What Are You Reading?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've been reading some issues of EC comics here and there, not in any particular order since they are all just a collection of one-off short stories. It's more to do with my fascination with the history of American comic books, but there is a definite appeal to the simplicity yet implied darkness of some of these stories. You can also tell that writers and artistis were a lot more creatively free in the telling of these stories other than having a strict page limit in which to tell them. There is a certain aspect to them that you realize would never have been allowed in the early days of the CCA. It all comes off as tame by today's standards, and honestly even by some of the later decades of comics published under the CCA stamp, but you can also tell that they were written without the fear of having to be scrutinized by any sensors.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Some recent DCEU rumors got me to look at Nightwing again, and I might have said this before, but while I like Dick Grayson as a character and I like his Nightwing suit, I don't like Nightwing in execution. He's limited to just being Batman with less issues, fighting less interesting villains, in a less interesting Gotham. How many Nightwing fans can explain why they like Bludhaven or villains like Blockbuster or Lady Vic? And maybe it's his billy clubs and how his one other arch-nemesis is an oversized crime boss, but he comes off as a duller Daredevil too. And it's not like DC doesn't know how to make Batman clones interesting, or else Green Arrow would be wallowing in obscurity. but Nightwing as an era of Dick's life is something that's lasted for almost 40 years give or take the times he was Batman or an Agent. Maybe it's my Morrison bias showing, but I can think of so many more cool moments from his few years as Batman than his decades as Nightwing.

This article says it more clearly than I can.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I actually kind of liked the idea of Dick Grayson taking over the mantle of Batman longterm, but DC would never allow the status quo to be changed for that long. The Black Mirror is still a legitimately great Batman story with Dick Grayson in the role, and it shows how he stands on his own taking a less cynical approach to crimefighting than Bruce tended to do in many of his 90's and 2000's stories. I feel like with Nightwing, it could work best if Bludhaven wasn't just trying to be a clone of Gotham and if Dick Grayson was taking on darker villains but with  a more optimistic mind-set than Bruce. Given how the Nightwing name was actually inspried by Grayson's interactions with Superman, it would make sense to have him kind of be an ideological compromise as a character and in his attitude between Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne.

As it stands, what I have read of various Nightwing stories here and there have been generally fine. However, nothing really memorable either. I do think that he probably stood out the most apart from Batman as leader of the Teen Titans. At least in that regard, I could never imagine Bruce ever being a team leader as he's too much of a lone-wolf, only occasionally working with other individuals or a sidekick or two. Even when Detective comics essentially became a Batman team-up book, Bruce wasn't so much calling the shots as just working alongside a bunch of other superheroes that were in one way or another trained or inspired by him. At least in that regard Dick has proven himself to be a genuine leader.

At any rate, I've been reading The Avengers: Judgement Day Epic Collection, which contains the latter issues of the Roger Stern run, and it has been really well done so far. Despite being from the late 80's, it still has a more classic superhero story vibe to it but with more intricate plots and story arcs that spanned multiple issues which became more popular during that era of superhero comics. After finishing this book I may go back and read his earlier issues of the run as well. I do know that this is yet another case in which Stern's run was essentially cut short due to behind-the-scenes drama with the editors, which makes me feel kind of bad for the guy. I mean, essentially the same thing happened during his Spider-Man run when his editor of that book screwed him over by revealing the Hobgoblin's identity in a spin-off book without telling him, and it ended up being a character he never actually intended for it to be. It was supposed to be Richard Fisk, but he told his editor that it would be Ned Leeds since he didn't trust him, but also did not realize that they would actually take him at his word and reveal that without consulting him.

