Amph ***OFFICIAL*** Comics Thread

Bought a trade paperback of Michael Turner's Soulfire. Beautiful book.

 

And in the back of Detective Comics an advert I have been waiting for. "Legion Of Superheroes The Future Is Coming".

 

So yes LoS was actually news last month

I missed it. One thing I wanted was just to have the LoS operate present day, none of the 1000 years later stuff. They would just operate throughout the galaxy. But oh well, 30th century here we come.

 

The Legion have operated in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. But their whole purpose is to be the gateway to the future of the DCU.

 

The Great Darkness Saga is still one of the greatest epics produced by the big two, imo. Great art, great story, no cheap shock-deaths of heroes to make the thing feel significant. I'm not sure the Legion will ever get back to those heights again (though some of the 5 Years Later stuff comes close for me).

 

Catwoman is having a John Wick moment as she has a mob bounty on her head and vows revenge. Featuring the Gentleman Ghost.

Cool thing in PoX-2, the "real" world paranormal/alien/conspiracy world of Nibiru is now Nimbus and is a converted upload intelligence.

Doc Strange, despite the piss poor art, had a great story here where he becomes the most powerful being in the universe, and then fixes the reality that was messd up which he had to do bit by bit. Mephisto called in a debt, the price of which was Clea losing her memory of Strange.And Galactus got a new herald!

 

I'm once again continuing a discussion from another thread, to this one, so that it doesn't clog things up.

Except that Siegel's pitch had Superboy as a mischievous character, that was the opposite of what was published, which was basically Superman as a kid. Ergo, what was written by Don Cameron in 1944 was based off of the adult Superman representation of the character and not Siegel's prankster character.

Not quite. 1992 saw Dan Jurgens and Louise Simonson reused the contents of Action Comics #1, for the two part story, "Crisis At Hand". Later on, Geoff Johns would reinstate Superboy as part of Superman's origin, which left it vague as to whether or not the stories by Siegel and the other writers did take place or not. The introduction of the Pocket Universe Superboy did leave those stories in place. And the Earth-2 stories were still connected to that version of the character, as well as Power Girl and the JSA. They weren't thrown out. Plus, as I said, the existence of Hypertime means that a version still exists based off of both.

Not entirely true. The Earth-2 Wonder Woman still existed and her stories still counted, while Hippolyta took over as Wonder Woman and lived out a life during the 40's, which allowed the JSA stories to take place with her. And one could say that the stories that didn't take place on Themyscira, would also count as well. Batman, on the other hand, did retain Bill Finger's stories from 1956 to 1964. While "The Case Of The Chemical Syndicate", "Batman And The Monster Men" ("Professor Hugo Strange And The Monsters"), "Batman & The Mad Monk" ("Batman Versus The Vampire") and "The Man Who Laughs" ("The Joker") were all recreated and expanded upon from the original stories by Finger. As did the origin part of the Red Hood, even though it lacks Dick Grayson.

Not entirely true. Green Arrow's Golden Age adventures were used as the basis for the key parts of Oliver Queen and Roy Harper's relationship, as part of the Post Crisis continuity. Same with Aquaman and Aqualad. Certain stories were jettisoned, yes, but most were kept intact. Certainly up until "Flashpoint".

No, but the stories by John Broome and Gardner Fox have largely remained part of the lore since then. As have the Legion stories by Jim Shooter and the JLA stories by Fox.

And there is still plenty that's close to the original creators in the films and television shows. But unlike most of the time in the comics, these adaptations combine all aspects of their long and sorted histories.

The Bond films were never meant to be in the same continuity as the original novels and even Flemming himself wanted "The Spy Who Loved Me" to be changed, because he admitted that was the worst story he came up with.

But even Maggin's Superman is largely based off of Weisinger's rendition over Siegel's. The same with Superman currently being influenced by John Byrne, Marv Wolfman, Mark Waid and Geoff Johns.

