That is an incredibly correct statement full of truth, Shattered Dimensions is a nearly perfect game. I'm excited if there's potential to get a rerelease on it, I haven't heard about that at all.
I also was curious- what's everyone's top 5 comics? I'm dropping the hard questions here. I'll drop mine, I've been thinking a lot about this lately which is what prompted me to want to ask this. It can be specific issues if that's the case, or a run or graphic novel as long as it's a comic book or a manga even- if you're brave, go for 10.
1. Ultimate Spider-Man. What else needs to be said.
2. Batman: The Long Halloween. To me it's the best Batman story for a whole bunch of reasons. It shows the detective side, while Batman is stoic and gritty in it he's not necessarily 'dark' or anti social which a lot of adaptations lean maybe too far into (I love when he goes back and gives Grundy a turkey dinner after encountering him, it's a nice little gesture), and the mystery part of it is very well written and paced. It's also full of so many memorable lines and narration, Jeph Loeb is one of my favourite writers.
3. Deadpool and Cable. Its the perfect mix of humour and drama, as written by the fantastic Nicieza. It's also the last time that Deadpool was more or less an actual character before he got flanderized, at least to me. There's some pathos and character to him in this- he's still funny, but there's some actual tragedy to him as a good chunk of the early story involves his worsening brain damage from his healing factor and the ramifications of it and him trying to deal with it. Also, as someone said earlier in the thread, "G.I Jesus" Cable is also fantastic of course and the only version of the character I've ever really enjoyed. So many good moments for both characters in the run.
4. The original 80s Moon Knight solo run. I love me some Moon Knight, and while he does have some fantastic modern stories and runs I do enjoy, I personally love the original ones for the different vibe, being before the whole "schizophrenia, or is it?" stuff that's taken over his character to me.
5. Daredevil: Yellow. Maybe I just have a thing for Tim Sale and Jeph Loeb, but they are of course amazing so it's understandable I think. Yellow just takes the top 5 spot over Born Again for me because of the vibe, I love how it straddles the line between the gritty Daredevil and the more brighter stuff from the early years of the character.
6. Daredevil: Born Again. Once again, what else needs to be said about this.
7. Punisher: Girls in White Dresses. Part of the Punisher MAX imprint/continuity, its about Frank being asked to investigate and 'solve the problem' in a Mexican border town that's had it's women being kidnapped by human traffickers. I was torn on putting the whole Punisher MAX run here, but decided on this instead as it's my personal favourite Punisher story. Dark, violent, and has some really strong characterization and character moments for Frank. Really recommend it.
8. Watchmen. I know, an expected answer but it has to be on here somewhere.
9. All Star Superman. I think it's the definitive example of what Superman should be, and has so many classic moments- not to mention some obviously solid writing from Morrison. I love Luthor in this, and the final interaction between him and Clark is perfection of their characters. Bring back the good natured 'too pure for this world' Superman, please people.
10. Danny Rand Iron Fist. I'm breaking my vague rules and just saying a character, I couldn't narrow it down for him so I just had to say 'Danny Rand Iron Fist'. I will simp for him on a moment's notice and have no regrets.
Mate, you’ve dropped 10! I’ll let you off the hook this time, but let’s keep our noses clean going forward, hm?
Here are mine — I’ve specifically listed comic books and not comic strips, of which my list would be completely different. I’ve also left off manga and webcomics for sheer purity. Without further ado…
#5: Love and Rockets: Heartbreak Soup. I just got into LaR this very year, and I was so glad I did — these comics are awesome. I haven’t read any of the other sub-series, but the Palomar story is just like watching a telenovella — characters and their world grow, hate, and love one another, and everything is always extremely entertaining.
The black-and-white art is great — it would lose a lot of personality in colour — and I just like being in the setting of 1950s-1970s rural Mexico. I quite literally said “Aaaawww…” when I saw one of the girls in this grow up and have kids of her own, which should be recommendation enough.
#4: Sonic the Comic. For those who don’t know: this was the UK’s original Sonic series published by Fleetway that ran for about six years in the 90s. During that time, the writers took the character and his world in a really weird, insane direction, but I think it totally worked, and I love a lot of the original concepts introduced. (The Metallix are effing based as hell, gyatt!)
