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Post by The Doctor on Jun 9, 2012 19:35:17 GMT
Alas, my volume 1 turned to mush when stored in parental garage. Still haven't read volume 2 yet. -Ralph |
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 9, 2012 19:38:03 GMT
Picked up some fine reading on holiday:
ZOMBIES V ROBOTS COMPLETE COLLECTION HC from Mr Ryall himself at 2D Festival. One of the few zombies related things I can get into. It's the off-kilter tone and murky art that makes it work.
DAREDEVIL by Mark Waid and co Vol1 from Mr McFeely's shop. Just good fun.
THRILL POWER OVERLOAD by David Bishop (paperback version) from Forbidden Plane* Belfast. This is the history of the first 30 years of 2000AD. Read a big chunk in a cafe this afternoon. Tis a gripping read. Much dirt being slung within!
-Ralph
*The missing letter on the shop sign gave the shop a fine alternate name, I feel.
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jun 9, 2012 19:51:19 GMT
Essential X-Men V6 - what a lovely looking book. Art Adams, John Romita Jr, Alan Davis, Rick Leonardi, Barry Windsor-Smith and company.
Excalibur Weird War Three picked up for £1.99 in FP Belfast. Lovely looking book.
Zombies vs Robots Treasury Edition. Oversized comic of the shorts and first mini. Brilliant.
Andy
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jun 9, 2012 19:58:50 GMT
Essential X-Men V6 - what a lovely looking book. Art Adams, John Romita Jr, Alan Davis, Rick Leonardi, Barry Windsor-Smith and company. Which one is 6? |
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jun 9, 2012 20:03:59 GMT
Secret wars 2, art adams stuff with X-Men and New Mutants in Asgard and the Mutant Massacre.
Andy
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jun 9, 2012 20:04:53 GMT
top volume!
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 9, 2012 20:07:25 GMT
Anything with the Beyonder brings me joy.
-Ralph
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Jim
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Post by Jim on Jun 14, 2012 10:23:02 GMT
Cloak and Dagger - Child of Darkness, Child of Light. Perfectly readable and enjoyable but doesn't completely work for me - it feels more like set-up for an ongoing than a story in its own right. I always felt that Cloak and Dagger were a good visual but this doesn't convince me they can drive a series and may work better as guest stars - the next volume collects the Spider-Man and MTU appearances and could be more up my street, but there are quite a few other things I'd rather read first.
The Leonardi art is overall very nice but he does fall back on cheesecake poses a bit much for my liking these days.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jun 14, 2012 21:01:00 GMT
Essential Avengers v8 (collects Avengers #164-184 And Annual #7-8, And Marvel Two-In-One Annual #2) Perez drawn Avengers, bookended by Byrne drawn Avengers and throw the two Starlin Warlock/Thanos annuals in the middle? You can't go wrong can you?
But it's taken me 2 1/2 months to read this volume. OK, yes other things have been demanding my attention. The Byrne stuff is fab, as is the Starlin annuals. But the Perez stuff is the long drawn out Korvac saga which never grabbed me when I originally read it and seeing as that was only a few years ago it wasn't likely to grab me now. It doesn't help that there are stock issues and fill in artists inserted in the middle of it, and at the end till Byrne comes on board with 181.
In fact I'd have been tempted to cut this volume at 180, a convenient point, and then having the next one start up with the start of the Byrne drawn storyline....
Worryingly I think there's 2 more Avengers trades in the "to read" pile.....
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jun 15, 2012 14:12:07 GMT
Finally read Kraven's Last Hunt today courtesy of the Marvel partworks GN library.
Damned good.
Avengers Forever V1 came too.
Andy
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jun 15, 2012 15:52:45 GMT
What was the colouring like on Kraven's Last Hunt? Original or dodgy repaint version?
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jun 15, 2012 16:03:42 GMT
Think it might be the original but it's over saturated. Like they did with the Weapon X trade.
Andy
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jun 15, 2012 16:11:37 GMT
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Jun 15, 2012 16:18:45 GMT
It's the newer colouring.
Always disappoints me when they don't do it. Weapon X looks so much better in MCP than the trades.
Andy
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Post by blueshift on Jun 15, 2012 17:18:07 GMT
It's okay, but those bright skin tones do not fit in with the environment! Come on!! |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jun 15, 2012 17:34:59 GMT
I could find worse examples if I looked.
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Post by The Doctor on Jun 15, 2012 23:05:16 GMT
I used to have the last Marvel HC of Kraven's Last Hunt but the new colouring drove me to distraction so I got rid of it.
-Ralph
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Post by Jim on Jun 18, 2012 15:45:31 GMT
I somehow read the HC collection of Kraven's Last Hunt utterly oblivious to the new colouring. And now it will bug me forever.
Just finished Incredible Hercules: Assault on New Olympus. It's been sitting in my to-read pile since it came out, my reading disrupted by fatherhood, house moves and horrible shit at work. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed this series. Further volumes will be ordered and prioritised high.
That said, the art isn't great - it serves the plot and is easy to follow, but I can't help but feel this is a title that deserved art with something a bit more special about it.
Question: After recently tweeting that I thought my money better spent on collections of 70s / 80s Marvel stuff than anything new, I got replies recommending Fraction's Iron Man (I'm not a huge Fraction fan, but am an Iron Man fan) and Hickman's Secret Warriors. Opinions?
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jun 18, 2012 17:34:41 GMT
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Jim
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Post by Jim on Jun 20, 2012 11:01:34 GMT
Thanks; Omnibi are not very portable so may go for the individual trades while they remain in print. If I had an iPad I'd probably go digital.
Finished Black Widow: Web of Intrigue HC yesterday. Sadly disappointing after the earlier Black Widow HC.
On the one hand, the art is mostly lovely - Perez on form, Gulacy looks great (distracting photo-refs from famous actors aside) as does George Freeman (although he does fail a bit in making Natasha distinctly unattractive. To me, anyway). There's a nice Art Adams cover in there, too.
On the other is the writing, especially from Macchio. The main story feels like it was made up as it went along, in a bad way - the goofy group of assassins sent to take her out could have been really fun but they do basically nothing and then her main threat comes almost out of nowhere. Nice to see Jimmy Woo though. The Gulacy-drawn story is a bit pointless and relies on an over-complicated exposition dump at the end. The Gerry Conway-penned story is easily the best.
The art is not enough to rescue this for me though and it won't be taking up space on my shelf for long.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jun 21, 2012 5:46:33 GMT
KLH is the story reprinted in the latest Official Marvel Graphic Novel Collection |
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Post by Jim on Jun 21, 2012 9:46:47 GMT
Rattling through my to-read pile.
Taskmaster: Unthinkable - very, very good. Funny and touching and a clever use of a well-liked character. Have a feeling it will be retconned away by the first writer who decides they prefer a "classic" Taskmaster, but that doesn't hurt too much as this is pleasingly self-contained. Van Lente is awesome; what's he up to these days?
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jun 26, 2012 12:06:53 GMT
ESSENTIAL AMAZING SPIDER-MAN V.11 has turned up. Collecting AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #231-248 and ANNUAL #16-17. All eighteen of the issues are drawn by John Romita Jr as is one of the annuals. Top work. And Roger Stern writes throughout albeit with a little script assistance on an issue or 2 from Bill Mantlo. I've only read the first issue, and had a quick flick through, but this looks a real quality volume.
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Post by Jim on Jun 26, 2012 19:46:19 GMT
Might Avengers: Siege. Meh.
I forgot I had this, think it came out just before fatherhood consumed me. I really liked the first volumes of Slott's run, especially The Unspoken, but this one left me somewhat cold. It does suffer from having to tie in to events like Siege and Hercules' death (though that gets a pass for Hercules being such a great comic), but even so nothing in here is all that special. Disappointing.
