USAvengers and Ultimates Squared once again gave me everything I want from a Marvel comic, but too rarely happens. Al Ewing has been weaving an intricate corner of the Marvel Universe through his books, and these two drew them together.
USAvengers featured guest appearances from characters from both Ultimates and Contest of Champions, and gave the reader a half page summary of the much higher stakes events happening over in Ultimates. Plus it's a homage to Iron Man's origin and contains references to FALLEN ANGELS of all things!
Ultimates meanwhile featured a character returning from Ewing's New Avengers run, continued his exploration of the post-Secret Wars multiverse, the debut mission of the ETERNITY WATCH and the return of some pre-Secret Wars characters.
And both still manage to tie into Secret Empire while doing all this.
USAvengers and Ultimates Squared once again gave me everything I want from a Marvel comic, but too rarely happens. Al Ewing has been weaving an intricate corner of the Marvel Universe through his books, and these two drew them together.
USAvengers featured guest appearances from characters from both Ultimates and Contest of Champions, and gave the reader a half page summary of the much higher stakes events happening over in Ultimates. Plus it's a homage to Iron Man's origin and contains references to FALLEN ANGELS of all things!
Ultimates meanwhile featured a character returning from Ewing's New Avengers run, continued his exploration of the post-Secret Wars multiverse, the debut mission of the ETERNITY WATCH and the return of some pre-Secret Wars characters.
And both still manage to tie into Secret Empire while doing all this.
I stumbled across the JLA/Hitman issues by Ennis & McCrea from about 10 years ago at a flea market today. I didn't even know they existed, I was taking a break from comics at the time. I loved Hitman, so this was a no-brainer.
Man, were these 2 issues great. Funny and touching at the same time. I need to go back and reread the original series.
Just got caught up on Saga by reading four trades in a row. Sorry to all of you who are tired of hearing it, but Saga is simply the best freaking comic out there.
Just got caught up on Saga by reading four trades in a row. Sorry to all of you who are tired of hearing it, but Saga is simply the best freaking comic out there.
IMO Saga is over-rated.
Fiona is one of the best artists in the comic business right now, but what she does here is just a bit too minimalist for me. Brian K Vaughan is good at compressed storytelling, but there are so many random ideas (War! Politics! Sex! Parenthood! Racism! Robots! Dragons!) it never seems to make a harmonic whole and it's messy. Cereal commercials? Emos? Terms and references to our world IRL? And BKV proudly overuses his cliches. For instance: how many characters have been shot mid-sentence?
Sure, the characters are unique, but the stories are a mess and the plot never seems to go anywhere. The protagonists run from unknown dangers, without any sense of progress. There's just enough there to galvanize liberal comics readers without angering the conservative ones too much. The book's politics are very much on-the-nose and frankly not to my taste at all.
Saga is an ambitious project, but rather mediocre in execution. I barely remember it after I close the book. Obviously YMMV. SPOILERS BELOW EDIT- NSFW [spoiler]
Here's a recent review by Diversity & Comics that may introduce people who are unfamiliar with the book or the ideology of the creators of it:
Re: the politics of the book, as I've said, not many comic book writers seem to be able to write about political topics without making the story feel forced and heavy-handed. But Saga feels very organic to me for the most part. There have been a couple of scenes that felt like they were only told the way they were in order to get a reaction, but for the most part scenes like the spoiler posted above feel more like showing life happening as it were. Just my opinion.
If you lean progressive liberal, then "Welcome to Abortion Town" probably doesn't seem like "heavy-handed" politics.
I think the whole affair is mediocre, a mess, and far too on the nose. However, I realize I'm in the vocal minority.
Just curious, if you think the book is mediocre and a mess, why do you still read it? I have no time for books I don’t enjoy.
Books and trades pile up on my "to read" pile. More than once I've wound up more invested in a title than I should've been because I couldn't keep up with my reading and eventually got around to learning that I didn't care for the book after all. Other times I'm pleasantly surprised. I've begun changing that reading/ordering habit.
When I finally got around to getting caught up on Saga, I realized the book just simply isn't for me. Knowing that it is so critically acclaimed, I suppose I've dipped my toe back in to see if my tastes changed only to wind up "hate reading" it.
Just curious, if you think the book is mediocre and a mess, why do you still read it? I have no time for books I don’t enjoy.
Books and trades pile up on my "to read" pile. More than once I've wound up more invested in a title than I should've been because I couldn't keep up with my reading and eventually got around to learning that I didn't care for the book after all. Other times I'm pleasantly surprised. I've begun changing that reading/ordering habit.
When I finally got around to getting caught up on Saga, I realized the book just simply isn't for me.
That's how I ended up so far behind on Saga. So many new interesting titles have been coming out the past couple of years, and I try to stay on top of the ones I pick up for at least the first three or four issues or so until I decide if I'm going to keep getting them or not. The ones I know I like tend to build up. It's frustrating sometimes looking at a pile of books I really want to read and saying "maybe next month", but it's better than getting stuck with comics I don't want.
I'd have to really think on my top five superhero books now, since most of my list has been cancelled during the past few months. Astro City would probably be at the top though.
