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[DagsJT]

I've not read many comics but Walking Dead got me started. So I've read "TWD", "Y: The Last Man" and "Batman: Year One" and loved all of them. Any other recommendations?

 

[JJD]

What the fuck?

I was going to post this. I don't know what's more stupid and ridiculous. The writers making Logan so hellbent on killing the only person remotely capable of trying to control the Phoenix, or Caps reaction to this attitude. "Let's take Wolverine with us so we can fuck him up on the back of the Quinjet!"

I've not read many comics but Walking Dead got me started. So I've read "TWD", "Y: The Last Man" and "Batman: Year One" and loved all of them. Any other recommendations?

If you liked Year One read Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.

Two other books that I would recommend to any one, regardless of if they read comics or not are Locke & Key and American Vampire.

 

[Haemolacria]

So, guys. A couple of hours ago I just finished reading Punisher: Homeless and with it I concluded Jason Aaron's Punisher-run. Holy fucking shit, you guys weren't kidding - that shit was _bleak_.

Spoiler

"I tell my own kids I'm sorry for getting them killed. Sorry for walking them into an ambush. Sorry for failing them in every conceivable way. Sorry for the way I've chosen to honor their memory. But most of all..... I'm sorry they were ever born in the first place."

I said goddamn.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

cheesy ending aside, I thought that was a great finale for ol' Frank Castle

 

[Spike Spiegel]

DC said one of their goals with the New 52 was to not write for trades anymore, instead making more engaging, long form narratives.

Wait, I thought "long form narratives" writing WAS writing for trades? To me not writing for trades means more one-off stories, and two- or three- parters that fully stand on their own to attract new readers, while contributing to an overall narrative that old readers will appreciate.

EDIT: And I'm starting to think that maybe Hope Summers is a smokescreen, while the real host for the Phoenix Force remains unnamed and/or unrevealed. Like maybe she's mimicking the actual host when she manifests, in the same way she mimics other mutants' powers; only, because the Phoenix Force is so powerful and difficult to control that Hope doesn't need to be near the actual host to manifest the abilities and when they do she can't control them like she does other abilities.

 

[Haemolacria]

cheesy ending aside, I thought that was a great finale for ol' Frank Castle

Damn straight. It was somber and bleak enough to be the curtain call for a man, that had experienced 40 years of trudging through Hell. I liked the portrayal of how broken beyond repair and consumed by his crusade he had become by the end of the saga.

 

[the chris]

EDIT: And I'm starting to think that maybe Hope Summers is a smokescreen, while the real host for the Phoenix Force remains unnamed and/or unrevealed. Like maybe she's mimicking the actual host when she manifests, in the same way she mimics other mutants' powers; only, because the Phoenix Force is so powerful and difficult to control that Hope doesn't need to be near the actual host to manifest the abilities and when they do she can't control them like she does other abilities.

I just have a really strong feeling that there is going to be a AvsX cover that shows Cyclops and Hope reenacting this cover.

If not Cyclops then probably Cable.

 

[Angelus Errare]

Or how he gets knocked out multiple times by a single punch.

Only to take direct explosions, Omega's blasts to the face and knocks from somene like Juggs and keeps going.

Indeed, shit is less consistent than superman's power set and levels.

 

[Owzers]

Wait, I thought "long form narratives" writing WAS writing for trades? To me not writing for trades means more one-off stories, and two- or three- parters that fully stand on their own to attract new readers, while contributing to an overall narrative that old readers will appreciate.

EDIT: And I'm starting to think that maybe Hope Summers is a smokescreen, while the real host for the Phoenix Force remains unnamed and/or unrevealed. Like maybe she's mimicking the actual host when she manifests, in the same way she mimics other mutants' powers; only, because the Phoenix Force is so powerful and difficult to control that Hope doesn't need to be near the actual host to manifest the abilities and when they do she can't control them like she does other abilities.

