My CBR Shame

This was a mini-series back when mini-series were 'special'. It is by Ann Nocenti and somebody who can't draw. It is about the Dazzler (i.e. the beauty) and CAN YOU GUESS WHO 'THE BEAST' IS? Oh. You can. This level of subtlety is sustained throughout the comic - Dazzler is lured into the more decadent side of the Hollywood Idyll, this entails her drinking some drugged champagne and becoming Evil while an Evil Guy goes heh heh.

The best bit of the comic is a section featuring Dr Doom in his 'art room' where he goes to remind himself that man is indeed capable of beauty! The art in the art room is all atrocious (NB this is not intentional as far as I can tell), Dr Doom especially likes a statue of a man taming a horse which he got from the back of Reader's Digest.

(Especially the art, from what I remember; that dour, unpleasant art during one of those times at Marvel when anything unpleasant looking was therefore Serious.)

New ongoing Marvel series starring her-out-of-X-Men-with-the-firework-hands, you know, the one who Claremont brought in when Kitty Pryde had turned legal gone to another comic. As is apparently typical for Marvels nowadays this features very little action and lots of talking, this is because comics are apparently meant to be like TV shows, or because comics writers want to be TV writers or, well, I don't know why but it doesn't make for particularly interesting reading. Jubilee moves to a new high school and makes friends, things proceed EXACTLY as you'd expect. The dialogue is good, for what that's worth (little in my book, reading comics should not be like reading plays) - but the art is nice, there are a couple of funny moments, it makes Jubilee likeable for the first time ever (just as well if they're giving her a solo series) and I will admit that despite myself I'm interested in why her aunt is building a sniper rifle. Took five minutes to read, not bad.

The art isn't unpleasant exactly, at least not in that sub-Sienkiewicz way I think you mean. It's just kind of rubbish, like somebody actually trying to imitate Al Milgrom.

If you too feel a tremor of unease when you hear the dread words "saggy, baggy elephant" then you also read this series when young - in fairness I remembered this as being one of the better Claremont stories, and in fairness - it is! It has solid characterisation, a couple of credible moral dilemmas, a good take on Dr Doom (him again!!), too much Franklin but oh well. On the re-read the main thing I noticed is how incredibly flimsy the MacGuffin is, i.e. when Reed is confronted with 'his diary' which directly contradicts his memory of events why does he - OR ANYBODY!! - not say 'yes it's probably forged, let's use our amazing technology to see eh?' rather than 'OMG WHAT IF IT IS TEH TRUTH'. But that didn't spoil a good yarn for me when I was 13 and it doesn't spoil one now. The script is High Claremont - words by the kilo - the art I can't remember much about except it was surprising how many panels have me that whack of teenage recognition.

I can clearly picture most of the panels featuring Franklin talking to phase-state Kitty Pryde in that containment chamber, and the way she began to dissipate. (Art by Jon Bogandove & Terry Austin.) (Stop me before I trivialize again.)

However, I don't remember anything re: a "saggy, baggy elephant", unless it was something involving Kitty & Franklin...?

Tom, are you taking requests? Because your exhumation of the FF/X-Men series brings to mind another team-up mini, X-Men/Avengers, which (from my recollection) was also solid but totally went off the rails "REWRITE!" style in the 4th issue.

I am so mad at you for reminding me of the saggy, baggy elephant.

You know, we could always trade files back and forth, too, especially those of us with Gmail and/or high speed connections (somewhere I have a CD with the best of the stuff I got from the newsgroups).

I haven't had much luck with .cbr files on K*zaa, but I haven't had much luck with K*zaa in general the past few months.

I've always thought ILX should set up its own WASTE network.

MY GOD IT LIVES

(3 stars) Wow, December 11, 2002
A Kid's Review

When i was a baby my mom use to read this to me its about a elephant who trys to get rid of his bags and sags

I imagine there might be bittorrent clients out there that allow you to search through the client itself instead of through a browser, but I don't know of any.

I had a pile of .cbr files on my hard drive, including Grant's 'New Adventures Of H1tl3r', but I couldn't find them the other night. Must look harder tonight.

Avoid the others though, as without the John Paul Leon art, much of the appeal evaporates.

Jordan I use CDisplay to view the files: http://www.geocities.com/davidayton/CDisplay

(I'm using it to get the Opus strip, which isn't carried in any local paper here.)

(That's the easiest way to do it, isn't it? No one would be using their bandwidth without meaning to, since it's webmail...)

