delekkerste

They REALLY need to give him some kind of mask. The suspension of disbelief required to believe that Ollie's closest friends/family haven't recognized him after being in such close proximity is the only part of this otherwise fantastic show that is really grating at me.

No, I have a big problem with this too. I mean, I can believe all the other crazy superhero stuff before I can believe that Laurel and her father wouldn't have recognized Oliver being in that close proximity to him. I keep waiting for one of them to say, "Hey, wait a minute...Oliver, is that you?" The suspension of disbelief required is just too great. Give the man a mask already.

Thanks, guys! It's one of my favorite Dave covers, and I was thrilled to be able to acquire it. The link in the other post broke, so here it is again on a different hosting site:

I recently acquired this Dave Stevens cover for my original art collection. It's okay, I guess.

Anybody know where all the OA for the 10th anniversary cover variants from #115 went? Kept by the creators or sold directly to one of the usual suspects?

After three episodes, I think it's pretty clear that all we're going to get is an 8pm time-slotted, youth-targeted show more cut out for ABC Family or the Disney Channel than the hardcore S.H.I.E.L.D. series most of us were all hoping for. It's not the worst thing on TV, but tonight's episode should have dashed all remaining hope that the series will have much more to offer than what we've already seen thus far.

Looks like the poll doesnt match up to the posts. 24-17 now in favor of Does Not Suck. Still, considering that we're all comic guys here, these are HORRIBLE numbers. If comic guys are roughly only 3 to 2 in favor of this show, that cannot bode well for it.

The short answer is no. There are already several better spy shows out there (e.g., Homeland, Covert Affairs, The Blacklist, Nikita). There are better superhero shows out there (e.g., Arrow). There is certainly no shortage of shows with good-looking young casts. To the people here saying that AoS is better than other TV out there, I'm not sure what else you're watching - Dance Moms? Honey Boo-Boo? Real Housewives? While there are probably more schlocky TV shows now than at any other point in history, there are probably more quality TV shows than ever as well (think AMC, USA and all the premium cable shows as well), so the "there's nothing better on" argument just doesn't hold water.

Agreed. It's like Marvel's Agents of G.L.E.E. or S.H.I.E.L.D. 90210. They've got a couple of token grown-ups in the cast, but it's mostly good-looking kids to go after the younger CW network demographic. But, it airs at 8pm and is about as edgy as a bowling ball. It's just not working. Coulson is clearly a clone/android/LMD. Either that or Clark Gregg is the worst actor of all time, as he's playing the role with robotic-like stiffness. I suspect it's intentional, but to have an unglamorous, middle-aged dude purposely acting without charisma in the lead role is just adding unnecessary blandness to the already bland show (Agents of B.L.A.N.D.?) I'm not sure how Ming-Na Wen (5'4" on a good day and nearly 50 years old) got cast in her role; she's just not a credible a$$-kicker to me. Brett Dalton as Ward is about as useful to the show as a chocolate teapot - could they have found a blander side of beefcake for the part? He and the rest of the cast could have been rejects from any show on the CW network, with the exception that two of them have foreign accents. This show is proving to be the worst of all worlds - a horrifically sucky show that I feel compelled to watch because it's S.H.I.E.L.D. (was always a big fan of the comics). I mean, AoS is making that Nick Fury movie starring Hasselhoff look good. Hopefully it will get even worse so I will have no choice but to drop it from my viewing rotation, because I can't see it getting good enough to be worth watching on its own merits.

V's ratings plummeted soon after that stellar debut, much as they will for AoS if it doesn't get better quickly. I'm not going to say the pilot was terrible, but it never got past mediocre. Agent Coulson made a good supporting character in The Avengers, but Clark Gregg can't carry a whole show. And, unfortunately, the casting around him is pretty atrocious - a little bit of eye candy, yes, but, for the most part, it was just bland actors/actresses fit into obvious, cookie-cutter stereotypical roles. There are and have been so many better done spy-related shows done on TV already; I'm not sure the world really needs another one.

