Official February Comic/Manga Thread

[Shine]

Mzo: I read the Obsidian Age on your urging and all I can say is "Flash = Pants shitted!" Great story, and because of that I'm now reading JLA regularly.

I just polished off Tower of Babel (thanks M) and it's probably one of the best stories I've ever read. Batman is DC's coolest, and most fucked up, character.

I do have a few questions though:
Isn’t Kyle Rayner Guy Gardner?
If Kyle sacrificed his life for the League, and Apache Chief sacrificed his for Kyle, then why the fuck is he still alive at the end?
Now that Apache Chief is back, when will we see the other ethnic characters like Black Vulcan?

Runaways is by far one of Marvels best new mags on the market and I can’t wait to see how this one evolves.

I’ve also caught up on Amazing Spiderman and I’m still far from reading all of the X-men stuff. Starting from ish #1 of uncanny is harder than I thought – it’s almost painful to read in fact – Stan Lee is a shitty writer. Not that the new stuff is any less painful. I mean, they’re all way too powerful and they cheapen death to the point where if you were to see a character die, it’s because they were stupid enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, otherwise Warren could’ve saved them…

I’ll bitch more about the X-men later but for now, share your recent readings and suggestions.

[James]

It's been a pretty sparse couple of weeks for comics, only one or two here and there, but this week had a whopping five! Woo!

Global Frequency 11- I need to go back to several months ago and check, was 10 really the last issue released? This one took so long I've no idea. Great read as usual, but sooner would have been better.

Two Step- Now this one is just fun. Warren Ellis is just cutting loose on this three-parter, I'm kind of sad that it's only got the one short story in it.

Ultimate Fantastic Four- Damn you Bendis! Damn you to hell for making my buy yet another series! (Bragging- I have both issues of Fire, bought when they came out.)

Powers 36- Bendis, part 2. Is it just me or wasn't this supposed to be the last of the history lesson? Great read and no complaints, I just thought this issue ended it. I also like the way the story overflowed the interior and took over the inside and outside back cover.

Wanted 2- Pointless nihilism at it's most average. I was expecting better from Millar, and I'm seeing a glimmer of hope here and there that it might get better, but in the mean time it seems to just be an exercise in creating yet another dark, hopeless world. With super powers.

Good week overall. I almost got the first two issues of the Ennis Punisher, just to see them. Then I counted how much cash I had on me and passed.

James

[Shine]

Just finished up Origin, and, though it was good, I wish they'd gone further into the Weapons I-XV program. BTW is Dog supposed to be Sabertooth? I mean, he looks almost exactly like him, if it weren't for the scars anyhow.

[Jetman]

Isn’t Kyle Rayner Guy Gardner?
If Kyle sacrificed his life for the League, and Apache Chief sacrificed his for Kyle, then why the fuck is he still alive at the end?
Now that Apache Chief is back, when will we see the other ethnic characters like Black Vulcan?

Nope Kyle and Guy are two different people.Not sure what Guy's up to currently but I know I saw him in a JSA x-over a couple of issues ago.

its been a while since I read Obsidian Age but I want to say that the Apache Chief that is still alive is the one from the past - the one that died was in the present -- BAH damn time continuity bullshit


Picked up both Ultimate Fantastic Four issues. So far they are starting off okay I guess. Although I dont quite understand how Benn Grimm just happens to walk up on Dr. Storms big top secret project out in the middle of the desert like that at the end of issue 2. I doubt the government would be cool with just anyone, friend of Reed or not, watching the results of a top secret project.

Also got Superman/Batman #5 - was kind of pissed that we didnt get to see how the hell Supes and Bats won the fight against two of the JSA's greatest, but we did get to see Luthor beating the fuck out of nearly all of the Bat family, and come close to killing off Supes' pals as well. And I'm not quite sure what the point of ...uhhh ...Batman and Superman's "castling" plan was. Unless they had something else in mind and the kids barging into the white house just mucked it up..?


Oh and yeah Shine - until an Origin II comes out the consensus is that Dog = Sabretooth.

[Damian79]

I just got into the manga "My name is Zushio!". It is one of the funniest ones I have read in a long time, it literally had me LOLing all over the start despite having such a slow start.


