Every comic you've read in 2015

[Dan]

The Avengers Omnibus, vol. 2: collects The Avengers vol. 1 #31-58, Annuals 1 & 2, along with The X-Men #45 and material from Not Brand Echh.

This volume sees the handoff from Stan Lee and Don Heck to Roy Thomas and John Buscema. Goliath and the Wasp have joined Cap's Kooky Quartet, and for the first half dozen issues things are pretty decent as these things go; nothing earth-shattering, but pretty fun. Hercules comes into the picture and never really fits in, and in fact spends most of his very short tenure off doing his own thing. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch defect to Magneto's side, the Black Panther replaces Captain America, and in the end the Vision is introduced.

Roy Thomas is kind of learning to write comics here. He starts off really stiff, but improves noticeably by the end, and the Vision two-parter that ends the volume is an all-time classic story for a reason. Buscema is strong right out of the gate and only gets better as time goes on; his gift for action serves the series well. The actual stories tend to blend into each other; there's some characterization, especially once Thomas has his legs under him, but The Avengers has always been far more about beating up bad guys than delving deeply into why Hawkeye acts like such a jackass. (Hell, at this point, four years into his tenure, they haven't even revealed Hawkeye's real name yet. "Hank! Jan! T'Challa! Hawkeye!") A very fun volume that I'll likely leave on the shelf for a long time.

Personal fact: Avengers #53, the second part of a crossover with X-Men, was the very first Silver Age comic I ever owned. Bought it in junior high. I still have it.

[Dread]

Clone vol 2: I think this predates Orphan Black and that seems wild to me, because the similarities are staggering. I love this. Ryp's art is incredible and the story is fun and intense.

Comics: 1140
Graphic Novels: 48
Trade Paperbacks: 98
Omnibus: 12

[Venneh]

Grendel: Behold the Devil: Batman if Batman was a psychopathic crime lord. Wagner does amazing work with what is basically a black and white comic with the occasional well used red blood splatter. There is a hell of a lot more than this apparently, and I'd be interested in seeing it.

Pride of Baghdad: BKV does Lion King except real fucking depressing because it's in the aftermath of the invasion of Baghdad. Real pretty, though, and would not be surprised if this is lined up for a film adaptation.

Madame Xanadu vols 1, 3, 4: Amy Reeder does some real pretty work on this, and you can see it get better as she does. The actual following her through history is a hell of a trip, especially with the random DC character cameos, but her in modern NYC is probably the most interesting bit. Especially for the random guest issues which includes Marian fucking Churchland doing an acid trip.

Detective Comics 861-863, Batwoman 0-17: Fucking hell JH Williams and assorted guests. The story jumps around a fair lot, but the overall arc of it is pretty great.  

[Dread]

Yeah, there's like four Grendel Omnibi, but only the first deals with Hunter Rose. It's an insane mythology.

[Davedevil]

Loved Madame Xanadu. The first three trades are some of my favorite Vertigo comics. The fourth lacks any sort of emotional impact to me. The 60s acid trip story was probably my favorite though, and I like how plot points from it led into the final issue.

[Venneh]

Bizzaro 4: Took a look through this because Ba and Moon are suppose to be on a upcoming DC comic soon, and thought since Duarte was on this, this was the most logical place for them to appear. Duarte's goofy art fits well, don't understand what the hell is going on with the story, but eh, Mulder and Scully showed up briefly, and a brief Darwyn Cooke drawing of Zatanna, pretty fluffy, inoffensive read. 

Black Canary 4: Pia Guerra subs in for art this time as we find out about her rival, get an appearance by Amanda Waller, and get who is probably gonna be the main antagonist of the book for now all backstoried and powered up. Clearly a setting shit up issue, but a nice break. 

Constatine the Hellblazer 4: Again, neat split between the past and present in this issue, Del Rey kills on the art in the past. Things are starting to coalesce here, and depending on where they take the next issue, this could get either real good or real bad. 

SHIELD: Agent Carter: Kathryn Immonen does Peggy Carter. Sif also shows up. Just saying Marvel, if you wanted to do a full series of this, especially tying in with the Agent Carter TV show, I'd read that. 

