The Sword and Laser discussion

new thread for the new year...

Got some new ones for the new year lol

The Dark Room

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin - Lost Years

Rat Queens, Vol. 1: Sass & Sorcery

Ex Machina, Vol. 1: The First Hundred Days

I really liked Rat Queens. But then it abruptly ended due to a lot of behind the scenes stuff. Then I think it came back, but didn't back up where it left off and I kind of lost interest.

I should circle back one of these days to see what's going on there

Rob wrote: "I really liked Rat Queens. But then it abruptly ended due to a lot of behind the scenes stuff. Then I think it came back, but didn't back up where it left off and I kind of lost interest.

I should..."

I think it got a last issue wrap up thing last fall. I didn't read it, since I had only read the first trade or two, but I noticed it.

I just finished The Sandman Universe: Nightmare Country 1.

I’ve been buying all these massive omnibus collections and I have to read them while I’m still strong enough to pick them up. The Spider-Verse/Spider-Geddon one weighs 8 pounds. The Edgar Rice Burroughs collection weighs 14.6!

I never thought reading comics would one day require a gym membership.

Digitally I’ve read 6 comics so far this year.

Fantastic Four, Vol. 1: Whatever Happened to the Fantastic Four? is my sole 5-star read thus far, being way better than I expected it to.

Fire Power by Kirkman & Samnee, Vol. 1: Prelude and Fire Power by Kirkman & Samnee, Vol. 2: Home Fire were both 3-star books. Solid but nothing ground-breaking. It’s sort of a mash-up between Iron Fist and The Last Airbender.

Trike wrote: "I’ve been buying all these massive omnibus collections and I have to read them while I’m still strong enough to pick them up. The Spider-Verse/Spider-Geddon one weighs 8 pounds. The Edgar Rice Burr..."

Im a sucker for an omnibus version myself lol. The Invincible ones ive got are an absolute weight 🤣🤣 and now that i can get the Invincible Universe ones in a compendium too ill end up getting thise as well lol 👍👊

I've a big Marvel reading project that lasted most of last year (or more, I no longer remember when I started), when I followed a reading guide leading up to Secret Wars 2015. That was a like surfing along a raging river passing through more than 4 years of comics publication until it burst into the ocean.
It was a a great ride, and there still an endless amount left to read, but without the same clear destination I'm left paddling 🤣

Fredrik wrote: "I've a big Marvel reading project that lasted most of last year (or more, I no longer remember when I started), when I followed a reading guide leading up to Secret Wars 2015. That was a like surfi..."

At that point it kinda starts sounding like a job.

Trike wrote: "Fredrik wrote: "I've a big Marvel reading project that lasted most of last year (or more, I no longer remember when I started), when I followed a reading guide leading up to Secret Wars 2015. That ..."
I can't deny there were times I got too far into the weeds, had to stop and ask myself what I was doing and pull myself back on track 😅
But I wouldn't have kept reading if I didn't enjoy it.

Trike wrote: "I’ve been buying all these massive omnibus collections and I have to read them while I’m still strong enough to pick them up. "


(This is an actual product image on Amazon!)

Thor has long since passed the heights that Simonson brought to it. Straczynski did a good if not stellar job, then there was the future Thor and...well anyway, eventually it drifted off into "I don't care." But I will tend to pick up library trade paperbacks from time to time just to see what is being done to my once-fave character.

This time, a collection of the reboot Thor 1-16 plus an end of the universe "King Thor" 4 issue mini. And, yep, as bad as I expected. The first four issues of the reboot had a grotesque parody of Simonson storylines. Muddy art, incoherent panels, what story there was, hard to follow. From there on to...actually, after a few days I don't quite recall. Moderately better art. The next eight turned into low levels of mediocre (but up to mediocre) story. It's bleah levels of "deconstructing" Odin and Thor's relationship, but a decent take on the War of the Realms. Which, I didn't realize, had been some lengthy overdone crossover. I'll read the main storyline on Hoopla.

As for King Thor it was murky, heavy overuse of black, and mostly silly. But a decent take on Loki. I really could be spared the father/son maudlin emotionalism at the end. Jason Aaron has father issues, got it.

So a fellow I know from a comics discord channel has written a new comic, and it’s really pretty good. It’s called Mugshots, and it is released through Mad Cave. The other fun part is the artist is a childhood friend whom this is their first try at comic work. They were a commercial graphic artist first, but hadn’t done any sequential art before if I understand everything right. And Chris the artist just knocked out of the park. It’s a very mid century look to the art, with a very Saul Bass look to it, or what Darwin Cooke did in his Parker books, but the setting is more modern south England. Here is the preview for it. https://www.previewsworld.com/Catalog...

