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Gødland #1, 2
Gødland Celestial Edition Book One
See how the greatest cosmic superhero epic of the new century began! See Commander Adam Archer, Maxim, Basil Cronus, Nickelhead, IBOGA and more in all their oversized glory! What other book delivers the secret origin of the universe? What other book squeezes your guts like an angry Torture-Bot? Only Godland gives you everything you'll ever need!
- GenresComicsGraphic Novels
360 pages, Hardcover
First published August 15, 2007
3 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Joe Casey
971 books86 followersLibrarian note: there is more than one author with this name
Joe Casey is an American comic book writer. He has worked on titles such as Wildcats 3.0, Uncanny X-Men, The Intimates, Adventures of Superman, and G.I. Joe: America's Elite among others. As part of the comics creator group Man of Action Studios, Casey is one of the creators of the animated series Ben 10.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Casey
Joe Casey is an American comic book writer. He has worked on titles such as Wildcats 3.0, Uncanny X-Men, The Intimates, Adventures of Superman, and G.I. Joe: America's Elite among others. As part of the comics creator group Man of Action Studios, Casey is one of the creators of the animated series Ben 10.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Casey
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
October 16, 2008
Didn't like the art (was it intentionally ignoring the laws of anatomy in "homage" to old comics?). Thought the story was cheesy. But I still got halfway through before stopping myself from reading anymore.
April 5, 2012
If you like the later work of Jack Kirby then Godland is the title for you. Presenting Kirby as genre rather than trope, and utilizing Joe Casey's unique sense of humor and responsibility Casey and Scioli create something that is greater than the sum of its part.
February 6, 2023
This is for people who appreciate old school comics, especially Jack Kirby's Fourth World and other cosmic comics. As it is done in the style of Kirby, it has instant nostalgia appeal for certain generations, but it may put off younger readers. It deals with cosmic ideas and themes, with an old-school ridiculousness that is like spun gold in the modern comic arena. It harkens back to when the villain's were bombastic, out-of-control, but took themselves very seriously. It doesn't address real world problems, doesn't try and make a point about society or capitalism, but simply offers an escape from the doldrums of everyday life.
Adam Archer was the lone survivor of America first manned expedition to Mars. There he comes across a snippy collective of celestial fetuses who transform him into a being of energy in order to help mankind's evolution to the next stage of their journey. Naturally he has problems along the way and a host of weird villains to combat.
My only gripe with this series so far, is that Archer seems to almost be a secondary character in his own book. There are many story lines wrapping around, but he is almost involved in none of them. The stories of many villains build and build, with no resolution, and no interaction with Archer, and it leaves me wondering if they will ever meet. The fact that the villains' plots are actually more interesting than Archer's many meandering diatribe's of what is expected to him does not help. Despite this, I am eager to see what comes next.
Adam Archer was the lone survivor of America first manned expedition to Mars. There he comes across a snippy collective of celestial fetuses who transform him into a being of energy in order to help mankind's evolution to the next stage of their journey. Naturally he has problems along the way and a host of weird villains to combat.
My only gripe with this series so far, is that Archer seems to almost be a secondary character in his own book. There are many story lines wrapping around, but he is almost involved in none of them. The stories of many villains build and build, with no resolution, and no interaction with Archer, and it leaves me wondering if they will ever meet. The fact that the villains' plots are actually more interesting than Archer's many meandering diatribe's of what is expected to him does not help. Despite this, I am eager to see what comes next.
