What Are You Reading?

[Dr. Insomniac]

I just finished 20th Century Men by Deniz Camp and Stipan Morian, a comic that takes a lot of the traditional superhero iconography but then turns it inside-out and wraps it around a middle-finger at the military-industrial complex. It's such a dense read, every issue goes for a different storytelling style, plenty of echoes of real-life Cold War history are mashed together to create plenty of horror and beauty.

[Mustang]

Psyren - I remember loving this series back when I was going through my phase of "on and off again" with Bleach, Naruto and One Piece. I hated that it didn't get the love back then, but reading it now, there's some interesting stuff, but it don't really hold up. I know I like Matsuri, Kagetora and Kyle, but everyone else just feel so bland. There are different personalities and whatnot, but they're on the boring side. To be fair though, since back then compared to now, I've been exposed to the likes of Demon Slayer and My Hero Academia. And then, obviously One Piece. So while my taste in characters is still relatively the same (I will always love the badass/edgelord characters), I can tolerate some of the more "annoying/silly" ones these days, and I think that's what Psyren is missing (which sounds weird in my head); Some of that annoying factor to balance out all the seriousness.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I really liked the early chapters of Psyren but haven't read it in quite a few years. The story really fell off in the final 2 or 3 arcs though you could tell it was due to imminent cancelation and the author trying to scramble towards an ending.

It's interesting since the author has mentored other mangaka who have gone on to be more successful with their future series, but I think Psyren's biggest detriment was lacking a unique identity of it's own. I mean, it had a solid enough foundation and set-up, but the execution itself felt like a competently done version of stuff people had already seen before. That's not to say ot was bad by any means, but lacking in any sort of quirks to give it some of it's own character or identity means that it doesn't stand out amongst it's competition and consequently doesn't hold readers' interest enough to want to keep reading it week to week.

To go back to talk about Kimetsu no Yaiba (Demon Slayer), the story is admittedly as basic as they come, but regardless of your thoughts on it, the actual execution of the story beats feel so unique from anything else that was running in WSJ at the time.

My Hero Academia, Spy X Family, Mashle, and various successful series from the past decade all seem to have that in common. There is nothing else quite like them. The tropes are the same, but the actual reading experience evokes the specific and unique voice of it's respective author. I believe Psyren kind of lacked that and felt similar to a number of other series you could be reading at the time.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've been reading Quasar by Mark Grunewald. I've also read some of his Captain America material (which FATWS took heavy inspiration from) and he's definitely one of the better mainstream superhero writers of his era when it comes to establishing and developing narrative threads in his stories as well as writing supporting characters with some level of nuance to them. Shame that Quasar gets, like, one of the worst deaths ever in Aanaihilation.

I've been catching up on some of the newer WSJ titles. Most I'm pretty "eh" on, but Martial Master Asumi (from the author of Hinomaru Zumo, which I still need to finished but loved) is pretty promising so far. Makes me wonder why there aren't more MMA manga in the sports genre. There are a few but it's really the perfect blend of traditional fighting series' and realistic athletic sports.

Also, Akane-Banashi still continues to be my favorite ongoing title in the publication other than One Piece.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I finally resumed reading The Fantastic Four. As a reminder, this is a series that I wanted to experiment with by reading it from it's very first issue all the way throug to Hickman's Secret Wars (which is essentally the ending of the original Marvel Comics Universe).

The 60's era of writing is very dense in wording and in many respects kind of impenetrable to a modern reader with current sensibilities, but Stan Lee's and Jack Kirby's original run really grew on me. The phrase "it's a product of it's time" is one that I have mixed feelings about, because while it can certainly be applied to several works of art, I firmly believe that something that was good then should still be able to showcase that to future observers in some form or fashion, and for me I think Lee and Kirby's run really showed a sense of momentum and creative experimentation that probably did a lot for the FF's early success in comics. The writing was honestly rather messy and the stories themselves nonsensical when held up to any kind of scrutiny, but what made it all work was a clear level of energy and excitement put into nearly every issue of their legendary run. The Galactus Trilogy is where Lee really seemed to hit his stride with how to structure FF stories and it's also around the same time where Kirby nailed the most iconic version of his look for the characters. The issues from that point almost always had an organic sense of continuity with most issues seamlessly leading into the next with very few closing out with a neat little bow to lead into the next story, as was typical of comics at the time. This would have undoubtedly left readers eager to see what would happen next and provide incentive to keep coming back for more. Also, there was that one issue where they went to a planet where all of it's inhabitants were inspired by and designed their entire civiliation around 1920's American mobster culture, and while I'm not sure which came first, I'm pretty sure Lee stole that whole concept from an episode of classic Star Trek, but it still works in it's own early Marvel comics way.

