Anyone currently reading comics?

[Antilocal123]

BRUTUS, some amateurish webcomic that I found randomly lol

 

[Yousef]

Funnily enough, the top 5 cut off point was by design. Had I went with a top ten, youd see far more mainstream picks. I’m not as much of a hipster as I might come off, I just thought it’d be hilarious to have that cutoff point.

Since there’s no harm in revealing who they are, I’ll state their names regardless:

6- Clark Kent
7- Hal Jordan
8- Frank Castle
9- Eddie Brock
10- Johnny Storm

Probably still a bit unconventional haha

 

[ATenderLad]

BRUTUS, some amateurish webcomic that I found randomly lol

Looked it up, that *is* random; very old fashioned webcomic.

Since there’s no harm in revealing who they are, I’ll state their names regardless:

6- Clark Kent
7- Hal Jordan
8- Frank Castle
9- Eddie Brock
10- Johnny Storm

Probably still a bit unconventional haha

A little! Eddie Brock over Peter Parker, I love that.

 

[Yousef]

Looked it up, that *is* random; very old fashioned webcomic.

A little! Eddie Brock over Peter Parker, I love that.

Haha, this is the one moment I’ll whip out my elitist comic nerd glasses. Y’see, I like to pride myself in saying that I know the “true” or “complete” versions of some chars, and I judge comic heroes/villains in their fullness, not just one or two instances I liked (hence why I actually can’t allow every niche hero as refuge in my list, they had one or two standout stories, sure, but the rest is pretty run of the mill)

And Eddie is someone, as a whole, I tend to prefer over a lot of other heroes.

Because here’s a funny curse with adaptations, they don’t make it far. Rarely do Spider-Man adaptations reach the point Eddie turns into this gigantic lovable goofball. The PS1 game is the exception because it falls under adaptations that reflect current comic events, as opposed to being your millionth backstory retelling. For reasons like this, I love it when some adaptations show the big bad galactus get his jabroni ass handed to me. In his backstory, he’s a monster. But in his regular stories, he jobs out a lot. The world eater because the world jobber, he’s give Billy Gun a run for his money.


For this, I was also hesitant to add Flash Thompson. His run as agent venom isn’t a good representation of his character as a whole since it’s an awesome albiet temporary run.

 

[coleboo]

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 was reading Batman white knight and ultimate spider-man and waiting for ultimate wolverine and X-Men to end so I can binge them and I want to read Superman because of the coming movie so if you have any comic that you like please share

 

[bigthecat_]

I lost the touch recently, the last I read as far I remember was a chapter of X-men from 1963. Before that, I was reading a lot. Bearded Aquaman, New 52, Fantastic Four, Hulk from early 2000s and many others by Marvel/DC.

 

[Yousef]

@ATenderLad time to slightly double down on the unpopular comic book takes. The green lantern corps are the last ounce of care I have left for DC. The Clark family drama is really silly, the speed force shenanigans finally took their toll on yours truly, Diana is a really silly woman and the bat-family can simply go die in a cliff for all I care.
I will not apologize for any of my takes. Bruce, Dick, Harley and Joker won’t even have so much as a sniff of my top 50 favorite comic book characters. Hell, Not even top 100. Two face and Solomon Grundy of all people have ironically better odds. Killer croc too but he’s another guy I’ve been really angry with how he’s written. He had a solo comic that was extremely cowardly written and I hate to to death. Moving on.

The green lantern corps are basically Star Wars if was good (yeah I’m not making any friends today woohoo! All those British comedies rubbed off on me). Kyle, Guy and others are just so much fun. Especially Guy.

(btw, something bugged on my end and I CANNOT disable Italiac text. Send help immediately)

Post automatically merged: Feb 24, 2025

Side note: I did not forget about the comic book rant I promised three months ago. I will still post it. Eventually. Just can’t find the time. This week would be a really bad time to write it because of regional holidays.

 

[ATenderLad]

Oof, but I haven't been around quite that much, been meaning to post something in here for days now.

Haha, this is the one moment I’ll whip out my elitist comic nerd glasses. Y’see, I like to pride myself in saying that I know the “true” or “complete” versions of some chars, and I judge comic heroes/villains in their fullness, not just one or two instances I liked (hence why I actually can’t allow every niche hero as refuge in my list, they had one or two standout stories, sure, but the rest is pretty run of the mill)

And Eddie is someone, as a whole, I tend to prefer over a lot of other heroes.

Because here’s a funny curse with adaptations, they don’t make it far. Rarely do Spider-Man adaptations reach the point Eddie turns into this gigantic lovable goofball. The PS1 game is the exception because it falls under adaptations that reflect current comic events, as opposed to being your millionth backstory retelling. For reasons like this, I love it when some adaptations show the big bad galactus get his jabroni ass handed to me. In his backstory, he’s a monster. But in his regular stories, he jobs out a lot. The world eater because the world jobber, he’s give Billy Gun a run for his money.

For this, I was also hesitant to add Flash Thompson. His run as agent venom isn’t a good representation of his character as a whole since it’s an awesome albiet temporary run.