[Donomark]

Batman #485-#490

Re-read these to help out a friend in gaining background knowledge before reading Knightfall for her first time. Dug these out of the longbox and...man. I forgot how good this era was. Doug Moench writes with Jim Aparo pencils. Aparo's past his prime by this point, but the artwork is still good. Basically, this is the pre-season to Knightfall. Batman gets his ass kicked in every issue and just refuses to rest or eat due to a weird, obsessive complex that's new to both Robin (a fresh-faced Tim Drake) and Alfred. This was an interesting time, as Vicki Vale had just come and gone from the books as a regular supporting character (which she did every decade or so seemingly), lots of time spent with Lucius Fox, Jean Paul Valley's been training with Robin, and Bane is learning how Gotham operates. The buildup to Knightfall was fantastic. I remember "The Gauntlet" from Brand New Day Spider-Man advertising itself as Knightfall for that character and it was so fucking telegraphed and badly written. In these issues, Batman is already at the end of his rope. He's in a bad way, and it isn't a case of him pushing past his limits. He's still human and his limits are shoving themselves in his face. He still manages to pull off some wins, but they're ugly. He has no business being on the streets at night, and the fact that this point was made for about six months before Knightfall makes that story, which is already my favorite Batman crossover, that much better for me.

[Venneh]

All New Hawkeye 5: Good job at mirroring the past and the present this issue, the end seems like the "oh shit we need to be in this editorially mandated place by the time of the renumbering next month shit shit shit let's make this happen". *shrug* Love the flashback watercolors though. PS: You can have conflict without having Clint and Katie being at each other's throats, that's what the end of Hawkeye 22 was kind of about...

Captain America: White 1: Loeb and Sale do the Cap and Bucky man out of time/flashback story thing. Let's see where this goes. This has apparently been in the works for seven fucking years. So far it's pretty damn rote. Art's fucking gorgeous though.

House of M 3: Good art, good story thread, one of the funner Secret Wars tie ins. 

Ody-C 7: Man, I have no fucking clue what's going on any more, and Ward's art doesn't really help any. 

Tokyo Ghost 1: Remender doing the future dystopia/one last job masturbatory fodder you've heard from just about every writer before, and it's not really doing that much to distinguish itself on that front so far. Real good art and colors though. Ehhh. 

Southern Cross 5: The last this came out was back in *checks thread* at least May or June. That means there was at least a three to four month gap between issue 4 and 5. I have completely lost the thread of what's going on and I'm probably gonna need to reread this to figure out what the shit just happened here. 

Sex Criminals 12: ...yeah okay, there's the Fraction and Zdarsky I know. Welcome back boys. 

Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier 11: only slightly masturbatory on Kot's part, thank fucking god. Real pretty, good wrap up, some real nice adorable moments. 

Island 3: First issue with contributions from people I don't know for the most part. Two solid futuristic stories, great club story that's my favorite of the bunch, weird ass erotic comic that's real pretty, and a neat little ending piece that's super evocative of Russian Olive to Red King. With the exception of one, maybe two of these, these are all one offs. 

The Judas Coin: Walt Simonson tracks various coins from Judas all throughout history. Actually kind of the precursor to the Return of Bruce Wayne, in the general hopping through history. Technically culminates in a Batman/Two Face battle, but randomly goes to the far future where Walt tries his hand at this manga all the kids are going crazy for (no, really). Neat read. 

Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether: What?? A Rucka comic that's not about a woman dealing with her family legacy/honor so far? SHOCKING. Basically a steampunk pirate and western and fantasy mashup as far as I can tell from this first collection. Not sure if I'd read the second, but the first one was a nice enough way to spend a morning.

[Koete]

Captain America: White 1: Loeb and Sale do the Cap and Bucky man out of time/flashback story thing. Let's see where this goes. This has apparently been in the works for seven fucking years. So far it's pretty damn rote. Art's fucking gorgeous though.

Me and two friends clowned on the 0 issue over Skype back in 2008.

[Venneh]

That's when I first joined up here. 

Edited September 21, 2015 by Venneh

[Dread]

GI Joe Classics vol 2, 3: These are thick books (10 issues each) and are stlll mainly in the goofy stage. The intro of Zartan is fun. So far, Vosburg is my favorite GI Joe artist. He seems to have the tightest storytelling.

Comics: 1140
Graphic Novels: 48
Trade Paperbacks: 100
Omnibus: 12

[Donomark]

 

Captain America: White 1: Loeb and Sale do the Cap and Bucky man out of time/flashback story thing. Let's see where this goes. This has apparently been in the works for seven fucking years. So far it's pretty damn rote. Art's fucking gorgeous though.

Oh yeah, I read that too. Rote's definitely the word for it. I actually found Sale's art to be weak for it tbh. Not up to his usual standard.

 

Ultimate Spider-Man vol.14: Return of the Black Cat, Intro to Ult. Moon Knight, Iron Fist, Shang Chi and Hammerhead

Another mobster story, but this one was a bit lighter than most of Bendis' USM Mob stuff. Ultimate Hammerhead was pretty neat. The Black Cat is more recognizable to the type of person she is in Spider-Man's life in this, I.E. one huge temptation. It's actually really funny in this universe because Peter is still a teenager, so Bendis plays with it in a great way.

