freddie Williams II
Green Lantern #1: Geoff Johns, Doug Mahnke and Christian Alamy
Green Lantern Corps #1: Peter J. Tomasi, Fernando Pasarin and Scott Hanna
Green Lantern: The New Guardians #1: Tony Bedard,  Tyler Kirkham
Red Lanterns #1: Peter Milligan, Ed Benes and Rob Hunter
Batman #1: Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo,
Detective Comics #1: Tony Daniels (writer and artist)
Batman and Robin #1: Peter J. Tomasi, Patrick Gleason
Batman: The Dark Knight #1: David Finch, Jay Fabok (art assists)
Batwoman #1: J.H. Williams III, Haden Blackman, Amy Reeder
Batgirl #1: Gail Simone, Ardian Syaf and Vicente Cifuentes (artists)
Catwoman #1: Judd Winick, Guillem March
Birds Of Prey #1: Duane Swierczynski, Jesus Saiz
Nighwing #1: Kyle Higgins, Eddy Barrows
Batman Inc. #1: Grant Morrison, Chris Burnham
Red Hood and the Outlaws #1: Scott Lobdell, Kenneth Rocafort
Batwing #1: Judd Winick, Ben Oliver
Swamp Thing #1: Scott Snyder, Yannick Paquette
Animal Man #1: Jeff Lemire, Travel Foreman and Dan Green (artists)
Justice League Dark #1: Peter Milligan, Mikel Janin
Demon Knights #1: Paul Cornell, Diogenes Neves and Oclair Albert (artists)
Frankenstein, Agent of SHADE #1: Jeff Lemire, Alberto Ponticelli
Resurrection Man #1: Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning (writers), Fernando Dagnino
Vampires #1: Josh Fialkov, Andrea Sorrentino
Voodoo #1: Ron Marz, Sami Basri
Teen Titans #1: Scott Lobdell, Brett Booth and Norm Rapmund (artists)
Legion Lost #1: Fabian Nicieza, Pete Woods
Legion of Super Heroes #1: Paul Levitz, Francis Portela.
Static Shock #1: John Rozum, Scott McDaniel (writers) w/McDaniel also on art
Hawk and Dove #1: Sterling Gates, Rob Liefeld.
Stormwatch #1: Paul Cornell, Miguel Sepulveda
Blackhawks #1: Mike Costa, Ken Lashley
Sgt. Rock and the Men Of War #1: Ivan Brandon, Tom Derenick.
All-Star Western #1: Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti (writers), Moritat
Deathstroke #1: Kyle Higgins, Joe Bennett and Art Thibert (artists)
Grifter #1: Nathan Edmondson, with art by CAFU and BIT
OMAC #1: Dan DiDio and co-written and illustrated by Keith Giffen and Scott Koblish
Blue Beetle #1: Tony Bedard, Ig Guara
Suicide Squad #1: Adam Glass, Marco Rudy
Action Comics #1: Grant Morrison, Rags Morales
Superman #1: George Perez, Jesus Merino
Supergirl #1: Michael Green, Mike Johnson (writers), Mahmud Asrar
Superboy #1: Scott Lobdell with art by R.B. Silva and Rob Lean.

There's a few that I might actually start picking up. I really liked Peter Milligan's run on X-Men, so I'm interested in the books he's writing. There are still a stupid amount of Batman books though.

In other news, it looks like Marvel's ending Uncanny X-Men after issue 544. Something to do with this summer's X-Men event I'm sure. I imagine they'll launch a new series or something, but I don't really get why they're doing this.

[Sega Uranus]

Anyone know how the Mass Effect comics are? I am thinking about giving them a read.

Also FFUUFUFUF I need to finish 100 Bullets.

[MadeManG74]

^Yes you do. What did you end up getting to in the series? I know you got to Hang up on the Hang low at least (Loop and his dad), but can't remember if you got any further. Did you ever read Counterfifth Detective?

[Aki-at]

One of my favourite comic book series, Trigun is awesome for people who like westerns and also Nightow is a fantastic artist, love his stuff (He also did GunGrave for those looking for a SEGA link)

I'm also a big fan of Marvel (Spiderman, Wolverine, Punisher, Hulk etc) I stopped reading Marvel's mainline series sometime ago, the amount of retcons and dragging their characters through the mud (Gwen Stacey had kids with the Green Goblin! Professor X is actually a manipulative bastard! etc) and I do not follow the comic books as much as I use too. That being said I still love some of their stuff like...



Old Man Logan.

[SOUP]

I've been reading through the first volume of the X-Men omnibuses.
This one covers the first 31 issues from the 60's run.
First off, while it's cool to see a bunch of iconic characters make their first appearances, it's pretty hilariously dated. The art's very nice (if lacking much colour), but it's the writing that really shows it's age.

