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Post by dbutler69 on Nov 1, 2017 7:57:40 GMT -5
Fantastic Four #164"The Crusader Syndrome!" written by Roy Thomas and drawn by George Pérez I wasn't aware that Perez even had a run of FF so I was pleasantly surprised to pick this up. The story itself is exciting and well drawn even though the the villain seems like a throwaway character. The issue opens with Ben and Reed helping Sue train her newly strengthened powers. Johnny Storm goes out on a date with Frankie Raye and is forced to reveal that he's the Human Torch in order to save a man being attacked by a costumed man claiming to avenge perceived wrongs committed against his people. Johnny is easily defeated and has to call the rest of the team. The issue ends with them arriving and beginning the search for this new mysterious villain. The first Marvel comic I ever bought was a Perez FF! It's been a while since I've read this, but I thought Johnny's identity was already public? Odd.
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Post by dbutler69 on Nov 1, 2017 8:34:29 GMT -5
Keeping with me Tom Fagan/Rutland VT theme, I read Avengers #119. The Avengers sense evil in Rutland, VT on Halloween (surprise, surprise) so off they rush to face they know not what. Wanda is really going overboard with her anti-human stance in this issue. She sounds far more like a villain than a hero here. Anyway, based on the cover, I'm not spoiling anything by saying that the mystery villain is the Collector. Of course, the Avengers eventually foil the Collector and can finally head off to Tom Fagan's Halloween party. Also of note, Loki is a vegetable after the results of the Avengers-Defenders was and is left in the care of Tom Fagan at the end if this issue! Decent art and an entertaining Halloween story here, though I'm a bit skeptical of the Collector's plan to destroy Rutland with a plague of vampire bats.
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Post by dbutler69 on Nov 1, 2017 11:45:44 GMT -5
I just read Marvel Feature #2, featuring the Defenders. Another Tom Faagan/Rutland, VT story. It's a pretty solid Halloween story, though the battle with Dormammu is a bit short. There was a gratuitous scene with Tom Fagan smoking, too. It seemed unnecessary. By the way, I can't believe cops at this point are still shooting the Hulk with pistols and expecting it to hurt him. Pne cop even though he was going to kill the Hulk...with a pistol!
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 1, 2017 12:25:43 GMT -5
This last month I read 82 comics. 62 of them digitally. I have noticed that I will skim through a digital comic more than i will a physical one. I feel like I'm missing the full experience with digital comics.
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 1, 2017 13:34:14 GMT -5
Fantastic Four #164"The Crusader Syndrome!" written by Roy Thomas and drawn by George Pérez I wasn't aware that Perez even had a run of FF so I was pleasantly surprised to pick this up. The story itself is exciting and well drawn even though the the villain seems like a throwaway character. The issue opens with Ben and Reed helping Sue train her newly strengthened powers. Johnny Storm goes out on a date with Frankie Raye and is forced to reveal that he's the Human Torch in order to save a man being attacked by a costumed man claiming to avenge perceived wrongs committed against his people. Johnny is easily defeated and has to call the rest of the team. The issue ends with them arriving and beginning the search for this new mysterious villain. The conclusion to this story was my first issue of the Fantastic Four back when I started collecting comics in the mid-1970s. The upcoming two-parter with the Hulk made me an FF fan for life!
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 1, 2017 13:36:12 GMT -5
Fantastic Four #164"The Crusader Syndrome!" written by Roy Thomas and drawn by George Pérez I wasn't aware that Perez even had a run of FF so I was pleasantly surprised to pick this up. The story itself is exciting and well drawn even though the the villain seems like a throwaway character. The issue opens with Ben and Reed helping Sue train her newly strengthened powers. Johnny Storm goes out on a date with Frankie Raye and is forced to reveal that he's the Human Torch in order to save a man being attacked by a costumed man claiming to avenge perceived wrongs committed against his people. Johnny is easily defeated and has to call the rest of the team. The issue ends with them arriving and beginning the search for this new mysterious villain. The first Marvel comic I ever bought was a Perez FF! It's been a while since I've read this, but I thought Johnny's identity was already public? Odd. As I recall, he was trying to blend in and have a normal day (with Frankie) and not have everybody know that Johnny Storm the Human Torch was among them.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Nov 1, 2017 17:52:03 GMT -5
What a fun thing to do. I don't have the Batman book but I might try the others. I've got the Batman one in The Illustraded Neal Adams, vol. 3. I've also got both JLA appearances as back issues and I forgot to mention that I did read Thor #206-207 a few weeks ago on Marvel Unlimited and then read Thor #232 over the weekend (though #232 doesn't really have anything to do with Halloween). I'd love to get Freedom Fighters #6, but that's not happening, at least not this year. I've been meaning to do this! I'm having the damndest time finding a list of all the Rutland stories online, though. (I didn't know about the Freedom Fighters one.) I am pretty sure there was one that was neither Marvel nor DC, but I forget what! Did you get the Beast story from Englehart's AMazing Adventures?
