What Are You Reading?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, I read the first volume of Criminal and didn't much care for it. To me it felt like too much of it was trying to ape the style of a gritty crime drama yet it didn't have much of anything to say about the subject matter. It was more concerned with its appearance than its actual content. Kill or be Killed was even worse. It was schlock without any sense of self-awareness and I couldn't even make it through a single volume.

I do think that his Cap run has some genuinely good beats to it, and I also genuinely enjoyed what I read of his Iron Fist run so I think he's capable of writing good material, but his desire to give his serializations a dark and overly-serious edge can hold him back more often than not.

Personally, I find that the movie version of The Winter Soldier managed to accomplish what he was trying to do with that arc in the comic books without compromising Cap's character or personality. It's definitely the superior version of that story in my eyes.

Still, I'd love to read more content like Waid's for Captain America. I genuinely get a sense of his love and understanding of superheroes as characters first and foremost. Like, I didn't get why Wally West had so many fans until I started reading his Flash run and seeing how he balanced both humor and heart with the character. It's telling too, because his story-telling is rather weak early on and shows his inexperience, yet his characterization keeps a lot of those early issues of his engaging, all the same.

[Avaitor]

I was going to order Nausicaa, but ended up going with another series I've been meaning to finish with Pluto. Now I'm only one volume short on that, and I put the Nausicaa volumes into my saved for later cart in case I have a little more for them before the sale runs out.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, I read the first volume of Criminal and didn't much care for it. To me it felt like too much of it was trying to ape the style of a gritty crime drama yet it didn't have much of anything to say about the subject matter. It was more concerned with its appearance than its actual content. Kill or be Killed was even worse. It was schlock without any sense of self-awareness and I couldn't even make it through a single volume.

I remember liking Criminal. I think being more concerned with its appearance was just Brubaker trying to adhere more to old-school detective/crime novels and differentiate himself with the rest of the market, as a way to establish himself as THE noir comic writer these days. I do agree that Kill or be Killed didn't hook me at all.

I do think that his Cap run has some genuinely good beats to it, and I also genuinely enjoyed what I read of his Iron Fist run so I think he's capable of writing good material, but his desire to give his serializations a dark and overly-serious edge can hold him back more often than not.

Still, I'd love to read more content like Waid's for Captain America. I genuinely get a sense of his love and understanding of superheroes as characters first and foremost. Like, I didn't get why Wally West had so many fans until I started reading his Flash run and seeing how he balanced both humor and heart with the character. It's telling too, because his story-telling is rather weak early on and shows his inexperience, yet his characterization keeps a lot of those early issues of his engaging, all the same.

If anything, all the recent hit and misses like everything Spencer make me nostalgic for Brubaker Cap. He had more of a vision for the character that consecutive writers didn't. As for Waid, I like some of his stuff, and he does Cap well, but he's been on his off-game recently. Champions was awful, especially for a guy who previously knew how to write teens in his Impulse run.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Admittedly I'm not as familiar with Waid's body of work so I have yet to read any of his bad stuff, though to be fair any comic book writer who's been in the industry long enough is bound to have some misses (this is true for even Moore and Morrison). I suppose it comes with the experimental nature of the industry.

I also don't want to make it sound like I didn't like Brubaker's Cap run. I did. It's just that it's not my favorite version of Cap as a character. Granted, I understand that there were story-line reasons for Cap acting a bit grimmer here since this was immediately following an event where Scarlet Witch killed off some Avengers, so I'm not faulting it from a story-telling angle.

At any rate, I'm genuinely enjoying Neil Gaiman's "Eternals" mini-series. It's also telling that despite this taking place in a post Civil-War sort of set-up, Gaiman is somehow able to make Stark not seem like the completely irredeemable ass-hole that Millar wrote him as.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Every time I think about Civil War, I think of something new to complain about it. Like how Millar thought Stark was in the right despite all of his actions. How all the political implications haven't aged well at all, like when the pro-registration side kills a black superhero, and Tony defends himself by saying that's what any police officer would have done. And how a society where superheroes are now forced to register and serve the government, a government that in-universe helped created Sentinels, is treated like a happy ending.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Got my copy of Kimetsu no Yaiba volume 1 in the mail today. Man, it's a lot easier to appreciate this series' unique artstyle in a high quality physical release than reading it online.

