Comics Phase Fourteen

[Stego]

14 minutes ago, red snow said:

Fallen angels was cancelled sharpish so i hope they do the same with other titles that flag/fail to connect.

I think there's more chance of another avengers v X-Men before a civil war between X-Men as it's easy to see how krakoa can come into conflict with the rest of marvel.

It could be the biggest event in Marvel history. The mutants are so powerful that the Avengers would have to bring in cosmic help. Maybe 'assemble' a hundred or so members. The real problem, and the problem with AvX, is there are too many respected mutants on the Avengers. ESPECIALLY post-AvX. It's not just Beast and Wolverine -- Sunspot and Cannonball and Rogue and Storm and Dazzler, etc. They would have to create a pretty big schism for a war to be believable.. 

[red snow]

31 minutes ago, Stego said:

It could be the biggest event in Marvel history. The mutants are so powerful that the Avengers would have to bring in cosmic help. Maybe 'assemble' a hundred or so members. The real problem, and the problem with AvX, is there are too many respected mutants on the Avengers. ESPECIALLY post-AvX. It's not just Beast and Wolverine -- Sunspot and Cannonball and Rogue and Storm and Dazzler, etc. They would have to create a pretty big schism for a war to be believable.. 

I thought all the mutants were now krakoans first and anything else second? So it's not too hard to separate them. But those events were never that concerned about rational reasons for them fighting and more "who would win between". 

I haven't read the ff/X-Men book but I'm guessing that will sow seeds for how a fallout may occur

[Winterfell is Burning]

It would be very easy to have a conflict between Krakoa and the rest of the world because this sort of thing happened in real life quite often- World War One was essentially the old established colonial powers (France/England) trying to contain the new rising superpower (Germany).  The problem is that Marvel has already shown many, many times (Civil War I and II, Schism, AvX), etc, that is simply too incompetent to provide nuance and make both sides look like they have a point; one of them has to be portrayed as a bunch of fascist thugs- usually, the side they think it's right.

X-men #7 was fantastic, and I'm very interested to see where Nightcrawler's new religion goes. #8 was slightly below, but the Cyclops/Magik combo made it a clear win. 

[Red Tiger]

19 hours ago, Stego said:

It was the best X-Men story since Whedon, and the best SF story I read last year.

 

Fully agree with this and loving the Al Bundyesque approach to the avatar.

Edited March 12, 2020 by Red Tiger

[red snow]

I just read X-men #4 (I'm a bit behind since xmas) and the scene where Apocalypse announces he was the cause of the Bronze age collapse was one of the coolest moments in X-men comics for a while and probably Apoacalypse's best in a while. I also liked how the krakoans are open in their plan to conquer earth via commerce and media control instead of outright war. 

[Red Tiger]

On 3/14/2020 at 5:31 PM, red snow said:

I just read X-men #4 (I'm a bit behind since xmas) and the scene where Apocalypse announces he was the cause of the Bronze age collapse was one of the coolest moments in X-men comics for a while and probably Apoacalypse's best in a while. I also liked how the krakoans are open in their plan to conquer earth via commerce and media control instead of outright war. 

That was cool, but I felt like Magneto's speech was even better, simply because of how down-to-earth, methodical and realistic it was. Forget superpowers, we're gonna stomp you guys in the ground by buying all of your institutions.

[red snow]

20 minutes ago, Red Tiger said:

That was cool, but I felt like Magneto's speech was even better, simply because of how down-to-earth, methodical and realistic it was. Forget superpowers, we're gonna stomp you guys in the ground by buying all of your institutions.

Magneto's speech was definitely the meat of the entire issue and it did help us understand why he'd be on board with project Krakoa because he's had to make less changes with his stance than Xavier has had to. I'm starting to wonder if at this stage Magneto has been a hero almost as long as he's been a villain? Seems he's been "good" for the last 15 years and I know there were runs in the past where he was also good/teacher at Xaviers.

Apocalypse's phrase was simply cool though in terms of one liners

 

[red snow]

The comics drought is at least allowing me to catch up on a lot of stuff. I'm enjoying John Constantine, Undiscovered country is getting better and several of the "joe Hill" comics are quite good. And the X-men books do feel more connected as I read more of them. The Fantastic Four/X-men book has been surprisingly fun and handled in a way where neither side is being bad/good - Dr Doom is always a treat too.