Much of the artwork sucks, but when it’s good, the world really comes alive in a way no other Sonic series does. The English understand this character much more than Americans do... maybe even more than the Japanese.
#3: Doug TenNapel’s Gear. It’s Evangelion with cats, and for my money, ol’ Dougie can plant his foot straight up Hideki Anno’s bot-bot any day. I really love how this book plays so much with the comic format — in addition to having beautiful artwork, characters and scene elements spill out of their panels and leap through gutters, interacting with the actual “reality” of the comic in very cool ways I’ve never seen anyone else do.
I remember so many little one-page vignettes from this — TenNapel really crammed a lot in six issues. I could see people who don't like cute characters brutally dying or heavy-handed religious symbolism disliking it, but if you're OK with those things, this is a great read. Awesome villain, too.
#2: The Crab with the Golden Claws. Every Tintin album is fucking phenomenal, start to finish, but I'd rank this one as the "best" purely by merit of having the most recognizable iconography, an exceptionally-good story, and some of the best characterization I've ever seen in a fictional work. I love how smoothly every plot point is introduced and feeds into one another – it's a really fun, rollicking adventure, and what it lacks in complexity it owns in pure, classic spirit.
ALSO: If you've never read this – or even if you have – check out the adaptation Nelvana did in their 90s Tintin animated series. It's a great, accurate retelling of this in a fully-voiced cartoon form, and lends a unique appeal to Hergé's writing.
#1: Bone by Jeff Smith. This series was my childhood distilled into a nine-volume set. It has my single favourite premise for any media ever — cartoon characters get lost in a serious world and are swept up in adventure — and everything, from the cast to the dialogue to the scenery, is dripping with sincerity and appeal.
It’s gorgeously-drawn, funny, charming, exciting, and has some truly phenomenal character design. I love this series like little else, and I want to live in its beautiful world. Jeff Smith never really did anything besides Bone (excluding little spinoffs here and there), and I honestly think that's for the best. Highly recommended for all ages.
Sometimes you just got to break your own rules, you know?
Sick list, it's nice to see some more non-superhero stuff (I'm basic, I know). I've always had Bone on my radar but have never gotten around to reading it- maybe I'll give it a go finally.
Also, was that Freeway Sonic the Comic the wild one? I've only seen out of context pages like this one where Tails seemingly almost JFK's Robotnik:
And I'm never sure if it's from that earlier Freeway series or the more modern Ken Penders written stuff.
Yes, although that page is taken out of context for comedy purposes – it's a fantasy scene that's an active parody of the JFK assassination played for laughs (and it's part of the Tails-focused back-up strip, not the main storyline). The real comic is weird in a more "insane dimension-hopping 90s-British-pop-culture-referencing Red Dwarf-influenced-sci-fi" way, with ghost pirates and Spice Girls and evil alien fish. StC has nothing to do at all with any other Sonic comic – it was developed entirely independently in England.
I'd definitely recommend it if a weird take on Sonic sounds at all interesting to you – it's nothing like the games, any TV show, the movies, or any other comic. It's essentially an original story that just happens to feature Sonic, Robotnik, etc., and only adapts certain elements from the games sparingly. The back-up strips included in the magazine for other Sega IPs, like Streets of Rage, Shinobi, and Shining Force, are also known for being excellent comics in their own right.
You definitely should! The series just got a massive hardcover collection in colour if you're ready to take the plunge. (Definitely get it in colour if you can, the colourist did a phenomenal job under direct supervision of the original artist.) It isn't too long, and is a completely unique take on high fantasy that no other comic or cartoon has ever compared to. (And they've certainly tried!) If you just want to give it a quick, non-committal try, the first volume is on Amazon for $10, and at that price it's an impulse buy.
Mate, you’ve dropped 10! I’ll let you off the hook this time, but let’s keep our noses clean going forward, hm?
