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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 24, 2020 19:57:35 GMT -5
Also in a digital format, I've been reading the Daredevil Epic Collection, "Mike Murdock Must Die!", which collects Daredevil #22 to #41, the first annual and Fantastic Four #73. These were also very cheap! I had all these issues as well … and then sold them. This another run I absolutely love! The whole Mike Murdock saga is here! I know everyone hates it like a Jack Schiff alien story, but I love it! I remember reading the Mike Murdock issues when I was 12, 13, 14 and thinking it all so much fun! Before he takes on the Mike Murdock identity, Matt fights the Owl, the Gladiator, the Masked Marauder, the Tri-Man and the Leap Frog. Then he becomes Mike, and must face the Masked Marauder (again), Stilt-Man, generic gangsters, generis aliens, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Beetle, the Trapster, Dr. Doom and the Exterminator and his Ani-Men! Glorious glorious amazing wonderful Silver Age silliness! I've also been reading this for months. I finished the Dr. Doom issues a few nights ago, so I should be finishing this off in a few days. Daredevil had a lot of good runs before Frank Miller showed up, and this is one of them! (Of course, Daredevil also had that dreary awful run from #54 to #80.) So this is not my favorite DD run. Frank Miller stepped in and practically redefined super-hero comics when he started drawing (and eventually writing) Daredevil. That's hard to compete with. Still, the Gene Colan art on the Mike Murdock issues is sooo goooood! And the Silver Age silliness and the parade of menaces (not to mention the variety! From the Leap Frog to Dr. Doom!) makes this run a great favorite that I know I'll be going back to from time now that I have a digital copy available.
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 24, 2020 20:04:41 GMT -5
... but I am just not much for reading on a screen. If I had these comics in a hard copy, I would have finished them months ago! I have a digital copy of Wonder Woman #6, the Golden Age first appearance of the Cheetah! I've read it maybe three times in two years. If I had it in a nice hard copy reprint, I would have read it 20 times, I'm sure! It's awesome!
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 24, 2020 20:51:04 GMT -5
I'm still working on All-Star Comics. I'm not doing them in order because I've been reading scattered reprints since I dunno 1976, and I've read random volumes of the archives, whatever was available at the library at any given time. I've exhausted the All-Star volumes from the library, so I've turned to digital comics. I was skipping around because the early issues are sometimes pretty bad … but in truth, there are some pretty bad issues through most of the run. There's that period from All-Star #33 to #40 (or so) that's pretty good to great, and I like what I've read of the last 6 or 7 issues. But otherwise, All-Star Comics can be pretty dire. Most issues have some fun little segments here and there, but the contrived format strains the Golden Age charm to the breaking point, especially if you read them too close together. I've got about 15 issues to go. I bought #15 to #18 about a month ago and I've been making my way through them. #15 is the first Brain Wave. #17 is the second Brain Wave story. I read about half of it a couple of nights ago. #16 is a very interesting story where the JSA is going all over the US to challenge Nazi agitators who are mixing with the regular joes and provoking them to violence through outrageous lies and silly nonsense. In a way, it's way too familiar. The Nazi agitators are just like conservative news commentators, Russian bots and conservative conspiracy theorists. The lies are so transparent and so outrageous that it seems ridiculous that the agitators would be making any headway … unless you've lived in the US for the last four years. Suddenly, this story doesn't seem simplistic or contrived. The contrivance comes in when you have to believe that the gullible fools who believed this nonsense come around to the truth after they've seen the evidence and admit they were wrong. I don't see much of this at all. Overall, I used to wonder why so few JSA stories had been reprinted. And the answer is: They're not very good! The idea of the JSA is, far too often, a lot better than the execution.
