Bore Comics Thread: Crisis On Infinite Megathreads

[bork]

I feel like Marvel is using the "Secret Wars" label to try to wring some extra sales out of some otherwise obscure comics that few people actually care about.

I think this is the only book that has pretty much zero connection to the rest of the event, though.

[parallax]

I feel like Marvel is using the "Secret Wars" label to try to wring some extra sales out of some otherwise obscure comics that few people actually care about.

I think this is the only book that has pretty much zero connection to the rest of the event, though.

where does it even take place?

[Supermanisdead]

last issue of hawkeye  :'( whens the omnibus  :'(

[fistfulofmetal]

I actually just ordered the first Hawkeye volume because I heard it was ending.

[bork]

Captain Britain And The Mighty Defenders: I feel like talking in-depth about this one will spoil everything.  What's interesting about this book in particular is that most of the characters in the story are actually aware that they are living in a merged world and have memories of their previous realities.  It even opens with this version of Iron Man remembering the incursion event on his Earth from before Secret Wars even started!  This is also the first time that they've shown a different kind of Thor in Secret Wars.  The She-Hulk in this book is actually Doom's designated Thor.  No Thor costume, same She-Hulk character/attitude, sides with the people instead of Doom, and has a little gavel instead of a hammer.     Their enemies are the neighboring Battleworld zone, which is Mondo, AKA the Marvel Comics version of Judge Dredd.  Boss Cage returns!

Hail Hydra: Also interesting in that this may be the 616 version of Nomad (this version of Nomad is Steve Rogers' adopted son and Arnheim Zola's (sp) biological son from another dimension), who survived the incursion after hopping into some sort of dimensional elevator (I assume if this is true that this happened in the All-New Captain America series, which I didn't read) and is now in a Battleworld zone where Hydra has taken over everything and has essentially been in charge for decades.

I feel like Marvel is using the "Secret Wars" label to try to wring some extra sales out of some otherwise obscure comics that few people actually care about.

I think this is the only book that has pretty much zero connection to the rest of the event, though.

where does it even take place?

No idea if it stated where.  The jungle island they go to is in parts unknown and flashbacks show various groups of people, from all over the world, encountering the amazon trible throughout history.  The tribe is also originally from a Scandinavian country IIRC.  Basically just more stuff that makes it completely unrelated to Secret Wars.  Unless some big reveal is going to happen, I don't understand why they even slapped the Secret Wars logo on these comics.

[Joe Molotov]

Aren't some of the Secret Wars spinoffs just basically supposed to be potential new storylines in the post-Secret War "All-New, All-Different™" Marvel Universe?

[bork]

Aren't some of the Secret Wars spinoffs just basically supposed to be potential new storylines in the post-Secret War "All-New, All-Different™" Marvel Universe?

As far as I know, nope.  They're all self-contained stories with certain characters/teams "surviving" the event and being integrated into the Marvel Universe afterwards, like Old Man Logan and Ultimate Spider-Man.

[parallax]

Hail Hydra: Also interesting in that this may be the 616 version of Nomad (this version of Nomad is Steve Rogers' adopted son and Arnheim Zola's (sp) biological son from another dimension), who survived the incursion after hopping into some sort of dimensional elevator (I assume if this is true that this happened in the All-New Captain America series, which I didn't read) and is now in a Battleworld zone where Hydra has taken over everything and has essentially been in charge for decades.

it was an interesting arc. totally redeemed the ass that was sam in axis. if that is ian, i would love to know how the infinite elevator works without a multiverse

No idea if it stated where.  The jungle island they go to is in parts unknown and flashbacks show various groups of people, from all over the world, encountering the amazon trible throughout history.  The tribe is also originally from a Scandinavian country IIRC.  Basically just more stuff that makes it completely unrelated to Secret Wars.  Unless some big reveal is going to happen, I don't understand why they even slapped the Secret Wars logo on these comics.

i was honestly expecting more fight to survive antics or fighting in the savage lands from the covers, but instead, i got unfunny jokes and lame plots. i assume secret wars name is attached because these characters are going to make appearances after this event is over.

