1000 Books in 2024 3 3

[Ken Aldred]

The Flash by Mark Waid Vols 1 and 2

Flash (1987 series) 62 to 79

Flash Annual 4, 5 and 6

Flash Special 1

Green Lantern 30, 31, 40

Even in the early stories by Waid there are lots of good and inventive ideas and involving dialogue, and some Flash highlights such as Born to Run (Year One for Wally West), the reimagining of Abra Kadabra as an anarchist rebelling against a sterile, AI-controlled future, and the classic ‘Return’ of Barry Allen Saga.  Great to read material from one of my all-time favourite mainstream comic book writers, from right back at the start of his career.

Flash Annual 4, the Armageddon 2001 tie-in was good, the others mediocre and unmemorable.

25 comics

2023 total = 134

 

 

Edited February 23 by Ken Aldred

[rlextherobot]

196.	Conan the Barbarian	Vol.	1	#24
197.	The Amazing Spider-Man	Vol.	1	#32
198.	New Avengers	Vol.	3	#9
199.	Infinity	Vol.	1	#2
200.	The Avengers	Vol.	5	#19
201.	New Avengers	Vol.	3	#10
202.	Ghost Rider	Vol.	1	#35
203.	Infinity	Vol.	1	#3
204.	The Avengers	Vol.	5	#20
205.	The Avengers	Vol.	5	#21
206.	Infinity	Vol.	1	#4
207.	Stormwatch	Vol.	2	#9
208.	Stormwatch	Vol.	2	#10
209.	Stormwatch	Vol.	2	#11
210.	Daredevil	Vol.	1	#227
211.	The Punisher	Vol.	7	#41
212.	The Punisher	Vol.	7	#42
213.	Sergio Aragones Funnies	Vol.	1	#11
214.	Midnighter	Vol.	1	#7
215.	New Avengers	Vol.	3	#11
216.	Infinity	Vol.	1	#5
217.	Marvel Tales	Vol.	2	#138
218.	The Avengers	Vol.	5	#22
219.	The Avengers	Vol.	5	#23
220.	New Avengers	Vol.	3	#12
221.	Infinity	Vol.	1	#6
222.	Sub-Mariner	Vol.	1	#9
223.	WildC.A.T.s / Aliens	Vol.	1	#1
224.	Infinity: Against the Tide	Vol.	1	#1
225.	Punisher Presents: Barracuda	Vol.	1	#1
226.	DC Graphic Novel 4: The Hunger Dogs
227.	Punisher Presents: Barracuda	Vol.	1	#2
228.	Punisher Presents: Barracuda	Vol.	1	#3
229.	Punisher Presents: Barracuda	Vol.	1	#4
230.	Punisher Presents: Barracuda	Vol.	1	#5
231.	G.O.D.S.	Vol.	1	#5

[Rockyjo3]

On 2/22/2024 at 9:11 PM, Cat said:

What'd you think of it? And was it the Johns Hawkman? If so, same question. 

I really liked it, Green Lantern has always been my favorite of Geoff’s runs but I think I like JSA just as much as his Lantern run now.  His Hawkman run was good too, wasn’t a big fan of Rag Morales art though 

[Cat]

On 2/24/2024 at 5:02 AM, Rockyjo3 said:

I really liked it, Green Lantern has always been my favorite of Geoff’s runs but I think I like JSA just as much as his Lantern run now.  His Hawkman run was good too, wasn’t a big fan of Rag Morales art though 

I normally don't like Morales' art either (it's his noses that do it for me, I can't stand his noses) but I thought he did alright in Hawkman, for the most part. Totally understand you feeling the opposite though. 

And that's high praise for JSA, but IMO we'll-earned. It's quality all the way (well, not counting the last few issues which Johns didn't do, and they're still not too bad). Are you going to read Omni 3 now? It's a very different tone IMO. Strong first 7 issues or so, but I'm not personally a fan of My Kingdom Come, the semi-sequel to Kingdom Come. It just doesn't do much for me. 

[srezvan]

Catching up on some recent reading. 68 comics so far this year.

Dawn of X TPB Vol 4 and 5 - overall still very enjoyable. I really like the overall direction under Hickman. I really don't like Excalibur and Fallen Angels. A few times the overall storyline is jumpy, especially now that there's a lot going on.

 

The Man Who F****d Up Time: I picked this up from John Layman at a local show. Decent story. It's about time travel, so I always find these types of stories are full of holes. Overall, a fun read.

 

Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos #75 - this must have been a recommendation from the boards. I think this is the only war comic I've ever read. This was a fantastic story. Well told non-linear story that still holds up today.

