Every comic you've read in 2016


Missy

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 745
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Hi. I'm Hannah's boyfriend. After lurking for years, I've finally joined.

Weirdworld v0, by Jason Aaron and Mike Del Mundo. Conan after two handfuls of LSD and somehow better. The concept lets Mike Del Mundo go monster mode on these pages and they're some of the wildest he's ever done. Weirdworld is berserk with ideas and reads like Mr. Aaron feeding Mr. Del Mundo craziness and Del Mundo matching and exceeding Mr. Aaron.

Welcome, Jim. I feel like this will be better for us, you know, arguing in person instead of through Hannah.

:)

:D Thanks for having me.
 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

House of Penance #6: This is a pretty straight downhill drop into pure madness over six issues. Beautifully drawn. Not a lot of story, but the experience was still solid.

The Black Monday Murders #1: Frustratingly dense. I get that Hickman likes design and shit, but keep your letters and files out of my comics. Put them at the end and make them optional. Boring is a word I would use to describe this. Wasted premise is another. I may give it another issue, because I have it. I may not.

Deadman Dark Mansion of Forbidden Love #1: terrible.

Death of Hawkman #1: also terrible.

Death of X #1: it was pretty good, but isn't it a little late? I feel like the X-books have moved away form this era quite efficiently in the past several months.

Deathstroke #3: solid. Liking this.

Demonic #2: sweet mother of fuck, this is good!

Eclipse #2: I wasn't super sold on the first issue, but this did it. Holy shit, this is the sci fi book I've been looking for.

Eden's Fall #2: not holding up well, sadly.

Evil Ernie Godeater #3: weird, but kind of fun.

Frostbite #1: the cold post-apocalyptic wasteland. Not new, but a good read, nonetheless.

Future Quest #5: this is so fucking delightful.

Generation Zero #2: Interesting...almost a horror story.

Green Valley #1: hmm...kind of a modern feeling medieval story. Super interesting.

International Iron Man #7: also interesting.

Intertwined #1: sort of a kung fu book. Not very good or memorable.

Invincible Iron Man #14: solid.

Jackboot & Ironheel #2,3: ok, this is pretty bad. I'm out.

Jessica Jones #1: maybe the single worst issue of a comic I've read this year. Fuck Bendis, man. 

Josie & The Pussycats #1: ehhh...not quite what I was hoping. Archie's earned me grabbing issue 2 though.

Comics: 1090
Trades: 40

Graphic Novels: 36

Omnibuses: 13

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fuck Bendis, man. 

Finally, something we can agree on. :P 

Semiautomagic vol 1 and Childhood's End: Collected edition of the stuff from Dark Horse Presents, and as I understand it, a few Kickstarter exclusive stories (Childhood's End). Ordway does some good stuff with the incredibly fucked up shit Alex comes up with (great way to get a seat's berth on the CTA during rush hour, btw). Solid nightmare fuel, and a good quick commute read.

Weirdworld vol 0: Aka the mini from the latest Secret Wars. Like Jim said, it's like they gave Del Mundo a stack of Conan, a sheet of acid, and told him to go nuts. Aaron's story, while fun, takes a backseat to Del Mundo doing some amazing, beautiful crack. I continue to be sad that this basically got sacked after this and one more trade.

Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service omnibuses 2 and 3: So it's right about here that you can tell that they've figured out they're not going to be cancelled, and as such, they feel free to start experimenting. Volume 2 is heavy on the nightmare fuel (most notably about Body Works type exhibits, yikes), and vol 2 and 3 starts moving towards longer serializations (while still keeping the occasional one off). You get a great balance between some genuinely funny, creepy, and poignant stories, while also developing our characters. Definitely worth a look if you find them.

Single Issues: 303
TPBs/Collections: 108
Digital First Issues: 11

Edited by Venneh
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Batman #9-10: While I had no idea what was going on in #9, #10 had a decent twist as it pertains to the letter written to Bruce. 

Superman #9-10: Number nine was a fun adventure story, continuing on from he previous issue. Ten brings Robin and Superboy together for the first time, but it's all rather so-so.

Comics: 447

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Superman #10 (2016): I thought this was really fun. My only nitpick is Superman bursting in all red eyed and angry but I think that was meant to be written for the gag of an angry father moreso than actual drama. I loved Jon and Damian's interactions, and Bruce and Clark's discussion on fatherhood was really cool. That has to be the first time those two have ever talked about being fathers together before.

