Here’s where we talk about collected editions: TPBs, hardcovers, omnibuses, Absolutes… anything with a spine!
The Trades Thread: volume two
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The Platoon is probably Ennis strongest take on Frank in Vietnam yet. The biographer from Valley Forge, Valley Forge meets up with men from Frank’s first command as he researches his next book. This is Frank as a greenhorn, eager to learn the ways of war, but he is still very much Frank Castle. He learns fast, thinks laterally, and doesn’t hesitate to do what needs to be done, including calling in a napalm strike on his first patrol. The writer is looking for answers, realizing his Valley Forge book about Frank’s final tour was only the end of the beginning, but the veterans care little about what Frank became after the war and instead mourn the man he might have been.
The subterfuge of one of the main characters in that book is excellent.
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Dealer Alert
Get your orders in fast:
The Rise & Fall of the Trigan Empire: Volume 2 – £12.99 – BooksEtc
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Reckless by Brubaker & Phillips is great. It feels like The Rockford Files and Terriers crossed with Altman’s The Long Goodbye and Shane Black’s The Nice Guys. This is the first volume in a continuing series of hardcovers, each one about a case of a private detective named Ethan Reckless. Reckless is an ex-hippie and an ex-undercover FBI agent looking to redeem himself for betraying his radical leftist friends in the 60s. Using a 1-800 number and word of mouth, he takes on cases for the desperate as long as they jibe with his moral code and sense of adventure. I can see myself really falling in love with this world. Can’t wait for book two which is out in a few months (their plan is to release two more books in 2021).
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Also, Jacob Phillips does his best coloring yet over his father’s art (Sean is using a looser style this time but it really works for the laid-back tone of the series/main character). The younger Phillips brings a real sense of texture to his colors.
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Popped into my local shop today and was surprised to find The Seeds by Ann Nocenti and David Aja came out this week. I hadn’t realised that they decided to forego the last 2 issues and go straight to tpbk. It looks great, as you’d expect from Aja. With Rebellion supplying me with volume 2 of the Trigan Empire and the second hardback volume of Nemesis that’s me set for Christmas!
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Christmas comics haul:
Batman Black & White Omnibus
Slaughterhouse-Five comic adaptation
Lone Sloane: Chaos (Philippe Druillet)
The Night (Philippe Druillet)
Venus in the Blind Spot (Junji Ito)
Remina (Junji Ito)
That’s my reading set for the next month or so!
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Be interested to know how you find Lone Sloane
Google?
No, I want reliable info.
My LCS had it. I bought the Druillet and Ito books with my discount and my wife reimbursed me as my Christmas gift from her.
Is it out of print now?
No idea. Rather it’s one I’ve heard of, not yet checked out and so interested in what you make of it.
Changing tack, my festive reads today have been:
Batman: The Three Jokers
Moonshine Volume 4
Gideon Falls Volume 5
Shadow Roads Volume 2
Die Volume 3
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I make a really bad joke and suddenly everyone is a bit confused? It’s a christmas miracle! :D
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Ah okay Ben, I see what you mean. That damn Swede confused me!
I’ll be sure to review it here.
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That damn Swede
Compliments are POURING IN this week!!
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It’s my… dje neigh say kwa.
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That damn Swede
Compliments are POURING IN this week!!
It’s your sexiness.
Is that a title, like Your Highness?
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Recent reads:
Gideon Falls Volume 5
Still one of those of those very few books where I’m not at all sure of where it’s going, even with the big revelations towards the end of this volume. Instead I’m just trusting that Lemire and Sorrentino know what they’re doing as this heads into its final stretch.
Die Volume 3
Gillen’s meditation on the nature of identity, especially now, continues to be quite fascinating and is backed up by Hans superb art.
Shadow Roads Volume 2
Anyone after a successor to the now fading Mignolaverse should consider giving the world of The Sixth Gun a look. You don’t have to read that to read this but it certainly helps.
Moonshine Volume 4
Another book where I’m content for Azzarello and Risso to spin this tale for as long as they want.
Death Squad
Technically, this was a good collection of vintage 70s UK war stories, this time built around a German convict on the Eastern front. But, I’m concluding I’ve read enough of this material now as it didn’t have quite the impact I expected it to.