[Bebpo]

Reading a bunch of stuff that I'm not sure how much I'm going to stick with:

Exiles - Is there any point in reading this?  It's a bunch of alternative world mini-stories that don't really mean anything in the Marvel Universe scheme of things, and feature a bunch of D-list characters and runs for like 100 issues.  Plus the art is that ugly 90s X-related things art.  Got through like 7 issues and was skimming by then, the marvel reading order guide says to read like 50 issues of this stuff, but I'm ready to bail.

Emma Stone 1-18 - Her origin story spin-off.  Was fine and enjoyable but wish it went further into her character background.

Wolverine: Origin - Was fine, I'd already seen a short hand recap of this in one of the other comics I read, but this fleshed out original version was entertaining enough.

Wolverine 162-166 - Story about the re-start of the Weapon X program under The Director.  Was ok.  Best part was this Shiver Man character who seems pretty cool.
 
Weapon X - Following the above wolverine arc, comes this spin-off about the restarted Weapon X program.  Like Exiles, it's another series about a bunch of D-list mutants with 90s X-related art (slightly better art than Exiles).  At least the writing seems a little more engaging.  There's 28 issues of this, dunno about it. 

Agent X - Still bad art, a little more goofy, only read the first issue.  High point is Taskmaster being a goofy Casey Jones kind of hoodie + skeleton mask character.  Not sure about this either.

I'm starting to feel like anything Mutant related in the early 2000s outside of Morrison's new X-men was pretty trash.  And coming from reading Bendis stuff like Daredevil/Alias and Peter Milligan's satire in X-force/X-statix just makes all these comics seem even worse.  Not sure if I'll stick with any of them.

Next up in the reading order list after all these mutant comics is jumping midway into the Amazing Spiderman from the 2001 re-numbering at #1.

[benjipwns]

Exiles - Is there any point in reading this?  It's a bunch of alternative world mini-stories that don't really mean anything in the Marvel Universe scheme of things, and feature a bunch of D-list characters and runs for like 100 issues.  Plus the art is that ugly 90s X-related things art.  Got through like 7 issues and was skimming by then, the marvel reading order guide says to read like 50 issues of this stuff, but I'm ready to bail.

This is one of my favorite series of all time, for whatever that's worth.

But I love mysteries and the mystery of the Timebroker worked for me. And the dimension hopping always was amusing for me as I like alternate takes on mainstream timelines. And the book was willing to kill off characters after establishing them.

[Yeti]

I quite enjoyed Exiles too but ymmv

[Bebpo]

Ok, I'll keep with it and see if it grows on me.  The first few arcs have been ok, it's just hard for me to get invested since each "world" they go to only last 2-3 issues.  Plus not having followed a ton of late 90s X-men, I don't really know any of these characters besides Blink from the Days of Future Past Movie.  Morph is sort of ok with the comedy, but it's really overkill and he has to make a slapstick joke every panel he's in.  And I'm just not a fan of the art style.  I like the more subdued colors, more realistic comic art style that I've seen in stuff like Bendis Daredevil/Alias and 2006 Iron Fist, 2012 Uncanny X-Force.  The bright and colorful 90s X-men look turns me off of stuff.

[benjipwns]

It becomes far less about being invested in each world, than in the Exiles themselves. That's actually a plotline that runs throughout and a difficulty some of the characters face. Especially when some of the "tasks" become morally questionable.

[bork]

Exiles is really just another take on "What If," only with a constantly-changing team of characters running around interacting with the alternate realities.  I thought it was a fun series overall and read through the whole thing.  It gets better later on after Chris Claremont takes over the writing duties, IMO, although it also becomes a lot more "X-Men" than it was before-- 616 Psylocke is brought in as one of the new main characters with AOA Sabertooth...no more Blink/Mimic as the leads.  The series got a follow-up that was around 16 issues, also written by Claremont, although I never did read it and need to see if it's worth it.  Then there was another six issue series after that which wasn't popular at all and was the end of everything.  I guess X-Treme X-Men (the second series with Dazzler as the main character) is also kind of a follow-up series as well.

