Comics are Awesome III

A general discussion forum, plus hauls and silly games.
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andersonh1
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Finshed the Wonder Woman by Brian Azarello and Cliff Chiang omnibus, and it does not get more enjoyable as it goes along, it gets less. Wonder Woman ending up as the God of War when the original is killed seems like exactly the opposite of what the character should be. This book overall feels like it gets more caught up in telling the story of the conflict of these Olympian gods with Wonder Woman as part of an ensemble cast rather than the lead character of the book, despite her name being on the cover.

Probably the best part of the series in the inclusion of Orion of the New Gods and his friendship with one of the Olympians.

The major threat in the second half of the storyline is "The First Born", the first child of Zeus and Hera, who is a powerful, homicidal, power hungry individual who ends up killing several of the other Olympian gods before the story is done, taking the throne from Apollo, and just generally being the most reprehensible of an already mostly reprehensible cast of characters. He was imprisoned deep beneath the Earth, where it took him 7000 years to get free, and in the end Wonder Woman just tosses him back into his prison, hoping that he'll learn the lessons this time that he didn't learn last time. I doubt that's going to happen...

But hey, the Amazons get restored to being people instead of snakes. Yay? And Diana is their queen since her mother is still a stone statue. So at the end of all this she's a superhero, a queen, and a god(dess) of war. And Azarello said he was simplifying the character? Sorry, can't see it.

Not a fan of his run. Interesting, but deeply unpleasant in many ways, and Diana often gets lost in her own book. Not without some merit here and there, but overall, taken as a body of work, I can't say I enjoyed large stretches of it, or that I would want to read it again.
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andersonh1
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Fantastic Four #40 - The "Reckoning War" has begun. Apparently based off of a plot in a 60s Marvel book, the story involves the Watchers and why they took a vow to watch and not interfere: they once gave their tecnology to a race who abused it and destroyed themselves and others. Sounds like the Time Lords from Doctor Who. Now that race has returned to make war on the universe, and the Watchers must break their oath and go to war. Great concept, we'll see where it goes. And Reed Richards has absorbed all the knowledge of the Watchers and has gained a ton of information, but he'll be dead in three days as a result.

Aquamen #1 - I'm trying this book out after dropping the previous Aquaman series when DeConnick took over and I did not enjoy her writing. There has also been a Black Manta mini-series and a Jackson Hyde Aquaman series before this book, both of which seem to be relevant to the plot, but I didn't read either. I have no interest in Jackson, but I like Aquaman, so I'll give the book a few issues before deciding whether to keep reading or not.
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andersonh1
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Batman Superman: World's Finest #1 - A fun old school team up book by Mark Waid, looks like a Bronze Age set of characters with a modern sensibility. Superman and Batman are good friends, Batman's in the blue and gray, Robin is a teenage Dick Grayson with the traditional Robin costume (plus long pants). The book has them facing off against Poison Ivy and Metallo, who injects Superman with red Kryptonite. The Doom Patrol guest star. It's Waid running a tour of the DC universe as he often likes to do. Great first issue, and as long as it remains a $4 book, I'll keep reading.

JLA/Avengers is great fun so far, and it feels like the writer just sat down and made a list of all the interesting character encounters he could think of and tried to include them in the plot. Seeing Darkseid with the Infinity Gauntlet is fun, but it doesn't work in the DC universe so he throws it aside. Seeing Starro attack the Avengers, or Vision vs. Red Tornado, or Batman and Captain America deciding that they could fight, but it would be more use to figure out what's really going on, and then bonding a bit over lost sidekicks is exactly the type of thing I wanted to read this book to see.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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I have actually been reading DC again.

Nightwing:
Tom Taylor's "Nightwing" run is technically set in mainline DC (as much as DC had that level of cohesion), it is a conceptual balance to his "Injustice" series. While "Injustice" showed the downside of taking over by force (even with the best intentions), "Nightwing" shows the challenges of driving change without coercion.

Put another way, Taylor is using this series to answer for why the worlds of superhero comics are not perfect.


Son of Kal-El:
Another Taylor series, focusing on the human component of "super-human".


I am assuming that both series will be derailed by the upcoming "Dark Crisis" (where the universe will be broken and taped together.....yet again). But, I have not regretted buying in for either. And, both show Taylor's strengths as a writer.


War for Earth 3:
I have not started this yet, but I have the first 4 chapters and a few of the lead-ins from "Suicide Squad". Normally, I would avoid this sort of series. But, the recent "Crime Syndicate" mini-series was better than it had any business being.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Aquamen #2 - Aquaman and Black Manta are working together for as yet undisclosed reasons to stop the Atlantean sleeper agents we learned about last issue, while Jackson goes back to Atlantis to inform everyone else and to try and find out what's going on. Good art, appearances by Mera, Garth and Tula, and the honestly interesting interaction between Manta and Arthur make this a pretty good Aquaman series so far. I still have no interest in Jackson Hyde, but as long as the lead role is balanced between him and Arthur, it's fine. And we have the classic orange and green Aquaman costume back, so that's a plus.

