What comics I'm reading.

Hello everyone. Before I hop into the meat of my post I just wanted to introduce myself, since this is my first post. Dig the podcast, started listening back in August or September and I look forward to it every week. Figured I’d join the forums since it sounds like there’s a lot of fun stuff happening here.

Anyways, figured I’d start with a thread about what comic books I’m reading. Comic books are one of my favorite forms of media. They’re like the best parts of books and movies combined into one awesome experience.

Last night I re-read Powers: Who Killed Retro Girl, by Brian Michael Bendis. What a great series. If you haven’t heard about it, think of it like Law & Order with super powers. This police procedural follows 2 homicide detectives, Christian Walker and Deena Pilgrim, who specialize in the investigation of super power related crimes. In this book they’re trying to unravel the case of Retro Girl, a recently murdered superhero, one who is nearly indestructable even after death, which is revealed in a hilarious autopsy sequence.

The story goes into some dark places and what really brings it to life is that it’s so believable. When you find out who killed Retro Girl, you think about it, and can imagine that if super powers really were real, that sort of thing would happen. Hell, you hear about similar stuff happening in the celebrity world.

the art is awesome in this book. It’s a simple, stylized look. Michael Avon Oeming does pencils and ink on this book. He had so much work going on when he started this series, so he adopted this simple look so that he could fit another book into his schedule. If you haven’t seen it, I find it similar to Batman The Animated Series with a bit more detail. There’s some great use of panels in this book, which have some really unique ways of delivering the story. While you’re riding shotgun with the 2 detectives, seeing intimately how they conduct their investigation, you’re simultaneously delivered a news broadcast completely devoid of details, and built entirely around sensationalism. One thing I will say, if you can spend the extra cash and find the monthly issues, it’s a lot better for the visuals than the trade paperback. The spacing and panelling are really designed for a book that folds flat, and in the trade, unless you break the spine open, you do lose a couple of the dialogue bubbles and a few transitions. Not a big lose as it’s easy to extrapolate whats happening, but it is a lose.

Anyways, this is pretty vague but I would hate to spoil much of what happens; the fun of procedurals is watching the mystery unfold. Hopefully someone else here has read it and can add to this. I’ll try and keep this thread going week to week as I read and re-read books.

Welcome aboard, ZS.

Is Powers an ongoing series? The title sounds familiar.

Powers is probably one of my favorite comics series of all time. I’ve talked about it a few times on the forum…just OSSIM. Even after all this time, they still find ways to make it great!

Glad to see other fans on here as well. So welcome homie!

Cant wait fir the TV series on FX!

Yes, totally forgot to mention it was getting a TV series. I can’t wait, hopefully it’s as good as the Walking Dead adaptation.

As far as I know Powers is an ongoing series. Not sure how many issues it’s run, but I’ve read up to volume 4 so far.

I’m a bit behind on my comics but…

I Zombie
The Last Zombie
The Last Unicorn
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep: Dust to Dust
The Littlest Zombie
The Walking Dead - I buy the hard cover compilations
Return to Wonderland.

and…man I’m having brain fail

I don’t think there’s a single reader who is really on top of comics. A few years ago I was going hardcore and dropping $40 a week on floopies plus trades on top of that occasionally. That didn’t last very long. Now I almost exclusively read trades, and I’m just focused on 2 or 3 series’ at a time. I’ll grab the odd single issue from the archives if it looks like a fun read, but my habit is now probably around a book a week.

I only buy trades… The occasional Buffy Season 8, and Walking Dead. I followed Rising Stars which was exceptional and for awhile I followed 100 Bullets. I every now and then pick up a Astro City too, and I toyed with following Locke and Key.

Locke and Key is an amazing run. For those who don’t know, it’s written by Joe Hill, which is the pen name for Stephen King’s son, who’s real name escapes me. It’s an amazing psychological thriller following 3 siblings who witness the brutal cold blooded murder of their father. Now they’re unlocking the secrets of their family’s mansion, and their own minds. I’ll reread volume one at some point and go a bit more in depth. That is one of the best runs going on right now.