Oh that I have lived to see the day that Marvel puts out stories like this. Plenty happens in UFF#1 but there is no conflict at all (Reed gets his head flushed down the toilet but recovers nicely), nothing except getting Reed from A to B in the most wish-fulfilling style possible. This is my first encounter with Bendis (though I don't know if his style was modified here) and it's pretty annoying, all the cod-naturalism grates, but it does make for a slick read that doesn't talk down to you. Cute enough to make me want to steal the next few issues too. But do I prefer the old-school storytelling Marvel? LET'S SEE.....!

My God time has been unkind to this. Squadron Supreme used to be - entirely seriously - held up on some comics newsgroups as Marvel's equivalent of Watchmen. The first issue takes place AFTER some huge story which happened in some other title (God knows where, they don't tell you) and proceeds to its set-up as directly and bludgeoningly as possible, with the help of various giant captions. Said set-up of course is "superheroes try to create utopia but instead become FASCISTS". Its power is somewhat dimmed by the fact that the same superheroes had just started a world war and also by the fact that like the Krays they only hurt their own - the entire 12-issue series is just a series of fights with 'ethical difference' replacing 'misunderstanding' as the pretext. Godawful.

Also includes spidey discussion.

Another one I pretty much liked. This is what 'decompression' means I take it, stories which should take maybe two issues taking six - but the story is a good one. I appreciate the way that actually things keep getting worse and worse for Our Hero but the comic stays breezy throughout. Liked most of the characters, rooted for OH at the same time as he does stupid things, very much appreciated the fact that the titular Sentinel is in no sense a 'reformed character', liked the moment of Authentic Crush Horror as OH asks crush out despite knowing she has a boyfriend to receive mortifying "I have a boyfriend" response. I can however see why it sold zero copies - this is not an ongoing series in any sense, the premise has a neat beginning middle and end. In the Old Days it would have been solicited as a four-issue mini, probably by Louise Simonson, and done respectably.

There is ONE PANEL of this comic that's good, when a big space ship crashes onto a big alien city. One of the problems with Chris Claremont is that he would have LOVED to be George Lucas, he loves the idea that he is a widescreen space opera imagineer, but all his 'epic starfaring' stories are TOTAL BILGE because he won't generally shut his trap and let the art do the talking. And when he does, as in this one third of a page panel, it looks pretty good.

There are eighteen issues of this to come, it has very little to do with the X-Men so far except that it has the bloody Phoenix in it.

The Squadron Supreme again. The idea seems to be "OK, if DC won't do an Ultimate JLA, we will!". First issue is effectively downbeat story of 'realistic' approach to Superman's origin - bit gloomy but suspenseful. The editorial at the end is very funny indeed though in its "goodness knows how Roy Thomas came up with THESE characters!" tone. Also the tits-out costume for Power Princess raised a chuckle.

Couldn't actually finish this Roy Thomas archive-a-thon but if you do see it skip to the editorial page for a larff as Roy finally loses it and makes it plain that he writes comics purely and simply for people who know as much about comics as he does (i.e. EVERYTHING) and if you don't you can fuck off (sorry "you have no sense of history and I don't want you reading my comic" is a closer paraphrase). Evidence A in the "why the Crisis had to happen" pile.

Sort-of-good team-up comic goes completely off the rails as it becomes clear that the storyline is in place for DC to get rid of President Luthor before election year comes round. How best to do this? Through subtle yet punchy storytelling? NO NO NO. Instead let's have Luthor get hooked on Bane Venom and initiate hugely contrived anti-Superman initiative (viz - Superman is bringing a HUGE Kryptonite asteroid to Earth to kill us all, yes indeed because we know how much Superman likes that kryptonite, ahem) (OK actually maybe the population of the DCU don't know about kryptonite but it's still rub). Much glee as Luthor puts on his horrible pre-Crisis battlesuit and the Toyman creates a huge half-superman-half-batman Spaceship. These elements are meant to be proper Comics Fun i think but Jeph Loeb can't do 'fun', he can only do 'portentious' and lo the last few issues of this arc are horribly hard going.

Did your Defenders D/L include some awful pre-Silver Age painted Sub-Mariner story (which probably first saw the light of day in some post-Marvels Prestige Format w/ the acetate cover)? I'm guessing it did - skip that & just read the Pasty Walker stuff twice instead.

I'll still buy the Defenders Essentials and everything, so I figure the only utilitarian moral arguments are silent this time.

I'm almost tempted to call Gerber the Alan Moore of the title (in a Swamp Thingian sense), but even with Len Wein preceding him, I think that might be a little deceptive -- he didn't reinvent things that drastically, but he did set the standard for tone and content that everything post-Gerber is compared to, and the most frequent criticism of post-Gerber Defenders stuff usually comes down to "that's not how Gerber would have done it."

