JD's Comic Book Thread

[JD]

I finished reading Amazing Spider-Man: Crime and Punisher yesterday.
The first issue was really good, a nice tribute to the members of military, and also a nice look at how Spider-Man has influenced other people to do good.
The stuff with Hammerhead was pretty good too, my only real problem was a technical one with the GooglePlay version of the book. The pages were off, so the double page splashes ended up getting split between by a page flip, so I was only getting half on each page and had to flip back and forth. The story itself was enjoyable, Hammerhead was a pretty intimidating bad guy, and I always like seeing the heroes helping people along with beating up bad guys.
The Punisher stuff was good too, I liked him, and the realtionship between him and Spidey was pretty good.

 

[JD]

I started reading Back To the Future Vol.1: Untold Tales and Alternate Timelines earlier this week. I finished up the first issue last night, and I really enjoyed it.
The first few issues of the series were a group of more or less stand alone stories that either covered stories in and around the original trilogy, with a little arc in the opening and closing of most of the issues that take appear to lead into the last scene in the third movie.
The first issue was pretty fun as it gave us a story I've always been curious about, the first meeting of Doc and Marty.
The story itself was a lot of fun, and seemed to me to fit in pretty well with what we got in the movies. I was pretty happy with how the whole thing played out. The art was pretty cartoony, but it worked here. There are some series that really call for more realistic art, but I think a cartoony style like this works pretty well for BTTF.

 

[Christopher]

The first issue was pretty fun as it gave us a story I've always been curious about, the first meeting of Doc and Marty.

I've long wondered about that myself. Unfortunately, my library doesn't have this in stock yet.

The art was pretty cartoony, but it worked here. There are some series that really call for more realistic art, but I think a cartoony style like this works pretty well for BTTF.

There was a BTTF animated series on Saturday mornings for two seasons, and it had a very cartoony style. So that wouldn't come as a shock to me.

 

[JD]

I'll admit, the story isn't any kind of huge mind blowing drama, but I still thought it was pretty good.
I do know about the BTTF animated series, but I've never gotten the chance to watch it.

 

[Christopher]

I do know about the BTTF animated series, but I've never gotten the chance to watch it.

The first season was pretty fun. It told stories not unlike those of the movies -- traveling to various historical eras and meeting lookalike McFly and Tannen ancestors -- although there was more of a focus on the Brown family including the boys Jules and Verne. Mary Steenburgen and Tom Wilson reprised their roles, but Christopher Lloyd only played Doc in the live-action host segments (including science lessons narrated by Lloyd and demonstrated by a pre-fame Bill Nye the Science Guy), with Dan Castellaneta replacing him in the animated segments and David Kaufman (aka Superman: TAS's Jimmy Olsen and Danny Phantom) playing Marty. As I recall, the second season was less enjoyable, focusing much more heavily on the two boys and doing more present-day weird-science stories instead of just time travel. I don't remember if they kept the science segments.

 

[JD]

Sounds like it could be kind of fun. I had never heard about Bill Nye's involvement. Do you know if the live action stuff is included on the DVDs? I know sometimes that kind of stuff is cut out for syndication and the DVD don't always include it.
Was Bob Gale involved with the show at all? He specifically mentions it (along with the Telltale Games video game) a couple times in his introduction to Untold Tales and Alternate Timelines.

 

[Christopher]

Sounds like it could be kind of fun. I had never heard about Bill Nye's involvement. Do you know if the live action stuff is included on the DVDs? I know sometimes that kind of stuff is cut out for syndication and the DVD don't always include it.

According to the official sales text on Amazon etc., the live-action segments are included.

Was Bob Gale involved with the show at all? He specifically mentions it (along with the Telltale Games video game) a couple times in his introduction to Untold Tales and Alternate Timelines.

Apparently he did some directing on the show. He was also listed as executive producer, but I'm not sure if it was a hands-on role as opposed to the kind of pro forma EP credit that the owners of the property would be entitled to.