Read the Doctor Strange compilation, also by Jason Aaron. Well blech. It features a science-based character called Empirikul going on a multi-dimensional killing spree to eradicate magic. Apparently a black magic creature killed his family so now he's after all magic. Aaron gives him a Superman style escape as a child, gosh how cutesy.

Strange is immersed in all kinds of black magic, both paying the price himself and, unknowingly, Wong has recruited others to pay that price as well. Yeah. No thanks. Very much no thanks. We're even treated to grotesque scenes of Strange eating magical gross stew with eyeballs and entrails and anyway, what in God's name were they thinking? Art is muddy and incoherent as well. I remember Strange as the mystical light in the darkness. Here he's the barely grey glimmer in the darkness.

I barely flipped through the last half. Just endless nihilism. I used to love Dr. Strange, bought his main title and any side title with him in it. Now? It's awful. I'm left like the Godfather, saying "Look how they massacred my boy."

I'm currently a good ways into MICRONAUTS: THE ORIGINAL MARVEL YEARS OMNIBUS VOL. 1 COCKRUM COVER and boy howdy, the nostalgia is strong with this one. (And at some point hopefully within the next year or so, I'll own complete omnibus editions of both Micronauts and ROM in three volumes each.)

I recall the Micronauts as pretty enjoy*tik*able.

I just started Nightmare Country, Vol. 2: The Glass House.

John (Taloni) wrote: "I recall the Micronauts as pretty enjoy*tik*able."

I was going to make the same *tik* joke!

Soooo went to get The Unworthy Thor from the library (parts of it rose to the level of mediocre, and I'd already read it, just forgot.)

Anyway. On the shelf they had Frank Miller's 300. The hardcover / landscape / large format. It is oh my god levels of good. When Frank Miller is good he is very very good. (And when he is bad it is Dark Knight sequels...but we won't talk about those.)

It's even in murky / muddy panels which I usually hate, but worked here. The Spartan bard telling the story as the framing device, riling up the Greeks a year later. And the truth of the actual historical event. Spartans were tough and nasty, and treated other groups with contempt raging from disdain to outright slavery perpetrated by "treaties" that left them technically at war. They also did pretty much exactly what was depicted in the book. We owe them. And so like other great literature, this book leaves open a discussion, a conversation, about its meaning.

Read the Sci-fi stupidity that is Eden. 1 star, but I got a good rant out of it. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Shadecraft, Vol. 1 is quite good once you get past the first issue’s clunky establishing bits. 4 stars for me. I’m definitely in if they continue.

Time Before Time Vol. 5 was also 4 stars. A nice coda to this sci-fi time travel tale. Definitely buying the omnibus when they release that.

Maestro: Symphony in a Gamma Key is Peter David revisiting his Future Hulk story for a prequel. Prequels are tough but David nails it. 4 stars.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Currently reading Nightwing, Vol. 4: The Leap and it’s great so far. Tom Taylor is currently my favorite comic book writer who has had very few missteps. Of the 40 titles I’ve read by him, only 2 have outright disappointed, with 25 4- and 5-star reads. That’s an impressive record.

Just finished one of the best comics I’ve ever read, the over-the-top and hilarious The Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton, Vol. 1 that skewers and satirizes Hollywood in the wackiest ways possible.

My copy Fables: The Deluxe Edition Book Sixteen was just delivered. I'll be starting it tonight.

Picked up a Hoopla of War of the Realms, on account of seeing it referenced in some Thor stuff I read recently. Which is just up a bit, I didn't enjoy it much but why not check out the event. It's from 2020 so not too far back.

At about the 25% mark, it's at least a coherent plot and decent visuals. I don't have the "muddy colors" and nihilistic plot of the Jason Aaron Thor and Dr Strange stuff. This is also Jason Aaron.

So, on to my complaint. First off, if you're gonna use Norse mythology it's Nine Realms and no, I don't care that you wanna play and make it ten. And then the villains. The Enchantress I knew was never evil, just self interested. And Ulik. Ulik is one of my faves. He's a troll, and is for his people, so he and Thor are regularly opponents. But he's an honorable fighter. He would not be a villain. The retcons feel trite for the sake of Jason Aaron showing what a bitchin' writer he is. (He isn't.)

*sigh* now on to the rest for probably a decent read. But *man* do I miss the crossovers of the 80s/90s.

John (Taloni) wrote: "Picked up a Hoopla of War of the Realms, on account of seeing it referenced in some Thor stuff I read recently. Which is just up a bit, I didn't enjoy it much but why not check out the event. It's ..."

I read that back in 2020. Here’s my full 2-Star review:

This was epic. An epic mess, too. Apparently I needed to read something like 5+ years of previous comics to get what was going on here.

Looks like I’ve read 21 books by Aaron and he seems very hit-or-miss for me. 3 5-star, 4 4-star, 7 3-star, 6 2-star with 1 1-star. This is why I don’t seek him out, I guess.

