The Weekly Comics Grind

[Melf]

R.I.P. Jonathan Kent... again.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Superman's dad has died again.

DC Comics has killed off Clark Kent's Earth father with a heart attack. In Action Comics No. 870, out Wednesday, Superman can't hear his mom's cries for help in time to save Jonathan Kent.

The TV Jonathan -- played by John Schneider -- died long ago on CW's "Smallville."

In the original Superman tales of the 1940s, Clark Kent's parents died while he was still a teen. And in the 1978 "Superman" movie that starred Christopher Reeve, Jonathan Kent, played by Glenn Ford, also died of a heart attack.

[James]

They need to trim the Superman books back to just the one, then give Grant Morrison as much money as he wants to write it every month. That's the point at which I'd start buying it for the first time in decades.

Anyone else pick up Garth Ennis's Crossed this week? I think I'm going to like where this is going, but the payoff two-page spread was such a Garth Ennis standard that it lost most of its impact. We get it, Ennis, you don't like fanboys.

James

[Geo]

Wizard has a nice little retrospective on his career thus far, with some quotes from Morrison.

Also, I recently bummed a read of Marvel Boy. I'm kicking myself that I only finally read it now, and I loved it. Marvel finally has it back in print, in a standard hardcover, so I'll need to get that to add to the bookshelf to read again and again.

I hate that Jemas didn't greenlight Marvel Boy 2, which Morrison has spoken of from time to time with great affection and excitement, so hopefully that will come out sometime in the future.

Also, the next issue of Final Crisis should be coming soon, no? I've been enjoying that greatly, which more often than not is far from the case in these type of things.

[Black Adam]

I've only recently (within the past month) really gotten into comics.

But I fucking love 'em. DC ftw. I'm in love with literally every DC title I can get my hands on, and many more that I can't.

[StriderKyo]

I've only recently (within the past month) really gotten into comics.

But I fucking love 'em. DC ftw. I'm in love with literally every DC title I can get my hands on, and many more that I can't.

Final Crisis is worth getting into. People are mixed on the man series so far, but the tie-ins are pretty much universally praised as being awesome, particularly Rogue's Revenge & Legion of Three Worlds. Revelations ain't bad either.

For DC Universe stuff, you need to read:

Justice League International - the best/funniest comic ever.

JLA - Morrison run - mindbowing epic after mindblowing epic. The best treatment the main JLA has ever gotten.

Crisis on Infinite Earths -the crossover by which all others are measured. If you don't know who George Perez is yet, you will learn to respect him. This story ended all DC continuity that had come before it.

Identity Crisis - Part of the overarching Crisis storyline, novelist Brad Meltzer's Identity Crisis is really a down to Earth story about a murder that somehow manages to involve half the DCU without getting as operatic and overblown as these stories tend to. It was shocking to the point that fanboys freaked and felt betrayed they'd tell the dark story they did - it hit almost too hard for some people.

Infinite Crisis - The full sequel to COIE 20 years later is insane crisis piled on top of insane crisis. The world has been taken over by cyborg killers run by a corrupted intelligent satellite created by Batman. The Justice League's watchtower has been destroyed. Superman is being mind-controlled. All the villains have banded together to kill everyone. The planets Rann and Thanagar are involved in a bloody interstellar war sucking in the Green Lanterns and all the other planets around them, including Earth. Worse than that, the Spectre, God's wrath incarnate, has gone insane and is rampaging across the Earth destroying all magic in the world, and killing all its users.

And none of those are even the real threat, which turns out to be even worse than all of the above and takes up most of the series (I can't tell you what it is without spoiling Crisis on Infinite Earths). That's how you write a fucking blockbuster crossover plot, Bendis!

Starman - James Robinson's seminal run is often quoted as one of the best superhero series ever.

JSA - Geoff Johns era - no matter how goofy or square you think the golden age characters are, by the time Johns is done with you you'll be a believer. Though I'm guessing by your user name you're already reading this.

Batman stuff:

Year One
Killing Joke
Long Halloween
Dark Victory
Arkham Asylum
Dark Knight Returns

^ Everyone's list will be different, but it's generally agreed those are pretty much the cannon of truly great Batman stories.

Vertigo-type Stuff:

Doom Patrol - Morrison era - just about the weirdest superhero comic ever, but I put it up there with Justice League International as one of my favourite runs of all time. It's not for everyone, but if you can imagine a zen koan constructed from dadaist non-sequiturs with a smattering of spiritual alchemical allegory based on the Wizard of Oz but on acid, you've got a small idea of what this is like.

Watchmen - Came out before Vertigo existed, but close enough. This is mandatory reading for any comics fan.

V For Vendetta - What Moore did after Watchmen, is a classic in its own right.

Sandman - Neil Gaiman's Sandman was a huge turning point in comics in general, and is widely considered if not the best written series ever, on everyone's top 5 list. Gaiman is still considered one of the three best writers in comics and he's hardly done anything in comics since.

Preacher - Everyone loves Preacher. It's the favourite comic of people who don't even like comics. A guy gets the power of God and drives around with his ex-girlfriend and an alcoholic vampire looking for the Heavenly Father, who's quit Heaven, all while being chased by an invincible cowboy assassin among others. It's funny, violent and serious all at the same time.

There's lots more, and everyone will have their own favourites, you'd probably get more than one recommendation for Green Lantern or Y the Last Man or Fables, but as a general outline you can't go wrong with any of the above.

[Geo]

First off, I'm not a big Geoff Johns fan, I just like his work well enough I suppose. However for what he does and for who, I think he does a great job in fact. He can really hit those high notes for some comic readers, and I can appreciate that.

I find his Superman with Gary Frank to be a nice read but a little underwhelming. Moreso the Brainiac arc than the Legion arc, it just felt a little flat for whatever reason.

But I have to give Johns credit for Justice Society, having read the last few issues of that, as I think he's doing something ambitious and interesting there.

[James]

Transmetropolitan needs a mention in the Vertigo column, too. Warren Ellis's story of a pissed-off reporter in the anything-goes city of the future is still my favorite thing he's done.

James

[YellerDog]

Transmet may be my favorite comic, period.

[Black Adam]

I love JSA and the Golden Age stuff, but I've only read one JSA comic. I don't know what my user-name has to do with that. Black Adam isn't a villain specifically associated with Golden Age.

I've read all of those Batman comics and more. My favorite of the lot is The Dark Returns.

I plan on reading all of that.

And on a final note, I'm pretty fucking pissed that there isn't an adult Captain Marvel comic right now. I read Billy Batson and the Magic of Shazam!, but it's a kid comic. It's not quite as entertaining to me.

[StriderKyo]

I love JSA and the Golden Age stuff, but I've only read one JSA comic. I don't know what my user-name has to do with that. Black Adam isn't a villain specifically associated with Golden Age.

He's mainly been a JSA character the last few years. That was the series that really made him as a popular character; he was around but he wasn't that big a deal before that. He was even a member of the team for a while. The next JSA arc is centered on him.