Batman #10 (2016): I didn't care for this. The writing in regards to the letter was good and the artwork was nice. Batman barreling through a sovereign nation, getting his ass handed to him, seemingly paralyzed only to escape because "He's Batman" is really stupid. I kept waiting for a twist like he was a robot or it was someone else, but it really was just more of this "He's Batman and he's awesome fuck you" writing that I detest nowadays.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dr. Strange: The Doctor is Out!: By Mark Waid and Emma Rios, this was a nice little four issue miniseries. Done around 2009-2010, Strange has lost the mantle of the Sorcerer Supreme and is severely de-powered, having to rely on a new student who's adept at magic. Good artwork and a simple story made this a fun, quick read.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Occupy Avengers #1: The opening storyline looks like it's combining the events in Flint, Michigan with those of the Dakota Access Pipeline. I can't say I'm all that familiar with writer David F. Walker, but he has a handle on Clint, whom I always love as a reluctant team leader. This isn't Carlos Pacheco's best work, but he nails the action as well as Hawkeye's body language. I'm in for a while.

All-New, All-Different Avengers #15: Not only is this a (very loose) Civil War II tie-in, but it also sets the stage for Mark Waid's forthcoming flashback Avengers series -- the one numbered 1.1, 2.1, 3.1, etc. He perfectly captures the dynamic and voices of the founding Avegners, and it's great to see him writing Captain America / Steve Rogers again.

Champions #1-2: The first issue was a very solid "putting the team together" book, and the second is the team sitting around a campfire while they get to know each other. The cliffhanger will provide for a lot of teen angst rather than superhero drama, which works well with this book and its characters.

Avengers #1 (2016): Love it!

Comics: 453

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dr. Strange: THE OATH: Man this lived up to the hype. A very straightforward Strange story from 2007 with personal stakes, history, mystery and solid action. A five parter by Brian K. Vaughn and Marcos Martin, this miniseries heavily features Wong and the Night Nurse who I know in this story isn't the Claire Temple version but honestly could've been as she's written exactly like her. But with each issue this started strong and ended very strong. I wanna read the older stuff from Ditko, Englehart and Stern, but this is a terrific one to give to new readers. Highly recommended.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Champions #2: This reminds me a lot of Young Justice #9 or #10 back in the day. It's pretty much the same story. The group of super powered teenagers have a camp out and get to know each other. Waid shines with character driven stories like this. Ramos' artwork was great as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Time for some more catch up!

Another Castle 5: Wheeler tries to say big things as he wraps up the arc, and doesn't always succeed. The story wraps up nice enough, though. And Paulina's art continues to be fantastic, and have some great Easter eggs. 

Insexts 8: A bit of a time jump, but I don't mind it so much. Ariela seemed a bit crunched for time here on some pages, but things are still gorgeous. Nice interlude to the new arc and establishing the new status quo. 

The Vision 12: One of the best things Marvel out out recently. Bet they're kicking themselves over not signing Tom King exclusive while they could. Great that they got Walta back for this, too.

No Mercy 10: Carla Speed McNeil gets to draw a drug trip, and shut continues to be horrible and great. Bless you, DeCampi.

Monstress 7: Goddamnit Takeda stop making the tigers hot by putting them in suits. Interested to see where the next arc here goes. 

The Ultimates 11 - 12: There's some real obvious, real rough fill ins on 11, but they try to hide it as best they can. Ward fully takes over for 12, and while you can tell that he had a bunch of time on some of the splashes, some of his sequential pages look a bit rough. Plus, 12 necessarily has to tell stuff about a series that isn't finished yet, while carrying its own story, which is a bit difficult. Ewing carries some great moments with Chavez though, and crests a hell of a hook for the sequel series. 

The Mighty Thor 12: Aka that time they got Frazer Irving to fill in for an issue. Mjolnir's backstory, and what looks to be an interesting precedent going into next arc.

I Hate Fairyland 9 - 10: Goes back to the more one off, off the wall insanity, contained adventures. Not gonna pick this up regularly anymore I think, but still gonna be fun to page through when I need a good laugh.

Gotham Academy Annual and Second Semester 1-2: Continuing boarding school detective club shenanigans. Feels like it's kinda fallen into a holding pattern, so I'm gonna drop this for now and pick it up occasionally on the trade.

Deadly Class 23: More interestingness as we get to know the new class through a high D+D game, as well as Saya's mysterious backstory starting to assert itself fully. Craig has a great time with the D+D session especially.

WicDiv 23: The combination of some goddamn gorgeous Wada layouts, a fun experiment with the issue as an in world magazine, and some really great pairings (aka Laurie Penny doing a piece with the character who's kind of a Milo parody) for writer and character. Plus, for those who've followed Jamie and Kieron long enough, some real cute throwbacks to some of their earliest work. Bring on the new arc.

Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service omnibus 4: So remember how I said that the series started experimenting around omnibus 2 and 3? Now they've got the perfect timing of longer arcs and some straight up demented shit as the characters start to come into their own. Next omnibus won't be out for a while, but it's one I'm willing to wait for. 

Single Issues: 318
TPBs/Collections: 109
Digital First Issues: 11

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Saga 37-39: Things seem low key for now, and brings up new threads while touching back on some old ones. Solid read as ever.