Flash had a really interesting run as Venom, and the sci-fi direction it took later definitely inspired the current (technically it just ended) cosmic "King in Black" that Al Ewing has been writing.

I love your point about adaptations and character development in long-form storytelling; comics are one of the few genres that can really enable that, like how Batman grieving Jason Todd has been standard in movies/cartoons for some time. They also occasionally do that within the same medium, weirdly enough!

One of the series I remember buying with the money from a mail-sorting gig I took was Avengers Forever, where a ramshackle team of Marvel's Mightiest are plucked out of the timestream from different points in their personal arcs. Kang is waging Time War with his future self, Immortus, and this seemingly random group of heroes are actually all the right person, from the right time, to help stop the conflict.

Anyways, what that means is you get young Avenger Hawkeye, circa 1968 or so when he was a cocky jerk, a stable Hank Pym from the then-present alongside Yellowjacket (Hank Pym after a mental break where he believed he was a different person who *killed* Hank Pym, comics are weird), and a disillusioned Captain America, unsure of his belief in anything after revealing Nixon as the head of a criminal syndicate of bigots attacking mutants. (Comics are wild, too).

I was reading Batman white knight and ultimate spider-man and waiting for ultimate wolverine and X-Men to end so I can binge them and I want to read Superman because of the coming movie so if you have any comic that you like please share

Let's see...

I'm not entirely sure what the movies adapting or drawing from, James Gunn seems to be a pretty avid comic reader and makes deep cuts all over the place. He *does* love Grant Morrison though, my understanding is he's been trying to adapt some of his books for years, so his work on Superman is a good place to start.

That said, his best known is All-Star Superman. Everyone recommends it, and I hate to be predictable, but they're not wrong.

Eight words, and there's a whole origin story. Delightful stuff, and that's just how it starts. The book is about the "last" Superman story, delivered like Hercule's Twelve Labors. It's a great summary of everything the character has been, including great stories about his supporting cast like Lois and Jimmy Olsen. There's a wealth of writing about the book so I won't drag on, but if you only wanted one story to read about the character, I can't imagine much better.

Now if you wanted two? I've mentioned Absolute Superman a number of times in this thread, it's currently ongoing and pretty great so far. There's the usual popular graphic novel picks, like Superman For All Seasons, Kingdom Come, Red Son, or Birthright. Here's two slightly less popular ones with a good portrayal of the character though, Trinity by Matt Wagner and JLA: New World Order by Grant Morrison.

Trinity is a take on the first meeting/team-up of DC's Big 3, Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman. I'd argue the other two are more central to the story, but the story opens with a fantastic little bit that's just perfect compressed Superman. (His odd friendship with Bruce and how it puts him at odds with Diana are also fun highlights of the book.)

On the other hand, JLA is a big ensemble book, with Grant Morrison out to make the Justice League the premiere super-hero team, after years of the book being populated by B-listers. This is the first four part arc of Morrisons run, where a mysterious group of alien superheros show up to put the JLA out of business. The whole team has fun moments, but I've always liked this page and it's follow-up, the narration on the page bookended by "Alarm bells are ringing all over the world." Clark is being mindcontrolled here - made to imagine his own powerlessness - but his subconcious can't tune out the sounds of people in need. There's always more than one way to write a character, but arguably the most enduring version of Superman is this: the selfless samaritan, or to quote Christoper Reeves "a friend when you need one the most."

Here's hoping the movie is fun!

I lost the touch recently, the last I read as far I remember was a chapter of X-men from 1963. Before that, I was reading a lot. Bearded Aquaman, New 52, Fantastic Four, Hulk from early 2000s and many others by Marvel/DC.

60's X-Men, 00's Hulk, 90's Aquaman, 10's New 52; you cast a pretty wide net!

@ATenderLad time to slightly double down on the unpopular comic book takes. The green lantern corps are the last ounce of care I have left for DC. The Clark family drama is really silly, the speed force shenanigans finally took their toll on yours truly, Diana is a really silly woman and the bat-family can simply go die in a cliff for all I care.
I will not apologize for any of my takes. Bruce, Dick, Harley and Joker won’t even have so much as a sniff of my top 50 favorite comic book characters. Hell, Not even top 100. Two face and Solomon Grundy of all people have ironically better odds. Killer croc too but he’s another guy I’ve been really angry with how he’s written. He had a solo comic that was extremely cowardly written and I hate to to death. Moving on.

The green lantern corps are basically Star Wars if was good (yeah I’m not making any friends today woohoo! All those British comedies rubbed off on me). Kyle, Guy and others are just so much fun. Especially Guy.

(btw, something bugged on my end and I CANNOT disable Italiac text. Send help immediately)

Post automatically merged: Feb 24, 2025

Side note: I did not forget about the comic book rant I promised three months ago. I will still post it. Eventually. Just can’t find the time. This week would be a really bad time to write it because of regional holidays.

Well, they're hot takes, I can't deny!