Characters will constantly explain their motivation for pretty much every action they take, but I'm getting more used to it. There are a few things that seem pretty out of place though. For example, Magneto has more telepathic abilities than Jean does. He's been projecting astral versions of himself, and the book says his mental powers are second only to Professor X. Meanwhile, all Jean does is move things around with her mind. The characters seem to be evolving a bit over time, which is nice.
Iceman started out looking like a snowman, but he's recently switched to his more recognizable look.

The Professor's a bit of a jerk at this point too.

I've heard the last 9 issues of the 60's run are really good, so I'm looking forward to getting up to them.

[max_cady]

I'm looking into a new Graphic novel, I'm kinda sick of re-reading the ones I already have.

Thinking of gettin' a new Batman GN and a maybe a GL novel.

[MadeManG74]

I went to Supanova convention last weekend and met Dave Johnson, cover artist for 100 Bullets and Punisher Max. I got him to sign some comics for me, and even got a Punisher sketch from him (now framed):




Anyway, i've been reading Jason Aaron's Ghost Rider run recently, really really good so far. I'm enjoying it much more than Ennis' 'Road to Damnation' mini-series for the character. They just introduced Blackout, who seems like a really cool villian.

The thing is, Ghost Rider seems to have a much more complicated history than Punisher does, so keeping up with all the goings on can be a bit tough. Although that's probbaly mostly just me being really curious about every detail, since the stories are nicely self-contained.

[SOUP]

I'm looking into a new Graphic novel, I'm kinda sick of re-reading the ones I already have.

Thinking of gettin' a new Batman GN and a maybe a GL novel.

Y: The Last Man if you don't have it. As far as Batman stuff, I'm not sure if they've been collected, but Paul Dini(producer of Batman: The Animated Series)'s run on Detective Comics was pretty good.

[max_cady]

Yeah, I have Batman: Private Bookcase. An excellent collection of small yet, very interesting stories.

Paul Dini captured the real feel of the Batman in Detective Comics, as a detective, unlike the more down and dirty superhero action set pieces from the Batman comics book.

It's like Maigret, if he wore a cape and cowl.

[SOUP]

That's great that they've got those stories collected. It was a pretty refreshing change of pace for today's world of 4-6 issue story arcs, where everything's geared towards getting collected in trades.

I read X-Men #12 last night. It's probably the first issue in the series that I'd categorize as really good. The whole issue's basicaly Professor X giving the X-Men the origin story of himself and Cain Marko while this unseen monster systematically destroys all the defenses they've set up around the mansion. There's some legitimate tension as this thing gets closer and closer, until the big reveal at the end. I'm really looking forward to getting to the Roy Thomas stuff.

[Chaosmaster8753]

I read X-Men #12 last night. It's probably the first issue in the series that I'd categorize as really good. The whole issue's basicaly Professor X giving the X-Men the origin story of himself and Cain Marko while this unseen monster systematically destroys all the defenses they've set up around the mansion. There's some legitimate tension as this thing gets closer and closer, until the big reveal at the end. I'm really looking forward to getting to the Roy Thomas stuff.

You read any of Chris Claremont's work on X-Men?

[SOUP]

@Chaosmaster8753:
I've got Uncanny X-Men Omnibus volume 1, that goes covers Giant Size #1, and 94-131. I haven't read all of them though. I've got a decent amount of issues from the Jim Lee era, but haven't read much of them because I'm trying to get them all in order to read in sequnce.

I've read the more recent stuff he did though. X-Treme X-Men #1-46, flowing into his run on Uncanny X-Men (444-473). I really enjoyed all of it too. Especially when Rachel Summers was featuring in it.

[MadeManG74]

I've been reading through the first volume of the X-Men omnibuses.
This one covers the first 31 issues from the 60's run.
First off, while it's cool to see a bunch of iconic characters make their first appearances, it's pretty hilariously dated. The art's very nice (if lacking much colour), but it's the writing that really shows it's age.

Characters will constantly explain their motivation for pretty much every action they take, but I'm getting more used to it. There are a few things that seem pretty out of place though. For example, Magneto has more telepathic abilities than Jean does. He's been projecting astral versions of himself, and the book says his mental powers are second only to Professor X. Meanwhile, all Jean does is move things around with her mind. The characters seem to be evolving a bit over time, which is nice.
Iceman started out looking like a snowman, but he's recently switched to his more recognizable look.

The Professor's a bit of a jerk at this point too.

I've heard the last 9 issues of the 60's run are really good, so I'm looking forward to getting up to them.

Almost forgot to comment, but I also thought it was interesting how characters grossly change over time in Marvel or just from their original run at least. I read Ghost Riders original series a while back, and it's pretty wild how he changed from being supposedly much weaker than Spider-Man and others to his modern-day incarnation where he's potentially the most powerful being on the planet (can mop the floor with Hulk if he wanted to).

Not to mention the power creep he's had almost puts superman to Shame. He started out as his head transforming into a glowing skull every night and being able to shoot fire from his hand and that was it. Now he is invincible, can create nuke-level explosions of hellfire, create flames that burn only the wicked, summon chains that can bind anyone, use the Penance Stare, ride his motorbike up 90 degree inclines...