Just finished "The Asylum: The Renegades Who Hijacked the World’s Oil Market" by Leah McGrath Goodman. It's basically a history of the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX). Which is somewhat, but not wholly, interesting in and of itself, but it at least will hopefully clarify to people who read it that neither oil companies nor OPEC have had any control over setting oil prices once market pricing moved out of the shadows and onto the exchange floor some 30-odd years ago. Currently reading "The Art Prophets: The Artists, Dealers, and Tastemakers Who Shook the Art World" by Richard Polsky (who also wrote the much better "I Bought Andy Warhol" and "I Sold Andy Warhol (Too Soon)". There's a chapter in the book on comic books, but it barely touches on OA and the collectability of such...it's more about the Marvel revolution of the '60s and some high-brow profiles of Crumb and Spiegelman. So far, not really blown away by this book. Next on the list (already downloaded to my Kindle) is "What You Want Is in the Limo: On the Road with Led Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, and the Who in 1973, the Year the Sixties Died and the Modern Rock Star was Born" by Michael Walker.

I'm currently reading "The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It" by Tilar J. Mazzeo about the woman who started Veuve Clicquot. Interesting stuff.

Just finished reading "Banksy: The Man Behind the Wall" by Will Ellsworth-Jones, an unauthorized biography of the notorious street artist. It's decent enough, though it's all second-hand accounts and third-party research being an unauthorized account. Currently reading "Hedge Fund Market Wizards" by Jack Schwager, the fourth in the series of "Market Wizards" trader interview books.

Thanks for all the kind comments, everyone! I really like that Vol. 3 #3 cover too...it was one of the first comics I ever bought off the stands back in 1983, so I was thrilled to nab that one, especially after losing out on it the first time it came up for sale 5 years earlier (computer froze during the dying seconds of the eBay auction!)

Yes. Not that there weren't some decent storylines here and there afterwards, but the whole Siege Perilous/Reavers/Australia/Gateway/X-Men are dead/etc. nonsense is definitely where the title officially jumped the shark.

Yes, it's 100% Romita Sr.

Whoops - forgot to post this one from my collection the last time around. it's the John Romita Sr. original cover art to Red Sonja (Dynamite) #3 (Dynamic Forces Alternate Cover, 2005):

Anyone know where the cover to this gem is hiding out?

for the 10.0 One of my proudest achievements in the hobby is starting this epic thread, one of the GREATEST OF ALL-TIME.

Awesome! Please shoot me a PM or post a link here when you're ready.

That sounds very interesting - any chance you would be willing to share it with us? Sounds like a great read. Thanks for the rec - will definitely check it out. (thumbs u

Popularity is relative. You could say that Disney films have been popular since the 1930s as well, but the fact is that there are periods when they have been more popular and less popular. Same with horror films. I have read scholarly research about this very topic - one paper was done for horror films and another one was done for Disney films. They are papers that discuss the popularity of Picasso and the Beatles in different conditions as well. Fascinating stuff. I think there was even a study done on the zombie craze recently.

Just finished reading an investment/trading book called "The Complete TurtleTrader". It's about how, probably inspired by the movie Trading Places, two Chicago traders hired a bunch of people back in the early '80s, mostly without any trading background, in an experiment to see if they could turn them into profitable traders (it succeeded beyond their wildest imaginations). I'm currently reading "Banksy: The Man Behind The Wall" about the celebrated, mysterious street artist, as well as "Marvel Comics: The Untold Story" which, halfway through it, has just been tremendous. A must-read for any Marvel fan; it is meticulously researched and even a longtime fan like me is learning all kinds of new stuff from it. Absolutely fantastic. (thumbs u

I think wrote in this thread ages ago that the popularity of horror and zombie films ebbs and flows with the overall socioeconomic environment. Bad economy + dark mood = greater popularity of horror films. Just look at all the Universal horror properties that were big hits during the 1930s and 1940s. Good economy + sunny mood = greater popularity of Disney animated films and the like. There's a reason why Night of the Living Dead came out amid the tumult of the late '60s, and there's a reason why The Walking Dead TV show has resonated so much in the tough economy of the post-financial crisis world. If The Walking Dead is still popular in 2022, it probably means we will have been in a decade-plus long economic malaise and have bigger problems to worry about than whether TWD #1 black or white edition is worth more money. I hope for all our sakes that TWD is cancelled by 2022.

The finale was so, so good. What a great first season - definitely exceeded my expectations.