Are we talking about the most recent runs? The main line Superman has been underwhelming, I definitely agree there. Spurrier's The Flash was profoundly weird, but not that profound, weirdly. (It's biting a little much on Grant Morrison and some of his meta ideas from Final Crisis and the rest of his DC material.) I *love* the artwork on the current Wonder Woman, though I'm starting to get bored of the story; annoyingly, its taken a glacial pace combined with flash-forwards that rob the book of any suspense.)

I would like to know if you're talking about the last few years of Detective Comics though, Gotham: Nocturne? Ram V's story is probably going to be one of the defining Batman stories, it's really incredible. You might enjoy it, there's almost no Bat-family to speak of. Instead, it's an epic told in the structure of an opera, with some artwork by Riccardo Federici and Stefano Raffaele that's just jaw-dropping.

Honestly, I'm not really going to argue what someone should or shouldn't like, I just enjoy talking up this run whenever I can!

As to the Green Lantern Corps, is there a particular series or run you enjoyed? You compared them to Star Wars, so I assume you're talking about the Sinestro Corps War...which was pretty good! Most of the time, I think of them less as an army in a war story, and more like intergalactic cops on patrol. I'm a bit bored with the current GL books personally, and the new issue #1 for Green Lantern Corps last week wasn't a terribly exciting start. That said, hope springs eternal, and they have a lot of characters and dynamics to set up so it might just be a slow beginning; fingers crossed!


Also, no pressure but I hadn't forgotten the rant you promised. All in your own time, but I'm eager to read it whenever it arrives.

 

[Octopus]

and a disillusioned Captain America, unsure of his belief in anything after revealing Nixon as the head of a criminal syndicate of bigots attacking mutants. (Comics are wild, too).

Ah, the mention of that insanity summoned me back to this thread; it's been awhile. Good old Hate Monger, with his hate gun that makes people hate things. Wild times, comic books are great. I also love how Hate Monger reappears out of nowhere for the whole Sue Storm 'Malice' silliness.

I've been meaning to sit down and read comics at least semi-regularly again, but it's been hard to find the time, but I have been reading this thread in the meantime. I'm also eagerly awaiting the rant, @Yousef. My hot Eddie Venom take; I greatly dislike the character. I think he was cool at one point when he first came out, then got overused and ran into the ground. I'm tired of seeing him, I'm tired of the same old story every time, and I think the character is greatly overrated and I'd rather see any other Spider-Man villain than him. I think I'd rather see Big Wheel make a modern Morrison style reappearance where he's entirely reinvented than another Eddie Venom story. I'm tired of seeing "when's Venom" comments flood any new Spider-Man story or media.

 

[Yousef]

I'm not entirely sure what the movies adapting or drawing from, James Gunn seems to be a pretty avid comic reader and makes deep cuts all over the place. He *does* love Grant Morrison though, my understanding is he's been trying to adapt some of his books for years, so his work on Superman is a good place to start.

That said, his best known is All-Star Superman. Everyone recommends it, and I hate to be predictable, but they're not wrong.

All star Superman is one of the greatest things to come out of the comic book industry. Period. Killing joke what? Watchmen who? Dark knight whocares? Nope!

View attachment 32352

Eight words, and there's a whole origin story. Delightful stuff, and that's just how it starts. The book is about the "last" Superman story, delivered like Hercule's Twelve Labors. It's a great summary of everything the character has been, including great stories about his supporting cast like Lois and Jimmy Olsen. There's a wealth of writing about the book so I won't drag on, but if you only wanted one story to read about the character, I can't imagine much better.

Now if you wanted two? I've mentioned Absolute Superman a number of times in this thread, it's currently ongoing and pretty great so far. There's the usual popular graphic novel picks, like Superman For All Seasons, Kingdom Come, Red Son, or Birthright. Here's two slightly less popular ones with a good portrayal of the character though, Trinity by Matt Wagner and JLA: New World Order by Grant Morrison.

View attachment 32368

Trinity is a take on the first meeting/team-up of DC's Big 3, Superman/Batman/Wonder Woman. I'd argue the other two are more central to the story, but the story opens with a fantastic little bit that's just perfect compressed Superman. (His odd friendship with Bruce and how it puts him at odds with Diana are also fun highlights of the book.)

View attachment 32371

On the other hand, JLA is a big ensemble book, with Grant Morrison out to make the Justice League the premiere super-hero team, after years of the book being populated by B-listers. This is the first four part arc of Morrisons run, where a mysterious group of alien superheros show up to put the JLA out of business. The whole team has fun moments, but I've always liked this page and it's follow-up, the narration on the page bookended by "Alarm bells are ringing all over the world." Clark is being mindcontrolled here - made to imagine his own powerlessness - but his subconcious can't tune out the sounds of people in need. There's always more than one way to write a character, but arguably the most enduring version of Superman is this: the selfless samaritan, or to quote Christoper Reeves "a friend when you need one the most."

Here's hoping the movie is fun!

60's X-Men, 00's Hulk, 90's Aquaman, 10's New 52; you cast a pretty wide net!

Absolute Superman is also quite fantastic. Also a big fan of Superman vs the Elite.

Well, they're hot takes, I can't deny!