[VLordGTZ]

I got my copy of volume 1 a few weeks ago, and damn does it look nice!  I'm so happy to finally have this series in print!  Now if only we could get it simulpubbed in WSJ.....

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

The first 14 volumes of BECK are free on Comixology for Unlimited users so I've started going through that series. I watched the anime over ten years ago and barely remember it other than liking it back in the day. That said I'm really enjoying the manga despite having the obvious disadvantage of not being able to hear the music, but that's not really much of a detriment since the story is really about a boy discovering his passion for music rather than any of the actual music itself. Really good read so far.

I also started reading Miles Morales: Ultimate Spider-Man and downed the first dozen issues in one sitting. I'll be honest, I went into this with relatively low expectations since I haven't been terribly impressed with the few things from Brian Michael-Bendis that I've managed to read, but I'll give credit where it's due and say that so far this has been a solid run with tight-pacing and a good handle on its core characters. I might check out more of early issues of Ultimate Spider-Man after reading through the rest of this run if it's handled as well.

[VLordGTZ]

Kodansha USA also licensed the creator of Beck's current series Seven Shakespeares! 

It's really cool seeing Kodansha USA pick up some more titles that I thought would never be licensed/re-licensed.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, I noticed that one as well, the first few volumes of which are also free for Comixology Unlimited users. I'll probably check it out after I finish BECK, which may take a while considering my current schedule.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Finished volume 2 of Miles Morales Spider-Man. I'm still really enjoying this run. Volume 3 is currently out of stock on Amazon and I can't seem to pull it up in Comixology for some reason either (search results only pull up issues as early as the 2014 run and on) so I guess I'll have to try and find it from another online vendor.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I've been reading superhero comics regularly for about two years now and still know next to nothing about them and am in no way qualified to have an opinion on them but I figured that I'd list my preferred favorites so far just because I had nothing better to do at the moment.

Top 5 Marvel:

5. Captain America (Mark Waid)

4. Moon Knight (Warren Ellis)

3. The Mighty Thor (Walter Simonson)

2. Daredevil/The Man Without Fear (Frank Miller's entire run + miniseries)

1. Hawkeye (Matt Fraction)

There are of course plenty of honorable mentions I could name and a ton of comics that I still haven't gotten to yet. I'm currently enjoying Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) and Spider-Man (Miles Morales) but am only a couple of volumes into each of those runs. I also really liked the Eternals mini-series by Neil Gaiman and have been reading the classic Lee/Ditko Spider-Man era comics on and off. I did read the Dark Phoenix Saga, but that was over five years ago and I'd need to get around to reading the Chris Claremont X-Men Omnibus in order to re-read and re-evaluate it. Also can't forget to mention the excellent Dr. Strange mini-series by Brian K. Vaughan, and Nextwave could have just as easily been in Moon Knight's spot (the latter just marginally edged it out as my favorite Warren Ellis thing for Marvel, so far). The ones that I listed as favorites may not all be classics, but those appeal to my personal tastes the most. Obviously the more that I read the more that a list like this would change, but please feel free to recommend me any Marvel reading material that you think I would enjoy based on my preferences here.

Top 5 DC (Non-Batman):

5. Doom Patrol (Grant Morrison)

4. Green Lantern: Emerald Knights (Keith Giffen)

3. Watchmen (Alan Moore)

2. All-Star Super-Man (Grant Morrison)

1. The New Frontier (Darwyn Cooke)

Doom Patrol would be higher but I still have yet to read volume three. As for honorable mentions I'd have to go with Mark Waid's Flash run (which I still need to read more of) as well as some of the DC Rebirth stuff.