Here are mine — I’ve specifically listed comic books and not comic strips, of which my list would be completely different. I’ve also left off manga and webcomics for sheer purity. Without further ado…
#5: Love and Rockets: Heartbreak Soup. I just got into LaR this very year, and I was so glad I did — these comics are awesome. I haven’t read any of the other sub-series, but the Palomar story is just like watching a telenovella — characters and their world grow, hate, and love one another, and everything is always extremely entertaining.
The black-and-white art is great — it would lose a lot of personality in colour — and I just like being in the setting of 1950s-1970s rural Mexico. I quite literally said “Aaaawww…” when I saw one of the girls in this grow up and have kids of her own, which should be recommendation enough.
#4: Sonic the Comic. For those who don’t know: this was the UK’s original Sonic series published by Fleetway that ran for about six years in the 90s. During that time, the writers took the character and his world in a really weird, insane direction, but I think it totally worked, and I love a lot of the original concepts introduced. (The Metallix are effing based as hell, gyatt!)
Much of the artwork sucks, but when it’s good, the world really comes alive in a way no other Sonic series does. The English understand this character much more than Americans do... maybe even more than the Japanese.
#3: Doug TenNapel’s Gear. It’s Evangelion with cats, and for my money, ol’ Dougie can plant his foot straight up Hideki Anno’s bot-bot any day. I really love how this book plays so much with the comic format — in addition to having beautiful artwork, characters and scene elements spill out of their panels and leap through gutters, interacting with the actual “reality” of the comic in very cool ways I’ve never seen anyone else do.
I remember so many little one-page vignettes from this — TenNapel really crammed a lot in six issues. I could see people who don't like cute characters brutally dying or heavy-handed religious symbolism disliking it, but if you're OK with those things, this is a great read. Awesome villain, too.
#2: The Crab with the Golden Claws. Every Tintin album is fucking phenomenal, start to finish, but I'd rank this one as the "best" purely by merit of having the most recognizable iconography, an exceptionally-good story, and some of the best characterization I've ever seen in a fictional work. I love how smoothly every plot point is introduced and feeds into one another – it's a really fun, rollicking adventure, and what it lacks in complexity it owns in pure, classic spirit.
ALSO: If you've never read this – or even if you have – check out the adaptation Nelvana did in their 90s Tintin animated series. It's a great, accurate retelling of this in a fully-voiced cartoon form, and lends a unique appeal to Hergé's writing.
#1: Bone by Jeff Smith. This series was my childhood distilled into a nine-volume set. It has my single favourite premise for any media ever — cartoon characters get lost in a serious world and are swept up in adventure — and everything, from the cast to the dialogue to the scenery, is dripping with sincerity and appeal.
It’s gorgeously-drawn, funny, charming, exciting, and has some truly phenomenal character design. I love this series like little else, and I want to live in its beautiful world. Jeff Smith never really did anything besides Bone (excluding little spinoffs here and there), and I honestly think that's for the best. Highly recommended for all ages.
HELL YEAH I love sonic the comic.I adore asshole characters and sonic does fill in for that.
He’s so savage.
I love how writer Nigel weighed in on this particular strip, I believe this was meant to showcase Sonic’s inability to express that he cares for porky.
That’s all well and good, but cmon, it’s just hilarious how mean he is for no reason. For a guy who loves chili dogs, he sure has no chill.
@Octopus ....ahhhhhhhthats such a hard question! Whole runs, individual stories, favorite arcs?! I'll do my best. Those are all great picks, by the way! (But Danny Rand's best was Fraction's Seven Cities of Heaven jk but not really no im kidding mostly)
1. Secret Six (vol. 3)
Gail Simone's dark comedy masterpiece, Secret Six was a book I'd rush out of opening shifts to pick up from my local comic shop. A team of killers who aren't the *literal* worst, just pretty close, made gorgeous by Nicola Scott's art. (Shout out to her and Gail Simone making "Sexy Catman who fucks" their greatest mission in life, and succeeding good lord.)
2. Uncanny X-Force
Rick Remender took over X-Force in 2010, a relatively boring book shooting for "cool action" and rarely hitting the mark. The initial issues seem to be doubling down on the previous series, taking the action to the moon to battle Apocalypse's fabled Last Horsemen, who have cloned their dark master, a child En Sabah Nur being raised by his forebear's most genocidal minions. Can X-Force rescue this child before he grows into the new mutant disaster?
