Comic Books Issue #2

[Galactus]

Okay, this weeks reads:

Annihilation: Ronan Not liking the art too much (overall the Annihilation art has been sub-par, although the covers are awesome) the story feels kind of like a retread of Super-Skrull, and Gamora seemed to be acting awfully out of character in the final panel. Otherwise it's a decent read.

Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane #5 Cutesy. The MJ books are actually pretty funny for what they are, and the ending was a treat for Spidey fans...

*spoiler*

MJ & Spider-man goes on a date, she's kind of disappointed, so she decides to go confess her feelings to Peter.... She can't find him, so she asks Harry if he's seen him, and he says "Yeah, he's with this girl..." At which point our collective spider-senses start tingling a little "She's a real knockout blonde..." Which more or less confirms it.... And then the ending panel is Peter saying "Meet Gwen Stacey."

Fun.

*spoiler*

New Avengers Annual: Crappy art, but a pretty fun superheroic showdown with the new Super-Adaptoid. Also, Luke Cage and Jessica Jones get married. The art is kind of odd (and Sentry looks like a girl at times) But overall it's pretty cool.

Incredible Hulk 94: Hulk Smashes. It's pretty enjoyable, next ish will be Hulk vs. "The Silver Savage" (apparently this is just before Annihilation) Looking good. Loved all the flashbacks from the gladiators!

Runaways 15 The New Pride makes it's move, nothing too interesting (and the young version of Geoffrey Wilder talks like.... Well, I don't know what)

X-Factor #6: We get some exposition on Layla Miller (but we don't actually get to *know* anything) The art is pretty bad, but it's an enjoyable read. If only for the "You and what Army?" comment.

Fantastic Four 537: Fight, Doom expositions on how he got out of Hell, and then tries to lift the hammer. He fails (would have been awesome if he'd been worthy though) He then leaves (in about a panel he also resumes control of Latveria)

Meanwhile, a man whose initials are "D.B." buys a ticket for a bus to Oklahoma....

[Nephrite]

Fantastic Four 537: Fight, Doom expositions on how he got out of Hell, and then tries to lift the hammer. He fails (would have been awesome if he'd been worthy though) He then leaves (in about a panel he also resumes control of Latveria)

Didn't he already got out of hell during Mark Waid's run?

IIRC, Reed got him out, and put him in that special prison he built. He then got out, and Ben died, and Doom dissapeared

That was what? 2 years ago?

How did he get back to Hell?

So why did DC feel the need to go through the whole Crisis On Infinite Earths fuss???

Apparently, back in 1985 Marvel readers couldn't understand the concept of parallel universes.

Yeah, I know it makes no sense.

[Galactus]

I don't know, I don't read FF normally, but I picked up this issue as it seemed interesting.

[Galactus]

And we still haven't got a good idea of how powerful the Sentry *really* is and how much was simply him tampering with people's (and his own) head.

[Jaxom 1974]

And we still haven't got a good idea of how powerful the Sentry *really* is and how much was simply him tampering with people's (and his own) head.

Sorry, I'm gonna come out and say it. Sentry = Crappiest. Character. Ever.

[Galactus]

The sad thing is that he doesen't *have* to be.

He could be turned into a pretty neat character, but for some reason it didn't happen.

[Sad King Billy]

Sorry for the term, but I don't really fancy "American" comics. I must admit that the only ones I ever read were X-men comics, but I very much prefer XIII (burn the game! filth!), Asterix and Obelix, Largo Winch, Tintin, Blake and Mortimer, Nero, and others....

(Now that I read the list, a lot are french or belgians, so perhaps I'm biased, not informed enough, or are they not well known abroad...)

I just don't fancy the other-worldly that comes with (what I think are) American comics. My favorite is easily Asterix and Obelix.

[Galactus]

I've read a lot of french comics (okay " alot" might be pushing it, but at least some of the more well-known and a few of the not so well-known)

I don't speak french though, so I have to rely on the scraps that are translated.

[hauberk]

Because they severely underestimated the capabilities of their readers. Even as a 10 year old (who had only read maybe a dozen DC comic books at that point), I understood the concepts of Earth 1, 2, S, X, etc... DC figured that yes, the existing comic fans understood it, but new readers wouldn't... but I find that almost insulting. While I understand them wanting to make it "1 universe" where what's happening in Batman could potentially affect what's happening in Superman... even post-Crisis, most books remained by and large independent of the rest. What happens in JLA is so separate from JSA, they might as well be different Earths.

I think that there was far more to Crisis than just consolidating to one universe. At the time, it was more about more tightly defining the continuity and allowing characters to coexist and interact.

[Nephrite]

Sorry for the term, but I don't really fancy "American" comics. I must admit that the only ones I ever read were X-men comics, but I very much prefer XIII (burn the game! filth!), Asterix and Obelix, Largo Winch, Tintin, Blake and Mortimer, Nero, and others....

