F For Fake

Earlier in the thread (sorry, too lazy to go back and look) someone mentioned the Alex Ross JSA covers, and I agree, I think they're super, particularly the black "portrait" covers. So simple and powerful. Picked up a run of these at a Peddler's Mall this weekend.

LCS had another sale, so I went back for the other Wolvies. Brown museum had sold, but I was happy to go ahead and pick up the X-Force piece.

The Missus and I headed down to the lake for the holiday weekend, which meant another pass by my favorite small town peddler's mall. After the haul I picked up a couple of weeks ago, I emailed the guy who owns the comic booth. I've never seen a comic booth in a Peddlers Mall that carried new books, but he said that he is trying to test the waters to see if he can sell enough new books in that very small town, to justify opening a full shop down the road. I wish him well, though I'd be surprised if that area could support a dedicated comic shop. But you never know! Anyway, I picked up a few more books from him, nearly all at below cover price. What makes it super special is all of his stuff is in GREAT shape. It looks like he probably started the booth up with his personal collection, and it looks like he carefully bagged and boarded everything right off the stands. Several of these I'll be able to send straight in to CGC without any tinkering. Some nice books! (The Action 775 includes the newsstand as well!)

Swampy may not be Wolverine-tier, but I'd argue that he's definitely in the Top 10 as far as DC's characters go. I remember being pleased when the ginormous 75 Years of DC Comics book was released, and the five characters placed on the spine were Bats, Supes, Wonder Woman, Sandman and Swamp Thing. That felt about right to me. Of course, I have argued many times that The Joker is DC's second most popular character, and Superman is actually in third place. I'd put Harley Quinn in fifth. But I'd wager that to the public at large, more people would recognize Swamp Thing than they would, say, Green Lantern? At any rate, it IS an awesome cover, and there's no doubt that's a huge attraction. For me, it's the whole stew: 1st appearance of a major pop culture character, gorgeous cover, legendary artist. As for the comparison to Conan, I'd posit that Conan was a heavily speculated title, whereas HoS 92 just sorta happened organically, and wouldn't have been held onto in the numbers that Conan was.

The ability to ignore a thread seems harmless enough, and perhaps even useful. I can get behind that. But as for requesting MORE censorship on a message board used by adults who choose to come here, I can't back that play. Politics should be allowed, adult language should be allowed, any topic should be allowed. Let consenting adults be consenting adults.

Well, like I said above, he's had two movies, an animated series, a truckload of toys, at least four comic book series, and a spot in an upcoming big film as well. I'd say he's made more than his fair share of money. So, for me, it's the character, but it's also that amazing cover, in a perfect marriage, that make it such a great book. Damn I really need to get another one.

I'd like to meet a guy named Robert Beerbong, because I bet he'd be a lot of fun.

It really is, like, unbelievably bad. I can't believe it actually made it to press.

Yup. It's a Spider-Man movie, but we get both an Iron Man AND Tony Stark pic in the poster. Who would have ever thought we'd see the day where they'd try to rely on Iron Man to sell a SPIDER-MAN movie? Crazy times.

Same here. I think it may be Spider-fatigue. We just got through a complete character reboot, and it was only, what, two years ago since the last one? This movie looks...fine. But there's nothing that really gets me stoked about it.

Yeah, it's pretty terrible. Image, IDW and some of the other indie houses use nice, thicker stock, but Marvel is printing the stuff on tissue paper these days.

I think/hope you're right. I'd like to see a return to the fun of the first season. There have been moments over the last two, but for the most part it's been way too much of Barry screwing up the time stream, moping around, and watching Iris die over and over again. I'm ready to get back to that more lighthearted, silver age-ish zip.

Agreed, "interesting" is about where I was. Do we do spoilers in this thread? Just in case:

Agreed on Wally being a terrible actor. And to be sure, I like Grant Gustin a lot, I think he's great. But Barry has been such a drag and an insufficiently_thoughtful_person for the last two seasons, I'm tired of him. If we could have Season 1 Barry back, I'd be all about his return!

I'll be curious to see what happens at this point. Ridley is on record saying he's got something like 6 more Alien movies planned out, but Covenant isn't exactly burning up the charts. It was #1 last week, but just barely, and if the standard rates of attrition are applied, it's going to struggle to make it to $100 million in the US. Abroad it will do better, but I don't think it's tracking to even do as well as Prometheus at this point. I think it was relatively cheap to make (budget was under $100 million) so I'm sure it'll be profitable. But whether or not it's profitable enough to justify making more, I'm not sure. At this point I'd say give the series a rest for another 10 years, then bring in a new visionary director with a NEW idea. No more prequels, no reboot. Do something new. Here's to hoping. (There's also the fact that Ridley is 80, so, one way or another, he's not going to be able to make these things forever, no matter how well they might do. )

I also must take issue with the continued line about the "kiddie" title. The various Batman the Animated series books (Batman Adventures, Batman and Robin Adventures, Batman Gotham Adventures) represent a highwater mark for the character in comics storytelling. Perhaps the line was initially aimed at "kiddies", but there's no question that the support for the title came from adults who appreciated the streamlined and FUN stories told in these books. I think they're among the best Bat comics ever published, and I'm definitely not alone in that. Not saying that this would impact the value of the cover at all, but the series is definitely remembered fondly by longtime Bat comic fans, not just kids who read it as it was coming out.

Agreed re: Harley's impact and influence being much, much greater than simply "Thus far Harley has been in a bad movie." You have 25 years now of viewership and nostalgia for Batman the Animated Series and all of its various media offshoots, toys, video games, animated sequels, etc. As has been pointed out, Harley's pop culture penetration is far greater than just Suicide Squad. It's much greater than just Cosplay at conventions. It IS Halloween costumes, it IS t-shirts at Hot Topic, it IS wildly popular video games like Injustice, etc. I'd argue that she's DC's fifth most popular character, after Batman, Joker, Superman, and now Wonder Woman, who I did have at #5, but is currently getting a bump due to the hype over the movie. Harley is huge, period.

In defense of that movie: duck boobs.

When I was working at a comic shop about 20 years ago, we had two copies come into the store. I instantly fell in love with the cover, and ended up putting it on layaway and making payments on it so it would be mine. I got it graded years later, and ended up selling, and that may still be my single greatest comic selling regret, as I've not been able to find a nicer copy anywhere near the same price. Now it's probably out of my price range for a super nice copy. I'm assuming the ramp up in pricing is related to the Justice League Dark movie (which as of this week is suddenly without a director), but it could also just be a general interest in picking up those second tier bronze keys. It's a beautiful cover, it's Wrightson, it's a first appearance of a character who has been in films, cartoons, toy lines, etc. If anything, it was probably undervalued for a long time.

Actually Imra and Garth had twins, one of which ended up becoming Validus IIRC.

And it doesn't help anything that for $12, you probably got 3 books that were printed on recycled garbage paper, the crumple the instant you touch them. Marvel is using some really shoddy stuff these days.

Dude, Paul Pope LoSH? I would be ALL OVER that.

And finally, after doing some research, it looks like the 20th century storyline started in LoSH v4 #85, again, running through 100. As much as I love the Grell, Giffen, TMk etc eras, there is also really something special about the Reboot LoSH. So bright, colorful, and fun. Loved those books. Hopefully they'll get their due one day.

Timber Wolf also had a mini-series set in the 20th century, and I'm pretty sure the entire Valor (aka Mon El) series was "present day", wasn't it?