[Rockyjo3]

On 2/23/2024 at 12:48 PM, Cat said:

Are you going to read Omni 3 now?

I’m finishing up Brightest Day omni then I’m going to start JSA vol 3. Really looking forward to it 

[Djedi]

Son of Merlin 1-5

This is the first comic series I've read from Heroes and Villains Entertainment. It was a co-imprint partnership with Top Cow designed to provide source material for adaptations. Knowing that this was probably planned to become a movie makes sense of the pacing. It moves very fast. On the plus side, it never drags, and no character is terrible. The negative is that the characters are not developed much. It's much more story and memorable moment focused than character focused.

Every cover is from the interior artist. I like their style a lot. It was really well suited to the magic effects used in the series. There's a lot of different types of magic like bilocation (appearing in two places at the same time), stopping bullets, changing appearance, and so on. For me, Son of Merlin was a fun experience that reminded me of a comic version of a simple but engaging fantasy action movie. It's not top tier but I would have read more if they continued it. While the story gets wrapped up, there is a tease for what would have come next.

[Cat]

Green Lantern by Grant Morrison Season 1 Volume 1 - the back of the book blurb proclaimed this to be a psychodelic hit. I found nothing psychodelic about it, except for the GL with the exploding volcano head, I guess. Still, it was a decent read, and I intend to buy further volumes further down the track. 

Rereads of Transformers #5, Thundercats #1. Still can't get used to Tygra's moustache. It's just wrong. Transformers is just a quality read. It deserves to be on everyone's pull list, Transformers fan or not, it's THAT good. 

Green Lantern Kyle Rayner Compendium - now we're talking. This started at Emerald Twilight and went from there. Same material as was in the single volumes they released, I rebought it just to show support and hopefully lead to more of Kyle's run getting modern reprints. I'd love to see his whole series collected in Compendium form, tbh. I loved it so much at the time. Just good, classic comics. 

Justice hardcover - this is pretty decent, if not a bit too much into the Super friends for me, who were before my time, so I don't get the nostalgia huffs from it. Still it's enjoyable enough, with some decent twists. Is it just me or is some of Ross' art a bit muddy looking in this book? 

That puts me up to 495 books read for the year, and you won't hear from me for awhile, as now I'm starting on the Johns Green Lantern omniboo. I've read everything in the first 2 before (I dropped the book precisely where book 2 finishes, which works out perfectly I'd say, leaving me with book 3 as all-new material) so I'm very keen to get to book 3, which is still enroute, but will have no doubt arrived by the time I'm ready for it. 

 

[mrlatko]

I am falling ridiculously behind some of you guys!  Need to step it up.

35-36: Legends 5-6 (DC Limited '86)

37-44: Secret Wars 2-9 (Marvel Limited '15)

Legends was still fun for me all these many years later.  Wonder Woman was rebooted for this before the '87 Perez series.  Also got to see the origin of the Suicide Squad and mini reboots for Shazam and Flash after Crisis on Infinite Earths.  This is the kind of stuff that had me hooked in the 80s, and I guess I never outgrew it.

Finished Secret Wars and it was a disappointment for me.  After the first issue, it showed real promise.  Doom has created a new Battleworld in the aftermath of worlds/multiverses colliding.  It was cool seeing all the familiar faces in their new roles on this world and some really epic places were hinted at early that I looked forward to exploring.  The problem was that we never got to explore them.  This felt rushed and needed to be twice as long.  The ending was unsatisfying and anticlimactic.  Some really interesting ideas were explored so I'm not saying it was terrible, but I wanted more, not less.  The Marvel Zombies were there and we barely noticed.  Oh well.

[mrlatko]

On 2/27/2024 at 3:02 AM, Cat said:

Green Lantern by Grant Morrison Season 1 Volume 1 - the back of the book blurb proclaimed this to be a psychodelic hit. I found nothing psychodelic about it, except for the GL with the exploding volcano head, I guess. Still, it was a decent read, and I intend to buy further volumes further down the track. 

Rereads of Transformers #5, Thundercats #1. Still can't get used to Tygra's moustache. It's just wrong. Transformers is just a quality read. It deserves to be on everyone's pull list, Transformers fan or not, it's THAT good. 

Green Lantern Kyle Rayner Compendium - now we're talking. This started at Emerald Twilight and went from there. Same material as was in the single volumes they released, I rebought it just to show support and hopefully lead to more of Kyle's run getting modern reprints. I'd love to see his whole series collected in Compendium form, tbh. I loved it so much at the time. Just good, classic comics. 

Justice hardcover - this is pretty decent, if not a bit too much into the Super friends for me, who were before my time, so I don't get the nostalgia huffs from it. Still it's enjoyable enough, with some decent twists. Is it just me or is some of Ross' art a bit muddy looking in this book? 