(Now that I read the list, a lot are french or belgians, so perhaps I'm biased, not informed enough, or are they not well known abroad...)

I just don't fancy the other-worldly that comes with (what I think are) American comics. My favorite is easily Asterix and Obelix.

Yeah, Asterix is really down to earth.

Well, I like him too, when I get a chance to read it.

As far as European comics go my favorite is Jeremiah. I like Metabarons if for nothing else the sheer stupidty of the comic. Just when you think it can't get any more bizzare and outlandish, a character replaces his head with the head of a poet so a woman can love him, then replaces his groin with a USB controller for his ship or puts the brain of his son into the head of his daughter.

But the stuff I read the most when I was a kid was Italian stuff from Bonnelli: Dylan Dog, Nathan Never, Zagor etc. etc...

These days beside American stuff, I love manga. "20th Century Boys" is probably the best thing out there (European & American stuff included).

[Galactus]

I don't read much manga, mostly because i find black & white a real pain to read (I'm visually impaired)

[Ser Paladin]

I think that there was far more to Crisis than just consolidating to one universe. At the time, it was more about more tightly defining the continuity and allowing characters to coexist and interact.

A big part of it was making sense of the fact that Superman and Batman were around in the 1940s, and their contemporaries had kids or sidekicks who were grown and had their own comics (Infinity Inc, among others). So they were ret-conned out of the Justice Society. Plus they were adding the Charlton and Fawcett heroes, who got ret-conned in. The leftovers for whom people still had a soft spot are now the villains (or causes, at least) of Infinite Crisis

[Ser Paladin]

Closing this thread as it's crossed the 400 post mark. Start a new one, folks.

So, 400 is the new 200? Good to know.

Sorry, I'm gonna come out and say it. Sentry = Crappiest. Character. Ever.

Um, okay, so let's steal from DC and do our own Superman in Marvel. To marvel-ize him, he needs a flaw, and since he's Superman, it needs to be a huge flaw. So let's steal a page from the Hulk and make him a multiple personality disorder.

Since someone this powerful needs a backstory, let's make him friends with every notable hero, but they all forget they were friends with him because of his power. And let's make him an uber-goody two shoes to contrast with his ultra-evil Void personality. But in his first "modern" appearance, let's have him savagely kill Carnage, despite being one of the good guys. And let's make him an Avenger, so he can be the Deus Ex Machina plot device when they face someone too powerful. And in his second arc, let's make his "Marvel flaw" go away and fix the Void. Now all he needs is a pep talk from Captain America to get out of bed in the morning.

So, he's a derivative, overpowered, inconsistently characterized hero, more plot device than character. Yeah, he's pretty bad.

[Galactus]

Since someone this powerful needs a backstory, let's make him friends with every notable hero, but they all forget they were friends with him because of his power.

Actually, they retconned that. Nobody knew him at all, it was just his delusions (and he made everyone else believe his delusions) There's also some indications that, while powerful, he's nowhere the level that he was portrayed at in his mini.

[Ser Paladin]

Well, I think it was a cool scene. Carnage is an alien symbiote, without any real moral sense or redeeming quality.

OK, I dropped out of comic land in the mid 90s after getting married. But wasn't there a guy under the Carnage suit, just like Eddie Brock in the Venom symbiote? Otherwise, it's not much of a symbiotic relationship, no?Albeit the Carnage guy was a psychotic murderer, there is still a guy inside. And good guys don't "execute" bad guys they've never met before. Sentry was never established as a "Punisher" type, indiscriminately killing. Or even a Wolverine type, only killing when he needs to (or is brainwashed).

Obviously, Carnage should have been sent to the Phantom Zone.

[Ran]

They didn't really "fix" the Sentry in New Avengers, and my understanding is that the Sentry miniseries finalie provides quite a lot of new (and apparently factually correct) information about his origins but

SPOILER: Sentry mini-series

that the Sentry will, in some ways, be even creepier and weirder than before -- more of a Miracleman (and, particularly, Miracleboy) riff than Superman -- while the Void will _still_ be the proverbial sword of Damocles.

IMO, it's a smart character concept, the only failing being the fact that he seems to be way too powerful ... but then, the same can be said of Superman, I suppose. I think someone of that power level is a ... difficult fit for something like New Avengers, and would probably work better in a cosmic-type setting where his level of power isn't quite as uncommon. I'd buy a Jenkins or Bendis-penned solo continuing series with that premise.

Also, I don't think his characterization has been inconsistent. At the start of NA, he's in pretty bad mental shape, and no big surprise if he tears a villain or two in half, I suppose.

