Comics You Should Read.

[Diamicles]

I haven't been up to date on much in the last year or so, but I'm going to start up the weekly pull at the comic shop here again since funds are better.

The one I'd recommend first is one of my favs (hopefully it's still running so I can catch up and get back into it), Red Sonja (yes, that Red Sonja). Dynamite Comics. Other than that, I've always been able to pick up X-Factor and enjoy it since that line was started. Jamie Madrox is just one of my favorite characters ever.

[Imitarate]

Peter David is one of the more interesting writers, yes.

The Messiah War crossover between X-Force and Cable (and featuring Bishop and Deadpool) has been really, REALLY good thus far. The action, the storytelling, the pace could use a little work but that may just be me excited about the next part. The only flaw it has is that it would be damn near completely inaccessable to anyone without some pretty thorough knowledge of the continuity behind these characters. Beware heavy spoilers.

Spoiler: show

Stryfe comes back. The way that they handle him very much assumes a level of knowledge of the character's history. The problem is that they've barely used Stryfe since the 90s, during Nicienza's X-Cutioner's Song crossover. He had a fairly major role in the later-90s Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, when Scott and Jean had their honeymoon 3000 years in the future where they wound up raising Cable and it's a really long story let's just say that Stryfe has major daddy issues with Apocalypse and it shows in Messiah Complex. They do have a two-panel blurb, they don't go completely without it, but even with a pretty thorough grounding in X-continuity I found myself stretching to remember some of the references they've made in the 3 issues of this crossover thusfar. I can't imagine a newcomer finding it easy to follow.

tl;dr Even I had trouble following some of it, and I've been reading X-books regularly for 20 years. It's GOOD, incredible in fact, but it needs a major Beware of Continuity warning.

[BRP]

Batman and Robin 1 IS GOOD! I am hyped as hell.

[tyven]

yea i liked it a lot too, i love damien. is it the same artist that did all star superman?

also what book is tim drake gonna be in?

[grantlogan]

Details plz, I havn't been able to read any comics for a few months. Writer/Artist? Plot/characters?

In regards to Batman/Bruce Wayne, is he dead? Last I saw he got blasted by Darkseid.

[BRP]

yea i liked it a lot too, i love damien. is it the same artist that did all star superman?

also what book is tim drake gonna be in?

Yeah, Frank Quitely(and Grant Morrison, to answer the other guy.) He's really good if odd. You'll find some of his panels kind of meh, but then the others just downright awesome. I like his style.

Tim is going to be in Red Robin I am almost sure of. He will also probably be in Teen Titans(which... well, I don't know how good that will be.)

In regards to Batman/Bruce Wayne, is he dead? Last I saw he got blasted by Darkseid.

This is one of those questions you can only answer with "Heh heh heh..." Apparently he is SUPER-dead, which means he probably in some way alive.

Book has (spoilers!) Dick as Batman and Damian as Robin. It is featuring a lot of new characters/opponents. They are combining campy and grim-dark elements of Batman to make a somewhat trippy series.

[grantlogan]

If it's Morrison/Quitely, it's guaranteed to be the best shit ever. EVER. I'm convinced Morrison can take any character and make them great/a bestseller. Hell, he could make Deadpool good.

[tyven]

im really on the fence about Quitely's art. not a fan of the way he draws costumes or faces, but i agree that some panels are just incredible. he can draw emotions extremely well

[Qalbert]

anyone have a torrent for 100 Bullets or Fables? I can only find individual issues which'll take bleeding forever

[BRP]

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2009/06/...keter-slips-up

This is pretty funny, assuming it wasn't an elaborate joke by an anon. (Actually, it would still be funny)

EDIT: Also comics you should read: Ultimate Spiderman, Ultimates 1 and 2.

Comics you shouldn't read: Ultimates 3, Ultimatum. Avoid at all cost.

[tyven]

yo whats the deal with ultimatum anyway? why are they killing everybody? is ultimate done?

[BRP]

yo whats the deal with ultimatum anyway? why are they killing everybody? is ultimate done?

I can't even tell you what the hell they are thinking.

