The Official Collected Editions Thread (New & Improved!)

Media Outlet Comic Book Forum
101

Exterminators vol. 2 - brilliant stuff, the series really hits its stride in these issues. The issue with the exterminator lucha libre in the ring with the rats was great. His fate in the last book though… And with his old partner returning, it is on. Living in LA definitely helps reading this book as well.

Ultimate Galactus Trilogy - I’m sad to say, but this was a real stinker. Absolutely nothing happened in Ultimate Nightmare, Ultimate Secret had some cool art and good scenes with Ultimate Captain Marvel, and Ultimate Extinction was just build up to nothing. FF2: Rise can’t be worse than this. I tried to like this, I did…but the house of m-like decompression hurt bad.

Justice League of America vol.1 The Tornado’s Path - I’m pissed that the zero issue was not included and that my copy had a small tear in the 3-page fold out but I thought this was a fun read. The art is really good and I liked the picking of the team aspect. I actually liked the supes, bats, ww standing around looking at pictures more than the red tornado plot. I dont have much history with amazo or starro and the whole villain plot was a bit confusing but it went by quick enough. I think of Brad now as “the good loeb”. Did he do an arc after this? Or was it just one and done?

Up through issue #3 of ASM. #3 is the first that is not split into two stories and I enjoyed it the most of the bunch so far. It is the first appearence of doc ock and the art is really starting to take shape.

Currently Reading: Ultimate Fantastic Four vol. 3 HC (Porno Sue!)
On Deck: Planet Hulk!

102

Meltzer wrote the next arc of JLofA, but it’s a crossover with Johns’ JSofA. Did you ever read Meltzer’s Green Arrow: The Archer’s Quest? I think that one is my favorite work of his I’ve read. I read one of his novels, The Millionaires, and it was okay. Fun to read but nothing that makes me want to seek out his other novels.

Ultimate Nightmare was boring. I think the whole trilogy coulda been a little better if they had more consistent artwork. Like one guy drawing all the issues would have made a world of difference. The ideas were cool but the execution was ultimately flawed.

What I’ve read lately:

Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 - This is a very nice hardcover of a pretty acclaimed indie press comic. This comic got quite a good deal of hype; probably the most for an indie comic since Demo. I think it was a little bit short, but the art was very nice. The concept reminds me of those old Brian Jacques novels (fantasy world with mice and other animals). Yeah, this is a great read for anyone interested in the fantasy genre. My only complaint is that the story is very short. It’s more of an introduction to a world I’d like to revisit over and over in the future. Sequels are on the way. Hopefully they will improve on this because I think this series has potential.

Spider-Man and the Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do - I really enjoyed this one. It isn’t a definitive Spidey story or anything too deep, but it’s just a really fun read. The story is fairly simple, but Kevin Smith’s writing just makes it entertaining. And I always get a kick out of seeing Spidey team up with Daredevil. This even had Nightcrawler in there. We need more Nightcrawler/Spidey/DD team-ups.

Kings in Disguise - http://www.amazon.com/Kings-Disguise-Novel-James-Vance/dp/0393328481/ref=sr_1_1/104-7964370-8273505?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184618575&sr=8-1
I pretty much got this because I read Alan Moore’s intro to the book while I was at the store. It’s a really powerful human drama about a teen boy living in America during the Great Depression. The art is amazing. Very realistic but not overly detailed. I highly recommend this comic.

Oh heck YEAH, BABEEEE!!!

From DC’s new solicitations…

SHOWCASE PRESENTS: SUICIDE SQUAD VOL. 1 TP
Written by John Ostrander, Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis and others
Art by Howard Chaykin, Karl Kesel, Luke McDonnell and others
From the 1980s comes this hard-hitting volume collecting the popular series in which captured super-villains got the chance to leave prison behind?for a price. Included are storied from Suicide Squad #1-18, Doom Patrol and Suicide Squad Special #1, SECRET ORIGINS #14 and Justice League International #13.
Advance-solicited; on sale November 14 o 528 pg, B&W, $16.99 US

I gots to get me that.

103

yeah I need to read more indie comics…

this weekend’s batch:

Ultimate FF vol. 3 HC - I actually enjoyed this probably more than I should. Definitely a guilty pleasure. This is the first Ult. FF hardcover with the same writer and artist throughout and I liked the consistancy and the fact that the zombies story arc went through the whole thing. The time travel issues were a bit confusing but still fun. As far as Greg Land’s art, I am definitely mixed. People talk about Frank Quitely drawing bad faces but at least his characters expressions dont look like they’ve just had a cucumber stuck up their ass. His action scenes seem very static too. I hope they do something different with Alicia Masters in the future. Also what was up with Torch’s hair?

Planet Hulk - this one was a monster. Echoing most other people I guess, I would say this is a very enjoyable and entertaining read. My positives are mostly redundant so let me get to the negatives: I felt like the Red Scar could have been more of a badass instead of a spoiled brat, I had no clue as to what “version” of the Hulk this was and why Banner didnt come out all the time or why Hulk was smart, I thought there could have been a little more characterization, and finally I thought things definitely got a bit redundant in the middle. Still, a great read and a really nice hardcover. It’s too bad World War Hulk will probably be collected in tpb’s like civil war or house of m

104

You may have to get the prelude to planet hulk which is IH #88-91. I am starting to realize why it is such a great idea to purchase the tradebacks or just wait til they come out so you can read them at barnes and nobles. :lol:

105

hey Zeph, have you read the Question (mini-?)series that dc is releasing new tpb’s of? I saw it int he solits a while ago…any good?

106

Yeah, DC’s finally doing TPBs of the old '80s Question series. I tracked it down on eBay a year ago and got most of the run. It’s written by Denny O’Neil with art by Denys Cowan. I think it’s really good. Definitely made me really love the character. I got into it because I really enjoyed seeing the Question on JLU and the Rick Veitch/Tommy Lee Edwards miniseries was AMAZING.

So yeah, I’d totally recommend checking out this Question stuff from O’Neil and Cowan. It’s noticeably late '80s because of the style of writing, but I think it still holds up pretty well. The artwork is incredible, though, and O’Neil didn’t bother writing lots of captions and dialog during the fight scenes. (One of my biggest peeves is when characters give speeches while they fight.) Some of the later issues make some minor nonsensical plot assumptions but that was stuff I could forgive because the characterization and the ambience were so good. It’s pretty philosophical and features enough weird ideas to balance out the straightforward action scenes and the grounded aspects of the story.

And I gotta say that the first issue of that series was just smoking. Totally draws you in. I don’t think this’ll be much of a SPOILER, but if you don’t want to know what happens in issue one, stop reading.

The Question #1

Spoiler

Lady Shiva beats the crap out of the Question and breaks both of his arms. Then a couple of thugs kick him while he’s down and slam him over the head with a lead pipe a few times. Then they take him to the docks, shoot him in the face, and toss his body into the water. And that’s how the first issue ends. After that, I was just hooked.

107

hoping to get a big stack of hardcovers signed at SDCC this weekend.

my foremost mission will be Stan Lee on the Amazing Omnibus. He is only signing for 30 minutes on Saturday - the busiest day of the weekend. Not sure how I will get a ticket but I’ll try.

Also going to hit up Johns, Morrison, Rucka, Busiek, Pacheco, Bendis, Wagner, Wolfman, and Lapham

Dont know if the following will even be there this weekend but hopefully I will run into some of these guys: Pak, Giffen, Perez, Ennis, Quietly, Mack

108

Sounds like you are gonna get a workout lugging all your hardcovers all over the convention floor… To quote Mary Jane, “GO GET’EM, TIGER.” And as Captain America would say, “THUMBS UP, SOLDIER!”

109

Got back last night from Comic-Con. I think it went well. Not as much fun as last year (my first) but that’s partly due to not having the all-access pass this year.

The day started out kinda shitty as Geoff Johns was supposed to be signing at 10:30am but ended up never showing (wait in line time: appx. 1 hr 40 minutes) but afterwards I had time to make it to Joe Quesada and some others (leini yu or something…) doing a signing after the Ultimates panel. I brought along the first Daredevil HC so I got Joe to sign it as he drew Smith’s arc as well as Mack’s. Joe was looking pretty fit - his Joe Friday’s mugshot at Newsarama is definitely not very flattering. He also gave me a One More Day signed promo poster which I will throw up for sano’s next srk comic charity event.

After that I had about an hour to kill before Bendis was supposed to start signing (I brought along Daredevil vol. 2 and 3 HC’s…vol. 2 being OOP and getting scarce). Unfortunately this time I arrived 20 minutes early but the line was ALREADY capped (possibly because favreau and downey jr. were doing their presentation at the same time so there were already a lot of people around) so didnt get to meet bendis. I was also told that the Stan Lee tickets were sold out (apparently they werent raffling them as they did other events) so that sucked as well, although it was always a long shot.

I think I got lunch after this and put some books away in the car and got a few others. I had ascertained that Pak wasn’t there nor did George Perez seem to be there, and I couldn’t find Marv Wolfman. Also didnt think my chances with Jeff Parker were good and Lapham was awol as usual. The whole day I also never found the IDW table so Simon Furman and the Annihilation HC’s were out.

Back in the grind I stopped by Matt the god Wagner as he was selling some original art. His two teenager kids were manning the booth with him so that was pretty cool. I bought a 25th anniversary t-shirt and got him to sign the devil by the deed hc and grendel archives hc which he sketched in each as well (unprompted…people who ask for sketches or who have sketch books bug me).