[Werthead]

I only read one comic, 2000AD and I've been reading that for more that 20 years and have over 1000 issues at home. If any of the

members of the various X-teams turned up on Judge Dredd's turf, Mega-City One he'd have them arrested on two charges. Firstly mutants are illegal in MC-1 and are automatically thrown out. Secondly, Justice Department is the official (and only) law enforcement agency in MC-1 and anyone who tries to catch criminals is viewed as a dangerous vigilante!!

True. Plus Dredd would do this to any interloper who turned up on his turf.

That said, it is quite funny whenever Dredd visits Gotham and has to (very, very reluctantly) team up with Batman for whatever mission is to hand.

[Galactus]

I think Cletus can just grow new Carnage Symbiotes from his blood or something. The one he killed might have been a "spawn".

Incidentally, that was just another artist screw-up: It was supposed to be Morbius and not Carnage (hence the "He sucks human blood!" comment) just like Jigsaw was supposed to be Piledriver.

[Nephrite]

Batman #652 - Part 4 of 8. So it's a bridge issue with some nice interaction between Bullock and Bats. I really hope Harvey Dent doesn't go back to being Two-Face again, cause, shit we hardly saw him as Dent at all. Jeph Loeb brought Dent back, and then he disappeared of the face of the planet till now. So 3 pages of Harvey then boom! Bye-bye?

Still, Robinson is a great storyteller, and it was a good issue.

The Battle For Bludhaven #2 - Way better then issue #1. At least the name dropping is toned down. That Father Time guy seems to be the same guy as the one from Morrison's Frankenstein. Except that guy is black. Oh, well.

Seven Soldiers Frankenstein #4 - This has to be my favorite issue of Seven Soldiers. The whole thing is so freaking epic (without 3000 characters cluttering the panels), and Frank is pretty much the biggest bad-ass ever. The 3rd person narration is great. Plus, I love time-traveling stories.

Mahnke's art is brilliant

Supergirl & The Legion of Super-Heroes #17 - I love Mark Waid. He pretty much ignored Supergirl's characterization in all the other DC titles. Well, he had to; otherwise my killer impulses would rise up again.

Here in Legion, Kara is actually really nice, funny, quirky and interesting. Hell, if she was real, I'd probably be in love.

And I love Legion members' reactions to her. Plus, a couple of tasteless jokes about Dream Girl. Go Waid!

Plus, those Dominators look cool.

Kitson's art is great.

Villains United Infinite Crisis Special - Pretty cool. Too bad the Secret six didn't do more, but they're getting there own mini so it's okay.

The brilliant tactic of sending all your forces to attack Metropolis just proves that villains don't know shit about strategy. They pretty much had the heroes in the crapper, and then decided to throw it all away for a big beatdown in downtown Metropolis. I. Wonder. Who. Wins?

There're a couple of continuity glitches like Toyman being alive. And didn't Joker kill the Royal Flush Gang in IC#2? Isn't Doomsday intelligent these days? But, I guess I can keep pretending that Toyman doesn't exist at all, since he's so crappy I'm willing to delete him from my memories all together, and God knows what's up with Doomsday these days.

Ultimate Fantastic Four #29 - Best issue of Millar's run. Like I said, I love time-traveling stories, and this one has nice twist to it. Can't really get how did Ben's trip 500 years in the past change things, but I guess it ties down to that scene in Part 1.

Greg Land's art… well.

I'm glad somebody else jumped in for the last 4 pages, so Alicia didn't look like Sue with black hair.

Hawkgirl #51 - Well, I guess I like this. Can't really say why. Hell, can't really say that I could describe what's going on. Some of it is a dream, some of it is a flashback, some of it is happening at the same time. I guess.

The art is nice, though.

[Nephrite]

Infinite Crisis #7 - A pretty good ending. Definetly more cohesive then the previous installments.

This issue we don't see Firestorm wasting space in space. Ha! A pun! Sorry about that.

We get a nice setup for 52.

Maybe, I didn't notice them, but this issue doesn't have a dozen homages to all of Johns' favorite comics. Well, I did notice one, an it brought a smile to my face. It's a "Like Hell" line with Superman in the same pose as in BR.

SPOILER: #7

I didn't like that Kal-L died. Why even bring him back, and then kill him of?

But, I guess with Lois dead there's no point for him to live on anyway.

Batman holfing a gun to Alex then not goint thru with it, was crappy, cause I saw that scene for like 4000 times already.

"He's not worth it."

I know Diana. Why do we have to go thru that same exercise over and over again.

And I just love it when Lex and the Joker team-up.

Civil War #1 - One ends, another one begins, huh.

This was pretty damn good. Reading mostly DC I had no idea who anybody in this comicbook is. The were these 2 guys that got into a big argument about masks and stuff, and I was just like "Uhm, okay."

And the Captain America scene on the hellicarrier was just badass. I know I'm on his side.