[Bebpo]

This is going to be a weirdo post, but after reading a year of Marvel Unlimited (can't believe it's already been a year!) and literally thousands of issues across probably half a hundred series as I trek through the entire Marvel catalog from 1999-2016, I finally got to Amazing Spiderman and I figured "man, whenever I get to Spiderman, that's going to be some good stuff", but now that I've read Revenge of the Green Goblin (3 issue series that came out around 2000 along with 2 tie-ins in Amazing #25 and Peter Parker #25), Amazing Spiderman #30-40 (the start of J. Michael Straczynski's run), Peter Parker Spiderman #44-47 (Green Goblin cont'd)....I'm finding it really...boring?  Like to the point where I'm just kind of skimming the issues like I do when I read uninteresting series. 

It's like unlike other superheroes where there's team dynamics, or stuff like Bendis' Daredevil where there are these major character changing arcs, what I'm reading so far in Spiderman is just I dunno, it's hard to explain it.  Things are happening in his story arc, but it's like "Oh wow, Peter Parker becomes a school teacher!" and it's like...who cares?  And then the big twist of "Aunt May finds out Peter Parker is Spiderman!", but again, like ok, that means very little to me with my general Spiderman knowledge from the 90s, movies, cartoons and videogames.  Green Goblin comes back!  Ok, but these villians always keep coming back in Marvel.  I mean, the stories just don't seem particularly interesting and Spiderman doesn't really seem like a character that is growing at this era in time since he's past all his origin growth and now he just gets involved with weirdo enemies and gets beat up a little and then beats them up. 

See I really like Spiderman as a character overall, and his villians are fun to fight against in videogames and see in movies, and he's a great support cameo when he shows up in other comics like Bendis' Daredevil.  But the actual Amazing Spiderman series around this 1999/2000/2001 era time so far is kind of super dull.  I've still got through issue #58 to get through before moving on to the next series in the marvel reading order, so maybe it'll pick up, but I'm just kind of surprisingly let down that Spiderman's main series isn't really, really good with interesting stories where I'm jumping in on. 

Doesn't help that art in some of the stuff is iffy like Peter Parker Spiderman #44-47 with super cartoony art style while trying to do a serious fight to the death Green Goblin tale.  Also the whole weird ass Spiderman continuity where stories jump between the various Spiderman series is a bit annoying.

[bork]

I didn't bother with Spider-Man from that time period.  I did get a TPB for "The Other" storyline and found it pretty stupid.  I know there's a lot of people who don't care for Dan Slott as the writer, but when I did get back into Spider-Man a few years ago, I found myself actually enjoying it again like I used to before things got dumb in the mid-90s.

Most of the stuff that happens in what you're reading all gets retconned out with the whole "One More Day" thing, IIRC.  When I started reading again, Peter worked for Horizon Labs, was not married to Mary Jane, and Aunt May didn't know he was Spider-Man.  There's also a point a couple of years after what you're reading where Spider-Man reveals his identity to the world, in one of the Avengers comics, IIRC.  This also gets erased with One More Day.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

Reading a bunch of stuff that I'm not sure how much I'm going to stick with:

Emma Stone 1-18 - Her origin story spin-off.  Was fine and enjoyable but wish it went further into her character background.

did you mean Emma Frost

[Joe Molotov]

I'd read an Emma Stone origin story. 

[Bebpo]

I didn't bother with Spider-Man from that time period.  I did get a TPB for "The Other" storyline and found it pretty stupid.  I know there's a lot of people who don't care for Dan Slott as the writer, but when I did get back into Spider-Man a few years ago, I found myself actually enjoying it again like I used to before things got dumb in the mid-90s.

Most of the stuff that happens in what you're reading all gets retconned out with the whole "One More Day" thing, IIRC.  When I started reading again, Peter worked for Horizon Labs, was not married to Mary Jane, and Aunt May didn't know he was Spider-Man.  There's also a point a couple of years after what you're reading where Spider-Man reveals his identity to the world, in one of the Avengers comics, IIRC.  This also gets erased with One More Day.

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[chronovore]

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[Tasty]

Batman #43

spoiler (click to show/hide)

When the cave collapsed on Bruce and Joker it was also on a pool of Miracle Gro™ which brought Bruce back... but "not back." He's basically a completely different person since his brain was dead for hours.