There's more that appleseed isn't explaining. When WWII began, comic book superheroes became largely connected to the war effort. They were used to advertise war bonds and were marketed in the same vein as Uncle Sam and Rosie the Riveter were. Copies of their comics were shipped overseas as part of the care packages, so that the soldiers could still feel a little bit at home while being shot at and bombed. When the war ended, the appeal of the superhero began to die off and before long, only a handful were still in publication by 1949. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Arrow and Aquaman were still in publication at DC. Captain Marvel/Shazam was still going at Fawcet Comics. Blue Beetle at Fox Comics was cancelled for a few years, before being sold to Charlton Comics in 1955, but his appearances were spordaic until 1964, when he was revamped.

Marvel had quit publishing superhero comics by 1949, but made an attempted comic back in 1953 with a Captain America revival, but it only lasted a year. By 1960, Stan Lee was ready to quit writing comics when his wife encouraged him to create a new superhero, which lead him and Jack Kirby to create the Fantastic Four, which launched the following year. Soon after, other heroes would debut. But while DC would bring back their Golden Age characters through the introduction of the Multiverse in "The Flash Of Two Worlds", Marvel would just offer up retcons which kept their Golden Age characters as part of the main universe and allowed different versions to be seen as part of the "What-If...?" series, which were attributed to the Marvel Multiverse, keeping them largely separate. Thus you have Spider-Man's stories from 1962 still count in 2019. Captain America's stories would be changed. Steve Rogers was frozen in 1945 and later thawed out, instead of operating into the 1950's. Buck Barnes was originally thought dead and later revealed to be alive as the Winter Soldier. Those adventures from the latter part of the Golden Age were attributed to William Naslund and Fred Davis (1946-48), Jeffery Mace and Betsy Ross/Golden Girl (1948-1949) and the last was William Burnside and Jack Monroe (1953-1954).

Other origin details were tweaked as the years went on. Reed Richards and Ben Grimm went from serving in WWII to the Korean War to the Vietnam War to the first Iraq War and finally to the current one. Tony Stark was originally imprisoned in Vietnam when he became Iron Man, but it has now been changed to Afghanistan. The Punisher, though, is still tied to Vietnam.

 

Clea losing her memory of Strange is just like

Spoiler

Natasha being mind wiped of any memories of Bucky in Bru’s Winter Soldier run.

Cannot say I am sorry that this memory wipe happened. I am not a fan of Clea. And you’re right about the bad art. Such a shame. Oh well.

Thanks for posting.

I have to stop the comic purchases for now so I appreciate your synopsis.

 

I completely disagree. Taking bits and pieces of stories is not the same as having whole stories as canon. Post-Crisis Superman did not have a single Jerry Siegel story as part of his canon. It had bits and pieces of a few of his stories, but not all of any of them. And his Silver Age Superboy had plenty of prankster elements, as did his Golden and Silver Age Superman. That was one of the reasons why his Superman was better than that of people like Don Cameron or William Woolfolk, as good as they were.

And as much as he tried and succeeded at glory hogging it, Weisinger's Superman was at it's best when Jerry was the writer, even though Binder, Hamilton and occasionally Bill Finger wrote good stuff too. And Maggin himself says his Superman is based mostly in Siegel's. He knows whose character Superman really is, even if not legally. (He's also an advocate of those characters being public domain, which unfortunately won't ever happen).

The pocket Universe Superboy story was absurd and I cut Legion after that. And don't even get me started in the Hawkman mess, which to his credit, Geoff Johns fixed. Btw, the current Hawkman series is my favorite DC title.