Are we talking about the most recent runs? The main line Superman has been underwhelming, I definitely agree there. Spurrier's The Flash was profoundly weird, but not that profound, weirdly. (It's biting a little much on Grant Morrison and some of his meta ideas from Final Crisis and the rest of his DC material.) I *love* the artwork on the current Wonder Woman, though I'm starting to get bored of the story; annoyingly, its taken a glacial pace combined with flash-forwards that rob the book of any suspense.)

I would like to know if you're talking about the last few years of Detective Comics though, Gotham: Nocturne? Ram V's story is probably going to be one of the defining Batman stories, it's really incredible. You might enjoy it, there's almost no Bat-family to speak of. Instead, it's an epic told in the structure of an opera, with some artwork by Riccardo Federici and Stefano Raffaele that's just jaw-dropping.

View attachment 32403
View attachment 32404
View attachment 32405

Oh, I absolutely have not kept up with recent DC DC comics (redundancy, yay!) so I absolutely do not have s retort for those, in fact what you’re presenting here looks pretty fire! Love the artwork to death!

I can definitely say where I stopped. I have likely already alluded to this but it won’t do harm to add further context, but somewhere around 10 years ago is where I opted out of DC. I’ve had issues that go all the way back to things like Crisis, Killing Joke, Dark Knight and so on. Superman, Green Lantern and Flash were all beacons of hope for me. Flash started getting a little weird… but that’s to be expected. Bronze Age Batman runs were cool detective stuff, after that it started going into different directions, some I liked, some i didn’t.
Strike 1: incorporating that stupid ass nurse with a southern accent! You know the one!
Strike 2: giving joker a backstory, a man who’s not meant to have one.
Strike 3: the little turd known as Damien Wayne!
Now, I do like Damien, mostly on his own though.
My issue does not come with him, it comes from where he’s from. The most agonizing part of modern Batman for me was the heavy incorporation the silly family of a silly man known as Ra’s Al Ghul! Head of the demon? More like head of my problems! Ra’s was blatantly never gonna be a good guy, status quo is too strong, so it was extremely awkward watching him and Bruce do their little dance together swinging their arms, sharing flower crowns, singing in the sunshine and pretend like Ra’s wasn’t gonna stab Bruce in the Bat-back 5 hundred times if he’s given the chance! Quite silly, quite silly indeed!

But that’s not where I stopped. I stopped when Blue Mr Clean came into the picture

Time to be ultra blunt here.

Dr Manhattan is not a character, he is a deconstruction of a one. And yes, I know that word gets tossed around until it lost all meaning and got used to describe basically anything remotely subversive, but he most checks all the boxes.

Dr Manhattan is not meant to be played straight and playing his character straight goes against every single purpose and goal the character was created for. I don’t even like Watchmen, it’s responsible for creating ending the bronze ages which I really loved and kickstarting the iron/dark ages (which ended years ago so it’s fine now but still). I simply think he is not compatible with the DC universe. He breaks far too many rules, and it’s so bizarre how a status quo dependent fictional universe casually invited a status quo destroying character like who invited bro to the function. What’s he gonna? Swing around his blue penis and say hey guys look at me! I thought these were hero comics, not streaker comics.

But to tone down my insanity a bit, what I’m trying to get at is that seeing in the Batman/Flash comic several years ago triggered every fight or flight response in me so I opted out asap and that was that. Bringing back Wally West was fun but then it got weird like you said.

Honestly, I'm not really going to argue what someone should or shouldn't like, I just enjoy talking up this run whenever I can!


As to the Green Lantern Corps, is there a particular series or run you enjoyed? You compared them to Star Wars, so I assume you're talking about the Sinestro Corps War...which was pretty good! Most of the time, I think of them less as an army in a war story, and more like intergalactic cops on patrol. I'm a bit bored with the current GL books personally, and the new issue #1 for Green Lantern Corps last week wasn't a terribly exciting start. That said, hope springs eternal, and they have a lot of characters and dynamics to set up so it might just be a slow beginning; fingers crossed!

I’d say my all time favorite is probably when Hal Jordan fought the embodiment of Willpower and all the white lantern stuff. I think Kyle having his own evil counterpart is a tad silly, but besides that I love him!

Also, no pressure but I hadn't forgotten the rant you promised. All in your own time, but I'm eager to read it whenever it arrives.

Surprisingly in Ramadan I’ll either have too little or too much free time. Problem is, even if I find myself dwindling my thumbs I’d still need my trusty tea to help me write which won’t be doable in the month haha! That said though? It’s been honestly so long that I’m already experiencing a slight opinion shift. Mainly just me softening up a bit but besides that, I’ll definitely tear that comic to shreds! R***** ******* won’t know what hit ‘em!

 

[ATenderLad]

Ah, the mention of that insanity summoned me back to this thread; it's been awhile. Good old Hate Monger, with his hate gun that makes people hate things. Wild times, comic books are great. I also love how Hate Monger reappears out of nowhere for the whole Sue Storm 'Malice' silliness.