Judge Dredd: Control
Though sold as a far more serious volume, this actually runs the full range of what MegaCity 1 allows for Dredd tales – from the serious to the sharply funny, all told with Weston on art.
Wonder Woman: Dead Earth OHC
Does this live up to its reputation? Yes. Could it have gone badly wrong at any point in the telling?Yes. Why didn’t it go off the rails? Daniel Warren Johnson. That’s why. It’s Johnson who keeps this ambitious tale on track, who lets it fly and soar, but without letting it go too high, nor more importantly, too low and dark, and it gets plenty dark, but never too dark.
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I enjoyed Lone Sloane: Chaos. Doesn’t reach the heights of 6 Voyages or Delirium but it still features a lot of cool psychedelic, architecturally-inclined sci-fi artwork from Druillet. The story is pretty slim but follows the final battle between Sloane and Imperator Shaan. Also, Sloane is revived by a blowjob at one point, lol. So a pretty cool book overall.
The Junji Ito books, Venus in the Blind Spot and Remina, are good too. Venus is a collection of horror stories; I’d say they have a much higher hit rate than Ito’s Fragments of Horror. Remina is an end of the world tale about a sentient planet on a collision course with Earth and follows a girl named after the planet who becomes a mega star before the world turns on her, thinking they can avert disaster by killing her. It’s probably the most absurd thing Ito has ever written–which is saying something considering Gyo is about a sentient stench that reanimates the dead by filling their corpses with gas–but it’s a fun ride and features some pretty pointed criticism of misogyny in fandoms.
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I really liked Batman Black & White as well. Most of the stories show a strong command of the short comic format. Although as the stories go on, it becomes clear the purpose of the series switched from showcasing the best artists in the biz in black & white in favor of testing out new talent. That said, there are still a lot of great shorts, many by masters, right up to the end.
In publication order, the strongest are:
Ted McKeever, Bruce Timm, Archie Goodwin/Jose Munoz, Walt Simonson, Klaus Janson, Denny O’Neil/Teddy Kristiansen, Brian Bolland, Goodwin/Gary Gianni (Eisner winner), Katsuhiro Otomo, Paul Dini/Alex Ross, Ty Templeton/Marie Severin, Paul Pope, Paul Levitz/Paul Rivoche, Alan Grant/Enrique Breccia, Mick McMahon/Dave Gibbons, Paul Grist/Darwyn Cooke, Mike Barr/Alan Davis, Dwayne McDuffie/Denys Cowan, Paul Kupperberg/John Watkiss, Alex Garland (the director)/Sean Phillips, Ed Brubaker/Ryan Sook, Chip Kidd/Michael Cho, Neal Adams, John Arcudi/Sean Murphy, Howard Mackie/Chris Samnee, Rafael Grampa, Michael Uslan/Dave Bullock, Lee Bermejo, Rian Hughes, Dini/Stephane Roux, Dustin Nguyen, Ivan Brandon/Paolo Rivera, Keith Giffen/Javier Pulido, Blair Butler/Chris Weston, Cliff Chiang, and Olly Moss/Becky Cloonan.
The stories by McKeever, Timm, Goodwin/Munoz, Bolland, Janson, Otomo, Grant/Breccia, Uslan/Bullock, and Grampa reach truly beautiful heights.
For simple pulpy goodness I recommend: Simonson, Dini/Ross, Pope, Levitz/Rivoche (a tearjerker), McDuffie/Cowan, Barr/Davis, Arcudi/Murphy, Mackie/Samnee, Brandon/Rivera, Giffen/Pulido, and Chiang.
The funniest ones are Templeton/Severin (one of the funniest short comics I’ve read tbh), McMahon/Gibbons, Hughes, and Dini/Roux.
The worst story by far is one by Dan DiDio & JG Jones where Man-Bat’s kids get kidnapped by a pedophile and Batman lets Man-Bat kill him. Blechh.
Very happy with this book. I can see myself going back to it frequently.
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One I forgot about:
Batman: Three Jokers HC
If I had been patiently awaiting this for years and caring greatly about it I’d probably be more annoyed. As it is? More Fabok Batman art? Hell yes.
