Also read:
Written by 300 and Sin City guy, Frank Miller. Set in the future, batman is now in his fifties and has a heart condition. All the superheroes of the world have either vanished or signed up to work for the morally dubious government.. Batman has taken enough crap and sets out to deal with things. You can buy the whole thing in graphic novel form on amazon. As Robio said it reads like the final Batman story. It's incredibly generous in the amount of text in it.
Then I read the sequel:
The Dark Knight Strikes again. Frankly, Frank Millers artwork in this tome is a little... primative? But the story eventually adds up to a great sequel to the first story. You will need Justice League knowledge though, if you don't know who Green lantern is, or the Atom, or what Thanagar is etc, you wont get the most out of it.
As far as what's good I'd recommend anything written by Ed Brubaker. In my opinion he is the single best writer in comic books today. His work has a very distinct noir tone to it. He can take characters I couldn't care less about and make them very compelling. He's current writing Captain America and Secret Avengers so I'd recommend both of those. His definitive work was on Daredevil from about 5 years ago that's now been collected in a trade paperback - The Devil Inside and Out. It's a story about Daredevil when he was arrested and put in jail. Great read.
Also he did a mini series that went for 5 or 6 issues a while back called Incognito, about a super villian who entered the witness protection program. That was one of my favoritie stories of all time. Highly recommmend that. It actually had a follow-up to it that just wrapped up called Incognito: Bad Influences. It wasn't quite as good, but still worth picking up if you enjoyed the original.
Another writer I'm a big fan of is Jason Aaron. He currently writes Wolverine for Marvel and has probably done a better job writing that character than anyone has in decades. He's done some pretty wild stories too. Really shows a lot of creativity with a character that most people put on cruise control. Plus he has his own book on DC's Vertigo label called Scalped which is sort of an organized crime story that takes place around an Indian Reservation. Odd pairing, but a surprisingly great book.
And then as far as other books that I enjoy Thunderbolts, Marvel's "supervillian to hero rehab program" book has been consistantly good for the past year. Fantastic Four WAS great, and all the events leading up to the death of JOhnny Storm were phenominal. Not so sure the new book FF will be as good though. And Invincible Iron has also been pretty good, though the stories are a little slow over there. Most story arcs get collected in 8 issues when the same story could have been told in 6 issues.
Also Marvel just started up their new big cross-over Fear Itself. It's starting off pretty good. We'll see if they can keep it up.
Lastly from things I have read in the past I would like to recommend a few titles from the Silver Surfer.
I own nearly every Silver surfer issue ever made and lots of Thanos stuff too. They are my two favourite characters.
THE HERALD ORDEAL ISSUES 70 - 75
Galactus hungers once again. Nova returns to the ship and tells Galactus that there are no suitable planets nearby. But Galactus has been watching her and knows she is lying. He tells her that her insolence will stop now, and encases her in energy. He travels to the nearby planet, populated with millions to teach her a lesson.
Galactus is met by the local executioner Morg. He has no fear of Galactus and claims he does not care what he does to the planet, only his survival matters to him. Galactus spares him and consumes the planet's energy. He tells Nova she is free to go and never to bother him again. She cannot believe she is being replaced with a madman. He warns her to leave before he deals with her harshly.
Morg agrees to serve as his herald without question. He uses his Power Cosmic and creates his newest herald, Morg. He grants him power to rival the Silver Surfer.
Then Morg augments his powers and the past heralds of Galactus put aside their differences to kick his ass.
COSMIC POWERS 1-6
Thanos plunges into combat with seemingly a whole world full of warrior mercenaries, destroying them all single handed with hardly even relying on his energy blast powers. Disappointed in the challenge he returns to his ship.
He is finally able to break the mind of the Oracle of Ancient Knowledge, but finds his infinite well of knowledge a little lacking. He does learn of Tyrant, an incredibly powerful opponent worthy of his efforts who has a mysterious past with Galactus.
Thanos' quest for a a worthy opponent can be found in Tyrant and he will set about assembling a group of cosmic heroes and villains to assist him in claiming victory for himself. He first seeks out someone who has recently battled with Tyrant - Terrax.
THE INFINITY GAUNTLET - THE INFINITY WAR - THE INFINITY CRUSADE
3 seperate mini-series part of the same story. There is Infinity Abyss too a 4th part but the art is different.
You can buy these are trade paperback complete volumes.
Thanos gains the Infinity Gauntlet which are the remains of a dead God, giving him ultimate power over the universe. He immediately kills half the population of the universe and the reamaining heroes and cosmic super entities band to together to stop him. This is a pretty epic tale that draws the big characters from the marvel universe into one big battle.
Infinity War and Crusade continue the story.
I'd like to hear from Image comics fans.
I'm interested in Cyberforce - although I vaguely remember people saying it wasn't that good. I want to know what is good to read about Spawn, Gen 13, Wildcats etc.
Other good titles include
CELESTIAL QUEST 1-8
Avengers and Thanos, you can't go wrong.
Also Captain Marvel Thanos issues before Captain Marvel died, I will have to track down the issue numbers for you.
You might want to pick up some of the recent Avengers storyline. It actually involves the Infinity Gems and Thanos may just make an appearance at some point.
robio said:You might want to pick up some of the recent Avengers storyline. It actually involves the Infinity Gems and Thanos may just make an appearance at some point.
I got Avengers and the Infinity gauntlet, been putting off reading it, don't like the art at all.
The Avengers and the Infinity gauntlet? Jesus wipe your ass with that. That was a retelling of the original Infinity Gauntlet directed towards a younger audience. It was Infinity Gauntlet lite.
Currently on the shelves on comic stores there is a book entitled "The Avengers." In the current storyline an old villian who previously had mystic powers has attempted to regain power by collecting the gems, and now half of all the good guys on earth are running around trying to stop him from collecting them.
Motherfucking Blackhawkes. This thread needs more classic shit.
Will ablidge later.
robio said:The Avengers and the Infinity gauntlet? Jesus wipe your ass with that. That was a retelling of the original Infinity Gauntlet directed towards a younger audience. It was Infinity Gauntlet lite.
Currently on the shelves on comic stores there is a book entitled "The Avengers." In the current storyline an old villian who previously had mystic powers has attempted to regain power by collecting the gems, and now half of all the good guys on earth are running around trying to stop him from collecting them.
I'll wait until the story is complete and collect it then. Let me know the full title of the story arc if you can.
Foolz said:Motherfucking Blackhawkes. This thread needs more classic shit.
Will ablidge later.
I'm only vaguely familiar with the Blackhawkes. It's DC, some pilots and something to do with WW2?
Oh BTW I have read up to issue 143 of the original Amazing Spiderman and whilst it's historically interesting, I would not recommend it. It gets into this formula. I mean have you ever tried watching A-Team episodes back to back? They introduce some baddie, spiderman dukes it out - issue ends - rinse and repeat.
That's right. It's verging on WWII propaganda, but despite its rather nasty intentions at times I can't help but like it due to the campness and casual racial stereotypes. And going by scans of Batman and the like it was apparently illegal to publish comics without some form of propaganda in them at the time, so I suppose I can't hold it against it too strongly; coward's excuse ftw! "Everyone else was doing it."
'Nough said. 
So weren't the Blackhawks made up of the conquered nations of Europe in WW2?
It's awhile since I read it so I'll consult wikipedia:
"Blackhawk the group's leader, was originally identified as an American, but later issues referred to him as Polish. His actual name was unknown until Blackhawk #242 (Aug.-Sep. 196
revealed that his name was Bart Hawk, an American of Polish extraction.
- Andre Blanc-Dumont is French.
- Olaf Bjornson is variously from Sweden and Norway.
- Chuck Wilson is a Texas-born American.
- Hans Hendrickson is Dutch.
- Stanislaus (last name unknown) is Polish.