Old Man Logan 1: The Secret Wars mini, I believe. Green Arrow team does Old Man Logan, and manages to create an interesting time travel thread. Not particularly spectacular, but solid enough.

Single Issues: 322
TPBs/Collections: 109
Digital First Issues: 11

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Umbral vol 2 (and also 1): We picked up the second trade at a signing for Johnston and Mittens earlier in October. I read through vol 2, realized I had completely forgot what happened in vol 1, and promptly spent a half hour trying to find the first trade in the apartment. The art and colors on this are gorgeous, but honestly, this took too long to get going story wise, and the fact that I had completely forgotten most of the salient points of vol 1 half a year after reading it is not good. Vol 2 says "to be continued" at the end, but apparently at the end this was selling less than 1k copies, so I'm somehow doubting that. There's the seed of a good plot here, but it's buried under too many plot lines.

Single Issues: 322
TPBs/Collections: 111
Digital First Issues: 11

Edited by Venneh
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Untold Tales of Spider-Man #-1: Such a wonderful mixture of classic Marvel action and romance comics, with plenty of continuity-nods tossed in. The creative team of Roger Stern and John Romita, Sr. truly understand and respect Marvel history; their craftsmanship is displayed on every page, especially when it comes to the more romantic aspects of the book. Had this creative team put together The Amazing Adventures of Richard and Mary Parker ongoing, I would have gobbled it up each month.

Logan's brief appearance is a nice touch, too. It isn't a case of "look how cool Wolverine is," but, rather it reveals a little bit of Logan's history pre-Weapon X. (As an aside, when I read Wolverine in any comic from the 1990s, I automatically read his dialog with Cal Dodd's voice.)

After reading this one-off issue, it might be time for a complete reread of the series.

Comics: 454

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Spawn Kills Everyone #1: Hot garbage. Not the benign kind, either. The foul and stinky stuff that stays in the air for hours after you take it out to the can in the garage.

Savage Dragon #201-16: So, I'm a year and a half behind on SD and The Walking Dead. Now I'm caught up on this one. Most of this is basically a sex comedy featuring Dragon's son and is becoming more of an adventure hero who happens to be a father to three super-powered dragon kids. It's fucking weird, but totally delightful.

King's Quest #5: again, this is ok.

Kingsway West #2: yeah...I'm out.

Lake of Fire #2: solid. I'm in for more.

Leaving Megalopolis: Surviving Megalopolis #6: solid miniseries.

Lone Ranger/Green Hornet #3: this is fun stuff. A litte disjointed, but I've always loved the connection these two pulp characters shared.

Lucas Stand #4: good.

Lucifer #10: this is still so fucking good.

Midnighter & Apollo #1: This is probably the most homosexually suggestive comic that's been a part of a main line of a major publisher, so it's got that going for it. Not as sharp or snappy as the prior Midnighter series, but not much could be.

Moonshine #1: Ok, so far. I'll do one more.

Nighthawk #5: really good.

Nightwing #6: oof, when is this crossover done?

Nova #11: The reveal to his friends is really fun and feels real.

Raven #1: this was alright. Not great.

Romulus #1: I feel like the world-building on the first 12 pages of this issue could very much have been done easily in a few captions. I liked it, regardless.

Scrimshaw #1: fucking terrible.

Seven to Eternity #1: beautiful,, but I'm not sold on the story yet.

Comics: 1123
Trades: 40

Graphic Novels: 36

Omnibuses: 13

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Plastic Man (1988) #1-4: A miniseries by Phil Foglio (Girl Genius) and Hilary Barta, reintroducing Plas and Woozy Winks into post-Crisis continuity. This takes its cues from the original Jack Cole comics from the 1940s, and is actually fairly successful. It manages to be genuinely amusing without grating, and I found myself laughing more than once. Barta, mostly known as an inker, turns in some great cartooning here, and I wish he had done more penciling work. Very fun stuff with a notoriously difficult character to get right.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Saga 36-39: Still great. Still a tremendously good comic, month in, month out.

Lazarus 24: Probably dropping after the next issue comes out. The story's good, the world building's great, but Mr. Lark's work feels subpar to me, and I've felt that way for the past ten odd issues. Trade waiting ahoy.

Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service omnibus v4: Horror manga as social fiction. I've read quite a bit, and there's no taste quite like Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. I'm invested in the characters, I like the stories, I love the art. As long as Dark Horse wants to put these out, I'll buy 'em.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cage #1: Sigh. I've been looking forward to this book since Marvel announced it in 2007, and I am so disappointed. It's a parody of a 1970s comic, not a loving tribute. Because I've preordered, I'm stuck with two more issue, but I'm not ordering the final issue.

