The Comic Book Thread

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Forlorn, now would be a good time to jump on Batman both in his titular book and Detective Comics. Both have recently started new story arcs and while Batman is a continuation of a longer story of Bane's attempt to rebreak the Bat, the stuff previous was pretty middling and not super essential. Detective Comics had a new team from DC#1001 and is doing a story with the Arkham Knight if that is of any interest. Last week Batman and the Outsiders started from a new number 1. It's less Bat heavy focusing more on Black Lightning, Katana and Batgirl 2 (or 3). The Outsiders are basically Batman's black-ops team, stuff that the Robins would find a bit questionable.

Elsewhere, Superman is being entirely handled by Brian Michael Bendis previously of Ultimate Spider-Man, Daredevil and Alias fame. His run has been very divisive as he threw away a lot of stuff to do with Superman's son Jon which annoyed older fans but as a newer reader it shouldn't affect you. He writes both Action Comics and Superman both are about ten issues into their runs since Action Comics 1000 but should be easy enough to find on the cheap. He also did a lead in series called Man of Steel which was, meh.

Wonder Woman isn't doing so well currently but WW does show up in Justice League Dark which is lots of fun if you like the obscure magic stuff in DC; guys like Constantine, Swamp Thing, Dr Fate etc. The regular Justice League by Scott Snyder is also really good atm, very far out stuff evocative of Grant Morrison's run on JLA that became the template for the Justice League cartoon. Morrison himself is currently on The Green Lantern and doing some interesting things with it but it's not your usual balls out GL book.

Flash is getting another secret origin starting now. Cyborg never had a steady book and has been shoved out to the lamest JL team with Odyssey. The Hawkman book has actually been pretty decent and I was enjoying Aquaman until they kicked Dan Abnett off the book when the film came out to do a superfluous origin style story. I dropped it a few issues ago. All the JSA are MIA as are the Legion but Doomsday Clock will probably fix this when it finally finishes sometime in 2025. Avoid Heroes in Crisis as it is as big a dumpster fire as season 8 of GoT currently is.

If you are just going to collect trades though, I can give you some suggestions. Hope this helps.

[Ack]

How about you just get into whatever book Detective Chimp is in these days? He is the greatest DC character.

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Detective Chimp also hangs out on Justice League Dark. He's become kind of the new Nightmaster as well as his usual gig propping up the Oblivion Bar.

[Ack]

Sweet.

[Nemoide]

Anyone else reading the new Wonder Twins comic written by Mark Russell?
It's in the vein of his Flintstones and Snagglepuss comics: taking an older TV cartoon property and turning it into surprisingly biting satire. I'm definitely digging it and feel like I've got to start seeking out more of his work (I suspect his Prez mini-series is a good one).

In other recent comic news,it was pretty satisfying to see Hellboy/BPRD get wrapped up. Towards the end of BPRD, I definitely felt like I was mostly reading it out of habit rather than them genuinely being great comics, but it's rare to see a comic with apocalyptic themes like Hellboy ACTUALLY take us through that apocalypse. If nothing else, I feel freed to now just pick and choose future "Mignolaverse" books to get; I see myself focusing on Lobster Johnson and Sir Edward Grey: Witchfinder which I almost always have fun reading.

On Free Comic Book Day I hit up a bunch of comic shops and ended up getting way too much, but I'm looking forward to reading LOTS AND LOTS OF COMICS! One of my recent acquisitions is Jack Kirby's Fourth World Omnibus, which is definitely doing to be an experience.

[Forlorn Drifter]

Forlorn, now would be a good time to jump on Batman both in his titular book and Detective Comics. Both have recently started new story arcs and while Batman is a continuation of a longer story of Bane's attempt to rebreak the Bat, the stuff previous was pretty middling and not super essential. Detective Comics had a new team from DC#1001 and is doing a story with the Arkham Knight if that is of any interest. Last week Batman and the Outsiders started from a new number 1. It's less Bat heavy focusing more on Black Lightning, Katana and Batgirl 2 (or 3). The Outsiders are basically Batman's black-ops team, stuff that the Robins would find a bit questionable.

Elsewhere, Superman is being entirely handled by Brian Michael Bendis previously of Ultimate Spider-Man, Daredevil and Alias fame. His run has been very divisive as he threw away a lot of stuff to do with Superman's son Jon which annoyed older fans but as a newer reader it shouldn't affect you. He writes both Action Comics and Superman both are about ten issues into their runs since Action Comics 1000 but should be easy enough to find on the cheap. He also did a lead in series called Man of Steel which was, meh.

Wonder Woman isn't doing so well currently but WW does show up in Justice League Dark which is lots of fun if you like the obscure magic stuff in DC; guys like Constantine, Swamp Thing, Dr Fate etc. The regular Justice League by Scott Snyder is also really good atm, very far out stuff evocative of Grant Morrison's run on JLA that became the template for the Justice League cartoon. Morrison himself is currently on The Green Lantern and doing some interesting things with it but it's not your usual balls out GL book.

Flash is getting another secret origin starting now. Cyborg never had a steady book and has been shoved out to the lamest JL team with Odyssey. The Hawkman book has actually been pretty decent and I was enjoying Aquaman until they kicked Dan Abnett off the book when the film came out to do a superfluous origin style story. I dropped it a few issues ago. All the JSA are MIA as are the Legion but Doomsday Clock will probably fix this when it finally finishes sometime in 2025. Avoid Heroes in Crisis as it is as big a dumpster fire as season 8 of GoT currently is.

If you are just going to collect trades though, I can give you some suggestions. Hope this helps.

Sorry I took so long to respond, I've been busy.

I'm definitely leaning more towards trades, for price reasons and because the only place locally for singles is a place so focused on Marvel they don't even carry Batman.

Outsiders does sound interesting, but otherwise I'm thinking of sticking to the Bat family for the time being. Especially as we wait for Doomsday Clock to wrap up, with whatever that may cause. Thanks for the refs though!

[Forlorn Drifter]

Man, the cost of collected stuff for DC is high. Probably my preference for Omnibuses burning me here, but holy crap. Especially considering how cheap I can Image/Dark Horse/Dynamite stuff. To pick up what I'm looking at now is like $500.

[opa]

^you ought to check out comiccollectorlive if you haven't already. The random stuff I'm missing from sets I find cheaper on there than comic books stores.

[noiseredux]

I have boxes of comics to get rid of in my garage if anyone's interested. Nothing especially rare or anything. Mostly stuff from 2015-2017 I'd wager. And some random 90's issues and collected editions.

[Ack]

Man, the cost of collected stuff for DC is high. Probably my preference for Omnibuses burning me here, but holy crap. Especially considering how cheap I can Image/Dark Horse/Dynamite stuff. To pick up what I'm looking at now is like $500.

What collections are you looking at picking up that are getting that expensive? I have some of the Essentials line that go for around $60, but that's generally as pricey as it gets for me.