Ken Aldred

In the pages shown on Bleeding Cool, Captain Universe clearly states that 'he's shadow substance through and though', and so he's not a symbiote, more Marvel's version of DC's transdimensional villain, Shadow Thief. A retcon, maybe, but no original intention by Mantlo and Ditko.

But, all said there, and in the original post as well, you sound like a straight shooter with decent customer service backup should the worst occur.

Is this absolute, guaranteed, bottom-of-the-barrel drek with no hope whatsoever of being hyped up in a film, or might I be disappointed with the books gaining significant value later and then feeling badly misled by the claims made in your copy here?

Easy to pick up great games for £10 to £15 which can give you hundreds of hours of play per campaign, particularly RPGs.

Wouldn’t that also require the new boss to be a visionary with an idea for a direction in comics that would be quite novel and have a greater, mass market appeal, despite critics claiming that all we have now from DC is lazy, safe, tiring repetition of old story ideas? I’d be impressed if a saviour on that level appeared again, I really would.

485 to 504 The Eternals by Jack Kirby : Eternals 1 to 19, Annual 1 (20 issues) Always fantastic to revisit this series, which reminds me of when I first started collecting in 1977, and it was the first run I bought entirely by mail order. Great characters; Ikaris and Sersi, and I’ve always thought The Celestials look absolutely brilliant; effortlessly intimidating despite doing little to us other than observing, unless provoked. It has classic moments such as the arrival of the space gods themselves and one of Kirby’s darkest stories, set in the Deviant city of Lemuria. Powerful stuff. Certainly, it’s patchy overall: the Deviant invasion of New York doesn’t really make much sense, the Uni-Mind doesn’t do much, and the Cosmic Hulk story is very, very weak. Despite that, there’s still Kirby’s energy, excitement and imagination keeping me going through to the end. Classic, significant Bronze Age.

469 to 484 Secret Wars mini-series, Part 3 (16 issues in total) Age of Ultron / Marvel Zombies (4 issues) Okay read, but let down by a poorly-executed, rushed ending. Nice art from Steve Pugh. Putting an Old West Hank Pym in a super-science environment seems a bit of a stretch. Amazing Spider-Man Renew Your Vows (5 issues) Peter and MJ back together again. Good story from Dan Slott and Adam Kubert. Captain Britain and the Mighty Defenders (2 issues) Excellent short story from Al Ewing with nice Alan Davis art. I liked the Dredd-influenced Battleworld region. Hank Johnson, Agent of Hydra (1 issue) Silly one-shot about the life of a Hydra henchman, both at work and family life at home. Always good to have a change of pace. Hail Hydra (4 issues) Nomad, Ian Rogers, having survived the death of the multiverse, ends up in a Battleworld region controlled by Hydra, and, using a common trope, meets an evil alternate version of himself. Okay.

Both of you have covered favourites already. Others I like are... issue 3's 'What If The Avengers had never been?', with some very nice Kane / Janson art as well issue 20's "What If The Avengers had fought the Kree-Skrull War without Rick Jones?' issue 36's 'What If The FF had not gained their superpowers?' (basically, they become The Challengers) Also, issue 34, second series 'What if The Punisher was a Hall Monitor?'

Miles and Kamala are great characters and have highly-readable stories, whether for a teenager or a fiftysomething like me. Nothing wrong with the comics. Some of the best mainstream of the past decade or so. Deservedly popular.

A way to test that would be to get boardies' opinions on Dynamite Comics' output. Many of their books use public domain super-hero characters. It's a possible, current benchmark.

Just had a look at it, Kav. On my phone it's a problem, especially with small, embedded videos, but my laptop's ad blocker seems very effective.

The reason I suggested Amazon Prime is that I'm already watching DC material there; Swamp Thing, Stargirl, Preacher, and The Boys, the last of which was originally published by them for a short while. The small acorns are already in place.

Possibly an exaggeration. I can't envisage a scenario such as... "I used to write three books a month for DC, but after the cutbacks and with their punitively-reduced pay rates I discovered that I could earn more by working as an Appalachian miner instead."

The first series What If? trades are quite nice. Difficult to imagine there’d be anything more done in terms of remastering for an omnibus.

An Archangel, no less.

Yup. Cute, hilarious, fascinating, but environmentally-destructive, pitiless killing machines. But, they're cute, hilarious and fascinating.

Perhaps it will make the error of antagonising a murder of aggressive crows someday.

Very impressive. It does make me think about how much shelf space would be required for physical copies of my large digital manga collection, courtesy of Kodansha / Humble Bundle. Every volume of Battle Angel Alita, for example.

Amazon has Comixology Originals, in-house comic book publication, something I see while digital browsing there. Buying DC and adding their intellectual property to the portfolio might be quite an attractive prospect, for Amazon Original films as well as comics.

You are absolutely right. I was thinking more ‘glass half-full’, a grinding, difficult campaign with a positive outcome.

That one failed miserably, though. Overlord would’ve been better.

I’ll second it. Superb post.

I’m very enthusiastic too, but the focus can shift dramatically, as it did with me. The major difference is really that I’m long in the tooth, grey-haired, and looking back on my journey without your youthful energy and ambition. For me, the path wasn’t quite as linear as the one you’re intending to start out on.

That’s a good point, Steve. It’s impossible to say if you’ll be able to maintain the same focus and momentum in the long term. I know that with comics I’m in a very different place now than I was in the 80s and 90s, and the goals I had then don’t appeal to me any more. I look back and ruminate about the same thing you mentioned, was my strategy misguided, should I have bought more keys at then much lower prices rather than a ton of cheap, ultimately worthless bargain box reading material? The best outlook is to realise that it was right for you then, but, long term, your perception can change markedly and can kill those early ambitions. I’m not saying don’t attempt this lofty goal, just adding my experience in there as a caveat.

I agree.