Weekly Comic Book Discussion 3/30/2005

Cafe Society
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Hello all,

This is my first time starting the Weekly Comic Book Discussion, but I actually bought a lot of comics this week and wanted to brag. I bought:

Countdown To Infinite Crisis: I loved it, and wrote a long review in the Countdown thread. Beware of spoilers!

Sleeper Season 2 #10: Meh, I’m glad it’s almost over. It’s still very good, but I’m just losing interest.

Captain Atom #42: a back issue where Cap goes to purgatory and meets Destiny and Death of the Endless. Very weird, and a real curiosity. Pale little Goth kids who worship Neil Gaiman might pay me big bucks for it, though.

The Question #1 (1986 series): I always liked the character, but never read his series back in the '80s. I enjoyed the first issue, and will try to seek out more in the future. Once the current Question miniseries is done, I’ll either wait for the trade or try to pick up all the back issues together, at a discount. I’d LOVE to see a Question movie, but in the meantime, he’s my favorite character on the Justice League Unlimited cartoon.

G.I. Joe #22, G.I. Joe Yearbook #3-4: all from the back issue bin… I now have 152 out of the 155 issues of Marvel’s G.I. Joe series, all 28 Special Missions, all 4 Order of Battles, all 4 Vs. Transformers, and now all 4 Yearbooks. (I don’t expect to find G.I. Joe #151, 153, or 154 cheap, so I consider my collection pretty much complete.)

X-Men #3: a 50-cent back issue. Even though I sold off most of my X-Men comics on eBay last year, I had an extra copy of #1 (who DIDN’T buy multiple-cover copies of that one?), and I got reprints of #2 and 4 with my Magneto and Gambit Marvel Legends action figures. 50 cents later, I’ve got the run of #1-4 again, and I still think Jim Lee is the best X-Men artist ever.

Cable… I’m picking up cheap back issues like crazy from the back-to-back runs written by James Robinson and Joe Casey. I only started collecting these Cables a couple weeks ago, but I’m only about 10 issues away from having the complete Robinson/Casey run from #44 to 70, paying no more than a buck per issue. These guys actually made Cable COOL, and the gorgeous, Kirby-like art of Jose Ladronn doesn’t hurt either.

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DC Countdown to Infinite Crisis: You know, that is a sucky title. Ah well, the book was great. See separate thread for full comments. Who else wants to see those OMAC files with the stats for every hero? It’d solve a lot of “who beats who” arguments.

The Flash #220: Ooh… Rogues. And Zoom! Good stuff. Looks like the “bad” Rogues finding out about Boomerrang’s body occurred in #1/2, but it was easy enough to follow here. Glad to see that they aren’t dragging out Wally and Linda’s marital angst any more.

Legion of Super-Heroes #4: Waid ends his stream of putting a self-contained story per issue. This book has two self-contained stories. Both of 'em pretty good, although the main Invisible Kid story was kinda weak by the standards of the rest of the series so far. The Phantom Girl story was excellent. Great backstories on all the of the characters so far. Did anyone else notice that Colossal/Micro Boy, according to his profle on the title page, is from Earth? Was that an error?

Astonishing X-Men #9: Two sci-fi plots that have been done to death: Trouble with the simulated reality, and the machine turns on its controllers. Still, Whedon manages to give the Danger Room a decent motivation and a nifty malicious personality, which breaths a little bit of freshness into a stale plot.

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Should I begin to start these on Wednesday evening, then, or just when something like DC Countdown to Infinite Gauntlet Crisis Hour comes out and gets everyone all riled up? :wink:

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Lots of stuff, much of which was bought last week:

Queen & Country vol. 7, Operation: Saddlebags – Whoa. This was great. In the prologue, Tara Chace visits her mother. They don’t get on. The rest of the book was about an operation in St. Petersburg that craters. (I always know I’m reading a good comic when I try to warn the characters of something that’s about to happen.) But here it’s the aftermath of the mission that’s really striking. Tara’s really starting to let things spiral away from her now, and she’s failing to deal with it.