And that is the main draw of this book. Does it pay off the whole three jokers thing from Johns’ Justice League run? Yes. Does it do well? No. A cliffhanger hasn’t been paid off so mundanely since The Last Jedi. And it being part of the Black Label? That decision is out-right baffling, Sure, Red Hood kills on one of the Jokers, but that’s kind of his thing, but Batman and Batgirl know about it and are sort of OK with it are the closest to actual reasons being so.
Some of the most interesting stuff, stuff that a story could be built around turns up on the last few pages as a throwaway by Johns. The Joker had a family, Batman knows this and his name and always known it, the end. If it’s intended as a WTF ending, then mission accomplished. I can’t blame anyone reading this who, having got to the end, asks: What was this for?
Just do what I did, read it for the Fabok art, it’s glorious and don’t think much about the story.
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Green Lantern Earth One Volume 2
Wow, this has been a long time coming but so worth it. Part of me would like them to do another one of these, while another part says it could easily end here.
A smart, complex story that never sacrifices any clarity for its complexity this is a brilliant read.
Who Killed Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen?
My thanks to those who recommended this. It’s a fun, light breezy read. Sure, maybe it would have been better as 6-9 issues and yes, read as a block, it does get a bit repetitive, but on the whole? It’s a good book.
Adventureman OHC1
I really hope they do more of this and keep issuing it in this format.
One thing I didn’t expect was for hearing loss to feature so prominently. Blast Matt Fraction! He blew one of the best kept secrets about hearing loss, that it can be fun to turn the world down! But, just as I didn’t realise how much Doctor Who name dropping dyspraxia would mean to me until they did it, so is it here. Technically, I’m down 25%, half loss in one ear, how much difference does it make? Quite a bit. So yeah, having a hearing loss lead got my attention. And yes, I was a bit annoyed when, halfway, it appeared to be fixed, but then that turned out to be temporary, which is good. Because too often, especially in the superhero realm, disabilities mostly are there to be fixed and the reality is that some can’t be and have to be lived with.
The story is Fraction’s preferred territory of reality rewrites and meta refs, hopefully he stays interested in it long enough to finish the story.
Art is superb, the design is superb – case in point, pay attention to the intro credits page – and the large size shows it off brilliantly.
Reckless
In a lot of ways, this is not exactly new material for the team of Brubaker and Philips. On the other hand, when you’re this good at something, why change? Much like I doubt I’ll ever really tire of reading war stories written by Garth Ennis, so too is it highly, highly unlikely I’ll ever tire of reading crime stories from this team.
Quite nice to see the reference to the Parker adaptations by the late Darwyn Cooke, those are a clear influence and a very good one to have.
The book is page after page of perfect execution. It is also perfectly paced, with the story taking just the right amount of time to tell what it needs to, with no padding.
Superb stuff.
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I have these individual issues, but if you don’t then this collection is probably a good way to get them:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/from-the-pages-of-combat-by-sam-glanzman#/
Warning: if you’re in the UK, this publisher really stings you on postage, so maybe better to wait and see if you can order through your LCS or other on-line intermediary.
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Batman: Year Two is… not good. It’s a bummer because the art is ace (Alan Davis & Todd McFarlane) but Mike Barr’s story leaves a sour taste. An extreme vigilante starts killing criminals, even sex workers, and to stop him Batman arms himself with the gun that killed his parents and even teams up with the mob. The hitman the mob sends out with Batman is none other than Joe Chill. Instead of being a random mugger he’s now some kind of assassin. Very dumb, and the story packs in too much plot and too many characters, including a woman who briefly becomes Bruce Wayne’s fiance, to cover adequately in 4 issues. Also, the story only lasts a few weeks at most, so I have no idea why they called it “Year Two.”
Thankfully the follow-up Full Circle by Barr & Davis is really good, and probably features some of Davis’s best art ever. Worth buying the collection just for that imo.
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East Of West
Super trade waiting is one high stakes gamble. Most of the time? It’s worked for me but there have been some high-profile crashes – Y: The Last Man and Black Science, some almost total successes but not quite sure about the ending – Ex Machina and Chew, and then there are the total successes. The ones that are a perfect execution of creative vision and collaboration and pay off reading as one single, sustained block. East Of West is one of these.
