The Comics Thread - While You Slept, the World Changed...

[Pedro]

Yeah I hated the Rebirth one shot. I'm gonna stick with just buying Wonder Woman for Rucka and the rest I can do without. It's a shame as there is some good teams, but double monthly shipping and some of the reveals don't do anything for me.

[jiggles]

At the weekend I discovered that Marvel Unlimited is a thing and immediately subscribed because it's the Netflix-like, read-without-downloading, all-access service I've always dreamed of.

The curated "playlists" are excellent, but the app's a little buggy so I tend to have to go search for the issues manually to follow along. I'm currently working through Civil War. The whole event was 100 issues, so it's probably going to take me a while, but I'd welcome any suggestions for any events to look at afterwards.

As someone who never followed the Marvel comics, Civil War has been good to dip into a bunch of different series to see what they're like. Thoughts so far is that Fantastic Four is hot garbage, She-Hulk is surprisingly enjoyable, the artwork in Wolverine is... questionable, and Spider Man seems to be reinventing itself for the sake of it (that suit Tony Stark gave him is pretty ridiculous).

There are also far too many characters in costume. In the ensemble issues, there's so many heroes in scenes that they all have to address eachother by name every single line to let the reader get a handle on who the strawberry float they all are.

[Mafro]

At the weekend I discovered that Marvel Unlimited is a thing and immediately subscribed because it's the Netflix-like, read-without-downloading, all-access service I've always dreamed of.

The curated "playlists" are excellent, but the app's a little buggy so I tend to have to go search for the issues manually to follow along. I'm currently working through Civil War. The whole event was 100 issues, so it's probably going to take me a while, but I'd welcome any suggestions for any events to look at afterwards.

As someone who never followed the Marvel comics, Civil War has been good to dip into a bunch of different series to see what they're like. Thoughts so far is that Fantastic Four is hot garbage, She-Hulk is surprisingly enjoyable, the artwork in Wolverine is... questionable, and Spider Man seems to be reinventing itself for the sake of it (that suit Tony Stark gave him is pretty ridiculous).

There are also far too many characters in costume. In the ensemble issues, there's so many heroes in scenes that they all have to address eachother by name every single line to let the reader get a handle on who the strawberry float they all are.

Most of the subsequent events were pretty average up until Infinity and Secret Wars. Are there any specific characters or groups you're interested in?

[jiggles]

Doesn't necessarily need to come after Civil War. Outside of a few Amazing Spiderman issues and maybe 2 Uncanny X-Men, I'm a totally blank canvas for Marvel Comics.

Spidey, X-Men, Iron Man are characters I know I'll enjoy reading about. X-Men in particular. I remember really enjoying the cartoon series when I was a kid, so anything that centres around that particular configuration of the team would be great.

But, really, I'm happy with anything. It's all at zero additional cost, so I'll give anything a go.

[Mafro]

Doesn't necessarily need to come after Civil War. Outside of a few Amazing Spiderman issues and maybe 2 Uncanny X-Men, I'm a totally blank canvas for Marvel Comics.

Spidey, X-Men, Iron Man are characters I know I'll enjoy reading about. X-Men in particular. I remember really enjoying the cartoon series when I was a kid, so anything that centres around that particular configuration of the team would be great.

But, really, I'm happy with anything. It's all at zero additional cost, so I'll give anything a go.

Joss Whedon's Astonishing X-Men
Rick Remender's Uncanny X-Force followed by his Uncanny Avengers
Warren Ellis' Extremis arc of Iron Man
Pretty much anything by Jonathan Hickman. His Fantastic Four run is really good but I preferred his Avengers and New Avengers runs. They both tie into each other and lead into Infinity and Secret Wars (both written by Hickman) and are probably two of the best events Marvel have done.

[HSH28]

Guardians of the Galaxy (2008) is a good read.

You may want to read the Annihilation event first though.

Hickman's Fantastic Four starts from #570 by the way, start there and then read both FF and Fantastic Four in order until Avengers (2012), then read that and New Avengers (2013) together. Finish with Secret Wars (2015). Its a pretty amazing story run.

[Corazon de Leon]

So I dunno if it's just me but I like having my favourite comic runs in TPB format and I'm currently having a look at picking up Remender's Uncanny X-Force run in TPB format. Because I like the cover art a lot more on the seven-volume TPB run rather than the the two-volume collected edition, I'm looking at getting them. They're mostly super cheap on Amazon, £3-£5 plus postage, except for vol. 3(Dark Angel Saga book 1) which is coming in at £30+. Anyone know why that particular book is so dear?

I've noticed this as well with the Age of Apocalypse books if anyone has a clue about that, book 3 of 4 is ludicrously expensive, the rest are about what I expected.

