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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 5, 2018 14:53:37 GMT -5
I have tomorrow off and I'm hoping to find a couple of hours to read some of the comics in this stack of books I pulled out of the boxes over the last few weeks: I pulled this out when Stan Lee died and haven't got to it yet because I'm reading Thor. I pulled this out before Stan died because I want to read "Goom, the Thing from Planet X!" from Tales of Suspense #15, which is reprinted here. The Batman Family thread reminded me that I haven't read this since I got it. And here's some choice items from the Batgirl collection that I want to read again. Batgirl's third appearance! I love how quickly they started integrating her into the greater DC Universe. Zazzala the Queen Bee! Babs, you've hit the big time! How purple it is!
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 6, 2018 23:12:24 GMT -5
I'm making my way through Marvel Masterworks: Tales to Astonish, Volume One, and I read most of Tales to Astonish #3 today. I love that cover! I'm not sure I ever saw it before. It has a twist ending, but all the good stuff happens before the twist! The giant alien has come to help. But he's just too big! He steps in the lake and floods a neighborhood! He stomps all over a garden patch! He leans on a building and crushes it! He apologizes a lot but finally leaves before he does even more damage! Art by Paul Reinman. This volume reprints the two-page text stories from each issue. I've never been a big fan of these. I used to have every issues of Tales of Suspense and I had a sampling of the other monster/horror/suspense comics like Strange Tales and Journey into Mystery and Journey into Unknown Worlds. And even though I read most comics I get from cover to cover, I got to the point where I quit reading the text stories in these comics because they're not very good. But I decided to read them as I make my way through the Marvel Masterworks volume. And reading these stories reminds me why I haven't read one for thirty years or more.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Dec 7, 2018 7:35:37 GMT -5
I love that they reprint them, though! I agree most of them aren't very good.. there are one or two from the Golden Age masterworks that are actually about the characters in the book, which are alot better (there's definitely a Cap one).. IIRC, the ones from Lorna are often about her as well.
But, yeah, for the most part they're just filler (and how they get to mail for book rate, if I remember my comic book history correctly)
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 7, 2018 14:15:57 GMT -5
I read Batman Family #10 last night, but I won't comment on it until shaxper gets to it in his Batman Family thread.
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 7, 2018 14:22:47 GMT -5
I'm up to Thor #133. Where Thor and the Recorder meet Ego, the Living Planet! I think Ego's first appearance is one of the most amazing panels EVER! I saw major segments of the second Guardians of the Galaxy movie, and what little I saw of Mantis makes me want to see the whole thing. But the parts with Ken Russell as Ego are very underwhelming. Did they really read the comic book and think the planet with a face wouldn't make an amazing cinema image? Or maybe I missed that scene because I only saw parts of it.
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Crimebuster
CCF Podcast Guru
Making comics!
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Post by Crimebuster on Dec 7, 2018 17:08:20 GMT -5
There is a brief bit where we see Ego at full planet size, but it's very short.
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Post by Hoosier X on Dec 9, 2018 18:45:16 GMT -5
And after the battle with Ego, we dive right into the classic and also epic first appearance of the High Evolutionary and the Knights of Wundagore! I've read it before - and not that long ago - but I hadn't noticed that it seems to have a few echoes of John Milton's Paradise Lost, with the High Evolutionary as God, the Man-Beast as Lucifer, Jane as Eve and Thor as … Garbriel? With a hammer instead of a horn? Maybe not. Thor was on a roll!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2018 7:22:34 GMT -5
Starting in January 2019, I'll be reading Golden Age Marvel Comics: Vol. 1-7 and take a break from reading books for awhile and concertrate on other things and visiting friends and family this holiday seasons.
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Post by dbutler69 on Dec 10, 2018 15:21:06 GMT -5
I've been reading the Legion of Super-Heroes stories in Adventure. I'm up to #357. Edmond Hamilton closes out his run with a bang, with the "Super Stalag of Space" two-parter, then we get into the Jim Shooter run. For the most part, very good stories by Shooter (especially the Fatal Five two-parter) with some decent E. Nelson Bridwell stories thrown in. I guess I'd never realized before that Shooter actually got penciller credits in some of his early stories, including sole penciller in his first story. Good job by him!
