Help with a recommendation?
I am looking for something new to get into- my favorite series have been Robinson Starman, Johns JSA and Hickman FF/Avengers/New Avengers- I like big stories, well written and large superhero casts.
Anything else out there people can recommend? Just as an FYI I am looking for something maybe off the beaten path or a little older, I have consumed most of the big and most often mentioned series of the last few years.
Anything else out there people can recommend? Just as an FYI I am looking for something maybe off the beaten path or a little older, I have consumed most of the big and most often mentioned series of the last few years.
Comments
Astro City
Avengers Forever (miniseries)
Excalibur (original series only)
X-Force/X-Statix (Milligan/Allred)
JLA: The Nail (miniseries)
JLA (Morrison/Porter)
DCU: The New Frontier (miniseries)
There's a lot of it, but it's really good. Basically anywhere but dark ages is a good starting point.
The Justice league 'returns to glory' it's fantastic.
Here's another one by Morrison
DC One Million - a standalone event in the middle of Morrison's run in which the jla transported to the far future to battle a really cool new Villain.
While we are here
Seven Soldiers of victory by Morrison
He builds a large supporting cast from scratch as well as adding in various figures from Deadpool's past and Marvel history. And once he starts writing it solo (volume 3 was co-written with Brian Posehn) he really leans into the sadness and pathos of the character.
It's weird case of a run that is clearly working, hence the length, but possibly because of the character being Deadpool, it doesn't get the acclaim it deserves.
I also very much agree with @nweathington 's suggestion of Excalibur. The Claremont run is fantastic. And while some of the filler material between story arcs is pretty bad, Alan Davis' mostly successful attempt at tying up Claremont's loose ends more than makes up for it. "The Cross-Time Caper" is a particular highlight of the series. And, on a side-note, I have the Excalibur Mojo Mayhem one-shot to thank for introducing me to the band Cats Laughing.
And, now that I've got those more easily obtainable mainstream recommendations out of my system, let's have some real fun. If you're feeling adventurous and don't mind dumpster diving through the quarter bins at your LCS or any local flea markets, please allow me to recommend two of the most whacked out indie gems from the 80s and 90s that could still loosely be categorized under the "superhero" genre.
Roger McKenzie's Sun Runners and Jim Shooter and David Lapham's Warriors of Plasm. You can't get much more "off the beaten path" than these. And, since I'm posting this on December 24th, appropriately enough, they both even have Christmas specials!
Wow. His career took a very different direction once he could do his own thing.
Lots of great suggestions already. To add another off the beaten path one, though One that has gotten easier to find as I believe they did trades and put the issues on the Marvel Unlimitd app— Strikeforce Morituri.
It is a self-contained superhero/SF story, not set in a superhero universe. Earth has suffered an alien invasion. An experimental process exists that can waken a latent superpower within you, but:
1. You don’t know what power you will get and
2. The process will kill you within a year
I have not reread it since it first came out in the 1980s but I loved it as a kid and a lot of moments from it have vividly stuck with me. The story is big and high stakes. A lot of characters to meet (and lose). And it is got to be a superhero book, SF action, and war book all at once.
I've heard many people describe super hero comics as soap operas for men. Continuing that analogy, post-Byrne Alpha Flight is the Passions of super hero comics.
If you want a big cast how about the Legion of Super-Heroes. I would say either start with the 80's with Paul Levitz/Keith Giffen's Great Darkness Saga or jump ahead to the mid 90's and the Keith Giffen/Bierbaum's Five Years Later run.
The fill-in artists in that arc really drive home that Davis was the draw on the comic, not Claremont. Without him there you are literally reading Claremont's Dirty Pair fanfic at one point.
Davis' return and fixing of the comic is a miracle.
It's an exciting concept that has the added drama that comes from questioning whether a character will survive, and it infused a number of characters with a vigor they hadn't previously enjoyed, like Captain Boomerang, Bronze Tiger, and Deadshot.
I love this series!