Nikolai Dante vol. 2, The Great Game – I mentioned the first Nikolai Dante volume some months ago. This one’s even better. Hilarious, action-packed, well-characterized, creepy, and even occasionally moving. Dante is a rogue in a restored sci-fi tsarist empire who finds out that he’s an illegitimate scion of one of the empire’s noble families, one that’s constantly scheming to take over the imperial throne. The first almost-half of this volume is a long-ish story about the shame of the past; it’s really excellent. The rest of the book is a series of short stories about Dante’s adventures with his half-sibs, his father’s legitimate children. They’re all creepy and dangerous and psycho, but in different ways. This is a fabulous series. Everyone should pick up the first volume right away. (Your LCS probably doesn’t stock it, but he can order it.)

Countdown – I almost didn’t buy it. I don’t read a lot of supers comics (Manhunter, LSH, and Runaways are the only ones I can think of, and they’re all non-typical). But a buck, right? Great issue. Made me give a shit about Blue Beetle. I don’t know why J’onn and Superman were such assholes to him (that’s very much out of step for both), but the rest was really thoughtful and powerful.

I don’t know if I’m going to cave and start following the developments from Countdown. It’s clear that at a minimum I’d have to be familiar with what happened in Identity Crisis, GL: Rebirth, and the recent Adam Strange series, none of which I read. Plus I hear Teen Titans is doing a Dr. Light arc right now, Checkmate is showing up in Manhunter, and then there’s all that stuff with Firestorm. Oh, and I guess I should pick up some TPB’s of Superman/Batman so I can figure out why Luthor isn’t president anymore. And who Dr. Psycho is. Ack – I feel overloaded already. Still, this thing was good comics.

Legion #4 – Continues to be very good, and as in every previous issue we get just enough of a glimpse of the coming chaos to really dread it. Waid was going to have to work very hard to wean me from the DnA Legion that I loved, but this is doing the job.

Bad Company – Yet another 2000 A.D. reprint. This is by Peter Milligan with Ewins & McCarthy on art. The first half is fantastic – the story of a young man sent to war who steadily loses his humanity as he learns how to survive. The stories in the second part get away from that somewhat until the climax, and they’re not as strong. But even at its most superficial it’s still a fun romp in the typical 2000 A.D. “military unit with a bunch of funny-looking mistfits carrying big guns” style. But the first part of the book is the best Milligan I’ve ever read and is well worth the price of admission.

–Cliffy

P.S. Also bought Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death which I haven’t read yet.

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Concrete: The Human Dilemma #4: A good twist in a story is one you didn’t see coming, but in hindsight seems inevitable. In that light, there’s a great twist on the last page of the story in this issue! I’m loving this like I haven’t loved Concrete in years.

Unrelated to the story, Paul Chadwick notes in the text pages that a Concrete movie is winding its way through the Hollywood system, and that among those who’ve written a screenplay for it are: Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh! They’re no longer attached to the project, which is a shame; wouldn’t that have been a corker?

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As much as I rant about how comics need to be more open to new readers, I’m not sure it’s as bad as all that. Most of that stuff can be summed up in a sentence (The Justice League brainwashed Dr. Light and then Batman to cover it up; Hal Jordan is back), will be of minimal importance the new series (Luthor used an incoming Kryptonite meteor as an excuse to go on an anti-Superman Fatwa, injected himself with a misture of venom of kryptonite and Venom and went temporarily wack-a-ding hoy, and is now dscredited and thought to be dead), or what’s important will be recapped.

Or, at least, I hope so. I haven’t been following all of the above myself. I’d like it if you had to read everything to get the most complete take on everything, but following the various minis by themselves would give you a complete and enjoyable story in themselves. It’s the same model Seven Soldiers is using, but applied to an entire comic universe.

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Well, yeah, I was exaggerating, but I’ve always been a completist about everything I get into. (I’ve got every frikkin’ issue of the New Universe, for heaven’s sake – you think that ain’t obsessive?)

–Cliffy

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DC Countdown : Discussed elsewhere.

Flash #220 - Great issue. I wonder if the project using Elder Boomer’s body is connected to Checkmate? Or maybe Luthor’s Group? Would fit the theme of either eliminating competition, or eliminating superpowered types.

Astonishing X-Men #9 - I’m wavering on this. On the one hand, it’s an interesting concept. On the other, this issue was really talky and kind of flat.

Legion of Super-Heroes #4 - I loved the Invisible Kid story, less so the Phantom Girl. It’s a neat take on her origin, though. The interaction between Brainy and Lyle really made the first half work for me.

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Anyone read Ultimate Secret yet? I don’t know…Ultimate Captain Marvel just seems so…unnecessary.

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I did get Ultimate Secret #1.