Comics: 455

Link to comment
Share on other sites

LOL Nobody's been liking Tartakovsky's Cage.

Outsiders vol.3: I feel like saying the same thing I said for the first two trades. It's a melodramatic, EXTREEEME team book written by an honestly capable writer in Judd Winnick who's style I really don't care for. As such, there are things I like and don't like but it's ultimately not as good as I think it can be. There's a focus on only a handful of characters (Arsenal, Grace, Indigo) at the expense of others (Jade, Thunder, Starfire), making the book come off as self-indulgent. Constant yelling and swearing that contrives the book to feel like the stakes are high when it only has one mood. There's a two part child trafficking plot that literally includes John Walsh where the intentions are nice but it comes off as almost exploitative and doesn't properly deal with the ramifications of that kind of story. You can tell the book really thinks it's being real world, but it's a throwaway story with little-to-no lasting repercussions.

Nightwing finds out Batman's been funding the team behind his back which pisses him off and he goes to yell at him and finds out that Arsenal has been unwittingly colluding with Deathstroke OH NOEZ! Deathstroke beats him up, lets him live for no reason making Roy believe that there's a TRAITOR! on the team, has everyone realize he doesn't trust any of them and is willing to kill them at a moment's notice before vetting everyone except Shift because he didn't have to because it's obvious to him that SHIFT IS THE TRAITOR! I feel like this book had a decent metric of basic quality that's fallen off with this volume. It's better than most angsty team books of today but that really isn't saying much. The first issue does sport art by Dan Jurgens and looks beautiful though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Detective Comics #944: The issues are always good when Eddy Barrows is on art.

Gotham Central vol.2: Jokers and Madmen: Started reading this series a couple of years back and fell off in the middle of this volume, so I re-read the Joker plot and finished the rest from top to bottom. It's Gotham Central, it's a top-tier brilliant comic book series. Having read Judd Winnick's Outsiders yesterday, this series reads like everything that book tried to be but failed at. It's mature but has a story to tell. The way Rucka and Brubaker weave in elements of Batman's world like the Joker, Penguin and Mad Hatter is perfect. The book is in Batman's world but never wavers in tone. It's utterly peerless. The Michael Lark drawn issues are more engaging than the others, but this was solid from top to bottom.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Black #1-#2: By Kwanza Osajyefo and Jamale Igle, the much anticipated comic about black people with powers fighting crooked cops. I was not excited for this because in the wake of a flurry of public police shootings of unarmed black boys, this came across to me as thoroughly exploitative and ill-considered. I understand-beyond-understanding the need to express reactions at systemic oppression, but this always looked like a rush job on thought with no intent to say or mean anything deeper than re-appropriating the images of black kids getting killed by cops. It always really got under my skin, and everything said by the creators about the project re-affirmed by anxiety.

Having read the first two issues, I was exactly right. But the biggest takeaway I got from Black is that it's painfully obvious Osajyefo is cribbing from early Milestone. I didn't have to read his stories about meeting Dwayne McDuffie and being severely influenced by him to figure that out after the first issue. It's very 90s, and not in a good way. There's shadowy governments, mutant powers, badly given exposition, cliche'd character archetypes and names that are right down the street of Blood Syndicate (I feel like "Juncture" was a Milestone character as well). The thing is...Milestone is very of its time. If you read early Icon or Static, they were definitely dated...but they were still much more nuanced than this is. You spent the entire first issue of Static knowing who Virgil Hawkins was. You spent the entire first issue of Icon knowing who Raquel and Augustus were. With Black #1, Kareem is shot to pieces, discovers he can survive gunshot wounds, gets taken by Juncture to be recruited for "The Project" (ugh) and really not explained much at all beyond black people have super powers. There's zero world building, zero context for how exactly the world is supposed to be received as by the reader. Is this taking place in 2016 or the 1980s? Are all black people on the run? Is there a president? Is this just for this city or for the entire country? The world? This had potential to be something a lot stronger, and it may get better, but as of now it reeks of a Milestone knockoff bordering on fanfiction. Jamal Igle's artwork is solid even though I find his style pretty uninteresting. But Kwanza Osajyefo's writing style is too unimaginative for me to take seriously. Sam Wilson: Captain America strikes a better chord at telling politically resonant, modern-day stories about being black in America. Luke Cage the Netflix series was better than this. This really lets its subject matter down, and kind of insults whats going on in the country by using modern day atrocities as a starting point for its shittily written 90s comic book throwback.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Daredevil #13: So good.

All-Star Batman #4: Why am I still reading this?

Invincible Iron Man #1: Random gun violence has been a cornerstone of superhero origin stories dating back to Batman, as such, we accept it as the norm when someone's pre-superhero days includes death by gunfire. That said, Riri Williams losing her best friend and stepfather to a drive-by in Chicago seems wrongheaded on so many levels.

Comics: 458

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.