Doktor

And that post right there is why I'm still searching high & low for the single copy of Stormwatch 37 in 9.8 on the census. It was a watershed moment for the small-publisher storyteller actually challenging the big 2 on a critical level and not just on the "appeal to the 14-year old fanboy" level. (Though, Claremont coming over to Cyber Force also was pretty big & pretty good. If Top Cow hadn't temporarily split from Image just before that & then come back later, it would have been probably on that 2nd tier of "holy , this is awesome!" critical response that Ellis & Moore got) Add in Joe Casey's work on Sleeper/Point Blank & Wildcats a following Moore, and you're getting into that next-step that Image needed at the time to not let the wonderful work of Moore & Ellis die on the vine. They needed to continue that progression from "pretty art" to "great comics" and guys like Casey really helped there.

Oh yes. You very very much do.

The 2 Vol 1 TPBS were only the 12-issue Ellis run & the beginning of Millar. There's the whole Millar run as well. I think there were 4 TPBS for all of Vol 1. Authority: Relentless Authority: Under New Management Authority: Earth Inferno & Other Stories Authority: Transfer of Power But it skipped a couple issues (including a few of the issues written by Peyer & the one that was a "back-door pilot" for The Monarchy spinoff title) Vol 3 was done as Authority: Revolution Vol 1 & Vol 2 Plus as SeanFingh noted, Stormwatch (Vol 1) 37-50 & Stormwatch (vol 2) 1-12 and the Wildcats/Aliens crossover (seriously, it's SUPER important for the evolution of Stormwatch into the Authority)

It was mostly because DC essentially gutted the book by editorial fiat. They screwed with Millar's run badly (that's why 3-4 issues in the middle of Millar's run were done by Tom Peyer), including outright re-writing some of his scripts. They cancelled Azzarello's run entirely that was scheduled to follow up starting at issue 30. Paul Levitz went wildly out of his way to absolutely destroy this title because he absolutely hated the title. He saw it as something that made the Justice League look bad (it did). And was furious that the Midnighter/Apollo analogues to Batman/Superman not only being gay but also becoming more popular than actual Batman/Superman at the time was completely unacceptable. And that DC owned the "gay Batman & Superman" was equally unacceptable. Levitz had a serious mad-on for this book & made no bones about it. (It's the reason Millar refused to work for DC for over a decade even though they made multiple attempts to steal him away during the height of his Marvel popularity) The result was Volume 2 with a shill writer that would write generic c-level superhero comics that would keep DC Comics happy & Levitz THOUGHT would be "good enough" to keep Authority fans happy too. (Sorry, but Levitz wouldn't be able to know what a really good story was if it hit him in the skull with a baseball bat)

What are they going to do? Buy Netflix for a month is the likely answer.

While it looks better in the body than the foam suit that Chiklis wore in the other 2 FF movies, the color is too muted & to be honest, he looks more like Rockslide from the X-Men/Young X-Men than he does the Thing. It's all in the face. Knowing that Trank told the actors to not read the comics to prep for the movie, maybe he just saw "oh, rock guy, must be the Thing" and was looking at a Young X-Men comic when he was working out the designs for Ben here.

Apparently EW is reporting that there will be a AoS spin-off series coming this fall as well. So there will be 2 Marvel shows on ABC. Don't have any details yet. It could be like a spec-ops team or an Inhumans show or even Ward/Agent 33 as Taskmaster/Madam Masque or something. But we're getting a spin-off (in addition to anything that they plan to do with Agent Carter or a different early-SHIELD or SSR type show)

I have never read what Ellis' take was, but that has been my impression. I really liked Millar's arc too, but it did feel like a letdown. I remember him saying that, with the exception of Authority: Widescreen (which never was released or finished because of 9/11), he had said all he needed to about the natural evolution of superheroes with StormWatch/Authority, or something to that effect. I don't disagree but I was so disappointed when it was over. I never read much of either series after Millar's run. Any of the later series that you guys would suggest picking up ? Brubaker's Authority: Revolution (which was essentially Vol 3) was quite good but not quite on the level of Millar or definitely Ellis. But it was MUCH better than Vol 2 (which was, IMO, atrocious) I was massively disappointed as well when it was over. It felt like Ellis/Hitch, even with their slow output schedules, could have built something not seen since Lee/Kirby FF or Claremont X-Men (1st go around) creativity-wise.

I have never read what Ellis' take was, but that has been my impression. I really liked Millar's arc too, but it did feel like a letdown. I remember him saying that, with the exception of Authority: Widescreen (which never was released or finished because of 9/11), he had said all he needed to about the natural evolution of superheroes with StormWatch/Authority, or something to that effect.

Yup. Time to re-read Stormwatch 37 thru Authority 12.

Why do you think he left the series after that? He wanted to just go as hard as he could & then walk away.