This was the story that made me drop the book when it first came out, because Elektra straight up owns Spider-Man in a fight and knocks him off a building. I remember throwing my arms up and yelling bullshit. Re-reading it in the context of the scene I can roll with it a bit more.

 

[Dread]

The shine is so off of Loeb and Sale's work together that I won't even give that bullshit a shot.

John Lord vol 1: Humanoids graphic novel. Not sure what the fuck happened here, but it sure was purty.

Armor Wars #5: Ho hum ending.

Bloodshot Reborn #6: Killer start to the new arc. Love this. Glad that we had less visions because those were getting stupid.

Broken Moon #1: eh...I would have said this felt like a ripoff of 30 Days of Night if Steve Niles wasn't the writer and if the artist wasn't trying to be Ben Templesmith, but since it is...I guess it's still a ripoff of 30DoN.

Death head #3: The best horror series no one is reading.

Comics: 1144
Graphic Novels: 49
Trade Paperbacks: 100
Omnibus: 12

[Dread]

Dedication-Dead Stock #1

Home #1

Honor #1: three releases from Bill Jemas' brand new ecomic imprint. They're fucking awful. They're all tied to the same continuity in 1966 during the Night of the Living Dead zombie outbreak (sort of) as if someone said to him "Zombies are what's cool right now" not realizing they were cool like five years ago and he was all like "I've got an idea..." not realizing his idea has been done a thousand times in the past 50 years.

Far Albion vol 1: a bad sci fi OGN from Soleil.

Guardians of Knowhere #4: eh....

House of M #3: odd turn, but interesting.

Infinity Gauntlet #4: Holy shit. Epic.

Comics: 1150
Graphic Novels: 50
Trade Paperbacks: 100
Omnibus: 12

[Koete]

Damn dude, did you get those Jemas comics for free? I'm pretty sure I tweeted "fuck this" when I saw the Kickstarter. 

[Dread]

Never heard about it. Never even knew he was involved until I looked at the credits.

[Davedevil]

True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - Gorgeous art by Becky Cloonan. Story was alright, Danger Days is my favorite MCR album so it was fun to see more of the world. Blue was a great character.

Sensation Comics 14 - Full length book featuring Strife and a couple other characters I don't recognize.

Star Wars 9 - Practically drooling over Immonen's art. Luke's story is pretty interesting, though it feels better inbetween Empire and Jedi. 

[Donomark]

Batman: Sword of Azreal, by Denny O'Neil, Joe Quesada and Kevin Nolan.

Despite Knightfall being my favorite Bat-Crossover, I put off reading this for years. I'm not sure exactly why, maybe the whole Order of St. Dumas, Azreal mythology bored me a lot more when I was younger. Reading it now, I really enjoyed this. The art is slick 90's goodness, and it's a fun O'neil type of story involving international crime and trekking around the globe. O'Neil's Batman is very enjoyable if a bit anachronistic. He's really cavalier with his secret identity in ways which border on OOC stupidity, but otherwise he's awesome. The art can get in the way of the story at times, with Quesada's love for chiaroscuro, but in the 4th and final issue Kevin Nowlan is clearly leading the work and it looks great.

Edited September 25, 2015 by Donomark

[Donomark]

Batgirl #44. Surprisingly not good. Bengal is brought in again and I usually love Bengal. This art was just not up to snuff, and the writing was convoluted and rushed in a very bad way. 

Edited September 26, 2015 by Donomark
spelling

[Dread]

Ivar, Timewalker #9: of course a book about time travel can easily get around the last issue, but this one did it in a very interesting way. Great, fun book.

Paybacks #1: a superhero repo squad. Weird. Not sure if I really liked it or not. Might try a second issue.

Robin - Son of  Batman #4: I think this is the only DC book that survived out of the "post New 52 reboot" next to the JLA books.

Secret Identities #7: sad that this is the last issue. A far better superhero book than DC's been doing for the past few years.

Secret Wars Journal #5: the Night Nurse story by the Soska Twins was cool, but the other story was awful continuing the trend of this title never being any more than half good.

Squarriors #4: not as satisfying of an ending as I had hoped, but this was definitely the sleeper hit of the year. Really awesome anthropomorphic animal book.

The Beauty #2: This book needs an explosion of craziness for me to continue.

Tokyo Ghost #1: This is Akira with social media and reality TV reference. About five years too late to be relevant.

UFOlogy #5: still insane. Probably better read in trade.

The mighty Crusaders-Lost Crusade Special: a oneshot focusing on each of the members done before the recent reboot. Some fun, some garbage. Really like these characters though, so I started to read through the old Impact Comics line DC had in the 90s.