Then again, mainstream comic books and behind-the-scenes drama kind of go hand in hand, especially in those days.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I think it's a case of few of the writers knowing where to take Dick without undermining him. They were going for that "student surpasses the teacher" angle, but it didn't work when Gotham and Bludhaven are in driving distance of each other, and Dick's city is worse off than Bruce's. Making him Batman at least cut out the middle man and gave him a sense that he's now the mentor instead of the rookie. But of course, that couldn't last, and neither was his stint as a globetrotting agent, so he's just sort of there while all the DC writers with something to say usually go directly to Batman instead of settling for Nightwing. It's the opposite of the problem I've seen happen with Amazing Spider-Man, where none of Marvel's best writers do ASM, and many of them compromise by doing Daredevil instead.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've gotta say, I always love hearing about behind-the-scenes disputes between creators and big publishers from the 70's and 80's for just how wild some of these stories got over time. One of the most notorious and well-documented ones was Steve Gerber's battle with Marvel over the rights to Howard The Duck, which this video covers in detail: https://youtu.be/KoDqGVo63C8

It's interesting in that, while I'm usually in support of the creator, I can't really say that Marvel technically did anything wrong here. They honored their end of the contract, and furthermore it's clear that Gerber wasn't giving the various artists that he worked with their due, so he wasn't exactly a saint himself. Still, you just have to sit back and laugh at the shots and jabs that both sides took toward each other over the years, like with Gerber representing Marvel with the evil organization God Corps. Then Jim Shooter retaliated by portraying a clear stand-in for Gerber as a supervillain who attacked a publication office that was working on a character that he had created.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Skimmed through the really early Peacemaker comics, and it's quaint the ironic gimmick was "this diplomat who considers himself a man of peace is also a gun-toting soldier!" instead of "this gun-toting soldier is deeply disturbed and his concept of peace is an utter joke!" that not only the show but most post-Comedian portrayals of Peacemaker I've heard of go for. Also interesting how little of a footprint he has compared to other Charlton characters like Captain Atom or The Question. More than Thunderbolt or Nightshade, but still relatively obscure. It took until Gunn and John Cena for DC to capitalize on a character who's "What if Captain America was a piece of shit?"

[Dr. Insomniac]

FF: Life Story was disappointing. I like Russell's other books, and it started off promising, but it ended up reaffirming my opinion that Secret Wars 2015 was too conclusive and left no room for any future good Fantastic Four stories. Heard good things about Walter Mosley's The Thing though, so maybe I'll get to reading that and see if that changes my stance.

Also read a little of Justice League Incarnate, and Jesus, the levels of continuity porn are excruciating. Using decades of comic continuity is perfectly fine if it's in service to enhancing character drama or the themes of the story, like Immortal Hulk did. But here, the continuity's just in service to more continuity. Feels like the writer recapping every previous DC Crisis to me, but to what end?

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Akane-Banashi has cemented itself as my current favorite WSJ title running right now (though there are still at least half a dozen that I need to catch up to, so as always that's subject to change) and it  has really helped fill a void left by the cancellation of Act Age a few years back (a very justified cancellation, but it still hurts given the quality of the series itself). I'm really loving how this mangaka manages to capture the intricacies and nuances of Rakugo performances in visual and text based medium without the benefit of voice acting, so needless to say that's extremely hard to do. It's also one of the few manga that I would actually probably still watch an anime for if it were to ever be adapted since it could genuinely benefit from great performances.

Meanwhile, One Piece is at a really interesting spot since it's just now about to start it's final saga and I'm eagerly anticipating what direction Oda is going to take the story in going forward.

Spy X Family has been pretty consistently entertaining but I must admit that I'm kind of wanting some kind of shake-up to the status quo to happen soon since I do feel that the gag of nobody knowing the Forger's identities outside of the already in-the-loop characters (including the Forgers not knowing about each other) has just about run it's course and the gags surrounding that are starting to get rather repetitive, IMO. I'm not asking for anything major even, but something that will change one or two key dynamics of the series going forward.

I haven't read any Western comic books in several months now, but I'm gearing up to get back into reading Fantastic Four (I took a break after issue #200 but really do want to move onto John Byrne's iconic run which comes up soon), and I also want to get back to Something is Killing the Children which I took a full year break from to allow for some new material since it wasn't the best story to read month-to-month given that it's pacing is better suited to binge-reading an arc at a time, IMO.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I took a break from comics from Superhero comics for most of this year due to some burnout from trying to dabble in too many titles at once, but I've been getting back into it at a more healthy, slower pace, though I'm mostly sticking to classic titles for now.

That said, I have started reading The Human Target by Tom King (which I suppose is Superhero adjacent) and while I'm not all the way through it yet (I'm not even sure if the final issue has been released or not yet), it's another pretty damn good and creative run that functions as a really good character study. Basically, outside of his Batman run (which I at least liked parts of early on but went way off the rails around volume 5 or 6, IMO), I really do like Tom King as a writer. I think he's probably just better suited to B-list or more obscure characters than to the mainstream ones, which honestly is kind of what I have come to prefer anyways as of late.

I just got the 12th Deluxe Edition of Berserk delivered to me this week, though I'm still only volume 11 right now so it'll be a few days before I get around to it. Now that I've finally gotten through a majority of Berserk after having it on my backlog for like two decades, I can honestly say it deserves it's reputation as an all-time great. That said, while I would consider The Golden Age to be one of the best ever written manga story arcs, I will say that as a whole, Berserk tends to be great more for it's characters, art, and moments of emotional brilliance rather than it's overall story, which is kind of messy and can feel like it's meandering at times. Just an honest criticism on my part, but that doesn't take away from what it does well. A great series can still have it's flaws, afterall, but yeah, consider me a massive Berserk fan as well at this point. It's just such a shame that we will never get to see Miura's complete vision for the series through to it's conclusion due to his sad passing. I'm sure that Mori will do his best, but I don't expect it to feel the same. Still, I look forward to what comes in the future for the series.

I'm also reading Mark Grunewald's Captain America run (which Falcon and The Winter Soldier borrowed heavily from) and it's been fairly well done and surprisingly a bit more nuanced than I expected given the time that it came out, while still having a genuinely fun and appropriate amount of classic Superhero camp to it all.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So I've been reading Avengers by Kurt Busiek since the first Ominibus was finally reprinted, and it definitely has been a pretty fun time so far. This honestly feels like the closest I've gotten in both tone and story-telling to the AEMH cartoon series and it's perfectly up my alley. It's just kind of nice to see a superhero series from this era that isn't afraid to be goofy and kid-friendly enough while still taking itself seriously enough to be the right balance of entertaining for any age. In that regard, it's the equivalent of what something like Superman: The Animated Series was which was running around the same time as this comic book run had started. I have to say, though, with George Perez as artist, I'm honestly surprised by how much I'm not really feeling the character designs here. The thing is, I absolutely love his artwork from DC in stuff like Crisis on Infinite Earths and Wonder Woman from the mid-to-late 80's into the early 90's, as well as the first couple of issues of Infinity Gauntlet that he did before dropping out of the project, but it feels like he's too influenced by the common trends of 90's aesthetics in this series. It just doesn't work for me, and so far is one of those things that I just kind of have to look past to enjoy the other aspects of the series. I mean, he still has a pretty good sense of layouts, and it's obvious why he was wanted for a project like this in the first place given his innate talent to depict so many distinct characters on each panel and page at once, but this is certainly an adaptation of his style that I'm not personally a fan of. Who knows, though, maybe it will grow on me over time.

