Whats everyone reading?

[Ancient Otter]

Just finished The Lottery and Other Stories, found it tough going. They felt very dry. Has anyone read The Haunting of Hill House by her, is the writing style much different?

[Mabs]

Judge Dredd: Brothers of the Blood - A stonkingly good read. Wagner's storytelling is utterly gripping, and the artists on board do one hell of a job, but I wasn't too fond of those garish colours on Ezquerra's art. Not a fan of the computer assisted colouring in this particular instance, but the rest looks superb. Simon Fraser's opening work was simply a joy to behold.

I've been in Judge Dredd heaven these past few days with this, and Tour of Duty. I wonder what else I can purchase to sate my appetite? Satan's Island and Total War were on sale on ebay but some lucky sods outbid me!

Does anyone know whether Judge Dredd Megacity Masters 01 and Mechanismo are any good?

[Frank]

Satan's Island and Total War were on sale on ebay but some lucky sods outbid me!

I wondered why you were wasting time bidding for those on ebay, until I checked the Amazon prices. Currently feeling very smug for still buying the comic when those stories were originally published. 

Mechanismo is equal parts good and disappointingly average, but the way McGruder's return and sad end plays out makes less sense without it. I don't have that book, but unless the quality of the reproduction and binding is much worse than Case Files 18 it's probably the best way to read those stories other than in the original issues of the Megazine. I don't own Megacity Masters 1 either, but if you don't already own the stories therein * Douglas Wolk's review makes it sound like a decent purchase.


* if you've just finished Tour of Duty, you've read Wagner and Walker's Mutie Block

[NapalmKev]

/quote]

Mechanismo is excellent and well worth purchasing!

Cheers

[dracula1]

Just read Kingdom Come for the first time (how could I have missed this when it first came out?). This gives me hope for the DC universe, the art and writing are astounding.

[Mabs]

Thank you for your inputs, guys, I might purchase the Case File rather than the TPB, I think I'll get my monies worth with the former rather than the latter.

Cheers!

[Link Prime]

Just read Kingdom Come for the first time (how could I have missed this when it first came out?). This gives me hope for the DC universe, the art and writing are astounding.

Kingdom Come was an amazing piece of work. Having said that, I can count on one hand the number of DCU stories I have enjoyed prior or since.

Morrison's run on JLA is a good next stop.

[Theblazeuk]

The Flash was a reliably strong book right up until Infinite Crisis and '52'. Some absolutely brilliant stuff from Waid, Messner-Loebs and even Geoff Johns when he could stay away from his power ranger dolls.

Gotham Central is amazing and is mentioned in every breath of 'whats good in the DCU'.

Legion of Superheroes was gold from post Zero Hour to that continuity's eventual demise with what's referred to as the 'threeboot'. For about a decade DC managed to keep their 31st century teams engaged with the main continuity whilst still delivering a full universe of their own, as well as keeping a roster of 20-40 characters in play with some great characterisation unseen in other takes on the team's 50 year history. The comics where the United Planets falls apart and the Legion is Lost are some of the best sci-fi stuff I've read, even including the prog. A certain Mr Dan Abnett is responsible for a large part of the awesome on show here too.

Impulse, effectively Kid Flash for the 90s, was an amazing comic. Simply inspired. Got slightly too childish towards the end but for most of its run it was touching, beautifully drawn and had a humour and playfulness with conventions you don't see in most comics (and without being obnoxious Deadpool spoofing). This was 'my' book from 12 to 18 but stands up to rereading as an adult. Similarly Young Justice, effectively Teen Titan's MK4, was also extremely good fun. Nothing as resonant or creative as Impulse but funny and interesting. Hell even the eventual Teen Titans by Geoff Johns that span out of the demise of these books was good before it got piledrived beneath Infinite Crisis.

JLA: Year One is the definitive origin for the Justice League in my books, at least outside of the DCAU. Particularly because it didn't have Batman or Superman in! Which incidentally is a great universe whose abandonment is possibly the clearest sign of the end times for DC editorial's judgement.

I could go on. And I probably will whenever I have the chance as DC's current stuff is boring where its not outright bad or offensive. Aside from Wonder Woman, Animal Man (bye), All Star Western (get back to the west Hex) and Aquaman (I know I'm surprised too). However I do notice that most of my love ends around 2005... It's a shame that Geoff Johns, a writer who was so solidly consistent with characters I loved, and who made me love others (JSA), wrote such a terrible, terrible story that wounded the DCU to such an extent it was put down by the nu-52.