And yes, bits and pieces of Finger stories are used by other writers, but the stories themselves were not canon from 1986-1987 until Convergence, when the Megaverse was returned. And I don't want today's hacks writing stories with the Earth-One or Earth-Two versions of the characters. I'm glad they exist, I'm glad those stories now technically "count" but I don't want a hack like Geoff Johns, who thought Kal-L had the Fortress of Solitude with the giant key and Perry White as his editor, touching them. I'd go for an All-Star Squadron series if Roy Thomas had 100% control, but that's about it. Or if they'd let some of the Bronze Age writers left write Earth-One, like Maggin, Pasko, Conway, Levitz or Shooter. But that isn't gonna happen and I'm okay with that. I can headcanon what happened on Earth-One after 1986 and it won't involve rapes and murdered teenagers. It would involve Barry getting a well deserved retirement in the 30th Century, Wally replacing him as the Flash, and Richard Grayson becoming the POTUS on Earth-Two.

As for Marvel, I can live well enough with the sliding timeline (at least better than Steve Englehart), but it's later things they've had Tony and Reed and others do that bother me more than that.

And as much as they have angered me over the years, I still get some comics and I do and have liked some of them. Bringing back the Multiverse takes a lot of the sting out, tbh, and I just go with the Earth-0 history as another Earth.

And yeah, there was more about Marvel than I explained, but I didn't want to complicate it too much, plus my main issue with them was what I stated before: that they've had characters do things that just contradict too much of their earlier history. At least at DC, they're not supposed to be the exact same people.

 

Perlmutter again.

 

Ah, Wednesday:

Valkyrie 2
History of the Marvel Universe 2
Iron Man 15
Savage Sword of Conan 8
Lucifer 11
...wtf...just realized I have another History of the Marvel Universe 2 because I didn't notice it in my pulls.
Daredevil 10
Blade Runner 2019 #2
Batman 77 City of Bane
Power of X 3
Superman Year One #2

 

History of the Marvel Universe 2 does an interesting handling of "war experience" of various characters that don't have Infinity Formulae or healing factors or immortality - they fought in a war in the fictional SE Asian country of Siancong (a stand-in for Vietnam back in the 60s). Yep, that means that Frank Castle is now a veteran of that war, not the Vietnam War (which, they have emphasized, still happened). That might be a little controversial, but as a guy that loves timelines n' stuff, it works for me,

And with Powers of X 3 -

Spoiler

The "100 years in the future" was not Life 10, but Life 9. This seems like it is setting up that the "1000 years in the future" is also a different future - such as Moira still-unrevealed 6th life - but I suspect that it will be the future of Life 10, and that Moira's Life 11 that Destiny predicted might happen is actually the Marvel Universe, where she does actually die when Mystique kills her, allowing that timeline to stand.

 

Guess that's were Flash Thompson fought in the old ASM comics (unless that was already retconned into something else).

 

Excellent week of titles:

House Of X 3
Books Of Magic 11-Artwork of this title has not been great, but the story is.
Wonder Woman 77, amazing Cheetah Variant.
Action Comics 1014
Justice League 30
Justice League Dark 14
Superman 14
Batman/Superman 1, I was not going to get this, but they threw it in my pulls.
Detective Batman 1010
Captain America 13, amazing Red Skull variant.
Thanos 5
She-Hulk Acts of Evil 1
Thor 16
Avengers 23
Doctor Strange 18

 

Superman 14 is the debut of the new Legion Of Superheroes as they visit from the future. I have one minor gripe. I don't care so much that they made Lightning Lad black, but that hair has got to go. Ugh.

House Of X 3 reveals the Krakoa alphabet.



Pretty much the titles.

I have not gone through the rest yet.

 

I love when Jonathan Hickman goes back to his graphic design roots.

 

Again? This is what, his sixth in ten years?

 

^^Not that I know of.

THIS WEEK'S STUFF:

Supergirl 33
Old Man Quill 9
Lois Lane 3
Fantastic Four 14, I picked this up because it looks like a new story, new art. We'll see.
Savage Avengers 5, I hope this is good. The last one SUCKED.
Harley Quinn & Poison Ivy 1. I don't have a lot of modern HQ, so I'm diving into this.
Web of The Black Widow 1.
Justice League 31
House of X 4
The Dreaming 13
Conan The Barbarian 9
Batman vs Ra's al Ghul 1
Legion Of Superheroes Millenium 1...yay! This became my fav title for a bit in the 80's.
Doomsday Clock 11....ugh just put them all out already!