That puts me up to 495 books read for the year, and you won't hear from me for awhile, as now I'm starting on the Johns Green Lantern omniboo. I've read everything in the first 2 before (I dropped the book precisely where book 2 finishes, which works out perfectly I'd say, leaving me with book 3 as all-new material) so I'm very keen to get to book 3, which is still enroute, but will have no doubt arrived by the time I'm ready for it. 

 

For Justice, Ross only did the finished art on top of Doug Braithwaite, so let's blame him if some of it wasn't "Ross" enough for you.

[mrlatko]

Going to start something fun, at least I hope so.

Edited February 27 by mrlatko

[Cat]

On 2/28/2024 at 5:47 AM, mrlatko said:

For Justice, Ross only did the finished art on top of Doug Braithwaite, so let's blame him if some of it wasn't "Ross" enough for you.

It's not that it wasn't 'Ross enough' for me, it's that Ross' paints came off to me as often appearing... muddy, is the best way I can describe it. Maybe it's just me, maybe it's the reproduction of this particular edition (I don't think so, but it's a possibility), but some pages, IMO, don't have a crispness to them I associate with Ross' work, and no, it's not the pencils at play causing it. 

[Ken Aldred]

On 2/27/2024 at 7:43 PM, mrlatko said:

Finished Secret Wars and it was a disappointment for me.  After the first issue, it showed real promise.  Doom has created a new Battleworld in the aftermath of worlds/multiverses colliding.  It was cool seeing all the familiar faces in their new roles on this world and some really epic places were hinted at early that I looked forward to exploring.  The problem was that we never got to explore them.  This felt rushed and needed to be twice as long.  The ending was unsatisfying and anticlimactic.  Some really interesting ideas were explored so I'm not saying it was terrible, but I wanted more, not less.  The Marvel Zombies were there and we barely noticed.  Oh well.

There were quite a lot of tie-in mini-series about the different sectors of Doom’s world, a large number of them very good reads. Impossible to incorporate all of it into that main story arc.

Overall, Omnibus material.

[Ken Aldred]

On 2/27/2024 at 7:47 PM, mrlatko said:

For Justice, Ross only did the finished art on top of Doug Braithwaite, so let's blame him if some of it wasn't "Ross" enough for you.

I just thought of it as “From the creators of Earth X”. Sort of.

Edited March 1 by Ken Aldred

[chromium]

Had trouble finding this topic because of the title change after more than a decade 

But thankfully I did. 

This will be the 14th consecutive year I will be participating and the goal this year will be 1500 comics read in 2024.

Why 1500? Well I haven't reached that figure since 2016...so let's go for it. I searched the database to see how many comics I read over the past years.

• 2023 : 1305 comics read
• 2022 : 1485 comics read
• 2021 : 1418 comics read
• 2020 : 1013 comics read
• 2019 : 1161 comics read
• 2018 : 1289 comics read
• 2017 : 1305 comics read
• 2016 : 1668 comics read
• 2015 : 1785 comics read
• 2014 : 2226 comics read
• 2013 : 2563 comics read
• 2012 : 2500 comics read
• 2011 : 2245 comics read

 

Not sure if I'll make it, but you have to set goals don't you.

 

Here's the start for 2024

 

january 2024  87 comics
28 days later omnibus (24 comics)
A train called love (11 comics)
Alan Scott the Green Lantern 1-2
Alien 2
Aliens, Predator,Prometheus, AVP- Fire and Stone (18 comics)
Avengers 8
Batmann off-world 1
Beneath the trees where nobody sees 2
Black Science Premeire Transcendalism (17 comics)
Blade 6
Captain America 3-4
Daredevil Black Armor 2
Daredevil Gang War 1
Daredevil 4
Dark Spaces Dungeon 1-2
Hey Kids Comics V3 #4
The Walking Dead Deluxe 78-79

 

