After this hell of a semester (it really wasn’t that hard, I just whine) I’ve decided I need a new comic book series to read. I was just going to wander around a comic book store in town but decided I should have at least an idea of what I’m looking for.
I’m a borderline comic book newb. I’ve read original X-Men years ago, I know the back-story of the Civil War in the Marvel universe, etc.
So far I have one subscription and that’s to the latest series of Deadpool. I love him. I have the entirety of the new series plus all of Cable and Deadpool.
I hate Wolverine. Hate him with a passion. I used to be really into X-Men a long time ago and still enjoy Nightcrawler and Gambit, so I’m not averse to their stories.
One thing I want to avoid is having a long complicated series I need to catch up on. I want something where I need to, at most, read a couple of the anthologies, but not 10 complicated years worth of stories.
So please, Dopers, help me with my comic books so I can impress the ladies.
The Unwritten is very good, and just hit issue 19; right now it looks like we’ve got two TPBs out covering up through issue 12. Difficult to sum up in a sentence before I nip off to bed, but it’s about this twenty-something guy, Tommy Taylor. His dad wrote a series of books that are stand-ins for the Harry Potter novels–I occasionally feel like I’m missing things in the comic from never having read those–but has since disappeared. The protagonist of the novels was named Tommy Taylor, and now the rather unhappy real world TT is coasting along, milking the convention circuit, except that people keep having a problem distinguishing him from the fictional TT, and things from the books keep bleeding over into the real world… Thematically it seems to be about stories, storytelling, and their power, and various other literary bits show up as well–Dickens, Twain, Kipling and Melville that I can think of immediately. Worth checking out if you can…
Anything by Garth Ennis. Right now, he’s about fifty issues into something called The Boys, about a covert ops group that targets superheroes; is four years’ worth of backstory too much? Get the first TPB to see if it’s to your liking (It very conceivably might not be). He also did a bunch of self-contained Punisher arcs; the ones Steve Dillon illustrated are the best, IMO. And if you can find his Enemy Ace 2-parter, “War in Heaven,” it’s probably one of the best war comics ever, especially the issue Russ Heath illustrated.
I’m a big fan of Brian Michael Bendis, but it takes him five issues to show Daredevil answering a door, so he might not be your cup of tea.
It´s a manga, but about as far from Dragonball, Pokemon or One Piece you can get.
It´s about a Japanese surgeon living in Germany in the eighties, and his hunt for possibly the most evil and awesome character of all literature - Johan Liebert, whom you will have nightmares about.
It was also made into one of the best animated series of the decade.
Every time I try to explain this series, I somehow manage to emphasize just the wrong aspect and wind up turning someone off, so here’s the preview for the first issue, have a look for yourself.
The first three story arcs are already out in trade and tend to hit the stands a week or two after the latest arc wraps, so it’s extremely easy to keep up with.
While you’re at that second link, I’d also recommend Age of Bronze, Proof, Suburban Glamour, Noble Causes, and Fell. The first issue of Walking Dead is up there too, but I think everyone who’s interested has already read it in some form or another.
