RikerDonegal
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Most of the comics I'm reading at the moment are Marvels from 1982.
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Post by RikerDonegal on Sept 19, 2016 14:58:30 GMT -5
Ghost RiderJim Shooter/Don Heck 7 stories in GHOST RIDER 21-27 ( 1977). Writers: Gerry Conway, Don Glut, Jim Shooter ( 5). Pencillers: Gil Kane, Don Heck ( 4), Don Perlin. Inkers: Sam Grainger, Keith Pollard, Don Newton, Dan Green, Tony DeZuniga. Editor: Archie Goodwin. - Deathplay! - GC/GK - 6/10
- Nobody Beats the Enforcer! - GC/DG/DH - 4/10
- Wrath of the Water Wizard! GC/JS/DH - 6/10
- I, The Enforcer…! - JS/DH - 6/10
- Menace is a Man Called Malice! - JS/DH - 8/10
- A Doom Named Dr. Druid! - JS/DP - 8/10
- At the Mercy of the Manticore! - JS/DP - 9/10
Average: 6.7/10 Deathplay! (#21) Enjoyable. First battle is told from POV of villain, which is fresh. The mystery aspect is slight, but there’s an unexpected murder. 6/10 Nobody Beats the Enforcer! (#22)
Fairly bland. Deals with hero’s ongoing secret identity issue, but does so in a dumb way. 4/10 Wrath of the Water Wizard! (#23) Standard stuff. Nice to see GR’s team so prominently featured at the start. And the villain has a bit more personality than most. The attempted love-triangle is clumsy and uninteresting. The action is fine. 6/10 I, The Enforcer…! (#24) Action-packed and full of story. Some of the logic is lumpy but the whole thing is fun. And GR is unstoppable and awesome for (pretty much) the first time. 6/10 Menace is a Man Called Malice! (#25) Flawed though it may be… This issue is a huge step in the right direction for the series. The mechanics of the plot take a back seat to the darker aspects of the main character. 8/10 A Doom Named Dr. Druid! (#26) Doctor Druid. Flawed though it may be, this is probably the best issue of the series so far. Certainly the most interesting. It’s partly the best because it has a good battle and a good foe for GR. Also the script deals with some niggling aspects of the status quo and explains them. Finally, it takes Johnny out of LA and away from the cosy atmosphere of Delazny Studios, which never really added much to the series. Better days ahead. Starting here, the great Don Perlin is credited as penciller on 33 of the next 50 issues. 8/10 At the Mercy of the Manticore! (#27) Hawkeye, Two-Gun Kid. This is good. Finally the series has found its feet. There’s a lot of good solid character writing in this, with many scenes devoted to Blaze forming a friendship with Two-Gun Kid. The desert setting is very enjoyable. And the three main characters are fun to read about. Even the villain is interesting, and has a good motivation for his attack on Hawkeye. 9/10
Black Knight - Lee/ Maneely (55) 7/10Black Widow - Friedrich/ Thomas/ Colan/ Heck (70-1) 4.3/10Captain Marvel - Thomas/ Colan (67-8) 5.5/10 - Drake/ Heck (68) 4.8/10 - G. Friedrich/ Thomas/ Kane (69-70) 4.1/10 - M. Friedrich/ Starlin (72-4) 5.3/10 - Daredevil - Conway/ Colan (71-2) 6.7/10 - Gerber (73-4) 6.5/10 - Deathlok - Moench/ Mantlo/ Buckler (74-6) 8.8/10Doctor Strange - Fox (71-2) 9.3/10 - Englehart/ Brunner (73-4) 8.9/10 - Englehart/Colan (75-6) 8/10 - Wolfman/Starlin (76-7) 6/10 - Ghost Rider - Friedrich (72-3) 2.6/10 - Isabella (74-6) 5.4/10 - Shooter/ Heck (77) 6.7/10 - McKenzie/ Perlin (78) 8.9/10 - Iron Man - Brodsky/ Heck (70) 7/10 - Living Mummy - Isabella/Mayerik (73-5) 7.6/10Luke Cage - Goodwin/Englehart/Tuska/Graham (72-3) 7.1/10 - Night Nurse - Thomas/ Mortimer (72) 6.3/10Tales of the Zombie - Gerber/ Marcos (73-4) 6.5/10
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Sept 19, 2016 15:30:48 GMT -5
Nobody Beats the Enforcer!Fairly bland. Deals with hero’s ongoing secret identity issue, but does so in a dumb way. 4/10 I'm afraid that I find your reviews frustratingly lacking in detail, rikerdonegal. The scant information you've given above and the unqualified verdict of it being "dumb", for instance, is next to useless to me, in terms of explaining what your thoughts are on the issue and whether I would share your opinion. I can certainly except that you found the events of this issue dumb, but I have absolutely no context with which to understand why. I don't mean to sound rude, but this isn't really a review: it's just a subjective statement with no context. As such, I'm struggling to see what there is in your review threads to follow.  |
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RikerDonegal
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Most of the comics I'm reading at the moment are Marvels from 1982.