Anyways, I was consistently reading through the series at a steady pace up to that point. Then I got to the 70's era of the FF's publication, and man, I have to be honest, that was a slog. There's a reason I clearly Lee and Kirby's stuff in just a few months, but it took me a couple of years to get through the next decade of the serialization. There were a few stand-out issues here and there by legendary writers and artists like Archie Goodwin or Marv Wolfman, but even then they seemed at best to be doing servicable imitations of the peak of the Lee and Kirby era. Of note was Goodwin's Doctor Doom centered issue and Wolfman's ambitious Galactus story arc where the FF strike a tenuous alliance with one of their greatest foes to take down an even bigger threat. That said, there were a lot of mediocre stories filling out most of the bunch, and some downright bad ones in there as well. It says a lot that I can barely remember even half of it after reading all of it. Even other greats like Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway just couldn't seem to wrap their heads around writing a truly great FF story, which shows how tricky it is to really get this team right.

That said, I'm currently into the 240's in issues right now, firmly in the 80's era, and more importantly well into John Byrne's legendary run on the series. You may have heard good things about it among enthusisasts of classic comic book runs, but let me tell you, after dragging my feet through the previous decade of FF comics all because of my prior commitment, this shit is like tasting the nectar of the gods in comparison. I'm back to reading multiple issues back-to-back and actually feeling constantly engaged and excited by the possibilities presented in the stories and how the characters are constantly evolving, and I'm still early on in this run. Byrne clearly had a vision for the series, and what I love is these are very much Science Fiction stories first and foremost and Superhero stories second. He pays proper respect and homage to what Lee and Kirby started and makes it still feel like those same characters in the same Universe, while writing in a style more befitting of Rod Serling. At the same time this is the era of Marvel Comics where writers like Frank Miller and Chris Claremont, among several others, were injecting more real world adult issues into their stories, be it gun violence explored in Daredevil or further exploring the dangers of severe prejudice in X-Men. John Byrne does that for several issues, including even child abuse which surprised me after enduring a decade of safe, flavorless vanilla stories from the 70's.

If the rest of the run goes along this smooth, this could definitely end up in my top 5 favorite Marvel comic book runs, and it has me excited to read the FF again.

Also, speaking of Wolfman, I've also started reading The New Teen Titans, which if I'm not mistaken he was working on simultaneously as the time he was writing his FF story arc, and while I liked his FF material well enough (one of the few stand-outs between Lee/Kirby and Byrne) it's very clear to see where his actual passions truly lied around that time.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Zdarsky Batman lost me with the recent issue. It felt as if either he or the editors read almost every single stupid joke I make when talking about DC and taking it all completely seriously, from Bruce beating up his kids to him talking to another superpowered version of himself behind locked bars as if it's Naruto and the 9-tailed Fox, right down to having a random Vandal Savage cliffhanger. Really glad Vandal didn't ramble on about plans or the Light, because then I would've thought "Oh God, are they reading my mind? And not using it well?"

But on the other side of the Big Two, Hickman is gonna save Spidey fans from the Apaulcalypse. So that's a nice surprise.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I haven't read his Batman run, but if I'm being honest while I loved the first two story arcs of Zdarsky's Daredevil run, it did kind of lose me after 30-something issues. It feels like he had a really good idea for an initial start to the series and a great set of character arcs for Matt and Fisk, but after that the momentum of the story just lost a lot of steam for me, and I wasn't a fan of the way certain characters acted after a period of time. Still, those first 20-30 issues are genuinely great and I would go back to them.

I feel like Batman in general has suffered a bit from writers feeling compelled to go to certain extremes or try outlandish things in order to stand out. On the one had, I can sympathize, since how exactly do you do something new with a character that has been around for nearly a century? On the other hand, I look at some of these stories and say to myself: "OK, but why did you think THAT was a good idea?" I remember Zdarsky not wanting to do a mainline Spider-Man run just for the reason that he felt he would inevitably enrage fans. So I'm kind of surprised that he's working on Batman who's fanbase is no less hostile to stuff they dislike. As for me, unless it's something egregious, I can mostly separate my dislike of a work from being too hard to the writer themselves as a person. Like, I liked Black Mirror and Court of Owls from Scott Snyder, but found the rest of his Batman material to range from mid to outright awful, but I'm not going to lambast him more than just not liking his material. Same with Tom King, who actually has written other stuff that I genuinely like.

