I’ll definately look that up, thanks. And not really, Hulks whole revolution seemed to drag on for too long and his character didn’t match what I thought it’d be, he seemed too resonable… which is really my own fault for going in with preconcieved notions about something I knew nothing about. Mainly I would’ve preferred seeing Bruce Banner pop out a few times and for it to be a few issues shorter.
Eh it wasn’t a Banner story though. It was a ton of character development for The Hulk himself. Oh well. We’ll have to agree to disagree
Indeed, my lack of enjoyment was probably down to the (probably wrong) idea i had stuck in my head that The Hulk was just some animal that came out and broke stuff every now and then anyway.
But anyway, No Fear is finished, on to Thor: The Mighty Avenger.
If you want to start with Wolverine, I’d say start reading Wolverine Origins. It gives you all the details on the character, like why he’s always saying “bub.” I really enjoyed the series. I have no idea if it’s available in trades, but the series is only a few years old so back issue hunting shouldn’t be too difficult. I really enjoyed this one when I was reading it, never kept up with it, and at some point I’ll reread it in trades.
Xmen is definitely a hard world to jump into because there’s so much history, for so many characters. Since I don’t read every book every month I’m still often lost, but after a while you know enough that you can kinda fill in the details in between. Just power through being lost in the story, and after 3-4 trades, you’ll be able to piece together enough to get past it.
The way I got started into Marvel as the cartoons. Then when I got into the comics I started with ultimate. That’s a really good way to do it to be honest. Not all of Ultimate mind you but like sometime before Ultimatum would be ideal
Agreed, the Xmen cartoon (except season 5, which wasn’t good) was a great intro to the series. It borrowed stories from the best comic book stories, and adapted them to the cartoon format. It was so different from any other cartoon. The very first episode, one of the Xmen dies. That’s not something any other cartoon would ever do. This was my first introduction to the Xmen as well, and now that you mention it, Ultimate Xmen were some of the first comics my friend showed me.
I’d say to also go older, into some of the classic stories like the Dark Phoenix Saga and Days of Futures Past. The older books are great because of the editor’s notes. These would either give a quick 1 sentence explaination to the reference, or give you an issue # to pick up so you can catch up on what’s being talked about. You don’t see this as much anymore because there would have to be a footnote on just about every single panel now that there’s 30 years more backstory.
I disagree. I find it A LOT recently especially in X-men books. Uncanny X-men specifically it’s like every issue they’ll pop up a character 's name/power/what’s going on recently.
I’ve seen bits of different Marvel cartoon series (like the excellent Silver Surfer one) but i’ve never seen the X-Men, or at least very little. And I might look into Uncanny X-Men, even if the explanations are thin on the ground, I usually stay near a computer with Wikipedia open while reading a comic I have reason to believe I won’t understand. I sense my wallet being significantly lighter for the next few weeks…
Depends I suppose on the writer. Astonishing Xmen had almost 0 notes in it as I recall, whereas Uncanny does still have quite a few. I suppose that’s because Uncanny is like issue 600, and Astonishing is a stand alone story that’s only hit like 40 issues.
Also, trades are great because they usually fill out the back of the book with extra tidbits like character profiles, and other useful information.
Making a second attempt at Batman: Long Halloween. First time I tried, I got halfway through, was bored and gave up. But holy crap, it’s awesome this time. Can’t believe I disliked the artwork first time, Batman looks stunning with the shading, the regular faces look nice and noirish and I love the black and white murder pages. Storywise its a cracker, best Batman as a detective story i’ve read and i’m actually looking forward to finding out who the killer is (which is a feeling that most pieces of cop/detective can’t bring out).
I broke out the change jar and ordered GL: Secret Origin and the second Thor: The Mighty Avenger, so I should be able to tear into them right around the start of the holidays.
I’m pretty sure you ripped this straight from my own brain. Catwoman costume still sucks though right?
That it does, its always the ears that seems off. Now Selina Kyle out of the suit, meeeow
Also, I have no idea who Solomon Grundy is, but the only way I can describe the bit with him is adorable. Which is not a word I usually use in relation to Batman.
Damn, despite my best efforts to pace myself i’m two thirds finished. I’ll have to look up Dark Victory sometime.
Read 6 and 7 (trades) of Buffy season 8, it was a delight.
Read Rising Stars and Dark Age 2 trades from Astro City, it was fun revisiting that place.
