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Jan 7, 2018 01:14
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A Strange Aeon posted:Cool--and I don't mind spending the 10 bucks for a month, but are there promo codes floating around that I'd be a fool not to try to track down? You can check this list. the notable ones seem to be a month of MU for free and 5 free comics. You get 404. Marvel Apes. It should all be on MU.
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Jan 7, 2018 01:27
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Lick! The! Whisk! posted:You got 293. We3. Well this one's a loving bummer. Anyways, its all in Comixology. So I picked this thing up for $10, and let me tell you, it was quite a ride. It's an interesting story, and I'll review it as best I can. Characters We3 is about three animals, a Dog, a Cat, and a Rabbit, and Dr. Roseanne Berry, the Scientist who experimented on them to turn them into covert assassins. In robot gear. Anyway, a Senator with designs on the presidency decides to terminate the program, and thus the animals, but Dr. Berry frees them instead, and the animals try to find home while the military chases them. What I liked I like the character designs, the story was solid without dragging too long, and I had fun reading it. Took me a little under 45 minutes to read it through, and I really liked it. I'd definitely say it was $10 well spent. What I disliked The comic was way gorier than the stuff I usually read. Now, it's not a gorefest in the slightest, but I found the detailed rat intestines and whatnot to be a little off-putting. It's nothing I'd say kills the story, but for me personally I didn't like it. I liked the designs but I didn't really find terribly much interesting about the characters beyond that, but I won't hold that against a 3-issue comic. Just a thing to point out. Overall This was an enjoyable read that I would recommend to most people who like comics, unless you're a squeamish weenie like me. 9/10
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Jan 7, 2018 01:34
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Thanks for the review Senerio. Did you think it was placed too low on the list overall? It's around the middle of the list, but as aforementioned it's very top heavy. For reference, Empowered vol. 1 places in the low 200s. Did you find the content emotionally manipulative? I seem to remember Matt and Chris really liking the comic but specifically mentioning how it came across as being about cute animals dying to make you Feel Sad. Did you feel that way when you read it?
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Jan 7, 2018 01:43
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Lick! The! Whisk! posted:You get 404. Marvel Apes. It should all be on MU. Sweet, I get to watch the Gorilla Channel.
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Jan 7, 2018 01:47
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I feel that it could've been placed in the mid-100s and I wouldn't bat an eye, but I'm not shocked that it was in the mid-200s. I did like it more than Empowered Vol 1, but that's just on the basis that it has a plot, which Empowered doesn't develop til volume 3. I could see why they'd say it was emotionally manipulative, but I disagree. Personally the most effective death for me was Dr. Berry's.
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Jan 7, 2018 01:49
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Endless Mike posted:God, those two issues will be a *awful* on their own since they're culmination of the first Kyle Raynor arc. Given that the stories are ranked with whatever knowledge they have of the context, I say it's fair to read the whole trade since I'm sure they did before they read them. (I mean, no one can stop you, anyway.) Lick! The! Whisk! posted:On tablet, so can't crop the image, but you got 562. Green Lantern #54 – 55 "You learn from your mistakes." - first line of the Afterward by Ron Marz, 1997. "For the first time in a long time I'm beginning to believe things are going to work out for us." - Alexandra Dewitt. SPOILERS (let me know if I should tag any of this). So this overall storyline showcased DC in all its stereotypical glory. Someone gets a hand cut off (though not in 54-55), and this was the origin of the girlfriend in the fridge trope right? I thought the original fridging was from one of the linewide crossovers like one of the various Crisis books but I guess not. I ended up reading 48-55 since I got the Emerald Twilight/New Dawn trade from my cousin a couple of days ago, which is where that Afterward came from. I'm assuming this is on the bad part of the list because of the fridging and maybe due to replacing a classic hero with a younger, edgier, hipper one in the 90s. The story wasn't as bad as I expected, though Major Force looked like a coloring error or like Colossus in shadow all the time. Pink and Yellow was a bold choice. I also laughed at his apparent love of handwritten notes. Thoughts on 54-55: - What was with the future city converging with LA? Was that part of a linewide event or just a random plot point? - Major Force reminded me of Nuke from Born Again, as a goverment sanctioned assassin anyway. - I had to wiki Alan Scott afterwards, the name sounded familiar but I'd forgotten who he was. - I think I prefer the nova corps to the green lantern corps. The giant green guns and fists will never not look silly to me, let alone giant green trains and electric chairs (very 90s!). - To paraphrase: Now that your power is drained, before I kill you, whats this thing we found by where you gained your super powers? *holds out power battery disguised as rock* *Kyle goes super saiyan* Oops. - This very much felt like the pilot of a CW show. Swap the LA special crimes unit for the DEO, bring in the supporting cast next episode and you're good to go. Bonus points if force ghost Alan Scott appears throughout as his mentor. And if they remove the leadup about Hal, they can steal his use of making force construct ghosts of his loved ones so that Kyle can talk to his "girlfriend" every now and then. - I'm going to be really disappointed if Major Force didn't keep the handwritten notes coming in his subsequent