Nah, they kill the kid.
The whole book spirals wildly from there, a deconstruction of comic book vigilante justice, mixed with mad science, time-travel, parallel realities, an adventure in the Age of Apocalypse, so much killing, Deathloks, sex, and the single best Deadpool moment I've ever read.
3. Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons
Look, I could write about how good this is, but nothing I say speaks louder than the artwork. Jaw-dropping pages by Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha, and Nicola Scott, with a story by Kelly Sue DeConnick that choked me up at the end.
Frustratingly all the double page spreads I want to post are too large to attach on here.
4. Action Comics 890-900, collected as Superman: The Black Ring
A wacky tour of the DC Universe with Lex Luthor and his quest for...ultimate power? (No spoilers here, read it I beg you) Paul Cornell and Pete Woods sketch out the most interesting take on Superman's nemesis likely ever committed to page, building (I think) from the great version Grant Morrison laid out in All-Star Superman.
5. Journey into Mystery #622-645, collected as Journey Into Mystery by Kieron Gillen
I love Kieron Gillen's writing so much, I could just list all of his books on here and be happy with my choices. This was the first time I really noticed his work, a new direction for Loki that everyone assumed was to get more in line with Tom Hiddleston's MCU version. Surprise, it's a mythic/meta take on the unchanging nature of story conventions, and the constraints placed on Loki in myth and the pages of Marvel. This has basically become the new foundational text for the character, leading directly into Al Ewing's (equally amazing) series, Loki: Agent of Asgard, and ironically inspired the recent live-action Disney series. (The books, as they say, are better.)
...okay I was going to do several more but I'm taking hours just to write this much, I keep reading the books and getting distracted. How do people pick favorites?! I owe you at least another five, soon as I can make up my mind.
This is another one I've always wanted to check out and already a know a bit a out. I have a feeling if I did ever read it, it would probably have been on my top 10- so maybe I'll finally get on that. I think I know that Deadpool moment you mentioned, is it when he's "recuperating" archangel with some 'snacks'?
Okay there's a bunch of good moments, but nah, this has to do with Deadpool being the most heroic person on the team, to the shock of literally everyone, even himself. I don't wanna spoil it if you read it.
The Old Gods Died....The List Continued!
6. The 6 Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton
I've mentioned it in the thread before, but this was my favorite book last year, from Kyle Starks and Chris Schweizer. Trigger Keaton is a quasi-Chuck Norris mainstay of TV and terrible films, best known for brandishing his karate on coworkers and being an unlovable cuss, and gets killed mysteriously while filming his latest awful show. Six idiots, traumatized in one way or another from working with that legendary jackass, reluctantly investigate his murder and even more reluctantly bond over it.
Will they find the killers? The list of suspects includes everyone Trigger wronged in Hollywood, from fellow actors he sabotaged, directors he bedeviled, and stuntmen he maimed showing off his karate. Or was justice already served with Keatons ass on a slab?
It's six issues, one TPB collection, and damn, damn funny.
7. DIE
The most unoptimized-for-search engines book ever titled! Kieron Gillen and Stephanie Hans bring one of the most haunting, and gorgeous, takes on fantasy escapism I've ever had the pleasure to read. I suspect I'm not even the kind of person this book hits hardest, as I've never really participated in TTRPG's, but it hit me in more than a few places I live regardless.
The premise would take a while to sum up, let me elevator pitch and say it's "Six teens got sucked into D&D Jumanji, returning to our world two years later. One didn't return, and none of them could explain what had happened. Decades later in the present day, they all receive cryptic messages ushering them back to the dangerous world they escaped, to grapple with what they left behind."
DIE is a sprawling look at the fantasy genre, with whole arcs devoted to Tolkien and how The Great War left its mark on him and his writing, the history of war games going back to Prussia (@Octopus your fantastic article on the subject got me to re-read the book then and there, if you haven't already read this I think you'd love it), the Brontë sisters, and the various luminaries of pulp fiction...and more!
