Comic Book Fans....

[JBH3]

Re: Comic Book Fans....

Have they improved arc reading in MU? Always seemed amazing to me that you couldn't read stories by brining up a checklist and easily bouncing from issue to issue across different titles.

You can browse/read by event, its quite awesome actually. This is how I am reading Age of Ultron

[mestevo]

Re: Comic Book Fans....

You can browse/read by event, its quite awesome actually. This is how I am reading Age of Ultron

Awesome. Might have to give the monthly trial a shot if its still available then. I could just torrent everything but him happy to pay for a quality product.

[TripleCrown9]

Re: Comic Book Fans....

Finished reading Death of The Family last night, and it was so good. Might be one of the best things I've ever read.

There were so many twists and screwed up things done by The Joker.

[SPTO]

Re: Comic Book Fans....

Finished reading Death of The Family last night, and it was so good. Might be one of the best things I've ever read.

There were so many twists and screwed up things done by The Joker.

That, for my money is Snyder's best story arc. Court of Owls is right up there but loses points for being a build up to the overall feel and design of his Batman run.

[JBH3]

Re: Comic Book Fans....

That, for my money is Snyder's best story arc. Court of Owls is right up there but loses points for being a build up to the overall feel and design of his Batman run.

I thought the owls storyline was better. It was fresh, new, and gave a nice historical fashion to Gotham. I was displeased by Death of the Family because it didn't have any lasting continuity changes and like so what the Bat Family splits up, its Batman... He's going to be fine on his own and eventually they are going to get the "band" back together. If there had been an actual death of something in the physical form, then perhaps that would've made it stand out more to me. Eventually they would ret-con the death a la Damian Wayne, but it would at least have more impact IMO.

[JBH3]

Re: Comic Book Fans....

Was never a fan of Ultron, that book didn't do anything to change my opinion.

Having read/finished Dc's Future's End and now reading Age of Ultron, I must say this is a superb story. Marvel's AoU gets right to the point and shows a much better struggle against their non-sentient foe. Whereas Dc's Future's End rattles on for 48+ issues and comes to no resolution in the end, and the character journey is not that fantastic.

[Millennium]

Re: Comic Book Fans....

Hey guys looking for some input. I'm about to start a month of Marvel Comics Unlimited because I have some downtime due to knee surgery (micro fracture) recovery. I really haven't read much in the last 15 years (work too much, family etc)or so after reading almost everything from mid 80's to 1994 ish.
I'd love to say I'm going to stick with and and start keeping up again but I doubt I will have enough time after I get back to work.

So with that back story do you guys have any "must Marvel reads" that i should dive into for the next month?

Also read the Civil War. That arc was fantastic and had a lot of good side arcs. Also the full thing is on MU.

[mestevo]

Re: Comic Book Fans....

Oh man, I love Secret Wars #2. Sets the table for the entire reality of battleworld so well, reminds me of reading Age of X, my favorite event since Age of Apocalypse.

Changed jobs and have been listening to more podcasts now that I'm spending another 20+ Minutes in the car every day. One comic podcast put it perfectly my issues with Convergence... basically they don't give you any back story or context for much of the crossover, you're just expected to know all these different variants of characters and that's leaving many disconnected due to disjointed stories. Absent that there's no investment in anything, how invested can you really get in 2-issue stories (which are mostly seen as excellent and the main book fairly lacking)?

Secret Wars is taking the opposite approach because they have to, battleworld isn't a merging of different realities, it's a new revision of them and context is required. With this one issue I'm now interested in the full line, done rolling my eyes over Thors, etc. I'm hungry for more.

[SPTO]

Re: Comic Book Fans....

Mestevo do you mind telling me the name of that podcast?

I will be reading my comics later but just to piggy back in a backwards way on what you're saying, I read the first Secret Wars issue and it was epic in scope and while someone reading it cold might not know why certain characters are there and interacting it's very readable and easy to follow.

I gotta say the ending was a gut punch and made me sad. DAMN YOU MARVEL FOR CREATING EMOTION!

[mestevo]

Re: Comic Book Fans....

The podcast was either the Comic Vine or Comic Conspiracy, don't remember off the top of my head which. Both were enjoyable, especially Conspiracy because they didn't dance around spoilers. Think it was probably Vine though.

[JBH3]

Re: Comic Book Fans....

One comic podcast put it perfectly my issues with Convergence... basically they don't give you any back story or context for much of the crossover, you're just expected to know all these different variants of characters and that's leaving many disconnected due to disjointed stories. Absent that there's no investment in anything, how invested can you really get in 2-issue stories (which are mostly seen as excellent and the main book fairly lacking)?