I followed Buffy season 8 for it’s first year, so I don’t know if it continues to be as good as the show or not, but it was great while I was reading it. Not for the non fan to jump into, the first issue throws you right into the story, and is dependent on being familiar with almost the entire supporting cast from all 7 seasons of the series. This is a series I’ll definitely start again at some point, but I’m waiting till I get caught up on what I’ve started areading already.

I have some 100 Bullets trades, but I haven’t picked it up in a while. I liked it enough, just got side tracked.

I’ll have to check out some of those zombie titles Madamruppy mentioned. Believe it or not I haven’t read many zombie comics. I want to check out that Return to Wonderland as well at some point.

I’m one of those people who looks forward to buying the individual issues every week. I mostly read the superhero stuff (mostly Marvel with a bit of DC). I’m currently about two weeks behind on these.

Outside of the Big Two, I really enjoy The Boys. It is most definitely for mature readers but I’ve really got wrapped up in the story and the mystery behind many of the characters. And Garth Ennis is a great writer.

Also, I’ve started slowly collecting the trades of Invincible. I highly recommend this book. It’s by Robert Kirkman and it is excellent. If your a fan of Walking Dead’s writing, it’s worth checking out Invincible.

I definitely dig the superhero stuff as well. Xmen stuff is my favorite, I have a handful of Batman, and I’ve been grabbing the odd trade from the other heroes. I like monthly stuff as well but it’s a lot more expensive, plus I go nuts about cliffhangers. I used to hate hitting a cliffhanger and waiting for a month to see the conclusion. If I can ever devote more cash to comics I’ll definitely start on singles instead of collected works, or if I get a deeper discount.

Yay, comics!

The Unwritten: Consistantly at the top of my buy pile every month, and a must-read if you’re a literary nerd. I’m planning to do some in-depth nerding about two of my favorite issues elsewhere–a character who wouldn’t be out of place in a Guy Ritchie movie gets dropped into a Beatrix Potter-esque world and things get weird and it’s a fun diversion from the main plot of “What if Harry Potter/Christopher Robin were real and then the lines between fiction and reality got really blurry?”

Torso: Brian Michael Bendis is one of my favorite comic writers and I picked up this trade as an early birthday present to myself. It’s based on the true story of Eliot Ness hunting down a serial killer in Cleveland, and it’s superb.

Nonplayer: One of the guys at the store I buy at held the last copy for me, thinking I might be interested in it and I am so glad he did. It’s absolutely gorgeous, almost art noveau. (Which, of course, means that it’ll take forever to be complete, but I’m fine with that!) If you like MMOs and/or thought that the New Cap City plot of Caprica was awesome or ever wanted the Cylons’ projecting abilities, you’ll probably like this. Or if you just love good art.

Ex Machina: Finished last year and I’m not quite caught up, but I spoiled myself and know how it ends. I love Tony Harris’ art, Brian K. Vaughan is another author I love, and it’s a great story.

Fallen Angel: IDW is putting it out currently, though DC just released an omnibus of the 30 issues it ran. The current miniseries, “Return of the Son,” is wonderful. And last year’s miniseries was a crossover with Angel, featuring Illyria. Lee is one of the best written female characters I’ve seen, and the background characters are great. And it’s Peter David doing the writing, which is awesome. I love theology turned on its head, which is also a big selling point for me but might be less so for others.

I feel like Ex Machina kinda…died off like the last year of release or so. At times it was REALLY good but not recently

Woo! Friday was payday so I hit the local comics store. I grabbed, among other things, a copy of Xmen, Days of Future Past. I’m not exactly sure where this story took place in the timeline, but I think it’s just before the Dark Phoenix stuff. You might remember this being adapted into a 2 episode arc on the mid 90s cartoon series. There was quite a bit of stuff changed for it to fit into the cartoon’s xmen world, but it was done quite well.