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 2, 2012 18:49:41 GMT
Some issue listings from Amazon US: Essential X-Factor v5:
X-FACTOR (1986) 60-70 & ANNUAL 6
UNCANNY X-MEN 270-272, 280 & MATERIAL FROM ANNUAL 15
NEW MUTANTS (1983) 95-97 & MATERIAL FROM ANNUAL 7
Not a lot of X-Factor but that's the entire Portacio run in one place. Plus Extinction Agenda. Again. (Hopefully they'll print it OK in B&W this time) And most of Days of Future Present. Again. Essential Wolverine v6 WOLVERINE (1988) 111-128, -1, ANNUAL '97 Alpha Flight Classic v3 ALPHA FLIGHT (1983) 20-29
INCREDIBLE HULK (1968) 313 No X-Men/Alpha Flight but all the rest of the Byrne issue. Top volume |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 3, 2012 7:54:41 GMT
Essential Amazing Spider-Man 11 (contains ASM 231-248 & Annuals 16-17) But first a reminder: Essential Amazing Spider-Man 10 (contains ASM 211-230 & Annual 15): A game of two halves. The Denny O'Neill scripted issues at the start are a little pedestrian but the writing picks up when Roger Stern takes over towards the end giving us the return of the Black Cat and Spidey's famed battle with the Juggernaut. All through the book is John Romita Jr's art which still in it's early stages here but you can start to see the emergence of the little touches that would make his X-Men run so good and set him aside from a traditional "Marvel style" artist. And in the middle of this we have Annual 15 where O'Neill, allied with Frank Miller on art knocks one out the park as Doc Ok tries to poison New York city and Spider-Man & the Punisher try to stop him. I've raved about this before, I love it. Reading it against the other O'Neill issues convinces me that Miller must have had some writing input, indeed it was around the time that he started to write Daredevil. I first read it years ago in a UK Amazing Spider-Man Winter Special (1982) and loved it there. Here I find included the back up material that was also in the winter special: a guide to the strength levels of prominant Marvel characters and where Spidey stands in that, villain profiles and plans for Peter's appartment. It's a fab issue and well worth a read. I've bought it three times now (the winter special, Essential Punisher and here) and am yet to read it in colour! By this point both Stern & Romita Jr have really hit their stride and this volume is a top, top piece of work. Stern writes throughout, with occasional script assistance from the great Bill Mantlo, who at the time was writing Spectacular Spider-Man (and Hulk, Rom & Micronauts!) John Romita Jr pencils all bar one issue, one back up strip and one annual which is terrific work. His art seems to have found it's stride here and how much of the quirkiness of it (on top of the Marvel House style) shines through depends on who's inking him. During the course of this volume he gets to work with both of the inkers he'd become well known for working with: Dan Green (X-Men) and Klaus Janson (lots of other stuff). He's not yet got the blockiness of his recent material and I find this much more pleasing to look at. Stern's story work here is superb: there's not a single regular issue that's anything less than good with just the annuals, including the introduction of Captain Marvel, being slight misteps. In the middle of this we get the introduction of the Hobgoblin.... When I saw this was coming I said: This one looks a little slim. 248's an interesting point to stop: 3 more issues and you'd have got to the point where Spidey leaves for the Secret Wars: 252 is his return and the intro of the black costume. But for me the last issue is a significant number: The first issues of ASM I read was 249 and with this trade I'll have read *EVERY* issue of ASM up to that point. Actually to someway after that point, I've got the next 10 or so issues (all Hobgoblin and Black Costume related) in colour trades on my shelves. Yes it does feel like it could do with these 3 issues (and Peter Parker the Spectacular Spiderman 85) to bring the story to a conclusion. Fortunately I've got them in Origin of the Hobgoblin and Birth of Venom so I'm ploughing onwards as E ASM 11 has just made me want to read more. There were bits of this volume I'd read before in the Marvel UK Spiderman in the 80s notably most of the Thunderball tale and the Boy who Collects Spiderman as well as 4 Hobgoblin chapters in Origin of the Hobgoblin but the vast majority, including the frankly disapointing Captain Marvel story which I'd been looking forward to. Top stuff. You can do mucgh worse than buy this and if you're remotely a Spiderman fan I think you need to own both Essential ASM 10 & 11. *Interestingly* when you read on your see in 249 sitting in the crowd being blackmailed by the Hobgoblin and then in 250 fretting about being blackmailed one Roderick Kingsley, later revealed to be the Hobgoblin. This would indicate that he wasn't Stern's choice of the Hobgoblin's true identity...... For more see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobgoblin_%28comics%29 .....
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Post by Jim on Jul 4, 2012 11:01:17 GMT
The Thing: Project Pegasus HC was good fun with some lovely art from Byrne and Perez. Don't have much more to say to it than that; I was wary approaching it after recently reading Macchio's Black Widow, but had no reservations on the writing here (Gru's influence?).
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Post by The Doctor on Jul 4, 2012 19:47:20 GMT
After chat about it at Glasgow Comic Con, I wished to read The Last American again. My issues are long lost. Couldn't find any copies of the trade via the usual suspects but Comixology have it for £3. I'd rather have a trade but hey ho. That will do for now.
-Ralph
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 4, 2012 21:20:43 GMT
The Thing: Project Pegasus HC was good fun with some lovely art from Byrne and Perez. Don't have much more to say to it than that; I was wary approaching it after recently reading Macchio's Black Widow, but had no reservations on the writing here (Gru's influence?). when Rampage printed it in the uk they split one of the double page spreads over the front and back of the same page..... nstill it did look fab in oversized UK'vision. |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Jul 9, 2012 7:33:09 GMT
Silver Surfer: Thanos Quest: Oi Cosmic Jim, do your research: The She Hulk met the Silver Surfer in SSv3#1 when he breached the barrier surrounding the Earth and also in the Avengers/WCA annual crossover when everyone dies at the baseball game.
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