|
I read Who's Who as a kid, so I learned about all those characters from All-Star Squadron, Infinity Inc., and Young All-Stars without reading any of the actual comics. There's a black and white Showcase edition of All-Star Squadron I might request as an interlibrary loan, or otherwise I'll probably just wait until I get a DC Universe subscription. Thanks for the advice, all. I was thinking about it today as I'm reading through Marc Andreyko's Manhunter series for the first time, and I got to the part where it is revealed that Phantom Lady is Kate Spencer's grandmother, and she tells Kate that Iron Munro is her grandfather, but they put their first child (Kate's father, who was evil) up for adoption. That was cool, because I've always had a soft spot for Phantom Lady. She is related to another one of my favorite superhero families, a cousin of Ted and Jack Knight, and she always struck me as a superhero version of Bettie Page, with her looks.
|
#
¿
Dec 27, 2020 08:02
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 17, 2024 10:16 |
|
|
Rhyno posted:He did in the Loebs era. And a bit over in Teen Titans. Also Justice League Europe, Wally was pretty immature and lecherous in that book.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2021 00:28
|
|
|
Karma Tornado posted:Raven's the head on the bottom right of the panel, the lady in white is probably Dr Light. White hair might be Silver Sorceress, there's probably a Crimson Fox or two in there, too The lady in white is Catherine Colbert, Justice League Europe's attractive and stylish French liaison. "We are having all eternity to be doing so, too!" sounds like the way she spoke English in that book -- perfectly understandable, but clearly a second language for a native French speaker.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 14, 2021 08:10
|
|
|
radlum posted:I've been on a GI Joe kick lately and wanted to read something of that franchise. I know Paul Allor wrote a 10 issue series last year, but what else is going on with GI Joe now? I'm a huge, lifelong G.I. Joe fan. I've read almost every issue Larry Hama ever wrote -- both his original Marvel series that ran from 1982 to 1994, and then the IDW series that continued where it left off, which started over a decade ago. Skip it, at least for now. Get a book called Cobra: The Last Laugh, by co-writers Christos Gage and Mike Costa and artist Antonio Fuso. It's the best G.I. Joe story in any medium, ever. I read it on Hoopla several years ago, bought the hardcover for my best friend for Christmas two years ago, and finally got an affordable copy for myself a few weeks ago, after wanting my own ever since. The hardcover has a $50 cover price, but IDW keeps postponing the release date of a $30 TPB edition, which may finally come out this summer. I can't recommend it highly enough. Cobra: The Last Laugh is a different continuity than the Hama comics, which are also different from the '80s cartoon. The world Gage and Costa have created is much darker, and somehow they present G.I. Joe and Cobra as semi-realistic organizations -- at least less of the '80-style cartoonish villainy and over-the-top jingoism. This is like an Ultimate universe version of G.I. Joe and Cobra, or maybe even more like a Vertigo-inspired take on it. It's definitely a comic for mature readers, but not in a "grimdark" way, like something from Mark Millar or Garth Ennis giving into their worst impulses. The thing it reminds me of most is Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' Sleeper (my favorite of all of their collaborations), and I make the comparison as a high compliment. If you haven't read any G.I. Joe before, it is the absolute coolest. The only problem is that everything else you read afterwards will disappoint, although I believe Costa continued writing more stories in the Last Laugh continuity, and I am planning to pick up those TPBs pretty soon. EDIT: I should go back and say that a lot of Hama's G.I. Joe comics for Marvel are great, but the first couple of years were kind of formulaic and boring. #21 is a famous and highly influential issue for good reason, #26-27 detail the origins of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, and the comic continues on a pretty solid run, with good material greatly outnumbering the mediocre/boring/bad, up until about #115. Big Bad Voodoo Lou fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Apr 22, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Apr 22, 2021 06:12
|
|
|
Selachian posted:I liked the original Longshot mini better than any other use of him I've seen since. But yes, it is weird, quirky, and very Nocenti. Plus it was some of the earliest art from a young Arthur Adams, one of my all-time favorite artists. I think his style peaked over the next few years after Longshot, though.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 23, 2021 13:08
|
|
|
Dawgstar posted:I had completely forgotten Nash had a comic. If I could work up the nerve to go outside to places I didn't have to go, I'd trawl the dollar bins for it. Spider-Man's Tangled Web #14, co-written by Raven and Brian Azzarello! Any wrestling fans should definitely get it.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 26, 2021 18:50
|
|
|
Uthor posted:It's the measurement of the impact when Wu-Tang is hosed with. TIGER STYLE!
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2021 05:10
|
|
|
Bulgaroctonus posted:Jesus loving wept. I kinda want to read this now, then either burn it or keep it around as a cautionary tale of WHEN COMICS GO HORRIBLY WRONG. This sounds like when people talk about Late Stage Capitalism, but Late Stage ‘90’s Bullshit crossed with Late Stage Cancer and Late Stage Alcoholism/Cocaine Addiction. gently caress this poo poo, imma go re-read Bone. Seriously WHAT THE gently caress. Nope, this was Millar being Millar. Do yourself a favor and never read a plot description of The Unfunnies. I've NEVER understood how Millar is so universally acclaimed as a writer.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 17, 2021 12:20
|
|
|
Pastry of the Year posted:Art is not truly nineties unless the artist's signature is on a tattered scrap of paper fluttering around somewhere in the foreground. To this day, McFarlane still has my favorite signature of any artist. To me, it's so iconic and cool, even if I haven't picked up a comic he was involved with since middle school in 1993.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 17, 2021 14:18
|
|
|
The Question IRL posted:Going back a few pages, but yes this did come up. I've become a big Christos Gage fan. He's a very underrated writer.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 19, 2021 13:06
|
|
|
All I know is when Inferno was coming out, I was in 5th grade, and Madelyne's Goblyn Queen costume was a revelation.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 20, 2021 13:03
|
|
|
Edge & Christian posted:Also this month might be the peak of Dwayne McDuffie's output at Marvel, and he uses that time to write stories turning Thunderball and Chemistro into sympathetic antiheroes/complex villains I have spent the past thirty years being mad about showing up in random BIG GANG OF MURDEROUS THUG montages. Really? This is fascinating to me. I always think of the Wrecking Crew as tough jobbers that heroes have to defeat to prove they can handle serious threats, but then the Crew always -- eventually -- get defeated. I vaguely recall Thunderball being the smart(er) one (not sure how or when that happened), but don't recall him being sympathetic or complex. And Chemistro? I barely remember him at all, but that's wild. He definitely seems like a background goon, like when The Hood united a bunch of jobber villains in Bendis' first (good) New Avengers run.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2021 04:58
|
|
|
Edge & Christian posted:It's not an uncommon trope, but both Thunderball and Chemistro were introduced in the 1970s with the same backstory: Thanks for this history lesson, as always. I also thought of Prowler here. Poor Hobie Brown was unappreciated as a window washer when he created the costume and gadgets as safety equipment, and then another white man ripped off the costume: Todd McFarlane.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2021 15:10
|
|
|
CzarChasm posted:There was a pretty good Madame Masque/Iron Man story line that got a really lovely joke ending/reference at a later time I remember that, in Bendis' New Avengers: Illuminati. "Why would you date a woman who looks like Doctor Doom?"
|
|
#
¿
Oct 19, 2021 14:27
|
|
|
CopywrightMMXI posted:My dream omnibus would be a collection of short-lived DC titles from the 90s, like Scare Tactics, Young Heroes in Love, Major Bummer, Chronos, etc. I was a huge fan of Chronos, Vext, and Chase. Still have all my single issues of Chronos and Vext after all this time. I owned the Chase TPB for years, but made a tidy profit selling it on eBay last year. I think it only came out because all the art was early work by J.H. Williams, before Promethea, Sandman: Overture, and Batwoman. I believe Major Bummer was owned by its creators (John Arcudi, maybe?) rather than by DC, and was later published as a collected edition by Dark Horse.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2021 03:24
|
|
|
Uthor posted:What's the one online TPB store that isn't Amazon or In Stock Trades? I think they're new, someone mentioned them earlier this year. CheapGraphicNovels and OrganicPricedBooks are the other two players.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 20, 2021 20:26
|
|
|
Cornwind Evil posted:It’s actually kind of a shining example of why nothing changes in comics: Ed Brubaker wrote a long run on Wonder Woman where she became the new god of war and was retconned to actually be Zeus’ child and other stuff, and as far as I can tell it wasn’t disliked, but when DC Rebirth happened and Wonder Woman restarted, she put on her lasso and it went “You have been deceived” and everything that Brubaker had done was discarded as a dream and then Wondy went to see Steve Trevor in the shower before going to the Marvel U and talking to the Hulk about having entire storyline runs retconned away. I just woke up and got really confused, then hopeful, then disappointed. This was Brian Azzarello, that other noir guy. I'm a giant Ed Brubaker fanboy, but sadly, he has never written Wonder Woman.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 15, 2021 13:19
|
|
|
Yeah, apparently Beatriz had been a spy in Brazil (according to Rucka's Checkmate series) which ran counter to her bubbly bimbo-supermodel persona in JLI. In JLI she could breathe (green) fire until the metagene bomb exploded in the Invasion miniseries, making her into a green Human Torch.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 31, 2022 01:04
|
|
|
Hey Edge & Christian, is there a place to find sales figures from a comic book series from the '80s, or a list of the top 50/top 100 selling series per month from back then?
|
|
#
¿
Feb 7, 2022 05:42
|
|
|
Rhyno posted:Monarch is complicated. His ID was leaked in the Advance Comics solicits which lesd to the change. Then he and Captain Atom had a follow up mini where they bounced through time. Atom showed up in JL a few years later after the Death of Superman. I always wondered how "everyone" knew Monarch was meant to be Captain Atom, then changed to Hawk at the last minute. It's not like most people had the Internet back then, but especially as someone who followed the crossover at the time (middle school!), it seemed like it was one of those things most people had heard about. I always liked Monarch's design too, and wish we had gotten an action figure at some point. He was very "toyetic," as was Extant. But as a fan of Captain Atom from Justice League Europe, I was happy that he didn't turn out to be the big bad. Also, marijuana had been legalized in the "dark, dystopian" future of 2001, and it was one of the many factors to show society's decline and general hopelessness.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 3, 2022 20:34
|
|
|
Rhyno posted:Man, I want a good Monarch action figure now. Peyote Panda posted:Dammit, now so do I. Be careful what you wish for, now that McFarlane has the DC action figure license. You won't get it, unless you want an evil Batman-Joker-Monarch hybrid!
|
|
#
¿
Apr 3, 2022 23:41
|
|
|
Madkal posted:One thing I have always wondered is does having signatures or doodles on comics increase their worth? I have a first issue of Saga that I assume is worth tens of dollars but I also have a random issue of Saga (I think it's number 3 or 4) that has a character sketch by Fiona Staple on it that she did for me at a con (well for a friend who gave it to me). Is that random issue now worth something? Only to someone who believes it is legit and actually wants it. One of my favorite things to do as a collector is meet creators at conventions, have them sign my books, chat a little, tell them what their work has meant to me, and sometimes get a photo with them. I've never gotten a certificate of authenticity, which means if I ever wanted to sell those signed books, they might even be worth LESS, rather than more, because the signatures can't be verified and may even be considered to deface the comics. Pictures of me with the writer or artist probably wouldn't be enough to prove it to a skeptical buyer, but that's not why I bother to get those signatures.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 19, 2022 03:25
|
|
|