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Post by Cei-U! on Nov 1, 2017 20:12:09 GMT -5
I'm up to #50 in my readthrough of Suicide Squad and I must say it has bounced back nicely from all the confusion caused by the Invasion! crossovers. John Ostrander and Im Yale have kept the book fresh and unpredictable, which I like. A lot. Unfortunately, the art by (at various times) Grant Miehm, John K. Snyder III and especially Geoff Isherhood is atrocious: muddy inking over pencilling that mimics better artists like Neal Adams and Steve Bissette without any understanding of what makes their styles work. And the storytelling is excruciatingly bad. If you're going to have a series that depends on action scenes involving a dozen heroes and villains or more, your staging has to be crystal clear and flow from panel to panel. This stuff fails at every level. When I think about how awesome this book would've been with a competent artist at the drawing board I could cry. Well, I still have 16 issues to go. Maybe things'll get better.
Cei-U! Hope springs eternal!
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 2, 2017 5:15:37 GMT -5
It's been a while since I revisited SS but I have nice memories of the first 12 or so issues. Crossover events have always been a plague to series since they became mandatory in the late 90's. I'm thinking the worst of them was the original Crisis, which literally had red sky thrust into unrelated storylines.
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Post by Nowhere Man on Nov 2, 2017 7:07:59 GMT -5
Conan the Barbarian #5Roy Thomas based this story on a Howard poem titled "Zukala's Hour." To my knowledge this poem wasn't originally part of Conan's world (as far as I know "Cimmeria" is the only Conan related poem) and was simply part of a narrative cycle of Howard poems. This was my favorite issues so far and a surprisingly dark tale. It's interesting to see how Thomas and Smith subtly get around the Comics Code. Zukala, the sorcerer villain of the story, is introduced greeting his daughter while a bird alights on his hand, but in the next scene crushes it to death as an afterthought, having learned that the peasants of the local village failed to send him tribute money. It's done very subtly, so much so that I almost missed it. I got the feeling that Thomas intended Zukala to be a recurring villain (he actually kinda looks like an FF villain to my eyes)seeing as how he exited in a manor that would have made Doctor Doom proud, but to my surprise after checking him out on the Marvel database, he doesn't make a second appearance until Conan the Barbarian #242 in 1991, almost 20 years after his first appearance.
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Post by dbutler69 on Nov 2, 2017 9:42:19 GMT -5
I've got the Batman one in The Illustraded Neal Adams, vol. 3. I've also got both JLA appearances as back issues and I forgot to mention that I did read Thor #206-207 a few weeks ago on Marvel Unlimited and then read Thor #232 over the weekend (though #232 doesn't really have anything to do with Halloween). I'd love to get Freedom Fighters #6, but that's not happening, at least not this year. I've been meaning to do this! I'm having the damndest time finding a list of all the Rutland stories online, though. (I didn't know about the Freedom Fighters one.) I am pretty sure there was one that was neither Marvel nor DC, but I forget what! Did you get the Beast story from Englehart's AMazing Adventures? Actually, I was planning to read the Amazing Adventures story today! Yeah, I couldn't find all of the stories either. I've got some of them as back issues and some I can read via Marvel Unlimited, but that Freedom Fighters issue is a toughie.
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Post by badwolf on Nov 2, 2017 9:45:35 GMT -5
What If...? #18 "What if Doctor Strange had been a disciple of Dormammu?" Written by Peter Gillis with art by Tom Sutton In this reality, Stephen Strange is even more greedy and arrogant than the one we know, and instead of doing the right thing and warning the Ancient One of Mordo's treachery, he falls prey to Mordo's promise of more power. As was often the case with this series, the story is painted in broad strokes and Strange quickly becomes power-mad, to the point of wanting to defeat Eternity (seems a bit bold to me). But when it comes down to an ultimate choice between good and evil, he finally chooses good (the Eye of Agamotto having revealed to him the cosmic truth) and ends up more closely resembling our Sorcerer Supreme.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2017 16:04:25 GMT -5
What If...? #18 "What if Doctor Strange had been a disciple of Dormammu?" Written by Peter Gillis with art by Tom Sutton In this reality, Stephen Strange is even more greedy and arrogant than the one we know, and instead of doing the right thing and warning the Ancient One of Mordo's treachery, he falls prey to Mordo's promise of more power. As was often the case with this series, the story is painted in broad strokes and Strange quickly becomes power-mad, to the point of wanting to defeat Eternity (seems a bit bold to me). But when it comes down to an ultimate choice between good and evil, he finally chooses good (the Eye of Agamotto having revealed to him the cosmic truth) and ends up more closely resembling our Sorcerer Supreme. One of my favorite What If Books ...
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 2, 2017 16:21:57 GMT -5
Earlier I said I was a little bogged down in Namor's Bronze Age series (I think it was around #40) but it got better really quickly! I am certainly not sitting here and reading through these books and marking time until the return of Bill Everett in #50. I just read #47 to #49 over the last few days and I have zero complaints. Namor, Dr. Doom and MODOK in a furious battle for possession of the Cosmic Cube! Gerry Conway is doing a great job on the writing. The art has been some wonderful work by Gene Colan, inked by Mike Esposito for two issues and then Frank Giacoia in #49. That Colan/Giacoia team could have been one of the great art teams of the Silver Age! Covers by Gil Kane and Bill Everett!
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Post by Icctrombone on Nov 2, 2017 16:35:02 GMT -5
That first 47 issue volume of What If ? was just great. It dealt with the original Silver and Bronze age Marvel stories. I felt the second volume was bad. A lot of the stories in that volume, I never heard of.
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