comic book appearances. - Hal does the Black Widow torso twist T&A pose during Alan's monologue, with a ripped shirt even. - naming issue 55 "Assault & Battery". I see what you did there. - I'll need to reread King's Omega Men now that I have some Rayner background. EDIT - whoops forgot to talk about the fridging itself. It happens so often in fiction that the girlfriend is murdered to inspire the hero or show how evil the bad guy is, that I wouldn't have thought twice about it other than noting that in this context it's very grim for a comic book, especially the brief glimpse you get of the body. It's become a trope though, and one that should rightfully be avoided due to its ease and overuse and being demeaning of the characters. I'll have to go read the Gail Simone article about it now. Anyway overall it was an interesting read. A bit of history. I don't think this by itself would inspire me to read any more, Rayner doesn't stand out and if I got into GL I'd prefer more cosmic stories to them punching it out with supervillains on the beach or city streets. I want to eventually read Geoff Johns GL run up to Blackest Night because it always sounded epic and had cool posters on the wall at my LCS at the time, but I didn't pull the trigger during this past holiday sale and probably won't anytime soon. I think it deserves it's low place on the list but it's hard to decide what's worse, the fridging and green light electric chair or the pouches and spikes going on in other comics at the time. At the time this came out, I was getting too old for comics (hah) but was reading about Stryfe and the Age of Apocalypse over at Marvel. Thoughts on 48-53 (not in the assignment) - Hal's green light construct of his mom looks like She Hulk. In one panel, she towers over him by like 2 feet, whether intentionally or as a perspective error. I'm choosing to believe that's canon. - is this what leads Hal into becoming Parallax? I saw something about that while skimming recommendation threads for more $5 trades to buy during the sale. - Hal kills so many people whose names I recognize from video games, the Ryan Reynolds movie and osmosis from years of reading about comics that I wonder how long until that got retconned or corrected in one of the Flashpoint style resets. - Hal wants the power of a god to restore Coast City. I already want to reread the Darkseid War "Will you be my god?" GL tie in by King while keeping this arc in mind. - They brought in Superman to help Kyle fight Mongul and to give him the new hero thumbs up. I guess they didn't have Wolverine so Supes had to do. He had the 90s mullet. - I am curious if Rayner has any power weaknesses since he apparently doesn't have the yellow weakness of the previous lanterns. bagrada fucked around with this message at 02:08 on Jan 7, 2018 |
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Jan 7, 2018 01:59
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For some reason when I read We3 the room suddenly got really dusty and someone was cutting onions.
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Jan 7, 2018 02:00
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Off the cliff I go... I'm in. Give me something REALLY. loving. TERRIBLE.
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Jan 7, 2018 02:15
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Cornwind Evil posted:Off the cliff I go... Okay... Just because you asked specifically I did a 550-592 roll, since those are basically all among the worst comics ever. You got 570. Uncanny X-Men: Holy War, part of the "beloved" Chuck Austen run. That's issues 423-424, they're on MU, and remember: you asked for this.
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Jan 7, 2018 02:33
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Also thanks for your review, bagrada. Yes, as you noted this is the origin of the "fridging" trope, or at least the story Simone pointed to when she coined the term. I wanted to be vague when assigning it to you in case you were unaware of what specific issues that happened in if it came across as out of nowhere and as ghoulish as those issues are infamously remembered as being today.
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Jan 7, 2018 02:39
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Lick! The! Whisk! posted:Okay... Offff. I actually skimmed these in a comic store many years ago, so I'm mildly familiar with them. Well, could be worse. Could be the Draco. Anyway, while I go wonder how Austen got as much work as he did, here's a review of a villain from Spider Man I didn't like that I wrote up for some friends some time ago that I rewrote so anyone can read it without being confused by names and in-jokes.
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Jan 7, 2018 02:41
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Lick! The! Whisk! posted:Also thanks for your review, bagrada. Yes, as you noted this is the origin of the "fridging" trope, or at least the story Simone pointed to when she coined the term. I wanted to be vague when assigning it to you in case you were unaware of what specific issues that happened in if it came across as out of nowhere and as ghoulish as those issues are infamously remembered as being today. Pretty ghoulish for sure. There was some surprising violence during Hals rampage leading up to it, but this did feel out of place for a big two story, especially with the standard comic art.
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Jan 7, 2018 02:47
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Lick! The! Whisk! posted:You got 157. Flash 91. I have literally no idea which volume that references and there's not an episode reference so I can't check, but I'm PRETTY sure its from volume 2, and considering that's a Waid comic it makes sense to be placed that high knowing Matt and Chris's tastes. Also,since golden age 91 is a fuckin' Hawkman comic and who wants to read a Hawkman comic? Either way its on Comixology. I've never read much Flash but I loving love Mark Waid, so this is great 
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Jan 7, 2018 03:27
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I'll do buy the trades for Anita Blake when I get paid on the 18th.
