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GrandAdmiral

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Since we have a lot of members who seem to have a great deal of knowledge of the comic book world, I thought it might be a good idea to have a thread where we can discuss what we're currently reading. I would assume that most of us are reading some of the same titles and there's no place like SR to discuss our like or dislike of them.

As of late, I've been more into DC's Rebirth books than anything, but Marvel still have some good things out there.

Here's my current list:

DC
Batman
Detective Comics (best reading right now)
Superman
Action Comics
Titans (original Teen Titans)
Teen Titans (Robin as leader)
Wonder Woman (awesome writing by Greg Rucka)
DK III (I really hate Frank Miller)
Justice League
JL vs. Suicide Squad
Batman: No Man's Land (oldie, but goodie)
Mother Panic (DC's new version of Vertigo)

Marvel
Civil War II (thank God that's over)
Moon Knight (great writing by Jeff Lemire)
Squadron Supreme (not sure how much longer I'll be reading this one; disappointing)
Guardians of the Galaxy (just leave already Bendis)
Hulk (not Bruce Banner, but She-Hulk; huge fan)
Power Man & Iron Fist (hopefully it gets better now that Civil War is over)

Image
A.D. After Death (really good story by Snyder and Lemire)
Reborn (haven't read yet)

IDW
Several Star Trek lines
Batman/TMNT (1st crossover was way better)
ROM (reboot of old Marvel series)
Star Trek/Green Lantern Corps (another DC/IDW crossover)

I really think as of late that DC has been handling Marvel, who just seems to be doing a money grab with some bad stories. In the past year or so I've since given up on Spider_Man, Iron Man, at wits end with Squadron Supreme and GotG, which both started out well and now suffer from bad writers. The Incredible Hulk became atrocious to read. DC has just been killing it with most of the Rebirth stories, which I hope continues correcting the problems of the New 52.


So what's on your pull list?
 
My wife really liked the DC new 52 - they were pretty good
Yes the new Black Panther

I haven't really been able to get back into titles
Still trying to find that right comic that gets me back into them full time (Neil Gaiman titles come close)
 
I'm basically not reading any Marvel books at the moment. I have no idea what they're doing over there and I'm not sure they do either, for the most part. The X-Men (always my favorite Marvel line of books) have been marginalized to the point of unreadability. Bendis' creative tank has about run dry, and the ceaseless events are getting more and more tedious (Civil War II was legitimately terrible in a way I'm not sure comics have been legitimately terrible since the 90's industry collapse). Art on books is often terrible and overly cartoony. I know we're long past the era of house styles and that's fine, but some of the stuff they're putting out looks like it was drawn by marginally talented high school art students. It's really bad. I was always more of a Marvel Zombie as a kid, but right now they're not selling anything I'm interesting in buying. And looking at how their sales collapsed in 2016 (plus countless reports from LCS owners talking about how the sales are even worse than we think because Marvel is intentionally overshipping books, all nonreturnable, with low sales numbers to prop up the number of units tracked to stores), it seems I am not alone on that front.

Axel Alonso did give an interview last month where he vaguely alluded to a more meat and potatoes approach going forward. Hopefully that turns out to be true. I'm not saying new is bad (far from it), but I am saying that Marvel seems totally directionless and too often interested in catering to a tumblr audience that doesn't actually read their stuff so much as talk about it (and even that seems to have died down considerably in the last year or so).

I've only dipped my toes into Rebirth so far (I plan to catch up very soon), but DC seems to have gotten the message loud and clear from what I have read. They seem back to doing the stuff they do well and have restored most of their characters back to their recognizable selves while creating a few new interesting ones and introducing some nice plot threads to move everything forward. It will be interesting to see if they can keep the momentum up, but right now, at least as far as the Big 2 superhero books go, they're eating Marvel's lunch both in terms of critical response and sales. Good for them for finding something that worked to get them out from being the perennial number 2.

Lately I've been mostly reading Star Wars stuff (even though it's Marvel, Lucasfilm keeps them on a tight leash). I really want to check out Saga from Image. I just need to find the time to catch up on it.
 
I'm basically not reading any Marvel books at the moment. I have no idea what they're doing over there and I'm not sure they do either, for the most part. The X-Men (always my favorite Marvel line of books) have been marginalized to the point of unreadability. Bendis' creative tank has about run dry, and the ceaseless events are getting more and more tedious (Civil War II was legitimately terrible in a way I'm not sure comics have been legitimately terrible since the 90's industry collapse). Art on books is often terrible and overly cartoony. I know we're long past the era of house styles and that's fine, but some of the stuff they're putting out looks like it was drawn by marginally talented high school art students. It's really bad. I was always more of a Marvel Zombie as a kid, but right now they're not selling anything I'm interesting in buying. And looking at how their sales collapsed in 2016 (plus countless reports from LCS owners talking about how the sales are even worse than we think because Marvel is intentionally overshipping books, all nonreturnable, with low sales numbers to prop up the number of units tracked to stores), it seems I am not alone on that front.