Fantastic Four #42 - The Reckoning War continues as the Watchers refuse to get involved, Nick Fury tries to rescue Uatu, and we finally find out just what would cause the Thing to try and kill Reed Richards: he thinks Richards killed Alicia and the children. It's taking a while to tell this story, but it remains interesting, though once again we have a villain so powerful that it's unclear how he can possibly be defeated. So I don't know where this is going, which isn't a bad thing.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Green Lantern #12 - here's hoping we're done with this run and we'll see a new series with a new writer and artist. I've dipped in and out of the Geoffrey Thorne run and have not liked it, despite the fact that he deals with some interesting and long-ago dropped John Stewart plot threads. As he did at the end of Mosaic, back in the 90s, John Stewart has ascended to a higher power level and has moved beyond being another Green Lantern. He has a long conversation with "the Source", who looks like Jack Kirby. Hal ends up with a standard power ring again (so he's lost the one he forged from his own willpower) but there are only 600 Lanterns and no Guardians. Feels like an ending too far from the GL status quo to have any staying power, nor would I want it to. I'm not sure why some writers feel the need to break everything rather than simply tell good Green Lantern stories. Sales on this series would seem to indicate that I'm not the only one who didn't enjoy this book very much.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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andersonh1 wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 7:05 amSales on this series would seem to indicate that I'm not the only one who didn't enjoy this book very much.
I mean, how many times do we need to see the Corps decimated/reduced in number, one of the human GLs get godlike powers, and the Guardians taken out? It's become an old tired story that DC is rehashing all too often. Every other story since the Third Army seems to be going back and forth on this status quo.

It is interesting that some of the GLs got Star Sapphire or Blue Lantern rings instead. The other Corps was one of the most interesting things to come out of Geoff Johns run, and it's been disappointing writers following haven't seemed to know what to do with that concept. The last we've seen, most of them had been wiped out.
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andersonh1
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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Sparky Prime wrote: Thu Apr 14, 2022 12:37 pm
andersonh1 wrote: Wed Apr 13, 2022 7:05 amSales on this series would seem to indicate that I'm not the only one who didn't enjoy this book very much.
I mean, how many times do we need to see the Corps decimated/reduced in number, one of the human GLs get godlike powers, and the Guardians taken out? It's become an old tired story that DC is rehashing all too often. Every other story since the Third Army seems to be going back and forth on this status quo.

It is interesting that some of the GLs got Star Sapphire or Blue Lantern rings instead. The other Corps was one of the most interesting things to come out of Geoff Johns run, and it's been disappointing writers following haven't seemed to know what to do with that concept. The last we've seen, most of them had been wiped out.
Agreed, the whole "Corps expands/disaster happens, battery is destroyed/Corps collapses", wash, rinse, repeat storylines get old. We've seen it often enough, time for something different.

And then there's Geoffrey Thorne being a jerk towards fans who ask him valid questions. His screen name on CBR is "redjack" and he seems very thin-skinned here: https://community.cbr.com/showthread.ph ... 022/page62
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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andersonh1 wrote: Tue Apr 19, 2022 11:32 amAnd then there's Geoffrey Thorne being a jerk towards fans who ask him valid questions. His screen name on CBR is "redjack" and he seems very thin-skinned here: https://community.cbr.com/showthread.ph ... 022/page62
Wow. He has the gall to claim they're moving goalposts? His whole argument that John doesn't count because he isn't technically a Green Lantern anymore is moving the goalpost in the first place. The first fan's post was that he hated when the writers make one of the Green Lanterns special in some way. How is John becoming an "Emerald Knight" any different than when Hal became Parallax, or Kyle becoming Ion? It isn't. They got those powers because they were Green Lanterns that ascended or whatever you want to call it. It doesn't matter if they technically weren't Green Lanterns after they got those powers.
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Re: Comics are Awesome III

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World's Finest #2 - I'm really enjoying this series, which is retro but with a modern sensibility to it. Superman and Batman are good friends, DIck Grayson is Robin, Batman urges his friend to live and smiles when he recovers rather than being a standoffish jerk. We get a guest spot by the Doom Patrol, who are instrumental in saving Superman's life from the red Kryptonite. Supergirl takes Robin and flies through the time barrier into the past (a very pre-Crisis use of the character's powers) to investigate the villain of the story, while Superman and Batman take on Felix Faust to save Billy Batson, with the cliffhanger being Faust sending them quite literally to Hell. The pacing is good, and I can't complain about seeing classic versionsi of all these characters. It feels like forever since we've had a traditional Batman and Robin team in a book, and Waid certainly gets Superman. I hope the series is selling well and runs for a long time, if it can keep up this level of quality.
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