Most of all it's personal, with a perspective on the darkest parts of role-playing and escapism that I can't credit to many other works. Disco Elysium comes to mind, which is about the highest praise I have to give. It's also just gorgeous, I love Gillen's writing but it helps that he frequently teams with incredible artists, and Stephanie Hans' work is a constant thrill.
8. Final Crisis
Event books suck. Specifically, the line-wide major events of DC and Marvel, whose purpose is largely utility, transitioning the status quo to it's next permutation. It's the scale, probably. Smaller crossovers like the Sinestro Corps War still manage to be fun, but the "summer blockbuster" model that the Big 2 adopted through the 00's and 10's were almost uniformly trash. I wanted to try and include at least one standout though, and Final Crisis is the one I come back to the most, with Hickman's Secret Wars being a close second.
Grant Morrison could be the focus of an entire top 10, or 25 easily. He's up there with Moore and Gaiman in terms of influence, with All Star Superman, JLA, New X-Men, We3, Batman Incorporated, Animal Man, Flex Mentallo, Doom Patrol, this is just becoming a list, dammit. All of these are all-timers, and I recommend the lot.
Throughout Morrison's time at DC, he was constantly engaging with the work of Jack Kirby and his Fourth World, and he finally combined and paid off those ideas here in Final Crisis. The New Gods have come to Earth, and Darkseid has found Anti-Life in humanity. Evil Wins.
There's too many spinning plates, the tie-ins don't make sense if they weren't written directly by Morrison, it's one of his most meta stories ever, and delays and problems meant changes in the art team down the line. (Doug Mahnke is fantastic, but combined with the weird plot in the last issue it's a jarring switch.)
Despite all that, there are moments with these characters that are unforgettable, like the return of Barry Allen. Morrison's principle for the Flash is Hope, that there's always time to save the world for The Fastest Man Alive. Barry arrives and immediately gets to work, telling his nephew Wally; "We have to save everyone. We start with family." Then he goes home to his wife after being dead in print for twenty years, and wakes her from Anti-Life with, what else? True Love's Kiss. It's corny and I'm not crying you're crying.
Other favorite moments:
Hell yeah.
Superman shatters Darkseid with a song.
I love Morrisons idea that the 2D world of print is silent, making music and sound a kind of magic to the denizens of comics. According to an interview, you can imagine Superman singing anything you like here. Today, I feel like he's belting out American Idiot.
The plot that revolves around the Monitors, the beings who observe the 52 worlds of the DC Multiverse, could have been communicated better. At it's core though? The narratives of our "germ worlds" has infected the higher beings that had no such concepts before, and they've been growing tales of their own, hate and love, heroism and betrayal. Our main character, sort of, is the youngest Monitor, cast down to be a human on Earth by his colleagues deceit. Living as a man working minimum wage jobs, he's plagued by dreams of his former life. The machinery of the cosmos, and the girl who smiles at him when he closes his eyes. It's finally remembering her name that wakes him back up, in an homage to Miracleman, the magic word that awakens The Judge of All Evil to turn the tide.
I feel like I'm rambling, I didn't realize I still had this much to say about the book. Shit, I still have more, isn't that weird? It's not an accessible read, but clearly I still think about it enough to include here.
9. The Flintstones (no seriously)
Mark Russel wrote some of the most scathing social commentary I've ever fucking seen, and he used The Flintstones to do it.
Damn.
Yeah, it's got the lows, what about the highs of the human experience?
Damn.
I went long on the last one, let me sum this up more succinctly: The Flintstones is basically The Dinosaurs for adults, in comic form. If that appeals to you at all, you're missing out not reading this.
10. Silver Surfer (vol. 7 & 8)
My picks so far might have shown I'm a bit of a sucker for romance, and Dan Slott and Mike Allred wrote one of my favorites here in Silver Surfer. The cosmic wanderer finds himself inextricably tied to an Earth girl who never traveled further than her home state, widening both their perspectives as they explore the universe. It hearkens back to the 60's in it's style and space-age wonder, and Allred in particular is phenomenal. His artwork has stood out in comics his whole career, and whereas X-Statix was so ahead of it's time the industry couldn't catch up, I think Silver Surfer is going to wind up timeless.