Which means there's an easy way for Joker to come back too.

[close]

COMICS

 

[Tasty]

Just got done reading.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Before Bruce "died" he started work on a "brain remapper" that will put all his memories and training into a new body.

HOW CONVENIENT

[close]

[bork]

Didn't the same thing happen in Iron Man?     Superior Spider-Man, in a sense, too.  LOL DC.

[Tasty]

Snyder's really tossing a lot of his credibility down the drain. The only explanation I have is that DC mandated him to have an out for Bruce being alive.

[Human Snorenado]

...does anyone in here read shit like Saga and the new Airboy limited series or is it just a bunch of nerding out over the same tired fucking spandex shit that's been written over and over again for forever? Cause I like comics but am over superhero bullshit. Anyone else or am I alone in this? I will scurry out of here and leave y'all alone but was just curious if anyone else is into non-superhero stuff. Would be cool to have someone to discuss it with is all.

[Tasty]

I read Saga and some others occasionally.

Variety and all that.

[Rahxephon91]

Yes. I read Saga.

I also read:

East of West-A sort of biblical apocalyptic future western story about many characters such as Death of the Four Horsemen.

Velvet-What if Ms. Moneypenny was a spy much better than James Bond?

Nowhere Men-The Beatles as scientist plus other strange shit.

Copperhead-A single mother is the sheriff on a backwater Alien planet. Obviously a western.

Fatale-A Cthulhu noir tale.

The Fade Out-Murder mystery in Hollywood. Noir.

Lazarus- Set in a world of corporate feudalism. Lazarus' are biologically enhanced soldiers that serve as their family's enforcers.

Pretty Deadly-A poetic Amano looking western about Death's daughter.

Deadly Class-Kind of shitty story about teenager assassins in the 1980s doing cocaine and other alternative type stuff.

We Stand on Guard-America vs Canada.

The Wicked and The Divine-Our pop stars are actually reincarnated gods who die after two years.

Older things:

Sleeper-Set in the Wild Storm universe so kind of super heroish but not really. Dude's who's power is to transfer pain goes deep undercover into a super criminal organization. Is super nihilistic and really starts to lose his identity.

Y The Last Man-Yorrik is the last man on earth.

Gotham Central-It's the cops in Gotham. Just good cop stories in the Batman universe.

[chronovore]

Gotta pick up WicDev. Seems right up my alley.

Also liked Sleeper. Super dark.

Enjoyed the whole run of The Sword, but not Girls.

Cormacaroni gave me the two Parker hardcover TPBs and they are a fucking clinic on storytelling.

My name actually comes from Those Annoting Post Brothers' best heist story.

[Yeti]

So DC is doing half page ads now? 

http://www.dailydot.com/geek/batman-dc-comics-advertising-scott-snyder-greg-capullo/

A new Deadpool cover parodies this trend

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Gazunta]

Hey guys, if you like classic Archie or even stuff like old Harvey / Star Comics books, then maybe you'd like my new comic!

It's called Rose and it's about a girl who loves food and her family and food and her friends and food and animals and food and food and food.

24 pages of full colour, all ages good times for YOU!



https://www.comixology.com/Rose-1/digital-comic/258385?ref=c2VhcmNoL2luZGV4L2Rlc2t0b3Avc2xpZGVyTGlzdC9pdGVtU2xpZGVy

Would love to know what you think!

ALSO! If you can recommend me any local stores you think would be interested in carrying this kinda thing, I wanna know about 'em!

[bork]

Gazunta!  He comes maybe a once a year!  He shills!  He leaves!   

LOL-tastic Marvel cosplay covers:

http://www.newsarama.com/25631-marvel-cosplay-variants-announced-for-october.html

[Joe Molotov]

Those are...not good.

[thisismyusername]

Those are...not good.