On the positive side of things, I am already more than half-way through John Byrne's Fantastic Four run (including his material on The Thing, which I'm reading side-by-side with it) and it has genuinely and consistently gotten better-and-better. It's one of those hyped comic book runs that lives up to it's status as a "classic" and holds up incredibly well today, IMO. And I'm aware that Byrne has pissed a lot of people off with his "grumpy old-man" take on comic book superheroes, but I'm just judging the work itself and this so far has been the best FF material that I've read (I still have a ways to go before I reach Waid's and Hickman's runs), and may very well go down as one of my all-time favorite comic book runs if it holds this level of quality until it finishes.

My increased investment in FF over the past few years has actually made me more worried about the upcoming MCU movie because I'm skeptical of them being able to do this series justice with their current track record.

On the manga side of things I'm still reading the usual suspects, but I also started reading Yu-Gi-Oh, just because I had the itching for a 90's/early 2000's style Shonen Jump manga. The premise is of course ridiculous and every single character would be a certifiably insane person if this took place in real life, which is of course just the way I like my Jump manga, so good start overall.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I don't know, I really liked his Daredevil run, even well into Devil's Reign, and it was what gave me hope that his Batman run would be pretty cool. Since if you can write a great Daredevil, you should be able to write a great Batman. Though I assume DD's editorial is more loose than Batman's.

And I think with Batman comics, every writer wants to make the big Batman run that people remember years afterward, and an episodic run where Bruce stops Riddler or Poison Ivy from bombing city hall or robbing a bank every issue doesn't make the splash that another "Gotham City is in hell and Bruce must challenge his very ideals if he wants to save his city's soul... again" story promises. But the problem is the latter's become its own cliche now, and plots like Bruce facing off against a generations-long secret aristocratic society that's been pulling Gotham's strings for centuries or Bruce letting his on-and-off relationship with Selina tear apart the Bat-family are repeating themselves to diminishing returns. Like maybe you don't want to do what Paul Dini can do a 100 times better, but you also shouldn't do what Grant Morrison can do a 100 times better, so I guess what I'm saying is Batman writers aren't being outlandish enough and finding a third, new option.

The other problem is Bruce's supporting cast needs desperate untangling. There are way too many Bat-family members, it's like if in Doctor Who the Doctor just kept all his companions around long past their character arc, even while introducing new companions, instead of letting characters leave after a few seasons. And I get they're never gonna write out Dick, or write out Gordon, or at least not for more than a few years, but then there are the characters that genuinely have nothing left to do anymore and the writers don't know what to give them, but they still hang out in the Batcave because nobody has the heart to give them a farewell story. Like Tim. The writers still like Tim enough not to kill him off, let him retire with his boring boyfriend, or make him move to another city, but they don't like him enough to figure out what to do with him now that he hasn't been the main Robin for quite some time. Even adaptations of Tim don't really give a shit despite bothering to bring him in. DCAU Tim is basically Jason with a different name (street kid who retires because the Joker tortures him and then temporarily turns into a bad guy). Arkham game Tim is a weird fusion of Dick and Damian while designed to look like an elderly Eminem for no reason. Animated YJ Tim is just a background prop. Nobody's known what to do with him for ages at this point, but he's still around just because.

[Mustang]

Finally started reading Jujutsu Kaisen. I've always been interested in the series. I just never got around to read/watch it. I've seen some clips of some of the fights (that animation is God-tier quality, but then again, compared to back then from what I've seen of MHA, DS and now JK, all anime seem to be going crazy with the animation side of things) and liked what I saw, but I saw some stuff (spoiled myself a bit) in some of the recent chapters and had to start fresh to catch up. The big rhetorical question I have is "When did that happen" hence the catching up lol. I will say like most shonen, it does have a slow start, but comparing to say, like Naruto or Bleach, this has a more interesting start up. Kinda reminds me of Yu Yu Hakusho/Hunter x Hunter in a sense (Probably even more closer to Psyren now that I'm thinking about it). Like, while small, the action is there, and is good when it hits, but the build up seems to be the more focal point, and I'm digging it.