What Hickman and Dragotta pull off over the course of 45 issues is a complex, dense, rewarding and fulfilling epic. You never quite know where the story is going but you trust the people telling you it to not steer you wrong – and they don’t. They also know that not every part of the story needs explaining, not every mystery needs answering – you will get to the end and there will be unresolved questions. You’re not getting any answers, not now, not ever. Again, you don’t feel cheated by this; nor were any such promises made or dangled by a nefarious narrator.
For what is set up as an apocalyptic tale – and it is – the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are surprisingly inactive in it. Their focus gets swayed, they seek revenge for slights, they are, in a way unbeknownst to them – and which they would reject if told – an all too accurate reflection of the humanity they are supposed to destroy. This is a story of a world being judged, of nations and people being weighed up, but it is one where all the faultlines and errors and explosions and war are the result of humans. Of individual actions and desires. And through all of it, a clear line becomes more apparent over the course of the issues, that one road is better to take than another, with the story demonstrating the difference, but with so much subtlety you rarely notice that this is what it is doing.
I’ve no idea how this read as a monthly title, quite likely frustrating, but read as three big OHCs? It is superb.
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TBF, the idea of Chill actually being a hitman actually dates back to the Golden Age.
I think I read those stories now that you mention it. But Year Two makes it so he’s some kind of expert who can keep up with Batman which seems really silly.
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I always liked the Zero Hour retcon that took away the certainty of the Joe Chill revelation. I liked the idea that that would always be an unsolved mystery.
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Great reviews, Ben!
East of West is an absolute masterpiece.
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It’s worked for me but there have been some high-profile crashes – Y: The Last Man
Am I reading this correctly in that you think Y fibbed the ending? I’m curious on how you see that, since I love that ending to bits.
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I always liked the Zero Hour retcon that took away the certainty of the Joe Chill revelation. I liked the idea that that would always be an unsolved mystery.
That sounds cool. If Joe Chill is an unknown mugger it works better imo because then Batman’s ire is solely focused on crime as a phenomenon.
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It’s worked for me but there have been some high-profile crashes – Y: The Last Man
Am I reading this correctly in that you think Y fibbed the ending? I’m curious on how you see that, since I love that ending to bits.
No, the entire thing fell apart for me long before the ending.
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Batman’s ire is solely focused on crime as a phenomenon.
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The Sandman Universe: John Constantine, Hellblazer; Volume One: Marks Of Woe TPB
After recommendations here and elsewhere I read the first volume of Si Spurrier’s Hellblazer over the holidays and really enjoyed it.
(Reading the title took me a day in itself.)
After a couple of initial issues that set me up to expect a much closer relationship with the other Sandman Universe books (particularly Books Of Magic) this series really finds its groove once it’s able to get on and tell its own stories about Constantine. Yes, there are light recurring elements that persist throughout all the issues, but for the most part these are accessible and darkly funny magical stories that also have a lot to say about the current state of the country.
I wasn’t expecting that last part as I hadn’t heard much about that side of the book, but the elements that deal with the current UK government and the modern strain of English nationalism worked very well for me and made their point very effectively.
There are some great supporting characters here too – a two-parter about John meeting a younger hipster magician had me laughing constantly and was my favourite story in this collection – and the art is great throughout, despite rotating art teams. This can sometimes hurt a book when the writing isn’t strong enough to maintain its identity through the art changes, but thankfully it’s not the case here, as Spurrier establishes a very strong voice for his take on Constantine from the outset.
And on top of all this there’s an interesting overarching mystery too, which taps into some of the multiversal aspects dealt with at the very start of this collection and promises a big confrontation further down the line.
I’ll definitely be buying volume two.
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Yeah, to be honest I’ve only dipped in and out of Hellblazer over the years with odd issues here and there, so I’m maybe not the best judge, but it feels like Spurrier’s version is in keeping with previous takes while still feeling like its own thing.
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Spurrier’s Hellblazer was excellent. His John Constantine is very much the same character as he was in the Vertigo series, with the clever conceit of the series explaining why he feels a lot like a man out of time in 2020. The political undertones are brilliantly well played, although defanged somewhat by the abrupt cancellation of the run. There was definitely something cathartic seeing John butt heads with the xenophobia rife in the UK today.