I dunno, Jean(?) looks decent on the X-men cover. Some of the women look okay. Most of the men are stuffing their junk to make sure it doesn't pop-out on these photos and don't look good (Daredevil. )

[chronovore]

I wasn't sure if I should post in the anime thread, TV shows thread, or this comics thread, but I'm here so:

Watched Avengers Confidential: Black Widow and Punisher, by the anime creators at Mad House. After the Animatrix, and the Batman: Gotham Knight Collection, and due to Disney's iron hand in controlling the MCU, I had unreasonably high hopes for this. It's really bad. It doesn't make much sense as a Marvel story, it plays more like an OVA for characters "we already love" from the comics, which is its largest problem. The mismatched, seemingly lazy combination of several straight-up CG objects like the SHIELD Helicarriers and security cameras jar miserably with some of the CG-enhanced movement on hand-painted cel objects, which look great. In general Mad House is relying too heavily on their trademark camera movement and Aeon Flux styled facial close-ups. Über-meh.

Gazunta!  He comes maybe a once a year!  He shills!  He leaves!   

LOL-tastic Marvel cosplay covers:

http://www.newsarama.com/25631-marvel-cosplay-variants-announced-for-october.html

Yeah, I had the same Gazunta reaction. But at least he's bringing creative fruits of his labors to show. It's not like Amazon Tony who loved us and left us.

And those cosplay covers -- it would have been nice if there had been some actual art direction on the photography. Those are all super sad; there are so many better cosplay photos out there, it is surprising they went for such mediocre composition.

[Gazunta]

I go through every thread and, because I don't really play anything or read anything or watch anything I feel like I have nothing to contribute ><

[benjipwns]

The left-wing marxists have taken over comics now. The latest Batman issue spreads the lieberal myths all about a black criminal being gunned down by the heroic GCPD.

Not even our traditional conservative cultural icons are safe.

[Joe Molotov]

The left-wing marxists have taken over comics now. The latest Batman issue spreads the lieberal myths all about a black criminal being gunned down by the heroic GCPD.

Not even our traditional conservative cultural icons are safe.

Batman's a known homosexual and pederast, so this doesn't surprise me.

[Great Rumbler]

...does anyone in here read shit like Saga and the new Airboy limited series or is it just a bunch of nerding out over the same tired fucking spandex shit that's been written over and over again for forever? Cause I like comics but am over superhero bullshit. Anyone else or am I alone in this? I will scurry out of here and leave y'all alone but was just curious if anyone else is into non-superhero stuff. Would be cool to have someone to discuss it with is all.

Old post is old, but I read almost exclusively non-superhero comics from IDW, Image, Dynamite, and Aspen.

[bork]

Been reading Secret Wars stuff, Wrath?  Everything is a mini series with clear beginnings and endings.

A lot of the series have had some crappy endings, though.  Guardians Of Knowhere is the worst, with "DON'T MISS THE CONCLUSION IN SECRETS WARS AND THEN GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #1 AFTER THAT!!"     Fortunately this was the only series like this.

[bork]

Marvel isn't waiting on Secret Wars delays-- new post-SW comics came out this week.  I haven't read anything except for the All-New Point One comic, which takes place post-SW on a ruined Battleworld.  The Maestro is still around and will be a big villain, it seems.

Most of the SW mini series have had really bad endings.  Feels like they're rushing things along.  And there's still two more issues of SW left! 

[Bebpo]

One of these days I'm going to do a write up on the hundreds of Marvel comics I read this year.  Finished 1999-2004 and started the 2005 post Avengers Disassembled era.

Just read Maddrox #1-5 by Peter David.  Was a great little modern noir tale.  I like these series like this and the 2003-ish Hawkeye, that take smaller characters and just give them one or two good street level stories.  And Peter David is one of my favorite writers at Marvel, especially when they let him do comedy.  His quirks and comic timing are great and clever and I'm always smirking.  He did a good job taking a character that no one really cares about like Multiple Man and making a good comic out of it.  I guess this series the prequel to X-Factor Investigations, so looking forward to that especially if Peter David is still writing.

[bork]

Pretty sure David was on X-Factor Investigations and X-Factor (or was it New Mutants?) for a few years after that.  He also worked on Spider-Man 2099 when they brought the character back.

[chronovore]

Peter David also writes some of the best Star Trek novelizations out there, so if you're into that, check them out.