February 2024 168 comics
A guest in the House (11 comics)
A tour of Giants (4 comics)
Abbott 1979 #3
Alien 3
Avengers 9
Avengers twilight 1 (2 comics)
Batman off world 2-3
Beware the planet of the Apes 1
Black Hammer the end 5
Black Sight 2-4
Blade 7
Blade Runner 2039 #9
Book of Butcher 1 (3 comics)
Borealis 1-2
BRZRKR - Fallen Empire (2 comics)
Captain America 5
Crave 1-2
Dali 01
Daredevil 5
Daredevil Black Armor 3
Daredevil Gang War 2
Dark Spaces Hollywood Special 1-5
Deer Editor 1
Deviant 1-2
Devil who wears my face 3
Drive Like Hell 1-2
The Dyatlov Pass Mystery (5 comics)
Fantastic Four 14-16
Fiction House from Pump to Panels (13 comics)
G.O.D.S 3-4
Geiger Ground Zero
Ghost Machine (3 comics)
Giant Robot Hellboy 3
Green Arrow 6-8
Guardians of the Galaxy 9-10
Hellboy Winter Special
Hey Kids Comics V3 #4
The Hunting Accident (19 comics)
The Invincible Iron Man 12-13
Jack Kirby the Epic Life of the King of Comics (9 comics)
James Bond 007 Your Cold cold Heart 1
James Bond 007 For king and country 7
Hellblazer Dead in America 1
The Ghost and the Lady (13 comics)
The Complete Killer (34 comics)

 

For a total of 255 comics read in 2024.

I'm on track..but barely 

[mrlatko]

On 3/1/2024 at 5:50 AM, Ken Aldred said:

There were quite a lot of tie-in mini-series about the different sectors of Doom’s world, a large number of them very good reads. Impossible to incorporate all of it into that main story arc.

Overall, Omnibus material.

That makes sense, and I never considered all the tie-in!  Thanks.

[ttfitz]

On 2/7/2024 at 3:45 PM, Ken Aldred said:

The Twelve, and The Twelve :Spearhead one-shot prequel

Being a big JSA fan, like our feline friend here, I wanted to do something similar, but without a direct crossover, and so I decided to read a Marvel equivalent.  The story is often referred to as J Michael Straczynski’s attempt at doing Watchmen, but I think that’s a bit too critical, as to me it reads simply as a very good JSA-type book, featuring extremely obscure, Z-list Timely characters, rather than the JSA’s more A-list level, DC Golden Agers.

An interesting range of characters, personalities, of problems adjusting when thrown into the modern age, with a murder mystery on top.

Good stuff.

Read this one last year when I was on a JMS tear, and I would agree, didn't really seem much Watchmen-esque at all. A good read, though.

[ttfitz]

On 2/24/2024 at 1:14 PM, srezvan said:

The Man Who F****d Up Time: I picked this up from John Layman at a local show. Decent story. It's about time travel, so I always find these types of stories are full of holes. Overall, a fun read.

If you enjoy time travel stories, I would recommend Papergirls, by Brian K. Vaughn. Really, really good, and I think he did an excellent job of tying up all the loose ends.

[ttfitz]

On 3/1/2024 at 11:58 AM, chromium said:

Had trouble finding this topic because of the title change after more than a decade 

I feel you, brotha. Perhaps we can convince @rlextherobot to change the title to match?

[ttfitz]

Previous total of 52, time for the February update....

Murder Inc Jagger Rose #1-6
Third series from Brian Michael Bendis of an alternate universe where the Mob takes over the country. Decent read, a bunch of twists are turns along the way - who said there was honor among thieves?

Descender #17-32
Finishing up this series from last month, looking forward to reading the sequel series, whose name escapes me at the moment.

House of Slaughter #16-20
Book of Slaughter
Book of Butcher
Something is Killing the Children #31-35
Thought I'd group these all together, as they are part of the same overall story. House of Slaughter was okay for this storyline - better than some, worse than others. Book of Slaughter/Book of Butcher gave some pretty good background on the whole Order of St George, which was good, while leaving some questions ("to be continued" it says) which will keep me guessing. and Something is Killing the Children FINALLY finished off the storyline! Man, that was annoying. But a very good one, too.

Invincible #91-102
What can I say that hasn't been said before? Very, very good as always.

Gun Honey Heat Seeker #1-4
Bought this thinking it was more Gun Honey stuff, but ended up being "from the world of" type story. Still a fun read, a little more twisty than the previous ones, which I enjoyed. And I see a new series being solicited this month!

Star Trek: Year 5 #20-25
Finally circled back around and finished off this series. Had a little trouble remembering what was going on from before since it's been a little while, but still a decent finish to the "Five year mission."

The Madness #1-6
A recent series from the three letter man himself, J. Michael Straczynski aka JMS aka Joe. Good story, but what do you expect, it's Joe!

Joe Fixit #1-5
No, not that Joe. Never been much of a Hulk fan, but it's Peter David, so I gave it a whorl. Not bad, not bad at all.

Black Summer #0-7
It's Warren Ellis, so it's a little bit dark, a little bit twisted, and as usual, a lot good. Didn't care for the art at times, it was very ... busy I guess is the right word. Had trouble telling what was going on at times. But still worth the read.

If I've done the math right, I'm up to 127 for the year. Still behind schedule...