The series’ cancellation means it doesn’t quite live up to the excellence of Spurrier’s Dreaming run. Only because it inevitably feels truncated and lost before its time. Of all the recent DC mistakes, this hurts the most.
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I read Crisis on Infinite Earths for the first time and really liked it. I’d always heard it was a bit of a crap story, more remembered for its impact than its quality, but I found it really entertaining.
The real draw is seeing how Marv Wolfman incorporates basically all of the DCU into the story, including non-superhero characters like Sgt. Rock, Bat-Lash, Anthro, Kamandi, & Cave Carson, and of course seeing George Perez draw the hell out of everything.
Perez pulls off something really special here, utilizing long thin panels to pack the action into each page but never giving up dynamic angles and action in his panels. You never feel like the story is getting short thrift because of how much he has to fit in. It all looks very natural and almost effortless, although at the same time you’re always aware of the Herculean task Perez undertook in illustrating all 12 issues.
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Amazon-fishing:
Gideon Falls OHC1. Nice to see this, also gives me near certainty one of these will turn up for Ascender eventually.
Low OHC2 – remember Remender likes doing these big hardback editions.
Middlewest OHC – the art will look really good in this format.
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Adventureman v. 1 OHC: The End And Everything After
This was a fun read, if not quite ever becoming great. It’s a light romp (that’s suitable for kids) that revolves around a group of pulp heroes who were forgotten and are rediscovered by a mother and son who read about their adventures in the present day.
While the story isn’t much to write home about and doesn’t develop that far beyond those bare bones – and this volume also ends on an anticlimactic cliffhanger that doesn’t really resolve anything – it all looks great, especially in this gigantic oversized format. If you like the Dodsons’ art then you’ll like this, and it’s the main reason to check it out.
While this HC collects only four issues, they’re all extra-long at around 40+ pages each, and there’s also plenty of bonus material at the back in the form of commentary and sketches. So despite being fairly pricey, it’s worth what it costs – I just wish there was a little bit more meat to the story (and some of the commentary by Fraction at the back of the book hints at more in that direction for future issues.)
Also, a special shoutout to Clayton Cowles for the lettering in this book, which is great and makes use of some relatively subtle effects (like Tom Strong-esque oversized speech for the lead hero, and semi-transparent balloons for one particular character) that really enhance the look and feel of the whole thing.
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Working through the christmas reading pile with thhe Battle of Britain book Rebellion put out this year reprinting two War Picture Library stories. No indication of who wrote them (and the book gives an explanation for this and gives suggestions for who may have written them). Not a big deal as the writing isnt what the book is being sold on and the real draw is Ian Kennedy’s artwork. The man can draw planes and clearly has a blast doing so. It’s interesting seeing him work in black and white inks as I’m more familiar with his full painted work.
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Just been confirmed that Soule’s Daredevil run will be getting an Omnibus in August 2021.
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The Seeds by Ann Nocenti & David Aja is a fucking masterpiece. One of my favorite comics of the last few years. I read it twice in a row, partly just to enjoy it again, but also because it’s packed with ideas and has a subtle approach so I needed two reads to fully appreciate it.
It’s an eco-thriller set in the near future where the environment is collapsing, bees are dying off and thus not pollinating, and many people have given up on the technology that has destroyed the biosphere and become luddites out in the desert. On top of that a group of aliens have come to Earth to surreptitiously gather samples of Earth species, or seeds, to sell once life on Earth is all dead. Great idea, that.
The story follows an alien and a human who have fallen in love, against alien protocol, and the gonzo journalist on their tail, who must grapple with whether to expose them and endanger their lives for a scoop.
It’s a weird, brilliant plot with lots of moving pieces and genre mash-ups but it’s pulled off beautifully and is obviously written from a place of love and passion for the ecosystems that sustain life–and a seething rage for the corporate greed that has decimated them.
