Comic Day Week 12 - March 18, 2009

[DoctorFinger]

The Tiger Men are back and better than ever. Marvel movies are a' movin', Gotham City's gets some new leaders and why Iron Fist, or the lack thereof, is a big reason DC is struggling now.

Really Marvel, eight X-Men books in one week? How about spreading the love around a little bit more. Also, just one DC book for me, which is a little sad.

DC
Trinity #42

Marvel
Amazing Spider-Man #588
Dark Avengers #3
Deadpool Games Of Death
Ultimatum #3
Uncanny X-Men #507
Wolverine #71
X-Factor #41
X-Force #13
X-Men Legacy #222

Indie
End League #7
GI Joe Cobra #1
Invincible #60

Picks of the Week

Wolverine #71 - What's the old saying? "Absence makes the heart grow fonder." That's how I feel about 'Old Man Logan', Millar & McNiven's tale of a broken and beaten Wolverine as he takes a trip through a post-apocalyptic America. The book is pretty much much quarterly at this point, but it's fun enough that I don't mind the delays. Too much.

Invincible #60 - Yay, it's a big, company-wide crossover event! Why yay? Because this crossover takes only one issue, but it still incorporates pretty much all of the Image superheroes.

Question of the Week - Short and sweet this week: What was the first comic you ever bought?

[Xerxes]

I couldn't say what my first comic was. Probably a Spiderman with Venom on the cover or a Wolverine. It was just marvel book with something cool on the cover that lured me in.

[Ghostbear]

For the first time in years I have no comics to pick up this week. Weird.
Anyways. I remember picking this up in a gas station on a family trip. There was no going back.

[Xerxes]

Originally Posted by Krispy

I've never bought a comic but the first trade I bought was Watchmen and I've bought many since then. I just prefer the "book" format.

Indeed. My first trade was Kingdom Come.

[Ghostbear]

I pick up mostly individual comics.

[muddi900]

Pulls:
Angel After The Fall #19
Azrael Deaths Dark Knight #1 (OF 3)
Dark Avengers #3
End League #7
Invincible #60
Spider-Man Noir #4 (OF 4)
Ultimatum #3 (OF 5)
Wolverine #71

QOTW:
The first comic book...I don't quite remember, but I do remeber a Nick Fury:Agent SHIELD comic and a Conan comic. My real trades/HC were Watchmen, DKR and Batman: Year One. Until recently, the only floppies I was buying monthly were the Fables books and Powers.

[Savok]

My first comics were in showbags a long ass time ago. A Street Fighter 2 one (which was also my first experience with the Japanese cliche "male heroes love to eat") and a Phantom one, which was actually kinda neat.

[MosBen]

The first comic I ever *got* was this Disney comic that they gave us in second grade. It was all about how we produce power and what alternative energies were possible on Earth.

The first one I remember buying was an issue of Superman. I'd heard that Superman was supposed to die, so when I saw a Superman comic with the cover "Powerless!" at a gas station, I told my mom I had to get it. It turned out to be about Clark Kent's neighbor being spousally abused and Superman not being able to do anything about it, but it got me collecting for the first time. I quit after Onslaught, only to be drug back in a few years ago with Watchmen, which got me on the trade collecting that I'm in today.

[Savok]

Originally Posted by MosBen

It turned out to be about Clark Kent's neighbor being spousally abused and Superman not being able to do anything about it

Ah, classic Superdickery.

[Clark]

I got my first comic on a family trip at a drugstore. I knew nothing about comics and grabbed it on a whim. I was about 6 at the time.

It was a comic from the Kitty Pryde and Wolverine series.

This scene:


BLEW me away. I was convinced Wolverine had just died. I didn't know he had a healing factor or anything.

That started it all for me. I now have about a dozen full length comic boxes full and several TPBs. And that's after a fire wiped out 15 years worth of collecting.

[Jeffool]

Just wanted to jump in and answer the question of the week: Secret Wars II #8.

I instantly thought The Hulk was the coolest thing ever invented; just a big green mass of muscle. Started reading Hulk then , and didn't stop until PAD did.

[muddi900]

Originally Posted by Jeffool

Just wanted to jump in and answer the question of the week: Secret Wars II #8.

I instantly thought The Hulk was the coolest thing ever invented; just a big green mass of muscle. Started reading Hulk then , and didn't stop until PAD did.

Well then, I'll be a shill and tell you to go buy Planet Hulk. It was awesome, and I think the Hulk sucks.

[Spigot]

Dark Horse
END LEAGUE #7 (I was just thinking about this book this morning)

DC
TINY TITANS #14

Marvel
DARK AVENGERS #3
DEADPOOL GAMES OF DEATH
ULTIMATUM #3
X-FACTOR #41

And a book I'd love to pick up just to see what the hell it is: WATCHMENSCH... not gonna do it though.

I can't recall for the life of me what the first book I bought was, but I think Sleepwalker was the first series I really hooked onto from issue #1 onwards.