Axel Alonso did give an interview last month where he vaguely alluded to a more meat and potatoes approach going forward. Hopefully that turns out to be true. I'm not saying new is bad (far from it), but I am saying that Marvel seems totally directionless and too often interested in catering to a tumblr audience that doesn't actually read their stuff so much as talk about it (and even that seems to have died down considerably in the last year or so).

I've only dipped my toes into Rebirth so far (I plan to catch up very soon), but DC seems to have gotten the message loud and clear from what I have read. They seem back to doing the stuff they do well and have restored most of their characters back to their recognizable selves while creating a few new interesting ones and introducing some nice plot threads to move everything forward. It will be interesting to see if they can keep the momentum up, but right now, at least as far as the Big 2 superhero books go, they're eating Marvel's lunch both in terms of critical response and sales. Good for them for finding something that worked to get them out from being the perennial number 2.

Lately I've been mostly reading Star Wars stuff (even though it's Marvel, Lucasfilm keeps them on a tight leash). I really want to check out Saga from Image. I just need to find the time to catch up on it.

Agree with most of this. Like I said in the OP, was really big on GotG, but Bendis has just been terrible, beyond terrible actually. Don't know why I wasted money picking up Civil War II, but I fell for it.

It's going to be really interesting to see how DC continues to handle Rebirth, especially the Watchmen connection with messing with the timeline. But like you said, it's good that it seems that they've learned their lesson. Now please PLEASE dump Dan DiDio. I truly believe the recent success has been in spite of him (and Jim Lee for that matter).

I've heard good things about Saga, but would have to invest in it digitally in order to catch up. I wonder how long Image might be able to hang on since both Marvel and DC are starting to sign people to multi-year, exclusive deals.
 
I started collecting about 4 years ago. Picked a few i was really interested in and started buying. the Secret Wars run, DP, GOTG, Punisher, Uncanny Avengers for a bit, but really had trouble finding time (and money) to keep it up and started buying classics.

I love keeping up with the runs, and stories, but man it can be really overwhelming. Still love it though.

I have subs to punisher, DP, Spiderman/DP, & GOTG. I wanna kinda gear more towards DC and some Indies, what would ya'll suggest?
 
Agree with most of this. Like I said in the OP, was really big on GotG, but Bendis has just been terrible, beyond terrible actually. Don't know why I wasted money picking up Civil War II, but I fell for it.

It's going to be really interesting to see how DC continues to handle Rebirth, especially the Watchmen connection with messing with the timeline. But like you said, it's good that it seems that they've learned their lesson. Now please PLEASE dump Dan DiDio. I truly believe the recent success has been in spite of him (and Jim Lee for that matter).

I've heard good things about Saga, but would have to invest in it digitally in order to catch up. I wonder how long Image might be able to hang on since both Marvel and DC are starting to sign people to multi-year, exclusive deals.

I'm at a point where I only read collected volumes of comics. I've gotten through volume 5 of Saga(way behind), and it is very good.
 
I stopped reading about 4-5 years ago. I was Pretty much an X-men guy, and I'd try a few other Marvel books. I really enjoyed Deadpool, Cable, XForce (for a while), the few Wolverine ones I got. I didn't really get into the Avengers, or other groups.

I did think they were getting a little too giant story arc, major world disaster for my taste. I mean, you had Onslaught wipe out NYC, then you had the House of M and 'no more mutants', then those various Apocalypse issues, and the one with the Phoenix Force splitting into 5, cyclops kinda going bad.. I don't know. It just got weird.

I missed arcs like with Marrow. Here she is, reforming the morlocks, becoming a problem, Storm has to set her straight, then she wants to join the X-men, but on her terms. She picks a fight with Wolverine, cheap shots him, he almost kills her. But eventually, she evolved, grew as a person. I'm not saying I'm against the big story lines.. I enjoyed Fatal Attractions and the Age of Apocalypse. Onslaught wasn't actually all that bad and I enjoyed the long tease / build up to it. After that, I can't remember much else that resonated with me.
 
I stopped reading about 4-5 years ago. I was Pretty much an X-men guy, and I'd try a few other Marvel books. I really enjoyed Deadpool, Cable, XForce (for a while), the few Wolverine ones I got. I didn't really get into the Avengers, or other groups.

I did think they were getting a little too giant story arc, major world disaster for my taste. I mean, you had Onslaught wipe out NYC, then you had the House of M and 'no more mutants', then those various Apocalypse issues, and the one with the Phoenix Force splitting into 5, cyclops kinda going bad.. I don't know. It just got weird.