(Next download batch: FF!)

Here is what I know about Nightcrawler i) he is German, ii) he is a nice guy but he looks like a demon, iii) he likes pirates and derring-do. If I was writing a Nightcrawler comic I would probably stress iii) with ii) providing some light irony. In fact I remember reading a previous comic starring him which did just this. What I would not do is get him involved in stories about FAITH and THE OCCULT and other such COBBLERS because of him looking like a demon. And yes I know he's been written that way too at times. I think such stories are best avoided because they rarely go anywhere or say anything interesting, they turn the looks-like-a-demon thing into a bludgeon and also because only Steve Ditko ever had any idea how to plot magical fights well.

Anyway this storyline has him investigating a strange mystery involving murdered children. The murdered children are pretty gratuitous to be honest. The only clues are some cloven hoofprints and a supporting character who is so obviously the villain that you half expect Nightcrawler to be joined by Scooby Doo on this case. Clumsy stuff.

As I just mentioned on The Brown Wedge, the level of basic competence in mainstream comics today is really impressive. This has good pacing, dialogue, striking art, tells its story without too many 'what's going on here?' moments. I quite like the way Captain A's impatient soldier mentality is being played up. This almost reads like an Ultimate comic, the same emphasis on SHIELD hypercompetence and militarism and 'real world' threats and situations. Good, solid stuff.

. Shehulk (which I went out and purchased immediately, and then bought the issues that I'll no doubt buy again in TPB - the system works!)
. Zenith
. Everything Grant Morrison has ever written, in fact.
. Including Zoids
. Jark Kirby's Eternals
. Suicide Squad
. Crisis on Infinite Earths
. The Maxx
. The Demon
. Jimmy Olsen
. Zot!
. Ultimate Fantastic Four
. Miracleman (including various different bits of #25)

Who's writing/drawing Captian America, Tom?

I find it strange how short my first bout of comics fandom really was - it seemed like it lasted for ages but was barely 2 years. I got into DC with Legends, read through Millennium and was out of it by the time Invasion came around. Millennium had two points - a) tell a big cosmic DC story, b) introduce an amazing group of New! Characters! It does the first a lot better than the second (the new characters became rubbish and short-lived superteam the New Guardians). It's an unusual crossover in that the core series has very little of the main action. The tie-ins are often actually important to the plot (especially the FITEs) which must have frustrated less deep-pocketed fans (I gobbled most of it up though at the time). In the main series you get a lot of superhero interaction, ruminations on What It All Means, a bit of plot and a lot of patented Englehart hippie tosh.

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed re-reading it. The central idea - one member in each superhero supporting cast is a sleeper agent - is ace, the villains are good until they go into space and everyone has to fight a huge yellow cartoon robot. The series suffers a bit from winding towards anticlimax about 2/3 of the way through. The philosophy is a little bit Eastern and a whole lot cobblers. The art is acquired taste Joe Staton but he handles the huge cast well. The new superheroes... well, less good. But as crossovers go it deserves rehabilitation.

"OMG we're putting this out WEEKLY can you handle the excitement?"

Legends was the first DC book I ever enjoyed and as such I could remember some bits pretty much off by heart, but even so re-reading it was probably a mistake - even at the time Len Wein's narrative didn't exactly seem sophisticated and 20 years on it's really clunky, sub-Claremontian at best (eg the repeated "What is the sound of the end of the world?" riff). Ostrander's plot doesn't exactly hold up to scrutiny either: alien televangelist seduces the world into hating heroes, OK this is fine, he has mental powers, but then the focus of this gets completely lost as a FITE is needed and giant Byrne robot dogs attack. Also the continual flicking between one hero and another is very bitty.

BUT none of this matters a WHIT compared to the overall purpose of the series which is to introduce wide-eyed new readers to the hottness of DC's super-universe. Reader, I was that reader (erm) and it worked fine for me. Legends in itself is bland (though I liked the Byrne art) but its main job was to launch DC's post-Crisis universe and it does that well. DC in the late 80s is probably my favourite publisher era ever and this is where it started so hats off. How many other crossovers launch spin-off series of the caliber of JLI, Suicide Squad and the Mike Baron Flash? Three months after the end of Legends DC Comics had gone from 0% of my 'pull list'* to about 60% and I can't argue with that maths.

*(not that that phrase meant anything to me at the time)

As regards the rest, big explosions, love/hate relationship with technology ("What's that?" "A book" "Is that what they used to look like?"), and regular everyone fancies our bald hero antics. So no surprises but I wasn't really looking for some.