Posts: 128
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Post by RikerDonegal on Sept 19, 2016 15:40:26 GMT -5
I don't mean to sound rude, but this isn't really a review: it's just a subjective statement with no context. As such, I'm struggling to understand why I should care what you're opinion of this comics is. Not rude at all! Truthfully, I'm sure what I'm doing isn't for everyone. That's perfect fine. Personally, I dislike overly-detailed reviews and just want to write the sort of reviews I enjoy reading and hear back from folks who know the comics. Thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 19, 2016 15:43:47 GMT -5
It would be helpful if you had the issue # for each book. Maybe a separate post for each issue , too. If I want to look those books up, it's difficult to see that image with the covers.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Sept 19, 2016 16:06:02 GMT -5
I don't mean to sound rude, but this isn't really a review: it's just a subjective statement with no context. As such, I'm struggling to understand why I should care what you're opinion of this comics is. Not rude at all! Truthfully, I'm sure what I'm doing isn't for everyone. That's perfect fine. I actually edited the last sentence of my post because I worried that it sounded a bit too brusque. But you'd already quoted me before I managed to change it. Glad I didn't offend.  |
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RikerDonegal
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Most of the comics I'm reading at the moment are Marvels from 1982.
Posts: 128
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Post by RikerDonegal on Sept 19, 2016 16:09:10 GMT -5
It would be helpful if you had the issue # for each book. Sure, I could easily do that if people want me to continue posting here. I only left them out on the assumption that that info is so easy to find elsewhere that it would be redundant here. And, for me, as a reader, it just clutters up my own reading experience, that's all. I don't know about splitting the posts up, because really all I want to do is give an overview of a run. So if Gerry Conway writes 26 Fantastic Four issues I want to group those together in one place and put together an overview of that run, rather than the issues. By choice, there really isn't enough about any one comic to justify a post to itself. As I craft these to avoid spoilers, etc. (Again just leaving out the stuff I hate reading myself.) I'm afraid that I find your reviews frustratingly lacking in detail, rikerdonegal. Just out of curiosity, how do you feel about entries in books like the Slings and Arrows Comics Guide? Black Widow in Amazing Adventures:  Ghost Rider:  Tales of the Zombie:  Again, thanks for the previous feedback. Very useful. No pressure to reply this time but, as I say, I am curious. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 19, 2016 16:18:22 GMT -5
Of course we want you to keep posting here. I like your overviews.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Sept 19, 2016 16:24:15 GMT -5
^^ I find the format of those "pocket reviews" from the Slings and Arrows Comic Guide to be more to my liking, but they're still not quite enough for me. For instance, they mostly read like series synopses, rather than reviews, if you take my meaning. I'm most interested in reading a poster's own unique thoughts on a comic book, rather than just reading a story synopsis. These pocket reviews are the sort of thing that we have the Series Overview Thread for (see here www.classiccomics.org/thread/150/series-overviews-thread ): a place for people to post shorter series overviews, rather than starting a dedicated review thread with individual posts dedicated to a particular issue. |
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RikerDonegal
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Most of the comics I'm reading at the moment are Marvels from 1982.