I've been meaning to sit down and read comics at least semi-regularly again, but it's been hard to find the time, but I have been reading this thread in the meantime. I'm also eagerly awaiting the rant, @Yousef. My hot Eddie Venom take; I greatly dislike the character. I think he was cool at one point when he first came out, then got overused and ran into the ground. I'm tired of seeing him, I'm tired of the same old story every time, and I think the character is greatly overrated and I'd rather see any other Spider-Man villain than him. I think I'd rather see Big Wheel make a modern Morrison style reappearance where he's entirely reinvented than another Eddie Venom story. I'm tired of seeing "when's Venom" comments flood any new Spider-Man story or media.

Malice was a *choice*. Honestly, I've always assumed that John Byrne - having been the artist for the Dark Phoenix Saga and a lot of the Claremont X-Men run - just ripped off his own work for that story.

Maybe it's a "reading comics in the 90's" thing, but I have the same opinion about Brock and Venom: Cool the first time around, less so the following five thousand. Have Big Wheel and Stilt-Man ever teamed up? There's a lot of untapped Not-So-Sinister Six options out there that don't have symbiotes, not everything needs alien goo!

That said, it's all the more shocking that the last couple years of Eddie Brock Venom, written by Al Ewing, are really something. It's probably the only modern story of the character I'd call good, and it's all the more impressive for building off of the abysmal King in Black event.

 

[Octopus]

Dr Manhattan is not a character, he is a deconstruction of a one.

100% fire emoji. It was such a fundamental mistake to attempt to bring the Watchmen characters into continuity, and obviously it didn't pay off for them considering how much Doomsday Clock rightfully gets clowned on. It's just flat out a mistake to attempt to follow Watchmen up with anything, honestly. Before Watchmen was just unnecessary, and don't even get me started on the TV show.

Have Big Wheel and Stilt-Man ever teamed up? There's a lot of untapped Not-So-Sinister Six options out there that don't have symbiotes, not everything needs alien goo!

'Not-So-Sinister-Six', I'd read the hell out of that; hire us, Marvel. I'll have the comedy script penned and on your desk next week. Big Wheel, Stilt-Man, The Grizzly, The Gibbon, Conundrum, and Spidercide for some amount of relevance.

Malice was a *choice*. Honestly, I've always assumed that John Byrne - having been the artist for the Dark Phoenix Saga and a lot of the Claremont X-Men run - just ripped off his own work for that story.

Probably, he had a thing for women in leather lingerie. That and having to keep a series relevant; that whole thing happened in one of the lower FF sales eras afterall.

 

[ATenderLad]

All star Superman is one of the greatest things to come out of the comic book industry. Period. Killing joke what? Watchmen who? Dark knight whocares? Nope!

Absolute Superman is also quite fantastic. Also a big fan of Superman vs the Elite.

Oh, big thumbs up for Superman vs. the Elite. They actually brought back Manchester Black for a recent-ish Superman book by Morrison, Superman and the Authority. It's a bit short, and got kinda swallowed by an event - a decently interesting one where Superman liberates Warworld as a gladiator trapped in the pits, Planet Hulk by any other name - but it was really cooking for awhile.

I can definitely say where I stopped. I have likely already alluded to this but it won’t do harm to add further context, but somewhere around 10 years ago is where I opted out of DC. I’ve had issues that go all the way back to things like Crisis, Killing Joke, Dark Knight and so on. Superman, Green Lantern and Flash were all beacons of hope for me. Flash started getting a little weird… but that’s to be expected. Bronze Age Batman runs were cool detective stuff, after that it started going into different directions, some I liked, some i didn’t.
Strike 1: incorporating that stupid ass nurse with a southern accent! You know the one!
Strike 2: giving joker a backstory, a man who’s not meant to have one.
Strike 3: the little turd known as Damien Wayne!
Now, I do like Damien, mostly on his own though.
My issue does not come with him, it comes from where he’s from. The most agonizing part of modern Batman for me was the heavy incorporation the silly family of a silly man known as Ra’s Al Ghul! Head of the demon? More like head of my problems! Ra’s was blatantly never gonna be a good guy, status quo is too strong, so it was extremely awkward watching him and Bruce do their little dance together swinging their arms, sharing flower crowns, singing in the sunshine and pretend like Ra’s wasn’t gonna stab Bruce in the Bat-back 5 hundred times if he’s given the chance! Quite silly, quite silly indeed!

But that’s not where I stopped. I stopped when Blue Mr Clean came into the picture

Time to be ultra blunt here.

Dr Manhattan is not a character, he is a deconstruction of a one. And yes, I know that word gets tossed around until it lost all meaning and got used to describe basically anything remotely subversive, but he most checks all the boxes.

Dr Manhattan is not meant to be played straight and playing his character straight goes against every single purpose and goal the character was created for. I don’t even like Watchmen, it’s responsible for creating ending the bronze ages which I really loved and kickstarting the iron/dark ages (which ended years ago so it’s fine now but still). I simply think he is not compatible with the DC universe. He breaks far too many rules, and it’s so bizarre how a status quo dependent fictional universe casually invited a status quo destroying character like who invited bro to the function. What’s he gonna? Swing around his blue penis and say hey guys look at me! I thought these were hero comics, not streaker comics.