I'm still sorta ambivalent on the QUESTION mini that he wrote. A little too wandery and singsong poetry for the character, but the art was So Pretty.

The art was quite a beautiful thing to look at.

To me, Aquaman's not that well done. Maybe I should give it another chance. I found Guichet's art kinda confusing.

The art was sooo much more important than the script on the recent Question mini, and convinced me to overlook Veitch's sometimes heavy hand (hey look, see, we're dealing drugs in the BATHROOM! Because Superman isn't a dirty pervert. Now let's show that a few more times! It was a clever idea, but I got it the first time.). TLE's Chris Reeve Supes was quite stunning.

if only Vertigo would collect FINALS (and fix up all the dumb post-Columbine censorship)

The last ten issues or so weren't that good, because Pfeiffer chose to end the series with a big arc that wrapped all of the ones that had come before. It felt a bit rushed and out of place.

The Ultimates Vol2 1-6 is much the same as the first volume: big heroics, bad heroes, lovely art and now a spot of intrigue.

Young Avengers 1-5 isn't exactly life changing, but it reminded me of what Tom said above regarding how the basic standards of comics seem to have risen noticably in the last 20 years.

New Thunderbolts 1-4 would have been 1-9 or so, but it is unfortunately unreadable rubbish.

No Ben Raab
No Howard Mackie
No Jay Faerber
No Todd Dezago
No Brandon Choi
No Larry Hama

And only one Chuck Austen!

You might have a point there.

Oh, but it is! It probably suffers from being read right after Young Avengers. YA#1 sets up several characters, and has a great twist, and a quality JJJ appearance. It has the advantage that it's an outside look at the characters, so it's expected that they stay mysterious for a while, where New Thunderbolts #1 is anything but the first issue of a new series.

All the characters seem to coast on goodwill and interest that they've built up in a million comics that I haven't read. And the characterisation is sledge-hammer subtle. "Looks to me like Atlas likes Songbird. Yep, Atlas definitely likes Songbird. Yes, we get it. Yes, we get it. Yes, we get it. Yes, we get it. Just fuck off, will you?"

Also the timely themes (Terrorists! State responsibility for terrorists! WTC United Nations falling down!) annoy me no end. Particularly when he goes to some lengths to establish a cramped and terrifying building collapse, only to have Atlas grow to the size of the building from the inside, then burst out through one of the walls and hold the building up from the outside. Architecture: it doesn't work like that.

And the dialogue is completely rubbish, though this probably just means it's retro.

(tomorrow the ILC characters poll will be back but I have a headache and this is easier)

16. ORION #1-25

At first I started reading this because it was Walt Simonson eye candy even though all that happens is the standard bite-bite-bite-fight-fight-fight stuff but then suddenly!! it starts getting really good, with a power corrupts storyline and deus ex machinae which are actually entertaining and monster cosmic stuff (including tasty loose ends, hey whatever DID happen to the earth-juggling super-giant?). And Simonson is still great! Towards the end it tails off a little and I think cancellation came as a disappointment but generally this is Good Stuff.

The Morrison/Millar run. At the time I thought this was really ace and now it reads very strangely, like people who want to write mad silver age stuff but haven't actually worked out how to yet. The ideas are there but everything's TOO big and crazy: the first two episodes in each arc are terrific and the third is always shit. Only bad in comparison to Ultimates and Seven Soldiers and JLA, I suppose. In the middle of it there's a really nice one-issue story about Jay Garrick and the Thinker which stands up better than all the hypercosmic sagas. It doesn't help that this was during the Flash "speed force" years so all the supporting cast are (dread word) 'speedsters' and the whole speed force concept is a massive "INSERT LAZY ENDING HERE" card to boot.

Ponderous vehicle for James Robinson to grim'n'grit up assorted G.A. and JSA characters. A review of this in the Slings And Arrows Guide praises the set-up in #1-3 but considers the payoff in #4 corny. THIS IS WRONG. The set-up is repetitive and hammers home the one or two personality hooks Robinson gives each character, which is all he can really afford to give them since the cast is so bloody huge. The diffuse focus means no arc really ends satisfyingly - compare to DC: THE NEW FRONTIER (covering vaguely similar ground) and you'll get the idea. HOWEVER the fourth issue is terrific because of it's awesomely hokey plot. Hurrah! If only they'd used the body of a cat.

