What Are You Reading?

[Markness]

Anyone looking forward to Way of X and X-Corps? The former looks good since Nightcrawler will be the main X-Man and Blink will be featured as well. X-Corps will have both Angel and M/Penance sharing the spotlight.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Way of X sounds interesting, especially with Spurrier writing. I haven't read much of his books, but everything I read from him is always a surprise.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Been reading more of Hickman's Fantastic Four run, and it's so all-encompassing that I struggle to see what later F4 comics can do. The run's the most thorough dissection of Reed as a person in every aspect, from how much his relationship with his father mirrors and contrasts with his relationship with his own children, to how different he is from the countless other Reeds who show up, to how alike and how separate he is to Doom, to what and why he's driven to scientific advancement. It stretches his character to its natural conclusion, pun intended.

And then I read a little of the recent run, and the book's drastically worse in every way, including shit like revealing Franklin was just pretending to be a Mutant or it wasn't Reed's fault for the original accident that turned them all into freaks and some aliens intentionally did it instead.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've been meaning to read Hickman's FF run for a while, but for now I'm still committed to trying to get to that point by reading all main FF runs in publication order. I'm about 150-issues in which brings me to the mid-70's, so I still have a LONG way to go.

Speaking of which, does anyone remember the weird era where Medusa replaces Susan on the team, and The Human Torch starts wearing a red costume? Because that's where I am right now, and it really makes me appreciate the Lee/Kirby run all the more for how much more focused the vision of the series was at that point with it's characters and stories, as silly and outlandish as comics of those era were. These ones I'm currently reading are silly and outlandish, of course, but also feel utterly directionless as if the writers are throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. It's why my progress has significantly slowed down as of late.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I haven't read it, but I know of it. Always felt like between all the FF eras Marvel fans know about, there's all the ones that gentrify the FF and forget they're not the Avengers while sending them off on adventures indistinguishable from what other Marvel teams do except maybe a little bit more sci-fi. I could say that for any phase in a Marvel team comic where the writer doesn't have a distinctive style or a unique goal in mind and they start throwing in or taking away characters without rhyme or reason, something many Avengers or X-Men comics are guilty of, but it just feels more noticeable when the FF fall into that pit given how much the family aspect is played up.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Also, I still haven't read much of The Avengers from that era, but every time I see Quicksilver featured in a crossover story he comes across as a total dick. Is it just the specific stories I'm reading or is that his character? Like, most recently he stopped talking to Wanda because he doesn't approve of her dating Vision for whatever reason, and treats her incredibly rude for apparently no reason.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, that's Pietro's character. The X-Men movies softened him up considerably. Partially why most of the cartoons straight up make him a villain.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Whether it be Fantastic Four or X-Men (I think even once in Iron Man), I think I've seen Doctor Doom insist his foes have dinner with him at least half a dozen times by now. I wouldn't be surprised if he's done this with The Avengers as well. I'd consider it a personal character trope at this point and am quite frankly surprised that I haven't seen any meme associated with this given how popular of a meme subject Doctor Doom is among the Marvel Comics community.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Conan the Barbarian too.



All the fancy dinners are Doom's attempts to be friendly with various characters because his ego's too big to let him casually talk with characters in any situation that isn't in his control.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Of course. Conan should be a no-brainer. I think he had Baldur as a guest as well in JMS's Thor run, but I can't remember if that was a dinner or just a formal meeting in trying to propose an alliance between Latveria and Asgard.

And to be clear, I love this side of Doom. It's part of what makes him a quint-essential silver age villain. I just find it amusing how much he resorts to this tactic throughout his several decades worth of appearances throughout multiple titles.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Read the latest Fantastic Four because people a couple days ago were pissed off at it, and yeah... Johnny cheating on his girlfriend by cucking Doom is stupid. Every time I hear about the latest FF run, it's always something like "Franklin becomes an emo asshole" or "The accident that mutated the Four wasn't an accident, and some aliens did it".

