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Post by MDG on Nov 26, 2018 13:46:06 GMT -5
^^^^ Also, fine inking by Sam Glanzman.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2018 17:00:42 GMT -5
My friend and I have been reading Fantastic Four Marvel Masterworks again to relieve the fun and enjoyment of STAN LEE and JACK KIRBY magic again ... So, I'm going to re-read all of them starting with #1 first and ends with #20 and because of the Holidays are coming and other things ... it's going to be my only reading for the rest of the year. Then, onto Spiderman and the rest of the Stan Lee's goodies. I'm up to #5 for now and hope to get #6 to #9 by next Monday ... and I've enjoying it even more and I'm a fan of Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Girl, Human Torch, and the ever, loving Blue-Eyes Thing ...
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Post by dbutler69 on Nov 27, 2018 13:58:19 GMT -5
My friend and I have been reading Fantastic Four Marvel Masterworks again to relieve the fun and enjoyment of STAN LEE and JACK KIRBY magic again ... So, I'm going to re-read all of them starting with #1 first and ends with #20 and because of the Holidays are coming and other things ... it's going to be my only reading for the rest of the year. Then, onto Spiderman and the rest of the Stan Lee's goodies. I'm up to #5 for now and hope to get #6 to #9 by next Monday ... and I've enjoying it even more and I'm a fan of Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Girl, Human Torch, and the ever, loving Blue-Eyes Thing ... I'm a fan of Ben & Reed. I don't care much about the other two, though.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2018 15:03:23 GMT -5
Understood your preference to Ben and Reed, dbutler69 ... I like all members on equal terms.
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 27, 2018 23:07:16 GMT -5
I've been stopping by the comic book store in Pomona a couple of times a month and buying one or two issues of 1980s Wonder Woman. The last time I was there I got #284 and #285. I love that Hunt/Delbo art! And the Huntress back-ups can be fun. Great Joe Staton art I'm sort of working on having a run from #271 (when the Huntress back-up started) and then getting into the era when Gene Colan was the artist (I only have a few of these). I have about 7 or 8 of the issues between #271 and #290. This run introduced the new Cheetah! No, not Barbara Minerva! Debbie Domaine! (I love her!) They brought back Etta Candy and put her in the military because reasons! (Putting Etta in the military shows a very serious misunderstanding of Etta's character and function in the Wonder Woman mythos.) And Wonder Woman will meet the Demon and Kobra during this run! And the Huntress series will have Earth-2 shenanigans galore involving Power Girl, Earth-2 Robin and Earth-2 Joker! I can see why this isn't a much-heralded "great period" for Wonder Woman. But it has a lot of elements that I like, and I'm sticking with it for now, hoping for another storyline that's as much fun as the first Debbie Domaine story arc.
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 27, 2018 23:30:40 GMT -5
Is there a Thor Fan Appreciation Thread somewhere? I've been reading a lot of Thor lately and I might put my Thor comments in a thread that already exists if there's already one in existence. When Stan Lee died, I decided to read some Stan Lee stuff. I usually read a lot of Silver Age Marvel, but I got out of the habit for a while because I was reading 500 or more consecutive issues of Detective Comics. So it's been months since I read much Stan Lee. I pulled out my beat-up copy of The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1. I haven't read it yet. I also pulled out Giant-Size Man-Thing #1 because it has several reprints, including "Goom! The Monster from Planet X!" from Tales of Suspense #15, one of my favorite Stan Lee stories, right up there with "The Terror of Tim Boo Ba!" I haven't read the Goom story yet either. What I have been reading is Thor! I have the Marvel Masterworks volume that starts with Journey Into Mystery #121 and goes up to The Mighty Thor #130. This is such a great period for Thor! The Absorbing Man threatens Asgard … and absorbs Odin's power! And then Hercules shows up! And boy does he get into a fix when Pluto tricks him into becoming the King of Hades and Thor has to come and fight the hordes of Hades and save his sorry butt. That storyline with Hercules runs from Journey Into Mystery #125 to Thor #130, and it's my favorite Thor story arc ever! The next Marvel Masterworks volume is almost as good. I don't have a copy of that, but I can get it through inter-library loan and it should be here in a few days. You get Tana Nile, the Recorder, the Colonizers of Rigel, the Black Galaxy and Ego, the Living Planet! Then, Jane Foster gets recruited by the High Evolutionary because he needs somebody to tutor the New Men. So there's a great panel where Jane is in a classroom and the students are all half-pig or half-snake or half-rhinoceros and it's HILARIOUS! I love this period of Thor SO MUCH! I'm only up to Journey into Mystery #124. I have so much to look forward to!
