Every comic you've read in 2011


Missy

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Batman: Knight and Squire

It's alright, but nothing special. :unsure:

:yes:

I'm right there with you. I enjoyed the first issue, but all the promise from the series just sorted of ended there, and it just didn't get any better or worse, just sort of, went on, for several more issues.

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Batman and the Monster Men/Batman and the Mad Monk:

Retellings of two of Batman's oldest stories, with a very Year One vibe. Wagner's scripts are solid, but his art is the clear star. He's got a perfect marriage of Timm and Mazzucchelli. This is how Batman should look.

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Criminal: Last of the Innocent #2: Brubaker is telling an amazing story here. Still has that amazing Archie-all-grown-up vibe mixed with noir, and as we get to watch things unfold and the setup for the crime, you just feel this sense of dread and anticipation. Don't wait for the trade on this one.

Comics: 29

Trades: 2

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Ultimate Fallout #3

This miniseries is officially nothing more than an advertisement / teaser for the upcoming Ultimate relaunch, and the big reveal of who the new Spider-Man will be. That's not to say it's bad. It's just that there isn't much of a story here, what with each piece being nothing more than a snippet centered around Peter's funeral.

Comic books: 75

Trade paperbacks: 14

Graphic novels: 0

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Daredevil by Bendis and Maleev Omnibus TPB Volumes 2-3.

Complaints: Both volumes end on pretty crappy notes. Volume 2 ends on a story that I just felt sort of was there, and wasn't very good. Volume 3 ends on an Ultimate Daredevil, Spider-Man, Punisher team up that is really just a Punisher story. An alright Punisher story, but it just felt so out of place. Especially after the ending of the actual story for the book. The story does some random jumps at points, at one point, we leave Daredevil for a year, for some reason.

Positives: Everything else. I fucking loved this, I loved it so much that I literally could not put it down. To me, this would not have read well in single issues/single trades because the story just flows so quickly and it feels like real episodic content, each issue takes place moments after the last, sometimes it even recaps what happened in the last issue, and it was so fast paced, and Bendis may have put a shit load of dialogue in every page, but it doesn't disrupt the flow, it gets everything they wanted to get across and it was so great. The story of Matt Murdoch having to deal with being outed as Daredevil, and having a relationship, and a law practice and people trying to kill him, and his life just being a major hell, it's all so great to read.

I also liked how Spider-Man mentions how after what happened with Matt's life and loved ones, he is never revealing his secret identity. I don't know if this was published before or after Civil War and Peter outing himself, but that was still funny to read.

The only real thing that took me out of the story, mid run were the issues in the church where people were talking about what impact Daredevil has had on their lives, and then some grown man gives birth to a baby with a mans head, because of The Hand's Black Magic, it just took me out of what was, an actually engrossing story, having real people deal with heroes in the Marvel Universe and how these people can affect an average Joe's life.

Artwork for the most part by Alex Maleev is fucking awesome. It may have bothered me in the first volume, because it's so different to what i'm used to, but the grim nature of the book, made the artwork fit for me, and I loved how Matt's world looked.

The ending for the main story was a bit strange to me, it just sort of ends, I know (Sorry, spoiler) that this is what Bendis had been building to in his entire run, with Matt being held accountable for his actions, but it didn't feel like a shocking conclusion, as much as it did a cliffhanger, that should have been resolved before his run finished. Kingpin was excellent in this, and I loved the way his story had to end.

I'm going to wait till the Brubaker run is put into these large omnibus TPB's before I read them, just for all the TPB's to sit on my bookshelf together nicely.

All in all, one of the best comics I've read in a long damn time.

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X-Factor #68-149: Beginning with the original X-Men attempting to save Nathan Summers from Apocalypse and his technovirus and ending with Havok dying in the sky with a XSE officer, this is one of the most radically shifting comics in Marvel's history. I haven't even gotten to what comes next and the modern era. It began brilliantly languished for roughly fifty issues and ended with a little bit of brilliance. Peter David had it right but Mackie kind of messed up by piling subplot upon subplot and new characters on top of new characters to compensate for what he lacks in long term vision. Everything came together so brilliantly in the end that it made me long for the day when you could be surprised by a comic. They didn't even say at the end of #149 that the books was ending for God's sake. They just had an announcement that your subscription was moved to X-Men and a teaser image that didn't really explain anything for "next month." All setting the stage for one of my favorite series of all-time. Dang. Marvel, you used to be soooo good.

Comics: 872

Trades: 22

Graphic Novels: 1

Omnibuses: 5

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They didn't even say at the end of #149 that the books was ending for God's sake. They just had an announcement that your subscription was moved to X-Men and a teaser image that didn't really explain anything for "next month." All setting the stage for one of my favorite series of all-time.

Mutant X?