Didn’t care for ultra-butch Carol Danvers much, but I like the addition of Ultimate Captain Marvel. It was a decent read, but it felt lightweight - may get better.

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Legion of Super-Heroes #4: Still my favorite super-hero title right now. Missed Kitson’s art in the first story, but Gibbons in the back-up made up for it. Speaking of the back-up, Phantom Girl must not be big on modesty. One imagines that at certain times spectators in one dimension or the other are going to spy a naked girl in the middle of the street bathing, having sex, etc… Which a significant portion of the population probably wouldn’t object to, of course.

I started a thread on Countdown and mentioned my thoughts on JLA Classified #5, which I just got this week, in there. I still need to pick up Flash (not to mention Wonder Woman and Sonic the Hedghog from a couple weeks ago; sheesh, I’m behind).

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Lessee - Doc Spectrum #6 - bringing us to Spectrum’s awakening. Richard Dragon #11, penultimate issue - we learn that Connor Hawke is a bit more awesome than he’s given credit for, and Dragon regrets his deal with Neron; Outsiders #22 - I smell Villains United Leadin, as Deathstroke taunts Arsenal about having spoonfed the Outsiders tips to eliminate competition… Spidey/Human Torch #2 and #3 - I dunno, there were some funny bits, but they still felt “off.” Fantastic Four #524 - This issues stinks of wrap-up-itis. But it’s okay. Otherworld #1 - Phil Jimenez’s new Vertigo offering - nothing to write home about yet.

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I had a fun afternoon. Hit a chain of three comic shops on my drive home from work because they were all having a sale on the last day of the month, and my weekly haul just grew:

Doctor Mid-Nite TPB
JSA: The Liberty Files TPB
Mr. Majestic TPB (the Joe Casey/Alan Moore one, not the new bandwagon-jumper one)
DC Direct Jenny Sparks action figure (nice markdown)
DC Direct Elongated Man action figure (marked down as well, and they threw in a copy of Identity Crisis #1… “Hey kids, play with happy, smiling Ralph, and then read the story about his wife being raped and murdered!”)

I also picked up the Absolute Authority and Absolute Planetary hardcovers and another Jenny Sparks figure for other people, while they were on sale. Spent a good bit of cash, but not a fraction as much as what that swag would normally cost.

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Astonishing X-Men #9: I’m a comics newbie, help me out, kids. Is the Danger Room’s personalization supposed to be someone I should recognize, or is it just Anonymous Weird AI Shi’ar Creature?

The plot is a ripoff of all those annoying Star Trek: TNG episodes where they got stuck in the Holodeck, but whatever. I’ll keep reading. I liked the line about rebuilding the mansion with Legos. Why would anyone want to live in a place that gets destroyed so regularly?

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My store is having one of it’s quarterly “everything in the store is 20% off” sales Saturday so I put everything back into my hold. I’m dying cause there is some good stuff in there.

There had been rumblings that the Grant Morrison Marvel Boy might have been considered the first Ultimate title, before the line actually launched. Does Ultimate Secret (sounds like they improved the deodorant) back that theory up?

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Marvel… Boy? Unfamiliar with this, unless you mean Vance Astrovik?

Kyla : As far as I know, the Danger Room isn’t personifying anyone specific, especially not Weird Al.

:smiley:

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No, Marvel Boy was a six-issue mini Morrison did for Marvel after he finished his run on JLA. I think the main character was explicitly a member of the kree race, but the kree as portrayed in the book didn’t behave much like what I know of the typical MU kree. Indeed, although I’ve only read it once and that years ago, I think the kree as portrayed in the series are kind of what you might have expected from Ultimate Kree given the way the Ultimate Universe has developed.

–Cliffy

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Ah, must’ve missed that one.

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Uno mas:

Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death – Just finished this on ethis morning. Another of DC’s 2000 A.D. reprint collections featuring some very early stories of Judge Dredd. The first half of the book contains the first two stories featuring Judge Death, an evil creature from another dimension where the judges have decided life is a crime. Lovely Brian Bolland art here on a John Wagner script (Dredd’s original writer). It’s quite a good action story. The scond half of the book prints bunch of even earlier short (1 or 2 prog) Dredd stories by Wagner and Bolland. Here, Dredd is really just a cop, not the force of nature that he becomes in some later stories. I really hope to see more of these early Dredd stories in DC’s future reprint volumes.

–Cliffy