Comic books

[Captain K.]

Fuuuuuuuuuu, Cross Manage ended.  I suspected it was coming since it was always near the back of Jump.  But anyway, read it read it read it!

[Grefter]

https://twitter.com/ferociousj/status/360286288588443648

[NotMiki]

I haven't read it, but god damn, I need to.  That's a fuckin cover thar.

[NotMiki]

It's by the Dr. McNinja guy!  And it's good!  Go read it!

[Cmdr_King]

Did that.  Well, issue 1 anyway.  Reads more like Dr. McNinja thanarvel, but definitely sticking with.

[NotMiki]

Did that.  Well, issue 1 anyway.  Reads more like Dr. McNinja thanarvel, but definitely sticking with.

It's a credit to Marvel's editors - and to Hastings - that when Longshot sounds like Dr. McNinja, the proper reaction is "Yup that works.  That makes sense."

p.s. issue 2 is also great.

[Cmdr_King]

Hello comics topic!  Um.  Anyway.

Old Man Logan- okay.  So this book is pretty damn cool.  That seems to be the point of it, for cool shit to happen.  You can't take away from it the fact it's pretty fun.

It just also makes no damn sense.  Like.  The character moments for Logan himself are all fine!  And the imagery and extrapolations for most of the villains and heroes that survive make sense.  But logically there's no way this story should ever had happened, to the point it's downright distracting.  Highlights;
- The main conceit is that all the villains got together and realized if they intelligently targeted the right villain to a given hero they could basically kill all of them at once.  The fights described in passing put some definite thought into this.  The trouble is, this effort is spearheaded by The Red Skull, with Doctor Doom, Magneto, and The Abomination as his chief advisors.  Yeah, no.  That list is composed of "all the major Big Bads team up and split up america!" to be cool.  None of that should ever actually happen because Doctor Doom and Magneto would sooner kill the Skull than look at him, much less accept his leadership or willing give him ANY measure of power in a world they are also ruling.
- The Hulk decides to take over the Abomination's slice of america.  Um, o...kay?  The Hulk wants to be a supervillain feudal landlord now?  I know that severe psychological hangups are part of the Hulk's thing but straight out supervillainy?  C'mon now.  Maybe in the ULtimate universe, but not something that seems to be an alternate timeline to 616.
- Why the hell did Logan age 50 years in 50 years exactly?

But yeah, fun enough read but also very dumb.  Kinda reads like a homage to mid-90s comics, which may well be the intent.

I'm following about four books right now, but two stand out.

Loki: Agent of Asgard-  Consistently the best thing.  The most recent issue ends with Loki making an overt MLP reference ("Yes.  For Pureness of Heart... is the Greatest Magic of All" *turns into a unicorn*), because you see a recent stupid event comic switched his cosmic switch and all his bad traits are good but also now Thor is the God of Villainy.  Comics are great sometimes.

Ms. Marvel- Kamala Khan is the biggest dork and it's great.

[SnowFire]

Checking Wikipedia, I see that Old Man Logan was written by Mark Millar, who also wrote Wanted, which has a somewhat similar premise of "what if the supervillains won."

So, hijack: I'd really love if someone did that idea in a way that actually made a modicum of sense, aka not Mark Millar (from CK's description).  I read a teeny bit of "Wanted" and it definitely sounds like the movie makes way more sense.  Okay, fine, supervillains rule the world, but to drive the point home, that comic opens with this girl just massacring everyone at a restaurant, then claiming that since she has a special supervillain-approved  license plate then no cops will care, then casually goes back to sipping her coffee.  Bear in mind that everything seemed to be normal Earth beforehand for normal people living.  Yeah no, I'm sorry, I can't accept this setting anymore.  Dystopias are interesting; Your Normal Life Except You Can Shoot Everyone is maybe some kind of weird revenge fantasy but not really a *setting*.

[Grefter]

Age of Apocalypse maybe?  Irredeemable and Incorruptible if you want less mainstream still hero stuff by a solid author?

or you could always read dark avengers if you really wantlol

[Shale]

I bought a Marvel Unlimited subscription a while back and it's been great. I've been using it in part to follow along with the Rachel & Miles X-Plain The X-Men podcast, which you should listen to because it's great, but in addition to that...

Mark Waid's Daredevil: Speaking of the solid author in question, his DD run is absolutely as good as advertised - smart, fun, often poignant writing with gorgeous art. It's very much not your usual Frank Miller-ish noir Daredevil, but it works really well as a deliberate contrast to the last 30 years of the character.