February 17, 2024
Collecting the first 12 issues of the Fourth World pastiche series, Gødland Celestial Edition Book One has Joe Casey and Tom Scioli really do pastiche. Gødland is neither parody nor spoof, but tells its own story "in the style of", and even updates that style to its own era (the mid-2000s). Casey, for example, uses Kirbyesque bombast in the dialog (and most pleasurably, in the "next month!" pages), but it's today's bombast, today's pop culture references, today's lingo. Similarly, while Scioli is affecting a Kirbyesque style, none of the characters are OBVIOUSLY analogs of any of Kirby's cosmic superheroes (whether the DC, Marvel, Pacific or Topps ones). The universe is BIG, but the focus is fairly narrow. We follow Adam Archer, astronaut empowered by an enlightened alien race, and his three sisters who act as human helpers (and in one case, perhaps as foil). Plenty of strange villains with odd concepts pull him into action, even as he starts, in this first year of the book, to get a handle on just how powerful he really is. The action is wild, the visuals crackle, the dialog is often amusing, and the world-building always novel and interesting. It's funny in the way only pastiche is, so I'm not sure it will work as well for readers who aren't fans of Kirby, but I like comics made for comics fans since, well, I am one!
December 3, 2020
il Kirbyano come un genere; è questa la premessa e il riassunto di questo lussuoso volume.
Con tutti i pregi e i difetti del Kirbyano, (o forse meglio dire Kirbesco?) perché questo fumetto dichiaratamente vintage nello stile di disegno come nella colorazione, riprende volutamente molti degli stilemi di Jack Kirby come autore completo, partendo dal genere di storie per passare all'impostazione della tavola.
Tom Scioli comunque non è Jack Kirby e si vede, la legnosità e scarsa espressione dei volti dei suoi personaggi è solo una caricatura di quello che faceva il Re dei comics. Se la cava molto meglio sulle dinamiche dell'azione dei protagonisti. La sequenza delle vignette è buona e ben impostata, non tutte le splash page o le doppie splash page possono dirsi riuscite, ma più si avanza nella lettura e più migliorano, in generale, i disegni.
Joe Casey è un fan di quel periodo, e io ho sempre gradito, quando non decisamente molto apprezzato le sue storie sui personaggi Marvel e DC. Qui posso dire che non mi sta deludendo, anche se il suo tentativo di ricreare didascalie flamboiant a la Lee non lo gradisco più di tanto. I dialoghi tra i personaggi sono buoni.
Vedrò volentieri (l'hanno prossimo penso) come prosegue questa saga.
3 stelle e mezza.
Con tutti i pregi e i difetti del Kirbyano, (o forse meglio dire Kirbesco?) perché questo fumetto dichiaratamente vintage nello stile di disegno come nella colorazione, riprende volutamente molti degli stilemi di Jack Kirby come autore completo, partendo dal genere di storie per passare all'impostazione della tavola.
Tom Scioli comunque non è Jack Kirby e si vede, la legnosità e scarsa espressione dei volti dei suoi personaggi è solo una caricatura di quello che faceva il Re dei comics. Se la cava molto meglio sulle dinamiche dell'azione dei protagonisti. La sequenza delle vignette è buona e ben impostata, non tutte le splash page o le doppie splash page possono dirsi riuscite, ma più si avanza nella lettura e più migliorano, in generale, i disegni.
Joe Casey è un fan di quel periodo, e io ho sempre gradito, quando non decisamente molto apprezzato le sue storie sui personaggi Marvel e DC. Qui posso dire che non mi sta deludendo, anche se il suo tentativo di ricreare didascalie flamboiant a la Lee non lo gradisco più di tanto. I dialoghi tra i personaggi sono buoni.
Vedrò volentieri (l'hanno prossimo penso) come prosegue questa saga.
3 stelle e mezza.
March 18, 2020
The superhero yells its ability as it uses it, the drawing of humans within the story are not even close to anatomically correct and the story leaves a lot to be desired. Worst Graphic novel I have read to date.
September 27, 2017
the best Kirby without the king !!!!
June 17, 2018
A fun cosmic romp, but I’m mostly in it for the art.
September 15, 2014
I know I'm not making any friends by saying this, but Jack Kirby's Fourth World comics is one of the biggest jokes in all of comicdom. It's not enough that superhero comics themselves are so one-dimensional and infantile, but the Fourth World and celestial/cosmic in general took that to the almost comic extreme. So as you can imagine, the Fourth World comics are an embarrassment in the perfect sense of the word.