^ I have little argument with that at the 50% mark. Just to note he isn't quite as bad here as his previous Thor and Dr Strange. Parts of it are almost okay. I'm loving Luke Cage with a hammer and the She-Hulk channeling Banner's "Smash" bit and the trolls and dwarves being mad for her is chuckleworthy. Freyja should have been a smash hit but so far has not come off well. Odin stabbed to invalidity but not dead, okay, you need the really powerful guy out of the action so others can step up, but meh. Some decent potential. Not well developed.

Okay, if, IF I was doing "Luke Cage with the hammer of Thor" I would absolutely stay away from the "Miles Morales" concept. There will be no "by the funky fade of Odin!"

Best part of Luke Cage is his attempt to raise his kid as a barely-powered hero in a city of superpowered opponents. So I'd have him be unworthy. He finds the stick and whacks it, and Mjolnir immediately drops him to the ground. Until he spots a parent being mugged. Then, for the duration, he is worthy. He has to choose his moments carefully.

Of course over time he'd become more and more worthy, and be able to heft the hammer regularly...but then he'd be less the Luke Cage we have known and loved. But it would be a fun ride.

Blathering on as I read (and will probably just edit this one as I go):

I have always loathed the "Ghost Lowrider" and considered it an atrocious and inappropriate storyline. Hated it on the SHIELD show, still hate it.

"Iron Odin" is pretty cool. But if it were Kirby, or Simonson, they'd have found a way to use the Destroyer. Keeping it more canon and less extension silliness.

I do not like Freyja portrayed as frigid. There are better ways to make that point. As in, Odin had perhaps fallen off in appreciation to her, not that he never showed it. But FWIW bloodthirsty Vikings does fit the mythology.

Punisher. Who'd'a thunk he would come off so well? I'm liking this portrayal.

I'm reading The Adventure Zone, Vol. 6: The Suffering Game.

New comics I've got in the last few months....

I Hate This Place

Ain't No Grave

Nights Volume 1

Nights Volume 2

Looking forward to reading this lot

I mentioned this once before, but the trade is out now Mugshots, is really good if you like British gangster style properties. The trade is now out, and the easiest way to get the series. The writing is excellent, and the art is fantastic for the most part as well, it is not perfect, but damn good for a first time comic creator. I also like his choice of black and white + 1 color. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

Just finished Sapiens: A Graphic History, Volume 2 - The Pillars of Civilization. I was underwhelmed. This was not as good as the first volume of the graphic novel series (Sapiens: A Graphic History, Volume 1 - The Birth of Humankind), nor as solid as I remember the original non-fiction book (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind) being. I will probably read the third volume (Sapiens: A Graphic History, Volume 3—The Masters of History), but I have much lower expectations now than I did going into this one.

I just read Hourglass by Barbara Mazzi. I really enjoyed the world and the two central characters in particular. It's a coming-of-age story and the connection between the two protagonists crosses the class divide between them in the pretty dystopian world they inhabit.

I also finished Minor Arcana #1 by Jeff Lemire. The character and story intrigue me and I enjoy the art style. I plan to continue the series.

And the news that Gail Simone was writing Uncanny X-Men in the wake of the Krakoa era spurred me to get the TPBs across the fall-out. X-Men will always be close to my heart. I always had a deep interest in comics but the often messed up family theme, which is one of the central aspects of the X-Men, hit home for me. I was around the same age as Kitty when her character was first introduced and despite completely different backgrounds, there's always been a lot of ways I've connected with Kitty/Kate Pryde over the years. And I've also realized in recent years that the way the different characters are written there's a ton of neurodivergence of many different sorts across many of the characters. Sometimes it's explicit. More often not. Sometimes well-written. Sometimes not. But it feels pretty pervasive, which is very likely another reason the X-Men have always been near the top in my mainstream comics consumption.

Hmmm. Thinking about our conversations and listening to her lengthy discussions, it's probably a factor in my youngest's deep interest in the extended bat family. And her anger when a writer gets one of the characters wrong.

Aaron wrote: "Just finished Sapiens: A Graphic History, Volume 2 - The Pillars of Civilization. I was underwhelmed. This was not as good as the first volume of the graphic novel series (Sap..."</i>

Those have been on my radar for a while, and something I have considered picking up but haven't. I often do enjoy the non fiction graphic novels (I guess that wouldn't be a novel then, hmmm non fiction sequential art book?). I've been slow reading [book:The Hidden Life of Trees: A Graphic Adaptation And really enjoying that. I wait until I have a while that I can go walk outside and read it in the woods for a bit. Seems appropriate. And in winter I was doing that less then when it is warmer out. But I only have a little bit left now.