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Jan 7, 2018 04:18
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Still don't really like MU, at least on desktop, but it's much more convenient than tracking down out of print stuff. I think I just don't like reading on my computer very much, and my tablet is too small. I'm not the biggest Avengers fan or anything, but I thought this was funny, since I never heard of the guy saying this, nor of the three other Avengers he mentioned no one ever hears of, back in 1998:  I also dig his rear end sticking out in so many panels on this page! This was a great idea Lick--would never have thought to read this arc otherwise, but I just finished the first issue and I think it'll be a good ride.
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Jan 7, 2018 04:31
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I need to read more comics. I need to write more about comics. Hit me, please.
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Jan 7, 2018 04:53
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A Strange Aeon posted:Still don't really like MU, at least on desktop, but it's much more convenient than tracking down out of print stuff. I think I just don't like reading on my computer very much, and my tablet is too small. Mantis is no longer all that obscure, as she recently debuted in the MCU in Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2. Rage, Deathcry, and Triathalon are definitely in the Forgotten Avengers Dumpster, though. But enough of your assignment. Gimme MY assignment! Put me in, coach!
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Jan 7, 2018 04:54
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Roth posted:I'll do buy the trades for Anita Blake when I get paid on the 18th. Don't let me overly influence your review but I'm pretty sure Anita Blake is based on Laurel Hamilton herself, in terms of appearance, personality and desire to bone the supernatural.
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Jan 7, 2018 05:06
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CarlCX posted:I need to read more comics. I need to write more about comics. Hit me, please. You got 184. Tower of Babel. Oh hey, its the most memetically popular Mark Waid JLA story arc! Does it still hold up? (I'm guessing it does.) All issues are on comixology and they have a dedicated arc section of the site if you don't have it, since its an insanely popular story. jng2058 posted:Mantis is no longer all that obscure, as she recently debuted in the MCU in Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2. Rage, Deathcry, and Triathalon are definitely in the Forgotten Avengers Dumpster, though. Oof. You got 528. Justice, by Alex Ross and Jim Kreuger. Is Alex Ross as good a writer as he is an artist? Spoiler: No he's not! All issues are on Comixology.
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Jan 7, 2018 06:16
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Lick! The! Whisk! posted:I think you should definitely read the trade they appear in as long as you discuss the two issues specifically, especially if they end an arc. But I mean I'm not a GL guy either so I'm out of my depth on this one. Emerald Twilight/New Dawn is Hal Jordan going crazy and murdering the Green Lantern Corps and Kyle Raynor taking up the mantle. That trade should be everything you *need* up to that point, though I guess you could read the dull-rear end adventures of dull-rear end Hal Jordan if you really wanted to find out why they decided he needed a shake-up. A Strange Aeon posted:Cool--and I don't mind spending the 10 bucks for a month, but are there promo codes floating around that I'd be a fool not to try to track down? E: Oh hey there's another page Endless Mike fucked around with this message at 06:35 on Jan 7, 2018 |
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Jan 7, 2018 06:31
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Gimme the poo poo.
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Jan 7, 2018 06:43
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Since this is such a long entry, I'm making a decision to review it in parts, with a final review at the end. I'll be doing one roughly every trade worth of material, or at least where an arc seems to come to its conclusion, which brings us to... Dark Reign: Fantastic Four Jonathan Hickman’s Fantastic Four run is included in a lot of people’s lists of best of the series, though it actually started in the Dark Reign: Fantastic Four miniseries set shortly after Secret Invasion while Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch were working on the main series (my timeline may be a bit off here). Since I don’t think summarizing the series here will do a whole lot (people should go read it!), I'll just say that the mini serves as a prologue and thesis for the rest of the series, with Reed discovering that working with the Illuminati led to everything that happened up to that point, and that working alone would lead to much greater success. Hickman shows throughout that he truly gets the characters and their relationships to each other, in all their strengths and weaknesses. The art; pencilled by Sean Chen, inked by Lorenzo Ruggiero, and colored by John Rauch; is clean and attractive, and never gets in the way of the storytelling, though it isn’t anything particularly special. It's a fun story with some good character moments and plot bits, but on its own is nothing worth searching out. As part of the greater whole it becomes, it certainly fulfills the purpose of introducing us to Hickman's interpretation of the characters. The first omnibus follows this up with a short story from Dark Reign: The Cabal featuring a meeting between Dr. Doom and Namor following the first Cabal meeting, setting up Hickman’s concepts for the characters, much like the previous mini. It features beautiful art by Adi Granov, and quickly shows how they view each other, which leads into the start of the series. Again, it's not really worth seeking out on its own, but it's fun enough. Important plot points: *Reed Richards builds the Bridge, allowing him to see other universes, and ultimately leading to him meeting other Reeds from the multiverse *Reed decides to Solve Everything, the starting point for the series, and also to stop pretending to be anything less than the most intelligent being the universe (his words) *Franklin Richards's powers return when he shoots Norman Osborn with a fake pistol. Sue is not at all happy with this. *Johnny Storm loses his phone containing the phone numbers of all the hot, single, and needy (his words) women in New York *Doctor Doom doesn't like being called Victor
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Jan 7, 2018 06:53
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Inkspot posted:Gimme the poo poo. You got 73. The Demon v1 #1-8, Jack Kirby's incredibly weird horror superhero comic barely anyone remembers. You can buy either all the issues individually on Comixology or buy the 12 issue omnibus on Comixology, which considering its Kirby is probably an at least somewhat decent investment.