Some of the industry forecasts are pretty grim though with a lot of comic stores wondering whether they'll be able to reopen and the lack of sales starting to hit creators too. I'm a bit torn. I can see why publishers are wanting to protect physical stores by not publishing digital first but on the other hand it seems like madness/suicide. If you can't sell physical content, sell it digitally. Will it result in loss of physical sales? Not if it was never being sold physically anyhow. I'm also pretty sure that a significant number of comic readers will still pick up the physical copy. Why not meet them half way and add a code/receipt that allows them to buy the physical comic for a reduced price/free? That should limit the damage to stores. And it keeps the industry alive in the interim. The current situation of no american comics in any form is just going to result in losses rather than any gains. Some digital consumers might just start reading other material that is available.

Feels like comics have reached that stage where they have to embrace digital or die. 

[Nictarion]

I’m catching up on old stuff as well. I’m almost finished with the Gotham Central omnibus. It’s as good as advertised. The comparisons of “The Wire set in Gotham” is pretty apt. 

[Heartofice]

I finished House of X / Powers of X and it rekindled my love of X-Men again. I loved the way it managed to combine a bunch of older story arcs together without really requiring me to have intimate knowledge of everything that had ever happened.

The level of detail was great too, that I could skim through and also go back and really go deep on the knowledge added extra value.

Think it also helped that I got to read the whole thing at once too, would have gotten lost if I’d been waiting or jumping around. 
 

Not perfect though, overall it felt like a prologue to something else rather than satisfying as an arc, and at times it needed patience to get a sense of where everyone was an when.

But now I want to go back and read the arcs that I’ve missed in the past 

[red snow]

On 4/22/2020 at 2:59 PM, Heartofice said:

I finished House of X / Powers of X and it rekindled my love of X-Men again. I loved the way it managed to combine a bunch of older story arcs together without really requiring me to have intimate knowledge of everything that had ever happened.

The level of detail was great too, that I could skim through and also go back and really go deep on the knowledge added extra value.

Think it also helped that I got to read the whole thing at once too, would have gotten lost if I’d been waiting or jumping around. 
 

Not perfect though, overall it felt like a prologue to something else rather than satisfying as an arc, and at times it needed patience to get a sense of where everyone was an when.

But now I want to go back and read the arcs that I’ve missed in the past 

If I were you I'd look forwards and not backwards. There are trade collections of most of the "Dawn of X" books now and they are all curated by Hickman (who created HOX/POX) with the X-men title (and half of "new mutants") being written by him.

In all honesty the X-men books have been pretty awful for almost around a decade. The last decent era was pre Avengers vs X-men where Cyclops is in charge of all the remaining mutants. One of the main stories at that time involved an arc called messiah complex. It's interesting as it has a more military vibe as mutantkind are on the brink of extinction (I think there's less than 300 of them ).

But everything from Bendis' run to the stuff prior to HOX and POX would just remind you of why you fell out of love with the X-men.

[red snow]

On 4/22/2020 at 2:43 PM, Nictarion said:

I’m catching up on old stuff as well. I’m almost finished with the Gotham Central omnibus. It’s as good as advertised. The comparisons of “The Wire set in Gotham” is pretty apt. 

I have that in my kindle unlimited list. I read the first few issues when they were released but I was a student with a limited budget so never finished it. I was still mainly drawn to superheroics at the time.

I finally finished "clean room". It fell down my to read list when I moved a few years back. The art change wasn't so bad with a little bit of distance and the imagery was still as disturbing as ever. It's a damn shame it ended where it did as it felt like Simone had only scratched the surface of what she could do with the concept. Some great characters as well. I wonder if she'll ever be able to resurrect it at DC (Black label) or Image? She should own the rights but I guess Vertigo might have had slightly different rules regarding keeping publishing rights.

[Heartofice]

1 hour ago, red snow said:

If I were you I'd look forwards and not backwards. There are trade collections of most of the "Dawn of X" books now and they are all curated by Hickman (who created HOX/POX) with the X-men title (and half of "new mutants") being written by him.