While Aja’s art is predictably great, utilizing the 9 panel grid to the best effect outside of Alan Moore comics, and interspersing the narrative with standalone panels of nature to suggest the interconnectedness of life, Nocenti is a revelation. Honestly I was a bit worried about her just because so many American comic book writers of her generation (Claremont, Wolfman, Moench, Wein, etc) left their best work behind them in the 80s, but Nocenti has if anything advanced with time. I love her Daredevil run but this is a leap forward even from that. What’s more, she absolutely nails how young people talk and interact with tech, and how marginalized populations (one of the main characters is disabled) talk about themselves nowadays; if I didn’t know any better I would’ve thought this was written by a millennial. Kudos to Nocenti to staying up to date and sociopolitically engaged, unlike many of her peers. Honestly her work has always been very political and it’s that engagement and passion that has probably kept her hooked in with the times.
I highly recommend this book.
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As soon as it becomes available cheaply…..
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I read the first two issues when they came out about three million years ago and thought it was a good start. It’s annoying that they didn’t finish it in singles but I definitely plan on picking up the collected/completed version.
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As soon as it becomes available cheaply…..
It’s out in trade form now.
I know you can’t price art, but I feel that unless the last 2 issues are worth 6 quid a piece, I think I’m going to wait for a digital discount…
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As soon as it becomes available cheaply…..
It’s out in trade form now.
I know you can’t price art, but I feel that unless the last 2 issues are worth 6 quid a piece, I think I’m going to wait for a digital discount…
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Cheaply, remember? I’m not paying £15 for it.
Same here. Considering I’ve already paid almost that amount already for just half of it. It was good, but nothing’s that good.
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Reading Secret Six: Unhinged which collects the first 7 issues of the ongoing series by Gail Simone & Nicola Scott. Simone is hit or miss with me but this is her at her gleefully macabre best. Scott’s artwork balances the humor, action, and horror of Simone’s scripting really well; she has a classic, anatomy-focused style reminiscent of George Perez or John Byrne that still feels very current.
The antagonist here, Junior, a half-insane contortionist who spends 90% of his time curled up in a small wooden crate while running organized crime on the West Coast via his phone, is probably one of the most fucked up and horrifying villains I’ve ever seen in comics or any other medium for that matter. Kudos to Gail & Nicola for creating him.
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Reading Secret Six: Unhinged which collects the first 7 issues of the ongoing series
The old 2008 series?
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Will you have sold me on The Seeds. Hard not to be after that glowing review.
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Will you have sold me on The Seeds. Hard not to be after that glowing review.
Awesome! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
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Just finished off the last two Charles Soule Daredevil collections in preparation to read the Zdarsky run (after the chat in the Best Comics Of 2020 thread), and to be honest I found them to be a bit of a letdown.
I remember his run starting off pretty well but then getting mired in some overly gory ‘dark’ storytelling which switched me off and led me to break off from his run until now.
These last couple were a bit lighter but feel like they spin their wheels in a variety of annoying ways. For one thing they set up a lot of interesting ideas (Kingpin as mayor of NY; Matt as mayor; Mike Murdock returning; the death of DD) without ever really following through on them or exploring them properly.
And then the finale of his run is one of those “it was all a dream” moments that more or less erases a lot of what you’ve just spent several issues reading about and leaves you with a big fat nothing of an ending.
Disappointing, but looking forward to being able to start on the Zdarsky run.
I also picked up volume two of Chosen/American Jesus. I was surprised how weak it felt compared to the first one.
There’s a lack of polish and depth here that makes it feel more like a rough plot outline or a collection of story notes that’s been taken straight to the page without the extra work needed to flesh out these characters or their story.
Also, the art is noticeably quite poor in places, although Gross does mention a medical issue with his hand in the backmatter so I’m sympathetic to the problems that must cause for a working artist.
I also noticed in the backmatter that Millar mentions that the entire idea of the book (for who the second coming of Christ would turn out to be) was changed after consultation with Netflix, to be in line with what the people working on the TV version wanted it to be, which feels a bit like the tail wagging the dog.
Interesting to see the influence of the Netflix deal bleeding back into the Millarworld comics either way.
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Sorry that was all so negative – I’ve made a bit of a promise to myself lately to try and focus my energies and comments only on the books I’m excited about rather than stuff I don’t like, so it’s a shame that these were all disappointing (as I really was looking forward to all of them, and wouldn’t have read them otherwise!).
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I also picked up volume two of American Jesus. I was surprised how weak it felt compared to the first one. There’s a lack of polish and depth here that makes it feel more like a rough plot outline or a collection of story notes that’s been taken straight to the page without the extra work needed to flesh out these characters or their story.