[Colin YNWA]

The Flash was a reliably strong book right up until Infinite Crisis and '52'. Some absolutely brilliant stuff from Waid, Messner-Loebs and even Geoff Johns when he could stay away from his power ranger dolls.

Gotham Central is amazing and is mentioned in every breath of 'whats good in the DCU'.

Yes, yes and thrice yes. Those two series are two of my all time favourites. The Wally West Flash series quite astonishing as for about 225 issues it was almost uniformly good. Loved Baron's start the Messner-Loebs stuff was the best of the lot and that's over a quite brilliant Waid run. Even Geoff Johns did his best stuff by far on this title. All that and there was a nice 12 month interlude by Morrison and yes Mark Millar showing that he can write great comics. Throughout it all you really got a sense of the continuous development of Wally as a character and a man. Mainstream comics does get any better in my mind.

Gotham Central is almost as good!

Aside from Wonder Woman, Animal Man (bye), All Star Western (get back to the west Hex) and Aquaman (I know I'm surprised too).

Bloomin' heck swap Aquaman for Batman (which is on the verge of getting dropped) and that's all that's left of mine. Possibly because, even though Jonah has been shoe-horned into the current DC Universe they all kinda play in a field on their own.

[Theblazeuk]

Did you catch Dial H? That was fun.

[Colin YNWA]

No heard nothing but good things about it though and loved those Bolland covers.

[Chris Tresson]

I'm a bit gutted that Robert Venditti is taking over The Flash. Haven't been impressed with his Green Lantern run so far and Flash was one of the books I've enjoyed since the start of the New 52...

Bit bored overall with DC at the moment.

[Mabs]

Locke & Key: Volume 5, last night - in ONE sitting. I rarely do that (I'm too fidgety). Just goes to show how gripping and thrilling I found the volume. Once you get swept up into the storytelling it's hard to pull yourself away from it. I can say with confidence that Locke & Key is probably my most favourite comic series alongside Sandman, Hellboy, Y The Last Man et al.

Now I wait with bated breath for the release of the final volume.

[Apestrife]

Judge Dredd: Brothers of the Blood - A stonkingly good read. Wagner's storytelling is utterly gripping, and the artists on board do one hell of a job, but I wasn't too fond of those garish colours on Ezquerra's art. Not a fan of the computer assisted colouring in this particular instance, but the rest looks superb. Simon Fraser's opening work was simply a joy to behold.

I've been in Judge Dredd heaven these past few days with this, and Tour of Duty. I wonder what else I can purchase to sate my appetite? Satan's Island and Total War were on sale on ebay but some lucky sods outbid me!

Does anyone know whether Judge Dredd Megacity Masters 01 and Mechanismo are any good?

I read Total War as a sequel to Brothers of the blood. They make a great read together, and a good intro to compl. America, Origins, ToD and DoC.

Mechanismo is quite good, especially the first story. But it outstays it's welcome quite a bit. I think it's best read together with Wilderlands in Casefiles 21, which serves as an ending.

[Recrewt]

Thanks to the local library I have been reading Justice League Origins and Superior Spiderman #1 tpbs.

There has been a lot of love for the Superior Spiderman on this forum which prompted me to pick this up when I saw it.  I would say that I am a casual spidey fan - I love the character but sometimes feel the stories are a little too light-hearted and such i.e. not dark and gritty like Batman normally is.  I found the first part of this OK with the new sinister six and the new spidey learning different ways to tackle crime.  The latter part was better for me with the character Massacre and issues around deadly force at the end.  It did feel a bit odd reading in one go as we went from the relatively nice sinister six and vulture to the sudden more violent/bloody Massacre tale.  Interesting, but I'm not sure if I am hooked enough to want to read more.

Justice League Origins is in many people's opinions the flagship title of the New 52 universe.  Graphically it was very impressive but if I am honest it was basically one extended fight.  It doesn't really come to any sort of conclusion and one thing I did find odd was that it never really seemed to pay attention to the collateral damage that was going on.  It also struck me that the solution to the attack would leave countless individuals lost with no way to get home but nothing was really said on this.  Perhaps this is tackled later - it was a nice read but again, I'm not really compelled to pick up any more of this series.