Marvel comics

[DBTW]

I've been reading Garth Ennis' Punisher Max series. So far, it has been fantastic, just like Ennis' other books.

I've enjoyed the Incredible Hulk and World War Hulk, and am intrigued as to where they are going with that next.

To be honest, I don't really get on with spandex clad superheroes, so the Marvel books I enjoy most are under the MAX label.

Terror Inc, Foolkiller, The Zombie etc are great and a new Man-Thing run starts this week.

[the shutdown man]

"Or let me put it another way..."

That has actually put me off it a little bit. I think I'll still try it at some stage, but I'll maybe work on Preacher first. :)

[TordelBack]

Okay, thanks to the wonders of the interweb, I've just finished a marathon read of the various components of Marvel's crossover event of a few years back, House of M, which amounted to some 50-odd comics (well over 1000 pages) and made no sense whatsoever.

The concept is interesting enough - the Scarlet Witch changes reality so that Mutants have been the dominant species on Earth since the 1970s, and distracts the whole superhero community from the change by giving them all in 'ideal' versions of their lives into the bargain.  So far so good.

However.

The comics involved seem to bear no relation to events in the main House of M mini-series, even ones that had been specifically created for the 'event' (Mutopia, Spider-man: House of M).  For example, the Spider-man in the main book is a popular celebrity when the 'truth' of his world is revealed to him by (guess) Wolverine, while the Spider-man in his own mini-series starts out like that but loses everything and ends up faking his own death.  Huh?  Are all the heroes in separate realities?  Or did someone just not circulate the memos properly?  Worse, the whole thing had no real conclusion - it just sort of stopped when Wanda pulled the plug (again).

Some of the issues were fun (Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four, Exiles), others were dire (Uncanny X-Men, Iron Man), but it basically felt like none of the writers had a clue what was going on.

My questions to anyone else who read are:

1.  What?
2.  Why?
3. Would it make any more sense if I tracked down the following issues of the various crossed-over series?

Help!

[TordelBack]

Oh, I should say that the single Captain America issue involved is quite brilliant (something like Vol 5 , No. 10), and well worth a read on its own.  Brubaker is a very clever man.

[I, Cosh]

giving them all in 'ideal' versions of their lives into the bargain

Didn't The Beyonder do that? I remember he gave Daredevil his sight back, at any rate.

[TordelBack]

Didn't The Beyonder do that?

He did indeed.  Pretty good that was too, in comparison. Secret Wars II had its moments.

[hydraulic]

Hi all
I first encounter with comics, were the british landscape version of marvel comics, different 3-4 pages stories, then moving onto the american versions, however the last 5 years have been unbearable reading, the crossovers, the endless spinoffs, What happened to marvel? Yes either you were DC or Marvel, i always found marvel a better read,but recently picked up a few DC titles and to my surprise they werent bad.

[maryanddavid]

I always have had a shitty attitude towards Marvel. Always a fan of 2000ad, Eagle, Battle, the reprints of marvel that were available here in the west of Ireland in the early eighties were less than impressive. They were either heavy on continuity, or old fashioned eg the Spiderman Weekly and Secret Wars. The art seemed static compared to McMahon or Belardinelli etc.
Another problem i have had reading american comics is that i (am)was a comics fan and always had to have the complete collection to read the story.
 So after 15 odd years of having 5 issues of Ronin bought of Steve Rock mailorder, I splurged out and bought the collection, and that has broke my ocd of getting all the issues!

Last Christmas I got the essentiol FF and Silver Surfer, And I really enjoyed these esp the Surfer. Haviing enjoyed these I bough bothe Neil Gaimans offerings from Marvel, 1608 and The Eternals

 I had not expected to enjoy 1608, but did. Reminded me of all the Marvel Films, I really liked them, but only had a basic knoledge of the origins. I imagine if I had a better knoledge of the stories(ala Dredd) I might be dissapointed.

Gaimans The Eternals I was really looking forward to,  remembering Kirby originals from the Marvel UK reprints' Future Tense' or somthing like that. Great story, great art, poor ending. It was left as if 'to be continued', very annoying.

I also picked up  a good few Ennise's Punisher GN  handy  a while back, And coming from reading back to back Hitman and Preacher, These were a disapointment. I got both Marvel knights and Max, and while I couldnt fault any script and art(except mayby the irish themed issues which were a bit chringworthy imo ), I really enjoy a lot of Ennis's work, i felt these were a littly of Ennis by Colour.
I am looking forward to picking up The Boys tho, wonder if the Wagner/Ennis Dredd is going ahead at IDW?
Cheers

David

[Mardroid]

The main Marvel comics I pick up have been the Dark Tower comics, that is Gunslinger Born (last year) and The Long Road Home (This year.)  They're not bad, [spoiler]although I thought they took a bit of a liberty with the burnt Susan, pink eyeball bit at the start of The Long Road Home. This arc covers material not in the books, but the part at the start overlaps the end of Wizard and Glass and is a bit of a deviation from Stephen King's Dark Tower books.  There are ways to explain it, but it still felt wrong to me.[/spoiler] The rest was pretty good though.

Apparently the next arc Treacherywill be out soon (October I think.)

They're also doing a comic adaption of The Stand. I'm in too minds on that, since I've got the novel and I'd prefer new material rather than seeing another adaption of a story I've read. The art looks phenomenal though. The sketchbook is free if you can get hold of it. (I had mine sent free without my asking when I purchased the last edition of Long Road Home.

