Lovely printing of the Phase iii - surely Yeowell's best ever art? Also includes the Jim McCarthy Psychadelic Annual story which looks great. Sadly no extras - I guess the page count was too high & they can be rolled over into Phase IV. the Spines look great together with the first 2 volumes. I miss the next issue blurbs but these are amazing books. These will look great in the recently announced slipcase. Are there plans to include the Mark Millar text story, which I always enjoyed, in phase IV? Hopefully the pin ups like Archie & Zenith covers will also find space in the final volume.
"Also includes the Jim McCarthy Psychadelic Annual story which looks great."
Good to see that made the cut. It's a pretty important link in the story, so its omission would have been a pity.
Excellent! This is all new material to me anyway, so as much of the obscure side stories that can be squeezed in the better.
Quote from: robert_ellis on 07 April, 2015, 10:42:26 AM
... Are there plans to include the Mark Millar text story, which I always enjoyed, in phase IV? Hopefully the pin ups like Archie & Zenith covers will also find space in the final volume.
Yeah I was pleasently surprised that this turned up over the weekend (unlike the Prog dagnabbit!) and it looks great. I've not read any of the volumes yet saving them for a re-read of the entire series when all the volumes are in... and it reaches the top of my to read spreadsheet. It is a very handsome volume though.
I did wonder whether all the covers etc would be in the last volume which will be significantly shorter - in terms of the Phase IV story itself - than Phase III but will the fact that its going to be all (mostly?) in colour mean that this won't happen, does colour printing cost significently more than black and white still?
I always thought that Millar story was okay, all be it far from essential.
Review of this today at my Bookshelf blog:
http://hipsterdadsbookshelf.blogspot.com/2015/04/zenith-phase-three.html
Great review Grant, now get back to Thrillpowering my Thursdays!
If I were to do that, it would not be weekly. Maybe a dozen people read the last few posts. Maybe as an occasional - very, very, very occasional - opinion column. Like "Hey Pat Mills, Quit Badmouthing Bishop and Diggle." I just read Return to Mars and am thinking about doing a review at the Bookshelf, and was amazed that Mills takes another(!) potshot at Diggle in his intro.
There seems little denying Pat Mils for all his considerable talent, isn't one to move on from things!
Well if you can't Thrillpower our Thursday I'd defo settle for opinion pieces whenever the need takes ya.
This, for my money, is the best story ever printed in 2000ad.
I hadn't read Crisis on Infinite Earths (still haven't) or anything it riffed on, so, for me, it was stunning. On re-reading the collection, it is still stunning. And Barker-esque in its creepiness.
Yup, mine turned up today. Adding it to my to read pile, on the whole I must agree with DR.X, one of the very best from the house of Tharg.
Not got this yet But no ones asked the most important question.does the spine match up.
Quite beautifully.
This arrived for me yesterday. I am another who considers Zenith one of the best things ever in 2K. So pleased to finally be able to get the whole collection. Brilliant stuff.
Read Phase iii in one sitting. It's long & often baffling but with cracking dialogue and a great sense of fun. The plotting is bonkers... Bombs appear randomly, characters blow up worlds after battles that seem senseless - but it's great fun. Zenith never stuck around long enough to get dull or repetitive. Yeowell's art maybe have more clarity in the Red Seas or more bombast in the Doom Patrol - but in every issue here there is an image that is iconic - genuinely scary or just downright perfect. Acid Archie on a dinosaur! A true contender for best thrill ever - up there with the Apocalypse War or Bad Company.
Quote from: robert_ellis on 12 April, 2015, 09:41:25 PMBombs appear randomly
In what sense? [spoiler]Each team is provided a bomb by Maximan, who also happens to be a lying git, hence providing a third to the Black Sun cult on Zenith's home alternative[/spoiler].
Quotecharacters blow up worlds after battles that seem senseless
I think the chaos is much of the point. Read as a whole, it's also interesting to see [spoiler]Maximan's plan in action, gradually whittling down the super humans, which are the only threat to the Lloigor, even though, as we know from IV, it's all a bit more complicated than that[/spoiler].
As for the book itself, it's really nice, even if the levels are a touch overdone, knocking out a touch of the detail in the art—par for the course these days, it seems. (Black Hole suffered far worse from this in the recent hardback.)
Yes I think a lot of the chaos is deliberate. Love the groundwork laying for book 4. Not sure why worlds are explored, enemies fought then bombed when a single hero could individually jump through the bridge & and blow the world away. Yes all of this can be attributed to Masterman's duplicity & the fog of war
God its so obvious how much of this story grant recycled in multiversity...
But I loved phase 3 then and i love it now
Just finished all 4 volumes and had a quick question.
[spoiler]Why did Maximan assemble all the heroes, give them bombs, and then send them to the crucial alternates to fight the Lloigor? If he was working with the Lloigor, and he had the bombs, why not just blow the alternates straight away with the heroes none the wiser? Apart from to make a good plot twist.[/spoiler]
Quote from: The Cheat on 07 September, 2015, 09:37:17 PM
Just finished all 4 volumes and had a quick question.
[spoiler]Why did Maximan assemble all the heroes, give them bombs, and then send them to the crucial alternates to fight the Lloigor? If he was working with the Lloigor, and he had the bombs, why not just blow the alternates straight away with the heroes none the wiser? Apart from to make a good plot twist.[/spoiler]
Not having reread since the Complete collection came out, but wasn't it that the destruction needed to happen at the right moment and the heroes needed to be kept away from the most important places ([spoiler]Zenith's home alternate[/spoiler]). The McGuffin around the whole collection of heroes is an appeal to their [spoiler]conceited, hubristic[/spoiler] heroic nature of trying to save as many as possible, allowing them to be kept out the way of the real action.
Or, I could be rationalising all of this after the fact as it would've been a pretty short story without any of this.
Read yesterday in one sitting, a full review incoming (finally going to update my bookshelf blog) but by heck it was glorious. Really, it's amazing how Grant Morrison managed to make a crossover event comic that was joyous and thrilling without being over indulgent.
Oh, and another thing.
AWESOME ARCHIE STRONG ARCHIE THE ANARCHIST ANGEL MAD MENTAL CRAZY!!!!
I want an acid Archie tee please rebellion.
Is there anything extra in these individual volumes, compared to the initial all-in-one volume Rebellion released first.
Bonus material, besides the Interludes which I consider essential, is restricted to cover galleries for 2000AD, Fleetway reprints and the new cover for the trades by Steve Yeowell. Phase 1 also has (some) of Brendan McCarthys original illustrations which are loooovely.
Quote from: Dash Decent on 24 October, 2015, 02:34:12 AM
Is there anything extra in these individual volumes, compared to the initial all-in-one volume Rebellion released first.
The art is the proper size.
Phase IV has individual Steve yeowell colour art from the data chips of the 4 main characters!