Read 1 and 2 of the J Michael Straczynski Thor Trades and am now reading 3, I am really enjoying his version of the whole Marvel Asgard mythos. Had never really liked Thor and never followed him except way back in 83 when Walt Simonson did his epic arc with Beta Ray Bill and the war with Surt and so on. Now working on trade #3…
Augh I had a coupon today and decided, “Hey, I’ll get the discs of X-men: The Animated Series I’m missing!” since I’m in the middle of a reread of the Grant Morrison run on New X-men. And they were out of the two I needed. Frak you, Best Buy by my house!
I’ve been on an X-men kick lately (moreso than usual… it’s not like I don’t have a few X-titles in my pull box every week) and have been rereading Grant Morrison’s run on New X-men. I first read it back when “E is for Extinction” came out in trade, and man was I confused back then. I hadn’t touched an X-men comic in almost a decade and had no clue what was going on. The Xorn stuff didn’t help. I like it a lot better now, with some time and more arcs under my belt, and hey! It introduced Beak, Angel Salvadore, and Dust!
(In lieu of the X-men: TAS cartoons that I’m not watching, I’ll watch these instead. Love 'em.)
ETA: Omra, if you’re looking for a good Thor story, might I suggest The Mighty Thorcules? One word: “Thipples.”
That was strangely wonderful You’re made of straw, what more do you want!. So thats why he was so grumpy in the sewers, he wanted Batmans pants.
Never read any of the Buffy ones, but I have read the first Angel trade and that was pretty good. Haven’t read Straczynskis Thor either, but at the risk of sounding like a broken record, Thor: The Mighty Avenger is brilliant. Doesn’t go that deeply into the mythos and is mostly Thor hanging around with Jane Foster but it’s really well done, and his meeting with Captain Britian is one of the funniest things i’ve read in a while.
Are you sure you weren’t confused because you were reading Grant Morrison? When he’s good, he’s great, but a lot of his stuff is off the rails on a crazy train.
Just hit the book store yesterday. I got 3 volumes of Marvel Runaways, but Diamond was nice enough to backorder the first volume of my order, so I won’t be able to read them until next week when volume 5 arrives. I also got volume 1 of The Mighty Avengers. I’ll maybe do a better write up later on this, but it’s great. Bendis has a great time with this one. The one thing I really like is how he has not only the characters dialogue presented, but also clips from their internal monologues in thought balloons. This means it’s packed full of irony, and I’ll definitely be doing a reread to make sure I got all the jokes/story. There’s also an appearace of Ant Man, the superhero everyone loves to hate.
Which reminds me, I have to do a review of the 12 issue Ant Man series. If you haven’t read the 12 issues of Ant Man, go on ebay and buy it now. Don’t ask questions, just get it. Then when it arrives, stop everything and read it straight through. Don’t drink anything because the inevitable spit takes from laughter/shock wil ruin the books.
Been digging through an old box of comics this week and pulled out Bullet Points, from 2007. This 5 issue miniseries is a “what if” scenario that follows a hypothetical chain of events that starts with the shooting of Dr. Erskine, the creator of the Super Soldier serum that creates Captain America. However, unlike normal Marvel canon, in which the doctor is shot after the creation of Captain America, this presumes that he’s shot before the super soldier program can have it’s first human test subject.
It’s a fast paced story, that requires a good knowledge of the Marvel universe to get the full effect. If you aren’t as familiar with every character mentioned, it’s still an enjoyable read, but you won’t fully understand truely how different this take on the Marvel world is. It sets up the mood amazingly by using the JFK assassination, and resulting chain of events, to show how just one bullet can change the course of history.
The art is fantastic as well. I love this semi water colour feel, which gives the whole series a sort of dream like feel. There’s still so much detail where it needs to be, with every face showing emotion, and every splash page perfectly captures the action.
If you haven’t checked it out yet, definitely find yourself a copy. It’s a relatively inexpensive run for such a great story.
Just started the first Booster Gold trade. What they did…genius.
Without spoiling any plot, Booster’s shallow, slightly dim-witted corporate hero persona has become his secret identity, and not just to the public at large. It’s just really cool.
Transmetropolitan in your avatar right? Is that the one where the crazy writer from the moutains comes down and has to do freelance work in the city because he’s broke, but he spends half his time killing everyone because he’s so full of contempt for humanity? I never got into it when I first picked it up. Alan Moore is a great writer, but that one just seemed to full of hate at the beginning for me to get into. Maybe I’ll pick up a vol.1 trade and try to get more into it, I only ever read issue 1.