That's what i thought not writing for trade meant too, some one shots, a two issue story here and there, then maybe a 7-12 issue long story if they got one in their mind. What i'm reading instead just feels like the writers are wasting time, that they didn't have an idea about what to do for the new 52 so they took a really small concept and stretched it.

I'm catching up on books now, caught up on Batman and Robin and now i moved onto Batwoman. The worst thing about this book is what the plot is tied around, missing kids and a drowned watery ghost woman. Everything outside of that has been enjoyable which strikes the question: Why is this book based around such a weak premise?

 

[Banana Kid]

And I'm starting to think that maybe Hope Summers is a smokescreen, while the real host for the Phoenix Force remains unnamed and/or unrevealed. Like maybe she's mimicking the actual host when she manifests, in the same way she mimics other mutants' powers; only, because the Phoenix Force is so powerful and difficult to control that Hope doesn't need to be near the actual host to manifest the abilities and when they do she can't control them like she does other abilities.

Calling it right now: Cyclops is the real host.

 

[Jedeye Sniv]

I've not read many comics but Walking Dead got me started. So I've read "TWD", "Y: The Last Man" and "Batman: Year One" and loved all of them. Any other recommendations?

If you liked Year One read Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.

Two other books that I would recommend to any one, regardless of if they read comics or not are Locke & Key and American Vampire.

I love this question. You're in a good place dude, there are so many awesome books for you!

I disagree with the Dark Knight rec though. IMO, DKR is some really advanced-level comics, it took me years to fully appreciate it. I read DKR as a kid early on in my comics career too and I hated it. The art takes some getting used to and it's so damn dense, each issue takes forever to read. Even reading it again a few months back it tired me out. There are some really excellent sequences but there's also a fair helping of unintelligable dreck too. I say wait a little bit before reading it. The AmVam and Locke and Key recs are spot on though.

I reckon Preacher and Sandman. Preacher is just awesome. It's sacred and profane and brilliant. Really easy to read but with a cracking story and it's really out-there in terms of fucking with your expectations, at least for the first few volumes.

Sandman is just amazing, and it's a great primer on comics in general. Like DKR it can be very dense, but it's also incredibly charming and with a lightness of touch I hadn't expected given how wordy it can be. It's also good for expanding on the sytles of art you may enjoy as a reader. There are a wide variety of artists, some you may hate, others you will love and I think that as a new reader, it gives a lot of options in terms of comics to read afterwards. And it's just stunning, one of the best stories I've ever experienced in any medium.

 

[ViewtifulJC]

Damn straight. It was somber and bleak enough to be the curtain call for a man, that had experienced 40 years of trudging through Hell. I liked the portrayal of how broken beyond repair and consumed by his crusade he had become by the end of the saga.

I also really enjoyed the twist Aaron hammered home that Frank Castle was gone before his family even got shot. That was something that "Born" already hinted at, so it felt like a natural progression for MAX Punisher. Frank Castle never came home to try and be family man, and as fucked up as it sounds, his family being gone allowed him to stop pretending to be.

 

[Deleted member 13876]

EDIT: And I'm starting to think that maybe Hope Summers is a smokescreen, while the real host for the Phoenix Force remains unnamed and/or unrevealed. Like maybe she's mimicking the actual host when she manifests, in the same way she mimics other mutants' powers; only, because the Phoenix Force is so powerful and difficult to control that Hope doesn't need to be near the actual host to manifest the abilities and when they do she can't control them like she does other abilities.

The problem with that theory is I believe she started manifesting the Phoenix Force when she was isolated in the future along with Cable, unless that was a purely visual cue.

"In the four part series A Girl Called Hope, Hope watches over Cable as he sleeps, and she says "I would come back from the dead to kill them," referring to anyone who would harm Cable, with the Phoenix emblem reflecting in Hope's eyes again as she looks in the fire"

 

[jon bones]

if i want to get started on uncanny x-force (which people tells me is as good as wolverine & the x-men) - where do i begin?

and also, is it good like WATXM stand alone good or good like hickman's FF run marred in superhero backstory good?