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 27, 2018 23:47:59 GMT -5
But that's not all! The biggest gap in my major Marvel reading of the 1960s and 1970s is in early Bronze Age Thor. From Thor #185 to #240, I've only read a handful of issues. So when I came across The Essential Thor, Volume Five, for half-price on eBay, I decided to get it. It reprints Thor #195 to #220. I had read maybe two of these. So this will be a big help in filling that Thor gap. I only got it yesterday, so I've only read a few issues. Mangog is the villain! He's going to destroy Asgard and the known universe once again. He must be stopped! The Warriors Three, Sif and Hildegard are all on hand to help out! I'm especially intrigued by Hildegard. I have seen her in a couple of comics through the years but I never saw enough of her to get much of her story or personality. One weird thing about these issues is the art. It's John Buscema, inked by Vince Colletta. I've been wondering how John Buscema felt about that. I like Colletta's inks over Kirby in a bunch of those 1960s issues of Thor. And he's not at all bad in these early Bronze Age issues of Thor. But I don't think Colletta is as consistent in these issues as he was when he was inking Kirby. Some panels look really nice, but you read a few more pages along and some of it doesn't look so great. Very sketchy at times. I was thinking how much nicer it would look inked by Frank Giacoia or Joe Sinnott. Anyway, it's great to have access to so many issues of Thor that I've never read before!
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Post by Cei-U! on Nov 28, 2018 7:52:20 GMT -5
I'm sort of working on having a run from #271 (when the Huntress back-up started) and then getting into the era when Gene Colan was the artist (I only have a few of these). I have about 7 or 8 of the issues between #271 and #290. I can see why this isn't a much-heralded "great period" for Wonder Woman. But it has a lot of elements that I like, and I'm sticking with it for now, hoping for another storyline that's as much fun as the first Debbie Domaine story arc. This is a run I've been working on for close to two decades now (well, actually, I'm collecting #270 through #329, the last issue of the original WW title). I only have six to go (#322-24 and 326-328). I agree that this is a better run than its reputation would lead one to expect, flawed but entertaining. I like it almost as much as the original Marston-Peter run and the Perez issues.
Cei-U! I summon the Amazonian obsession!
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Post by EdoBosnar on Nov 28, 2018 8:47:08 GMT -5
The biggest gap in my major Marvel reading of the 1960s and 1970s is in early Bronze Age Thor. From Thor #185 to #240, I've only read a handful of issues. (...)One weird thing about these issues is the art. It's John Buscema, inked by Vince Colletta. I've been wondering how John Buscema felt about that. I like Colletta's inks over Kirby in a bunch of those 1960s issues of Thor. And he's not at all bad in these early Bronze Age issues of Thor. But I don't think Colletta is as consistent in these issues as he was when he was inking Kirby. Some panels look really nice, but you read a few more pages along and some of it doesn't look so great. Very sketchy at times. I was thinking how much nicer it would look inked by Frank Giacoia or Joe Sinnott. (...) Back in the 1970s, when I first started reading comics, Thor was never a top priority title, but I did get a smattering of the pre-#250 issues. That's why John Buscema was always sort of the artist I most associated with Thor - until Simonson came along.
More recently, I bought two Panini digests that collect issues 179 through 198 - so the last issue drawn by Kirby, two by Neal Adams and the rest by Buscema. I have to say, the Colletta inks don't bother me that much. Sure, all of the other guys (Sinnott, Grainger, kid brother Sal) who inked his pencils on those issues did a better job, but Colletta handed in pretty good work as well.
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Post by EdoBosnar on Nov 28, 2018 13:13:58 GMT -5
And the Huntress back-ups can be fun. Great Joe Staton art Yeah, I'm only mildly interested in that run of WW stories, but would very much love to read the Huntress back-ups. There's a trade collection (Dark Knight Daughter), but it doesn't have all of them. And it's really hard to find a reasonably-priced copy anyway.
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Crimebuster
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Post by Crimebuster on Nov 28, 2018 13:32:50 GMT -5
I won't bore everyone with the details, since I already did that once, but when I read through Wonder Woman #178-329, the issues from #271-300 were pretty solid compared to what came before (though it's really two different eras, as #271 is a soft reboot, and then there's another, softer reboot in #288 when Roy Thomas takes over). The Dan Mishkin run that followed, around #301-325, is my favorite only behind the New Look Wonder Woman from #179-204.