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Jan 7, 2018 06:53
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That review is already automatically worthless because you didn't mention "My lady, methinks 'tis the clobbering hour." Sorry Endless Mike, you already failed. (I was wondering if you were gonna read the Dark Reign mini, because yeah its the true start to the run. I think the most impressive thing about Dark Reign: FF is how Hickman so adroitly communicates the theme of both of his FF runs and his Avengers runs into and including Secret Wars 2015 in a 4 issue miniseries. Its really incredible how economical Hickman is at communicating a mission statement that, especially in retrospect, makes his mega-run as a whole feel as tightly constructed as it is.) NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Jan 7, 2018 |
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Jan 7, 2018 06:56
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Lick! The! Whisk! posted:Oof. You got 528. Justice, by Alex Ross and Jim Kreuger. Is Alex Ross as good a writer as he is an artist? Spoiler: No he's not! All issues are on Comixology. Ouch. Fortunately, a local library has all three volumes available, which is good because I'm not paying money for that.
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Jan 7, 2018 07:41
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Lick! The! Whisk! posted:Oof. You got 528. Justice, by Alex Ross and Jim Kreuger. Is Alex Ross as good a writer as he is an artist? Spoiler: No he's not! All issues are on Comixology. I disagree with that maxiseries being as low on the list as it is. Somewhere in the 300's, maybe.
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Jan 7, 2018 07:43
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Cornwind Evil posted:I disagree with that maxiseries being as low on the list as it is. Somewhere in the 300's, maybe. Well, I'll tell you if I agree sometime next week.
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Jan 7, 2018 07:46
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Please feed my impulse buying receptors and Hit Me.
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Jan 7, 2018 07:49
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Lick! The! Whisk! posted:You get 235. Atomic Robo: Why Atomic Robo Hates Dr. Dinosaur, etc. Dunno what the "et cetera" is for, but as far as I can tell it's just one issue. It's also the first webcomic so far, so that's fun. A lot easier to find, too. I love Atomic Robo, and this is the entire strip distilled into 8 pages. It was the 2009 Free Comic Book Day issue so I’ll talk about it in that context. It throws you right into the story, with Robo and Dr Dinosaur having a shootout on some island in 1999. Throughout the fight they’ve got a running dialogue going, revolving around Robo questioning the doctor’s origin story. It gives Clevinger a chance to show off his snappy dialogue and the sense of humour the strip goes for: ridiculous situations played straight (like... a 500 pound atomic robot fighting a possibly time travelling dinosaur who can speak English and uses guns). As a FCBD issue, it works for both new readers and old. If you know the characters, you can jump right in to the argument without issue and get a little bit more out of it, but even if you’re new to them there’s nothing you need to know that’s not in the text. The art is clean and colourful, like the rest of the strip. It’s very cartoony, which I think suits the sense of humour. Nothing about it stands out in this issue vs the rest of the series, except for maybe the last page, which has no dialogue, just a single sound effect as the punchline (read: box of grenades) goes off and the joke, why does Atomic Robo hate Dr Dinosaur, gets pulled together. In terms of where it places on the list... it’s not an important comic, and it doesn’t have much weight to it. It’s only 8 pages. But like Chris and Matt talked about when they ranked it, it’s just about as good an 8 pages of comics as you could make. It’s a great entry to Atomic Robo. If you don’t like this issue you won’t like the series, but if you do like it there’s a lot more of this book out there waiting for you to read. Also, can I take another spin?
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Jan 7, 2018 16:48
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Gummy Joe posted:Please feed my impulse buying receptors and Hit Me.  You get 11. Jack Staff: Everything Used to Be Black and White (vol. 1). One of the best indie comics ever, or at least according to Chris Sims. The trade paperback is available on Amazon but as far as I can tell the issues on Comixology are from the second volume of Jack Staff, not the first. Happy hunting! Jordan7hm posted:
 You get 156. The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: I Told You That Story So I Could Tell You This One/Spooky Stuff/Punch Dracula. Back to back webcomics! Lucky you. Also, COLLUSION! The first comic on the list made by a (former) goon. I Told You...etc starts here. NieR Occomata fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Jan 7, 2018 |
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Jan 7, 2018 17:18
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Justice was one of the first comics I ever read so I like it probably more than I should (though now I don't really like Alex Ross at all). I was like 15 and had just seen The Dark Knight so it was actually cool as hell to see like every DC villain/hero in one story.
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Jan 7, 2018 18:42
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Lick! The! Whisk! posted:
Man, even the Library of Congress doesn't have this, here I was all smug in thinking I'd just borrow whatever I needed from the world's biggest library. Guess it's Amazon for me this time!
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Jan 7, 2018 19:23
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49. Daredevil #284-290: The Man Without Mercy The Summary This seven issue story runs from 1990 into early 1991. In it, Daredevil - fresh from, apparently, a trip to hell where he fought Satan or something? - essentially suffers a nervous breakdown, leading into an extremely long fugue state wherein he assumes his father's identity, becomes a boxer, gets a new (black) girlfriend, and eventually regains his memories. Meanwhile, Bullseye is running around in Daredevil's outfit, attempting to ruin his good name with the people of NYC. In the shadows The Kingpin plots to clear his. Eventually, this all builds to the final issue, a long confrontation between Daredevil-as-Bullseye and Bullseye-as-Daredevil. The Other Stuff Outside of Ann Nocenti's writing, which I'll address later, this story has Lee Weeks on pencils. I'm not a big fan of up-to-late-Bronze-Age style guides - wherein everything and everyone has to look perfectly on-model and there's little variation in comic design between titles and even between companies. This is partially a reflection of the age at which I started getting into comics; I only started reading non-manga comics in the mid-to-late 2000s, and only seriously started reading superhero comics within the last couple of years. But, yeah; I have a difficult time reading most mainstream comics from anything prior to the mid-90s because everything looks so boring, samey, and dated. It's all chiseled hunky dudes and gorgeous, slender women with incredibly similar faces, usually either in profile or in tight closeups. Reading old comics like this always remind me of newspaper soap opera comics, and I have that same sort of apathy to the artistic design of comics like this as I do to, say, Mary Worth. Scheele (no first name given) is on colors for this story, and it - again - is fine if unimpressive. It's the sort of coloring job you'd expect from a mainstream/Big Two comic, nothing flashy or really out of the box. Morelli (again, no first name given) is on lettering, and it's next verse same as the first - solid if unimpressive, a good job but nothing much more than that. The Story For a little context: Ann Nocenti took over Daredevil basically immediately after Miller's now-legendary Born Again run on DD (he left the book at issue 233, she joined at 238). In total, she would be on the book for a little over four years, the longest single run for any writer on Daredevil ever, from issues 238 to 291. She's also the creator of Typhoid Mary, pretty much the only love interest of Daredevil besides Elektra that anyone actually remembers. Surprisingly, though, her run - despite being so long - is little remembered. When people think Daredevil, they think either of Miller or Bendis, not Nocenti. If you were to ask me why, I think - I hope the reason her Daredevil run is little-referenced is because of the fact that she came on immediately after Miller's character-redefining arc and not out of sexism. Born Again was and still is The Story by which all other Daredevil comics are measured, just like Year One is for Batman; it's arguably worse for DD because, at least with Batman, he's DC's most popular character; they put the star power on the books that sell the most, and thus since Year One we've gotten stories like Morrison's Batman run, or Zero Year, or The Killing Joke, just to name three insanely popular stories to have come out since Miller's. With so many high-profile creators on one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, the opportunity has been provided - and exploited - to make new stories that can, if not edge out Year One, at least make a good go of it. On the other hand, Daredevil has always kinda been a second-stringer, even with Miller's character rehabilitation. I mean, he's a hero in a red suit who has to deal with street-level crimes in downtown New York. Marvel already has a character who does that, and his name is loving Spider-Man. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable of comics in general, and I only know of two runs on DD that anyone talks about : Miller's, obviously, and Bendis'. They're two giants in the comics industry, and the shadows they cast are large. The darkest part of a shadow is directly under it, so Nocenti's run was always kinda screwed from the start. She picks up the story literally 5 issues after Miller leaves it, and I think as a result nobody comparatively cares. It's Not Miller, it's Not Born Again, so the interest completely tapered off. Chris Sims likes to characterize Nocenti's DD as one of the most underrated comics runs in history, and I can see where he's coming from. The Man Without Mercy is a very socially conscious story; surprisingly so. As the story begins, Matt suffers amnesia and forgets that he's Daredevil. This sets up Bullseye's ability to steal the DD suit and thusly impersonate (and ruin the reputation of) Daredevil, a running throughline of the arc. But what it also does is it allows Nocenti to examine the character of Daredevil through the eyes of an outsider, but that outsider being Matt Murdock himself. For instance, early on in the story, right after Matt loses his memories, he notices that a young black kid is about to steal an apple. He accosts the child, but the kid points out that it's better to steal than go hungry, and Matt immediately relents and steals an apple as well. There's a running throughline of Man Without Mercy that crime is almost always a result of opportunity and desperate necessity over being performatively done out of genuine malice, which is really refreshing to see especially in a superhero comic. Like, think about the superhero comics you read. 90% of the villains are performatively villainous; it makes sense, considering on some level you're reading a stage play, with the actors being larger-than-life representations of base human impulses, but even if they're not mass murderers most villains are criminals because they want to hurt people, they want to make an impression, they want to terrorize the public, they're lazy or they're greedy