Comic Book Thread

Atomic Postman

Atomic Postman

Vault Archives Overseer
Comic books are neat. Let's talk about them.

What series do you guys read? What is your favourite character? What's your opinion on current events or developments with whatever it is you read? Any discussion about comics is welcome.

I'm a big Moon Knight fan, and it's pretty much the only new Marvel book I'm picking up. The recent "All-New-All-Different" run that's just started is...okay. The art is brilliant and the premise is interesting, but the dialogue is really awkward and ill-fitting at times.

As for the whole "All New All Different" series in general, I think it's pretty terrible. Secret Wars was cool, but another relaunch was utterly unncessary. Marvel NOW was fine, and actually had some fantastic runs to boot. It's ridiculous that some books like Spider-Gwen weren't even on their 10th issue before being relaunched.
 
I just started the Uncanny X-Men, from the beginning, yes, the very very beginning. There's like 500+ issues and I'm at #5...

Anyway, The Secret Wars thing along with the All-New All-Different (ANAD) felt rushed. Like they had this huge thing planned and then once it got started they had to rush it out just so that they could start the ANAD run. I haven't read too much of ANAD, only Wolverine, parts of Deadpool and Uncanny Avengers. And it's early on, it's too hard to decide for me if it is good or bad just yet.

I mean, after Deadpool Vol 2 (Waypool) I was pretty bitter about how they ruined Deadpool and starting Deadpool Vol 3 (Marvel Now) right off the bat it was about him hunting down zombie presidents so I was worried that it was going to be more of Waypool just a teensy bit toned down. But boy oh boy did his Marvel Now run ramp up to be one of my favorite Deadpool stories.

So ANAD? It's too new. I won't know exacly how I feel until I'm like 15 issues into something. Bias works both ways and with how they're switching some things up in ANAD it's important to be objective but also open to the differences. One of my friends was reading ANAD Wolverine and said he didn't like it because he felt Laura was too one-dimensional, I read some of it and was like "what are you talking about?" And he confessed that he loved the Logan Wolverine so I fear that bias was keeping him from being open to it.

However, I don't really like how they have to have new/old characters ride on the coattail of already established heroes. Why couldn't Laura simply be "X-23", why does she have to be "Wolverine"? Why does Gwen have to be "Spider" and "Dead"? Why can't they just use Gwen Stacy and give her her own powers and her own identity? We've had this happen before of course so it is nothing new but I still don't like it. I understand that people might be hesitant to buy and read a comic called X-23 if they've never read anything with Laura before but it feels like a cheap way to garner reader attention. Logan is Wolverine and Laura is X-23. That's what they should be. With Falcon taking the mantle of Captain America it was kinda different. Different backstory, different meaning behind the name and title of "Captain America". But Spider-Gwen? Really? Gwenpool? Seriously? Wolverine with tits? Fuck off.

But it's just a minor nitpick of mine, it doesn't get in the way too much for me.

Aaaaanyway, as to what I've read before and enjoyed. I love the grim and bloody Uncanny X-Force series. I don't know which volume it was but when X-23, Wolverine, ArchAngel and Warpath fought against religious christian fanatics it really got my nipples twitching with glee. It's not that I have to have blood and gore and edginess in my comics but when I see someone who's power is to grow blades out his fists and slash enemies with them then I expect it to be gruesome.

It's something that I didn't like in Planet Hulk where the Hulk attacked earth an wrecked new York and then they go "but Hulk didn't actually kill anyone, amazingly enough". Like, I can't stand that shit. You have this muscle-mass in the form of a humanoid that is wrecking buildings left and right and no one died? Sorry, but that's bullshit. I hate it when they go all PG13 with powers. If you're going to give characters unbelievable powers then I expect the writer to be an adult and write believable stories.

So Uncanny X-Force was delicious to me. To see just how brutal and excessively gory their powers would end up being if they went all out with them. I don't want that out of every comic. I'm just saying that if someone got a power that is that of a fucking god and that power is turned against normal people then realistically those fuckers would be dead if not disintegrated into nothingness.
 
I enjoy a lot of Marvel.
Over here in the UK, we get a bunch of comics that reprint the American ones.
You get about three American comics in one issue which is pretty neat.
Problem is, we're pretty behind (as in we've just started Secret War).

Other than that, I enjoy Batman and I have a soft spot for Spawn.
Manga wise, I really like Dragonball, although I'm not sure if it's for nostalgic reasons.
 