- Chop-Chop (named Liu Huang in Blackhawk #203; Mark Evanier named him Wu Cheng in Blackhawk #251 to 273), is Chinese.
- Zinda Blake (Lady Blackhawk) is American."
Chop-Chop is awesome:
I did not know if this should be in here or in the video thread.
Since it's comics related I will put it here.
I have seen Planet Hulk and it's the best of the Marvel animated movies I have seen. The story has hulk exiled from Earth to a planet where he is forced to fight as a gladiator.
Also saw Ultimate Avengers 1 and 2.
2 is better than 1, both are okay. DC movies are much better though.
I read issues 1-6 of Jack Kirby's The Eternals volume 1 from 1975
I was getting tired of Spiderman from the same era, just duking it out every issue with someone new. The Eternals tells the original story about the cosmic beings the Celestials.
It's really good so far, it tells the story about how the Celestials visited many other worlds, seeding life and how humanity emerged from this. Two other species were created, the Deviants who are monster like mutants and the immortal Superman like Eternals.
The Celestials return to Earth every few thousand years to judge humanity, only this time the deviants try to trick humanity into launching a war on the celestials. Meanwhile the leader of the 4th Host is standing judgement over the earth for 50 years, with the formula to the descruction of the planet in his hand.
I also read JLA issues 10-19
Of the modern age Justice League. A bit scatter shot at times, it doesn't flow well but its well drawn and reasonably written.
Lastly I re-read the Silver Surfer Herald Ordeal issues 70-75, not as good as I remember it but worth it to see the Heralds together.
THE OFFICIAL COMICS THREAD: WHAT ARE YOU READING, WHAT WOULD YOU RECOMMEND?
I've just gotten back into comics.
First thing's first, I tried to rebuild my 90s Deathlok volume 2 collection.
Deathlok is a military cyborg made by a private weapons manurfacturer. A pacifist was killed and his brain put inside the machine as a storage device. His brain worked out how to control the cyborg and Deathlok was born.
I have read up to issue 24, fun memories, Books 1-4 and the Siege storyline have been highlights. The Michael Collins in carnation is by far the best rendition.
Which brings me onto Volume 3 issues 1-11, what I call new Deathlok. It sucks, so don't bother.
Deathlok was introduced in Astonishing Tales issues 25-36 from 1975 and I read those too, nice to see Deathlok killing people as opposed the pacifist approach. Here Deathlok is a man who is killed and wakes up 5 years in the future of 1991 inside the Deathlok cyborg. A man named Harlan Ryker has used his brain in this machine and the world is in turmoil. It's hard boiled but not easy to follow, too much action over story.
However, after issue 36 it leads onto a 3 issue Captain America storyline called Deathlok Lives. This is really good stuff, reminds me of X-Men Days of Future Past, a human clone of the man put inside Deathlok goes back into the past to recover the cyborg, Captain america follows him into the future and they both face off with Ryker who has become a huge evil robot called Hellinger. Great stuff.
Speaking of X-Men Days of Future Past, I read that too, the 2 issue graphic novel and enjoyed it so much I will be getting the trade paperback TPB. There is so much text on each page even two issues reads like 4 issues. Kate Pryde from the future goes back in time to the present to prevent a terminator style future from happening.
I also read Batman the Long Halloween, it's okay, nothing more, skip it.
Read this, this is very good, the TPB is a hefty tome which is good value. It introduces the Justice League from year one and its original 5 members (according to Waid). This gets a high recommendation.
Also read the modern era JLA which is the justice league. Very good, if you can get issues 1- 41 which is the full Grant Morrison run. Nice artwork, good stories. You can get the hardcover books JLA deluxe 1-4 but book 2 is very, very rare and expensive to get these days so save some money and get issues 20-30 in comic form.
Also read the first 10 issues of classic G.I. Joe, IDW publishes them in one volume containing 10 issues called classic g.i.joe 1
Fun stuff and true in spirit to the show, or I should say, other way around.