 

[the chris]

if i want to get started on uncanny x-force (which people tells me is as good as wolverine & the x-men) - where do i begin?

and also, is it good like WATXM stand alone good or good like hickman's FF run marred in superhero backstory good?

I would go ahead and start with the first trade of the run. There is some stuff that comes up early that comes back later in the series.

 

[Garryk]

if i want to get started on uncanny x-force (which people tells me is as good as wolverine & the x-men) - where do i begin?

and also, is it good like WATXM stand alone good or good like hickman's FF run marred in superhero backstory good?

You have to start from the beginning. The first 19 issues are pretty much one big story. You definitely don't want to start with the recent Otherworld arc.

 

[jon bones]

OK cool, any quick wikipedia page i should read beforehand to set the stage? i know a fair bit of the x-universe but some subtlties may be lost on me.

 

[Rafa=FedKilla]

Da host will be an Avenger.

 

[the chris]

OK cool, any quick wikipedia page i should read beforehand to set the stage? i know a fair bit of the x-universe but some subtlties may be lost on me.

The only thing you should really know is that this is the second incarnation of the modern X-Force, the first was basically Cyclops' black-ops team that he disbanded and Wolverine put it together again with new members.

 

[notworksafe]

Da host will be an Avenger.

 

[jon bones]

The only thing you should really know is that this is the second incarnation of the modern X-Force, the first was basically Cyclops' black-ops team that he disbanded and Wolverine put it together again with new members.

OK so this is all post-schism then? should go well with my WATXM reading then. thanks for the help duders.

 

[Hillzagold]

ahh, with hopes power. i didnt put those together for some reason.

Probably because most people barely remember Hope's actual powers and just assume she's a telepath like Jean Grey. Possibly a side-effect of her acting like Cable Jr. most of the time, instead of constantly using mutant powers.

 

[Deleted member 13876]

As for Scarlet Witch's future involvement, the last page of this event better not be "No more Phoenix"

 

[Escape Goat]

As for Scarlet Witch's future involvement, the last page of this event better not be "No more Phoenix"

thats what Phoenix is though. Death and rebirth.

 

[BluWacky]

The New Deadwardians continues to be entertaining in issue 2. The writing is probably the strong point - it's a procedural with zombie/vampire trappings but it's very elegantly executed. As it's limited to eight issues perhaps it's better to wait for the TPB but I'm enjoying it a lot.

I also read Rebel Blood issue 2 this week. I say "read", but it's more of a mood piece. Dialogue is mostly irrelevant and the storytelling is somewhat confused IMO (beyond "everything is a zombie and I want to see my family!"). I love the art - as I did with Riley Rossmo's last series, Green Wake - but I find it difficult to really grasp the "point" of the series so far.

Spoiler

The "central" image of the horned humanoid zombie that ends this issue is a striking and interesting one, but if the series is going to end with the protagonist zombiefied (which would seem most likely given that he was bitten by the rat zombies) I'm not sure what the story of the final two issues can be. A bit short to really develop anything, perhaps?

 

[Escape Goat]

Bishop claimed Hope kills a million human and starts a new anti mutant witch hunt which results in his future coming into existence. Hope either kills these people or turns them into mutants?

 

[Deleted member 13876]

thats what Phoenix is though. Death and rebirth.

I think you misunderstood me. I'd be fine with a mutant revival. I'm literally saying I don't want the Scarlet Witch to go No more Phoenix and just magic the Phoenix Force out of existence.

 

[the chris]

As for Scarlet Witch's future involvement, the last page of this event better not be "No more Phoenix"

I don't think Scarlet Witch is that powerful anymore.

 

[VGChampion]

OK so this is all post-schism then? should go well with my WATXM reading then. thanks for the help duders.

No, started before Schism.

 

[Satch]

Hey gurl hey!

SO WHAT'S THE TEA???