and on and on and on. It's right in the name: supervillain. Everything they do is heightened, because that's how superhero comics work. In comparison Nocenti takes a - not subtle, no, but lowered view on the reasons for crime. Because Matt is out of costume for the literal entirety of the story - outside of issue one, wherein he gets beaten up and his costume stolen, Matt never suits up as Daredevil for all seven issues - Nocenti allows for Matt to experience crime at street level. This allows Nocenti to present a largely black cast of supporting characters for Matt to interact with - the aforementioned young boy, a black judge harassed by a racist white gang who want the judge to give a light sentence to one of their members, the judge's son, the aforementioned confidant-turned-girlfriend, Nyla. This, of course, has both its high points and its drawbacks. This is clearly meant to be a socially conscious story - the judge's son, for instance, crosses the street when a couple of [white] cops walk past, to Matt's confusion. The Big Problem with socially conscious stories like this is that, especially whenever they highlight racial issues, they come across as stories where the hero suddenly realizes racism exists, as if up to that point they've been a completely oblivious cretin. They're stories that work, but usually have to work by doing some at least light character assassination on the main character so they can "learn something". Nocenti dodges this entire problem by giving Matt amnesia. Especially for a guy who was, apparently, running a free legal clinic before this story (The Man Without Mercy basically ends Nocenti's run; she leaves the book after 291 and this tale runs to 290), it would be patently absurd for Matt loving Murdock, lawyer to the poor, to realize that police brutality exists and is racist. Instead, by making Matt not Matt Murdock Nocenti keeps Matt's agency while still putting her points across. This character, "Jack" Murdock, is quite literally blind to the injustices around him, and thus needs to be guided back to the light - back to himself - by a cadre of his newly-minted minority friends. Blindness is a constant theme throughout Man Without Mercy. Matt's always been a blind character, but not really - he could always sorta see with that radar vision and besides he had super-senses to make up for his blindness. Even beyond that, Matt's always been written as a character who had sight but lost it - so he knows what he's missing. He's able to understand and perceive the world around him through what he used to have and the experiences that have informed him since the accident. In contrast, "Jack" Murdock is a character born blind. He has no metric to compare the world to, because he has no metrics whatsoever. He's completely lost, and as a result has to be made aware of a world he literally cannot visually perceive. This blindness - this true blindness - surfaces itself in interesting ways. I'm not a Daredevil expert, not by any means, but I always considered Daredevil to be the least heroic superhero that Marvel published. Not an antihero, no, to be clear, or at least not an antihero in the now-defined sense, when it means a villain who spends more time killing villains than he or she does killing heroes. I mean it in the old-school eighties sense, when the hero is more concerned with big-picture threats and less concerned with their impact, optics, or holding stringent moral values as an example for others to follow. I guess the more accurate term would be "vigilante". I always looked at DD as the ur-example of the superheroic vigilante;' trying to solely make the streets safer, because Superman's ethics and moral code don't hold up in the grimy underbelly of the reality within which Daredevil operates. Not to say that Superman's morality is stupid, but to me Daredevil has always been more about the functional reality of pragmatism than the overwhelming idealistic optimism Superman encompasses. This sort of point is expressed by Nocenti over and over. After his father is killed by the white gang, the judge's son kidnaps one of the gang members and forces a confession out of him, tearfully pointing out how they're both poor and being set against each other by the rich so they wouldn't cause a problem for the actual puppetmasters holding the strings. Bullseye (as Daredevil) attempts to ruin DD's reputation by acting as a modern-day Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to redistribute the wealth to the poor, only for everyone to view him as even more of a hero than he was before. "Jack" and Nyla (his new girlfriend) are sleeping in a condemned building as squatters and decide to burgle a rich person's home to pay for food. And even if "Jack" eventually prevents Nyla from actually stealing anything, sort of undercutting the moment a bit, they're all presented as good or justified things in-universe. They might be literally wrong things people are doing, sometimes even for the wrong reason, but Nocenti argues - and effectively so - that they are necessary and an overall public good. It's better to steal an apple than let a kid go hungry. In contrast, Fisk's story is meant to contrast how evil is legalized while good is outlawed. I don't think it's a mistake that all the evil people in The Man Without Mercy are white - Fisk, Bullseye, the white gang - while most of the good people are black - the judge, his son, Nyla. The one real exception - "Jack" Murdock - is literally blind, and can't see the difference. By showing how, eventually, Fisk's plan is to legitimize himself - legally - Nocenti argues persuasively how the institutions themselves that allow for such a reprehensible person as Wilson loving Fisk are the ones truly at fault. If throwing a bunch of money around, maybe helping out a couple of poor schools financially, and buying a TV station - literally controlling the flow of information - is all it takes to be viewed as beloved, as good, does being labelled good even really matter? So much of Nocenti's story is still, sadly, prescient even now. Even discounting the Murdoch-y way Fisk takes control in NYC, there's so much about the necessity of wealth redistribution, the institutional racism that infects the governmental systems meant to protect minorities, and the casual racism otherwise "progressive" white people - there's a specific page where the judge's son highlights subtle racism by noting how many people "casually" attempt to move away from him when he walks by them - trade in, that Nocenti's story feels current even now, almost thirty years later. It's a pretty impressive story. That all being said, I felt like the story was overrated by the list while I was reading it. As a longtime War Rocket Ajax fan and specifically of ESE, I consider the top 100 comics on the list as being among the best comics ever printed. The list is faulty, the methodology often suspect or biased, but just from the sheer number of stories they've ranked - they're up to like almost 700 now (the list is severely out of date) - and the fact that the list is made up entirely of viewer submissions outside of two entries (Year One and Identity Crisis), as a matter of course the top 100 are incredibly, incredibly good comics. People don't send in stories they haven't read, for obvious reasons, and most people only read good stories or at least don't specifically seek out bad ones. Plus, you want to hear people talk about things you like, not things you don't. That's why the list is so top-heavy, with three-quarters of it being good comics, and there's relatively no mediocre ones - you either want to hear Chris and Matt talk about a comic you love, or you want to experience the schadenfreude of them suffering through discussing a comic they hate. So, yeah, the top 100 is all incredibly strong stuff, but it becomes even more magnified when you hit the top 50. That's less than 10% of the list in total, and an incredibly difficult section of the list to crack - so anything that's arrived there, and anything that's stayed there, should be an all-time classic. Like...Batman RIP, my favorite Batman story of all time, is number 65. It's stiff competition up there. So it's with that said I wasn't really seeing the 49-ness of The Man Without Mercy as I was reading it. Bullseye's motivations were unclear and it doesn't really cohere into a strong motivation - he wants to ruin DD's name, but he sort of half-asses it the whole time, kinda? Bullseye is like a mass murdering lunatic, if he really wanted to make Daredevil look evil as hell he could've just killed a bunch of people in the DD costume and be done with it. He mostly just fucks around with minor burglary, then kidnaps/rescues a wealthy socialite with severe mental issues, that he then sorta rapes? Or at least it's kind of implied that he attempts to except his dick don't work right? It's just all sort of confused and muddled. There's a throughline with Ben Urich noting "evil" Daredevil and waffling on whether or not to expose him that doesn't really feel like it goes anywhere or coheres into anything meaningful, and despite the elements of the "Jack" storyline that are him interacting with the downtrodden - Nyla, especially, who comes across as a really good love interest - there's just as much of him suffering delusional nightmares with him, Stick, and Elektra trying desperately to regain his memories that's insufferably loving boring and unnecessary. Even the boxing subplot, which dominates the latter half of the story, sort of feels like giving Matt something to do that isn't "be Daredevil" when he can't be Daredevil, even if parts of it - the Jack flashback portions, especially - are really good and impactful. And then the final issue happens. The final issue of The Man Without Mercy - wherein Matt, with his memories fully intact, decides to throw on Bullseye's old costume to terrorize Bullseye-as-Daredevil - is loving incredible. I've heard this arc described as the story where "Daredevil as Bullseye fights Bullseye as Daredevil", but that only happens in the final issue - there's basically no real out-and-out superheroics until 290. It's largely one fight scene, and it's so incredible because it's able to encapsulate how similar Daredevil and Bullseye are - and not in the lovely, "Batman and the Joker are the same person" sort of aggressively patronizing way, but by highlighting how Bullseye and Daredevil are only really separated by their restraint. The costume means something to Matt Murdock, and to Bullseye, because when he's out of it Matt can fight as dirty as he wants to, and he revels in it. By the time 290 happens, Bullseye realizes that Daredevil is an ideal he holds himself to, the man he wishes he was fighting and stopping the man that he is, whom he hates. There's this constant shifting who the "good guy" and the "bad guy" is, and I literally forgot halfway through that the person in the Daredevil costume was literally Bullseye, because he himself had forgot that he wasn't. Nocenti is able to paint the moral shifts both characters go through in this issue, so the final, incredibly depressing final page of the comic - with Bullseye-as-Daredevil, having been defeated by Daredevil-as-Bullseye, only for Daredevil to rip the mask off of Bullseye and hug it, saying "You don't know who you are. I don't know who I am. We turned out to be same person, didn't we?" - lands extremely well. I think this single issue is powerful by itself, but as the capper of a seven-issue story all about the rediscovery of who Daredevil is and what he means, and as a treatise on the context within which morality and what is "moral" can be defined, it's pretty astounding. In Conclusion I heard Chris Sims describe Nocenti's DD run as one that has incredibly silly or insane things that are then mined for greater emotional payoffs, and the end of "The Man Without Mercy" is pretty much that. I've never really been that big a DD fan, but I think this story really does make a good case for Daredevil as a compelling character whom you should read that is specifically different than most other superheroes, even street-level ones. If you've never read any DD stories before, this is definitely a good one to start with, as long as you know who Bullseye is and his relationship to Daredevil. To me, the very best comics stories are ones that encapsulate everything about who the character is and why you should care about them, and make a strong case for reading more of their informed history. (The most obvious example of this being Batman: Year One, a story that started off as number one on ESE for a reason). Nocenti's seven-issue story, "The Man Without Mercy", accomplishes this task pretty adroitly; I want to read more Daredevil stories after reading this one, which is saying something for a character I'm more or less largely indifferent to. I highly recommend people read this story, especially if you consider yourself a DD fan and never read this one. It's definitely an all-time classic.