Posts: 128
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Post by RikerDonegal on Sept 19, 2016 16:27:07 GMT -5
I worried that it sounded a bit too brusque. But you'd already quoted me before I managed to change it. Glad I didn't offend. No, not at all. This interests me greatly. For instance, here's a review I read about an hour ago, the issues part not the annual part (I skipped over that). Now, I don't know anything about the reviewer but I felt they made their case really well and those four paragraphs would really incite me to read issues 44-53 for the first time. There's not much detail or context there but - as an overview - it's certainly enough to interest me in the run. I prefer these kind of reviews to overly-detailed ones. I don't need to read in a review that "Captain Banana suddenly remembers that the sun is coming up and by smashing a window is able to cause sunlight to stream into the room and drive the vampires away which is the exact same way he defeated the werewolves and zombies in issues 41 and 33 respectively." I'd much rather read that "there's a lot of repetition." Does that make sense? |
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RikerDonegal
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Most of the comics I'm reading at the moment are Marvels from 1982.
Posts: 128
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Post by RikerDonegal on Sept 19, 2016 16:33:57 GMT -5
These pocket reviews are the sort of thing that we have the Series Overview Thread for (see here www.classiccomics.org/thread/150/series-overviews-thread ): a place for people to post shorter series overviews, rather than starting a dedicated review thread with individual posts dedicated to a particular issue. Oooh, yeah, I could just post everything in there instead. I have about 2,600 of these things written so that could be as good a place as any |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Sept 19, 2016 16:41:20 GMT -5
These pocket reviews are the sort of thing that we have the Series Overview Thread for (see here www.classiccomics.org/thread/150/series-overviews-thread ): a place for people to post shorter series overviews, rather than starting a dedicated review thread with individual posts dedicated to a particular issue. Oooh, yeah, I could just post everything in there instead. I have about 2,600 of these things written so that could be as good a place as any Well, far be it from me to tell you what to do, but yeah...might be better than starting 2,600 different threads!   |
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Roquefort Raider
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Sept 19, 2016 16:56:28 GMT -5
It's nice to see Don perlin referred to as "great"! I confess I really disliked his art back in the day, but upon rediscovering it in the pages Valiant's Solar a few years later I grew to appreciate its straightforward and clean aspect. Don's storytelling was very clear; a far cry from the confusing jumble of posed images from many comics in the '90s. He made his characters look like actual people, and made them more relatable; a quality far too often overlooked in comic-book art.
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RikerDonegal
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Most of the comics I'm reading at the moment are Marvels from 1982.
Posts: 128
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Post by RikerDonegal on Sept 19, 2016 19:13:42 GMT -5
It's nice to see Don perlin referred to as "great"! I confess I really disliked his art back in the day, but upon rediscovering it in the pages Valiant's Solar a few years later I grew to appreciate its straightforward and clean aspect. Don's storytelling was very clear; a far cry from the confusing jumble of posed images from many comics in the '90s. He made his characters look like actual people, and made them more relatable; a quality far too often overlooked in comic-book art. That GR run made me a huge fan back in the 80s. I have a memory of being at a comic mart in the early 90s and asking about Perlin stuff and getting a very confused response from the guy. This was at a time when every collector was going crazy for those 'hot' artists and I just wanted to collect someone because I personally just really dug their art. Apparently that was unusual |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Sept 19, 2016 19:18:36 GMT -5
I think what you've been doing here Riker is really great. I think having different threads is fine, but you could also consider using the Series Overview Thread... I think you'll find that the stuff there is pretty similar to what you're doing. Edit: Grrrr.. must remember to read all the replies before replying... I see someone else already said that. Sorry! Still happy to have offered the praise though.. more reviews are always good |
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Post by rom on Sept 19, 2016 19:24:37 GMT -5
Great review(s) of classic GR, RikgerDonegal. I like how you break these apart by writer/artist, and include all of the covers. As a wanna-be GR fan who unfortunately missed reading/collecting this series back in the day, it's nice to find out more about GR in these posts. Please keep up these posts/threads - I know the original series went well into the '80's.
Again, this makes me want classic GR reprints (in color) all the more! I'm surprised it hasn't already happened, especially given that there were two theatrical movies based on the comic (granted, Nic Cage was badly mis-cast in them, but that's beside the point).
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