As for more mainstream Marvel books, I don't buy them, but I tend to enjoy what I read. Mostly.  I tend to pick various GNs (Marvel, DC, 2000 AD, Anything I fancy) from the library. I read some Ultimate X-Men stuff, and, whilst it wasn't bad, I wasn't all that taken. Mainly because I don't like the idea of deviating from the main universe though.  

I rather enjoyed the first volume of Ultimate Spiderman though. [spoiler](Although that version of Green Goblin who appeared at the end was wrong though. Where was the maniacal glee? It was basically just another evil Hulk.)[/spoiler] Ultimates... meh. What was with the man eating hulk? I liked the humor in that, but it was too much of a departure of the main Hulk for me though. And that version of Banner was a real wimp. [spoiler]And that stuff between iron man's alter ego and the sexy  Russian lady seemed to be played for sauce just for the sake of it.[/spoiler]

Astonishing X-Men, (the couple of volumes I've read) were great. I like Whedon's dialogue too.

Oh, and a lot of the Daredevil stuff I've read, I've largely enjoyed. Not keen on some of the art though.

[TordelBack]

Whedon's Astonishing X-Men was indeed great, but it suffers from one big problem - it's ultimately inconsequential.  One of Whdeon's great strengths as a writer is his willingness to permanently change his characters, despite their popularity with the fans, and kill them off seemingly at a whim (witness [spoiler]Wash[/spoiler] and [spoiler]Anya[/spoiler]). Alas, this can't work with the X-Men - whatever lessons Scott learns about not being a jerk, whatever faltering steps Kitty and Peter's relationship takes, whoever sacrifices themselves for the good of the team, in a year or two, it'll all be undone or forgotten.  

This doesn't take away from it being a very interesting well-constructed self-contained tale about characters we remember fondly from the 80's, but ultimately it's very hard to suspend belief long enough to care, when you know someone else will be along in a minute to move the goal-posts.  It's as if you were reading Halo Jones knowing that Brinna, Toby, Toy and the Glyph would probably pop up alive in Book IV when Millar took over writing chores, and Halo and Luiz would get back together, and we'd discover the Hoop was a virtual reality prison, and Halo was actually psychic and could fly.  It wouldn't mean that Books 1-3 weren't fab, but I can't believe it wouldn't spoil your enjoyment.  That's my main reason for being unable to follow most US comics anymore.

[the shutdown man]

The main Marvel comics I pick up have been the Dark Tower comics, that is Gunslinger Born (last year) and The Long Road Home.......

I read Gunslinger Born last year and I loved it, although I was a little disappointed too, since I had been expecting a new story rather than an illustrated version of Wizard and Glass. Still enjoyed it. I totally forgot that Long Road Home had started until I read about the second or third issue being released, so I didn't bother trying to get into it then, I'll wait for the collected edition.

I finally got around to ordering the Age of Apocalypse collection, something I've wanted to read for ages. I remember reading one or two issues of it when it first came out back in the 90s, and it was definitely one of Marvels better "stunts", I reckon.

[Dandontdare]

I wouldn't really recommend developing a habit for any of the ongoing series - I always find them uneconomical - expecially with all the cynical cross-over and spin-off ploys they use to make you buy more (Can anyone advise me of the biggest number of X-titles there were at any one time? Enough to drive me away in the 90s, that's for sure). If you have the patience to wait several months for the collected GN, I find it's much easier to make an informed choice about what is essential reading (but we all know how hard it is NOT to have read something that's been out for ages!!! Learn to use that seething mass of over-eager fanboys out there who NEED to read and comment on stuff asap as a sort of quality control panel - once the hype settles, you can see what's what).
I ended up getting sucked in to Civil War and bought it all, some of it unwisely (Thunderbolts? WTF?), but you could get a good overview of where the Marvel Universe has gone recently with the following books: Secret War (not to be confused with that 80's 'Secret Wars' kak), House of M, X-Men:Decimation, Road to Civil War, Civil War and Civil War:Front Line, the Death of Capt America (which I'm still waiting for in TBP!). After that, the New Avengers:Illuminati ties the whole thing up with the Planet Hulk and World War Hulk books (which also has a great Front Line spin-off) and lead into the skrull's Secret Invasion, the essential bits of which i expect to be collecting in the coming months). I haven't read any of this latest Amazing Spiderman hoo-ha, so I'm loath to judge but it strikes me as a really bad idea.
The best thing to come out of those two massive engines of industry that are Marvel and DC however, are the occasional rare gem of a one-off - titles such as 1602 and Marvels, or DC's Red Son. If you have not picked up Marvels, I can heartilly recommend it - sumptious art a refreshingly different and heartwarming story and loads of memory-jogging references to old classics. A Mighty Marvel Must-Have!

[JamesC]

I really enjoyed the Milligan / Allred X-Force and X-Statix that were out a few years ago. You can probably pick them up for pence now.

[the shutdown man]

I read Red Son recently and loved it. I haven't got around to Marvels yet though. The other one I've heard is supposed to be good is the Universe X collection, anyone have any advice on that?

[Mardroid]

I totally forgot that Long Road Home had started until I read about the second or third issue being released, so I didn't bother trying to get into it then, I'll wait for the collected edition.

Be aware you'll miss the Furth end-stories if you go for the collected version, (which might not be a bad thing if you don't like them. My views on them are varied, i.e. some I like, some I don't).  

I wouldn't be surprised if they brought out a separate collection for them eventually though.