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I have been meaning to read Mutant X for years. I'll take that as the biggest endorsement to do so since my Local Comic Book store has had the entire run for 50 bucks for the last five years.

As for the actual X-Factor run, yeah, the Peter David years were just made of awesome. The new X-Factor series that David has done in the last few years is still almost to the same level of perfection though they are both still very different books.

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Red Skull Incarnate #2: More of the slow drive towards what Johann will eventually become here. ...I don't know about this. Part of what makes the Skull so intimidating as a character is the complete lack of humanity. Trying to argue that he was such a sensitive boy here is just kind of... I don't know. when they did it with Magneto, it was believable. This, as it goes on, I'm not so sure. I'll look the next one over before dropping the money, I think. But the cover work is gorgeous.

Secret Six #36: Got this cause it's the last issue. Had some cute moments, but I'm not really sure about how I feel about how Gail chose to end it. Not quite sure what she was trying to do with Bane towards the very end there, because up until the last few pages, I could actually believe it was Bane. Calafiore's art is awful, but we know this. Not sure if it was worth the money, in the end, but a nice nostalgia buy, I guess.

Comics: 31

Trades: 2

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Finally got a chance to read Daredevil #1. Maybe this is my Waid fanboyism shining through, but I really enjoyed this. It's nice to see Matt Murdock acknowledge that his life has been one colossal shitstorm after another and just decide to climb the fuck out of it. Liked this a LOT.

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30 Days of Night: Eben and Stella #1-4

What the hell...?

Peter Parker: Spider-Man #35

The best issue of Spider-Man. Ever. It shows why it's important that Spider-Man's body is fully covered: because he can be anyone, no matter the race. And Paul Jenkins gets that. It's also interesting that, this being the fifth or sixth time I've read the book, I'm still picking up subtle details. Amazing work.

Flashpoint: Batman - Knight of Vengeance #1-3

Thoughts soon.

The Vault #1

I was kinda bored by this issue. The dialog was stiff at best, and downright unbelievable at worst. Basically, it read like the written word, not like spoken words. I've not been made to care about the plot or mystery, or, for that matter, any of the character. Everything was very flat. And while the art presented the story well enough, I couldn't get over the fact that Jesus was clearly Patrick Stewart, another guy was Keanu Reeves, and I think another was Vincent Price. I don't mind photo-referencing, as along as I see the character. In this case, I saw the actors.

Comic books: 84

Trade paperbacks: 14

Graphic novels: 0

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Ultimate Fallout #4

The new Spider-Man doesn't read all that different from the old Spider-Man, and the pages relied on one joke being repeated several times over. What's interesting, however, were the Jonathan Hickman pages focusing on Reed Richards. He seems to be setting up the same things he's doing over in FF, but with a Reed that has been driven mad. This could prove to be interesting. The third story, about the origin of mutants, will set up the next big event or status quo for the Ultimate Universe, but I didn't find myself hooked.

Comic books: 85

Trade paperbacks: 14

Graphic novels: 0

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Haven't been around in a while, but I read a ton of books, some that I remember, some I don't.

Ex Machina the Entire Series (TPBs 1-10) - This in NOT Y The Last Man amazing, unfortunately, BUT it IS good. The meta plot (which I don't want to spoil), like usual for a BKV story, is only hinted at and not the center of this story. But the center of this story, Mitchell Hundred's tenure as mayor sprinkled in with backstory from his superhero adventures, is crafted impressively. Mind you, I didn't think Mitchell Hundred has the most depth, at times, especially early on, he felt like a robot, with no actual depth, I thought the plots (of TPBs) were wrapped up quickly and were anti-climactic without any pro-active Mitchell activity, but as an overall character arc it's fascinating tragedy that you never see coming even though BKV warns you in the first page of the first issue. Again, the characters and the story, aren't as strong as Y the Last Man or Preacher, but something BKV was able to do the Garth Ennis wasn't in Preacher (and something I heard happened in Transmet with Ellis, but haven't read to see it for myself) is that he was able to separate himself from the Hundred character and not use the Hundred character as a platform to spout off his thoughts.

Queen & Country - I've always liked Rucka, he's wrote solid stories in the Batman world and he's helped with an arc for Brubaker's run on Daredevil. But this (and maybe Gotham Central) is really his defining story. The best way to describe this is a mix between Bourne Identity (in terms of it being a spy thriller), The Wire (in terms of the detail, and the exploration of things usually not seen, as in the minute day to day, the hierarchical bureaucratic politics or running an organization), and a mix of Alias (nuanced, Female Character). It's follows the real world spy game, it's dirty and grimy, and people die, friends die, and people are affected by these things. The Tara Chace character is flawed, nuanced, and full of life, obviously her story is one of the driving forces of the series. You care about her, and you want to see her work her life out. My biggest issue, is there is no real ending (maybe in the novels, which I do plan to read as I go along a second re-read of this series in the future), and the continuity is strong in terms of characters, but from operation to operation artists change and with that comes their interpretation of the Q&C world and sometimes each operation could be read on its own. I love the main characters, I didn't care for some of the declassified stories and the ordering is especially awkward as some of the declassified stories deal heavily with the current operations, and the novels take place between operations as well. Overall excellent main characters and an excellent attention to detail and realism. A welcome change of pace, and a must for anybody who loves spy thrillers.