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Jan 7, 2018 20:04
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Ann Nocenti had John Romita Jr./Al Williamson on art for most of her Daredevil run, and while I appreciate Lee Weeks, his art (particularly here, just a couple of years into his pro career) is a massive step down from JRJR/Williamson's art, which is fantastic. I don't really know how things get put on that list, but reading the semi-desultory wrap-up/reset that Nocenti did at the end of a 50+ issue run is a weird way to be introduced to a work.
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Jan 7, 2018 20:28
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Edge & Christian posted:Ann Nocenti had John Romita Jr./Al Williamson on art for most of her Daredevil run, and while I appreciate Lee Weeks, his art (particularly here, just a couple of years into his pro career) is a massive step down from JRJR/Williamson's art, which is fantastic. They're submitted by listeners in groups of three as individual stories and then ranked according to if Matt and Chris have read it and can remember it well enough to rank it. I remember them gushing about how sick Daredevil-as-Bullseye fighting Bullseye-as-Daredevil was, and that's about it. Also yeah it did definitely feel like a wrap-up story, but I felt it worked more or less fine on its own outside the requisite "Huh I guess...Daredevil fought the Devil or something last arc? Well okay." I more or less Got It as "Something bad happened to Matt last arc that made him suffer a nervous breakdown. Anyways I'm gonna roll for myself again.  Well gently caress. I got 565. Maximum Clonage. If I remember correctly that's specifically the issues where Ben Reilly and Peter Parker try and figure out once and for all who is the clone and who isn't. I've never actually read the Clone Saga, and it feels like I should to get the context of this utterly context-less story but boy I don't want to read like two years of not good Spider-Man stories spread over 4 comics. I'll ask Clone Saga experts for their opinions on this one. ed: Oh also:  I PUT EVERYONE'S NAMES IN THE OP. I listed everyone's completed reviews and ones still left to do, check it to make sure you're on there and remember that you're toxxed to do this in thirty days, so yeah.
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Jan 7, 2018 20:38
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Lick! The! Whisk! posted:You get 156. The Adventures of Dr. McNinja: I Told You That Story So I Could Tell You This One/Spooky Stuff/Punch Dracula. Back to back webcomics! Lucky you. Also, COLLUSION! The first comic on the list made by a (former) goon. I Told You...etc starts here. Aren’t the Atomic Robo guys also goons? When I finish this and reroll, what other goon webcomics are on this list that I can expect to reroll into?
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Jan 7, 2018 20:43
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Jordan7hm posted:Aren’t the Atomic Robo guys also goons? Well there's Gunshow: Anime Club on the list, so at least one more.
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Jan 7, 2018 20:46
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I love whoever came up with Kang's "lounge on a floating pillow" entrance that's apparently canon, since that's exactly how he shows up in this story. It's like Darkseid always sitting in your easy chair when you get home--kind of takes the arrogance and power of a king on a throne and transfers it.  I know almost nothing about Kang, so I'm looking forward to seeing how what strikes me as a really goofy character ends up elevating this arc to the list of Good Comics.
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Jan 7, 2018 21:22
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I've been kicking around the idea of doing a weird, long form comics commentary thing and this might make for some fun practice. So I'm in. Sadly, I think I've read a solid majority of the list (including the bad stuff) so I've got my fingers crossed that I get something really obscure. A Strange Aeon posted:I love whoever came up with Kang's "lounge on a floating pillow" entrance that's apparently canon, Don Heck, I think. And that's probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said about him.
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Jan 7, 2018 22:02
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