In all honesty the X-men books have been pretty awful for almost around a decade. The last decent era was pre Avengers vs X-men where Cyclops is in charge of all the remaining mutants. One of the main stories at that time involved an arc called messiah complex. It's interesting as it has a more military vibe as mutantkind are on the brink of extinction (I think there's less than 300 of them ).

But everything from Bendis' run to the stuff prior to HOX and POX would just remind you of why you fell out of love with the X-men.

Thanks, I made the mistake of starting the ‘House of M’ storyline and it was clear within a page or two that it was much much worse. So I stopped. 
 

As someone who grew up on Claremont it’s hard to ever see anything hitting those highs. Even the Grant Morrison stuff was only ‘pretty good’ in my eyes, and never got on board with Whedons run. 
 

This Hickman stuff was the first time I felt genuine excitement at an X title in a long time. 
 

So yeah maybe it’s beat to look  forward not back

[red snow]

23 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Thanks, I made the mistake of starting the ‘House of M’ storyline and it was clear within a page or two that it was much much worse. So I stopped. 
 

As someone who grew up on Claremont it’s hard to ever see anything hitting those highs. Even the Grant Morrison stuff was only ‘pretty good’ in my eyes, and never got on board with Whedons run. 
 

This Hickman stuff was the first time I felt genuine excitement at an X title in a long time. 
 

So yeah maybe it’s beat to look  forward not back

I think what's nice about the Hickman run so far is that it has the grant Morrison "big ideas" but there's still room for the soap opera elements and it's clear Hickman is familiar with at least the claremont era but probably everything up to the end of Morrisons run. 

The "dawn of x" books have a nice mix of styles. Like i said "X-Men" is the closest to HOX but i think you might like Excalibur as that has a very classic Claremont feel to it. Marauders is more of a modern whedonesque take too. There's only "fallen angels" that isn't worth a try I'd say. 

[Teng Ai Hui]

I'm curious to try Gaiman's Sandman books.  Should I just follow the publication order?  Or should I try the chronological order?  The latter seems interesting but also impractical as one must find 4 different graphic novels in order to read the first 6 items.

[Ran]

1 hour ago, Teng Ai Hui said:

I'm curious to try Gaiman's Sandman books.  Should I just follow the publication order?  Or should I try the chronological order?  The latter seems interesting but also impractical as one must find 4 different graphic novels in order to read the first 6 items.

I'd go publication order, though bearing in mind that Preludes and Nocturnes is a bit rough around the edges as initially the plan was to make it more bound into the DC universe. After, it became much more its own thing (with occasional DC references, but much rarer). 

 

ETA: After you finish Preludes and Nocturnes, you may find this entertaining -- quite a well done fan film adapting a key chapter

 

Edited May 28, 2020 by Ran

[Knight of Ashes]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbr.com/denny-oneil-dies-at-81/amp/

[Ran]

11 minutes ago, Knight of Ashes said:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbr.com/denny-oneil-dies-at-81/amp/

One of the greats.

[red snow]

On 6/12/2020 at 10:18 PM, Ran said:

One of the greats.

I only read some of his green arrow/green lantern run 2 weeks ago and i recall him overseeing some great batman stories. Definitely one of those voices who can take a lot of credit for comics "growing up". Him and Neal adams are a classic pairing.

I'm hoping there are some promotions coming up to help a wider audience see some of his work from Amazon/comixology.

On 5/28/2020 at 1:40 PM, Teng Ai Hui said:

I'm curious to try Gaiman's Sandman books.  Should I just follow the publication order?  Or should I try the chronological order?  The latter seems interesting but also impractical as one must find 4 different graphic novels in order to read the first 6 items.

I'd stick with publication order. That's how most people have enjoyed the series over the years.

My usual caveat is to read the first two graphic novels as the first volume is more a case of gaiman finding his feet and setting the scene. Book 2 is far more representative of the series in general.

[Nictarion]

I read the first couple issues of Hickman’s new sci-fi book Decorum. Kind of confusing at first (similar to his POX), but definitely interesting. Gorgeous art, too.