[Mafro]

Might just be because the Dark Angel Saga 1 it's out of print and the price has shot up because it's a bit of a collectors item. I've got the omnibus and that went out of print really quickly and ti goes for silly prices now.

[Corazon de Leon]

Cheers Maf. I looked at the omnibus because I didn't have the cash when it came out and I absolutely love the cover art but you're right, it goes for funny money now. It's a bit odd that of the seven volumes, only the third one has disappeared. Must have been much more limited than the others.

[Mafro]

I'll never understand why Marvel have short print runs on big collections like that which are obviously still in demand. Same goes for the Ultimates omnibus and Bendis' Daredevil ones given the respective popularity of their movie and TV show.

[Mafro]

at Bleeding Cool posting unsubstantiated rumours from junior members on Neogaf.

So those rumours posted on GAF by that guy back in January about Civil War II turned out to be true

[Lagamorph]

I only just today found out Superman has a son.

[That's not a growth]

Jiggles, RE Hickman's fantastic four, I read through it a month or so ago as a comic newb, and here's my post on it:

Newb post:

So I've read through Hickmans run of F4 and FF after getting a recommendation of it...last year, I think. It was alright, but a lot isn't accessible to a newcomer, and it can be quite difficult to figure out what's actually going on and what's significant.

I've been looking to expand this reading list so I can have context for what is going on, and who people are, and found this: http://comicbooklibrarian.tumblr.com/po ... ding-list#

I also found this: https://www.scribd.com/doc/151317258/A- ... ic-Four-FF which was useful, but I found it after I already finished the run.

While it's cool there's a complex and sprawling story going on, it's a bit intimidating that to figure it all out I could probably need the assistance of a spreadsheet to read it in the right order.

But yeah, I guess I'm meant to start with Bendis Avengers stuff, so will be looking into that now.

I was going to read civil war soon actually and start from there. I think. Still planning, I would really like to read origins for each character and the lead up to civil war first, but I'm beginning to think comics just aren't made to be read that way because it's so strawberry floating difficult to find a simple reading list, it seems so subjective at times what's relevant.

[Corazon de Leon]

I don't know if anyone in here is as interested in old-school Deadpool as much as I am, but the Deadpool Classic series has now reached a point(vol. 15) where, if bought alongside the Cable & Deadpool omnibus, Uncanny X-Force omnibus and Deadpool by Daniel Way stuff, you can have a TPB collection of just about every major Deadpool storyline since his introduction running right through to Marvel NOW! starting in 2014.

[ITSMILNER]

I always thought about picking up the Deadpool classic TPB's but never bothered.....were they good then? Is it the same forth wall breaking humour?

[Memento Mori]

I only just today found out Superman has a son.

He's from a different timeline but yeah. His kid with Lois is going to be the new Superboy.

at Bleeding Cool posting unsubstantiated rumours from junior members on Neogaf.

So those rumours posted on GAF by that guy back in January about Civil War II turned out to be true

Bendis should have kept the name Homer.

[Corazon de Leon]

I always thought about picking up the Deadpool classic TPB's but never bothered.....were they good then? Is it the same forth wall breaking humour?

Deadpool Classic is the original run that Joe Kelly had with the character in the mid-90s through to the recent Suicide Kings mini-series that came out in 2008/09. IMO Kelly's run was some of the very best Deadpool, it's absolutely bursting with fourth wall breaking and 90s references and introduces a lot of the themes that have been recurrent in DP storylines ever since. I definitely recommend picking up at least vol. 1-4.

[Winckle]

I've started the Hickman FF run and I'm about 5 issues in. So far it reminds me a lot of Planetary. Which is a very good thing.

[Mafro]

Civil War II #1 was shite in case anyone was wondering.

[Memento Mori]

But it looked lovely.

I've started the Hickman FF run and I'm about 5 issues in. So far it reminds me a lot of Planetary. Which is a very good thing.

The full reading order in case you haven't seen it already:

Collected in omnibus 1

Dark Reign Fantastic Four (Dark Reign Fantastic Four #1-5)
Fantastic Four By Jonathan Hickman Volume 1 (Fantastic Four #570-574)
Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman Vol. 2 (Fantastic Four #575-578)
Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman - Volume 3 (Fantastic Four #579-582)
Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman Vol. 4 (Fantastic Four #583-588)
FF by Jonathan Hickman Volume 1 (FF #1-5)

Collected in omnibus 2

FF by Jonathan Hickman - Vol. 2 (FF #6-11)
Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman: Vol. 5 (Fantastic Four #600-605)
FF by Jonathan Hickman - Volume 3 (FF #12-16)
Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman - Volume 6 (Fantastic Four #605.1-611)
FF by Jonathan Hickman - Vol. 4 (FF #17-23)

The FF and Fantastic Four issues after Fantastic Four #600 are basically happening concurrently.