|
Post by BigPapaJoe on Aug 19, 2016 13:14:49 GMT -5
Restless stuffy humid night and power went out around midnight due to summer rainstorm. Since couldn't sleep comfortably pulled out the Kindle and read some DC Star Trek's i have saved from CD-Rom collection. Decided to start at the beginning of the DC series and read issues 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 for some splendid in character stories written by Mike Barr with art by Tom Sutton and Ricardo Villagran. This is the Star Trek from my youth that i collected avidly. For me the DC Star Trek is the best version brought to comics ever. Though Villagran's inks were overpowering Sutton, i think his inks gave a stability to Sutton's sketchy and stylized art which helped the series maintain a style that was recognizable and appealing and "looked" like Star Trek. Under all of the inks you can still see pieces of Sutton shine through in layouts and designs. Sutton never relied on one view of the Enterprise, always looking for unique and different angles that you would not see in the movies. Didn't really care for Konom the Klingon as he felt like an inferior Worf being wedged into the original series. It was nice that Barr connected the movies to the series by using Organia and Yarnek to do an update that was never really readdressed within the series about the forced Klingon/Federation peace. Issues 1-4 being one story line and issue 5 a one and done showed that there was going to be a good mix of short versus long versus longer stories to be told in the future. Issue one had a great Perez cover but his 2nd issue cover wasn't nearly as pleasing. Issue 3's was a bit more ambitious by Perez to showing Enterprise coming up against a fleet of Klingon cruisers but his Enterprise fails as you can tell he drew from memory rather than pictures or models. The stories by Barr also caught the essence of the movie's and the friendship and characterizations of the entire crew along with slowly adding new crew/characters into the mix. Bearclaw's bigotry while being a bit heavy handed in the beginning began to show over time that the future will not be perfect in every way. HA! Wow funny coincidence! And I was postponing this post for a few days to and finally got around to talking about my experience with the first issue. I didn't know George Perez did the cover. I'm a Perez fan, but sad to say I wasn't a fan of the over much. Well, I think what kills it for me is the Enterprise itself. I'm really, really, really picky when it comes to depictions of the ship and if it looks really out of whack (which seems to be the case in most incarnations in comic form) it disappoints me. I can understand though as someone who draws myself. It's probably something you really have to get used to illustrating for a while, before you can draw it from different angles convincingly. Unless you had a toy or model that you could use to get different viewpoints, it was probably difficult to get reference from in those days other than photos. Sutton in here is okay, and I'm glad he doesn't just try to be super realistic with his style as I think that can backfire too if you can't illustrate likenesses very well...but so far he's just average to me. I did like some of the acitons scenes in the first issue with the ships though. I'm anxious to see how things progress as I read more issues.
|
|
|
Post by brutalis on Aug 19, 2016 13:35:03 GMT -5
True enough the series is kind of hit and miss for awhile. There are things to like and dislike but they do help to fill in and contribute some follow through from the movies. There is a fun Mirror Universe 8 part story in 9 through 16 featuring the Mirror Univers that delves into how Spock could become so "functional" after his rebirth and how Kirk and the crew wouldn't have been thrown out of Starfleet. The annuals are really good stories as well. The comic really becomes good under Peter David beginning with issue 47. From there on it remains exciting and interesting even with the restart into a second series starting at #1. Well worth reading if you enjoy Star Trek the original series.
|
|
|
Post by tingramretro on Aug 19, 2016 13:52:28 GMT -5
JLA #113. The Sandman reveals that, thirty years ago, he accidentally transformed his kid sidekick Sandy into a rampaging silicon monster. His response to this unfortunate incident? Naturally, he hushed it up, claimed Sandy had left town, and gassed the poor kid, keeping him sedated in a velvet lined glass cage. For thirty years. What a bastard.
And then the JLA and the JSA find out and treat Sandman like he's the victim, here!!! "Enabling the abuser" is an understatement...
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Aug 21, 2016 20:10:24 GMT -5
I got this in the mail a few days ago and I finished it last night: It reprints the ongoing storyline from Action Comics #278 to #285, where Supergirl gets adopted by the Danvers family, loses her powers, is the pawn of Lesla-Lar of the bottle city of Kandor, has her memory taken away while Lesla-Lar takes her place, gets her powers back, is exposed to red K and becomes fat, tiny and a mermaid before it's done and - eventually - Superman says she can reveal her existence to the world! So Hoo-ray! The first Supergirl Showcase volume reprints about half these stories but it ends in the middle of the saga. So it's nice to read the ending of the story. And it's nice to see it in color. However, in order to fit it into the 80-page format, they had to chop it up and re-arrange the chapters a bit. And there's one panel that cracked me up. Linda has run into her old flame from the orphanage, Dick Wilson, and he's been adopted too! And his name is Dick Malverne now. They come back from the fair and he says good night and Linda is staring dreamily out the window and thinking: I LIKE DICK A LOT! (The rest of the word balloon provides enough context that you can tell what she means. But it's still funny.) I also got some "New Look" Batman comics that are very amusing (and I ordered a few more today) and I'll probably be talking about them a bit on the Batman Fan Thread.