I enjoy images the walking dead. Great book. Favorite character is Andrea and goddamn did AMC fuck her up... oh well can't wait to see what negans gonna do.
 
Yeah I read TWD too, love it but it really needs to get rid of Rick. I get it, Rick was the protagonist but it is a series with tons of characters, explore other characters instead of giving Rick constant page after page. I don't need him to be killed off but for gods sake if it is so difficult for Kirkman to write TWD without constantly putting Rick at the forefront maybe it is time to him to be killed off. "Rick's story" IMO concluded once he defeated Negan. He should've died from the wounds he got and then maybe focus more of the story on Maggie, Andrea and/or Carl.

It's not to say that they barely get any panels. I just think Rick is hogging too many.
 
Mr Fish said:
Yeah I read TWD too, love it but it really needs to get rid of Rick. I get it, Rick was the protagonist but it is a series with tons of characters, explore other characters instead of giving Rick constant page after page. I don't need him to be killed off but for gods sake if it is so difficult for Kirkman to write TWD without constantly putting Rick at the forefront maybe it is time to him to be killed off. "Rick's story" IMO concluded once he defeated Negan. He should've died from the wounds he got and then maybe focus more of the story on Maggie, Andrea and/or Carl.

It's not to say that they barely get any panels. I just think Rick is hogging too many.
Click to expand...

Yeah, has got a lot of great characters going for him, well most are dead. But hello negan, maggie, andrea, michonne... hope you all get some character development soon.

And yeah they need less rick but I wouldn't go so far as to say they need no rick. Honestly I wanna see how he treats negan or if a friendship eventually forms or at least more realistically, mutual respect.
 
After Negan killed 'yet another' person?
I doubt it.
Anything Negan said while imprisoned to give any impression otherwise is pretty much thrown out the window now that he's shown that he hasn't really changed at all; Yet another body lays in his path.
 
Mr Fish said:
After Negan killed 'yet another' person?
I doubt it.
Anything Negan said while imprisoned to give any impression otherwise is pretty much thrown out the window now that he's shown that he hasn't really changed at all; Yet another body lays in his path.
Click to expand...


yeah but that can mostly be chalked up to a precautionary measure. Then again that kid had hated both groups. Negan may have been protect in rick from that kids plan. Idk fan theories are bullshit best to wait.
 
I grew up with a whole range of different comics, from Winnie the Pooh, Bamse (Swedish), Asterix, Gaston Lagaffe + Spirou. For several years I bought (alternatively mom bought for me) weekly Donald Duck & co comics (where nearly every single story somehow revolves around money... :D), I later developed a weak spot for Elfquest (untill it killed itself by "expanding" and fragmenting, digging its own grave)

While I had little access to superhero comics or manga, I did explore the "adult section" at the library (adult, as in adult, not sexy-porn. We really have ruined the word "adult", haven't we?) where I totally fell in love with Gen (alt. "Barefoot Gen"), Frank Miller's The Dark Knight and Akira

Apart from these, I was also deep into strips, and as a young kid I easily fell for Garfield and Orson's Farm, as well as Gary Larson's "Far Side", not to mention the king of all comic strips - Calvin and Hobbes

I had many passing interests, such as Spawn (which I lost interest in as soon as I realized there was no end in sight, a mass production of neverending narrative)

Others have fascinated me, but I never found the time to delve into them, such as "Keepers of the Maser" (probably the most beautifully illustrated comic book I've seen so far), as well as Moebius' work

I am probably forgetting many more titles I have shown interest in over the years
 
I always loved Asterix the Gaul comics and I have about 16 of them. Also enjoyed Tintin, but I love Asterix. Could never get into Marvel or DC comics.
 
I was thinking about adding The Vision and The Ultimates to my pull list since I hear good things about them. Any readers of that here?
 
So has anyone else picked up DC Universe Rebirth?

I picked it up today, I'm not too big into DC and I thought this would be a good place to start.
Not read it, yet it looks decent.
 
So, I read Gwenpool. It's pretty good. Not amazing, but pretty good.
She's not really like Deadpool. Gwen Poole is someone who came from our real world through a portal into the Marvel world and has read Marvel comics so she thinks that everything is fictional and that nothing really matters. She believes that she is the protagonist in her own series. She does not have a healing factor and is quite frankly incompetent and just lucky that she's managed to survive at all. And already, after the introduction of the character in Howard The Duck and issue #2 of her own series does it start to show that she is in way over her head and she's basically having an existential crises of what her role is in this world and if because of the actions she's taken while believing that nothing matter has royally fucked her.
 