I missed arcs like with Marrow. Here she is, reforming the morlocks, becoming a problem, Storm has to set her straight, then she wants to join the X-men, but on her terms. She picks a fight with Wolverine, cheap shots him, he almost kills her. But eventually, she evolved, grew as a person. I'm not saying I'm against the big story lines.. I enjoyed Fatal Attractions and the Age of Apocalypse. Onslaught wasn't actually all that bad and I enjoyed the long tease / build up to it. After that, I can't remember much else that resonated with me.
 
I stopped reading 20 years ago, but a couple weeks ago went to a comic book shop and let the guy working there pick me some.
Bought Civil War, Green Lantern (forget name, Hal JORDAN comes back), Nemesis and another by same writer about a kid selling his soul to be a superhero.

Any recommendations?
Used to be a D.C./Image guy way back when.
 
I stopped reading 20 years ago, but a couple weeks ago went to a comic book shop and let the guy working there pick me some.
Bought Civil War, Green Lantern (forget name, Hal JORDAN comes back), Nemesis and another by same writer about a kid selling his soul to be a superhero.

Any recommendations?
Used to be a D.C./Image guy way back when.
I'm recommending DC right now. Their best book since Rebirth launched has been Detective Comics. They've actually returned that and Action Comics to its legacy numbering because they have big plans for the respective #1000 issues. It's easy to catch up with them because they are pushing out trade paperbacks of the earlier issues. Much of DC is around issue 14 or 15 and they have a few new sites starting in February.

Not much on the Marvel side I can recommend. Like Sun said, they're just all over the place and don't seem to have much guidance. Their best book to me is Moon Knight, but it's something someone who's not familiar with the writing style of Jeff Lemire may need to get used to.

Saga seems to be the big thing on Image right now, but it will take catching up on. Reborn is fairly new, but I've always loved Greg Capullo's art, so I'm a little bias with that.
 
I'm recommending DC right now. Their best book since Rebirth launched has been Detective Comics. They've actually returned that and Action Comics to its legacy numbering because they have big plans for the respective #1000 issues. It's easy to catch up with them because they are pushing out trade paperbacks of the earlier issues. Much of DC is around issue 14 or 15 and they have a few new sites starting in February.

Not much on the Marvel side I can recommend. Like Sun said, they're just all over the place and don't seem to have much guidance. Their best book to me is Moon Knight, but it's something someone who's not familiar with the writing style of Jeff Lemire may need to get used to.

Saga seems to be the big thing on Image right now, but it will take catching up on. Reborn is fairly new, but I've always loved Greg Capullo's art, so I'm a little bias with that.

What are some good recent DC trades to pick up? I've mostly been getting Saga and TWD over the last year or so.
 
What are some good recent DC trades to pick up? I've mostly been getting Saga and TWD over the last year or so.

Best book right now IMO is Detective Comics. It's not the typical Batman story. Detective is a team book with Batman and Batwoman leading an uncanny group of heroes, including Clayface (yes, that Clayface).

A close second is Wonder Woman. Greg Rucka came back to DC specifically for this after doing a great job when he was last there. DC wanted someone who could put a real spotlight on her with the movie coming out this year and he has done just that. Wonder Woman comes out twice a month, but Rucka is doing something different with this book. Odd numbers cover one story (right now the present day Rebirth story) and the even numbers covering another story (right now Wonder Woman: Year One). People may find that confusing, but it has been great as the two stories really do tie together. If James Tynion IV wasn't doing such an awesome job on Detective, this would be my favorite book.

Flash is good also. He is training the new Wally West while trying to have a personal life with Iris (at least in this current arc).

Superman/Action Comics are both pretty good as the pre-Flashpoint Superman we probably all know is back.

Titans (the grown-up original Teen Titans) is pretty good as well with the original Wally West back in action.

Aquaman is decent. The initial storyline had him attempting to be more of a diplomat with us land-dwellers while still dealing with the likes of Black Manta and Ocean Master. He and Mera put a decent whipping on Superman in one issue (really a draw).

The story arcs last between 4-6 issues now, which for Detective is 2-3 months since it and several of the main titles come out twice a month. The trades that are out now follow the arcs and the comics have been reduced to $2.99 an issue.

One last thing. If you're going to pick up DC right now, you CAN NOT do so without picking up DC: Rebirth by Geoff Johns. It is the key to everything that is Rebirth. I think the main Rebirth event will take place in the issues of Batman, Action, Flash, and Titans.
 
I was a Marvel only guy. Had a pull list from Midtown of about 30 titles.

Then they screwed over Scott Summers and 4 years ago or so, and brought in the first class all over again from a different universe to start them over and killed him off.

I havn't bought a comic since.

Cyclops was right #neverforget.

Now we have a new Ms. Marvel, new Iron Man, Unworthy Thor, blah blah blah.

I'm ok that Marvel tried to move on into a new demographic, new fans, modernize and all that. I just can't take that trip with them.

Spider-Gwen and Gwenpool? Seriously? What the hell Marvel. Your movies kick-***. Your comics don't
 

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