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Post by Deleted on Jul 15, 2017 11:14:26 GMT -5
Secret Wars is a series that I haven't read in soooo many years.
I am almost afraid to reread it though as I am afraid that I'll be unable to disconnect myself from the great memories I have of reading random issues over and over again, as well as playing with the toy line when I was five.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 16, 2017 1:22:45 GMT -5
I'm reading Doctor Strange #169 to #183 currently and I'm up to #175. Its pretty good! Great art by Gene Colan and Tom Palmer. But it's not quite as chaotic as those last 15 or 20 issues of Strange Tales! Dormammu and Nightmare have shown up, and those issues were pretty good, but it just can't compete with a bunch of CRAZY NUTS like Zom, Umar, Kaluu, the Living Tribunal, Nebulos, Vandroth and Voltorg. Not to mention art by Bill Everett, Marie Severin and Dan Adkins. And I hope we haven't seen the last of Victoria Bentley.
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Post by Paste Pot Paul on Jul 16, 2017 3:25:03 GMT -5
Discovering the brain defying feats of Warlord for the first time (from the start). Read it at different times but never for a consistent run, read plenty of praise here, so giving it a whirl. Early Grell is ...inconsistent. He goes from some great pieces, spreads that knock your socks off, awesome splash pages, cool designs etc, but then there are the wooden poses he is known for, awkward layouts, and I wont even mention the improbability of the setting. However I'm enjoying it and can see that as Mike becomes a better writer and artist this will all flourish. Its a cool mashup of Burroughs and Howard, and still amazes me that such a newbie got such a chance relatively early in his career.
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Post by dbutler69 on Jul 16, 2017 9:02:18 GMT -5
I just read Amazing Spider-Man Annual #4. It was pretty good. However, there were some flaws. If the Torch was filming a movie at the beginning, How could Spidey not see the cameras and film crew when he decided to "save" NY from the Torch? And Why didn't the Torch simply explain what was going on? Also, In Hollywood, Spidey want way overboard smashing through Johnny's trailer and just swinging away, even if he did believe that was really the Torch in the previous pages. Still, there was enough fun stuff here, plus there was some cool bonus stuff such as inside info on Spidey's web shooters. It was also cool that the bad guy was *Spoiler Alert* Mysterio, and the episode of Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends that I watched this morning just happened to have Mysterio! They kept the penciller a secret until the last page. It was *2nd Spoiler Alert* Larry Lieber!
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jul 16, 2017 10:26:39 GMT -5
How could Spidey not see the cameras and film crew when he decided to "save" NY from the Torch? And Why didn't the Torch simply explain what was going on? Oh well, if you're gonna be like that, you might as well throw away every single issue of Marvel Team-Up.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jul 16, 2017 10:48:23 GMT -5
Inspired by an earlier post in this thread by Jesse, I re-read Marvel Team-Up #63 and #64 the other night, which features Iron Fist and Spider-Man (with help from Misty Knight and Colleen Wing) facing off against the Steel Serpent. These are a cracking couple of issues by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, chock full of late '70s kung-fu goodness and great art. Excellent comics. From the same year (1977, I believe), I also dug out Amazing Spider-Man #173, #174 and #175, featuring the wall-crawler pitted first against the Molten Man and then the Hitman, with the Punisher getting involved to make things difficult. Written by Len Wein, these are fairly average issues of ASM, to be honest -- enjoyable enough, but really nothing to write home about. The criminally underrated Ross Andru is on art chores though and he elevates an otherwise rather pedestrian story to a higher level of enjoyment than might otherwise be the case. I'm also continuing to re-read the '50s Dan Dare story line "Rogue Planet", which I've been dipping into sporadically over the past month or so.
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Jul 16, 2017 13:23:33 GMT -5
I am reading Secret Wars for the first time and I enjoy it for what it is. A silly mega-crossover story pitting heroes against villains. Although I do find the behavior of the X-Men a bit bizarre...did they always have the "lone wolf" type mentality during the comics of the 70's and 80's? Apologies but I have not read a lot of X-Men at all from that time period.
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Post by dbutler69 on Jul 16, 2017 14:00:18 GMT -5
How could Spidey not see the cameras and film crew when he decided to "save" NY from the Torch? And Why didn't the Torch simply explain what was going on? Oh well, if you're gonna be like that, you might as well throw away every single issue of Marvel Team-Up. Well, the Torch is kind of an idiot, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. Granted, it's par for the course for Marvel superheroes to fight each other first and use their heads second.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 16, 2017 16:00:15 GMT -5
From the same year (1977, I believe), I also dug out Amazing Spider-Man #173, #174 and #175, featuring the wall-crawler pitted first against the Molten Man and then the Hitman, with the Punisher getting involved to make things difficult. Written by Len Wein, these are fairly average issues of ASM, to be honest -- enjoyable enough, but really nothing to write home about. The criminally underrated Ross Andru is on art chores though and he elevates an otherwise rather pedestrian story to a higher level of enjoyment than might otherwise be the case. I can't really argue too vehemently when you call these issues "average." But what a wonderful kind of "average" it was! I started reading Spider-Man about issue #151 and I was a big Spidey fan for years! I love those Ross Andru issues.
And by "average," I assume you mean average by the standards of the Andru run, issues #126 (or so) to #185. And there's no shame in being "average" in that run.