So really, what's a comic powerhouse like Joe Casey doing writing something like this? Godland is a revamped homage to the celestial comics of yore, but the only difference being that it's as much an homage as it is a parody. Like Jack Kirby's disaster, Godland is full of great artwork (and I mean that wholeheartedly: Tom Scioli makes every page come to life with brilliant colors and perfectly Kirby-esque art), terrible plotlines, awful dialogue, and boring characters. In short, everything that made those comics so terrible is here, plot holes and all. In fact, Godland is just as enjoyable (if not more so) by not reading any of the dialogue and just taking in the great artwork, which this Celestial Edition collects in a wonderfully oversized hardcover.
This Celestial Edition also comes with a cover gallery, a special Christmas story featuring the greatest character in the series Basil Cronus, and an introduction by Grant Morrison not exactly praising the series.
It's really not worth going too much into what happens in Godland: Adam Archer is an astronaut who has been bestowed superpowers by come cosmic beings and has to fight the constant barrage of laughable super villains threatening Earth. At no point is the reader actually invested in the story because we all know that the tables can turn at any moment when the writing pulls a superpower out of its ass to bust the superhero out of a bind. So really, Godland exists in a complete and total vacuum, for its own self-indulgence. We can only stand by and watch the train wreck as it happens.
So really, Joe Casey and Tom Scioli's Godland is the only way to read cosmic/celestial comics. It's as terrible now as it was back then, except this time we're all in on the joke.
So really, what's a comic powerhouse like Joe Casey doing writing something like this? Godland is a revamped homage to the celestial comics of yore, but the only difference being that it's as much an homage as it is a parody. Like Jack Kirby's disaster, Godland is full of great artwork (and I mean that wholeheartedly: Tom Scioli makes every page come to life with brilliant colors and perfectly Kirby-esque art), terrible plotlines, awful dialogue, and boring characters. In short, everything that made those comics so terrible is here, plot holes and all. In fact, Godland is just as enjoyable (if not more so) by not reading any of the dialogue and just taking in the great artwork, which this Celestial Edition collects in a wonderfully oversized hardcover.
This Celestial Edition also comes with a cover gallery, a special Christmas story featuring the greatest character in the series Basil Cronus, and an introduction by Grant Morrison not exactly praising the series.
It's really not worth going too much into what happens in Godland: Adam Archer is an astronaut who has been bestowed superpowers by come cosmic beings and has to fight the constant barrage of laughable super villains threatening Earth. At no point is the reader actually invested in the story because we all know that the tables can turn at any moment when the writing pulls a superpower out of its ass to bust the superhero out of a bind. So really, Godland exists in a complete and total vacuum, for its own self-indulgence. We can only stand by and watch the train wreck as it happens.
So really, Joe Casey and Tom Scioli's Godland is the only way to read cosmic/celestial comics. It's as terrible now as it was back then, except this time we're all in on the joke.
September 23, 2007
this is like the third time i've read these stories, and this, with tom scioli's kirby-infused cosmic pencil drawings blown up big, is probably the way to read them. a context setting introduction by grant morrison, and an essay at the end by tom spurgeon (which includes a great review of casey's oeuvre, & in particular a nice reading of his lamented series "The Intimates") brackets joe casey's examination of jack kirby cosmic yearning and awareness as a honest-to-god viable genre exploring humanity and transformation in the twenty-first century.
March 20, 2011
GODLAND is a lot of fun. I'll probably drop the dough for the second volume. The only thing that kept me from giving it 4 stars is that it meanders a bit much; I'd prefer a more driven plot. Also, Scioli is at times awesome and at other times weak -- his odd perspectives, especially when drawing characters, sometimes works and sometimes doesn't.
But I do love that Casey and Scioli are aiming big and cosmic, something I have a fondness for coming out the '70s era of Marvel Comics.
But I do love that Casey and Scioli are aiming big and cosmic, something I have a fondness for coming out the '70s era of Marvel Comics.
May 3, 2011
If you liked the cosmic epics of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, you will love this. A loving yet mischievous tribute with a modern now a-go-go spin.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews