Polar Bear
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Post by Polar Bear on Dec 29, 2014 13:23:14 GMT -5
Wow. Great story, Shax. Day ElevenWhat If? #32, "What if the Avengers Had Become Pawns of Korvac?" by Greunwald/LaRocque, 1982 Following up on the Avengers #177 several of you have chosen comes this issue of What If?'s original run. Although I'd read "cosmic" stories before, ranging from the aforementioned Spidey Super Stories "Star Jaws" issue to the two Thanos storylines, Thor #300 (far more cosmic than many give it credit for), and the Dark Phoenix Saga, this issue of "What If?" was by far the most cosmic thing I'd ever read. How could it not be? If featured the Watcher, Galactus, the Living Tribunal, the In-Betweener, Death, the Gardener, the Grandmaster, Lord Chaos, Master Order, and several others I can't even remember right now. It's mind-blowing in its execution, and it leaves one feeling ... I don't know, shocked. Cold. It's very effective. It's essentially a horror story dressed in stars and galaxies. Seek it out.
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Polar Bear
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Post by Polar Bear on Dec 29, 2014 12:59:37 GMT -5
Day TenYou've seen Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 ... #10 ... Now, I give you... Amazing Spider-Man Annual #2, "The Wondrous World of Doctor Strange," Lee & Ditko, 1965 While most of the issue is comprised of reprints from #1, 2, and 5, the original 21-pager here, the Spider-Man/Doctor Strange team-up, is quite possibly my single favorite Silver Age comics story. Stan Lee masterfully handles the dialogue challenges of going from the elevated tones of Doctor Strange to the jocular and occasionally self-doubting wordiness of Spider-Man. Steve Ditko, meanwhile, gives us other-dimensional weirdness in a way no other comics artist (save Brendan McCarthy) has yet quite managed to master, all while communicating character through body posture and panel placement: the mysterious Doctor Strange's face is almost always in shadow or partially concealed by his cloak, while Spider-Man is wiry, lean, and lithe instead of fully-muscled like Romita or Andru would later draw him. It's truly delightful stuff, and though my copy is coverless and I own a reprint in the Marvel Masterworks series, I still wouldn't part with it.
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Polar Bear
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Post by Polar Bear on Dec 29, 2014 12:32:10 GMT -5
Day NineSuperboy #132, "Krypto's Cat-Crook Caper" by Binder/Papp and "The Youth Who Was Braver than Superboy!" by Dorfman/Swan, 1966 It's a nice Superboy story with primo Swan work, but you can get that any issue. No, what this provides is a fantabulous introduction to the Space Canine Patrol Agents (S.C.P.A.), the nuttiest group of super-dogs you've ever met! Though only appearing in three issues and never being reprinted after 1974, these stories have been referenced as recently as the Krypto animated TV series and the current Super-Pets children's book series by Art Baltazar! "Krypto's Cat-Crook Caper" is truly silly, and it lifts my heart every time I read it, as do the other two S.C.P.A. stories printed in Superboy around the same time. Hey, DC, get on the ball and get a Krypto trade paperback collection out there!
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Polar Bear
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Post by Polar Bear on Dec 29, 2014 12:23:10 GMT -5
4. Jimmy Olsen #104 (80-Page Giant G-38) "Jimmy's Weirdest Adventures With His Pal, Superman" August 1967 cover date My 2nd 80-Page Giant, & my introduction to Jimmy's trademark bizarre transformations & for all intents & purposes to the character himself. Trust me -- comics don't get much more transfixing if you're 8 years old & still dipping your toe into the four-color pool. (Tragically, this issue marked the 80-pager line's shedding of the Go-Go Checks. Luckily, I was too young to suffer any sort of trauma. Even so ... a moment of silence, please.) Wow, I love this stuff!
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Polar Bear
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Post by Polar Bear on Dec 29, 2014 12:19:18 GMT -5
Day EightKurt Busiek's Astro City vol. 2 #4, "New Kid in Town," 1997 Some comics you just read. Others, you appreciate. Rarely, you get that "sense of wonder" that reminds you of childhood. But occasionally, you go further than even that ... and you can imaging yourself within that world, interacting with the characters, being part of that world. That's what happened when I read "New Kid in Town," part one of the highly-regarded storyline Confessor. The character of the youth was well written, sure. But the city ... the bar, the club, the background noise, the losers and winners, the jealous competitors ... it all came to life in that issue. Truth be told, I thought it was a done-in-one story when it came out, and I was quite startled (and delighted) when the storyline continued in issue #5! Confessor is a great story, my favorite in all of Astro City ... and this, my favorite issue.
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Polar Bear
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Post by Polar Bear on Dec 29, 2014 11:58:07 GMT -5
Good call Pól. That story was truly affecting for me, too--I've re-read it many times.
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Polar Bear
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Post by Polar Bear on Dec 22, 2014 7:58:00 GMT -5
I had no idea there were so many of us DeMatteis/Buscema fans out there! I worked at a comics store during that run ... and it sure wasn't selling that well! Funny what gets fondly remembered! Re. that HtD/Defenders Treasury, I've always wanted that one, but it was $20 at a convention, and I wasn't willing to pay that much for just one story... I'm cheap...
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Polar Bear
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Post by Polar Bear on Dec 21, 2014 19:31:18 GMT -5
Polar Bear, I think you just got me interested in a title I never had a scintilla of interest in before now. Thanks, Hondobrode! Check out Mark Crilley's YouTube instructional videos--he's pretty amazing. Crilley's four-issue wanna-be Manga series Miki Falls is a real showcase for his storytelling technique, too. One could write a textbook around that one, if you're really interested in Scott McCloud Studies. But I don't like the story/characters there as much as I like Akiko's.
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Polar Bear
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Post by Polar Bear on Dec 21, 2014 19:19:46 GMT -5
Day 7: Akiko #39 (anthology issue), Sirius Comics, 2000 Golden Apple comics store owner Bill Leibowitz was once challenged by a visitor to his store how comics were really an "art form" that could do anything differently than books or movies. He immediately pulled out a copy of Moore & Sienkiewicz's Big Numbers #2 and had them read the page where a conversation took place around the kitchen table. The visitor conceded that comics could indeed do things that no other art form could, and left with an armful of comics that Leibowitz picked out. Mark Crilley is a comics genius who does things with the form that could be done in no other form, and Akiko #39 is a prime example of this fact. He tells three stories at once in this issue, using three tiers (as John Byrne once did in FF using two tiers), but in mid-issue, things get ... complicated. Messy. And meta. If you haven't discovered Akiko, you have a new goal in life--get the whole run! But if you're not sure, pick up this done-in-one issue and witness an under-appreciated genius of graphic storytelling. Golden Apple? You in Los Angeles as well, PB? No, I'm a Marylander, but I met him at a San Diego retailer's seminar in 1990, when I was living in Santa Monica for the summer. P.S. Yeesh--memory's a tricky thing. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm starting to wonder ... do I know that story because he told it to me in person? I'd thought I'd read it in a magazine, but now that I'm thinking about it, I'm starting to think he actually shared it with me directly... Wow... P.P.S. Yup, it has to have been in person, because Big Numbers #2 came out in 1990. Wow.
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Polar Bear
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Post by Polar Bear on Dec 21, 2014 19:17:23 GMT -5
Ditto. It helped that his model for the Sojourn book looked =exactly= like my wife. Wow! Lucky man! Yup. She's a good archer, too.
