What? Those bastards. Well at least now I can catch up with my GL trades. Last one I got was Sinestro Corps war part 1,

So, for some reason I was thinking about this last night as I was trying to sleep. A sure sign of my utterly hopeless NERDAGE.

The Flash has had a messed up few years.

- Wally West and Kid Flash (Bart Allen) run into the speed-force in Infinite Crisis in attempt to stop Superboy-Prime. Bart Allen manages to escape, but is now an adult.
- Adult Bart Allen becomes The Flash. His series lasts something like 12 issues and he is later killed.
- Wally West is brought back into reality by the Legion of Super-Heroes in the present era.
- Wally become The Flash again and the numbering of his old book continues. But it is soon canceled!
- Bart Allen is brought back to life in the 30th century by the Legion of Super-Heroes, and is a teenager again and back to being Kid Flash.
- Barry Allen is brought back to life in the pages of Final Crisis and we have yet another new Flash, and another new Flash series.

Dude, I kinda really want to get into a lot more DC comics, but shit like that is exactly why I don't. I have no idea where to start.

http://forums.comicbookresources.com...f=6&order=desc

Any specific characters?

Yeah, I thought x-men's history was convoluted, but dc is ridiculous. Not to mention the stupid amount of retcons.

Most of X-Men isn't too bad for that. There's a period immediately after Polaris first joins the team where they released a "hidden years" series to flesh it out. It's actually well done. There's a lot of "Days of Future ____" sprinkled throughout the 80s and 90s that gets pretty ridiculous, but if you follow the (Revised) Chronological X-Men torrents, you will be fine all the way up to around Uncanny X-Men 475. Not just X-Men, mind you, but all canon X-teams (X-Factor, X-Terminators, etc) and related X-family books (Cable, Deadpool, etc). They're pretty good shit.

Plan on buying all this shit through trades when I am finally able to do so (gonna cost a fucking fortune tho).

The Walking Dead
American Splendor
Y: The Last Man
Sandman (well, it has the occasional superhero in it since it's still in DC continuity, but rarely ever counts as an actual superhero book)
Usagi Yojimbo
100 Bullets

As much as I love DC, that right there is the God's honest truth. It's impossible to keep up with the actual makeup of the DC Universe because they completely retcon just about everything about every five years or so. Usually in a sad attempt to "modernize" their characters, which always ends up in embarrassing disasters like Superman Blue.

I dunno, to me DC is way more straightforward than Marvel.

Also, 100 Bullets was pretty terrible.

As for non-hero books, one of my favorites on the market right now is Fables. About to hit its 10th issue, but TPBs are readily available. Basically follows the lives of various Fables (Snow White, Big Bad Wolf, Boy Blue, Prince Charming etc...) as they have been forced out of their various homelands by an all-conquering "Advesary" and now live in the "mundane" world in New York City.

I think the Spiderman clone saga from years ago almost killed me from reading Marvel books for a long time, it was so convoluted to me. :lol:

I was never a religious reader of any series from either company outside of Knightfall it seems like they both reset everything so often, such as Zero Hour after Knightfall. Stuff like that really turns some people off. I mean going back to Spidey, I never was a big fan of his but I was going through different characters a few months ago since I stopped reading comics for the most part after No Man's Land for DC and Hero's Return in Marvel, and I saw Mysterio reset Spiderman back to before he met Mary Jane, I stopped reading up on him as soon as I saw that.

I was always a fan of the Iron Man, Captain America and Batman books though, anyone know a good point to pick up on any of those?

Captain America definitely the current volume by Brubaker. I believe they even have massive omnibus out collecting his run.

Batman books, you can start getting all the post Batman: RIP stuff with Dick Grayson as Batman, or you can start getting "The Return of Bruce Wayne". Then there is a new "Batman Inc" series starting up soon by Grant Morrison... but Morrison has been real crap lately, so probably try the bat-books that aren't written by him.

Sounds good. Didn't think I would like anyone but Bruce as Batman, but I really got into Azreal. Shame he got offed, JP Valley will probably end up being the only character in comic history not brought back from the dead. :lol:

Apparently there is an Azrael as Batman/Punisher crossover somewhere out there.

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__...ke_of_Fire.jpg

That just looks awesome.

If you like Batman, check out Daredevil by Ed Brubaker. Awesome street level crime stuff with a dash of ninja and superheroics.



http://i37.tinypic.com/ojktg0.jpg


Even though I'm trade waiting Shadowland, I read the first 2 issues and liked it. Anybody else?

I want a Daredevil/Ninja Turtles crossover so bad

Daredevil as a character always intrigued me especially when he was living in the street, but for some reason I never started reading the comics. Probably lack of supply as most places around here only carry the mainstream books.

That would be great because that's what inspired their creation :)

Pretty much anything Brubaker writes is the goods.

- His Batman stuff
- His run on Catwoman
- Gotham Central
- Captain America
- Criminal
- Incognito
- Daredevil
- Immortal Iron Fist

Gotham Central is pretty awesome, for anyone who hasn't read it. Basically a CSI-type comic focused around the detectives of Gotham. My only gripe with it is that it was written at a point when Jim Gordon and Harvey Bullock weren't on the force. Biggest names left were Renee Montoya and Crispus Allen, along with Maggie Sawyer (who was a Superman supporting character in the 90s). But there was a larger cast of names that you get to eventually know.

It was still the goods though. Get to see everything from the police perspective. One of my favorite Joker stories is in this series as well.

I love the artwork that mcfarlane does.... i believe he was the original artist for venom and of course his work on spawn is awesome

Yea McFarlane did Spidey during the original Venom stuff.

http://www.spiderfan.org/comics/imag...mazing/300.jpg

First appearance of Venom is in this issue, I think

I always loved the way he drew Spidey. I think it's probably my favorite look for the Spiderman characters. If I recally correctly his Hobgoblin was amazing. Even the webbing always looked amazing

I just got done reading The Sword tonight actually. Pretty good shit.

Maus

I haven't read A History of Violence or Road To Perdition, but I enjoy the film adaptations

You can also check out Jeff Smith's Bone. One of my favorites as well.

warren ellis' transmetropolitan
brian wood's dmz
garth ennis' preacher
brian k vaughan's ex machina (okay there's kind of a superhero in it but i promise you it is not a superhero book - it's written by the same author as y: the last man so just go with me on this)
alan moore's from hell
" " " " league of extraordinary gentlemen
" " " " v for vendetta

and i second the mentions of fables and the walking dead. 100 bullets is alright, but i never got really excited about it.

I never really got into DMZ. Using your words, it is alright, but I never got really excited about it.

Ex Machina is good stuff as well. Former superhero decides to become Mayor of New York instead. I think it is ending sometime in the next few months. It isn't as good as Y: The Last Man, but it is still good.

Also by Brian K. Vaughan, but involving superpowers, is Runaways. At least the first volume of it. A bunch of teens find out their parents are super villains and they... well... run away. The first volume is pretty sweet. Tells pretty much a complete story, which is probably why the continuing series has never been as good.

i like dmz way more than 100 bullets. don't know why.

runaways is awesome - or at least, as you said, the first volume is.

grant morrison's run on doom patrol is another atypical superhero book. yeah, they're superheroes, but they're superheroes you've never heard of and they fight villains like this one guy who is simultaneously convinced he is both jack the ripper and god, and survives on the screams of butterflies pinned to the walls of his hallways.

otherwise, give something like hellblazer a bash. even hellboy or the mask. the dark horse comic is pretty badass.

So do I, but to me 100 Bullets was pretty terrible.

i had this motion comic cd-rom of the entire the mask: the origin saga. someone put it on youtube. good stuff.

first part:

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/vXbSVjQKalQ?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/vXbSVjQKalQ?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>

so much better than the movie. way more violent and funny and stuff.

I disagree about Morrison's run on batman. I am biased though, because I had read all those ridiculous case files stories that were the basis of R.I.P., and I marked out about it. I think Morrison is just a "love him or hate him" kind of guy. Has a lot to do with how experimental he gets with characters. He makes a lot of bold changes, and trys a lot of new things. I like that, but some might not.

I just picked up the HC of the Batman and Robin trade, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

I also picked up the Blackest Night hardcover, and I suggest you all do the same. I know I said in the comic group that it wasn't as good as I thought it would be, but it's still very good.

The main reason you should pick it up is the artwork. Ivan Reis is easily the best penciler in comics today, and this is his swan song. There are several two page spreads in every issue, and all of them are packed with so much detail, that it's hard to even start to take it all in. Some of them have upwards of 50 characters in them, yet every single one is detailed, and isn't just a sillouette, like in a lot of similar pieces by other artists.

Also, after reading this, and Flash: Rebirth, Barry Allen has become another of my favorite DC characters.

I like some of Morrison's other stuff, but his Batman stuff just never clicked with me. I have found all the other Bat-Titles pretty excellent over the past few years though.

I LOVE Morrisons Batman and probably look forward to his Batman the most in the month.

yeah total morrison mark here. have loved everything he's done since he took over writing batman and his other bat-based titles in the wake of winick's fucking trainwreck of a run.