What are you reading... Now...

[Autbot_Benz]

John Constantine Hellblazer book 11 Last Man Standing. So far so good a bit of arthurian lore in this book

[Voltron]

I just picked up Dune. This is a fun read.

[MikeandRaph87]

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-r...opa-maclennon/
Europa by Julio Maclennan is a great brief history of Europe from the Renaissance to post-Cold War era analyzing Europe's role in world events. The perfect companion piece for any modern world study.

[Whatswiththeheadbands?]

The Fellowship of the Ring

[Autbot_Benz]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Ultimate Classic Collection Vol 1. Its Mirage Issues 1-7 with the Raphael One Shot. I am on Issue two tonight.

[Autbot_Benz]

Originally Posted by Autbot_Benz

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Ultimate Classic Collection Vol 1. Its Mirage Issues 1-7 with the Raphael One Shot. I am on Issue two tonight.

Just finished Issue 5 where they meet Fugitoid and are in the future with the Triceratons. Man I see why people love Mirage turtles so much.

[Autbot_Benz]

Originally Posted by Autbot_Benz

Just finished Issue 5 where they meet Fugitoid and are in the future with the Triceratons. Man I see why people love Mirage turtles so much.

I finished the first Book of Mirage Turtles ultimate classics collection ****ing loved it. Finishing up Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes book 1. Than gonna read Mirage Turtles book two ultimate classics collection next

[Autbot_Benz]

Originally Posted by Autbot_Benz

I finished the first Book of Mirage Turtles ultimate classics collection ****ing loved it. Finishing up Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes book 1. Than gonna read Mirage Turtles book two ultimate classics collection next

Just Started TMNT Ultimate Classics Collection Vol 2. I read the Michelangelo 1 shot and it was great. I love Mirage Mikey. He isn't the stereotypical dumb Surfer/Greg Cipes type character like in the cartoons and Its refreshing.

[Storm Eagle]

I'm actually reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I recently revisited the movie, and before that, revisited Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. So I decided to read the book to see how it compares to both movies.

[Leo656]

Re-reading my Crisis On Infinite Earths TPB. Been a very long time since I read it.

It's a great story, but having grown up in a "Post-Crisis" world of DC comics, "Crisis" itself is the single biggest example of why it was necessary to wipe out the Multiverse and streamline everything into one singular continuity. Like, I'm a huge DC fanatic, and even I'm at a complete loss for who some of these characters are, what parallel Earth they're from, and then they get half a page to show off before they're wiped out of existence by the Anti-Monitor ("Spoilers", I guess? ). It's total "continuity porn". It deserves its status as one of the best and most important stories ever told in comics, but I would never, EVER give it to someone as their first "homework assignment" if I was trying to turn a non-reader into a comic book fan. I feel it only truly has the "weight" that it tries to have if the reader is already intimately familiar with the DCU and the original Multiverse. If you don't know any of that stuff, it can be a tough read. Conversely, I felt that the follow-up stories, "Zero Hour" and "Infinite Crisis" are much better at being self-contained and explaining themselves as they go along, without the need for a ton of pre-existing familiarity.

I've always been of two minds about the Multiverse concept in general. I mean, the entire thing literally began as a way for writers and/or artists to weasel out of their mistakes. The two earliest examples ever given were, "Wait, we accidentally drew Lex Luthor bald! He's supposed to have red hair!" "No problem, that was... 'Earth-2' Luthor!", and "Oops, I misspelled 'Mr. Mxyztplk' as 'Mr. MxyzPTlk'!" "No problem. 'Parallel Earth'. Simple fix." Out of THAT, we ended up with the concept of every single idea (or mistake) necessitating an entire universe be built around it. And I think that's a bit crazy. On the one hand, it allows creative types a lot of freedom and it's fun to see different takes on familiar characters and mythology. BUT, on the other hand - and this is something I've always felt strongly about, even as a kid - if someone asks you something like, "Who is Superman, and what is his origin story?", it should be a very brief and simple conversation. You should NOT have to delineate sections of the character's history as having taken place across several parallel and alternate realities, or stop to explain, "Well, so it WAS like this, and then another writer came along so that Earth got merged into THIS one and now he has a new origin story." It just gets too messy, and it's the biggest single reason why more people don't read comics in the first place.

Frankly, I liked the way things worked after 1986. There was ONE Superman, ONE Batman, etc. etc., they each had ONE singular "official" history, and they still allowed writers to explore alternative takes with their "Elseworlds" label. They simply kept everything strictly segregated so that the "official" stories and the "Elseworlds" one never mixed together anymore, and there was no confusion about which events of a character's history were canon and which ones weren't. I'm not surprised that comics were selling in much higher numbers once the Multiverse was done away with; people don't like to be confused.

They did bring back the Multiverse concept in 2006, but I feel like things have already slipped back to where they were before 1986. Superman's origins, for example, are more confusing than ever before, and between all the parallel Earths (and constant reboots), it's like DC editors spend half their time trying to explain what is presently canon, what isn't, and promising that some future Event Story is going to make it all make sense. It's like, well, you HAD it all making sense, for like 20 straight years... until you let guys who grew up reading those "wacky" stories from the Silver Age take the reigns, and now they get to script out their childhood action figure wars and get paid for it. So now we're back to stories like, "But what if there were like, a TON of Batmans, and then... they ALL team up!"

Reading "Crisis" again, I feel like everyone forgot why it was necessary, and that we're already at a place where things are arguably worse than they ever were (especially since, thanks to "Convergence", most of "Crisis" ITSELF may not even be canon anymore!).

I feel like they had a good handle on it in the 90s. You can still do those "Elseworlds" type stories, but once you start crossing everything over, or worse, transplanting some characters from one reality into another one, it all just gets way too messy. Especially when you start doing it ALL the time, as they've done.