   Grant Morrison's X-Men: Man, I have conflicting feelings about this one. The story is, on the whole, really good. It's got a great take on the whole mutants-as-subculture issue that gives many writers fits, I kind of love the Weapon Plus retcon, and the new characters introduced are pretty great. The swerves from big-picture sci-fi to mutant counterculture and a murder mystery are well done. On the other hand, while Morrison's usual philosophical weirdness is toned down somewhat, even that level of it strikes me as an ill fit for the X-Men or even the Marvel Universe in general -- on the other other hand, I'm not sure how much of that reaction comes from identifying Morrison-ness with the DC universe because that's where I'm familiar with his superhero stories from. The art varies from “pretty good” to “total crap.” And, of course, the big negative is his use of Magneto, which has so many problems. Either he's acting out-of-character as hell, or he was meant to go out as the mind-controlled lackey of a new villain (and I like Sublime, don't get me wrong – it's the best possible intersection of that Grant Morrison high concept craziness and the superhero side of the X-Men), which is just not a good way to deal with that character. I'm glad it was retconned, even if the way they actually did it was clunky as hell.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Rachel and Miles got good enough at explaining what they like about X-Men that I felt justified in unsubscribing because I would never feel the same way.  Also, the show feels really scripted and overproduced, which I don't much care for.

It's been a while since I talked about how good Avengers/New Avengers is.  The whole SIXIS AXIS thing that's going on is fucking terrible, but they circumvented it in the best possible way, by jumping forward eight months and skipping all of it, because Hickman is a master at what he does.  Aaaaanyway, between what's going on with Doom, the Illuminati, the Cabal, SHIELD and the new Avengers that Sunspot put together I'm impressed he can keep all those plates spinning... but then I read his FF run and realize it's what he does and that's why he was given the books he got.

Favorite recent moment?  He dispenses with most of the Deus ex Machina possibilities for the incursion with one conversation that ends with Reed being told "Franklin says he's sorry.  He thinks he let you down."  That, or Valeria telling the Illuminati that they can't fix everything by themselves no matter how smart they think they are.

[Shale]

Axis is basically ruining everything at the moment (have you read the new Iron Man book? Don't read the new Iron Man book) so that's impressive.

I completely failed to pick up Hickman's New/Avengers when it started and now I'm hopelessly behind. I figure that'll make a good project to aim my Unlimited subscription at next.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I cannot fucking WAIT to be able to sit down, order Avengers/New Avengers/Infinity into the master reading order that Hickman will undoubtedly put together and then just devour it.

If nothing else, read New Avengers, though.  Namor is absolutely MAGNIFICENT.

e:  In response to SIXIS ruining Iron Man, it's not like the book has been particularly worthwhile since Fraction left.  Hard to ruin something that I have no response to.

[Meeplelard]

I've mostly been reading the entire Spider-verse event at the moment.  I'll withdraw comments until it's done because, well, we're like 1/3rd of the way through the series!

I have been slowly chipping away at both Venom and the recent Scarlet Spider-Man run.  SHould just finish Minimum Carnage and move on!

Oh, and there's GotG of course.

[Shale]

I tore through all of Gillen/McKelvie's Young Avengers run yesterday and goddamn it was a great book. Also works as a direct follow-up to Gillen's Journey Into Mystery, which is good because that one ended way too abruptly.

[Meeplelard]

Finished Volume 8 of Mega Man.  It was reading entirely like this bullcrap thing that clearly was not part of Mega Man 3 (which is about where we're up to storyline wise) with Ra Moon and all this crap, and it was annoying me...

...then I read the Notes from Author or whatever in the back and wouldn't you know it, it exists in a Mega Man Spin Off title that, outside of the existence of Beat (which Ian Flynn did not include), makes sense to fit between MM2 and MM3, that we never got in the states, so well played Ian Flynn, you yet again prove you know what you're doing when it comes to Mega Man and have indeed done your homework!

That said, I do question showing Pumpman as being a "heroic figure!" saving people when things got good again.  The MM1/PU, 4 and 9 Robot Masters all make sense; MM1 and MM9 are Dr. Light Bots and well established that they were only fighting Mega Man either due to "Turned Evil!"or "Tricked by Wily" or some such, and the MM4 Bots are Dr. Cossack who was a good guy that got blackmailed being bad.   I am even fine with the MM6 Robot Masters being good because I believe all 8 of them were made at various points around the world and they were just the "top 8 in a world tournament!" and the usual "Wily did stuff so now bad guys" so yeah fits.

MM10?  I thought they were Wily Bots...then again, maybe it was ROBOENZA making them bad or something.

Yes, I did just analyze MEGA MAN PLOT but deal with it.  In any event, still good stuff.  Mega Man may not be getting much love from Capcom, but at least Archie Comics is doing something respectful with him.

[Cmdr_King]

Batman: The Killing Joke- It's not often I have the reaction "and it goes on like this" to much of anything.  THey managed that.  Nothing else much I feel I can add that's not self-evidently true about the thing.

Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes- So this happened.  What's interesting is that it almost becomes a different book in the very last chapter (if memory serves this first volume is issues 1-8?  Something like).  The first arc about Dream regaining his regalia is interesting and establishes the setting for lack of better word (I mean technically it's in the DCU but...) but it's all very muddled.  Dream is almost generic in being this force of nature, I guess.  Then Death shows up and, quite apart from being unreasonably awesome in herself, it casts a very different light on what sort of story this is and what sort of character Dream is. 
Frankly it is a moment of "ah-ha, this is a Neil Gaiman production".
That said it's very personal in a way most Gaiman I've read is not, which I like quite a bit.  Usually I find you have to sort of look in between the words and assemble the characters yourself, where here the principle cast and even the incidental characters (like that diner full of people) just kinda ooze personality. 