 

[TRON JA307020]

Anyone here buy classic comic books before the modern age? Any good pick ups lately? I was able to get a CGC Daredevil #8 volume 1 a few months ago. It is the issue with the first appearance of stiltman. Not a hugely expensive key(150 to 200 dollars at a vf-nm condition) but a cool cover and dopey but cool villain. I got the issue at a 9.0 grade with white pages.

 

[JD]

I've got the first collection of the complete Frank Miller DD run on my tablet.
So I've been working my way through the BttF collection, and the other stories have been a blast.
Looking for a Few Good Scientists: Doc is recruited into the Manhattan Project. A short but fun little story with a young doc. This one is short but still pretty good.
The Doc Who Never Was: The government wants Doc to build them a time machine. A fun little bit of history for Doc.
Science Project: Marty needs something to use as a school science project. This one has some fun little Doc inventions and a little lead in to BttF 1.
In Search of Calvin Marty Klien: Marty's parents come to Doc looking for Marty's help with their relationship issues after the '50s stuff in BttF 1. A nice follow up to the first movie.
Jurrasic Biff: Old Biff takes a surprising side trip after he steals the Delorean in BttF P2. Short but sweet.
Right now I'm reading Peer Pressure, which deals with Marty and Jennifer before the first movie.

I took advantage of Comixology's Ghostbusters collections sale and got Ghostbusters: The Other Side, GB: Displaced Agression, and their Valiant collections sale and got the first Archer & Armstrong and X-O Manowar collections.
EDIT: Finished up Peer Pressure, it gave us a nice big of backstory for the Marty/Jennifer realtionship and gave us a bit more of Needles and Marty's rivalry.

 

[JD]

I just finished reading Godzilla: The Half Century War, and I can see why CBR called it the best Godzilla comic ever, it was great. A really good story with awesome art. It focuses on two friends who first encounter the Big G in Tokyo in 1954 and follows them as they spend the next 48 years (yeah it's technically not acutally a 50 year story), traveling around the world dealing with G and other Kaiju. The two main characters Ota and Ken are pretty likeable guys, which is pretty important since the vast majority of the books page count is devoted to just them. I really like the art, it is a bit cartoony, but enough to work against the serious parts of the story.
The only issue I had with it is the fact that there is only 2 women in the entire thing, and one of them has a silent one panel appearance. The book only has less than a dozen speaking characters in it so it's not a huge issue, but as a big supporter of better representation for women in comics it was a bit frustrating. We do get a nice bit of cultural diversity though, with the two main characters being Japanese and there is a African American supporting character in the third issue.

 

[JD]

I took advantage of a couple sales on Comixology to pick up the original The Rocketeer miniseries, and the first Amazing Spider-Man Masterworks.
With all of the Marvel Masterworks and DC Golden/Silver Age collections being released digitally I've been thinking about going back to the early appearances of some of the superheroes and I think this is the motivation I needed to finally do it.
I really enjoyed the Rocketeer movie, and I've been curious to check out the comics, so this gives me a chance to do it.

 

[JD]

I picked up a bunch of some the first collection of the Sensation Comics anthology series from a couple years back, Legend of Wonder Woman, and WW: A Celebration of 75 Years during the big pre-movie WW digital comics sale.
I read through the first couple stories in Sensation Comics yesterday and I enjoyed them both.
The first story, Gothamazon, written by Gail Simone, with art byEthan Van Axiver & Maarvelo Di Chiara, was my favorite of the two. This one has Oracle calling Diana in to deal with Batman's rogues gallery after he's incapacitated. Batman's villains are some of my favorite, so I got a big kick out of seeing Wonder Woman have to deal with them. It got us some fun little moments, like Diana having her own WW, shaped batarangs, and a fun little bit at the very end. The comparisons between the two heroes and their different styles was pretty interesting.
The second story, Defender of Truth, written by Amanda Diebert with art by Cat Staggs was good too, but not quite as Gothamazon's level. We got some pretty cool action sequences out of a fight between Diana and Circe, and a nice bit with Diana and a boy whose friends were making fun of him for liking her.

