New Comic Book Day Megathread

[The Adventurer]

IMO

The best DC comics right now are Hawkman and Freedom Fighters. Both by Robert Venditti. Dial H for HERO is by far the best Wonder Comics title, Sam Humphries's story is solid, but what Joe Quinones is doing with the art is the real standout reason to read this book.

I wish Shazam! and Curse of the Black Knight were better. They're fine, but have become rather unexciting.

Kieth Giffen and Jeff Lemire's Inferior Five maxi-series is probably going to be a massive sleeper hit in about 6 months. The first 2 issues are incredible and I don't expect it to let up any time soon. Don't sleep on it if you're a Giffen fan, or are into Jack Kirby send-ups.

Looking forward to Tom King's next big series, Strange Adventures. I love Adam Strange and King's brand of character introspection. Also Doc Shaner & Mitch Gerads's art.

EDIT: Oh oh, Daniel Warren Johnson is doing a post-apoc Wonder Woman mini-series that's going to be incredible. Because everything Johnson does is.

Very exciting stuff at DC.

[Frank]

If TordelBack's identification of Time as the unifying theme in Alan Moore's corpus can be applied to John Wagner's writing, I'm saying Big W's central concern is Automata. Robots who think, act and/or think they are human and, even more interestingly, vice versa.

One of the 'things that went over your head' moments that I got from the early Spacespinner podcasts (besides Dan Dare's genocidal tendencies) was that Dredd has been robo-racist since day one. Doesn't matter whether they're slaughtering cits or kissing his boots, his contempt has been open. I defy anyone to come up with an example that goes beyond 'grudging respect'!

The Complete Judge Dredd reprinted Robot War just a few months before the debut of Mechanismo, so the themes and characterisation were maybe more apparent.

I've drifted away from Green Lantern, too. I've never enjoyed Morrison's franchise superhero work, so that's less of a surprise, but it's still sad to see how far his star has fallen. To be fair, I feel the same about Al Ewing's acclaimed Immortal Hulk most months, but he throws in a clever idea just often enough to make me think twice.

[TordelBack]

If TordelBack's identification of Time as the unifying theme in Alan Moore's corpus ...

Good job you're here to remember these things for me Sauchie lad, 'cos that's ringing no bells! Unless it was really smart, in which case, yes, yes that was me.

[Frank]

If TordelBack's identification of Time as the unifying theme in Alan Moore's corpus ...

Good job you're here to remember these things for me Sauchie lad, 'cos that's ringing no bells! Unless it was really smart, in which case, yes, yes that was me.

I remain, Sir, your obedient servant.

[Colin YNWA]

I'm going to break woith traditional and comment on a couple of comics before finishing my haul. But they were next to each other in my pile and the comparisons between the two where striking for me.

Now its possible I'm being obtuse but while I did get some improvement from Coffin Bound 2 I think I'm done with it by issue 3 and its dropped. Its just trying way to hard. Its like its some sort of nexus for all that was early 90s Vertigo condensed into ineffective cliche. Its mistaking being obsure and shocking for being intriguing and different. At least by my reading. I'm just bouncing off all the ideas with no emotional or even intellectual connection.

Unlike Jeff Lemire and Keith Giffen's Inferior 5 - 2 which feels equally like its building ideas obliquely but remembers you need to do that with guile and craft enough to draw your reader with you. This comic succeeds entirely with that. There are equal dollops of mystery but here these are spread evenly across and base of intriguing busicut aided by an equal measure of engaging sauce. Baked at gas mark character for excitment minutes

The two comics use very similar ingrediants but very different results. The thing is taste is so different I'm quite sure there will be plenty of folks who like Coffin Bound, loads who like both and plenty that like neither.

[Colin YNWA]

Elsewhere in my haul... well it wasn't a big one but so not too much.

I'm getting a few comics of late (or starting soon) just to see where I stand with mainstream superhero comics. Curiously these are tending to be Marvel for... well who knows, those titles have just grab my inquiry more.

Anyway first amongst them is Agents of Wakanda 2 - a comic I've picked up simply as it has some characters I love in (Wasp and the actually not appearing Ka-Zar). Its the type of comic I'd have loved in the past ... I think... now it just washes past over me. Strangely though this would be dropped in other circumstance as it almost certainly won't last past issue 5 or 6 I'll stick with it for experiments sake.

History of the Marvel Universe 4 hits nostigaville and seems to tell me all I care about in the Marvel Universe in about 20 pages!

Black Hammer n Justice League 4 reminds me that superheroes don't need to be done in the same old way.

While comic of the haul Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen 4 reminds me that even if I'm bored with mainstream superheroics there are all sorts of fun stories to be told in the corners of the universes they inhabit.

[Hawkmumbler]

Honestly my reading pattern has been so fractured lately all I have to add is....

Man road to Savage Dragon #250 is rad as fuck.

[The Adventurer]

Honestly my reading pattern has been so fractured lately all I have to add is....

Man road to Savage Dragon #250 is rad as fuck.

SD 246 this week. It's going to be a wild one.

[GordyM]

Making my way through the complete (so far) run of John Lees and Alex Cormack's Sink. Dark and fun stories of a twisted version of Glasgow filled with evil clowns and fox-masked killers.

[Colin YNWA]

A small haul with big comics. I think only two of the five are 20 - 22 pages.

