Comics and Graphic Novel General Discussion!

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The power creep aspect's a pretty slippery slope. You end up running into situations where it's impossible to find good obstacles for them to overcome. It's kind of like the Justice League. When you've got a whole team of these super powerful characters, it seems like a bit of overkill.

I do like it when the characters actually grow over time, and they stick with the changes, instead of ret-conning them out of existence.

[MadeManG74]

^I agree, it's cool in Jason Aaron's run that I'm reading now they reference a lot of changes in Ghost Rider's past (losing his powers, his brother gaining them, Hellfire Shotguns etc).

On the power thing, they've managed to keep Ghost Rider interesting with his enemies mostly being Demonic/Heavenly so that they are comparable to him, or failing that they'll use Johnny Blaze's guilt/flaws to shake things up.

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Sounds pretty cool. I'll have to check out some Jason Aaron stuff sometime.

[Chaosmaster8753]

Here's a few particular comic arcs I've read recently:



I've always been a pretty big sucker for crossovers, and this was no exception. I just found it enjoyable seeing the two teams interacting and even homages to past Marvel/DC crossovers. Not to mention, you get to see Superman holding both Mjolnir and Cap's shield.



Decided to get into the Geoff Johns Lantern stories, and this was pretty damn good. Plus, not even Batman ****s with Hal Jordan.



This isn't too much about Spidey, but it's a really good series. Definitely one of Spidey's best opponents. Even though it's a 6 part miniseries, the 5th part is a great enough ending.

[CosmicCastaway]

I listed Kraven's Last Hunt in an earlier post as well. It's a great story.

Under the Hood is another one of my favorite Batman storylines. The animated film version of it is also very well done!




Also pretty much any of the stories Gail Simone wrote for Wonder Woman are quite fantastic.

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I've heard so much good stuff about Gail Simone, but not being a big follower of the DCU outside of Batman, Green Lantern, and occasionally Superman, I really don't have much of an idea of where to start with her stuff.
I've heard good things about Secret Six though.

[CosmicCastaway]

I've heard so much good stuff about Gail Simone, but not being a big follower of the DCU outside of Batman, Green Lantern, and occasionally Superman, I really don't have much of an idea of where to start with her stuff.
I've heard good things about Secret Six though.

The Wonder Woman books are pretty easy to jump in to. You'll only be missing out on some details here and there. Wonder Woman is great though, she is one of my favorite superheroes.

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Wherabouts did Gail Simone start writing the series?
Was it pretty recently?

[CosmicCastaway]

I believe she started writing for Wonder Woman after the Amazons Attack event. The story arc is called The Circle.

[max_cady]

I was reading a Gotham City Sirens GN today, the first one called Union.

I'm sure there's a lot of good Paul Dini writing here, but for the most part, you'll too distracted gazing at very oversexualized renditions of Harley, Selina and Poison Ivy.

Spoilers...

It's a collection of small stories, the debut issue [spoiler]where Selina, Ivy and Harley Quinn all reunite after Ivy saves Selina from a new, but rather uninspired villain, the Bonecrusher. They raid Edward Nigma's place(who's in a trance due to Ivy's flowers), the Bonecrusher comes after 'em and they fight him off, Eddie snaps back into reality and beats the living mans*** out out of him. The girls decide to move into a secret warehouse and start a... sorority? hq...? Something like that... Before they come clean, Ivy intoxicates Selina, straps her down (it's not as dirty as it sounds) and demands her to reveal Batman's true identity.

We cut to story 2, where Selina cheats her way out by saying that a lot of people where Batman(Bruce, Jason Todd, Harvey Dent) and that's really a group of individuals that done the cape either by being active vigilantes or just dressing up for charity (O... K...), they beleive her... And now, Harley goes looking for love in skimpy outfits and she runs into the fake Bruce Wayne, who is really Thomas Elliot posing as him, she saves him from a group of thugs and he decides to take her out on a night (trying to kill her and make it look like an accident), Selina and Ivy go look for her.

And we cut to story 3, where Edward Nigma fakes his death and makes fun of the girls, only for them to leave(and that's the last we see of these girls on this story). Eddie gives a press release over a crime he's investigating, Dick Grayson as Batman comes out and nabs him, they chat, Eddie finds the potential victim, saves her with the aid of Batman and that's it. It had nothing to do with the plot.

Finally, we see that Mr. J isn't too happy to see Harley hanging around with the fake Bruce and decides to take matters into his own hands. More of Harley trying to get risqué with Elliot, as he tries to push her out of a skyscrapper. Mr. J comes in and fighting ensues, Ivy and Selina jump in and save Harley.

Back in their HQ, the Joker barges in and it is revealed that this Joker is really a stubby clown, a former protegé of the insane clown who wants to gut Harley over her taking over stealing his thunder.
The girls defeat him. End of story.

The last story is a Christmas Special, where Ivy is skinny dipping in South America, Selina is having dinner with Dick and Damian is pissed off. Aaand Harley Quinn goes to visit her family, inclunding her jailed Dad(a famous con-artist), who is actually kinda creepy towards her.

No, there is no good writing to be found here, just look at the Gotham babes, that's the only thing worth browsing...

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I read a ton of comics over the past weekend.
I managed to finish off the Necrosha crossover, and in doing so caught caught up all the way to the Second Coming crossover in X-Force, New Mutants, X-Men Legacy and Uncanny X-Men. I finished the rest of the Cable series too, then read through all 14 parts of Second Coming.
I'm now officially only one year behind in X-Men comics (.....pretty much).

I'm thinking that I'll read Uncanny X-Force next. I've heard a ton of good things about it, and it's got a pretty good cast (Wolverine, Deadpool, Fantomex, Psylocke, and Archangel).
Next up, I'll get all caught up on Uncanny X-Men, then New Mutants and X-Men: Legacy.
After that, I'll start up X-Factor from the beginning of Peter David's run in 2005. I've already read the first 30 something issues, but they're really good, and it's been a long time since I've read them.

The hope is that I'll be caught up on all of it before the end of August, so I can keep up with X-Men: Schism.

[max_cady]

Well, after Gotham City Sirens left a bad taste in my mouth, I decided to venture into a few Graphic novels, I ordered a couple of GNs from BookDepository.co.uk:

-Secret Six: Unhinged - A ragtag group of C-villains with Bane as the major headhoncho? Sign me up.
-Green Lantern Corps: To be a Green Lantern - I hated the GL movie, but nevertheless it had me finally interested in the GL universe.

[MadeManG74]

Just read Vol. 1 of Ennis' Hitman:



Tommy Monaghan is a contract killer who gets attacked by an alien/demon thing and myseriously gains X-Ray vision and Telepathy. Rather than becoming a Superhero/Villian, he just continues being a killer, but starts specialising in super-human contracts. Things get really interesting when he gets a Million Dollar hit on The Joker in Arkham Asylum and he starts to bump heads with Batman.

[Chaosmaster8753]

Recently finished reading Green Lantern: Secret Origin and The Death of Gwen Stacy as some examples.

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I got all caught up on Uncanny X-Men and Uncanny X-Force.
It's nice to be caught up, but the realization that I'm going to have to start waiting a month between each issue is starting to sink in .

With all this news about Schism, I'm wondering if they'll cancel any of the other titles in the X-Men line. I mean, Uncanny X-Men's just going back to #1, but it seems like Generation Hope, and New Mutants might be on the chopping block once the main title splits in two.  I really have no idea why they're still making Astonishing at this point.