[fistfulofmetal]

I started reading Sex Criminals recently. It's fascinating

[bork]

I started reading Sex Criminals recently. It's fascinating

Really enjoyed how it started, but it's starting to drag on too much now.

[benjipwns]

Read the first three books of The Massive, which I think is like 18-ish issues out of 30 total. It's kinda interesting and kinda dumb at the same time.

The overarching mystery was interesting until they went way off track into random shit, but the explanation of the global chaos kinda ruin the impact of it despite what the inside cover comments say. I think that should have been more "untold" or something, I'm trying to think of other titles that did this well. Y, The Last Man maybe since it's mentioned on this page. The Massive does a lot better when it's showing aspects of the world affected than it does when it takes two or four page spreads to describe say how exactly Eastern Europe fell into this horrible state.

Also, I don't think I'm liking the characters I'm supposed to like and vice versa.

It's also convenient how everyone on this cast off ship in a world of endless suffering and global chaos seems to not only have every single combination of necessary skills to survive but the ship never really encounters any clear resource issues. And despite visiting all these places where millions are dying from this and that, come out completely unscathed. And commonly makes trades using money, despite about fifteen characters describing how paper money is worthless now.

I'm so going to be disappointed in how this ends aren't I...just like The Unwritten. Only with like a third of the number of issues to make me regret it.

On a side note, I recently re-read The Sandman and then read all of Lucifer finally. I love how Lucifer becomes immediately untracked from its original premise and I love how the new TV adaption is even farther from what the comic is. But Mazikeen has been cast for it!

Injustice: Gods Among Us is so stupid fun, and better than the games plot. Speaking of games, I saw there's now an Assassin's Creed comic series. And a God of War one, though that may have been a miniseries or something.

The Darkseid War is some kind of crazy, robobats continues to suck and feels like it's being dragged out to meet some event down the road that's not hitting deadlines or something, but Batman & Robin Eternal seems fun enough and more interesting than Batman Eternal so far.

I think I've got a decent amount of old stuff to paw through too, The Authority maybe next. I read the New 52 Stormwatch. So I'll be going backwards, but whatever you're not the boss of me.

[bork]

Started reading Invincible and got hooked on it pretty quickly.  I can't believe I never read this book before!  Really enjoying the characters and story and have read through several volumes.  Maybe I should finally check out the Walking Dead next.   

Agreed on Robo-Bunny-Batman.  The most interesting book from that arc has been an annual, which focused on the amnesiac Bruce Wayne dealing with several Batman villains in Wayne manor.  I'm ready for the real Batman to come back already.  I do still like the big change Superman has had, and don't really care about Wonder Woman.  Just don't care for her solo book and that new costume looks stupid.

I haven't read any Marvel stuff for this week yet apart from the last issue of Where Monsters Dwell, in which our "hero" has managed to escape from the lesbian-amazon women tribe and get the parts for his plane back, then as he is going to leave, our "heroine" appears, holds him at gunpoint, and re-iterates how she is a closest lesbian and a total bitch who married her deceased husband for his money and blah blah blah.  She lets him escape and he crashes and ends up on an island filled with literal shit, where the tribal woman he knocked up is waiting for him and what the fuck did this have anything to do with Marvel? 

[toku]

 I haven't kept up (last issue I read was 70 something) but yea Invincible. It's superman meets seinen manga style ultraviolence which I can get behind.

[benjipwns]

I should finally read more of that, I always seem to confuse it with The Invisibles for some odd reason. Just similar names I guess.

The Massive wasn't a disappointment, most likely because I prepared for it, but still ended with a hell of a dull thud.

There's something about books that seem like they've got an ending in mind when they started that they're writing towards but then it's like bleh, not really...compared to books that just admit "fuck no, there's no ending planned or any kind of answers" like The Walking Dead.

That probably puts me off reading more works rather than sticking to compact storylines in established characters/books/universes. 100 Bullets wet fart will always make me overly cautious. Though I didn't mind Fables' end (most recent I can think of) because it was like a mercy-killing for the prior two arcs that seemed completely lost.

[Tasty]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/paul-dini-revisits-his-traumatic-842031

Holy moley, this sounds amazing.