Top 5 Batman:

5. Rebirth (Tom King)

4. Knightfall (various writers)

3. The Long Halloween/Dark Victory (Loeb & Sale)

2. The Dark Knight Returns (Frank Miller)

1. Year One (Frank Miller)

I'll give Snyder just a bit of credit and say that The Black Mirror was alright, though I find his main series run to be massively overrated by the fanbase. Other honorable mentions would basically fall to other classic Batman stories that I respect well enough but aren't personal favorites, like A Death in the Family, Hush, Under the Red Hood, and The Killing Joke, among others.

[Dr. Insomniac]

For me, in no particular order.

Top 5 Marvel
Nextwave (Ellis)
Captain Britain and MI:13 (Cornell)
Captain America (Brubaker)
The Vision (King)
Punisher MAX (Ennis)

Honorary mentions being Abnett and Lanning's Guardians of the Galaxy, Hickman's Secret Warriors, Claremont/Morrison/Whedon's X-Men, Priest's Black Panther, and Brubaker's Books of Doom. Also that Doom and Strange comic Mignola worked on.

Top 5 Non-Batman DC:
The Sandman (Gaiman)
Secret Six (Simone)
The Question (O'Neil)
Swamp Thing (Moore)
Final Crisis (Morrison)

Top 5 Batman:
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth (Morrison)
Year One (Miller)
Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader (Gaiman)
Black Mirror (Snyder)
Gotham Central (Brubaker & Rucka) (even if it's technically more a GCPD comic than a Batman one)

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I forgot about it but I'd also probably list Brubaker's Captain America and Iron Fist runs as honorable mentions as well. I also enjoyed his short-lived Winter Soldier run. I also just picked up Captain America Reborn which I will give a read through fairly soon.

Since you brought it up, I'm wondering what it was about Snyder's Black Mirror story that made it work better than his actual Batman run (IMO; I know that I'm in the minority here). Is it just that he has a better handle on characters like Grayson and Gordon than he does on Wayne. I mean, thinking about it, the best part of his 50-issue Batman run was surprisingly enough the stuff from after Bruce Wayne "died" and Gordon took over for him (I'm probably in the minority on that too).

As for Arkham, that's another one that I read years ago before I was somewhat better versed in Batman, so at the time it was confusing and nonsensical to me, but it's probably due for a re-read at some point. I do remember reading a background story about how the artist didn't want to work on a Batman comic and that there was some friction between him and Morrison creatively clashing with one another. Any truth to that?

Is Punisher MAX kind to newcomers or do I have to do some pre-reading to get into it?

The Sandman has been on my to read list for the longest time. I really need to get around to it. Perhaps after I finish Norse Mythology and Neverwhere (almost done with the former), about to start the latter.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Since you brought it up, I'm wondering what it was about Snyder's Black Mirror story that made it work better than his actual Batman run (IMO; I know that I'm in the minority here). Is it just that he has a better handle on characters like Grayson and Gordon than he does on Wayne. I mean, thinking about it, the best part of his 50-issue Batman run was surprisingly enough the stuff from after Bruce Wayne "died" and Gordon took over for him (I'm probably in the minority on that too).

I assume that was because Black Mirror was a side-thing that only took around a dozen issues to do, while his Batman run plus the Batman Eternal range left him tired out and scraping for new stories to tell. I thought there was some good stuff in the Court of Owls arc, but from Death of the Family onward, it felt like Snyder didn't have enough ideas for a 50-issue run.

I do remember reading a background story about how the artist didn't want to work on a Batman comic and that there was some friction between him and Morrison creatively clashing with one another. Any truth to that?

From what I can find, it was more them going on their separate ways, and McKean leaving mainstream comics for illustration work on album covers and Gaiman's children's books.

Is Punisher MAX kind to newcomers or do I have to do some pre-reading to get into it?

No pre-reading, especially since it takes place in its own universe.