Preacher is really good comic I if you have a dark/cynicall sense of humor, artwork is pretty great to( I love the dirty realistic look.

Moon Knight( warren Ellis run to be exact) I love this series, it got super creative with the concept of the character. The artwork is beautifully crisp and has good sense of kinetic energy to it.

Hellblazer.I love this series, the protagonist(John Constantine) is the " I'm a douchbag with a hear of gold" clichè done right. He makes mistakes, he's selfish, and is willing to backstabbs people to save his own skin ,but he Also isn't a heartless monster. He cares for the people he loves and will try help others when he can. He's not a "good man" but not a bad one either,he's just human.
 
Ah comic books, that is a subject I could talk about for hours. However I just want to keep this to a few paragraphs instead of several pages so I am going to try to keep this short.

I was basically raised on European comics like Asterix, Lucky Luke, another series well known here in the Benelux but which English name I don't know, Valerian, Thorgal, Tintin, several French series which names I no longer remember.
Only later did I discover American comics when I bought a few translated ones at the super market.

I primarily read licensed comics like Transformers and Robocop, I tried to get into Spider-man and the Avengers but that series had been running for years now so it was very difficult to get into for a new reader.

When I went to school in another city I discovered American comics and publishers other than Marvel and DC such as Dark Horse. At the time I still read mostly licensed comics such as Aliens, Predator, Starship Troopers, the Simpsons, and of course Star Trek comics. I never really had an interest in getting into superhero comics, they could just not appeal to me.

Eventually I started to grow rather tired of licensed comics, especially as I felt the stories were not getting anywhere and had to much tropes and very simplistic storylines and characters. The only exception was Star Trek and the various Simpsons comics (but I later quit with the last when my interest in the franchise started to fail, I had already not watched the show any more since the Classic Seasons)

I discovered Mike Mignola's Hellboy universe and have been reading that comic and the various spin offs such as BPRD, Lobster Johnson, Sir Edward Grey, and non Hellboy universe comics such as Baltimore and Joe Golem. I enjoy comics that combine mystery with horror, folklore, and Lovecraft.

That has also made me read comics like Beasts of Burdern (pets versus monsters, witches and so on) and recently Weird Detective (more Lovecraft, a detective who may be possessed by a member of the race of Yith is investigating a series of gruesome murders while trying to find information to fight the Old Ones to bring back to its people)

I would really love to find a decent science fiction comic series again involving space ships and aliens. Recently I have been reading the new Aliens, Predator, and Prometheus comics by Dark Horse such as the Fire and Stone series and the current series but despite some promising starts I find the series still rather lacking. They still read to much like comics and I rather dislike the idea of humans teaming up with the Predator. One time is okay but now it is getting ridiculous.
Plus the xenomorphs have really lost their punch when they started to become to over used.

When IDW started to focus on the new movie universe for their Star Trek publications I decided to quit buying Star Trek comics with the exception of John Byrne's comics as he continues to tell stories during the Original Series era.
In general I have found IDW's Star Trek not to be of really good quality as they like the movie writers tend to re use old Star Trek stories over and over again (you don't want to know how many time sthe Mirror Universe or parallel universes have been used now). Their new stories have not been that much interesting either.
It is as if they are terrified of telling something new, instead going back to content from the original series such as Q, Deep Space Nine, Khan Noonien Singh, and so on.
And then there is of course the ridiculous amount of crossover such as the new Enterprise crew meeting the Green Lantern, or the original crew going to the Planet of the Apes. (once I thought crossovers were done because two franchises were very popular but I have come to learn that crossovers are also sometimes done to help boosting sales of suffering titles, hoping that readers will also pick up the issues of the other series that is now combined with the one they already are reading)

I need to make a correction; I do read one super hero series; Batman '66. Based on the old Adam West show this series was actually pretty neat, sometimes a little but cheesy but always played straight. During the series even some of the regular Batman rogues that did not appear in the television show were brought into the universe such as Bane and Killer Croc.

Last and please don't laugh, I have actually been reading some of the relaunched Archie and Jughead comics. They are actually not bad at all and it is sometimes relaxing to read something that doesn't involve crises or disasters threatening the world.
 
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