Guild of San Marcos Forum

Ennis was ON this time around. Loved the story! I highly recommend it.

So finally got around to reading Batman: Damned. Wow such navel-gazing. Hard to even follow the story for all the random "other" characters that seem to show up for no reason (and doing odd things) Seriously, we have Constantine, Deadman, and Zatanna all in the first issue. Sheesh. I'll finish it but I have a feeling its going to be a slog.

Also read Harleen. I'm getting a bit sick of the rehashing of origins from a different perspective. I'll be honest here and say I've never liked the "Psychologist sleeps with their patients" schtick. And this one more so. They're honestly trying to peddle the fact that she almost* had an affair (as in once, 1 time) with a professor into she's so lost she starts having feelings for Joker. Oh yea PLUS she has PTSD from an encounter with him that she DID NOT disclose to her supervisors (A HUGE no no as far as Psychologists go). Oh yea and one more thing, they INCESSANTLY keep switching between calling her a psychologist and psychiatrist (Spoiler Alert: THEY'RE COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS).

On the plus side however, the art is great.

*They don't get very far before getting caught.

Ok for those of you who also play L5R, you should try and pick up Ronin Island from Boom! Studios. If this isn't a story about a Crab Clan Samurai and a Lion Clan Samurai* teaming up to deal with Shadowlands creatures, then I don't know what it is.

*Oh and, spoiler alert, they're probably going to kill one another well before they finally have to deal with the critters.

Picked up (what could be) a fun read for this week, Red Skull: Incarnate. Supposedly a Red Skull origin story. I'll give it a whirl...

Ok I have been seeing ads for this but I haven't read or heard any reviews for it. So Dave have you read Strange Academy? Can you recommend it?

Nope, never even gave it a browse.

So got the trade for Red Skull and read it today. Not much to crow about. They fell into an old trope of trying to give us a reason to empathize with RS, but at each point where he could make a decision to do something good he instead does something bad.

Also, I had thought (though this may be the influence of the MCU) that RS was a thinking kind of villain (man with the plan kind of guy) and this shows us nothing but a thug. Did I miss a memo?

Just bad writing.

I grabbed the anniversary issues of Flash and Robin. These are similar to the #1000 issues they d8d for Detective and Action. It's a cool way to celebrate the various heroes turning 80.

Been grabbing some of the trades of old books I loved in my youth. This week its Doc Stearn: Mr. Monster. Short lived comic from Pacific Comics (us 80s kids remember it fondly). I didn't realize it at the time, but he actually got Alan Moore to write one of the books.

I tried to explain the Origin and backstory of Valeria Richards (daughter of Reed and Sue from the Fantastic Four).

This is one of the most convoluted and terrible things in comics beyond even the Summers kids.

More on Doc Stearn, I may have been wrong about who, exactly, wrote for the book. There is a person named Alan Moore who wrote for one of the issues, but he also did the art. Which leads me to believe it may be a different Alan Moore...

Got the trade in for the Dr. Strange issues that Marshall Rogers and Terry Austin did. Basically the Lurker in Darkness story. Reading the old stuff reminds me that I was MUCH younger when I read this stuff and didn't realize all the things that bug me now. Case in point, Clea. She's Strange's girlfriend/student. And for the last five issues she's done nothing but be the helpless damsel that Strange must concentrate on saving rather than dealing with the baddies. Man that is just super annoying now.

Black Jack Rackham wrote:...Case in point, Clea. She's Strange's girlfriend/student. And for the last five issues she's done nothing but be the helpless damsel that Strange must concentrate on saving rather than dealing with the baddies. Man that is just super annoying now.

Didn't she sleep with Ben Franklin?

You want bad old ideas that should have never worked? First Appearance of the Swordsman in Avengers (reprint available for a true believer price of a dollar)

The Swordsman is bent on becoming an Avenger because the membership card will give him undeniable access anywhere (theoretically to commit robbery without breaking in)

His plan to do it... Attack the Avengers, best them to assume dominance and demand they make him their leader. When that fails, plan B is to kidnap Captain America and threaten to kill him unless they let him join the team.