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Post by Hoosier X on Mar 24, 2020 21:25:57 GMT -5
And I'm reading Ditko Spider-Man again! I have all these in the first four volumes of Marvel Masterworks: Spider-Man. I've had these for a long time. Since the 1990s, I think. The Ditko Spider-Man run is my favorite run in all comics. I've read these over and over but I haven't read them all in sequence for a while. Ten years, maybe? These are so great! I like the very earliest issues, and #3 (first Doctor Octopus!) is such a great story (especially with that Human Torch cameo) but I really think SPidey really gets going with #4. Because Liz Allan and Betty Brant are introduced! Because Flash, Jameson and Aunt May are all here! Because the Sandman is AWESOME! Because The Amazing Spider-Man #4 is the first issue that mixes all the aspects of Peter Parker's life - as Spidey, as loving nephew to Aunt May, as beleaguered egghead student at Midtown High, as harried photographer for the Daily Bugle - in one fantastic booklength adventure! I read #5 last night. This is another one I absolutely love! Ditko's Doctor Doom looks like some of the parts expanded a little in the heat and now the pieces of the suit of armor don’t quite fit together as snugly as they are supposed to. And look at the way they worked Flash Thompson into the story! It's easy to forget that Flash met Dr. Doom when he was only in his teens! Though I like the Dr. Doom stories in #6 and #17 a lot, some of those earlier Doom stories (#5, #10 and #16) have frequently seemed a little forced or silly to me, classics though they may be. But the story in Spidey #5! I love it. It's a worthy addition to the early Doom stories. Spidey #6 is on the horizon! The first appearance of the Lizard! I had only been reading super-hero comics a few months when I saw this in Marvel Special Edition #1! One of my fondest childhood memories is reading this book with all those over-sized pages with the wonderful Ditko art! I've read Spider-Man #6 about a million times over the years! It's always amazing!
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Post by brutalis on Mar 25, 2020 7:36:27 GMT -5
Yeah that cover has Doom a victim of receding Hood and big iron forehead. Always liked seeing Ditko's take on characters which were not of his design. Always interesting and entertaining.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 25, 2020 8:34:38 GMT -5
Also in a digital format, I've been reading the Daredevil Epic Collection, "Mike Murdock Must Die!", which collects Daredevil #22 to #41, the first annual and Fantastic Four #73. These were also very cheap! I had all these issues as well … and then sold them. This another run I absolutely love! The whole Mike Murdock saga is here! I know everyone hates it like a Jack Schiff alien story, but I love it! I remember reading the Mike Murdock issues when I was 12, 13, 14 and thinking it all so much fun! Before he takes on the Mike Murdock identity, Matt fights the Owl, the Gladiator, the Masked Marauder, the Tri-Man and the Leap Frog. Then he becomes Mike, and must face the Masked Marauder (again), Stilt-Man, generic gangsters, generis aliens, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Beetle, the Trapster, Dr. Doom and the Exterminator and his Ani-Men! Glorious glorious amazing wonderful Silver Age silliness! I've also been reading this for months. I finished the Dr. Doom issues a few nights ago, so I should be finishing this off in a few days. Daredevil had a lot of good runs before Frank Miller showed up, and this is one of them! (Of course, Daredevil also had that dreary awful run from #54 to #80.) So this is not my favorite DD run. Frank Miller stepped in and practically redefined super-hero comics when he started drawing (and eventually writing) Daredevil. That's hard to compete with. Still, the Gene Colan art on the Mike Murdock issues is sooo goooood! And the Silver Age silliness and the parade of menaces (not to mention the variety! From the Leap Frog to Dr. Doom!) makes this run a great favorite that I know I'll be going back to from time now that I have a digital copy available. It's nice when we can enjoy the silly stuff that we loved when we were kids.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 25, 2020 8:39:31 GMT -5
I'm still working on All-Star Comics. I'm not doing them in order because I've been reading scattered reprints since I dunno 1976, and I've read random volumes of the archives, whatever was available at the library at any given time. I've exhausted the All-Star volumes from the library, so I've turned to digital comics. I was skipping around because the early issues are sometimes pretty bad … but in truth, there are some pretty bad issues through most of the run. There's that period from All-Star #33 to #40 (or so) that's pretty good to great, and I like what I've read of the last 6 or 7 issues. But otherwise, All-Star Comics can be pretty dire. Most issues have some fun little segments here and there, but the contrived format strains the Golden Age charm to the breaking point, especially if you read them too close together. I've got about 15 issues to go. I bought #15 to #18 about a month ago and I've been making my way through them. #15 is the first Brain Wave. #17 is the second Brain Wave story. I read about half of it a couple of nights ago. #16 is a very interesting story where the JSA is going all over the US to challenge Nazi agitators who are mixing with the regular joes and provoking them to violence through outrageous lies and silly nonsense. In a way, it's way too familiar. The Nazi agitators are just like conservative news commentators, Russian