I admit, I've never read fewer superhero comics than I do now - or at least I've never counted fewer among my very favorites. There are several okay ones which I still follow, of course; I'll never entirely let go of this main sub-genre of comics. But they're not the titles which I'm currently excited to jump into as soon as they come out. Perhaps it's the flood of live action superhero films, animated films and TV series of this era? Maybe I'm simply getting my fill from them?
I also admit, I'm put off by all of these confusing weekly crossovers and weekly reboots, and the general jumbled and intimidating look of superhero comic cover pages. Superman has always been and will forever be my #1 character, but he's been messed with so much lately that I find it tough to stay with any Superman title past two issues before some crossover or event or change in artist makes me lose interest. Or abrupt team-up with some new Superman "family" character when I'm already trying so hard simply to follow the main character. Or Super beard. Or, I'm sorry, a confusing shift in character set-up. My Superman was sent to Earth by Jor-El, and lives under the name Clark Kent; he does not live on some weirdo parallel Earth after the Earth his father sent him to and everyone on it were destroyed, and he doesn't call himself Clark Smith (or whatever) and live way outside Metropolis. And my Superman doesn't need to depend upon being a daddy to make him interesting or relevant. If you ask me, everything from 2011 onward has been one long Superman Elseworld. Enjoyable at rare times - but not the real Superman.
This is my long-winded way of saying that SAGA, LAZARUS and MOTOR GIRL are among the comics I excitedly read on the Wednesdays they come out.
Most of my reading these days is reading some trades or back issues of older material. Though I'm thinking of pulling the trigger on the first trade of Black Hammer
Black Hammer Is excellent. Black Science Is pretty good, though I'm way behind on it. Black Panther is very good. Black Widow ended too soon. But Black Monday Murders is a cut above the rest.
One thing that caught me with Black Science was the art (forgive me I don't have the artist's name in front of me) but it has almost a 2d animation feel to it.
One thing that caught me with Black Science was the art (forgive me I don't have the artist's name in front of me) but it has almost a 2d animation feel to it.
Matteo Scalera (I've likely butchered the spelling). I find it almost hypnotic, but agree, that the way the characters are designed, does feel like 2D animation.
Comments
USAvengers featured guest appearances from characters from both Ultimates and Contest of Champions, and gave the reader a half page summary of the much higher stakes events happening over in Ultimates. Plus it's a homage to Iron Man's origin and contains references to FALLEN ANGELS of all things!
Ultimates meanwhile featured a character returning from Ewing's New Avengers run, continued his exploration of the post-Secret Wars multiverse, the debut mission of the ETERNITY WATCH and the return of some pre-Secret Wars characters.
And both still manage to tie into Secret Empire while doing all this.
This.
Space Riders is awesome even on a re-read.
Man, were these 2 issues great. Funny and touching at the same time. I need to go back and reread the original series.
Fiona is one of the best artists in the comic business right now, but what she does here is just a bit too minimalist for me. Brian K Vaughan is good at compressed storytelling, but there are so many random ideas (War! Politics! Sex! Parenthood! Racism! Robots! Dragons!) it never seems to make a harmonic whole and it's messy. Cereal commercials? Emos? Terms and references to our world IRL? And BKV proudly overuses his cliches. For instance: how many characters have been shot mid-sentence?
Sure, the characters are unique, but the stories are a mess and the plot never seems to go anywhere. The protagonists run from unknown dangers, without any sense of progress. There's just enough there to galvanize liberal comics readers without angering the conservative ones too much. The book's politics are very much on-the-nose and frankly not to my taste at all.
Saga is an ambitious project, but rather mediocre in execution. I barely remember it after I close the book. Obviously YMMV.
SPOILERS BELOW
EDIT- NSFW
[spoiler]
[/spoiler]
I think the whole affair is mediocre, a mess, and far too on the nose. However, I realize I'm in the vocal minority.
Just curious, if you think the book is mediocre and a mess, why do you still read it? I have no time for books I don’t enjoy.
When I finally got around to getting caught up on Saga, I realized the book just simply isn't for me. Knowing that it is so critically acclaimed, I suppose I've dipped my toe back in to see if my tastes changed only to wind up "hate reading" it.
1) Captain America - Steve Rogers / Secret Empire
2) The Ultimates
3) Infamous Iron Man
4) Jessica Jones
5) Dr. Strange
I also admit, I'm put off by all of these confusing weekly crossovers and weekly reboots, and the general jumbled and intimidating look of superhero comic cover pages. Superman has always been and will forever be my #1 character, but he's been messed with so much lately that I find it tough to stay with any Superman title past two issues before some crossover or event or change in artist makes me lose interest. Or abrupt team-up with some new Superman "family" character when I'm already trying so hard simply to follow the main character. Or Super beard. Or, I'm sorry, a confusing shift in character set-up. My Superman was sent to Earth by Jor-El, and lives under the name Clark Kent; he does not live on some weirdo parallel Earth after the Earth his father sent him to and everyone on it were destroyed, and he doesn't call himself Clark Smith (or whatever) and live way outside Metropolis. And my Superman doesn't need to depend upon being a daddy to make him interesting or relevant. If you ask me, everything from 2011 onward has been one long Superman Elseworld. Enjoyable at rare times - but not the real Superman.
This is my long-winded way of saying that SAGA, LAZARUS and MOTOR GIRL are among the comics I excitedly read on the Wednesdays they come out.