[Sierra]

Sandman stops even paying lip service to the DCU after the first volume. It's just its own crazy thing with Lucifer Bowie and what have you.

[Cmdr_King]

I got that impression yeah.  But even when it was actively employing its status as existing in the DCU it was operating by a set of cosmic rules I don't think is typical of the setting.  But at the same time the general ideas of "mostly earth, except all myths are true and there's a bunch of made up mega-cities mysteriously right next to actual metropolises" are present as well so... it's weird.  Not a wholly new setting but still substantially diverged even from the outset.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I'm enjoying the core conceit of Secret Wars, which has been letting creators do whatever crazy shit they want. Old Man Logan is probably the best Bendis has been in years so I'm really liking that. Planet Hulk has also gotten me really excited for more. I was really excited for Spider-Man because Peter and MJ should never have split but that first issue was SO BAD.

[Cmdr_King]

Not gonna lie, when that was announced I was kinda excited, and when it came out I fliped to the back page.  When it did not have Mephisto on it, I decided it would probably suck.

I've been reading Old Man Logan too and yeah, it's all the good bits of the original story without all the stupid parts.  Although the second issue did make me go "Okay, I get why these X-men might not know what alternate universes are, but c'mon Logan you should know better."  Most of the books I follow are Last Days titles rather than shuffling into Battleworlds though, so it's been... different.

Although Loki got considerably lighter due to the ongoing Apocalypse.  I actually like Old Loki's "fuck it, maybe having a Ragnarok will preempt the multiversal annihilation event" plan though.  I suspect it's going to be parallel storylines though between the new Loki's shenanigans and what Old Loki is up to for a while.  I am okay with this.

Only other new title (aside from the entire Star Wars line, which... the Leia limited is ending next month, I'll talk about those then) I've been following is Thors, which... well they have my attention.  It's definitely different.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Spider-Man may suck but Spider-Verse has me hooked so far.  Also, X-Men '92 really nails this world that is totally G-rated and Wolverine can't cut anything with his claws but gun barrels and nobody even knows what a punch is, let alone how to throw one.  It's written by the guy who did the XTAS reviews for ComicsAlliance so if you liked that, you'll probably did this too.

What I didn't dig?  Inferno.  I thought the concept was interesting but the first issue has Colossus just playing the part of Worf.  That doesn't fucking work, you need one issue to establish that the protagonist is awesome before you start throwing him up against major obstacles, or he just looks like a chump.  Hawkeye had him solve his problem in one issue and then basically spend the rest of the run getting his ass kicked, but issue #1 showed that he could get shit done.

[Shale]

Also, X-Men '92 is out in print this week but you really want the digital version.

[Cmdr_King]

All-Star Superman: I have trouble believing any other Superman story could actually be as effective as this one.  Like.  It's hard to believe another take on Superman could understand everything Superman is and should be like this one story.

So really I could have just put the title down and left this space blank.

The New Marvel Star Wars Line

So these books have been pretty great.

Star Wars: The main title starts off as kinda... exactly what I wanted from it.  It's a short story about a specific incident set in a time period I always felt was really under-served by the greater Star Wars universe.  After the first three issues they've shifted over to setting up threads for continued story lines which... they're doing good so far and I hope they can keep things moving at their current pace.  I feel like Star Wars doesn't want to get too bogged down in details, and I hope the main book keeps its current focus on Luke, Leia, and Han rather than going off on too many tangents.  I mean.

Darth Vader: There's a reason they have multiple books under the Star Wars umbrella.  I will say that Vader's book feels very supplementary; you can read Star Wars and skip Vader without missing much, but trying to read Vader without reading the main book would definitely be missing some key parts.  The main focus of the book seems to be gelling the shift in Vader's loyalties between New Hope and Empire, which actually means making heavy use of prequel era stuff, but they're making it work pretty well so far.  I hadn't been following the book regularly but I plan to start now.
Also I am pretty sure Keiron Gillem is a big KotOR fan.

Princess Leia: This one is a five issue limited that just finished up.  The last issue is.. I don't want to say anti-climatic?  But it feels a lot smaller than I expected it to.  And in the end I feel like it was almost an... introduction to Leia as a character rather than a character arc for her.  But it's enjoyable enough because its a side of her that we have to assume DID exist but never really got to see in the films.  The artwork I just adore as well, it has a very painted look that really jumps off the page for me.

[Meeplelard]

All Star Superman is pretty much exactly what Linkara said it is.  A mini-series that perfectly encapsulates everything that is Superman and WHY, when written well, he's really good.  It gave me a whole new respect for the character after reading that, alongside "What's so funny about Truth, Justice and the American Way?"