And right off the bat I'll hold my hand up and admit that I didn't understand Immortal Hulk 25, which strangely isn't to say I didn't enjoy it. I did there was enough there to hold me as I followed events as well I could and try to draw meaning from whats gone before in this series. I failed but it was fascinating trying. I'm also looking forward to diving back in... but will resist doing so immedately as I think this will be better served with a full series re-read. I got enough - I think to understand what that reveal was all about. Lets see how I get on next month.

Now the only reason I didn't understand Marauders 1 was it was full of holes. But before I get to that, first some context. I've not read an X-Men comic (aside from X-Men Legacy (Spurrioso one), X-Statix and a few very little odds and sods) since back in the day when Claremont was still doing his thing. I'm getting so disillusioned with buying great Indie comics that can't sustain their creators that I decided to experiment with some bits of mainstream again. In a way looking at a couple of Xbooks as interesting indie titles with characters I happen to be familar with from years ago. Hence I'm picking up this and New Mutants, having selected these to as I find the concepts, interesting both ship based, be it space of sea based... anyway that's the way I've approached this as if this is an entirely new series and we're all in at the ground.

On that level Marauders 1 fails spectcularly. I felt as if I was being immersed into a world that was much larger than that which I was reading and left a stranger looking in. Fine that kinda worked in the context. It was a little annoying the way some characters an relationships were dropped on us. It also baffled me the way things where forced into place to support the concept of having a bunch of mutants sailing from place to place. I mean these chaps can fly and teleport and have jets that have taken them around the world from times before Claremont was Len Wein or John Byrne was Jack Kirby, so why is Kitty Kate  needing a ship?

But you know what I got over it. It was straight forward fun and had enough hidden - and at some points I believe intentionally - under the surface and questions asked to make this pull me back for more. That more needs to treat me better and explain why the heck Pyro coming back is a thing - had Pyro gone away, by the sounds of it replaced by someone and then resurrected by an island...??? These things need explaining to a new reader. Anyway these things better draw me in more but its got a bite.

Similar to that the idea of Si Spurrier on Hellblazer - One Shot has pulled me back for peak at that part of the DC Universe and I thought this was all the more successful. I enjoyed this and found it sustained in and of itself. Though to be fair it did feel like it should have been the first issue of the ongoing thats coming in a month or so. Oh and doesn't old man Constantine have a look of Bacchus about him!

James Bond 12 end this series and story perfectly fine.

Book of the haul though was Second Coming 4 - which is just brilliant, hilarious wonderful fun. Just genuinely the perfect balance of humour used to explore some very big themes. Genius.

[Tjm86]

I have to be honest, one of my 'guilty pleasures' is the x titles.  Hickman's reboot has really left me cold though.  There are some interesting ideas but his characterisation stinks.  it might work with something like Avengers / New Avengers where the characters generally don't have any depth to them or are borderline pathological anyway.  Once up a time the characters of the x titles had some depth to them (okay, about thirty odd years ago ...)

You are right about being thrown in to a much larger world.  The relaunched titles all spin out of the recent House of X / Powers of X mini-series that establishes a lot of the utterly revamped landscape.  It's a bit like what Disney have done with Star Wars (bugger, worms everywhere!), taken all of what someone thinks are the cool bits, turned the characters into cardboard cutouts and tried to make it look as visually impressive as possible in the hopes that no one will notice that there is no heart to it anymore ...

[Greg M.]

I felt as if I was being immersed into a world that was much larger than that which I was reading and left a stranger looking in.

The X-Men have just undergone a massive relaunch and change to their status quo, at the hands of Jonathan Hickman and his House of X / Powers of X comics, so it's not surprising you're a little at sea. The X-Men have united with their mutant / pro-mutant foes, live on the island-nation of Krakoa (whose sovereignty is vouchsafed by the supply of powerful mutant medicines to human nations who play ball) and are all now functionally immortal, their personalities recorded on Cerebro, and their bodies reconstructed by a combination of mutant powers. As for Pyro - he died of the Legacy Virus in 2001. Recently, another pyrokinetic mutant took the name, but is notable only as being Iceman's boyfriend (and student! Duty of care, Bobby?)

As for Marauders itself - it was ok. Duggan's all right at character moments and writing inventive fights, but not so strong on bigger picture stuff.

[Dandontdare]

I recently read a summary of this whole new X-world and thanked my lucky stars that I used the end of the marvel universe a few years ago to break my addiction to these convoluted continuity tie-ins. AFAIC, the marvel universe I followed was destroyed, and I don't have the interest or energy to invest myself in a new one.

I now spend a fraction of what I used to on Marvel stuff, just picking up the occasional series or standalone if they interest me - I bought the first Dr Strange volume; Secret Empire; a couple of the 'new' civil war books (as that was my favourite of the previous tie-in events); and I'm following Immortal Hulk ('cos it's Al and it's awesome). In the past I'd be buying multiple avengers and X-titles just to keep up with what the hell is happening.

[rogue69]

Just noticed one of the names on the whiteboard in the hospital in the Hellblazer Special  is a Proff M. Molcher (D.N.R)

[Frank]

Just noticed one of the names on the whiteboard in the hospital in the Hellblazer Special  is a Proff M. Molcher (D.N.R)

And some Welsh bloke, too.