Though he also later says "I'm honestly as happy writing Superman Adventures as I am writing Wanted. I don't see one as bring better or more literate than the other"

Grant on Flash was OK, but not as great as I expected. Back then I had already been a fan of his work for a long time time, so having him as the regular writer for my favorite character ever was a dream come true. But...well, "Hell To Pay" was such a great ending for Waid's run it became a tough act to follow to anyone who had to step on his shoes. Plus, he went out with the promise of coming back one year later with "Chain Lightning" which, back then, was hyped to be this super-cosmic-time-and-space-spanning-Flash-epic that was gonna change the world for ever and all that crap. So Grant's stuff was OK, but by coming after "Hell to pay" and with the hype behind "Chain Lightning", his run turned out to be a bit underwhelming and it ended up being a mildly fun way of killing the time until Waid's return.

er because Millar used to write Sonic The Hedgehog monthly, I would not be surprised that the plot where Flash races Sonic The Hedgehog across the universe came from him rather than Grant.

Their usual writing practice was to divvy up dialoguing issue-by-issue, rather than story-by-story, so that would fit. Also since there's no way Grant didn't write that one with his new version of the Mirror Master, which wouldn't fit with the three-on three-off pattern. (of course it all got thrown wonky when he had to bail from the last three due to overcommittment, which might be what you're thinking of?)

G-Mo! On the FF! Cool! Not really. A pretty thin plot (Doom manipulates reality but underestimates the FF's innate goodness) allows GM to trot round some icons without really seeming too enthused by any of it. Nice Jae Lee art - murk is boring but he does it better than most - is it really true tho that the Torch's powers stop working if its RAINING??? (ok I think it was some sort of mutant super-rain)

All Colossus stories in which he is painting are funny and this is no exception as he expresses his inner torment by drawing a mid-90s Simon Bisley picture. When you think about it it's amazing that the X-books have never done the "his name is Rasputin yes Rasputin WHO ELSE HAD THAT NAME" plot before, but David Hine is a pretty decent low-key writer so this works as a good read and a stupid larff. Hine's rise to mild x-prominence is a bit odd though - who'd have thought when I was reading "Sticky Fingers" in CRISIS all those years ago that he'd end up doing a hokey Colossus mini?

12 issues of nothing but fighting drawn by John Romita Jr = pretty good fun! I read it all in about 40 minutes but so what? Wolverine murderises lots of good guys then gets turned good again and murderises all the bad guys instead: in some ways this is the quintessential Wolverine story and certainly seems to have been a crowd-pleaser, but on the other hand you can't imagine it having been done at any time prior to now.

I'm not sure the comic's ever been better to be honest.

The great thing about the Baron FLASH (& the Messner-Loebs run) is that in 6/8/10 years time some writer is going to come along and revive it all in the same way Johns is all about the Cary Bates rogues galleries and soapy set-ups.

:)

quick question, the person who started the thread about martian manhunter's 'demise' - are they really that person?

also: it roxx. so hard.

One of them (don't ask me which one) died in some crossover or Flash event some years ago. He was running up the wall of some building when he lost his powers, fell down and SPLOTCH!

And yes, Messner-Loebs' Flash was lovely.

quick question, the person who started the thread about martian manhunter's 'demise' - are they really that person?

Is what who now?

chuck register and then go to the introduce yourself thread/forum which will be one of the few things you'll see and start a thread introducing yourself, post it, and then immediately you'll have access to the rest of the site. look for the tracker 'forums' at the bottom then.

I don't remember reading this, but it sounds very much like the Gene Bomb in INVASION!, doesn't it?

Signed,
A confused stupid comics pirate.

Also d/led:
The Brave & the Bold #200, final issue, Batman/Batman by Mike W. Barr & Dave Gibbons. Turns out, I used to have this as well, but I had completely forgotten about it. A strange tale of Earths 1 & 2 and a man named Brimstone (with AWESOME hair) who traversed the multi-dimensional barrier using only his hatred for Batman.
Justice League of America #171 & 172 Another Earth 1 & Earth 2 story. This one concerns the annual team-up of the JLA/JSA and the death of the original Mr. Terrific. I remember getting the first issue from a used bin when I was a kid, and then I never found the conclusion, so I've just been walking around like a moron for all these years wondering who killed Mr. T. Turns out it was Jay Garrick, but the JL/SA decided that since they've always liked Jay Garrick more than Terry Sloane anyway, they'd just wipe their own minds and forget about it.