[bork]

Secret Wars is feeling like an anticlimactic letdown. The last two issues have been pretty meh at best. Clearly there isn't enough time to do this story properly since Marvel wants to wrap things up and get All New, All Different going at full swing. It's a bit of a bummer since this is the culmination of more than two years of story, but whatever.

Definitely been a huge letdown.  Almost every tie-in miniseries had a pretty bad or mediocre anticlimactic ending, too.  Feels entirely too rushed, like Marvel just said "fuck it; let's go back to the regular universe already and forget about this now."

I think Marvel had no choice but to go ahead and proceed with their All New, All Different line, which is already in full swing.  They also released a parody book called "Secret Wars, Too" with a dumb story about the Marvel crew and how Hickman couldn't think of ending, causing delays and problems.  I don't think that was a joke...I think that's what really happened.   

So we have some things coming out of Secret Wars that are currently unanswered, and lmao if they stay that way...because I don't think SW will explain it all:

1. Why are the Fantastic Four broken up?  The Torch is hanging out with the Inhumans (dating Medusa lolwtf) and the Thing is with the Guardians Of The Galaxy.  Reed and Sue are off somewhere and essentially MIA within the Marvel universe for the time being.

2. The Maker (Ultimate Reed Richards) remains in the 616 universe and is a big bad with his own secret organization.  How did he get all this set up?

3. Doom no longer has a scarred face, isn't the ruler of Latveria, and isn't even wearing armor anymore.  And he's acting like a good guy.   

4. Tony Stark is "poor" and has lost his company.  Or has he?  He seems to have lost a lot of money and has even sold off Avengers Tower, but then the most recent book mentions a Stark industries building in Tokyo and he still has 100001010010101 suits of armor.  Confusing.  I blame Bendis.

5. Since Stark is no longer Richie Rich, he isn't funding the Avengers.  Except you have billionaire Sunspot doing his own Avengers thing and Peter Parker is now mega-rich and hanging out with one of the now way-too-many-fucking-Avengers-teams. Even DEADPOOL is funding a team.  Yet Sam Wilson, the black Captain America, is down and out and has no funding. 

6. Cyclops is dead.  Not the Phoenix-Cyclops who was killed right in the beginning of Secret Wars...regular post-SW Cyclops.  Unless I missed something, I don't remember this happening in any of the X books.  Meanwhile there is still the time-displaced younger Cyclops running around.

7. Mile Morales is now in 616 continuity, only with his own series not having started...we have no idea how he's living in his new universe.

8. Amadeus Cho is now a Hulk.  At least this book looks to show what happened to Bruce Banner and why he has this power.  So there's that.

9. If we go back a crossover series or two back to AXIS, you had Sabertooth, Iron Man, and Havok staying inverted.  AFAIK Sabertooth is still a good guy.  I have no idea about Havok.  He was seen essentially kidnapping The Wasp (his ex? wife) pre SW and then popped back up in X-Men seemingly as a good guy, with that whole subplot ignored.  And then the events leading up to SW ignored Iron Man being the bad guy and post-SW has him as a good guy, so that was also completely ignored.   

Marvel is going the WWE route with the way they keep ignoring continuity. 

[Tasty]

Superman: American Alien #1 by Max Landis was great. It's a pretty simple setup and story, but I love the characterizations of Clark, Pa Kent, and Lana. Really good art, too.

5 / 5

[Junpei the Tracer!]

If you like the art in American Alien, you check out more of his stuff in "East of West" by Jonathan Hick and Nick Dragotta.

/shill

Secret Wars is feeling like an anticlimactic letdown. The last two issues have been pretty meh at best. Clearly there isn't enough time to do this story properly since Marvel wants to wrap things up and get All New, All Different going at full swing. It's a bit of a bummer since this is the culmination of more than two years of story, but whatever.

7. Mile Morales is now in 616 continuity, only with his own series not having started...we have no idea how he's living in his new universe.

I remember reading that his book comes out in February because it spoils the ending of Secret Wars.