bots and conservative conspiracy theorists. The lies are so transparent and so outrageous that it seems ridiculous that the agitators would be making any headway … unless you've lived in the US for the last four years. Suddenly, this story doesn't seem simplistic or contrived. The contrivance comes in when you have to believe that the gullible fools who believed this nonsense come around to the truth after they've seen the evidence and admit they were wrong. I don't see much of this at all. Overall, I used to wonder why so few JSA stories had been reprinted. And the answer is: They're not very good! The idea of the JSA is, far too often, a lot better than the execution. Yeah, I know what you mean. I've recently read All-Star Comics #4 (the first JSA appearance - I have a treasury sized reprint!!) and #5. The framing sequences in #4 were pretty good, but the actually stories, not so much. I know it was a time of war (well, not really for the US as of yet) but there was some pretty shallow pro-democracy propaganda without much entertainment value. I liked #5, where they go against gangsters, better.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 25, 2020 8:47:05 GMT -5
I've been reading The Flash 1987 series. It's good, and I especially enjoyed #19, where he goes to a party hosted by Barry's rogues gallery. It's a lot of fun, and it also humanizes these guys. It's a classic. #20 was also shaping up to be a classic, as Wally has to deal with having no place to sleep, hours after having given a homeless person the bum's rush, if you'll pardon the expression. This one was also shaping up to be a classic, but it gets ruined a bit at the end with that darned Invasion crossover. I really hate these company-wide crossovers and the way they force themselves into every title, like it or not!!
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Post by The Captain on Mar 25, 2020 10:14:38 GMT -5
Also in a digital format, I've been reading the Daredevil Epic Collection, "Mike Murdock Must Die!", which collects Daredevil #22 to #41, the first annual and Fantastic Four #73. These were also very cheap! I had all these issues as well … and then sold them. This another run I absolutely love! The whole Mike Murdock saga is here! I know everyone hates it like a Jack Schiff alien story, but I love it! I remember reading the Mike Murdock issues when I was 12, 13, 14 and thinking it all so much fun! Before he takes on the Mike Murdock identity, Matt fights the Owl, the Gladiator, the Masked Marauder, the Tri-Man and the Leap Frog. Then he becomes Mike, and must face the Masked Marauder (again), Stilt-Man, generic gangsters, generis aliens, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Beetle, the Trapster, Dr. Doom and the Exterminator and his Ani-Men! Glorious glorious amazing wonderful Silver Age silliness! I've also been reading this for months. I finished the Dr. Doom issues a few nights ago, so I should be finishing this off in a few days. Daredevil had a lot of good runs before Frank Miller showed up, and this is one of them! (Of course, Daredevil also had that dreary awful run from #54 to #80.) So this is not my favorite DD run. Frank Miller stepped in and practically redefined super-hero comics when he started drawing (and eventually writing) Daredevil. That's hard to compete with. Still, the Gene Colan art on the Mike Murdock issues is sooo goooood! And the Silver Age silliness and the parade of menaces (not to mention the variety! From the Leap Frog to Dr. Doom!) makes this run a great favorite that I know I'll be going back to from time now that I have a digital copy available. I read this run of issues a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it. Always liked the original DD villains like Owl, Stilt-Man and Gladiator (and Hyde and Cobra, who I loved as a weird team). Agree about the period from 54-80. I got to 64 and stopped since I didn't own 65, but even after acquiring it last year, I've been hesistant to pick it back up. Maybe after I finish Iron Man I'll give it anothet shot.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Mar 25, 2020 10:41:39 GMT -5
Re-read Eisner's seminal graphic novel A Contract With God yesterday. Novel, of course, is a bit of a misnomer as this is four short stories about a Jewish neighborhood in the 1930s. I don't think it's hyperbole to say that this is one of the most important American comics ever. Eisner adamantly wanted to have the book published outside the ghetto of comic-book publishers, turning down Kitchen Sink Press for the small publisher Baronet Press. This was to get the book into bookstores and elevate the work in the eyes of the publishing world. The work is intensely personal showing us the world that Eisner grew up in in the tenements of New York City. The title story grew out of the death of Eisner's daughter Alice at age 16 to leukemia. For me, Eisner does the almost impossible, in that he makes one of my least favorite genres, the "slice-of-life" story not only interesting but compelling. This is simply an incredibly powerful and important work that any comic fan should read.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 25, 2020 11:06:35 GMT -5
... but I am just not much for reading on a screen. If I had these comics in a hard copy, I would have finished them months ago! I have a digital copy of Wonder Woman #6, the Golden Age first appearance of the Cheetah! I've read it maybe three times in two years. If I had it in a nice hard copy reprint, I would have read it 20 times, I'm sure! It's awesome! Yeah, I don't enjoy reading digital comics as much either. It's so much nicer reading a paper comic!