Bullseye: Perfect Game - I don't remember much about these books, but the general feeling was that I liked it. I've always liked the Bullseye character as while shades of gray is great, sometimes it's just fun to have someone just be sadistic and evil for the sake of evil...that's Bullseye, he's a murdering dick and proud of it. These issues look at one of his assassinations, one that's gone under the radar, the framing device is fantastic and I really like it, it's all told in flashback by someone who's not Bulleye, but the flashbacks retains everything that makes the title character who he is. It's an inconsequential, but fun read.

Daredevil Father, Daredevil NOIR - Daredevil is my favorite character, but these two stories didn't do much for me. I'm sure I thought they were okay, but they didn't leave any sort of lasting impression on me. Both of them have things that I both like and hate, the art in Father is quite amazing, and truly makes Daredevil an enigma (not a charismatic one), someone to be feared. The story though leaves a little to be desired and goes on for a little long. The worst part about it is the throwing in of a whole slew (team)of new superheroes where only one (or two) could have served the purpose and maybe have had more focus. Noir is short and succint, fun for it's elseworlds style, but it's even more inconsequential than Bullseye: Perfect Game was, and I remember even less of it.

Fantastic Four: Four Books of Doom - I'm not a consistent FF reader and I don't know why because I've liked a lot of it. I've read some Lee, first hardcover of Waid, the stuff before and during the Civil War, the first 6 trades of Ultimate FF, and am interested in checking out Hickman's. The thing is I've never LOVED any of it but I've always LOVED the DOOM character. This exploration of his origin was something that I truly enjoyed, it really showed the foundation and machinations of this fascinating character and that's exactly what I wanted. It's a great book and even though it lacks the twist and turns because of it's origin story structure, it's still a lot of fun to see the blanks filled in on this character, and Brubaker gives us a pretty definitive origin here.

Decimation: Son of M - As much as house of M was a cross-over story, I think that stand-out character, even though he didn't do much was Quicksilver. I was always interested in what happened to Quicksilver after House of M and part of that is here. The other part is his appearances in Peter David's X-Factor, but while the majority of it goes into that, the other half, is meant to set up an Inhumans crossover called Silent War. Now I really liked Jenkin's 12-issue Inhumans trade/story and they've never been done better than in there. There's some really crazy plot devices being used here as Quicksilver's mutant powers well...mutate... The book spotlights Quicksilver, obviously, and his desire to get his powers back and win back his family, his arc is pretty defined with a beginning and a middle, and while the book has an ending to the Quicksilver / his daughter and Crystal relationship story, it's still a cliffhanger about the Inhumans, and Quicksilver himself. I enjoyed it, but it's still a middle section to two stories (House of M, The Son of M, and Quicksilver's appearances in X-factor trilogy and Inhumans, Son of M, Silent War trilogy, these aren't defined by anybody else, just by me as that's how I see these stories). Really interesting take on Quicksilver here, as he continues his downward spiral.

Aztek: The Ultimate Man - I don't read a ton of Morrison and I never buy into the hype, his madcap stylings usually turn me off and confuse me. But I've enjoyed his superhero work. Even this one, it doesn't go too far into the crazy and stays comfortable in the superhero stylings. It's a solid superhero adventure. I don't remember much, outside of the fact that I enjoyed it. I heard this is a precursor to Morrison's JLA as Aztek looks to play a role there, I may revisit it before I begin reading Morrison's JLA run (which I got all 6 tpbs for $12, including this, and Ultramarine Corps :buttrock: . No Earth-2 though <_< ).

UP NEXT:

Bendis' New Avengers 1-13

Avengers: Kree/Skrull War

JLI vol 1-5(6?)

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Secret Six: I read the last issue. It works as an end to the series but, more than anything, it feels incomplete. I honestly believe that this arc was supposed to last longer but then Simone got told, "Oh yeah, we're canceling all of the line. Wrap up your story." I wonder, since this is the first of the books wrapping up this month that I've read, how many are going to read like this. I know that Green Lantern Corps and Emerald Warriors had their entire last two months stories changed.

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Mutant X #1-32 + 3 annuals-the first issues of this series is what made me fall in love with Tom Raney's art. Combine that with a really epic alternate reality story and you have a damned good Marvel book. THIS needs an omnibus!

Comics: 907

Trades: 22

Graphic Novels:1

Omnibuses: 5

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