For my money, though, the Wonder Woman lead is much better than the Huntress backup. I heard from a lot of people that they were only interested in reading the Huntress stuff, or that Huntress was a lot more popular at the time, and people only were buying the title for Huntress. Conceptually, I get it, but in reality, after starting off okay, the Huntress backups take a steep nosedive into total crap at the same time the Wonder Woman stories start getting better. It's a real head-scratcher how and why the Huntress backups still seem to have a better reputation than the Wonder Woman lead, because that seems totally backwards to me.
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Post by beccabear67 on Nov 28, 2018 13:37:46 GMT -5
I've read Thor #243-256 recently and just in the middle of Inhumans #1-12 (plus Fantastic Four Annual #12). I like Thor and company on a quest which they are for most of the run of Thor I've just read... will be trying to get the next three issues at least. #243 is maybe my favorite Thor cover of all... they still had some beautiful coloring work... The Inhumans had a lot more Kree involvement than I expected, I had #6 way back but out of context it didn't pack as much of a punch. Great letter by Wendy Pini in one issue and one by Dean Mullaney in another. Really love this Gil Kane Dan Adkins cover...
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 29, 2018 12:16:02 GMT -5
I've read Thor #243-256 recently and just in the middle of Inhumans #1-12 (plus Fantastic Four Annual #12). I like Thor and company on a quest which they are for most of the run of Thor I've just read... will be trying to get the next three issues at least. #243 is maybe my favorite Thor cover of all... they still had some beautiful coloring work... This should give you an idea about how far back I go with Thor. #243 was the first issue of Thor that I bought brand-new off a spinner rack. I somehow got hold of #241 shortly after (and all these years later, I still haven't read the middle chapter in #242!). I read Thor for a while, up to about #285 or so, then I read it sporadically for a few years and finally started buying it regularly again about #310. I read it until around #370 or so.
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Post by Hoosier X on Nov 29, 2018 12:34:29 GMT -5
I read Thor #198 this morning and Thor and Company have successfully defeated Mangog. But at what cost! Noble Odin is dead! But wait! Odin transported Asgard to another dimension as part of the scheme to defeat Mangog! So that means that Hela could not come for him and drag him to Valhalla! So Thor uses the deus ex machina function on his hammer and puts a magic time-suspension cone around Odin that will - somehow - keep Hela from taking Odin's soul when they put Asgard back in place! This will give them time to figure out how to save Odin in the next issue! And aside from that - Sif and Hildegarde are running around on a separate quest and they somehow end up at a Depression-era harbor city where they run into - Tana Nile! You know! The Rigellian woman with the big head and the pale yellow skin! One of the Colonizers! She's awesome! I did not know that there was a plot concerning Tana Nile in early 1970s Thor. She's only in a few panels in #298, but hopefully she'll play a major role a few issues from now after Thor and Hogun and Volstagg and Fandral have figured out how to save Odin! Go ask Karnilla! She's a Norn Queen! She'll know! The best sequence in this issue is the part where they've just about beaten Mangog and his power is draining away and he's shrinking and shrinking. But you know how feisty Mangog is! The hatred of a billion billion beings will do that to ya. He keeps on fighting. He's about the size of a house cat, yet he's still attacking Thor and refusing to accept his fate. I imagine his voice getting higher and higher and squeakier and squeakier as he shrinks to the size of an apple, then a grape. "No! I am Mangog! I am a giant! I embody the hatred of a billion billion beings and I will see Asgard in ruins! And I will smash those ruins to rubble and I will smash that rubble to -" And then he poofs out of existence. Well! That looked pretty definitive! We won't be seeing him again!
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Post by beccabear67 on Nov 29, 2018 14:21:19 GMT -5
I read Thor #298 this morning and Thor and Company gave successfully defeated Mangog. But at what cost! Noble Odin is dead! And then he poofs out of existence. Well! That looked pretty definitive! We won't be seeing him again! Yeah, that's it for Mangog. Villains never make comebacks. I guess you mean #198. I had some Keith Pollard Thors around the 280s-90s but just have #300 now. Then I got into Simonson's return with #337 like a lot of people, somewhere before he turned into a frog I must've dropped it again as someone later traded the two frog issues to me. I may've traded the Hulk with Rocket Raccoon for them though, oops.
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