Yup I was right. Nostalgia is heavy with my Marvel Comics reading.

Related to nostalgia, but on the new books subject, I found out Mike Grell (writer/artist of The Warlord, the first series I ever collected) has a new project out on Kickstarter. He's just doing the art (and that's a good thing, he's a little off his game these days), called The Pilgrim. Here's the link if you're curious.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/je ... %20pilgrim

So took a break from Dr. Strange to read the first trades of Black Manor and Something is Killing the Children. The former is a magic-exists-but-we-can't-let-the-mundanes-in-on-it-for-reasons tale. Got enough of a new perspective I think I can stick with it for a while. And SiKtC is the usual monsters are real and there are those who go out and hunt them tale. The twist is, apparently, the children can become "infected" by the monsters and will then go out and kill themselves (not kill themselves, but kill on their own). I'm still in because James Tynion IV (of New 52 Batman fame) is writing.

MacShidhe wrote:

Black Jack Rackham wrote:...Case in point, Clea. She's Strange's girlfriend/student. And for the last five issues she's done nothing but be the helpless damsel that Strange must concentrate on saving rather than dealing with the baddies. Man that is just super annoying now.

Didn't she sleep with Ben Franklin?

I somehow missed this comment Sam. And yes, she did (although in the very next issue they retconned it away as being an illusion). It actually happened earlier in the very series I'm reading.

Black Jack Rackham wrote:

MacShidhe wrote:

Black Jack Rackham wrote:...Case in point, Clea. She's Strange's girlfriend/student. And for the last five issues she's done nothing but be the helpless damsel that Strange must concentrate on saving rather than dealing with the baddies. Man that is just super annoying now.

Didn't she sleep with Ben Franklin?

I somehow missed this comment Sam. And yes, she did (although in the very next issue they retconned it away as being an illusion). It actually happened earlier in the very series I'm reading.

As of the Deadpool's Dead Presidents storyline, Doctor strange was still annoyed with him.

So while I am not much of a Deadpool fan (I was a bit older than 11 when he first debuted) BUT I saw a Deadpool cover today I just had to buy...

Bask in the glory!

Back to reading Dr. Strange. Whole lot of nostalgia is necessary for this. BUT I am still looking forward to the all too brief Marshall Rogers/Terry Austin team up that's about 15 issues away.

On an unrelated note, I have a small collection of books that have, ahem, "interesting covers"
The first one is this bad boy right here. It's probably the most famous of these "interesting covers"

But just the other day I got a second one. May I present...

Probably easiest to figure out the second one, as the first is very subtle

The Kazar has an unevenly folded spine, it isn't really a 9?

The Daredevil has some poorly placed signage?

Every once in a while I hit on an old comic that just calls to me. Read a thread in one of my comic book collecting fb groups about old Hulk Annuals and it turns out Annual 7 featured John Byrne and Bob Layton sharing art duties. SO BEAUTIFUL! (sniffle)

So I just read that Mark Waid and Neal Adams are teaming up to do the Fantastic Four. Now I loved NA's work from back in the day, and even though he's not on the top of his game anymore, I'd still love to see what he can do. (and Waid is usually a very good writer) I must admit I got a little concerned about the book when I saw the cover. Sue and Reed look just fine, but something looks seriously wrong with The Thing...

EDITED because the old pic disappeared

Reed is over muscled, Sue is a little trashy, Johnny is probably well drawn but hard to say at the angle. The Thing just looks more like his lumpy Kirby origins than what we have seen in the last 45 years.

Never been a fan of the team...not sure why, it just never made me want to read it. I would be interested in a Waid take on them if it is going to be a long run with Waid.

Wave of nostalgia continues as I happened to pick up one of my old Moon Knight comics and thought, hey, I really liked these stories when I was a kid and the kids seemed to like them when I read them when they were young. So I think its time to read them again.

I do still like them, but the thing that grabs me most is watching Seinkiewicz's art evolution. The farther into the story we get the better I like it. Plus, it has my favorite cover of all time. May I present, Moon Knight Vol 1, #29