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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2014 15:07:39 GMT -5
I just read Amazing adventures #1 and #4 from a big pile of cheap comics purchased last Spring. Both books are split between Ka-Zar and Dr. Doom, and in both cases I was in comic-book heaven! Issue #1's Ka-Zar story is by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Ka-Zar not being an A-lister, I expected the tale to be done by the numbers. And objectively, it is... we get an already established villain from another title, Kraven the hunter, who decides to go after Ka-zar's sabretooth tiger Zabu; he attacks the pair with pretty unsporting weapons like paralyzing gas, and abducts the tiger. But what the basic plot lacks in originality, it more than compensates for with its raw, pure Stan 'n' Jack kind of fun! Issue #4 is drawn by Barry Smith (inked by Sam Grainger, whose work I love). It's done in that oddly beautiful style Smith had around the time of Conan the barbarian #1. A lot seems to have happened in the twenty pages between issues #1 and 4, because we went from a "me Ka-Zar, mightier than mastodon" type of stories to the middle of a war between pterodactyl-riding warriors and a green-skinned people dwelling in a sci-fi city , with the original Garrok (also called Sun God) and Zaladane, both future X-Men villains, and plenty of fantasy elements. What a ride, and all in ten pages! The Dr. Doom stories are the beautiful Wally Wood ones. Wally Wood? What's not to like? Definitely worth the two bucks!!! RR I thought Amazing Adventures was the Inhumans/Black Widow split book and Astopnishing Tales was the Ka-Zar/Doom split book....or am I misremembering? -M
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 31, 2014 15:10:23 GMT -5
RR I thought Amazing Adventures was the Inhumans/Black Widow split book and Astopnishing Tales was the Ka-Zar/Doom split book....or am I misremembering? -M Not at all, I mixed up the titles! I'll go correct that.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2014 16:23:12 GMT -5
RR I thought Amazing Adventures was the Inhumans/Black Widow split book -M I've been reading all the Inhumans and Black Widow stuff I can find, but wasn't aware of this. Hope I can find it.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 31, 2014 16:38:58 GMT -5
RR I thought Amazing Adventures was the Inhumans/Black Widow split book -M I've been reading all the Inhumans and Black Widow stuff I can find, but wasn't aware of this. Hope I can find it. Marvel recently reprinted a bunch of those Inhuman books in a mini trade/comic called Blackbolt: Something Inhuman This Way Comes (or something like that) one of those $7.99 comic sized reprint collections they do; it came out to coincide with Infinity or Inhumanity if I recall, and had most of the Neal Adams issues in it. -M
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ironchimp
Full Member
Simian Overlord
Posts: 456
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Post by ironchimp on Aug 31, 2014 19:25:58 GMT -5
rachael pollack and ted mckeever's doom patrol.
everything she wrote until ted came along made sense. as soon as ted appeared - the most impenetrable comic i have ever read. It's like trawling through a thick mud - the only way this can make any sense is if you are on the same drugs as rachel and ted and the planets are aligned in a certain way at a certain time during an equinox with a crow on your shoulder.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Sept 1, 2014 13:41:41 GMT -5
Death's Head II 1-14 Vol. 2
Since I read the mini I decided to read the ongoing that came shortly after it. It's pretty much an ongoing version of the mini, which is good in some places and less entertaining than others. It seems a definite product of the style of hero and violence that went with comics written in the 90's, even if this was in the MarvelUK imprint.
I didn't realize how many pitches were made for the revival of DHII, especially by Liam Sharpe, who created him along with Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. Though this is on a much smaller scale than Annihilation and Conquest, even something as old as this shows Abnett and Lanning's knack for the cosmic space opera. The worst hit it takes is not a consistent artist, for a series that only lasted 16 issues. Sharp starts out, there one other artist, I forget and finishes with Salvador Larroca. I like Sharp's art, and would have preferred him in the whole series. I also read Death's Head II Gold #1 which having not read it in a while, seems to be an unfinished story that Sharp started. I read a bit about the publication history on wikipedia, but no hints to it not being finished. Yet there is an editorial note in the comic referencing Gold #2, so not sure what the deal was.
I also didn't know that there was a successful revival of Death's Head, it was just Death's Head 3.0, a completely different DH with the story done by the creator of the original Death's Head, Simon Furman, in 2005's Amazing Fantasy #16-20 or in the TPB Death's Head 3.0 Unnatural Selection. I may give a read at some point, though I think I just like DHII more than the idea of an anti-hero cyborg. Plus there was a good cast of supporting characters for DHII.