[Vizzys]

was reading Providence by alan moore
its slow and interesting
issue 6 was ballsy as hell for a western comic though
read it and youll see what I mean

[Joe Molotov]

was reading Providence by alan moore
its slow and interesting
issue 6 was ballsy as hell for a western comic though
read it and youll see what I mean

I haven't read #6 yet, but I'm loving this series. It's so dense with Lovecraftian lore, I'd miss half the references if it wasn't for the annotation blog (https://factsprovidence.wordpress.com/).

[Tasty]

Hulk will be in space in the MCU though (in Thor: Ragnarok.)

[benjipwns]

Planet Hulk is amazing, even with World War Hulk attached.

From this week I found out that...
There's a new Lucifer series picking up from the last one 

Also a Earth One Teen Titans book came out.

[benjipwns]

Ha, the Earth One Teen Titans sounds like it might be a DC version of Runaways. I loved that book.

Too bad the Earth One stuff takes forever to come out.

[bork]

Ultimate End #5 finally came out.  I think that's the last of the Secret Wars mini series and all that's left now is the last issue of Secret Wars.

It also gives us a good idea of what's going to happen, although we knew this already from the end of the Old-Man Logan mini:

All the heroes from the Ultimate and '616' (although not really) battleworld team up and go after Doom.  Old-Man Logan included.

The following Ultimate universe characters are in the Marvel universe:

Ultimate Spider-Man (Miles)
The Maker (Ultimate [evil] Reed Richards)

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Bombshell
Ganke (Miles' friend)
Miles' dad
Miles mom ( back alive...it's like a happy ending!)

[close]

I kind of wish they'd also moved over Ultimate Black Widow, the female Peter Parker clone that is.  I know they already have enough Spider characters but it would have been fun to have her running around and bumping into Peter.

[Tasty]

Wait Teen Titans: Earth One #2 is out??

I really liked that book last year.

Teen Titans: Earth One Vol. 1

This was my first Earth One graphic novel, and it got me wondering if Batman and Superman got such drastic reinterpretations of their origins in their Earth One books. To put it lightly, everything is reimagined here, and for the most part it works pretty well. I don't have an issue with the origin being such a departure, far from it. It feels fresh. But it also backs the book into a couple corners that were obviously hard to write out of.

Basically, the "teen titans" (never called such in-universe, and only alluded to by being apart of the "Titans Program") are a deliberately diverse set of youngsters who don't even know each other (other than Cyborg and Terra, who are dating) when the book starts. When they do get to know each other, they chafe and argue as is the cliche for teens. To be honest, I'm not sure if it was lazy writing to have them fighting amongst themselves so much, or an accurate reflection of normal teenagehood. Reflecting on my own teen years, I can't remember being so brazen, but I also didn't have to deal with superpowers popping up out of nowhere.

Yeah, this book takes more than a few cues from the X-Men. Which is probably just as well, since DC repurposed the Teen Titans to rip them off with New Teen Titans in the 80's.

The teens are essentially all set up to have the same, connected origin story, which reminds me of the way Hollywood usually goes about its adaptations of these things. It works but oftentimes feels like a shortcut, a way of introducing all of them, showing how unique each character is, and bringing them all together in the same book. I can't blame them for that. However, I will blame the writers for some eyeroll-worthy plot contrivances (the main one being Starfire not only causing all their powers to activate at the same time, but directing them all to her telepathically since she's imprisoned Superman-during-Flashpoint-style.)

I was reading the IGN review for this and they seemed to say the only negative was how Deathstroke is portrayed, but I disagree. Like the rest of the book, I think it's a fresh and interesting take on the character. All these characters are. They come off a little like a grab-bag of politically-correct new-age character templates (this one's the one with the drunk parent, this one's the one with the gay dads, etc.) but I won't fault it for that since this book is aimed at kids/teens and I know how happy it is to see someone you feel represents you in a major book like this.

The book sets up quite a bit of dangling threads, like the "Blackfire initiative," Raven joining up with the main team, Starfire's entire character, and a vision-wall of potential future team mates (including, curiously, a bat symbol.) But mostly I want to see the team become a team. The characters here don't actually ever end up becoming a "team" or doing anything heroic. They haven't earned the book's namesake yet. If Volume 2 accomplished anything, that's the bare minimum.

3 / 5