 

[notworksafe]

:O

 

[Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku!]

how was your self imposed exile

comics didnt get any better in the last month

 

[ViewtifulJC]

She never left, she was in the American Idol thread, getting mad at the results

But still, yay

 

[Satch]

She never left, she was in the American Idol thread, getting mad at the results

But still, yay

i lost my shit and needed somebody to bitch to that one day :'(

i havent read a comic in a month so my overall quality of life has been improved significantly

 

[ViewtifulJC]

Wonder Woman did NOT shoot anybody with those guns, in case you were wondering. It was a LYING COVER. I HATE THOSE!

 

[SpiderJerusalem]

I've not read many comics but Walking Dead got me started. So I've read "TWD", "Y: The Last Man" and "Batman: Year One" and loved all of them. Any other recommendations?

I just read two of the Locke and Key trades and really liked them. Besides that maybe the usual Transmetropolitan, Sandman or Preacher?

 

[Satch]

Wonder Woman did NOT shoot anybody with those guns, in case you were wondering. It was a LYING COVER. I HATE THOSE!

dsfyudghfksj speaking of Wonder Woman, did you guys see Nicola Scott's Earth-2 pages???

Jim Lee Am Cry

 

[SpiderJerusalem]

I'm pretty excited for Earth-2 and World's Finest.

 

[Parallax]

welcome back satch

now all we need is for bandit to return, and the gang will be all here.

 

[krypt0nian]

I'm pretty excited for Earth-2 and World's Finest.

Amen.


WB, Satch! ~~~P~@

 

[Isak_Borg]

Calling it right now: Cyclops is the real host.

I think it's going to be the Scarlet Witch.

 

[Parallax]

I think it's going to be the Scarlet Witch.

that would be the most hilarious thing ever...

 

[JJD]

So Grant Morrison believes Batman is very very gay...

On Batman:
Gayness is built into Batman. I'm not using gay in the pejorative sense, but Batman is very, very gay. There's just no denying it. Obviously as a fictional character he's intended to be heterosexual, but the basis of the whole concept is utterly gay. I think that's why people like it. All these women fancy him and they all wear fetish clothes and jump around rooftops to get to him. He doesn't care -- he's more interested in hanging out with the old guy and the kid.

On Magneto:
The X-Men fans hated me because I made him into a stupid old drug-addicted idiot. He had started out as this sneering, grim terrorist character, so I thought, Well, that's who he really is. [Writer] Chris Claremont had done a lot of good work over the years to redeem the character: He made him a survivor of the death camps and this noble antihero. And I went in and sh*t on all of it. It was right after 9/11, and I said there's nothing f**king noble about this at all.

Cool Quitely drawing.

 

[JJD]

More quotes!

SUPERMAN


First appearance: Action Comics #1 (DC Comics, 1938).

Created by: Jerry Siegel, art by Joe Shuster.

Grant Morrison version: His definitive take was in the 12 issues of All-Star Superman (2006–2008).

Morrison: “When Superman was created during the Great Depression, he was the champion of the oppressed and fought on the side of the working man. He was lawless. If you were a wife beater, he’d throw you out the window. If you were a corrupt congressman, he’d swing you from the rooftops until you confessed. I think it appealed to people who were losing their jobs to machines: Suddenly you had Superman wrecking machines and punching robots. But his popularity has declined—nobody wants to be the son of a farmer now. American writers often say they find it difficult to write Superman. They say he’s too powerful; you can’t give him problems. But Superman is a metaphor. For me, Superman has the same problems we do, but on a Paul Bunyan scale. If Superman walks the dog, he walks it around the asteroid belt because it can fly in space. When Superman’s relatives visit, they come from the 31st century and bring some hellish monster conqueror from the future. But it’s still a story about your relatives visiting.”

BATMAN


First appearance: Detective Comics #27 (DC Comics, 1939).

Created by: Bill Finger, art by Bob Kane (disputed).

Grant Morrison version: He’s been writing overlapping Batman series for DC since 2006.