I can only guess they realized they fucked up with the Ultimate universe. Maybe because: 1) Ultimate X-men and Ultimates(by 3) read like shit(but still sells...), 2) They ended up creating a shit load of annoying/ugly continuity thanks to stuff like (really crappy) crossover events(this is actually what they were trying to avoid), and 3) they added or reverted several themes/characters back to their 616 form(ie Thor speaking in "verily"s and shit.)

So what is happening now is that they are purging what they have now and making a setting with the backdrop that the world almost ended. "Volume 2" of the Ultimate Universe. It is probably going to suck and Ultimates will be a little closer to ending.

What's so damn shitty to the point of being funny is how they are doing this. Loeb is responsible for at least half of what I said above and now they are giving him the keys to the world-destroying machine. So from an outsider's point of view this is like if Jeph Loeb raped the Ultimate universe, then pulled out a pistol and shot it in the head.

Btw, I really don't like Jeph Loeb's work.

I can only hope Bendis and Miller(the two great writers of the Ultimate universe) are not suffering any despair in this.

[Imitarate]

By the way, Ultimatum 4 just came out, four months after Ultimatum 3. I'm "looking forward" to the conclusion sometime in November! Bendis, by the way, is crazy as all hell. He did a silent issue of Ult. Spiderman this week to go along with the Ultimatum line. It was good; Ult Spiderman, the first 6-12 issues of Ult FF, and the first 12-18 issues of Ult. X-Men were the only good things to come out of the universe. Oh, and Ultimate Nick Fury.

[tyven]

bendis still writes ult spiderman? i thought he stopped around 100 or so, which is when i stopped reading it.

[BRP]

Marvel Zombies came from the Ultimate universe too... but they seriously need to put that to rest. It got boring by the 1st mini-series. And they are on like... the third + one-offs.

[Parshias]

Marvel Zombies came from the Ultimate universe too... but they seriously need to put that to rest. It got boring by the 1st mini-series. And they are on like... the third + one-offs.

They're on #4 right now, I think. The third one was actually pretty good, but only because it was nothing but Machine Man running around killing zombies with his shotgun arms and hitting on Jocasta.

[BRP]

Hmmmmm I should check that out then lol

[Imitarate]

It was definitely an interesting idea, but since I avoided Ultimates like the plague, the introduction of the zombies was the first point of real, tangible, identifiable Setting Decay for me -- they placed Ultimate universe as part of the Marvel Multiverse. They might as well have given it a number. The alternate reality they accessed wasn't a send-off of THEIR reality... it was a send-off of "616" Marvel.

I don't especially mind the multiverse; a certain portion of the Exiles was a great book (hint: FUCK SAGE WITH A RUSTY PITCHFORK), and I was always a What If? fan to one degree or another. Exiles started off really well; it had some low moments, but I think it had developed some real downhill momentum by the time the second instance of Hyperion came along. Once they got a "base" the whole book really lost its feel. It was time to hang it up, but they kept it going for quite a while too long after that. The new series isn't terrible, but I'm reserving judgement, they're only a couple of issues in.

[Sol-Blackguy]

ITT: DC comics onry?

Currently Reading:

The New Warriors- Early 90's Kirby era superhuman group of freelancers, ex Avengers, and Avengers rejects. The team is led by an exclusive character, Night Thrasher who is basically a bi-polar black version of Batman that rides a skateboard and doesn't afraid of anything. Most notable members are Marvel Boy (young version of the more notable Justice) Nova, Rage, Speedball, and Namorita, (Submariner's half cousin) and a crippled former assassin named Shade. The story is very similar to the Great Lakes Avengers with all the quirky banter and ridiculous sub plots.

Atlantis Attacks!- Multi-part miniseries that stretched across most of the prominent marvel superheroes series during the mid 90's. Atlantis wages war on land and epicness ensues, "nuff said".

Fatal Attractions- This could be its own stand alone series, but ends up being its own bookend of the most epic events from Magneto ripping out the adamantium from Wolverine's bones to Cable's first encounter with Rachel Summers (Cyclops and Jean's daughter from an alternate timeline) in an attempt to assassinate Colossus. Each issue is stamped with a holographic image of members from the various X teams.

Age of the Apocalypse- Insanely epic post apocalyptic miniseries that takes place in an alternate time line where Professor Xavier never existed.

[tyven]

started reading ultimate spider-man again last night from where i had left off like two years ago. forgot what a great book that is