Yeah, I felt the same way (although I couldn’t tell you if Chosen was so different from that without rereading). It was still a fun story; the main feeling it left me with, though, was that it was less of a complete story than Chosen was and more of a set-up for the third part and the confrontation between the two.
Yeah true. And without the same great twist as Chosen has, it’s not as powerful or surprising.
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I also noticed in the backmatter that Millar mentions that the entire idea of the book (for who the second coming of Christ would turn out to be) was changed after consultation with Netflix
I actually wonder how many times he has changed this basic concept. The first thing I read of Mark’s was the Saviour trade collection from Trident comics, which has a lot of the same concepts used in Chosen, the second coming and Anti-Christ appearing and being raised in mundane settings. (I actually preferred the Saviour version of what I read but it is a story that doesn’t end as Trident went bust).
He’s said he’s always had the full story in mind but I don’t know if the very long gap between volumes means it was relatively vaguely sketched out.
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In the backmatter he goes into a bit more detail on that and says that the core ideas for most of his stories have been fixed for many years now but the details often aren’t nailed down until he does a full detailed story breakdown for a project ahead of writing the script.
This is a pretty significant change for American Jesus though, the entire identity of the messiah character in the story, so an element that he had an idea of from the start but which then changed after consultation with the TV showrunner.
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Not surprisingly, my Swamp Thing Absolute 2 order has been cancelled by Amazon UK. I had it pre-ordered months in advance, but I guess they had sold out whatever their allocation of the print run was almost immediately at the stupid low price. Amazon US still has copies, but at basically full price.
Same here. Blackwells has an interesting, but unlikely price/delivery date
Rather than fund a full priced copy, I’ve been looking if I could put cash towards an affordable top 10 Absolute… nope is the answer :) I’m happy to pay some £££ but £300 is toooo much.
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Sorry that was all so negative – I’ve made a bit of a promise to myself lately to try and focus my energies and comments only on the books I’m excited about rather than stuff I don’t like, so it’s a shame that these were all disappointing (as I really was looking forward to all of them, and wouldn’t have read them otherwise!).
I don’t see it as negative. I view it more as an honest reaction. Some stuff you like, some you don’t. Happens to all of us.
I appreciate honest and articulated reviews that may not be favorable. Some may have the same reaction and it may help others who are on the fence.
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Yeah it’s fine, if you bought it, gave it consideration and didn’t like it much a bad review is as useful as a good one. People spouting off about solicitations and trailers and ideas is an internet negative but reading and conveying what you thought is not that.
After you mentioned it in the other thread I did think maybe I might go back and read Soule’s DD issues, I won’t bother now and that’s a service.
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Sorry that was all so negative – I’ve made a bit of a promise to myself lately to try and focus my energies and comments only on the books I’m excited about rather than stuff I don’t like, so it’s a shame that these were all disappointing (as I really was looking forward to all of them, and wouldn’t have read them otherwise!).
You are keeping it real Dave. That’s something that’s not so commonplace in the world now.
Would be different if you are down on everything, you are spreading positivity about the good stuff more often than not.
People need to know if something is not worth their immediate time and money. If you are shitting on everything that’s different.
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People spouting off about solicitations and trailers and ideas is an internet negative but reading and conveying what you thought is not that.
I agree, negative reviews are valuable if the reasons behind such review are explained, particularly if that review benefits someone who might otherwise have blindly spent money on the product because of preconceived assumptions about the creative team or the character.
I try to recommend books I like rather than trash something that I wasted my dollars on; but if someone solicits opinions on a book that they’re thinking of buying, I’ll let them know what I thought of it, so they can make an informed decision.
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This is a pretty significant change for American Jesus though, the entire identity of the messiah character in the story, so an element that he had an idea of from the start but which then changed after consultation with the TV showrunner.
I haven’t read it, and probably won’t, but it makes some sense that the story will have changed, considering it’s been seventeen years since the original miniseries came out. I’d hope the concept would have evolved over that time, even if it wasn’t Millar’s idea to change it.
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I haven’t read it, and probably won’t, but it makes some sense that the story will have changed, considering it’s been seventeen years since the original miniseries came out.