It's broken up with a new issue 1 thanks to Marvel's Secret Wars reset, but both volumes are one continuous story.
My personal highlight is a single issue story, where Galactus needs a hand averting the end of the universe. Our heroes selflessly agree to help, and are whisked away to opposite ends of creation, so far apart as to never see each other again. I can't in good conscience spoil how that resolves, but it gets me the same way the end of Billy Wilder's The Apartment (1960) does. That's a feeling I treasure anytime I'm lucky enough to find it.
Ah hell, I didn't include anything from Hickman, Alan Moore, Gaiman, Al Ewing, Valentino, Mike Mignola, Sex Criminals, Conan, Groo the Wanderer, Once and Future....there's too many good books out there, I'll have to do this again sometime.
None of this is like, definitive for me, but it's what I felt like talking about and I hope to hear more of what everyone else enjoys.
Off the top of my head these are the ones I would consider my favourites
1.) Superman for all Seasons- Favourite Superman origin plus has one of my favourite panels
2.) Superman Peace on Earth
3.) Superman vs Muhammad Ali
4.)Silver Surfer The Ultimate Cosmic Experience
5.) Daredevil Born Again
6.) The Long Halloween
7.) Dark Horse Conan run
8.) Sensational She-Hulk
9.)Kraven's Last Hunt- Mike Zeck is one of my favourite artisits.
10.) Blacksad
Sinestro Corps war, Vengeance of Bane, Silver Surfer Parable, World war Hulk, Spider-man Blue, God Loves Man Kills and Winter Soldier are also up there.
That's an excellent list, and I'm especially fond of Kraven's Last Hunt. My cousin read it and told me the story, a habit with books and comics I kinda passed on to my siblings and onward, and then left me his copies when he left for college. It's so good that I hate seeing Kraven used anymore, it took the ridiculous big game hunter and made such a meal of his psychology, no other story comes close. You can't quite update the guy, he's a bit of an antique. Even here in 1987, they had to clarify that he was extremely old, kept young by "jungle elixers".
(I haven't seen the movie yet, but I get the feeling it isn't great.)
I'm not a lot into comics but I began reading Dark Knight Returns because I really liked the animated movie. I should also read Watchmen and The Killing Joke again.
Just curious if there's anything folks are reading and enjoying right now, DC's All In...initiative, I guess you call it, has been pretty decent. The standouts of course being the Absolute Batman/Wonder Woman/Superman books, and The Question: All Along the Watchtower had a really interesting debut.
Dark Horse just had a title wrap up called Helen of Wnydhorn, by the creative team from Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. The artwork is achingly gorgeous, and fits perfectly with a book telling a story that alternates between gothic and pulp fantasy.
There's also a new Star Trek: Lower Decks ongoing series from Ryan North, of Squirrel Girl fame. It was a funny first issue, and should help fill the void when the series ends in a couple weeks, best modern Star Trek and it's not even close.
There's an Image ongoing called The Power Fantasy, and it's so far shaping up to be another fantastic series by Kieron Gillen (along with Caspar Wijngaard, who I believe was his partner on the Doctor Aphra series, one of the best additions to Star Wars). I've never read anything of Gillen's I haven't fallen in love with. I was recently gifted the first trade paperback for his "D&D Jumanji" series, DIE, and ran out to buy the rest the second I finished.
Marvel's post Krakoa X-Men launch has been pretty mild, with the exception of Gail Simone's Uncanny X-Men. Marvel's most interesting right now though is probably The Immortal Thor by Al Ewing, the best Thor book since Jason Aaron's Thor: God of Thunder run.
That's all I got off the top of my head, anyone reading? (Comics, I mean read books too, the library will just give them to you.)
I'm not a lot into comics but I began reading Dark Knight Returns because I really liked the animated movie. I should also read Watchmen and The Killing Joke again.
If you like Frank Miller Batman, his Batman: Year One story is a classic.