Characters seems good. I will say that while I haven't seen anyone that irritates me (to be fair, I brush a lot off my shoulders now. If you'd introduced me to One Piece, Naruto or Inuyasha now, certain character traits wouldn't nearly bother me as much. It'd be a nuisance for sure, but nothing damaging), there aren't too many standouts either. Hell, the only one that I'd go up and arms over is Gojo. I'm only on chapter 32 though, so there's time.

Overall, it's interesting. Not hooked, but it's interesting.

Gobble Gobble by the way.

[Markness]

I am currently reading or about to pick back up many titles. They would be Dan Jurgen's The Mighty Thor, the original Peter David run of Young Justice, the original The Titans, Mike Carey's Lucifer, and six titles from Crossgen. Those six would be Mystic, Sigil, Scion, Meridian, The First, and Crux.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Spoiler

Thank you Hickman for giving me a JJJ/Uncle Ben buddy journalist dramedy.

[close]

[Mustang]

So continuing with my on and off again randomness with anime and manga, this time I went back to Psyren. I know, last time I found myself saying that it didn't hold up, but if I recall I think I was at the point where Dholaki was introduced, and thinking further back (when I first started this series), this was the point where I got hooked. Definitely skipping around just to see if something could reignite that spark, and started around chapters 93-95, low and behold Grana vs Miroku. (If Yagumo Matsuri is/was my favorite in this series, he had to be 1-B then) The fight itself is not special, but I like Grana's power in general. He's Jean Grey lol. Personality-wise, so lemme see, I'm still for the Vergil's, Sesshoumaru's, Byakuya's, Itachi's, Hiei's hands down, buuuuuuuut the Ace's, Mustang's, Shanks, Dante's, Gojo's, Usui's, have been the characters I favor as of late and Grana kinda fits in that space.

As far as lighting that spark, not quite, but it was good to jump into that fight specifically. I might go a little further to see the invasion point, but I may stay away from it because this was definitely in that area where it was declining.

Still reading One Piece as well. I don't have much to say to be honest. Not that it hasn't been good because it has, but there's been nothing to get me hyped up. I could be like "Saturn you piece of shit", but that's not me lol. I have been questioning the strength lately of Akainu, Kizaru and Aokiji as of late though.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I saw a tweet this week say "the best way I can describe FALL OF THE HOUSE OF X/RISE OF THE POWERS OF X is that it's like if a very good and satisfying Star Wars Ep 9 had come out on the same day as Rise of Skywalker and Disney insisted you had to see both", and that's an apt description of the final Krakoa arc.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I have been playing quite a bit of MTGA in the past few months and that really got me in the mood for a card game manga. So, I hit up my Shonen Jump app and started reading Yugioh, and then remembered that the early stuff wasn't even about card games. The thing that stands out to me about this series is just how utterly insane almost every character acts and how Yugi's alter ego comes off as a fucking psychopath with just how badly he punishes some of his victims. The early stuff really does have a sort of horror manga vibe, and it reminds me more of something like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure than what the series would eventually become. That said, the insanity of it all is part of it's charm, so I can't really complain. Junouchi (Joey Wheeler) is ironically the most sane and rational character in the early manga.

However, while I'm making my way through that, I ended up also getting into Destroy All Humankind, since I still wanted my card game fix, and when I found out that it was an official manga that was directly about MTG that just made it more enticing for me. It takes place in the late 90's and it's more a combination of a slice-of-life coming of age and romance manga, but what works is that it takes the card game aspect pretty seriously and has opponents contend with viable strategies. It helps that it was based off a real card game with a long established meta, whereas stuff like Yugioh was made up on the spot for a story first with the actual card game that spun off from it being fleshed out much later to actually be playable for real. It does have it's tropey bits, but it's a really fun read. It also really captures the crushing and frustrating feeling of how it feels to come up against a much better meta deck than your own (since building a deck is arguably more than half the game).

Really makes me want to see if I can find more manga about real games that do a good job with the strategy aspect of things.

[Avaitor]

I read some of Yugioh's early chapters not too long ago and had fun with them. I recalled that the earliest material wasn't card based, as I used to collect the US Shonen Jump, but like you forgot how psychopathic everyone could be even before Kaiba joined. But hey, that's part of the fun.

And I've been getting into a card game recently as well, Lorcana, which is basically Disney's answer to Magic. I considered getting back into YGO, but the new rules seem a little too hectic for me to jump into it. I'd rather find something akin to how I grew up playing it.