But to tone down my insanity a bit, what I’m trying to get at is that seeing in the Batman/Flash comic several years ago triggered every fight or flight response in me so I opted out asap and that was that. Bringing back Wally West was fun but then it got weird like you said.

Well that's funny, I think I actually dropped off around the same time you did, or just a bit earlier. Geoff Johns and his weird obsession with Alan Moore and Watchmen was exhausting, and his implications always bothered me. The short version is that "Watchmen" is blamed for bringing a kind of violence to comics, but Johns writes consistently bloody books himself. Johns wrote a whole event that sees Dr. Manhattan as the "evil mastermind" behind a new Crisis, but he doesn't have anything constructive to say. He replays some of the greatest hits from the original story with new characters, and ends with basically the same coda about Superman that he used in Infinite Crisis about a decade earlier. (The artwork was nice, admittedly, though it was maybe trying too hard to mimic Watchmen and Dave Gibbons work there.)

Moving on though, Batman being related to one of his greatest enemies is fun drama *but* I agree that they downplayed him being an international super-criminal too many times. That being said, Morrison followed up his run and Damien's story with Batman Incorporated, and had Talia step into her fathers shoes to tear down Bruce's world, and *that* was pretty fun.

I've had to go back and read a lot of the DC stuff from, say, 2015-2021; there's always exceptions, but a lot of it's pretty bleak. I haven't come across much that made me think "I really missed out, putting down comics for awhile."

 

[Octopus]

Superman vs the Elite

Oh, big thumbs up for Superman vs. the Elite.

That's one of my favourites too. The whole concept is so well done, and I mean we get to see Superman literally bitch slap someone around at the end; classic.

 

[ATenderLad]

'Not-So-Sinister-Six', I'd read the hell out of that; hire us, Marvel. I'll have the comedy script penned and on your desk next week. Big Wheel, Stilt-Man, The Grizzly, The Gibbon, Conundrum, and Spidercide for some amount of relevance.

Damn, I *literally* wrote out a list (dropped it for sounding too wordy) with the Gibbon, Spidercide, Stilt-Man, Kangaroo, Cardiac, and Big Wheel. I think we can write this, man.

 

[Octopus]

Damn, I *literally* wrote out a list (dropped it for sounding too wordy) with the Gibbon, Spidercide, Stilt-Man, Kangaroo, Cardiac, and Big Wheel. I think we can write this, man.

Dude, I was thinking of Cardiac instead of Grizzly but then I remembered how goofy he was so had to cut Cardiac. I actually forgot about the Kangaroo, he can be a mid-run team replacement once Spidercide falls into a manhole, never to be seen again.

 

[ATenderLad]

Dude, I was thinking of Cardiac instead of Grizzly but then I remembered how goofy he was so had to cut Cardiac. I actually forgot about the Kangaroo, he can be a mid-run team replacement once Spidercide falls into a manhole, never to be seen again.

In the final issue, one panel of Spidercide on a rotting couch in the sewer making time with his main squeeze, Vermin. For the *fans*, you know.

Big Wheel and the Gibbon keep clashing over who calls the shots, Grizzly and Kangaroo won't stop insisting on giving the take from their bank jobs to the World Wildlife Foundation, and Conundrum (such a deep cut) has a crippling pornography addiction. The others want to hold an intervention, but Cardiac doesn't understand and treats it like a bachelor party. One of the hired girls is actually Big Wheels estranged daughter, and....

So anyways, just some ideas.

 

[Octopus]

In the final issue, one panel of Spidercide on a rotting couch in the sewer making time with his main squeeze, Vermin. For the *fans*, you know.

Big Wheel and the Gibbon keep clashing over who calls the shots, Grizzly and Kangaroo won't stop insisting on giving the take from their bank jobs to the World Wildlife Foundation, and Conundrum (such a deep cut) has a crippling pornography addiction. The others want to hold an intervention, but Cardiac doesn't understand and treats it like a bachelor party. One of the hired girls is actually Big Wheels estranged daughter, and....

So anyways, just some ideas.

Alright, here's my brainstorm results that I spent maybe too much mental energy and time on;

• Big Wheel is the guy who gets the gang together to finally defeat Spider-Man, as he wants to impress his estranged daughter who "is doing something with herself and just got a big job, dad"; that sets up the stripper reveal later on (he of course doesn't know that she got a job as a stripper), making his whole inspiration and push to defeat Spider-Man literally pointless.
• The gang frequently argue about who got closest to defeating Spider-Man, with all of them being of course entirely silly. Stilt-Man almost wins at one point by mentioning how he almost beat Daredevil once, but everyone quickly turns on him as that doesn't count, he's just a guy with 'baton whip things'.
• Conundrum almost rehabilitated after therapy, but gets bullied into joining by Gibbon and Big Wheel and eventually relapses into his porn addiction as a coping mechanism. The mere mention of Mysterio turns him into a neurotic mess, as he's convinced that they're not the same despite having identical powers and theme.
• The ongoing story is the group talking big shit about taking on Spider-Man, only to back down at the last second every time as they're self defeating losers.
• During the time Spidercide is in the group, everyone is really uncomfortable around him because he's both a clone of Spider-Man (everyone's on edge that he may just subconsciously start beating them up due to genetics or something), and because he's far too edgy for them. When he falls down the manhole, nobody even looks to see if he's okay and just move on.
• The Gibbon finds out about a secret Goblin tech stash in the city from some random guy he eats or something, I don't know what he does. Everyone's torn on whether they should steal the tech, as they're all afraid of Goblin for obvious reasons. They end up doing it, and find Hobgoblin there who of course wipes the floor with them. (I'm trying to think of a way to throw in a reference gag in here to the whole botched identify reveal of the Hobgoblin).