That was kind of my point. Millar a few years back said he’d changed his writing approach where he now starts at the ideal ending and moves back from there but didn’t before. With a 17 year gap on a basic concept he’s already tried to tell once and then completely re-tooled I’m not that convinced it’s a huge deal he changed some bits now. We all know how he likes to spin stuff too. “I won’t solicit any book that isn’t complete” came before Jupiter’s Legacy faced long delays. I think in that case he has stockpiled to be fair but also exaggerated by how much.
I read the sequel a couple of months back and I have to admit I have completely forgotten what happens in it. I recall I didn’t hate it but that’s not a great sign.
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Daredevil v.1: Know Fear
Well, this was much better. I’ve only read the first volume of Zdarsky’s DD so far, but I thought it was a very decent start.
This feels like quite a gritty and slightly grim take on DD, a world away from something like Waid and Samnee’s charming swashbuckling take, but like Batman I think DD can support a fairly wide variety of interpretations and this one works, feeling very much in the Bendis/Maleev mould.
It also feels like it’s influenced by the tone of the Netflix TV show, with a fair amount of focus on the police side of things as well as on Matt’s activities as Daredevil, with Fisk mainly lurking in the background as a malevolent presence.
And it doesn’t waste any time getting stuck into the big moral questions that dominate Matt Murdock’s life, pushing him into places where he has to make some difficult decisions, and showing him as fatally flawed.
There’s some neat flashback material that draws on the comics history of Daredevil (especially the Miller/JRjr Man Without Fear mini) and explores in some detail the disconnect between the idea of Matt as a man of law and a religious man but also a violent law-breaking vigilante.
And then in the modern day we see Matt starting in a bad place and going downhill from there, making some crucial errors and finding himself in the middle of a situation where, once again (to paraphrase Bendis) he’s the asshole of his own story, and intervention is needed.
Intense, compelling stuff.
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And if I jumped back on DD having last read Waid’s run, it works fine to get me up to speed?
Yeah, all you really need to know going into this (so far, anyway) is that Matt is still recovering from quite a severe accident that happened towards the end of Soule’s run.
I got the first four trades of Zdarsky’s run very cheap on Comixology but if it keeps up the quality then I could see myself maybe buying the OHCs as they come out too. (The art is nice enough, but not so dazzling as to absolutely demand it.)
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And if I jumped back on DD having last read Waid’s run, it works fine to get me up to speed?
I did exactly that and it’s fine.
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In case anyone is interested, the digital TKO trades are on sale right now on ComiXology. Literally just $1.99 each until the end of the month. Each trade collects 6 issues of material. This is an absolute steal.
Highly recommend Sara by Ennis & Epting.
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Daredevil v.2: No Devils, Only God
This second volume of Zdarsky’s DD is a really good demonstration of how the art affects the tone of a book. Because while Zdarsky is still very much writing the same story, the switch in artist from the fairly realistic Chechetto to Sharma – who has a more cartoonish and exaggerated style, a little reminiscent of Mark Bagley – gives the book a less gritty feel which at times can jar with the still-quite-serious events of the book.
It’s still an interesting story though. Here, we see Matt Murdock take on some new roles and abandon others at the same time as the book explores what Daredevil is really a symbol of.
There’s an interesting subplot involving Kingpin exploring the opportunities offered by becoming a ‘legitimate’ businessman, and also a romantic subplot which at first threatens to subvert your expectations for how the relationship is going to play out, only to then lean into them heavily by the end.
Overall, this is still a solid take on DD with a serious vibe and a good, complex take on who Matt Murdock is. But the art change hurts the flow a little for me – I would rather have seen Fornes (who contributes just a single issue here, the final #10) handle the whole thing, as I loved his clean graphic style that reminded me a little of Aja and Mazzucchelli.
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Dealer Alert
For those UK-based, worth a punt:
Uncanny X-Men Omnibus 4 – SpeedyHen – £49.69
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I presume that’s just a placeholder date. Previewsworld just shows it as “TBD”.
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It sounds like it might be quicker to buy the issues and have it professionally bound.
And you can get all 18 issues for like 50 quid from Avatar right now.
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It sounds like it might be quicker to buy the issues and have it professionally bound.
Having it done professionally wouldn’t feel right for an Avatar book.
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