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Post by Icctrombone on Jul 16, 2017 17:57:37 GMT -5
I only ever really enjoyed Amazing Spider-man as a collecting fan at about 189-262. I also really liked the P.P. Spectacular Spider-man run til about #100.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jul 16, 2017 18:46:06 GMT -5
From the same year (1977, I believe), I also dug out Amazing Spider-Man #173, #174 and #175, featuring the wall-crawler pitted first against the Molten Man and then the Hitman, with the Punisher getting involved to make things difficult. Written by Len Wein, these are fairly average issues of ASM, to be honest -- enjoyable enough, but really nothing to write home about. The criminally underrated Ross Andru is on art chores though and he elevates an otherwise rather pedestrian story to a higher level of enjoyment than might otherwise be the case. I can't really argue too vehemently when you call these issues "average." But what a wonderful kind of "average" it was! I started reading Spider-Man about issue #151 and I was a big Spidey fan for years! I love those Ross Andru issues.
And by "average," I assume you mean average by the standards of the Andru run, issues #126 (or so) to #185. And there's no shame in being "average" in that run.
Oh yeah, I love the Ross Andru era of ASM...it's highly underrated. I have to say that I do prefer the Andru-drawn issues that Gerry Conway wrote more than the Len Wein ones, but still, Wein wrote some cracking issues. I'm thinking specifically of the Spidey and Nightcrawler team-up in ASM #161 and #162, or when Stegron and the Lizard took on Spidey together in ASM #166, or the multi-part Barton Hamilton/Green Goblin storyline in ASM #177-180. Those were the cream of the Wein/Andru era. By comparison, the three issues that I read the other night were a little lackluster, that's all.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 17, 2017 2:44:12 GMT -5
And I'm also reading Journey Into Mystery #97 to #111. I'm up to #101, the first part of Thor's EPIC REMATCH WITH ZARRKO THE TOMORROW MAN! When I was a kid, I had most of the issues of Journey into Mystery from #103 to #111. They were all F to VF issues that I bought for $4 or $5 in the late 1970s. Years later, I got beat-up copies of #101 and #102, and they were pretty cool. In their way. Love that Kirby/Roussous art! It's a run that I've always liked, and I have a certain sentimental attachment to it. Plus, Zarrko was the first Thor villain I ever saw because my first issue of Thor was #241 (or thereabouts) and Zarrko was the villain! So I especially thought it was cool to have #101 and 102. I sold those comics years ago but I thought it would be cool to read them again after all these years. And I went ahead and added #97 to #100 to the run because they contain the earliest Tales of Asgard stories, as well as the first Cobra and the first Mr. Hyde, and they appear as a team in #105, #106, #110 and #111. Journey Into Mystery #101 is working for me quite a bit better than any of the stories in #97 to #100. It's still kid of silly. Odin is ALL MAD at Thor because he won't renounce his love for Jane Foster. So he cuts Thor's power in half. Loki seeing his chance, goes to the 23rd century and cures Zarrko's amnesia (he fought Thor in #86) and Zarrko attacks 20th-century Earth with a mining robot. But Thor's powers have been halved by stupid Odin! Whatever shall he do!? Zarrko is kind of like Kang if he dressed like Lex Luthor.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 17, 2017 14:28:37 GMT -5
The other run I'm reading is the Sub-Mariner in Tales to Astonish #70 to #101, Iron Man and Sub-Mariner #1 and Sub-Mariner #1 to #72. I'm up to Tales to Astonish #84. I hadn't originally intended to read the Hulk stories because I've read them all before, in one format or another. But I love the Hulk! And I'm now in the period with the great Bill Everett art and the Secret Empire and Boomerang and they've only recently discovered that Bruce Banner and the Hulk are one and then same! Also, awesome covers like this: I used to get Tales to Astonish as back issues. They were so cheap in the 1970s! And there was also Marvel Super-Heroes, which reprinted the Sub-Mariner and Hulk stories from Tales to Astonish. (As a matter of fact, my first Hulk comic was Marvel Super-Heroes #54, reprinting TTA #99. Awesome Marie Severin art on the Hulk story! I was hooked and started getting Hulk's regular comic soon after, I think Hulk #194 was my first issue.) So I've read quite a few of the Sub-Mariner stories, but always scattered around because I seldom had more than two consecutive issues of TTA or Marvel Super-Heroes. I eventually read all the Hulks through Marvel's Essential Hulk reprints. But there's still a lot of Namor stories I haven't read. I would always read the Namor stories, but I don't remember thinking they were all that great or memorable. (Although the art was usually pretty awesome!) There was a certain sameness to the stories as Namor fought Krang in almost every issue. And Krang rode around in a big weird spikey underwater craft. And Krang was always tricking Dorma into betraying Namor. And Namor was always REALLY MAD at Dorma and Krang ... and pretty much everybody else! I'm enjoying the Namor stories a heckuva lot more reading them in order and reading them all instead of just reading Tales to Astonish #95 here (I was a lot more likely to have Hulk covers) and Marvel Super-Heroes #46 there and never reading the whole storyline. Tales to Astonish #83 featured Jack Kirby art and - guess what! - Namor pursuing Krang and his spikey submarine with - guess who! - Dorma along for the ride because - guess why! - Namor was mad at her because Krang had tricked her into betraying him. (Dorma is a bit of a ding-dong. All the other mer-girls at Atlantis Finishing School called her Dong-Dong Dorma.) And at the end, a big explosion gives Namor amnesia and he is recruited by the Secret Empire! I've read this part of it (TTA #83 is an issue I had as a kid) but I've never read the Namor story from the next issue! I'm really looking forward to it!
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Post by Spike-X on Jul 17, 2017 19:52:57 GMT -5
That's about where I'm up to in TTA as well.
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Post by Hoosier X on Jul 18, 2017 1:25:25 GMT -5
That's about where I'm up to in TTA as well. I like the way Bill Everett draws Betty so she looks like Tuesday Weld. (Or is it Lee Remick?)
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