Hire us, Marvel; we'll fix everything.

 

[abu2411]

The ongoings I'm currently reading are:

Absolute Wonder Woman
Absolute Superman
Superman
New Gods

The Ultimates
Immortal Thor

Power Rangers Prime

 

[Yousef]

Top 5 favorite comic book villains:​

Hello ol chape! Know what time it is? What? No! It’s not disco time! That’s after this programming! Nope, it’s time for another brief comic book article from yours truly so as always, be very afraid!

You’ve read the title, let’s not beat around the bush!

5- God

God is someone I thoroughly enjoy the concept. They are a rare formless villain, which is a fantastic way to convey cosmic existence in my eyes. I’ve been meaning to pick up where I left off with Spawn but so far god is my favorite villain for just being a classic giant dickhead!

4- The Beyonder​

A mainstream pick? In my sef articles?! Repulsive!! But seriously, there’s no way I wouldn’t have the Beyonder. Mainstream or otherwise.

Incidental villains are easily my favorites, and plus you can tell he enjoys being a twisted dickhead! Love me a good position abuser.

3- Lucifer Morningstar​

If God and the Beyonder weren’t already a dead giveaway, I adore my cosmic horror villains. I’d go as far as to include Cuthullu here but I don’t wanna bend the rules. Lucifer is fantastic, I can’t describe him in a way that wouldn’t be redundant by now, so I’m afraid we’re forced to move on, woops!

2- Gorilla Grod​

Has a character spoken to you before? Gorilla Grodd did, and he said “give me ice cream”, so I did cuz he’s such a cool little fella. Might be jarring to suddenly have a grounded character, but rest assured, if it was within Geoff’s hands, he’d WANT you to worship him as a god. That’s what I love about it. Lex can kiss my ass, THIS is the hyper egotistical dickhead I’m rooting for!

1- Zoom/Eubard Thawne​

It was me, Barry! It was me who made sure you’d go back in time and cause the flashpoint event so your comic book sales would tank until DC feels forced to launch Rebirth 6 years later! ​

So funny story. I’ve legitimately could not pick between Hunter and Eubard so I just said fuck it! Honestly, this is pretty in character, dontcha think? Reverse Flash is such a dickhead, he manipulated our timeline so he’d be number 1 twice on this list. What an arsehole!

Seriously, why does flash have such unironically goated rogue gallery? It’s almost unfair. Captain cold, Mirror Master and Captain Boomerang are all 50x cooler than some dumb fucking penguin and a clown.

But moving on, the other entries? They’re interchangeable. Zoom? Number 1 in my heart forever! He’s such a perfect character, just speaks to me!

 

[Cuestionador]

Currently reading this comic-books from DC:
- Absolute Batman
- Green Lantern: Dark
- The Question: All Along the Watchtower (Question is one of my favourite characters, but his new role in the Justice League seems a bit much, i prefer Vic or Renee walking the streets of Hub City).
- The new Two-Face miniseries (my favorite comic-book villain).
And some old issues from Daredevil, Punisher and Moon Knight.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

I've gotten Red Son.

I'm not a Superman fan because he's a bit too overpowered but I like this What If... story.

 

[ATenderLad]

The ongoings I'm currently reading are:

Absolute Wonder Woman
Absolute Superman
Superman
New Gods

The Ultimates
Immortal Thor

Power Rangers Prime

That's pretty excellent taste, in my opinion!

The Absolute books I've praised here a few times now, and New Gods is only three issues in but has me hooked. Ram V and Federici are making some real cosmic fantasy, Jack Kirby would love it.

Superman is in a weird place, plot-wise, but Dan Mora is a real monster on the layouts.

Great Marvel picks too, The Ultimates is growing on me but I'm a little wary of what the story is building to. I dig the new versions of some of the characters, do you like the re-imaginings?

On the other hand, Immortal Thor is usually the first book I read out of a weekly haul, with a "meta" story that manages to stay fun and not feel overly much like navel-gazing. The way it uses the storytelling of Norse skalds, with quotes and adapted passages from epic poems (The Edda's, I think they're called?) is pretty clever; one of the larger themes being "Beware who tells your story". It's basically a sequel to Al Ewing's Loki as the God of Stories, while being one of the most interesting depictions of Thor I've ever read. They aren't really related except by author, but have you read Immortal Hulk?