The Brave & the Bold #85, Peak Neal Adams, 1st appearance of Green Arrow's beard! Amazingly, I've read this before! It must have been reprinted in one of those DC Blue Ribbon Digests. Still, fantastic non-fantastic Bob Haney story. Bruce Wayne, congressman! Batman and GA share a psychiatrist! Psychiatrist uses self-hypnosis to remove knowledge of their secret IDs! Who needs Zatanna?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v696/eriebooksgalore/dccos92/dccos080.jpg

I can't believe Big Sir got his own card. Did any of the other Injustice Leaguers?

No, that's fair enough. Being really quick reads also helps me get through 60-odd in a day.

Anyway:

Teen Titans Go! 1-20 odd

This is definitely the comic book of the TV Series, with the return of actual editor's captions, which refer to episodes of the TV show rather than other comics. Does the current rake of 'Adventures' (comics of DC TV animations) do this? I assume old-school toy comics (G.I.Joe, Transformers, Zoids) must have done this a certain amount.

The comics all read really quickly, like they'd be a good five-minute time-filler in one of the TV episodes. I never realised until reading them, what a strange continuity situation the series was in - they're characters from 20 years ago, in the modern world. Because I'd read Gotham Central's Dead Robin arc just before this, which has a Titans containing Beast Boy, Cyborg, Raven and Robin III, I didn't notice that this one was Dick Grayson until it's (literally) spelled out. Though guest stars from Wildebeest and Speedy should probably have tipped me off :)

Also I read Power Pack 1-5, out of a massive torrent of all of them ever, and thought "Yes, this is roughly what I remember, I'll stop now". They're great characters, but that might be the problem: they're so like actual kids that spending more than a short amount of time with them can get pretty annoying.

No, old school G.I.Joe and Transformers had continuities independent from the actual toys and the other tie-ins. And in the case of Larry Hama's Joe and the British Transformers, their continuities were way more intricate and way, way more awesome, although Hama's eventually died from an overdose of the crappy new toys he kept having to shoehorn in to his stories. (Well, OK, the ninja thing didn't help after a while either.)

Over the weekend, I d/led THE GREAT DARKNESS SAGA (whose central mystery is spoiled by the cover of the trade, dirty fuckers) and the first 37 (complete pre-Zero Hour?) issues of the Five Year Gap Legion.

I just found a motherlode of The Question, including a truly horrendous Question/Blue Beetle team-up from 1981 (Charlton's last gasp?).

The Hawk and the Dove #1

The Hawk and the Dove #2

I just finished (like three hours ago) my marathon of pre-Crisis Flash, from #300 STRAIGHT THROUGH to #350. Ye gods. Infantino, I really don't know what to make of you. Your loose lines (covers inked by Klaus Jansen, which makes it all wonderful) are sometimes immaculate, sometimes asinine. The panels where Barry Allen gets his face bashed in are really, really something.
I really, really feel sorry for the Flash. He was put through hell for nearly three years before his title was cancelled, and then he gets sent off to the future to be reunited with his formerly-dead wife, but by that time, I think he's already dead!

Read Yesterday:
Zero Hour w/ several x-overs (not the complete x-overs as the D/L file suggested): NOT THAT BAD. Clearly intended to be a sequel proper to Crisis (subtitle: Crisis in Time) (dead Flash hoax) (Spectre vs. Villain at the dawn of time), the best stuff was the timeline bleeding crossovers, like the multiple Batmanses in Superman: Man of Steel or the tweeness of Tim Drake teaming up with younger than him Dick Grayson (after a bit of malevolent Jason Todd OMG dickery). The Ordway over Jurgens art in Zero Hour proper is pretty nice and certainly gives it a Crisis Sheen, even if every character is in their lamest costume.
Also cool is Green Arrow #90 written by Dixon maybe? drawn by Barretto (of whom I've become fond since MarMan: AmSec), basically, two timelines unfold at once as GA chases a goon.

Having read and quite enjoyed THE KINGDOM I thought I was ready for anything. I WAS WRONG. Onslaught: X-Men was worse than I remembered (ya rly!!) but also funnier, especially all the scenes where the X-Men go "come on, you're Magneto aren't you" and Onslaught goes NO NO NO. Things I was reminded of: those 90s costumes, that 90s art style (the comix equivalent of gated drums on 80s records), 'Joseph', 'the X-Traitor' etc etc. (actually they did a reasonable save on this).

Onslaught: Marvel Universe however - OMG. How I love stories where the villain is defeated by a plot mechanism which all the characters understand immediately and act as if it's logical when in fact it makes no sense AT ALL. "Onslaught hav become pure THOUGHT let's all jump into him, except all the X-Men who just stand around. Hurrah it worked BUT AT WHAT COST." Sobering to think that if Heroes Reborn had worked in kickstarting the speculator boom again, this might really have been it for the MU as we 'knew it'. Hearty laffing at bare-chested Thor. Really awful art. TEH WATCHER, always a hallmark of quality eh. Has the Watcher ever appeared since Joe Q took over?