The torrent:

http://64.62.145.165:6969/torrents/M...BMS%5D.torrent

[Lordmrw]

Also got Superman/Batman #5 - was kind of pissed that we didnt get to see how the hell Supes and Bats won the fight against two of the JSA's greatest, but we did get to see Luthor beating the fuck out of nearly all of the Bat family, and come close to killing off Supes' pals as well. And I'm not quite sure what the point of ...uhhh ...Batman and Superman's "castling" plan was. Unless they had something else in mind and the kids barging into the white house just mucked it up..?

to answer shine's other question, black vulcan is basically black lightning. he is currently lex luthor's secretary of education, and recently appeared in green arrow and next month's outsiders.

the superman/batman thing bothered me too. I really wanted to see how they whooped hawkman and captain marvel's ass. The point of their castling plan was to let the other person deal with someone they don't have a disadvantage against. But lets be honest, how in the hell is batman supposed to stop CAptain Marvel. The part about the superman/batman family breaking into the white house was due to luthor prematurely announcing that he had the two heroes in captivity. And yes, the kids mucked up the plan.

[Will]

Mzo: I read the Obsidian Age on your urging and all I can say is "Flash = Pants shitted!" Great story, and because of that I'm now reading JLA regularly.

Well I actually recommended The Obsidian Age to ya'll but yeah I think 'The Obsidian Age' is one of the best Joe Kelly has done in his run, lots of underused characters get the spotlight while others step up their game.

I just polished off Tower of Babel (thanks M) and it's probably one of the best stories I've ever read. Batman is DC's coolest, and most fucked up, character.

Another awesome read, Mark Waid's best effort on the title and Howard Porter turned in some really solid art. The other stories Mark did with Bryan Hitch were pretty good too and it had some really nice art.

Runaways is by far one of Marvels best new mags on the market and I can’t wait to see how this one evolves.

I'm surprised you picked this up since it's a pretty obscure corner of Marvel's titles but it's cool to see you enjoy it, it is definitely my favorite Marvel Tsunami title as well as ranking high with my other faves.

I’ve also caught up on Amazing Spiderman and I’m still far from reading all of the X-men stuff.

Amazing Spiderman started out very strong and is usually solid month in and month out. What I like about it is it's classic type of storytelling, I only wish JMS stopped with that Ezekiel/Spider Totem thing.

Starting from ish #1 of uncanny is harder than I thought – it’s almost painful to read in fact – Stan Lee is a shitty writer. Not that the new stuff is any less painful. I mean, they’re all way too powerful and they cheapen death to the point where if you were to see a character die, it’s because they were stupid enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, otherwise Warren could’ve saved them…

Eh?!? What Uncanny issue(s) are you talking about?

I’ll bitch more about the X-men later but for now, share your recent readings and suggestions.

I suggest getting all the New X-Men trades from when Grant Morrison came onboard, you'll see some drastic changes as well as a kind of retelling of other similar tales in his type of style. The current books of New are taking place in a futuristic storyline with Marc Silvestri(former X-Men penciler and Image founder) and he's easily turning in stuff that rivals Jim Lee's Batman efforts.

Some people might not like his Image'ish hatching/cross hatching style but I dig it alot since it's been a while since I've seen them drawn that way. The storyline is really icool too, I read in Wizard that this current arc will somehow answer questions to the other plotlines left hanging in previous issues.

I picked up a stack of comics today after being away from the US for a while so I have some catching up to do but I did check out this month's Wizard(luckily nabbed the Secret War cover) and it has some great coverage of upcoming stuff. I'm especially excited about:

-Millar/Dodson(s) Spiderman launch issue which had absolutely terrific art even if it had a printing error on the first Goblin splash page Writing was pretty good too Millar shows certain facets of the hero used before and keeps it entertaining. Nothing GREAT from what I see but I'll be buying.

-Secret War which looks awesome if it's as good as the first.

-Brian Azzarello/Jim Lee's upcoming Superman run and beleive me it could top Jim Lee's Batman art!

-A good amount of Hellboy movie pics and coverage.

-Blade Trinity movie stills.

-Joe Quesada coming back to do another Daredevil Story.

-Firestorm being revamped and relaunched into his own series which has been planned for a good time now.

-Cool feature on unused 15 heroes/villains from Marvel and DC that could be revamped and be very cool.

I'll post some reviews once I read some

[Shine]

Will: New X-men isn't much better than Uncanny (that's what I was refering to earlier by the by,) that whole "Ohh, look it's MAGNETOOOOooooo! *DUN DUN DUN*, and now he's addicted to smack!" fiasco was not neccesary. I'm also not liking the power levels here, I mean, Logan was damn fucking near on top of the sun and he didn't die, Magneto went 9/11 on New York with a wave of his hand, and Gene (and I know that she's got the pheonix to blame for much of that but still...)

I'm not saying that it's overall bad writing, just need some major tweaking.