1000 books in 2020 1 1

[Talapas1]

Wow.  It’s definitely been a while since I posted.   I won’t go through everything but will leave my thoughts on some notables reads.

 

646-718

Empyre:   Really enjoying this series as it feels very retro to me.  Originally I was going to pass on it but the Hitch cover for #1 drew me in and I quickly bought all the issues I needed to catch up.   It definitely reminds me of an old school avengers story.

Dead Planet:  The DCeased stories have been at the top of my read list and this one is no exception.   Really liking the way these stories are progressing.   

The Next Men:   I had never read these before and seeing a big chunk of the run in the fifty cent bin got me to take a chance.  I’m not going to go too far into it, but I’m conflicted on how I feel about it.   It definitely is a book of its time, but there were some kernels of creativity in there that kept me engaged.   I will finish it up once I hunt down the rest of them.  

The Cimmerian:   Favorite Conan comic series in a long time.   Feels like what I would’ve envisioned a translation from the novels would be.   A must read for Conan fans.

 

Forever Evil Series.   I’ve been wanting to read this for a while and I wasn’t disappointed.   Seeing the villains cut loose where the heroes couldn’t was pretty awesome.   
 

I’m getting there.  Next up is the Forever People Omnibus.  Till then, have an epic day

[ttfitz]

On 8/8/2020 at 4:32 PM, ttfitz said:

On 8/1/2020 at 1:50 AM, ttfitz said:

My local comic shop manager has a thing he does every August, the Troy-David 100 Back Issue a Week Challenge. Each week in August (along with an extra 4 says of September to make an even 5 weeks) you try to read 100 of your back issues. I've done it the last 3 years, and was getting ready to do it again this year when I saw this thread. So I said to myself, Self, 2 birds.

So, week 1 of the Challenge is in the books. In the 2017 Challenge I intended to read some Legion of Super Heroes titles, since it was their 70th anniversary. But it was also a Superman anniversary, and I ended up filling my quota with Superman titles. So this week my theme was LSH and Books With My Kids.

Week 2 completed, another 100 issues for the Troy-David Challenge. This week, I continued reading stuff with my kids, including:

Fables 6-18 with my son, and

Saga 34-46 and

Martian Manhunter 8-12 with my daughter.

Fables and Saga continues to delight. Martian Manhunter was okay - updating some of the origin story for the connected world we live it (No more "I'll pretend to be this completely new person, John Jones"), which was okay, but nothing to write home about. If you are into the character, it's worth a look, but don't know there is a whole lot here for someone not already familiar.

Since we finished up Martian Manhunter, my daughter and I were looking for a new title, and settled on Star Trek: Mirror Broken. Set in the mirror universe first introduced in ST:TOS, this tale looks at The Next Generation characters in the mirror universe. Only issues 0 (the FCBD preamble) and 1 so far, but pretty interesting for Star Trek fans.

For my solo reading, the theme this week was Marvel Bronze Age stories. First up was Captain Marvel, where I read:

Marvel Super-Heroes 12-13

Captain Marvel 1-32

Things were a bit hit-or-miss here, the early CM stories were a pretty good - and different - look at a "hero" who might at any time be tasked with destroying/taking over the Earth for his Kree Empire. In the middle were some ehh stories, and the tail end of the run that I read the very excellent first Thanos storyline. Didn't quite finish that one for the week, but will do so for the coming one.

Next we have The Defenders. For this one I read:

Marvel Feature 1-3

Defenders 1-22

Giant Size Defenders 2-3

Avengers 115-118

Marvel Two in One 6-7

While I had read The Defenders over the years, I had never read the origins of Marvel's Greatest Non-Team ever. It was fun reading of the "Hulk SMASH" period, and the "one true Sub-Mariner" with their ending each issue with "I'm leaving, call me again at your peril" (Subby) or "Hulk not like stupid Magician, leave Hulk alone!" and yet there they are again a month later. The Avengers issues were the big Defenders/Avengers clash crossover story, while the Marvel Two in One had to do with the Valkyrie origins. Lots of fun in these issues.

Total sits at 396 for the year.

[ttfitz]

On 8/11/2020 at 5:04 AM, Talapas1 said:

The Next Men:   I had never read these before and seeing a big chunk of the run in the fifty cent bin got me to take a chance.  I’m not going to go too far into it, but I’m conflicted on how I feel about it.   It definitely is a book of its time, but there were some kernels of creativity in there that kept me engaged.   I will finish it up once I hunt down the rest of them.  

 

It's been years since I've read Next Men, but I remember enjoying it a lot when I read it.

[Raze]

322

Catwoman 80th Anniversary 

I really liked “Catwoman of earth” “ the art of picking locks” and “Born to kill”.

[Raze]

323-324

Punisher War Journal 6-7

Punisher v Wolverine! I heard this was good from a thread on the boards and found a set at a LCS last weekend and was surprised to see that Jim Lee was the artist! The story was good but the art was great!

Im also posting this awesome splash page!

[Ken Aldred]

On 8/11/2020 at 10:04 AM, Talapas1 said:

Forever Evil Series.   I’ve been wanting to read this for a while and I wasn’t disappointed.   Seeing the villains cut loose where the heroes couldn’t was pretty awesome.  

That was really good. Much better than the preceding Trinity War. 

[Raze]

325 
Joker 80th Anniversary 

I loved this! I wasn’t expecting to like this as much as I did. I highly recommend this book if you like the Joker.

[Ken Aldred]

215 to 240

So, finally getting around to posting about one my favourite event series, Secret Wars.

Avengers (2013) 1 to 17

New Avengers (2013) 1 to 8

New X-Men 122

Basically, the main Avengers series, all the way through to Secret Wars, is about recognising that the team needs to be bigger, more powerful, and have as wide an ability spectrum as possible.  World level threats might occur simultaneously, not conveniently lining up to be solved one at a time, and require different ranges of Avenger abilities to combat, such as against super-science or magic.  And, there is also the possibility of an overwhelming extraterrestrial attack from an advanced civilisation that could easily overpower and conquer Earth, a test soon provided by a certain terraforming alien called Ex Nihilo.

New Avengers looks at the discovery of multiversal incursions,  how Earth 616 might be protected while so linked to another parallel Earth, which most crudely, but effectively, involves using a glorified nuke on the opposition. There’s the morality and guilt associated with doing this, time and time again, which actually doesn’t seem much of a dilemma for many of the selfish, egocentric Illuminati.  Eventually, a better understanding develops about why the multiverse started to collapse in the first place.

I also read New X-Men 122, from Grant Morrison’s run, to make better sense of the story about the origin of human Imperial Guard member, Smasher.

Overall, this introductory run is a great read, only slowing down for me during the New Universe storyline.  Nice art from Steve Epting, Dustin Weaver, Mike Deodato and Jerome Opena.

 

Edited August 16, 2020 by Ken Aldred

[Talapas1]

7 hours ago, ttfitz said:

It's been years since I've read Next Men, but I remember enjoying it a lot when I read it.

I’m thinking about doing a review for our local comic Facebook page.  It was interesting reading it thirty years later

[Ken Aldred]

13 hours ago, ttfitz said:

Since we finished up Martian Manhunter, my daughter and I were looking for a new title, and settled on Star Trek: Mirror Broken. Set in the mirror universe first introduced in ST:TOS, this tale looks at The Next Generation characters in the mirror universe. Only issues 0 (the FCBD preamble) and 1 so far, but pretty interesting for Star Trek fans.

Which reminds me...

241

Star Trek Debt of Honor GN

Set at different times; before, during and soon after the period of the first four films of the original series. 
 

Very good story, but the usual exposition-heavy dialogue from Chris Claremont; which I like, some won’t.

Adam Hughes does some fantastic artwork here.

[Raze]

326-329

Detective Comics 1025

This was a cool Batwoman Tie in with Joker War

Batman 97

Jimenez has been doing a great job on Batman! Ive really grown to like his art more!

Harley Quinn 75

Only got this because of the Joker War Tie in. There was a ok story that took most of the book, and 10 pages of what happened to Harly after her and Punchline got in to it.

Nightwing 73

The Nightwing book is pretty odd with this Crystal thing. And this issue seemed more like a Batgirl issue.

 

So far all the Joker War Tie-Ins havent really connected very well. Maybe they will...

[RayJr]

Tonight’s read 

Driver.Eight #1 (Limitless Comics) 

6/1000

Edited August 20, 2020 by RayJr

[RayJr]

Tonight’s read

1st Issue Special #8

7/1000

[RayJr]

MuffenMan #1 (Limitless Comics) 

8/1000

[RayJr]

Tonight’s read 

Thor vol 6 #6

9/1000

[Raze]

330-335

Thor 1-6

I heard a spoiler about this story about issue 5. I saw that it was going for $20-$30 on eBay so I didn’t think I would get a copy. Then I was at a local comic shop and they had issues four and five so I went ahead and bought them. And then hunted down 1-3 and 6 came out Wednesday.

I enjoyed the story even though I knew what would happen. I think Im going to put it on my pull list.

Now I just need to hunt down Daredevil by Chip Zadarsky. Ive heard its thr best marvel title that noone talks about.

 

[Ken Aldred]

242 to 263

Prelude to Secret Wars Part 2

Infinity 1 to 6

Avengers (2013) 18 to 23

New Avengers  (2013) 9 to 12

Captain Marvel (2012) 15 ,16

Avengers Assemble  (2012) 18, 19

Guardians of the Galaxy (2013) 8, 9

22 issues in total

An ancient, extremely powerful race called The Builders is heading towards Earth 616 to annihilate it, totally destroying, or, later on in the story, enslaving, other technologically advanced civilisations on the way, and is seen as such an immense threat that a war council is convened, involving all of the major, galactic-level players; the Kree, Skrulls, Shi’ar, Spartax (Star-Lord’s people), and even Annihilus and The Brood.

A large contingent of Avengers leaves Earth to join up, but Thanos and his Black Order notice that the Earth is now weakly defended as a result of their departure and take the opportunity to invade.  Thanos has another motivation to do this, which brings him into conflict with The Inhumans.

As well as protecting 616 from the multiversal incursions, the Illuminati now have to deal with the added complications of The Mad Titan.

The Captain Marvel and Avengers Assemble issues tell a section of the main storyline from different points of view.  More detail, but really not that essential.

The GOTG story is from the time when Brian Michael Bendis was basically phoning it in, as he was later on Battleworld.  So, here, in order for The Avengers to return to Earth, the force field generated by the Death Star, sorry, the orbital SWORD platform, has to be deactivated, and the Guardians infiltrate to do this, along the way rescuing Princess Abigail, sorry, Abigail Brand, Director of SWORD.  It’s that derivative.

 

More excellent, page-turning stuff from Jonathan Hickman in the main storyline, and more nice art from Jim Cheung, Jerome Opena, Dustin Weaver and Lenil Yu.

Edited August 23, 2020 by Ken Aldred

[ttfitz]

On 8/1/2020 at 1:50 AM, ttfitz said:

My local comic shop manager has a thing he does every August, the Troy-David 100 Back Issue a Week Challenge. Each week in August (along with an extra 4 says of September to make an even 5 weeks) you try to read 100 of your back issues. I've done it the last 3 years, and was getting ready to do it again this year when I saw this thread. So I said to myself, Self, 2 birds.

Week 3 has been completed. This week's books include:

In a continuation of last week, my son and I continued to read Fables, finishing off another TPB collection which included The Last Castle and Fables 19-21, 23-27. Really enjoying this title.

My daughter and I also continued reading Saga, covering issues 47-54. Brian K. Vaughan is just lucky all the conventions are being canceled, otherwise he'd have two irate fans to deal with asking when he's going to GIVE US MORE SAGA?????

We also finished STTNG Mirror Broken 2-5, and started up with the follow up miniseries, STTNG Through the Mirror 1-3.

In my solo reading, I read a number of additional Defenders issues, including Defenders 23-44 (Elf With a Gun, anyone?), Giant Size Defenders 4, Defenders Annual 1, as well as some more Captain Marvel 33-35,37-54. As the Captain Marvel included the first Thanos saga, I also read Avengers 125.

Speaking of Avengers, I decided to read a couple classic storylines, The Celestial Madonna saga, and the Korvac Saga. This involved Avengers issues 129-135, 167-177, Giant Size Avengers 2-5, Thor Annual 6, and for good measure What If? 32, which dealt with Korvac. Them's some good reading.

Finally, the whole family - son, daughter AND wife - is starting in on Sandman. I have read the series before when it came out (mostly), so a reread was in order. But not entirely "in order" - when I first started this book, it was with the first TPB collection that was issued. For whatever reason, DC decided to release the SECOND storyline, The Doll's House, as the first collection. I think this was a good idea, and so I've made my family read it that way, too.  So last week we read issues 8-13. One of the great all time series, for sure.

So, there we are, another 100 issues down. Total now stands at 496 for the year.

 

[ttfitz]

3 hours ago, Ken Aldred said:

242 to 263

...

Captain Marvel

Avengers 

Guardians of the Galaxy

 

...

...the Kree, Skrulls, ... Annihilus ...

A large contingent of Avengers ... Thanos... The Inhumans.

...

 

Hey, look, Ken, history repeats itself - our lists look very similar, 30+ years apart. 

Okay, so different Captain Marvel, and different GOTG, but still...

Edited August 23, 2020 by ttfitz
character changes

[RayJr]

Tonight’s read 

Thor: Search for Odin #2

10/1000

Edited August 24, 2020 by RayJr