Actually if anyone's particularly interested in Batman, the start of Scott Snyders Batman run, The Court of Owls, is a great choice. It's the start of one of the most influential runs of the character in the modern era, and takes some really big swings with the established setting. It also has Batman fighting ninjas in his home in a mech suit, so....
(The Court has become surprisingly popular as villains, characters and stories from the last twenty years in comics don't often penetrate the zeitgeist. Supposedly they'll be featured in the upcoming Matt Reeves Batman movie, but I don't think that's confirmed.)
Sandman's a classic from start to finish, one day I need to get one of the big collections to look nice on a shelf.
I read the most recent Sonic issue on a whim earlier this week, just to see if it resembled the older comics I remember. It was pretty fun! Soooo many characters I've never heard of though, I just tried to focus on the story.
Radiant Black I'm curious about, I have one of the writers other books (Rise of Ultraman) but I haven't started it yet. I've got no idea what to expect but I've seen quite a bit of praise, do you like it?
I'm not a lot into comics but I began reading Dark Knight Returns because I really liked the animated movie. I should also read Watchmen and The Killing Joke again.
The Dark Knight Returns animated movie was fantastic, Peter Weller is iconic in it as Batman. And the mutant leader fight gets a chef's kiss from me. I'm not sure why specifically the Dark Knight Returns killed it so much when the rest of the animated adaptation were average at best, or actually bad at the worst (The Killing Joke adaptation still baffles me).
Actually if anyone's particularly interested in Batman, the start of Scott Snyders Batman run, The Court of Owls, is a great choice. It's the start of one of the most influential runs of the character in the modern era, and takes some really big swings with the established setting. It also has Batman fighting ninjas in his home in a mech suit, so....
(The Court has become surprisingly popular as villains, characters and stories from the last twenty years in comics don't often penetrate the zeitgeist. Supposedly they'll be featured in the upcoming Matt Reeves Batman movie, but I don't think that's confirmed.)
Sandman's a classic from start to finish, one day I need to get one of the big collections to look nice on a shelf.
I read the most recent Sonic issue on a whim earlier this week, just to see if it resembled the older comics I remember. It was pretty fun! Soooo many characters I've never heard of though, I just tried to focus on the story.
Radiant Black I'm curious about, I have one of the writers other books (Rise of Ultraman) but I haven't started it yet. I've got no idea what to expect but I've seen quite a bit of praise, do you like it?
i do like radiant black a lot i been the whole universe they been building honnestly , iseen some people saying it starts slow but i dont know i personally don't feel it that way, radiant is such an inersthinng concept is partly the trope of youngman gets powers but instead of bein a teenager or somewere around the age the first protagonist and yes i say first protagonist you have to read and see basically starts with having to deal with a big debt and having to slowly work to fullfill it and then we go from there. it is a very fun book is more adult in a grounded way even tho it is still a superhero series so we get cosmic stuff and lots of action, the art is amazing too!.
Ain't no rule in the book that says dogs can't play and webcomics don't count, I'll allow it. I read through a bit of it, reminds me of when webcomics really had their heyday back around 2000 or so.
i do like radiant black a lot i been the whole universe they been building honnestly , iseen some people saying it starts slow but i dont know i personally don't feel it that way, radiant is such an inersthinng concept is partly the trope of youngman gets powers but instead of bein a teenager or somewere around the age the first protagonist and yes i say first protagonist you have to read and see basically starts with having to deal with a big debt and having to slowly work to fullfill it and then we go from there. it is a very fun book is more adult in a grounded way even tho it is still a superhero series so we get cosmic stuff and lots of action, the art is amazing too!.
That sounds great, I'll have to try reading it soon!
Speaking of, I've read a fair bit for the holidays so far. Gorse's post awhile back reminded me I had some Tintin queued up that I was meaning to read. I started from the beginning, which was...
