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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 9, 2017 14:57:59 GMT -5
And I read Sensation Comic #5 yesterday. I especially like Wonder Woman, The Gay Ghost and Wildcat. What is up with Wildcat's sidekick Stretch Skinner? He's about eight feet tall and really really skinny and he has a detective agency and he says "Gorsh!" a lot. Also, Ted Grant's girlfriend Joan is Stretch's secretary. As for The Gay Ghost, it really changed gears in Sensation #4. The Gay Ghost went to Western Europe to start terrorizing the Nazi occupiers. My main takeaway from the earliest issues of Wonder Woman is that crazy, candy-eating, no-self-control Etta Candy is vital to the success of any version of Wonder Woman if you want it to be viable and interesting beyond the first two or three years. Also, Etta Candy should be played by Rebel Wilson, and Baroness Paula von Gunther should be played by Diane Kruger.
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Post by dbutler69 on Jul 10, 2017 10:43:30 GMT -5
I just read Doctor Strange (1974 series) #19. This is the first post-Englehart issue, written by Marv Wolfman. It looks like Wolfman's main goal was to un-do everything that Englehart did. First, he retcons Ben Franklin's cuckolding of Strange by making it Stygyro in disguise, not Ben Franklin, then Strange defeats him then uses his powers to reverse the effect their battle had on history, then the Ancient One strips Strange of his Sorcerer Supreme powers, making him a much less powerful mage. I'm not saying that these changes were necessarily bad or anything, but I was just shocked how quickly and fully Englehart's storylines got undone.
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Post by Cei-U! on Jul 10, 2017 11:05:00 GMT -5
I just read Doctor Strange (1974 series) #19. This is the first post-Englehart issue, written by Marv Wolfman. It looks like Wolfman's main goal was to un-do everything that Englehart did. First, he retcons Ben Franklin's cuckolding of Strange by making it Stygyro in disguise, not Ben Franklin, then Strange defeats him then uses his powers to reverse the effect their battle had on history, then the Ancient One strips Strange of his Sorcerer Supreme powers, making him a much less powerful mage. I'm not saying that these changes were necessarily bad or anything, but I was just shocked how quickly and fully Englehart's storylines got undone. Wolfman's Dr. Strange run is gawdawful (though some of it is quite well drawn). The title doesn't pick up again until #29, Roger Stern's third issue (he spends #27-28 cleaning up Marv's mess). Cei-U! I hold my nose!
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Post by dbutler69 on Jul 10, 2017 11:19:01 GMT -5
I just read Doctor Strange (1974 series) #19. This is the first post-Englehart issue, written by Marv Wolfman. It looks like Wolfman's main goal was to un-do everything that Englehart did. First, he retcons Ben Franklin's cuckolding of Strange by making it Stygyro in disguise, not Ben Franklin, then Strange defeats him then uses his powers to reverse the effect their battle had on history, then the Ancient One strips Strange of his Sorcerer Supreme powers, making him a much less powerful mage. I'm not saying that these changes were necessarily bad or anything, but I was just shocked how quickly and fully Englehart's storylines got undone. Wolfman's Dr. Strange run is gawdawful (though some of it is quite well drawn). The title doesn't pick up again until #29, Roger Stern's third issue (he spends #27-28 cleaning up Marv's mess). Cei-U! I hold my nose! Thanks for the info. I just may skip ahead to the Stern run, then.
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Post by Cei-U! on Jul 10, 2017 12:38:31 GMT -5
Wolfman's Dr. Strange run is gawdawful (though some of it is quite well drawn). The title doesn't pick up again until #29, Roger Stern's third issue (he spends #27-28 cleaning up Marv's mess). Cei-U! I hold my nose! Thanks for the info. I just may skip ahead to the Stern run, then. There is a short run by Starlin (#24-26) just prior to Stern that I didn't care for but you may like. Not bad, just not my cuppa. Cei-U! I summon Doctor Stranger Yet!
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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 10, 2017 14:20:11 GMT -5
I'm also reading Strange Adventures. I read an article about the Atomic Knights (in Comic Book Marketplace, I think) many years ago, and it sounded pretty interesting. So I found Strange Adventures online and I decided to read The Atomic Knights from time to time when taking a break from all the Silver Age Marvels I read. And it's pretty cool! (More on that later.) It appeared quarterly. It seems to have been alternating with The Space Museum and Star Hawkins (I've seen one or two adventures of each of these in reprints here and there). I don't know how long that lasted. At first I was planning on only reading The Atomic Knights stories. But it's hard! Take a look at the cover to Strange Adventures #117, the first appearance of The Atomic Knights: I had to read that cover story! Plus I kept getting a bit mixed up about which issue contained the next episode of The Atomic Knights. And I would click on the wrong issue ... and once you see some of the covers, you're hooked! Look at this one! The Atomic Knights aren't in this issue. But I read it anyway. Wonderful art by Mike Sekowsky, Murphy Anderson and Gil Kane. And The Space Museum with art by Carmine Infantino! And I also clicked on this one by accident: I haven't read it yet. But I'm going to. No Atomic Knights. But it does have Star Hawkins, which I remember from a couple of reprints in issues of Detective Comics 100-Page Super-Spectaculars. Star Hawkins is kind of fun! The last Atomic Knights story I read (in issue #123) was pretty awesome! They go to post-Atom War New York City and find cavemen living in a city-sized underground bunker! Ya gotta love The Atomic Knights! For one thing, it's kind of hilarious that "the far future" is the 1980s.
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Crimebuster
CCF Podcast Guru
Making comics!
Posts: 3,947
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Post by Crimebuster on Jul 10, 2017 15:56:54 GMT -5
The Atomic Knights got a very weird coda just before Crisis in the pages of Wonder Woman of all places.