 

I was annoyed at Doomsday Clock when announced, stoked for Doomsday Clock when I read the issue preview, decided to trade wait, and every thing that pops up about it online is just like gahhhhh and Doc Manhattan made the New 52 verse basically by accident? I guess that could be those new universes he wanted to make. Still will get the trade, though, eventually, maybe.

If we're talking about a sequel to Watchmen, I think the TV show holds more potential if only because it's an actual sequel where the comic is canon and somehow jumping mediums to live action for a sequel seems less sacrilegious.

 

I was skeptical of Doomsday Clock when it was first announced, but for the most part I’ve been pleasantly surprised with it. It’s not as richly layered, cleverly structured, or as emotionally and psychologically nuanced as Watchmen is, but for a sequel that also serves as a crossover that also attempts to provide a new rationale for the New 52 while grounding it in a meta-narrative of “Mainstream superhero comics learned the wrong lessons from Watchmen by assuming that being dark, gritty and violent was all that was necessary to be mature storytelling,” it’s so much better than it has any right to me. I do agree with @BigAl6ft6 that the HBO series is probably going to be a more interesting and worthy follow up, on the basis that it looks like it has more to say and isn’t just recapitulating the themes of the original comic.

That said, my biggest issue with Doomsday Clock is... I’m not really sure what it’s about. Maybe it’ll gel more when I read it all in one sitting, but by the end of the penultimate issue I’m not sure what it’s trying to say, nor am I clear about what the stakes are. A lot has been said about Superman and Doctor Manhattan’s inevitable confrontation somehow either saving or condemning both this world and the Watchmen world (apparently the multiverse/metaverse is at stake as well). The issue is, I’m not sure how their confrontation would directly lead to either of those outcomes, and the fate of the multiverse is such an esoteric concept that it doesn’t hold the same tangible weight as preventing nuclear warfare did in the original. With only one issue left, that’s the sort of stuff that I wish was more clear, but I’ll reserve final judgement until the series ends.

Shifting gears to the only other comic I read today, House of X (along with Powers of X) continues to be one of the best books on the stand. Hickman’s revitalization of the X-Men, both as a brand and as a narrative, is nothing short of amazing. If he can maintain this level of quality going forward, then his run on the monthly flagship book will likely be the best material these characters have seen since Morrison’s New X-Men; based off these two miniseries, it’s already the most forward-thinking and creative since then.

 

Well, Ozy does explain himself in issue 11.

Batman vs Ra's al Ghul 1...not sure what they were thinking with this. It's horribly written.

This issue of the Dreaming was a waste.

House of X 4 was good. It's a suicide mission. Wolverine being disintegrated by proximity to the Sun while he delivers the final blow to the Mother Mold is particularly heroic.

Savage Avengers picked up from its stumble. There is a cool shot Elektra firing off an arrow that I assume Deotado is proud of.

FF, I really just can't get into it.

 

I've just read Dark Knight Master Race.

I liked it , it's a bit OTT but it kept my interest.

couple of things I didn't understand , maybe some of you can clarify them :
Why was Superman encased in ice at the start?
What was Lara's reason for joining the Kandorian zealots? And she didn't seem to feel any guilt for all the deaths they inflicted.
Was everyone else in Kandor killed?

 

So I'm finally dipping my toe into buying Marvel trades. This is my first go at the comics side of Marvel after years of collecting DC, Vertigo, Dark Horse, Image, and other titles. I just never got to it.