...unexpectedly weird! (No shade to Gorse, these aren't the books he recommended specifically.) I hadn't known the author, Hergé, had been a royalist and more than a little enamored with some of the Nazis ideas for Europe, at least before the war. The initial Tintin books are mostly Baby's First Agitprop, starting here with an anti-socialist screed. (I also read the next one, but its mostly pro-colonial racist territory and just a shitload of big game hunting) The most interesting thing here is the effect this book especially had on Steven Spielberg. Not the politics, exactly, but the visual design of some chase scenes and gags. There's multiple moments in particular that find their way into The Last Crusade, a movie I've watched, give or take, a billion times. It's always fascinating to see where the inspirations from your favorite works comes from. My understanding is the books move into more pulp adventure after the first few entries, and I'm excited to dig into those and see what made this series so popular, particularly in the sixties.
Then I read this insanity I've had sitting around for awhile. The Predator hunts and murders the population of Riverdale, with spine-ripping and mutilation galore! It's, woof, it's a lot. It is a little clever in some of the setup, and it's really committed to being a genuine Archie comic despite the twist...buuuut this thing sold well because of the absurdity of the concept and it's wild execution of, uh, executions. There's a lot of success to be found in that, Marvel does the occasional "X Destroys the Marvel Universe" book that's just a wall-to-wall murder-frenzy of their most popular characters. I can't pretend to be a splatter fan, so the spectacle is a bit lost on me. This is better than most of that genre though, whatever the name should be. (Kill-em-all comics? SlaughterHouse of Ideas?)
Also, finally read the latest Transformers series, and the opening arc is fucking great.
Nothing too crazy in this weeks standard superhero fare, Wonder Woman Absolute continues to be a solid new take on the character, Justice League Unlimited is really capitalizing on the fact that DC probably has more fans of their characters who grew up with the cartoons, and there's this interesting little number...
If anyone watched the movie Overlord (2018), this one borrows that opening, with American paratroopers ambushed by Nazi zombies, and spruces it up with the last survivor becoming the Ghost Rider to bring vengeance. Stupid fun, with some Hellboy-esque occult moments and a cliffhanger to introduce WWII-era Wolverine in the next issue. (Canonically, he's usually depicted as a Canadian specialist during the war, either training Allied forces in clandestine tactics or conducting such missions himself.)
Gyeh-heh-heh-heh, you’ve fallen right into my trap! Yes, those early Tintin books are the weird scratchy “real-world” ones, and yes, they are quite political — the magazine they were published in, Le Petit Vingtieme, was heavily right-leaning. (And, during the occupation of Belgium, outright Nazi-controlled. Fun!) During the war, the series went in a more pulp-y, adventure-y direction, and many of the later books include some element of (reasonable) fantasy. The Crab with the Golden Claws is where the formula solidifies, and everything after that (including the unfinished last one) is brilliant.
Don’t think you need to read these in order, either! Plot points and characters (outside of the main cast) typically don’t re-appear, so you miss nothing by skipping around. I did as a kid and I was never lost. Hope you enjoy going through these as much as I have!
(Also, if it makes you feel any better, Herge was well-known for being opportunistic and adapting his beliefs to those he was in close contact with. I’m of the opinion that his true views were not out of the ordinary among mid-20th century Frenchmen.)
Glad to hear it! I’ve had the first TPB sitting on my desk for about a week, and I’ll be the last person on Earth to be reading it. I’m really hopeful for this new step in the franchise’s comics — here’s hoping we get some new stories beyond the standard G1 stuff going forward, too!
I discovered these guys really recently and they have since joined a pantheon alongside other all-time greats from my childhood, like Peanuts, Asterix & Obelix, Hagar The Horrible, Tin-Tin and Lucky Luke.
I’m sorry to hear that! After reading through the series, every other form of entertainment will seem inferior to you. There’s no cure, but, fortunately, you’ll pick up something new every time you re-read the strips, so I recommend doing that very often.
Calvin and Hobbes is my single favourite piece of entertainment media ever, and massively influenced my tastes and personality growing up. In my humblest of opinions, it’s by far the best comic ever made, one of the most important pieces of literature, and easily the finest product of 20th-century Americana. Stick with it until the very last strip — you won’t regret it.
It is way too early for me to comment, but it's certainly heading that way.
A crossover with Snoopy would have been legendary, particularly since our boy here is just as much of a luckless, lost cause on the diamond as Charlie Brown.
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