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm still on 70's era FF comics, but I don't think I'll really bother going past Hickman's run when I eventually get to it.

I recently read up through issue 150 of The Uncanny X-Men, which is a good point to take a break from the run so I can read some other stuff as well. My opinion on Chris Claremont's writing mostly remains the same. I can see why this run was so influential, but I do think it's a case of other comics and media that it influenced doing the same kinds of stuff better. It's done well enough that I was still entertained for the most part, but very little of it really wowed me. I will say that the character work and team dynamic of the main team is easily Claremont's biggest strength as a writer up to the point that I read. He does a great job of making the team feel like a family and also having multi-layered personalities and internal conflicts. In particular I really see why Wolverine quickly became a fan favorite with a combination of his wild, animalistic nature and his more humorous and friendly side. It's actually kind of refreshing to see this version of him which makes an effort to tame his more violent nature somewhat because he genuinely cares about his friends. I much prefer it to the gruff and bitter loner archetype that he tends to get characterized as by other writers in future comic books. I also liked how Claremont added layers of complexity and nuance to Magneto, most notably the moment where he immediately regretted attacking Kitty Pride in the heat of the moment since she was just a kid, even if she was his enemy. It makes him feel more human, ironically enough. That said, when he introduced the Kitty and Colossus pairing in DOFP, it was fine given their ages in that timeline, but to then try to make that a thing in the normal timeline when Kitty is barely even a teenager is just uncomfortably weird.

I recently got the Spider-Man by Roger Stern omnibus at a really good deal, and I've only had time to go through the first four issues of the collection yesterday, but these are really fun classic stories so far that, while more light-hearted in nature than Spider-Man's much darker story-lines, shows that you can have fun with this stuff and not every Spider-Man related story HAS to deal with Peter's personal melodrama. I'm sure several stories in here will also deal with that, but it's good to have a combination of those opposing elements.

In terms of manga I'm still making my way through Master Keaton which is great. I'll usually read one or two chapters a night and every story so far has been either fun, heartfelt, or engaging on some level.

My Hero Academia has had it's ups and downs for me, but the current material has been very good and there is a lot more tension with the huge shake up to the status quo now that we've enter the story's final act.

The same could be said for One Piece, which is also at a high point right now, IMO. I'm a bit surprised at how badly things are going for the protagonists at this point given how much the narrative feels like things should be going in their favor, but that's what keeps the story at hand from feeling too predictable.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I'm still on 70's era FF comics, but I don't think I'll really bother going past Hickman's run when I eventually get to it.

Yeah, Secret Wars 2015 just seems like such a fitting conclusion to the Fantastic Four that I kind of pretend that's their ending and they ride off into the sunset. I hope another weird and interesting writer gets a chance to write an FF run in the future, and what I've heard about Fantastic Four Life Story sounds cool, but I'm not holding my breath for the mainline title until a certain writer who loves to google their name and search for anyone criticizing their work leaves.

And yeah, that's not the end of Marvel giving Kitty weird relationships. She dates a guy even older than Colossus once she moves to Excalibur, and while she's fully an adult by the time it happens, I don't understand why they made her Star-Lord's girlfriend for a stint. Ultimate Marvel made her Spider-Man's GF for some reason. Claremont also hooks her up with Scott and Jean's daughter from the future in his non-canon ending to X-Men, which isn't weird by itself, but it adds another branch to the Cyclops family tree.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm 7-issues into Tomasi's Superman run and I already love it. Like all of the best Superman stories, it puts emphasis in the "man" more than the "super" aspect. It's more about Clark's relationship with his family and his son's coming of age rather than an all-powerful God fighting a bunch of villains. That aspect is the background of the story. It makes me realize all the more how utterly sick I am of all the overly edgy portrayals of Superman in recent media.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Reading a little of Department of Truth. So far, Tynion's Batman run's been fine but nothing there grabs me, but this book from him is far more engrossing.