This is basically Terminator, but replace “time machine” with, “psychic time machine.” In the future, sentinels have taken over North America and forced all mutants into concentration camps. A few have escaped or evaded capture and operate as resistance cells. One of these groups, who’s members includes Wolverine and Kitty Pryde, have a plan that may save them. By using a psychic link, they’ll project Kitty’s mind backwards through time, into her body when she had just joined the Xmen. Then she’ll convince the Xmen to go and stop the catastrophic event that leads to the horrible future where mutant hating computers rule the world. Meanwhile, back in the future, Wolverine will have to defend Kitty’s body from detection and attack, so the psychic link isn’t severed before the job is done.

This is a really fun, fairly quick read. You have to know a bit about the Xmen supporting cast, but nothing major other than names and abilities. I found it to be basically the story of Terminator, with the characters from the Xmen. How could it not be good? It’s also fun to note that this was written in 1981, 3 years before the release of the First Terminator movie. James Cameron’s got some 'splainin to do.

It was after the dark phoenix saga (77-80), I remember because I was alive back then and still collecting X Men, yeah the alternate future thing was a big hit with the fans. And everyone freaked when Wolverine got toasted, all that was left was the smoldering adamantium skeleton, cool but sad…

And if I remember correctly it introduced some new villans as well. One of them could see a few moments into the future…

Yes, this was before Wolverine was elevated to god-like power levels. When after he had a battle, he’d have to hang at the mansion drinking beer for the weekend to get back into shape. Now he can leap out of a spaceship and go through re-entry, and like 3 hours later he’s all shiny again.

I went back and cracked open my hardcover of Batman: The Widening Gyre. I read the floppies a while back, and 3-4 months ago I ordered a hardcover release direct from the artist. I’m not sure if he’s still got the deal on the table, but you can call him and he’ll autograph and do a doodle for you in the inside cover. At release he wasn’t charging extra, but you’d ave to pay for shipping direct from his store. I’ve been talking to him about hockey all season, and so he was nice enough to put a Batman endorsment for the Canucks. So far, Batman’s got a good pick for the playoffs.


The book is really fun, and I’d say that it’s a good introductory book to someone who’s familiar with the character, but doesn’t know all the depth of the Batman universe. It’s a great nostalgic romp through Batman’s rogues gallery, showing off the big names like The Joker all the way down to Crazy Quilt. It’s a follow up to Batman: Cacophany, which introduces the main villian for the 2 books, and there’s a sequel in the works, which the artist has been hard at work on. I’m going to try and bug him for a preview picture, but I’m not holding my breath. Anyways, I loved the book a lot, and there’s some crazy twists to the story so I don’t even want to get into it for fear of spoiling any of it for the poeple who haven’t read it. I really just wanted to show off my awesome custom backman drawing. If the Canucks manage to win the finals this year (could it really happen?) I’m going to fly to New Jersey and have the artist add a Stanley Cup to the picture for sure.

I just started Green Lantern: No Fear. So far its pretty good, not as awesome as Rebirth, but plenty of nice Hal character moments and I think he’s just about to start punching the blue suited angry guy (Don’t know much about GL yet xD)

I’ve been eyeballing some Green Lantern stuff. To be honest, I’ve never been a big DC fan. Vertigo books are generally amazing, but I never got into the superhero lineup. I only recently started reading Batman books, and Green Latern is another character that I was thinking about picking up. I’ll add those to my list of future aquisitions.

Been reading through vol. 1 of Wolverine: Enemy of the State. Great story so far. I like a less stylized depiction of the Xmen, but the art is amazing, personal preference aside. If you’re a fan of Wolverine and you haven’t read this one yet, get it on your next trip to the book store. It does a pretty good job of introducing all the characters and factions involved, but if you have zero knowledge of the Marvel Universe, it might be better to wait till later to read this one.

From my limited experiance, i’m leaning more towards DC than Marvel, mostly because of GL and Batman. But that might be because the two Marvel TPBs ive gotten (Civil War and Planet Hulk) have been dependent on mythology and really bad respectively. I have read a few issues of the Wolverine/Deadpool reprints they sell over here and liked it despite a bit of confusion, where would you recomend starting with Wolverine?

Read Annihilation. One of the best events of recent years.

Also you didn’t like Planet Hulk? It’s great…