The Legend of the Shield #1-10: this is the flagship title in the Impact run with some writing by Mark Waid. Pretty solid. Very well-plotted by the artist with some interestingly tightly woven threads carrying through these first 10 issues. A lot of thought put into this and it shows.

Comics: 1170
Graphic Novels: 50
Trade Paperbacks: 100
Omnibus: 12

[Professor]

Y: The Last Man - I loved this.  Only two little quibbles (the kinda-sorta explanation and parts of the ending), but that is mostly nitpicking.

 

Comics: 393
Digital First Comics: 65
Graphic Novels: 23
Trades: 142 (766)(4)(144)

[Davedevil]

Heart in a Box - Trade paperback of webcomics from Dark Horse. Quite an emotional journey. A great examination of heartbreak and depression. The artwork, while tough to understand at points, was very beautiful and effective for how character-driven this was.

[Venneh]

The Beauty 2: Feels like a windup issue, they're clearly setting a lot of things up, the question is if the next issue can carry the cliffhanger. 

Nameless 5: Yup. This is sure a cracky as shit Grant Morrison comic.  Again, read the first four issues a few months ago, and this issue's been delayed, so I mostly forgot what happened before this, probably will read better in trade without the gaps between.

The Spire 3: Continues to be one of my favorite minis of the year, would love to see more from this universe. Continuing great build of the overall mystery, good dialogue and unfolding of the plot, great art (to the point that I want to find originals), and amazing color work.

Vertigo previews: Okay, so, I have an emotional attachment to Vertigo. Their stuff was how I first got into comics in college. It's been pretty depressing watch the line slide like it has. I've got high hopes for what is basically a reboot for them. That said. There are only actual previews for three stories, only one of which is due out in the next month. I would've thought that they would focus on the stuff that's leading next month (Survivor's Club, Art Ops, and something more than the one page wordless preview for Clean Room). 

• Lucifer - one of the first comics I ever read and got into. Holly Black continues to be good at prose, which is mainly what these pages are. Lucifer only shows up for one page, and it's not enough to tell whether or not she can actually get his voice down. Nervous about this one, especially since they're clearly rebooting to be close to the TV show that's coming out. Garbett is gonna do great on the art, that's not even a question. He needs to make sure he doesn't reuse too many of the Loki looks for Lucifer. 
• Twilight Children: Hernandez and Cooke, it's gonna be pretty, it's gonna be well written, the preview was well chosen as an introduction and a hook. Out next month, possibly in time for NYCC? 
• Unfollow: interesting premise, solid art, could be worth a page through when it actually comes out. 
• Highlights from the rest of the one page ads: definitely interested in Survivor's Club (Beukes and Kelly? Yes pls, plus a great premise),  Art Ops (Allred basically doing pop art), New Romancer (Peter Milligan doing a cute romance). The rest is passingly interesting in a might page through it when it comes out way. 

[Venneh]

Batgirl 44: I agree with Donomark on this one. The story was way more convoluted than normal, and the art feels rushed, like she got the script at the nth hour. Feels like their first misstep. However, that last page? Yes please bring back Oracle as a legacy. 

Runaways 4: Explosive finale, manages to resolve nicely. I would like to see Noelle considered for something like this in the future. She made the Secret Wars setting work real well here, and I'd love to see what she could do in the main universe with this. The art was pretty neat, Greene captured the crazy well. 

Years of Future Past 5: Okay, finally get the shape of where this was going all along - the Erik/Charles kind of conflict, only among family. Makes way more sense in that light. Good lady or the tiger ending here. Norton did great on the art, too. 

Captain Marvel and the Carol Corps 4: Kelly Sue's goodbye to Carol. Great fucking fight scenes, good art, and the perfect fucking finale for this era, even for being a Secret Wars tie in. Don't mind that we didn't actually see what they saw in the end. Have a feeling it's coming in the next few issues of Secret Wars. 

Wolf 3: Wolf is in this unique place of being entirely too pretentious and spinning back into places that are actually interesting. Please Kot. Just get a fucking editor to reign you in. There's real potential here. Taylor does very well on art. 

[Donomark]

Mark Waid's Daredevil vol.3 (really 10): The Daredevil You Know

Continues to be very solid. Not as lip-smackingly awesome as the previous trade, but Waid's push and pull style of storytelling for Matt continues to earn his spot as one of the great DD writers. He always manages to put him in a no-win scenario, and the final page in this trade leaves me wanting more.

Chew vol.10: Blood Pudding

Collects up to issue #50 ending with Tony's battle against the Collector. After the last trade, I couldn't wait to see what happened next, and this volume delivered in spades. I killed it in half an hour, loving every panel of it. Between this and Waid's DD it's great to read a truly consistently great spat of comics.