|
|
|
Post by hondobrode on Aug 21, 2016 22:36:27 GMT -5
What a great cover ! Browsing through some Dark Horse and decided to sit down and start on my long overdue Goon collection. Really surprised this isn't a bigger hit.
|
|
|
Post by hondobrode on Aug 21, 2016 22:44:15 GMT -5
I've been looking into Star Trek comics and if there are any good runs. Specifically with the original crew, and not that Abrams universe. From what I've gathered, it's slim pickings. The DC run in the 80's is apparently the best of the bunch, but things seem inconsistent due to the fact that every time a film came out a certain run was restarted interrupting a lot of story build up. That's just what I've heard though. A few nights ago I started with the first issue of DC's run which I believe was this issue: It takes place directly after Star Trek II. The Enterprise is basically investigating the disappearance of a Federation starship that perished at the hands of Klingons that have been in violation of the neutral zone treaty. Admiral Kirk returns to Starfleet command to barter his way into reacquiring command of the Enterprise again, which thinking about it again I like. His attitude after Spock's death is a lot more invigorated as he claims to feel "young" again following the situation with Khan. I could maybe buy that with a new lease on life, he wants to be captain again. Spock had just mentioned in the film that commanding a starship is Kirk's first, best destiny. This was all in the first few pages and I liked it. Unfortunately as the issue goes on, it starts to take a nosedive in a few areas. Lt. Saavik, the new half Vulcan officer from the movie is here and depicted as Spock's replacement. However, when the Enterprise gets in a scuffle with a few Klingon battle cruisers, Kirk's attitude towards Lt. Saavik becomes ridiculous as he chews her out for something that isn't even her fault or lack of being a competent officer, and also snaps at any attempt of a suggested course of action. Kirk is later talked into some semblance of sense on how to treat his new officer with a Bones lecture, and it's water under the bridge afterward. However that entire dynamic just didn't fly with me and just made Kirk look like a bigger jerk than I ever remember him being depicted as, unless he was under some kind of strange influence. Something similar happens with two lower ranked crew members that are introduced as new, but minor characters for now. Just really some irrational behavior within the context of the presented circumstances. So, the menace here of the story is the Klingons and they're made to be the bloodthrusty brutes that we know them as before they were fleshed out a lot more in The Next Generation. All they're interested in doing in ambushing Federation ships and seeing them explode. Although one of the crew seems to be remorseful of his fellow officers actions, and tries to act accordingly. That's basically the cliffhanger. All in all, meh issue to jump on. Like I said I hear it gets better in some of DC's license tenure. I do think that if Spock had stayed dead, it would have been interesting to have Saavik as a replacment and see how that works out. So I'm anxious to see how these issues roll with that dynamic (although it isn't for very long as Star Trek III is about to be released and DC hits the reset button with the comics adaption of the franchise). Something else I've also thought about getting down the line is the Star Trek newspaper comics. I hear those are actually really good. I don't consider myself a hardcore ST fan, but I like them. My handful of ST DC's that I'd gotten here and there were nowhere near complete and I traded them years ago. What I did have were pretty good though. For back in the day, the art was above average. The name I remember most was Gordon Purcell. Peter David supposedly wrote some pretty good ST for DC back then.
|
|
|
Post by urrutiap on Aug 22, 2016 3:02:46 GMT -5
I just started reading the original X Men by getting into the Epic Collection children of the atom trade paperback.
|
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,069
|
Post by Confessor on Aug 22, 2016 6:45:24 GMT -5
I just started reading the original X Men by getting into the Epic Collection children of the atom trade paperback. I've only read something like the first five issues of the Silver Age X-Men and I've never fully made up my mind what I think of them. On the one hand, I love the goofy Silver Age charm of them, but the stories seem so much less engaging than other Marvel books of the era like Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Dr. Strange etc. I do remember liking X-Men #4 the best of those early issues, which, if memory serves, is the first appearance of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. EDIT: There's an X-Men From The Beginning review thread in the forum somewhere that you might enjoy perusing as you read.