Then it was back to the DC booth for Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco. The line was taking forever due to Pacheco doing some really elaborate sketches so I ended up cutting in line and getting Busiek’s signature on the Superman Camelot Falls HC as well as the absolute-sized JLA/Avengers book. The title page of that one has Superman grappling with Thor so he asked me who I liked better and I said Supes and he drew a little word balloon from Superman saying something or other and signed his name. Then I thrust the Camelot Falls book in front of Pacheco and got his quick sig.

Geoff Johns had shown up around this time as well so I got some quick sigs on the IC hardcover and GL Rebirth.

Waiting around a bit longer and it was time for JG Jones who was the most well-dressed person of the day. I was first in line so I got a sketch in the WW: The Hiketeia hardcover I brought. A few minutes later Rucka shower up. Rucka was definitely the best of the bunch…a really cool guy. I got him to sign the No Man’s Land novelization, WW: The Hiketeia, and Wolverine/Elektra: The Redeemer OHC. For each one he personalized it with a different little saying that turned out really cool. (IE instead of just signing "To (me) - " and then his name, he would write like in the wonder woman book: “To (me) - Believe in her.” and then his name (because in ww: the hiketeia that phrase is kind of a running theme) and he did the same for NML and W/E.

Afterwards I spotted Greg Weisman at the SLG booth and walked over and made some joke about Gargoyles season 2 pt 2 which apparently he didn’t like because he gave me a dirty look so I walked away.

I didnt buy much, just a Superman vs. Terminator tpb that is OOP and another Terminator tpb that I hadnt seen before that collected James Robinson and Matt Wagner’s mini among a few other issues.

edit: Oh yeah, I also introduced myself to Marc Andreyko and told him I had been meaning to buy one of the Manhunter tpb’s but hadnt done it yet. He laughed and told me to buy it and if I didn’t like it he would pay me back. I asked him about his influences and if he was familiar with Christine Spar from Grendel and he was like totally, that he was actually friends with one of the Pander Bros.

Dini was around the dc booth a lot but as I dont have any Dini comics (nor I think read a dini book yet) I didn’t interact with him. Also didn’t do anything Vertigo-related as they generally don’t put out hardcovers. I thought one guy there looked like he could be the Exterminators writer but I couldn’t tell.

Also witnessed a bunch of people hounding the DC execs with portfolios and so forth and one fan douchebag who kept arguing with Mike Carlin about his amazing profound unique story pitch that ended up being the same old “what if batman finally did something about the joker instead of locking him away and letting him escape” bullshit. It was funny though

110

Haha, okay, now we HAVE to know what exactly you said.

111

Thanks for all of the information about the event P. Gorath and I don’t know about a charity drive but if we ever have another pool maybe that One More Day poster would be a good prize. As good as X-Force #1? Hmm, I dunno it’s close though. :rofl:

112

I just said something along the lines of joking about how we get all these seasons of tail spin on dvd but no gargoyles season 2 part 2? Then I tried to save with “hey I’m really looking forward to the tpb” but no luck

Didn’t the Brubaker Uncanny OHC come out last week? Anybody get it? I’m on the fence - probably will only get the Carey collection, although I’m interested to hear how Bru’s run reads in collected format

113

In his comic he’s been pitching for more people to buy season 2 because Disney doesn’t feel it made enough money for them to continue the series. So he might of been sore about that is all.

114

yeah I just dont believe that. they have been saying that since it came out. are you telling me that season 3 of Airwolf sold more copies than Gargoyles?

115

Bru’s Rise and Fall of the Shi’ar Empire HC is really expensive. You know I worship the Bru, but 34.99 MSRP is a lot to ask for 12 issues. Personally, I would wait for the paperback. I think Carey’s X-Men HC is probably more worth it. His X-Men tale is a little more complex, and it has great Bachalo art; it’s something you can read a few times. If the stories came straight to paperback first I wouldn’t have any qualms about buying both of the HCs.

116

so im ordering lif and death: cap marvel, Avengers: kree skrull war and gaimans eternals. I have decided that i want to collect cosmic marvel, what should i get?
also is there a good online store that ships worldwide?

117

online I use DCBService or Tales of Wonder…not sure about their worldwide ship policy

Other cosmic stuff to get would be Avengers Galactic Storm vol. 1 + 2, Silver Surfer: Rebirth of Thanos, Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity War, Annihilation vol. 1-3

118

Unstuck an older thread so I decided to sticky this one. :smile:

119

me and Joe Q

(my skin and camera flashes dont agree…)

120

Nice ta meetchya. :smile:

JQ is really nice in person and funny too. So is Didio, but JQ moreso.