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Post by spoon on Jul 10, 2017 22:41:02 GMT -5
I'm the midst of my planned Captain America #286-350 readathon. Right now, I'm up to #299.
I'd read #286-289 before. It the Deathlok time travel 3-parter plus Mike Zeck's swan song as interior artist. Deathlok's story is very cool, but his future history is inconsistent with others and it seems the heroes were dispatched too easily to bring it about.
The Death of the Red Skull TPB begins with #290. I had never read any of those issues before. Paul Neary pencils most of the issues. I associate him with Alan Davis art, since he was one of his frequent inkers, so I expected it to be better than it is. It seems Neary's art varies widely depending on the inker. Sometimes it seems like Frank Robbins, other times like Don Perlin. I'm not a fan of either. But this storyline has horrific aspects, so somehow off-putting art is oddly fitting, like the grotesque Sisters of Sin.
I wish I had read more of the earlier part of J.M. DeMatteis's run, because these issues apparently draw a lot on that. I like how Cap's friends and allies in this issue are a diverse bunch. It really tries to broaden American-ness beyond blonde, WASPy Steve Rogers. I was thinking about this before the Red Skull brought it up in a derisive manner. Cap's friends/allies in these issues include a pacifist (Dave Cox), an African-American (Falcon), a brain-washed former unwitting villain (Nomad), his Jewish girlfriend (Bernie Rosenthal), and a gay man (Arnie Roth). Roth is particular seems fairly groundbreaking. He's not explicitly described as "gay", but the world's largest pile of hints an oblique references are made.
The Red Skull's origin in #298 is pretty disturbing. But the Skull reveals that his mother's name is Martha, so if Batman or Superman could somehow meet him, they'd figure he must be a swell guy.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 11, 2017 0:48:09 GMT -5
The Red Skull's origin in #298 is pretty disturbing. But the Skull reveals that his mother's name is Martha, so if Batman or Superman could somehow meet him, they'd figure he must be a swell guy. Tee hee.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,083
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Post by Confessor on Jul 11, 2017 8:25:05 GMT -5
Last night I read Roy Thomas and Hugo Petrus's adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers from 2008, which has been sitting in my "to read" pile for three years or more! All in all, it was a pretty faithful adaptation of the book, with some nice pacing, and all the book's wonderful characters brought pleasingly to the comic page. Petrus's artwork is really nice, with masterful panel-to-panel flow and lots of detailing in the backgrounds. The art is enhanced by the incomparable inking of Tom Palmer, who brings his usual slickness to proceedings. My only complaint about this adaptation is related to the colouring of June Chung. Her colouring is fine, for the most part, but she has this really annoying habit of shading in the end of character's noses dark red, which makes it look like everyone in the story is suffering from a head cold! Also, I got a kick out of realising that the front cover of issue #1 of this adaptation features four classic rock gods as d'Artagnan and the Musketeers (see picture below). Clockwise from left, that's Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin, Lemmy from Motorhead, and Eric Clapton from Cream, but I'm not quite sure who that is up front. My best guess is Paul Kossoff of Free, but I could be wrong about that. Anyone got any ideas?
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 11, 2017 19:03:23 GMT -5
Last night I read Roy Thomas and Hugo Petrus's adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers from 2008, which has been sitting in my "to read" pile for three years or more! All in all, it was a pretty faithful adaptation of the book, with some nice pacing, and all the book's wonderful characters brought pleasingly to the comic page. Petrus's artwork is really nice, with masterful panel-to-panel flow and lots of detailing in the backgrounds. The art is enhanced by the incomparable inking of Tom Palmer, who brings his usual slickness to proceedings. My only complaint about this adaptation is related to the colouring of June Chung. Her colouring is fine, for the most part, but she has this really annoying habit of shading in the end of character's noses dark red, which makes it look like everyone in the story is suffering from a head cold! Also, I got a kick out of realising that the front cover of issue #1 of this adaptation features four classic rock gods as d'Artagnan and the Musketeers (see picture below). Clockwise from left, that's Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin, Lemmy from Motorhead, and Eric Clapton from Cream, but I'm not quite sure who that is up front. My best guess is Paul Kossoff of Free, but I could be wrong about that. Anyone got any ideas? I have the trade of that sitting around somewhere... I really should get to it!
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Post by Spike-X on Jul 12, 2017 1:49:02 GMT -5
I went to a show yesterday and picked up Superman Chronicles v. 1, reprinting the earliest stories from Action. I gotta say, I'm enjoying them a lot. Superman has a definite agenda, siding with what would be seen as liberal causes these days (and at the time, I guess). Even with the focus on action, he seems focused on helping "the little guy," against people in power--to the point of deliberately trapping a party of wealthy people in a coal mine. I wish these liberal creators would stop shoving their politics down our throats. They're ruining comics!
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Post by Spike-X on Jul 12, 2017 7:51:40 GMT -5
I'm still working my way through 1966 on Marvel Unlimited. I'm up to where John Romita takes over on Amazing Spider-Man. The issue where Green Goblin finds out Spidey's identity for reals (not a hoax! Not an imaginary story!) must have blown minds back in the day!
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2017 21:56:01 GMT -5
Finished Batman #316, 317 & 318. I've been slowly enjoying Len Wein's run on the series.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jul 13, 2017 1:00:31 GMT -5
Over the last 2 days I've read Fantastic Four # 554-562, this is the Mark Millar/ Bryan Hitch run. This is really one of the underrated runs in their history. Millar brought back some of the wonder of their adventures and all the characterizations were spot on. They also wrote and Dr. doom as a scary SOB.
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