The tie-ins are really dumb because you have to have a working knowledge of these 5, 10, 20+ year old stories and the tie-ins really only serve THAT reader whose invested themselves into the last 40 some odd years of DC continuity and can pay homage to these characters/versions.

As a new reader I am thoroughly confused and have tried to take an open approach but alas its taken its toll.

I pretty much am thoroughly convinced that neither publisher has any clue what their readers want from their recent "mega" events.

Original Sin was dumb, Axis was just a drop in the bucket that had no lasting impact, Dc's Futures End was pointless drivel, Convergence mostly sucks, I hope Secret Wars II can turn it around....

EDIT: Its almost like Dc's Convergence is a shameless way to somehow convince a Nu52 reader that there's a lot of stuff they should go back and discover i.e. buy , like they're trying to dangle a carrot in my face or something. Fact is that I don't care about these older iteration of characters because their status quo has changed a dozen times and I only want to follow the current iteration...until I don't want to lol

[Bullit]

Re: Comic Book Fans....

I wish more people would go back and read the classic books for several reasons.

First:

Great stories. Back when Batman was the Worlds Greatest Detective. He used to actually solve crimes, did you all know that? (LOL) It wasn't always a world shattering event that needed every hero in the universe. Stories were for the most part self contained in there own books. Superman was a little tough sometimes because there was 4 books going at once.

Even Marvel was so much better back in the day. Captain America at his finest. Alcoholic Iron Man. The Avengers in all their glory. Buscema, Perez, Byrne and Austin were the artists of the day and man did the books look good. Days of Future Past in the X men, The Kree-krull war back in the Avengers, man just good stuff.

Second:

The only way things will change is if people vote with their wallets. The more older books you read the more money your local store makes and the less they make. Yes I do own and work in a comic store so this is a little self serving, but no less true.

I to am so disappointed in the Convergence story. It as a whole has seemed pointless and just going absolutely no where. They have already said the New 52 arcs were continuing after this so what is the point? The writing is horrible and the art for the most part is just as bad. It is a sad state of affairs when I can read anything I want and I don't read any DC books at the moment.

I think I have said it before but last year I was reading 65 books a month. Now I am reading 11 and only three right now are from Marvel and DC.

[SPTO]

Re: Comic Book Fans....

I agree, the older stories were MUCH better and didn't involve the entire world being destroyed or anything like that. Hell, when the stakes were that high it actually MEANT something, nowadays it's just par for the course. The stakes have risen in the everyday course of events for every character that we've become desensitized to it. There's nothing the writers can do to even put a shock to the system not even death can do it because we all know the deceased character will come back.

The excesses of the '90s and most of the 2000's have come back to bite the comic book industry in the *** in the worst way possible. You could TRY to scale it back and tell mostly self contained (or very tightly edited serialized) stories that are more grounded in something resembling reality but the fans who've been accustomed to the earth/universe/reality shattering events would reject them because they're "boring". I also think that the majority of today's writers don't have a clue how to tell a strong superhero story without needless shocks or throwing in convoluted junk science. There are a few that can do it such as Geoff Johns whom wrote a very good follow up to the first Earth One Batman TPB. I read it last night and it was very much grounded in reality and went from point A to point B in a clear and concise manner. I honestly think the comic book industry may need to go to a TPB format where you can really tell a story in long form.

I agree about Convergence though, i've stopped reading the ancillary books and am just reading the main one. It doesn't feel very special and it's rather ho-hum IMO. I'm massively disappointed because the way it was described sounded at least interesting. Here's hoping Marvel does a better job with SW.

I really wish comic books could go back to the way they were in the '80s, mostly tightly edited well told stories that went for shocks in a credible and organic way. I also like that the industry was more self controlled for the most part. It's unfortunate that the mega event became such a big thing but even then they mostly confined that to once a year (during the summer) and whatever changes to the status quo usually stuck for at least a full calendar year. The illusion of change in comics was done so well in that era and hell, there WAS change especially in the Spider-Man and X-books.

I'm afraid we're never going to get back to that unless sales plummet to the point that comic books can't be a viable loss leader to the siphoning off into other media.

[SPTO]

Re: Comic Book Fans....

So I just read Secret Wars #2 and all I can say is: I FREAKIN' LOVED IT! The mythology and inner workings of Battleworld is awesome to the extreme.

[mestevo]

Re: Comic Book Fans....

I've re-read it a couple times, was going to make a point of rereading age of x this weekend because it feels executed in a similar way.