I'm also reading the Secret Society of Super-Villains hardcover collection I've read the first 8 issues so far. I know they could have gone in a lot of different directions with this concept, and maybe they could have done something better, but personally, I think this series is a lot of fun. Also, though it's not included in the hardcover, Super-Team Family #13 is connected to one of the stories, so I went ahead and read that. That was a fun one, too, and had some Marvel style continuity in it. It's part of the story where the Atom goes searching for Jean Loring and finally finds her back on earth, and she's insane and her mind can destroy the earth, like always happens. It sucks to be the WAG of a superhero!
I also read Daredevil #51 and DC Comic Presents #26.
I've been wanting to read some of the stories in CBR's list of the top 100 Stan Lee stories, but haven't gotten around to it, though I'm compiling a to-do list. Instead, I've watched a few episodes of the Marvel Super-Heroes cartoon from the 1960's. It's almost like having someone read the comics to you!
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Post by Duragizer on Dec 11, 2018 5:40:28 GMT -5
I know Kelley Jones' art is an acquired taste, so I wouldn't recommend this to everyone, but I happen to like his '90s work, so I enjoyed Red Rain immensely. Gothic, expressionistic, sinister, melancholy — it's everything I could ever want in a Batman-as-vampire story. I didn't enjoy Bloodstorm as much as its predecessor. Can't quite put my finger on it, but something about it just feels ... underdone. Still, the art remains good (if inconsistent in places), and it served as a fitting conclusion to Red Rain. Unfortunately, it didn't end here.... Didn't like Crimson Mist very much at all. The art's weaker here, which didn't make the interminable sequences of the grotesque vampiric Batman slaughtering his rogues gallery any easier to read through, and I absolutely hated the versions of Two-Face and Killer Croc presented here. On the plus side, the ending's strong.
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Post by beccabear67 on Dec 12, 2018 16:03:29 GMT -5
I unearthed my old Comic Book Price Guides to look up some info on dollar comics and The Invaders (easier to look up '70s info the earlier the Guides as later ones have all that newer stuff getting in the way). #11, 1981 is the first one I bought when it came out and got me into rooting out old stuff, asking at otherwise non-comic book centric bookshops which really paid off a few times! I bought #8, 1978 and #10, 1980 as new but after the fact; they were marked down to $7 each at a bookshop who lowered the price on out of date editions like these. There is some great material in the '40s Marvel cover edition! #9, 1979 is a bit beat-up but still solid. I forget if I paid much, definitely would've been under $10 and mostly just to fill the hole in the numbering. Nice E.C. articles? Seems odd to say nice about E.C. though considering some were fairly gruesome! No idea what these might be worth after all this time. #8, 10 are around VF-, #9 & 11 probably VG- and FN-.
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Post by Cei-U! on Dec 13, 2018 9:14:21 GMT -5
Wow, I used to have all four of those Overstreets! Sold 'em off or gave 'em away ages ago.
Cei-U! I summon the trip down memory lane!
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 13, 2018 11:50:59 GMT -5
The first one I bought was the Schomburg cover. I also had the L.B. Cole one. They got read to pieces.
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Post by beccabear67 on Dec 13, 2018 14:42:41 GMT -5
I saw a couple of the even earlier ones way back but think they wanted more that $7 or so for each. One had Porky Pig as a mountie on the front and the other had The Spirit and a bi-centennial theme of some kind. Come to think of it there was another with the Justice Society, but I'm sure that was in an actual comic shop with a very high price on it, I looked it up and it's only the fourth one published. There are prices in the 1978 (#8) one to make you cry, imagine in one four years earlier!
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2018 14:52:54 GMT -5
The first Overstreet Guide I got was this one... which I found amid the detritus in the hallways of the last day of school at my high school. It was a revelation to me. I think I spent the first 2-3 weeks of summer vacation reading that thing cover to cover absorbing way too much comic trivia. The first one I bought for myself was this one... I bought one every year for about 4-5 years but I haven't bought one since, and no longer have any of the ones I bought. -M
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