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Post by fanboystranger on Sept 1, 2014 17:04:21 GMT -5
rachael pollack and ted mckeever's doom patrol. everything she wrote until ted came along made sense. as soon as ted appeared - the most impenetrable comic i have ever read. It's like trawling through a thick mud - the only way this can make any sense is if you are on the same drugs as rachel and ted and the planets are aligned in a certain way at a certain time during an equinox with a crow on your shoulder. That tends to be the way Ted is with any work he hasn't written himself. His own work can be difficult, but it also has an idiosyncratic charm that makes it work. Rachel's stuff was already somewhat challenging, but Ted's art put it on another level of impenetrability. All in all, I'd say that Rachel's dP run gets an undeserved bad rap, but those issues with Ted deserve it.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2014 0:23:26 GMT -5
I just started reading through Tain't The Meat... It's The Humanity! by Jack Davis
I don't think I've been exposed to his work before. I have read very little EC before buying the four volume slipcase set from Fantagraphics. I read the Wally Wood one first because not only was I already familiar with his work, but I'm a huge fan. I chose this volume after seeing some Jack Davis art online and being blown away with it, and as I'm barely getting into it, this book is not a disappointment. In my opinion the black and white reproduction goes great with the subject matter of EC Comics. The other two volumes in the set look great too, can't wait to get through them all. Hopefully it lasts until the next four volume set comes out.
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ironchimp
Full Member
Simian Overlord
Posts: 456
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Post by ironchimp on Sept 2, 2014 9:56:59 GMT -5
rachael pollack and ted mckeever's doom patrol. everything she wrote until ted came along made sense. as soon as ted appeared - the most impenetrable comic i have ever read. It's like trawling through a thick mud - the only way this can make any sense is if you are on the same drugs as rachel and ted and the planets are aligned in a certain way at a certain time during an equinox with a crow on your shoulder. That tends to be the way Ted is with any work he hasn't written himself. His own work can be difficult, but it also has an idiosyncratic charm that makes it work. Rachel's stuff was already somewhat challenging, but Ted's art put it on another level of impenetrability. All in all, I'd say that Rachel's dP run gets an undeserved bad rap, but those issues with Ted deserve it. and yet it's so uniquely impenetrable that it's kind of a little jewel in its own right - we will never see this level of esotericism in script and art from the big 2 again.
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Post by fanboystranger on Sept 2, 2014 10:08:52 GMT -5
That tends to be the way Ted is with any work he hasn't written himself. His own work can be difficult, but it also has an idiosyncratic charm that makes it work. Rachel's stuff was already somewhat challenging, but Ted's art put it on another level of impenetrability. All in all, I'd say that Rachel's dP run gets an undeserved bad rap, but those issues with Ted deserve it. and yet it's so uniquely impenetrable that it's kind of a little jewel in its own right - we will never see this level of esotericism in script and art from the big 2 again. It may have been something in the air. Around the same time, Marvel published a Longshot special by JM DeMatteis and Michael Zulli that I found to be completely impenetrable. I'm guessing it was one of DeMatteis' Seekers into the Mystery scripts repurposed for Marvel. I found that to be even harder to follow than the Pollack/McKeever dP issues, even though Zulli's art is easier to follow than McKeever's.
I kinda miss the days where we'd get books like this. They're not good, but they are interesting. When you compare them to the popular books of the day, they're almost polar opposite-- heady stuff that's difficult to follow because it's intellectually challenging, not banal, contentless fight books that are difficult to follow because the artists aren't particularly deft at storytelling.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,090
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Post by Confessor on Sept 3, 2014 6:18:12 GMT -5
So, I've had a big sort out of my comic collection and I'm giving a load of comic books away to local charity shops, a la zryson. But before I let them all go, there are some issues that I've earmarked for possible donation that I want to re-read first, just to make sure I'm not throwing anything out that I really should be keeping. Last night I dipped into a few issues of DC's mid-'80s Star Trek comic. I really like that these issues are set around the time of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, rather than the original TV series period. I have to say that the characterisation of the core cast in these comics is absolutely spot on. I'd forgotten just how well this series captured the voices of Kirk, Spock, McCoy et al and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the 3 or 4 issues I re-read last night held up very well indeed. I think that these are definitely some comics that will NOT be finding their way to my local branch of Oxfam or Cancer Research.
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Post by Rob Allen on Sept 3, 2014 18:47:38 GMT -5
I've been reading my recently-acquired run of Promethea. Last night I read #11, which has a fan letter from our absent friend Jeffrey W. Kramer.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 4, 2014 9:17:54 GMT -5
I really need to read Promethea again. I enjoyed it initially, but the Kabblah stuff was such a slog for me that it/I never really recovered.
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Daryl
Junior Member
Not NOT Brand Echh
Posts: 72
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Post by Daryl on Sept 5, 2014 10:05:56 GMT -5
The Gargoyle Limited Series from Marvel. I got all four issues for $2 at my LCS sale this past weekend.
I always liked the character from what I read in The Defenders and knew about the LS since it first came out but never read it. I dug it. I think as a kid Mark Badger's art didn't appeal to me but going at it now, I thought it fit well. DeMatteis writing is pretty typical of him at the time. I like it but I can see how everyone might not. All four issues got amazing painted covers from Wrightson, Jon J Muth, Dan Green and Badger. I don't recall most other LS at the time, or regular series for that matter, getting that. I guess someone was really into this particular series?
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Post by Cei-U! on Sept 5, 2014 11:07:25 GMT -5
I remember liking that Gargoyle series at the time (haven't seen it in 25+ years, though, so who knows if I still would). I really like the same team's Martian Manhunter mini from a couple of years later, probably the best post-Crisis reboot this side of Perez's Wonder Woman.
Cei-U! I summon the little treasure!
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