All of my StormWatch/Authority sit raw, but this is easily tied (for different reasons) with Planetary as one of my top titles of the past 30 years. It's just perfect. It's the Avengers turning into the Justice League while pioneering widescreen violence & actually working to change the world & not just keep the status quo. It's just... excellent. This & Planetary & Joe Casey's Wildcats runs were seriously just everything you could want in modern comics. It was like a 2nd Silver Age at Wildstorm in that era. *Edit* - *spoon*ing auto-correct

I still think Gordon is going to be the Reader character from the Inhuman comic. And I think Raina is almost definitely Naja but hasn't sprouted her glider-wing-things yet. Or learned how to. I agree. I think most of the AoS Inhumans will end up being the ones from the Inhuman series, while the movie Inhumans will end up being the royal family (with the potential for some of the tv show characters to show up if they stick around long enough. Though with the actress that plays Raina leaving at some point to be on the Preacher AMC show as Tulip, it might be hard to keep her around even showing up in guest spots) The show has grown in leaps & bounds since season 1 and has been getting better & better weekly. It's going to be around for a while, even if it eventually gets shuffled off to a less prime airing spot. It's Marvel's primary way to keep interest between movies & keep growing the universe outside of 2-3 movies per year. It's the connective tissue & while more might show up, I think this one will remain the primary one. Disney/Marvel/ABC, as long as they're not LOSING money on the show only care about ratings as a gauge as to what is appealing to viewers and what isn't to keep more eyes on their product and potentially increase movie revenue. Everything else is gravy. It's a 1-hour commercial every week for their brand that they make money airing.

Only 1 book this week. Stashing cash away because I can't decide between another car/car project & a silver-age key.

In fairness, if I recall correctly (that's the JRJR art one, right?), that DD mini-series was available both as single issues but also in combo-pack type thing where they were all came together (like they sold on those home shopping channels when they'd do the comic book special nights on QVC or whatever during the dark days of speculation). Maybe he misinterpreted your listing as one of the combo-pack deal ones where they should all be a matching set & worded his message poorly? It was a really dumb & pointless message though either way. All 5 issues are there.

Burned my ebay bucks & picked this up for ~$6 out of pocket (even did local pickup from the seller since he's only 25 minutes away). Not the nicest copy but it definitely fills a hole in my collection for the price of a fancy coffee. No complaints here.

Exactly. Marvel says "we already paid for all the story boards we could ever need when we wrote paychecks to Jack & the rest. We're just figuring out how to transpose those from printed picture to in front of the camera now".

I just have a feeling this movie will be very Man of Steel-ish. Not necessarily a bad movie, in fact a pretty OK movie. Just not a good FF movie. And that's where the problems will be for both the critical, fan and financial reception. Making a good movie is very often an excellent guarantee of success. Making a good movie that banks on at least some existing pop-culture knowledge of the source material is an even better guarantee of success. But making a good movie that banks on some of that existing pop-culture knowledge of the source material but ignoring the same source material inevitably feels like a bit of a bait & switch to those viewers that you drew in because of name recognition. You get the hate thrown back at you in the media & your franchise becomes the butt of jokes because people just simplify it into "not good" instead of "not a good FF movie but otherwise, if it was called something else and used different names with slightly different powers as an original concept, would have been considered very good". *edit* on an entirely unrelated note, I looked through that site someone linked to a few pages back on the 1963 live-action FF tv show and found the one with Doom... How does Hollywood not just go "no, seriously, just do this. It worked in 1963 & it still looks badass now" Doom

I'm going to binge the out of this show. And then probably turn around and start watching it all over again on Saturday.

I disagree with sellers considering a query on price as an intent to purchase for that price. I think it's being presumptuous on the part of a seller. "would you take $X?" is not the same question as "would you take $X? If so, I'll take it". One asks a question about if you would be willing to accept something, the other asks the same question but also confirms a desire to pay that price. Open-ended query vs query with implication dependent upon the response.

that's a really really clean looking copy.

Yeah, as a buyer, I'm of the opinion that until the is posted, it's not really sold. BUT.... It's on the buyer to be clear & let the seller know if they actually want it once they've initiated the negotiation to figure out a price. Just bailing on the conversation or walking away? Not even slightly cool. Not quite PL or HOS worthy, but definitely "well screw you too, buddy!" worthy. Buyers have a duty to be clear on if they actually want to buy the book or if they're just kicking the tires.

Some of what you quoted was set-up stuff that was done in the Agent Carter TV show (and tied into the SHIELD tv show). The events of those shows will likely tie back into the movies eventually (since they both were spin-offs from the movies to begin with). That's done easily with a 2 minute backstory of the character if necessary. But Marvel is also getting to the point where they're saying "look, we're not hand-holding anymore. Figure it out. You're smart enough to do it. We've covered it somewhere so far" the same way they do with comics (flight of fancy: I can only image the applause the movie would get if an editor's note box popped up in the corner of a screen at some point down the line)

I snipe manually. Have only lost on 1 auction in the past 2 years.

Wow. So... that whole thing just vanished? I've seen a lot more stuff just go poof here in the past month than I have in the past year.