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Post by spoon on Mar 28, 2020 11:38:11 GMT -5
Since I posted back on Feb. 14 (in a different thread) that I was planning on binge-reading Spider-Girl, I've started my binge read and gotten through #0 to 68 and the 1999 Annual. Spider-Girl first appeared in an issue of What If? and #0 reprints that issue. I had totally forgotten that there was an annual (and that I had it), so I read it way out of order. The annual takes place between #12 and #13, but I read when I was around #30 or so.
The first series goes up to #100. The switch from the Pat Oliffe/Al Williamson art team to the Ron Frenz/Sal Buscema art team comes around the midpoint of that series. Fill-in art is very rare and I believe there's only be one issue with a fill-in writer. The plotting is pretty good. There are some annoying scripting tropes, but I can deal with them. For example, this is supposed to take place in an alternate world that breaks off from the Clone Saga where Peter's daughter lived and is a teenager. But there are culture references that fit the date of publication, but would obviously be dated if it was 15 years in the future. Also, just about every character refers to May/Spider-Girl as "young lady" even when they don't know her identity so they'd be guessing at her age. You could make a drinking game out of it.
I feel like I'm moving at a good pace. It's a very readable series. I don't really get bogged down. I'm still working (part-time from my office and part-time from home), but with so many thing closed, it gives me time to read.
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Post by Batflunkie on Mar 28, 2020 17:40:13 GMT -5
Bleach Volume 1-3 Really don't know what brought on a re-read of this after so many years, but oh well... Was one of the first manga that I deeply fell in love with and it's funny too, most of the manga and anime that are among my favorites have some kind of spiritual element to them. Tite Kubo has been described as the Rob Liefeld of the manga industry and while that might be true considering that Bleach sometimes reads like the ultimate opus of an edgy, sex crazed 13 year old, it has a lot of interest aspects to it that make it seem like it was better thought out than it actually was Basic gist: Ichigo Kurosaki is a teenager who can see ghosts. One day, he's visited by a mysterious girl named Rukia who senses something evil afoot that later attacks Ichigo's family. Turns out this "thing" is a vindictive spirit called a Hallow and Rukia being a slayer of such things called a Soul Reaper tries to slay, but Ichigo gets in the way and Rukia gets fatally wounded. Using what little of her powers are left, she transfers over her Soul Reaping abilities to Ichigo who slays the beast. Everything seems hunky-dory until Rukia shows up at Ichigo's school the next day to tell him that he'll have to take over for him until her powers recharge
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Post by electricmastro on Mar 28, 2020 21:39:46 GMT -5
Read My Love Life #7 (August 1949, Fox Comics), the earliest romance comic book I’ve seen to feature an interracial kiss. Art possibly by George Appel:
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Post by Cei-U! on Mar 28, 2020 22:04:46 GMT -5
Can't get much work done while my office is still in disarray from moving, so I'm re-reading the 1970s run of Strange Tales. The Brother Voodoo series was one of my favorites back in the day and I'm happy to report it still holds up today, thanks to writer Len Wein (love his dialogue) and spooky, atmospheric art by Gene Colan. Voodoo is a blatantly derivative character, combining elements from Dr. Strange and the Golden Age hero Captain Triumph, but Wein and Colan make it work. The strip's biggest drawback was the Comics Code restriction on the use of zombies (hence the A.I.M.-created pseudo-zuvembies seen in #171), which went away when it relocated to the b&w magazine Tales of the Zombie. Up next: The Golem!
Cei-U! I summon the spirit of Daniel Drumm!
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