Hey folks, I have a Thunderbolts question. Thanks to Hoopla, I've finally read the original Thunderbolts #1-50, written by Kurt Busiek and Fabian Nicieza. It had moments of being kind of generic and even corny, but I liked all the interweaving plots and loved the core characters' overall redemption arc, culminating in team leader Hawkeye going to prison in exchange for the remaining Thunderbolts earning presidential pardons at last. A long time ago, I read Nicieza's New Thunderbolts run, and I even owned the three TPBs for a while. I don't remember that era being anything special. Then I recently read the Civil War material where Songbird was hooking up with Zemo for some reason, I already owned Warren Ellis' two darkly comic and brutally violent Thunderbolts TPBs that bridged Civil War and Secret Invasion, and I also read all the Dark Reign/Siege/Heroic Age a long time ago (written by Christos Gage, Andy Diggle, and Jeff Parker), up to the point where it was retitled Dark Avengers. I didn't care for the Thunderbolts lineup with Punisher, Elektra, Deadpool, and Red Hulk, and I don't think I ever finished that. It didn't have anything to do with anything that came before, and seemed like too much of a team of edgelord antiheroes. And then I read the short Jim Zub run with pretty bad art from Comicsgate-supporting artist Jon Malin and the recent King in Black: Thunderbolts miniseries that was more like DC's Suicide Squad than any other 'Bolts material ever, complete with shock value jobber deaths. So what I think I'm missing is the chunk between #50 of the original series and the New Thunderbolts rebranding. It looks like that has never been collected, and I know there is an infamous run in there that jettisoned all the ongoing characters and story arcs, about an underground supervillain fight club. Is that as bad as I've heard? Is anything worthwhile in between there? Any other Thunderbolts fans? I keep hoping they make their way to the MCU, especially since there are so many characters that would fit into the team aesthetic of villains seeking redemption: Zemo, Abomination, Vulture, Ghost, and who knows who will show up in She-Hulk. It would be neat to see Clint, Yelena, and Luke Cage show up too. Big Bad Voodoo Lou fucked around with this message at 00:18 on May 22, 2022 |
|
#
¿
May 22, 2022 00:15
|
|
|
Opopanax posted:The Thunderbolt era one gets really good when Soule takes over, you should just skip ahead to that, it's definitely worth reading I do love Soule and Noto. I think it was Daniel Way's stuff that turned me off. And Hoopla has those!
|
|
#
¿
May 22, 2022 00:39
|
|
|
Beerdeer posted:Is any of the Wildstorm stuff actually integrated in the DCU? I guess Midnighter hung out with Nightwing for a while but I haven't seen anything about Stormwatch in a while. Googling shows me that Fairchild is a clone. Seems like a waste. I used to be the hugest Wildstorm fan. Sleeper/Point Blank, Wildcats, and Planetary are three of my all-time favorite books. I wish we had gotten a Grifter action figure from Mattel or DC Direct, back when they had the DC license, and not McFarlane. I have wanted a good one for almost 30 years.
|
|
#
¿
May 26, 2022 04:02
|
|
|
Napoleon Nelson posted:I remember reading some panels posted here a long time ago where a character talked about how she needed a cyber spine and legs to deal with the weight and power of the cyber arm she got after losing her own. But I don't think that's the same thing you're talking about. Was that from Warren Ellis' Global Frequency? I remember a one-issue story about a cyborg woman whose entire body needed to be enhanced through multiple painful and dangerous surgeries, just to control her arm -- very different from most of the other cyborgs in comics, who seem to walk around with cybernetic arms like it's no big deal.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 31, 2022 19:09
|
|
|
You know how DC (and Marvel and Image) often issue $1 reprints of key issues? I've never paid any attention to those, since I figure they are aimed at newer readers, and I try to avoid buying single issues anyway. But especially with the new Sandman show out, does anyone know if they ever released a cheap reprint of Sandman #8, "The Sound of Her Wings" (the story that introduces Death)? I have decided to sell my Sandman TPBs, but I'd kind of like to own a copy, and even my wife has expressed interest in reading that story (and only that story).
|
|
#
¿
Aug 18, 2022 16:37
|
|
|
Endless Mike posted:Looks like there was an "Essential Vertigo" release in 1997 you can get pretty cheap. Thank you! That's just what I want.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2022 05:26
|
|
|
One thing I've noticed with most of the Dynamite comics I've read (and probably the same with Zenoscope) is that any above average art on the cover, cheesecake or otherwise, usually outshines the more pedestrian interior artwork.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 30, 2023 22:01
|
|
|
It was Astro City #1/2, a special issue sold by Wizard: The Guide to Comics. (But I'm sure it is collected in one of the TPBs.)
|
|
#
¿
Jan 2, 2024 14:45
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 17, 2024 10:16 |
|
|
If you have access to Hoopla through your public library, they should have Astro City Metrobook volumes 1-4, which would be a fantastic way to read the series for the first time.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 2, 2024 16:26
|
|