|
|
|
Post by tingramretro on Aug 22, 2016 7:33:36 GMT -5
I just started reading the original X Men by getting into the Epic Collection children of the atom trade paperback. I've only read something like the first five issues of the Silver Age X-Men and I've never fully made up my mind what I think of them. On the one hand, I love the goofy Silver Age charm of them, but the stories seem so much less engaging than other Marvel books of the era like Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Dr. Strange etc. I do remember liking X-Men #4 the best of those early issues, which, if memory serves, is the first appearance of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. EDIT: There's an X-Men From The Beginning review thread in the forum somewhere that you might enjoy perusing as you read. I think for me, the X-Men didn't really become interesting until Roy Thomas took over the writing from Stan Lee with #20; Stan's heart never really seemed to be in it. I quite enjoyed most of the rest of the series, including the Gary Friedrich and Arnold Drake stuff, but the closing Roy Thomas/Neal Adams run from #56-66 is probably one of the absolute highlights of the Silver Age in my opinion.
|
|
|
Post by wildfire2099 on Aug 22, 2016 8:43:23 GMT -5
I just started reading the original X Men by getting into the Epic Collection children of the atom trade paperback. I've only read something like the first five issues of the Silver Age X-Men and I've never fully made up my mind what I think of them. On the one hand, I love the goofy Silver Age charm of them, but the stories seem so much less engaging than other Marvel books of the era like Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Dr. Strange etc. I do remember liking X-Men #4 the best of those early issues, which, if memory serves, is the first appearance of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. EDIT: There's an X-Men From The Beginning review thread in the forum somewhere that you might enjoy perusing as you read. Yes, it's mine, and it's right here. Feel free to comment along if you like. I'll be getting back to it soon (when the 2nd epic collection comes out, probably).
|
|
|
Post by dbutler69 on Aug 22, 2016 11:20:18 GMT -5
I've read Marvel Two-in-One #1-7 so far. I love team-up books, especially this one. I don't know if it's a guilty pleasure or not, but it's certainly a pleasure, anyway. I especially enjoyed the two part story where the Thing and Captain America go into the future to team up with the Guardians of the Galaxy against the Badoon.
|
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,069
|
Post by Confessor on Aug 23, 2016 2:18:09 GMT -5
I've read Marvel Two-in-One #1-7 so far. I love team-up books, especially this one. I don't know if it's a guilty pleasure or not, but it's certainly a pleasure, anyway. I've read precious little Marvel Two-in-One, being much more of a Marvel Team-Up kind of guy. But MTIO #90 (featuring The Thing and Spider-Man) was a big favourite of mine as a kid. I read and re-read that issue a LOT. Issue #86, in which The Thing and Sandman share some beers together at a Yancy Street bar is also a cracking issue, but one that I only discovered recently, it having passed me by at the time.
|
|
|
Post by Dizzy D on Aug 23, 2016 7:40:50 GMT -5
Thanks to the Dark Horse humble bundle this week, I've been reading the collections of Adventures into the Unknown and Crime Does Not Pay. Quite disappointed that Adventures into the Unknown lists no creators (I get from the Crime Does Not Pay collections that creators were not listed back then, but at least there they tried to track down who did what and they did actually pretty well.) For that matter I'm liking the Crime Does Not Pay Collections so far far more than Adventures Into the Unknown.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2016 8:43:09 GMT -5
I got this in the mail a few days ago and I finished it last night: I always loved that cover and playing catch up here and that's the coolest cover ever! ... I've envy you Hoosier in getting it!
|
|
|
Post by adamwarlock2099 on Aug 23, 2016 11:45:31 GMT -5
I got this in the mail a few days ago and I finished it last night: It reprints the ongoing storyline from Action Comics #278 to #285, where Supergirl gets adopted by the Danvers family, loses her powers, is the pawn of Lesla-Lar of the bottle city of Kandor, has her memory taken away while Lesla-Lar takes her place, gets her powers back, is exposed to red K and becomes fat, tiny and a mermaid before it's done and - eventually - Superman says she can reveal her existence to the world! So Hoo-ray! The first Supergirl Showcase volume reprints about half these stories but it ends in the middle of the saga. So it's nice to read the ending of the story. And it's nice to see it in color. However, in order to fit it into the 80-page format, they had to chop it up and re-arrange the chapters a bit. And there's one panel that cracked me up. Linda has run into her old flame from the orphanage, Dick Wilson, and he's been adopted too! And his name is Dick Malverne now. They come back from the fair and he says good night and Linda is staring dreamily out the window and thinking: I LIKE DICK A LOT! (The rest of the word balloon provides enough context that you can tell what she means. But it's still funny.) I also got some "New Look" Batman comics that are very amusing (and I ordered a few more today) and I'll probably be talking about them a bit on the Batman Fan Thread. That bold quote reminded me of this out of context panel about Dick Grayson I came across on Pinterest.
|
|