Morrison: “I got interested in the class element of Batman: He’s a rich man who beats up poor people. It’s quite a bizarre mission to go out at night dressed as a bat and punch the hell out of junkies. And then he goes home and lives in this mansion. There’s an aspirational quality to him—he’s an outlaw and he can buy anything. He has a new Batmobile every movie. He’s very plutonian in the sense that he’s wealthy and also in the sense that he’s sexually deviant. Gayness is built into Batman. I’m not using gay in the pejorative sense, but Batman is very, very gay. There’s just no denying it. Obviously as a fictional character he’s intended to be heterosexual, but the basis of the whole concept is utterly gay. I think that’s why people like it. All these women fancy him and they all wear fetish clothes and jump around rooftops to get to him. He doesn’t care—he’s more interested in hanging out with the old guy and the kid.”

WONDER WOMAN


First appearance: All Star Comics #8 (DC Comics, 1941).

Created by: William Moulton Marston, art by Harry G. Peter.

Grant Morrison version: He’s currently working on a stand-alone Wonder Woman graphic novel for DC.

Morrison: “William Moulton Marston, the guy who created Wonder Woman, was a noted psychiatrist. He’s the guy who invented the polygraph, the lie detector. He was one of those bohemian free-love guys; he and his wife, Elizabeth, shared a lover, Olive, who was the physical model for Wonder Woman. What he and Elizabeth did was to consider an Amazonian society of women that had been cut off from men for 3,000 years. That developed along the lines of Marston’s most fevered fantasies into a lesbian utopia. Although they’re supposedly a peace-loving culture, all these supergirls’ pursuits seem to revolve around fighting one another, and this mad, ritualistic stuff where girls dress as stags and get chased and tied up and eaten symbolically on a banquet table. The whole thing was lush with bondage and slavery. Wonder Woman was constantly being tied up or shackled—and it was hugely successful. When Marston died in 1947, they got rid of the pervy elements, and instantly sales plummeted. Wonder Woman should be the most sexually attractive, intelligent, potent woman you can imagine. Instead she became this weird cross between the Virgin Mary and Mary Tyler Moore that didn’t even appeal to girls.”

KING MOB


First appearance: The Invisibles #1 (Vertigo, 1994).

Created by: Grant Morrison, art by Steve Yeowell. The Invisibles ran on and off from 1994 to 2000.

Morrison: “When I was writing The Invisibles, I thought, If I’m going to be sitting in the house writing all day, then on weekends I want to look like this cool comic character so more girls will like me. I shaved my head and dressed more like King Mob. It was an art thing, and it was also an occult thing. I could make things happen by putting King Mob through certain things in the comic, like a voodoo doll. If he met a certain girl, three weeks later she would turn up in my life. It became hard to tell his life and my life apart. It got out of control—I ended up in the hospital because of it. In the comic, King Mob’s cheek is eaten away by something; within three months, I’d gotten an infection that ate right through my cheek. I was conjuring these scorpion gods, and I got stung by them. That’s not to say scorpion gods are real, but you can make things happen by believing in them hard enough.”

THE JOKER


First appearance: Batman #1 (DC Comics, 1940).

Created by: Bill Finger, art by Bob Kane, concept possibly provided by Jerry Robinson.

Grant Morrison version: Many appearances in various overlapping Batman series for DC (since 2006).

Morrison: “I identify with the Joker to a certain extent—at least the way I write him, which is as this cosmic fool. He’s Batman’s perfect opposite, and because of that he’s as sexy as Batman, if not more so. When the Joker was introduced in 1940, he was a scowling homicidal maniac. Then they took out the violence and death, and he became the chuckling clown, driving around in his Joker-mobile. Then he was the giggling mental-patient version from the TV show: Cesar Romero with his mustache covered in greasepaint. Suddenly in the 1970s he was killing his henchmen again. And in the 1980s he was a gender-bending transvestite. I said, Okay, we’ve had all these varied versions of the Joker. Let’s say it’s the same person who just changes his head every day. I rationalized that by saying he’s supersane, the first man of the 21st century who’s dealing with this overload of information by changing his entire personality. I quite like him, because he’s a pop star—he’s like Bowie.”

THE SUPERCONTEXT


First appearance: The Invisibles #1 (Vertigo, 1994). Created by: Grant Morrison.