The three trades I've gotten so far are:
Planet Hulk: Prelude
Planet Hulk
World War Hulk

I'm not actually a huge Hulk fan, but I've already seen the Planet Hulk animated film and liked it (also loved the whole sequence in Ragnarok), and I've heard nothing but great things about the source material, so I decided to go for the trilogy (if you can call it a trilogy?) for my first Marvel books. Honestly I might not read them immediately since I've got a bunch of other books on my list, but they'll certainly be read by year's end.

I was wondering if people here more versed in Marvel might have recommendations? I'm not worried about "catching up" or whatever, just about reading some of the best/most interesting stuff for now. I want to slowly build up my Marvel collection along with the other brands.

Stuff I already have my eye on:
Ultimate Spider-Man
Marvel Colors books because I like Loeb/Sale books
Runaways because of Vaughan and my Y: The Last Man fanboyism
Brubaker Captain America
Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Future Past (do I need to get any other X-Men trades before these?), maybe more 80s Claremont
Marvel Zombies (of which I've actually read vol. 1 before)
House of M and surrounding titles maybe?
Old Man Logan
also not against getting more Hulk Pak books

I don't know nearly as much about the Marvel Universe and characters as I do about the DC side of things so advice on what to get would be helpful. Most of what I do know comes from cartoons and the MCU.

Characters I'm interested in but wouldn't know where to start:
Doctor Strange
Fantastic Four (especially Doom related stuff)
Daredevil (I understand Miller has a famous run)
Spider-Man 616
Squirrel Girl (because memes)
some X-Men characters: Nightcrawler, Kitty Pryde, and Rogue especially
What If books (would this go over my head, though?)

Please feel free to mention favorite or most acclaimed runs, though, no matter who about. Doesn't have to be 616. Also I know basically nothing about Cosmic Marvel so info on that would be hugely appreciated. This isn't all stuff I'm going to buy right away; I might be able to get 15-20 books over the next year, maybe more if I'm lucky in finding lots on ebay. I mostly buy used. And I hate buying individual issues if I can help it because I think they're too flimsy for storage and repeated reading.

 

Me personally would not recommend Marvel Zombies or Old Man Logan, but that's just me.

When it comes to Dr. Strange don't I have any good suggestions.

Regarding Fantastic Four do I recommend the storylines by John Byrne, he do an excellent Doom and rally do FF's family dynamic good and show why they stick together.

Regarding Daredevil have I not that much but I understand Millers stuff is good, if depressing (I think he started the trend that become the "Daredevil destroy the lives of everybody around him" meme) and somewhat bound to the time it was written in.

When I comes to Spider-Man I would recommend much of the stuff from the 70's and 80's. Later stuff are the Hobgoblin Lives storyline, and.... that's the only one I can come up with right now that I would really recommend.

Squirrel Girl has her own comic which I find good, if a bit to meta for my taste.

I can't give any good suggestion regarding Nightcrawler or Kitty Pryde, beside starting from their first appearances in X-Men

When it comes to Rogue would I suggest begging with Uncanny X-Men #171 and continue from there until you grow tiered.

 

Ultimate Spider-Man is very much worth the read; best thing to come out of Ultimate. The Miles stuff is okay, too (although the movies did it better, IMHO). For 616 Spidey, the Epic Collections give you the most bang for buck. The original Stan Lee run and "Kraven's Last Hunt" are the obvious standouts there.

Runaways is also very good, although after Vaughan and Wheedon's runs, it wend downhill really fast (and considering the level of quality it had to begin with, it was quite the drop). The four-volume Complete Collections of the series will net you all the original comics plus some harder-to-find crossovers and free issues, so I would recommend those strongly. As noted before, the last batch of them wasn't that good, but even that had it's moments ("Rock Zombies" comes to mind), but still, those four books if you want copies are highly recommended. (The first volume has the original story arc, which I would say is a must-read, even if you don't decide to follow the continuation). You can get the first few trades of the Rainbow Rowell revival now, too. Read it and it's... okay, but the magic never really came back, IMHO.