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Polar Bear
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Post by Polar Bear on Dec 21, 2014 14:22:59 GMT -5
Day 7: Akiko #39 (anthology issue), Sirius Comics, 2000 Golden Apple comics store owner Bill Leibowitz was once challenged by a visitor to his store how comics were really an "art form" that could do anything differently than books or movies. He immediately pulled out a copy of Moore & Sienkiewicz's Big Numbers #2 and had them read the page where a conversation took place around the kitchen table. The visitor conceded that comics could indeed do things that no other art form could, and left with an armful of comics that Leibowitz picked out. Mark Crilley is a comics genius who does things with the form that could be done in no other form, and Akiko #39 is a prime example of this fact. He tells three stories at once in this issue, using three tiers (as John Byrne once did in FF using two tiers), but in mid-issue, things get ... complicated. Messy. And meta. If you haven't discovered Akiko, you have a new goal in life--get the whole run! But if you're not sure, pick up this done-in-one issue and witness an under-appreciated genius of graphic storytelling.
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Polar Bear
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Post by Polar Bear on Dec 21, 2014 14:05:56 GMT -5
We tried forever to get him to even admit he had a problem. Finally at 67 we broke through. That's when he turned around. Don't give up. I'm just going to say it, we have an awesome community. Wow. So true.
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Polar Bear
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Post by Polar Bear on Dec 21, 2014 12:59:44 GMT -5
If that's the one with Gargoyle, I strongly considered that one, too.
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Polar Bear
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Post by Polar Bear on Dec 21, 2014 12:57:28 GMT -5
I liked Greg Land before his motto became "light-box or die!" Those Birds of Prey are very good, and if he was light-boxing, he wasn't anything close to being as obvious about it as he is now. Ditto. It helped that his model for the Sojourn book looked =exactly= like my wife.
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Polar Bear
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Post by Polar Bear on Dec 20, 2014 15:18:36 GMT -5
8. Spectacular Spider-Man #189 "The Osborn Legacy" by J.M. Demateiss and Sal Buscema June, 1992 (Marvel) One of the earliest Spider-Man comics I read remains one of my favorite single issues of all time. This standalone issue can be viewed as the middle bit of the Harry Osborn trilogy which began in The Child Within and reaches its conclusion in Spectacular Spider-Man #200. You can read a great review of the whole saga from Brian Cronin (with a guest paragraph by yours truly) here: goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2012/06/29/50-greatest-spider-man-stories-10-6/I always point to this issue to demonstrate what a masterful storyteller Sal Buscema is. He and Demateiss to my mind make a legendary pairing that delivered consistent excellence in Spectacular Spider-Man. This issue is in someways a thematic follow-up to the classic magazine-sized Spectacular Spider-Man #2, in which Norman Osborn hosted a tense dinner party with his sanity slowly slipping. Now it's Harry's turn to play host to a most awkward dinner party, with mounting tension and inner turmoil. But what am I doing describing the issue already? I completely forgot to preface the review with a rambling story of my introduction to Spider-Man. Here goes. Spider-Man is my favorite character. I was introduced to him in Transformers #3 and Avengers #317. It would take a while to pick up a Spider-Man comic, and the buzz surrounding his 30th anniversary finally motivated me. My first issue of Spider-Man was Amazing Spider-Man #362, the second chapter of the Carnage story. Perhaps not the most auspicious of starts, but it had art my Mark Bagley, who would forever define in my mind what Spider-Man looked like. Lanky and absurdly flexible. I picked up the next couple issues, until finally the 30th anniversary came. All four Spider-Man titles came with hologram covers and I brought the set of all four together from the comic store. Good issues all. Web of Spider-Man was probably the most forgettable, but featured a lot of crazy guest stars (or so it seemed... Mysterio was lurking in the wings); the Spider-Man story was a nice one-off tale of a guy who finds a force field and tries and fails at being a super-villain. The Amazing Spider-Man issue I quite loved and still love. With more context, it's not an entirely original story, but it is a well-told struggle with the Lizard. Gets to the heart of what worked about the best Lizard stories, including a touching ending. And of course... the issue spotlighted here. I was hooked. Great pick! DeMatteis is who I "hear" when I think of Spider-Man. His three runs on Spider-Man--Marvel Team-Up with various artists, Spectacular with S. Buscema, and Amazing with Bagley--are just about my favorite Spidey runs of all time.
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