"I, Great Odin, didst witness half my people vanish in the twinkling of an eye. The ceremonial eyepatch of sorrow did I immediately don!"

As Pete intimates above the plot of Infinity Gauntlet rests on the premise that gloves are really easy to pull off somebody. This is surely not true - if it had been the Infinity Trousers which had to stay up around Thanos' waist to guarantee his cosmic power, then you'd have had a credible slash fic crossover.

The first issues are actually really good, Marvel doing Crisis - without the payoff, which is always the miniseries problem - but even though you know the reset button will get hit the apocalyptic set-up is cornily compelling. ("The Isles of Japan - are no more.") As usual with re-reading old crossovers part of the fun is remembering lame own-title plots that impact on them, i.e. Thor not being Thor any more.

Once Perez leaves and the actual FITE gets going things degenerate rapidly. Starlin loves his cosmic entities but he doesn't actually have any grasp of how to make them seem cosmic, they're just FITEsters a bit more tuff than superheroes but less tuff than Thanos. The last two issues are a game of tag, and at the end you're left with the dispiriting feeling that the whole point has been to make Warlock look badass.

Surely also hearty laughing at this?

http://dreamers.com/xmen/images/comics/ons/Image26.jpg

I gotta admit, I love "Infinity Gauntlet". Giant huge crossovers have always been my biggest superhero comic fetish, and this was the first (non-Elseworlds) one where EVERYONE DIES. Knowing that of course they'd all come back in the end somehow didn't take away all that much emotional impact, for me. Also, handy two page guide to Marvel's cosmic entities! Also, the scene where Hulk and Wolverine are on the rooftops and suddenly it starts snowing and they're like "omg it's June!", felt really - ahem - chilling to me as a youngster.

Also the Thor "Casket Of Ancient Winters" storyline which had loads of really sly crossovers into other comics and tons of "How come its snowing" scenes, back in 85/86 or so, which was when I started reading comics so probably diminished the impact of Infinity Gauntlet for me.

But IG is good yes! Up to about #4 anyway.

There is a lot to be said for a comic wherein the writer does little more than parade his own obscure creations back and forth while murdering the most popular character in the Marvel universe with a blunt instrument, in terms of sheer chutzpah.

As a longtime Silver Surfer reader I thought the whole thing was just awesome, of course, especially when EVERY DEITY/COSMIC BEING EVER shows up, and the Living Tribunal is like "eh whatever." I was a bit disappointed by the Celestials' poor showing against thanos, but it is what it is.

The glove not fitting thing is obviously another manifestation of Thanos' sublimated desire to fail at everything. I can sympathize.

Not actually the complete Red Hood, it's just Family Reunion (Batman 635-641) a standalone (645) and the first two parts of Franchise (646-647). I went and found a DCP with 650 in it, which is the last one pre OYL, so I assume that there's just more fighty fighty in the two issues in between.

I'm not surprised that Winick (I guess) has brought in a sarcastic condescending villian in Black Mask, nor that the title is best when he's on stage, it's funny and snappy like Barry Ween. But he also does the grim brooding stuff well, and I basically enjoyed it throughout.

Question: Why are Oracle and Batman on the outs at the start of the story? Is it because she got herself technovirused up in Birds of Prey?

So I'm a little slow, sue me.

Fascinatingly, Todd takes over the writing with issue 20 and I can't tell the difference. There are a few less 'fratakta yaddaddas', it's a lot nastier in places, but it's the same tough police-procedural kind of thing. Bendis gets no credits at all, so either a) Todd pulled a fast one and failed to credit his input, b) Alex Maleev does ALL THE HEAVY LIFTING and Bendis is the archetypal writer being propped up by his artists, or c) this noir stuff is DEAD EASY if you've got a copy of David Simon's 'Homicide' and a few DVDs handy. Or d) Todd's a talented writer, which is certainly possible.

Download a t0rr3nt client (I use Azureus, but others use utorrent or BitComet). Azureus has a really good help wiki, you might need to open a port to get it to work as quickly as you might want and using the recommended settings re: number of active t0rr3nts etc.

Step 2

Visit a t0rr3nt host site. ZCult FM is still held to be the best, no? To register you need to validate your email address by replying to a message and posting in the Introduce Yourself thread. That's as complicated as it is.

Step 3

Find teh t0rr3nt you want. Download the t0rr3nt file, which is tiny. Your client does all the complicated stuff from there on, all you need to do is nominate the save folder.