Morrison: “In Kathmandu there’s this temple with 365 steps, one for each day of the year, and apparently if you can go up in a single breath, you’re guaranteed enlightenment. It’s easy to do if you’re young and fit. I just took a deep breath and ran up. Three days later I was visited by five-dimensional aliens. (I’d eaten a bit of hash, but honestly, it wasn’t a drug trip. I ate a lot of things afterward to see if I could make it happen again, and I never could.) I was in this azure blue space, and there were grid lines of silver flashing through it, but the beings looked like chrome blobs. And they were just moving about, plugging into these grids and exchanging information. I saw the entire universe from beginning to end: You had Shakespeare over here and the dinosaurs over here. Time became space, and I was bigger than both of them. Later I put that in The Invisibles and called it the Supercontext.”

LORD FANNY


First appearance: The Invisibles #2 (Vertigo, 1994). Created by: Grant Morrison, art by Steve Yeowell.

Morrison: “When I was doing The Invisibles, I was spending all my money from Arkham Asylum [Morrison’s hit graphic novel about Batman’s enemies] doing all the things I’d never done as a Presbyterian boy. You freak out, take tons of drugs. It was about the systematic derangement of the senses, as Rimbaud said. So I came up with the notion of an alter ego who was a dodgy, freaky girl [Lord Fanny, pictured]. I can’t smoke tobacco— it hurts—but she could. I created this persona, and I’d contact demons and wander down streets in this ridiculous state. I didn’t look like a girl, but I looked like a good tranny, so it was okay. I did it for four or five years before I got too old for it. I still have some of the clothes, but they mostly got destroyed doing insane rituals and climbing hills in high heels and stuff.”

MAGNETO


First appearance: X-Men #1 (Marvel, 1963).

Created by: Stan Lee, art by Jack Kirby.

Grant Morrison version: Morrison’s run on X-Men lasted from 2001 to 2004.

Morrison: “Magneto’s an old terrorist bastard. I got into trouble—the X-Men fans hated me because I made him into a stupid old drug-addicted idiot. He had started out as this sneering, grim terrorist character, so I thought, Well, that’s who he really is. [Writer] Chris Claremont had done a lot of good work over the years to redeem the character: He made him a survivor of the death camps and this noble antihero. And I went in and shat on all of it. It was right after 9/11, and I said there’s nothing fucking noble about this at all.”

JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA


First appearance: The Brave and the Bold #28 (DC Comics, 1960).

Created by: Gardner Fox, art by Mike Sekowsky.

Grant Morrison version: Morrison revived the JLA for DC from 1997 to 2000.

Morrison: “The Justice League is like the pantheon of Greek gods. Hermes made more sense to me as the Flash. Wonder Woman means so much more to me than Hera or Aphrodite. I could make a much quicker connection with the archetype of Zeus in the form of Superman. Aquaman is Poseidon, of course. Batman is Hades, the god of the underworld. People like Aleister Crowley have written down rituals for summoning Hermes, because if you want to contact the spirit of magic, you’ve got to talk to Hermes. But doing magic, I would use the characters from the comics because they meant more to me. Because I do magic all the time, it’s part of my normal life. I know for most people it’s outlandish and impossible. So I tell people that if you are truly skeptical, do the rituals and prove to yourself that it doesn’t work. And you’ll get the shock of your life.”

 

[LiQuid!]

Holy crap @ those Earth 2 pages...

 

[Satch]

Holy crap @ those Earth 2 pages...

i'mma say this shit again

jim lee am cry

 

[Angelus Errare]

The real host is....wait for it.


Idie

 

[Owzers]

Read Batwoman # 5, 6, 7. If anyone abandoned the book before those issues i suggest they pick it up again, it's a shame it took so long to start gathering enough plot points to be interesting.

 

[Escape Goat]

Gayness is built into Batman

Okay, who wants to do it?

 

[notworksafe]

So Grant Morrison believes Batman is very very gay...

Fucking DUH