[MosBen]

Also, what happened to the weekly reviews? Speaking of, here's what I read this week:

Daredevil vol. 3:Wake Up - Bendis' first collection of DD stories and he hits a home run on his first at bat. In the last volume (written by David Mack) Foggy attempted to take down the Kingpin in the courtroom. Rather than see where that particular storyline went, Bendis covers the same general time period from Ben Urich's eyes, as he attempts to uncover what event involving Daredevil resulted in the traumatization of a super villain's kid. It's certainly an unusual way to start your run on a tights-based book, but it's ultimately a really exciting start to what would become an epic run. It's clear from this start that Bendis is interested in investigating more than just Daredevil's ability to hit dudes while blind. And I have to say, as someone that doesn't really care about art, I found it very interesting in this volume.

Daredevil vol. 3: Underboss - And here we have the very start of Bendis' major character arc in this book. Matt Murdock's identity, and the people who know it, are front and center here. Spiderman worries about his identity, but he's a pretty low profile guy in his personal life. DD takes on many of the same criminals in both aspects of his life, making it all the more dangerous, and all the more likely, for his identity to be known. This volume also gives us an interesting view of the Kingpin, who more than just about any other villain in comics stradles the line between conventional organized crime and super villain status.

Justice Society vol. 11: Mixed Signals - This one is mostly ok. The Mordru story isn't really about anything other than a chance for everyone to fight Mordru again. Another chunk of the book is dedicated to figuring out why Jakeem Thunder is a tyrant and (surprise) it's because he's possessed. I mean, there's really no point to either. And, of course, there's all kinds of Infinite Crisis stuff going on in and around these stories. I didn't like the main series and it doesn't do anything here other than disrupt the flow of the book. The only thing that's really good in this volume is really the Stars & Stripes standalone issue, and I have to say that it's good enough that I had to look at Amazon to remember what else happened in this trade, even though I read it just a couple days ago. There's not a ton of plot here (Golden Age Liberty Belle is having trouble with her powers), but Johns really does good work with Courtney's family and her relationship with her step father. Really, there have been good parts in this series, but *this* is what I was hoping for when I started picking up Johns' run.

I'm in the middle of the last JSA trade before the current series took off (Ghost stories).

[MosBen]

Good idea Spigot, in addition to the books I mentioned in my first post, Darkhawk was the first series that I remember getting issue #1 when it came out and then getting sucked into picking up (nearly) the whole series.

And muddi, I'll be the Devil's Advocate here and not recommend Planet Hulk. I thought it was ok, but has been way overrated by comics fans. It's got an ok tale of "Hulk meets Gladiator" but doesn't really hit the psychological notes that are the highlights of my favorite Hulk stories.

[muddi900]

Originally Posted by MosBen

And muddi, I'll be the Devil's Advocate here and not recommend Planet Hulk. I thought it was ok, but has been way overrated by comics fans. It's got an ok tale of "Hulk meets Gladiator" but doesn't really hit the psychological notes that are the highlights of my favorite Hulk stories.

"Hulk mad. Hulk angry. Hulk strong. Hulk smash"

That is the summary of all Hulk stories I read before Planet Hulk. I wouldn't ven have read Planet Hulk if it wasn't for the vociferous support it got here, and pretty much everywhere.

[DoctorFinger]

My actual first comic was a Transformers comic with Optimus Prime on the cover that was imminently forgettable. But the next week I picked up these and was hooked:



Uncanny X-Men 249 (Jim Lee's debut on the book!) and X-Factor 44.

[Spigot]

*looks around sheepishly*

I liked Planet Hulk. Hell, I'd pretty much given up on the character as being a one-note pony trick kazoo until I read Planet Hulk. While he's by no means my favourite character or anything, I can really appreciate him now.

I was kind of the same way with Iron Man/Tony Stark. I couldn't have cared less about the guy pre-Civil War. Now he's just awesome, and that was BEFORE the movie came out.

[MosBen]

Don't worry guys, I'm pretty sure I'm in the very small minority here. And yeah muddi, I wouldn't have gotten Planet Hulk if not for the many fans here (well, that *other* site we used to be at). Also, I don't really think it's bad, just overrated. It tells the story that it sets out to tell well enough, I just think that it gets away with a pretty shallow story because it was "epic." Still, just because I don't really care about the epic-ness of a story doesn't mean it can't be someone else's cup of tea.

The only point I was really trying to make was that liking the Hulk as a kid (as I did, and so too, it seems, did Jeffool) isn't a guarantee of liking Planet Hulk. I think I would have loved Planet Hulk during my first period of collecting (Junior High and High School), but my tastes have changed enough since then that I didn't like it as much as I was hoping to, given how positively it was received by folks here and other places.

Edit: And I also mostly agree that Tony Stark was much more interesting after Civil War. Demon in a Bottle is great, but he'd gotten pretty stale in the last few years before CW.

[Ghostbear]

I think the World's Most Wanted stuff has been a great Tony Stark story.