Aldo, thanks for infoes.

which is the current page of an Indonesian site where people seem to get everything off DC++ and then upload it to most file-sharing sites known to man. Worth a look.

uh, new site for M@rv3ls anyone? Hit me by userprofilemail.

It's down at the moment, but pretty much everything usually turns up at
http://rapidsearch.yi.org/?

just type cbr into the search box

Yeah, that's what I've been using lately, but like you say, it's down right now.

It's now back.

I use www.h33t.com (actual site address, not google-proofed)

There's a small but pretty committed bunch of uploaders there, a lot of the fallout of Demonoid ended up there, including the guys who are seeding the Marvel & DC chronologies and of course the weekly DCP.

Also it's free membership and they have a good, healthy attitiude towards seeding/leeching.

If anyone would like to trade, mail me.

Do I have the patience to get Pep Comics #1-65, one file at a time?

I would, or at least for the issues (1-17?) with The Comet in them.

Urgh I have spent the last fortnight catching up on four months comics. My findings are that comics suck, or they're briefly good until Gale Simone stops writing them suddenly.

Just moved 4 GB of unread things that seemed like great ideas at the time onto DVD so I can forget about them entirely.

So what CBR programme do my fellow Mac users rely on? I'm having real problems with Jomic, it corrupts somehow and unistalls itself every time I shut down. I tried Comical for a bit, but that was even worse, prone to crashing mid-comic.

I use Simple Comic.

http://dancingtortoise.com/simplecomic/

I ponied up for ComicBookLover. Can't remember a crash or any problems whatsoever. There is a trial version that puts a little logo in the corner while you're trying it out.

Thanks fellas. So far so good with Simple Comic.

I use ComicBookLover too. It's like iTunes for comics. Totally worth it.

Simple Comic is great!

Thirding ComicBookLover

Simple Comic is great!

Yeah, I like it so well I actually gave the guy a donation for his donationware, which I'm not the best about doing.

So, uh, why the hell was Bl@ck P@nther 6 skipped last week?!

revive

I can't remember if DCM has ever been mentioned on ILC.

http://www.digitalcomicmuseum.com/

oh cool.

I may have mentioned it before and totally forgotten about it. When I tried to register just now, I found out I'd already registered with that email address a couple of years ago.

I know I've seen it before but somehow didn't bookmark it.

Infinity Trousers

Don't know wtf I was thinking, but I acquired 3 gigs of Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos scans.

i wouldn't mind!

One very low-priority goal I've had is to collect every Marvel from FF#1 until Shooter took over as Ed-in-Chief... but most of these are so bad. Even the early Kirby ones. I probably won't keep them.

Yeah, Sgt. Fury is surprisingly good. Among the better '60s Marvel stuff.

I have achieved your low-priority goal electronically and am very nearly there with physical reprints of same. Speaking of Shooter, though, one of my many shameful CBR acquisitions is the complete output of Defiant Comics. Top that.

I couldn't find the thread where somebody told the board about L!br@ry G3n3sis, so this will do -- I just discovered a new (to me) site called Re@d A11 C0mics.

http://readallcomics.com/

Thanks, I read the first three issues of The Blue Flame and some Justice League Europe. I felt dirty but good

The site makes it much easier for me to Just Fucking Read The Comic rather than store the file on my computer and put off reading it forever

TY WmC - I went looking for old letter columns in issues of Marvel's The Champions (for 'research' purposes obv) but the scans I checked on that site were all from later printings with recolouring, no ads, bullpen bulletin etc. Fine if you just need to read the story - but I like all the surrounding matter as much as the strips themselves (which always look better shot directly from the comics, imho)

I know this isn't the thread for such things but the omnibi (at least the ones I've bought) have been pretty good lately about including such ancillary material of late. No non-house ads, obvs, but everything else.

i am continuing my shameful daily metadata entry for my 150k+ megaarchive, which is a terrible OCD project i've been doing on and off for years dependent on my stress levels... more when i'm anxiety ridden. 3/4 of the way through inputting 7 or 8 meticulously managed bits of archiving info per file, for about 1M handtyped details! Oh boy, this is useless! Cheaper than medication likely.

is any of this data that could also be usefully added to the GCD, if you want to feel like your labor has a communal benefit?

or vice versa, any way of 'leveraging' that data to save yourself some work?

i am using a horribly outdated reader unfortunately and i would need a tech savvy person's work to help me figure this out. I'm on Ehon. Anybody wanna hold my hand?

Marvel Unlimited needs you forks