 

[Christopher]

a nice bit with Diana and a boy whose friends were making fun of him for liking her.

Interesting. My first significant exposure to Gal Gadot was a YouTube video of a Comic Con panel where something very like that happened -- a fan said he'd been taunted for wearing a Wonder Woman t-shirt or something, and she gave this lovely reply to him about feeling good about yourself and not letting others make you feel lesser for being different, and she was just so warm and wise and supportive and understanding that I thought, "This is Wonder Woman."

 

[JD]

Yeah, that is the stuff that makes Wonder Woman one of favorite characters, she can be a total badass, but at the same time she does stuff like that.

 

[JD]

I decided to take a break from WW, and I started the first collection of IDW's Ninja Turtles series. I read through the first issue and I really enjoyed it. So is Old Hob a totally new character? I liked them tying April into the turtles origin.
So how different is this from the other versions of Turtles comics? My only experience with them is the '80s TV series, the original movies and TMNT, and a few early episodes of the 2010s series.
EDIT: I was surprised they actually set up Krang before Shredder, since I always thought of Krang as a secondary villain to Shredder.

 

[kirk55555]

I can't really answer any of your questions because my only real experience with the Turtles before IDW's series is the original live action movie, a few scattered episodes of the early 2000s series and the live action TMNT show crossover with Power Rangers, but the IDW book is really good. I like its take on the origin of the Turtles, and how it has some non-scientific elements that are very interesting. I also like how the characters are written, and the book does a good job of having good overall stories.

The only problem with the IDW book, and its not a deal breaker but you'll notice it more if you keep reading, is that they really milk the idea of making a bunch of mini series to tie into the main series. Now, there is nothing you need to read to understand the main plot of the main book outside of the main TMNT book, but there eventually becomes a lot of things like character development for April/Casey or the introduction of a minor character that just happens "off screen" in a mini series.

It hasn't hurt my enjoyment of the series, but it can be a bit annoying to have the little caption boxes telling you to read a mini for things that probably could have just been done in the main book or didn't really need to be done at all, and it happens more then I'd like the farther on in the books run you go.

 

[JD]

Ah, thanks for the heads up about the minis, I'll have to see if I can find a reading order.

 

[JD]

I finished up the TMNT collection, and I really enjoyed it. I have to confess, even though I'd heard good things about this, I was surprised just how good this was. It was definitely darker and more serious than I was expecting. Even though they didn't get a ton of page time, I thought they did a pretty good job of getting across the different turtles personalities. The way they spread out the flashbacks to the mutants' origins was a lot more interesting than if they had just done one big info dump in the beginning.
The introduction of Casey Jones was a cool heroic moment for Raphael, and a nice way to bring Casey into the story.
Old Hob's role in the Turtles and Splinter's origin, and why he was after them were nice surprises.
The overall writing and art were very good.
I'm really looking forward to reading more, although it'll probably be a while since I've got a lot of other stuff to read first.

 

[JD]

I just saw the cover and solicitation for the new Savage Dragon while looking through the new releases on Comixology, and wow, the politics there are not subtle at all. I'm not bothered by it at all, but I can see a lot of people being pissed.

 

[Christopher]

I just saw the cover and solicitation for the new Savage Dragon while looking through the new releases on Comixology, and wow, the politics there are not subtle at all. I'm not bothered by it at all, but I can see a lot of people being pissed.

Some people were pissed about Jack Kirby drawing Captain America punching Hitler, since there were a lot of Nazi sympathizers in the US before war was declared. Or rather, there still are, but they've had to keep their sympathies to themselves until recently. There are times when subtle political statements just won't do.