Anyways. It's a good book. Just very dense. Neophytes may not have a lot of fun with it but huge DC fans should enjoy it.

[Leo656]

Finished "Crisis". Randomly pulled "Justice League: A Midsummer's Nightmare" TPB off the shelf. I just felt like reading something I hadn't looked at in a while, preferably something kind of short since Crisis is almost 400 pages.

This story was a mini-series that came out in between the end of the "Justice League International/America" run which had gone on for several years, in which the League was mostly comprised of secondary heroes, and just before the beginning of Grant Morrison's epic "Big 7" run on JLA. Seemingly, it was just an excuse to reunite the "Big 7" - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Aquaman, and Martian Manhunter - in preparation for Morrison's run, since they'd rarely teamed up in a very long time and just throwing them together as the new JLA without any set-up or context would have been a bit jarring.

It's a neat story but pretty straightforward: each of the Big 7 wakes up one day in a world where they completely don't remember ever being super-heroes; meanwhile, nearly every other human being on Earth is transformed into a meta-human. One by one, the League members wake up from their "spell" and team up to figure out who's behind the massive illusion and why.

It's a fun read but I had some criticisms. For one, it's only three issues and it feels pretty compressed. It could have easily been six issues but I guess they were in a hurry to get "The Real JLA" assembled in time for Morrison's book. The premise is intriguing, but by the end of the first issue each of The 7 have their memories back and are back in costume; it felt like they could have played around in that world a little longer. They play a little bit with not every League member WANTING to "wake up" from the fake reality, and that's neat, but again, it all comes together a bit too quickly and conveniently.

The villains also felt a bit weak. Dr. Destiny was ostensibly a good choice to include, but he's SEVERELY de-powered from his previous appearances. His most recent previous appearance was in the "Destiny's Hand" story in Dan Jurgens's "Justice League America" run, where he'd created an entirely new reality that threatened to overtake the real one even without the aid of his Materioptikon "Dream Stone"; before that, he'd appeared in the famous issue of Neal Gaiman's "Sandman" where he held everyone in a small-town diner captive for 24 hours and forced them to ritualistically rape and murder each other while he simultaneously more or less took over the world by infiltrating everyone's dreams. Long story short, in those stories Dr. Destiny was an A-Level Serious Threat; in this, he's the flunky, and doesn't even come off as being very "evil". I don't think that Mark Waid, who wrote "Midsummer's Nightmare", was very familiar with the character, or maybe he just didn't like him. His look isn't even very consistent with his previous appearances. Kind of disappointing. Waid is generally one of those types who protests Silver Age characters being made "overly dark" by retconning them back into being less-threatening, so I guess he figured he'd be fine with throwing out most of the character's 80s and 90s development in service to the story he preferred to tell, but that's a shame. From the "Doc Dee" in Gaiman's story to the secondary villain in this one is a very jarring fall from grace. That Sandman issue won awards; some things are better left alone. It's okay to have dark, sadistic, and Purely Evil villains sometimes, Mr. Waid. I don't think people who enjoy the Super-Friends cartoons un-ironically should have free reign to "reimagine" those characters who've been better-serviced by other writers, just because they like things to be more childish and simple. But it is what it is.

The other villain who's the real mastermind... also kind of a letdown. I honestly didn't remember him and don't think I've ever seen him since. His reasoning for the deception was also kind of spotty.

Overall, it's a good story but it feels more like an editorial mandate to re-set the JLA status quo more than anything, as well as a bit of a rush job. I appreciate the effort, but it could have been longer, and Dr. Destiny should have been more powerful as well as the only villain. Lord knows his own history with the League was more than sufficient to provide enough motivation.

It's worth a read but I definitely remembered it being a little bit better than it is. There's nothing really bad about it but several things could have been done better. Mark Waid is always hit-or-miss with me; he's done much worse than this but also much better. A serviceable one-and-done story that ultimately had little lasting effect on the DCU aside from giving a reason to reunite the original Big 7, but it gets the job done.

[Autbot_Benz]

Read the One Shot of Donatello it was a lovely tribute to Jack "The King"Kirby and Issue 9 of the Mirage Comics where Splinter switches bodies with the dying grandfather who needs helps to talk to his grandson to take over the clan that has been in the family for ages .

[Autbot_Benz]

Read Mirage TMNT issue 10 I love this issue It has two of my favorite pictures

Casey


This awesome Splash Page

[Autbot_Benz]

Finshed that Turtle book a few weeks back I than read the Infinity Wars comic it was well done can't wait to get the next one.

Tonight I read Savage Avengers Issue 1. It was cool Seeing Wolverine and Conan The Barbarian together. Also the ending which is gonna bring Punisher into play was awesome too.

[Leo656]

Re-read "The Killing Joke" Deluxe hardcover edition last night with my wife.

Still one of the greatest ever.

[Whatswiththeheadbands?]

About 5 chapters from the end of 'Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep?', which turned into the Movie Blade Runner

[KROW]

Novel: The Misenchanted Sword by Lawrence Watt-Evans. A while back I picked up one of his books and it was a pretty entertaining read. So I decided to get a few more in his Ethshar series and this is the first.

Comics: Marvel Comics Presents (Volume 1). I used to borrow a few of these from a friend about 28 years ago and got intrigued. Now I have the first 115 issues and am up to 68 right now. I tell you, it's great seeing Steve Ditko's work in some of these.

[Sobble]

These thread replies

[snake]

Originally Posted by Sobble

These thread replies

Holy f*cking based.

[Whatswiththeheadbands?]

Originally Posted by Sobble

These thread replies

I remember being that guy