I'm also reading the manga for Blue Lock after catching up to the anime. I'll admit outright that this series is nothing amazing in the sports genre, but it's honestly just what I needed at a time like this and is still undeniably well done. It's probably on par with something like Kuroko no Baket or Haikyuu (but also holds my interest a little bit better), in being a highly exaggerated version of the sport it's representing, but is also appropriately stylized for that tone, and manages to keep itself engaging over a long stretch of chapters with it's own twist on the genre being more specifically about strikers and individual players battling it out in a Battle Royale type scenario (except with Football/Soccer instead of people killing each other) rather than a traditional team-based story. It's a fun and engaging enough read, and sometimes that's all I need.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Been keeping up with Zdarsky and Ram V's Batman/Detective runs, and Zdarsky's Batman is fine. A little too reliant on referencing Morrison instead of doing its own thing, but I know he can do great work like in Daredevil, so I'm just waiting for the momentum to pick up. As of now, it's been doing a narrative dialog with the early 2000s Batman comics and how emotionally unhealthy that version of Bruce is, calling him out for enacting so many failsafe procedures in case his teammates turned rogue. It's a curious note to start on, since even though I thought Batman as a narrative moved on from Bruce as this unhinged and paranoid, I still see that era of his pop up in discussion with either nostalgia or scorn. Something the comic further builds up on by using Tim as a major character and figuring out his place after years of being sort of there with no real direction.

As for Detective Comics, it's for more ambitious. It's depicting Gotham City like it's a gothic macabre opera, with all the aristocratic manipulation and Harvey Dent being dragged out of sanity again to become a pawn. Where Zdarsky's Batman is good but traditional, V's Detective goes hard in shaking up the playing field and adding a couple new factors into Gotham's crime scene.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I finished Gillen's Eternals, including its crossover/follow-up AXE: Judgment Day. And it was a curious experience. I don't think I'll ever be completely sold on the Eternals as a concept, not even Gaiman could do that and I remember liking that book. What I got here was very high-concept, but not especially intriguing in characterization. It says something that I greatly preferred Judgment Day, where Gillen writes and excels at characters I enjoy like Emma Frost and Tony and gets to play around with and tear apart a bigger corner of the Marvel universe. While the main players like Ikaris and Ajak I barely cared about, though Druig and Sersi were okay. But Starfox is the one exception, he's the one Eternal who just steals the scene every time he shows up. And I never really cared about him in anything else I read, but he's the most fun out of all of them in these books. The movie should've consulted with Gillen for notes and used this version of Starfox as the main character in their film, instead of leaving him to a post-credits scene with Harry Styles rather than a more charismatic Bowie-esque actor.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

In addition to Avengers, I've also started to read Busiek's Thinderbolts run as well. I really like his classic approach to superheroes fused with modern (at the time) writing tendencies. It feels so contrary to most of what was being produced in the late 90's and stands out to me as more timeless in nature. It's not all perfect, but what's there has a lot of charm to it.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Been reading Hickman's Manhattan Projects, an alternate history comic where all of the WWII-era scientists like Oppenheimer, Einstein, Von Braun, etc. go horribly insane and challenge each other and alternate-universe versions of themselves with absurd sci-fi inventions. Basically "what if Rick and Morty didn't run out of ideas after the first couple seasons?" I always suspected Harmon and the rest of the R&M writers were huge Hickman fans because of stuff like ripping off the Council of Reeds and taking the "anti-hero scientist who has a hard time being a father figure" archetype Hickman regularly uses and playing it for shock value, but after reading the first few trades of MP, I came out surprised that Hickman hasn't filed lawsuits yet. Or at the very least ask them for a "Special Thanks" credit.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Kind of a random thought and I don't know if this would he considered a hot-take but between all of the hottest comic book artists of the 70's, I think I would rank Gene Colan to be my favorite by far. He had a more realistic style than most of his contemporaries and his Marvel work felt distinct rather than many other artists trying to emulate or adapt Kirby's, Ditko's, or Buscema's styles from the 60's (among others).

I'm sure most people would list Neil Adam's at the top, and he definitely deserves all of the praise that he gets, but to me Colan's feels ahead of it's time not only in the level of detail but also in the composition of how he displayed dramatic emotions or action from panel to panel. His work on stuff like Capatain Marvel, Daredevil, and especially Tomb of Dracula are some key examples.

It's always odd to me that I don't see his body of work get brought up more often.