Top 5 favorite comic book villains:​

Hello ol chape! Know what time it is? What? No! It’s not disco time! That’s after this programming! Nope, it’s time for another brief comic book article from yours truly so as always, be very afraid!

You’ve read the title, let’s not beat around the bush!

5- GodView attachment 33799​

God is someone I thoroughly enjoy the concept. They are a rare formless villain, which is a fantastic way to convey cosmic existence in my eyes. I’ve been meaning to pick up where I left off with Spawn but so far god is my favorite villain for just being a classic giant dickhead!

4- The Beyonder​

View attachment 33800
A mainstream pick? In my sef articles?! Repulsive!! But seriously, there’s no way I wouldn’t have the Beyonder. Mainstream or otherwise.

Incidental villains are easily my favorites, and plus you can tell he enjoys being a twisted dickhead! Love me a good position abuser.

3- Lucifer Morningstar​

View attachment 33801
If God and the Beyonder weren’t already a dead giveaway, I adore my cosmic horror villains. I’d go as far as to include Cuthullu here but I don’t wanna bend the rules. Lucifer is fantastic, I can’t describe him in a way that wouldn’t be redundant by now, so I’m afraid we’re forced to move on, woops!

2- Gorilla Grod​

View attachment 33803
Has a character spoken to you before? Gorilla Grodd did, and he said “give me ice cream”, so I did cuz he’s such a cool little fella. Might be jarring to suddenly have a grounded character, but rest assured, if it was within Geoff’s hands, he’d WANT you to worship him as a god. That’s what I love about it. Lex can kiss my ass, THIS is the hyper egotistical dickhead I’m rooting for!

1- Zoom/Eubard Thawne​

View attachment 33804
View attachment 33805

It was me, Barry! It was me who made sure you’d go back in time and cause the flashpoint event so your comic book sales would tank until DC feels forced to launch Rebirth 6 years later! ​

So funny story. I’ve legitimately could not pick between Hunter and Eubard so I just said fuck it! Honestly, this is pretty in character, dontcha think? Reverse Flash is such a dickhead, he manipulated our timeline so he’d be number 1 twice on this list. What an arsehole!

Seriously, why does flash have such unironically goated rogue gallery? It’s almost unfair. Captain cold, Mirror Master and Captain Boomerang are all 50x cooler than some dumb fucking penguin and a clown.

But moving on, the other entries? They’re interchangeable. Zoom? Number 1 in my heart forever! He’s such a perfect character, just speaks to me!

Oh you like the *real* sickos, I see. Gorilla Grodd is so silly and so evil, he's hard not to love. I really enjoy the Flash villains for being such an assortment of weird lowlifes, it keeps the stories grounded at sometimes. I occasionally feel nostalgic for old-fashioned bank robbers and the like, with comics often stuck in a loop of warding off...actually hang on, Grant Morrison sums it up better.

...basically a good-natured slam on Scott Snyder and his events like Justice League: Metal and the whole Dark Multiverse thing. (All of which I kinda enjoy, but The Batman Who Laughs got *obnoxious*).

I'll have to think up a top five villains of my own here in a bit, I enjoyed reading yours!

Currently reading this comic-books from DC:
- Absolute Batman
- Green Lantern: Dark
- The Question: All Along the Watchtower (Question is one of my favourite characters, but his new role in the Justice League seems a bit much, i prefer Vic or Renee walking the streets of Hub City).
- The new Two-Face miniseries (my favorite comic-book villain).
And some old issues from Daredevil, Punisher and Moon Knight.

Green Lantern: Dark was so unexpected; a Tangent series in 2025? Unreal....but also pretty good, or at least I really enjoyed the first issue.

I'm really in the bag for All Along The Watchtower, it *is* a bit of weird new role for Renee but the image of her as the Justice League Sheriff gets me right in my western lovin' heart, having grown up watching too many cowpokes slap leather. Really though, it seems to be a conscious effort on DC's part to re-align their big name comics with their best-known entry point, the animated shows and movies. I think that's why the Question is serving as a kind of Internal Cape Affairs officer, keeping the superhero community honest. (The actual book isn't really capitalizing on that right now though, I dug the first issue but the mystery is turning underwhelming recently.)

Seems like you're into the more human characters, with a touch of dark and mysticism. Have you seen Hellhunters?

Private Ghost Rider, along with Nick Fury, Wolverine, and the other wahoos kicking around back in WWII for a Dirty Not-quite-a-Dozen to fight Nazi zombies prowling through Europe. Pretty fun!

I've gotten Red Son.

I'm not a Superman fan because he's a bit too overpowered but I like this What If... story.

It's a good one! It takes the base premise but goes so much further than just a Yakov Smirnoff joke, they used the Elseworlds format to explore a politically active Superman and what that might mean for the world. Not a new concept at the time - Alan Moore's Miracleman is the easiest thing to point to, or Mark Gruenwald's Squadron Supreme mini-series - but it was rare to actually tell that story with the intended character.

 

[abu2411]

They aren't really related except by author, but have you read Immortal Hulk?

Immortal Hulk is one of my favourites, yeah.

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

I've been rediscovering Jodorowski's Metabarons.