Category Archives: Comics
My Top 6 Greatest Comic Books of All Time
I love comic books because, deep down, I wish I was a hero with incredible powers. I wish I could fly around the world. I wish I was more powerful than a speeding locomotive. I wish I could turn invisible and mess with people on the street. I love reading comic books because they are a uniquely perfect way to tell a story, combining prose and pictures into one fun-to-read package. And comics have a creative freedom unmatched by almost any other medium. Movies and TV shows are hampered by budgets, technology, running time and so much more. With comics, the heroes can travel all around the world or into space without awkward green screens of fake-looking CGI. The visual imagination of comics is hampered only by the strain on an artist’s wrist. Comics can do anything, go anywhere and be anyone.
Though they’re mostly about men dressing up in animal costumes
I’ve had a draft of this List of Six waiting in my queue for more than a year now. I’ve been picking at it, rearranging it, deciding what should go where, but I’m dying to share this list with you. I’m always talking about comics, so what are the best comic book stories/series I have ever read? Keep in mind: this is my personal list. This isn’t just the best comic books of all time. This list isn’t going to have Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns on it. I’ve read those comics, and I like those comics, but they aren’t among the best comics I have ever read. No sir. And that probably has a lot to do with my comic book upbringing.
When I was a kid, I read everything from my dad’s comic collection that he left lying around, which were mostly a small smattering of Marvel superhero comics from the 60s. I didn’t get into comics on my own until the mid-90s, when my brother and I started with Spider-Man in the middle of the Clone Saga…which explains why he and I both love the Clone Saga…and my undying love of Phil Urich. We eventually moved on to the X-Men, but it wasn’t until Batman: Hush and Infinite Crisis that I finally started reading DC Comics on a regular basis. Because of this timeline, I wasn’t around in the 80s for Watchmen to blow my mind. I wasn’t around in the 60s for Spider-Man and Superman to define my world. In fact, almost everything on this list comes from the past 20 years or so, when I really got into comics.
Here are my personal Top 6 Greatest Comic Books of All Time. I would recommend any of these to anyone, comic fans or not.
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 7/27/13
We check back in with a few different comics this week that I’ve skipped over in the past, namely Uncanny Avengers and Wolverine and the X-Men. The latter impressed me, if only for its superb use of Toad, while the former was kind of disappointing. The Marvel Universe is an odd place these days, and I just don’t think Uncanny Avengers really has a place in it. Maybe a few years ago it would have been something special, but these days, it’s lost in the shuffle.
Fortunately, Marvel is also publishing the excellent Superior Spider-Man comic, and I’ve finally given in to fan demand and read Avenging Spider-Man, now renamed Superior Spider-Man Team-Up. I liked it a lot, but this week it pals in comparison to the outright awesomeness of the Comic Book of the Week, Superior Spider-Man #14! Otto Octavius finally embraces his new Spider-Man persona, and it is glorious to behold!
How have we gone this long without Spider-Man henchmen?
Comic Reviews: Justice League Dark #22, Larfleeze #2, Superior Spider-Man #14, Superior Spider-Man Team-Up #1, Uncanny Avengers #10 and Wolverine and the X-Men #33.
Review: Teen Titans #22
I think Teen Titans #22 is where the series finally loses its mind. It’s jumped the shark. There is only the insane ramblings of a madman who has too much else to worry about, and can no longer be bothered to tell an even partially coherent story. Scott Lobdell is off writing both Superman comics. He’s got a lot on his plate. So clearly when it came time to write Teen Titans #22, he simply went off the deep end. Everything he may have learned in story-telling school has gone right out the window.
Teen Titans #22
Unprecedented recap page. The Deus ex Machina Squad. Trigon quitting. Evil Red Robin defeated off-panel. It’s all just so…so…lame.
Comic Rating: 2/10 – Very Bad.
On the one hand, the comic is comprehensible. I know what’s happening, I can understand what’s intended. But on the other hand, every other aspect of this comic is a wreck. It’s given up all pretense of being about the characters, and is instead just a rambling befuddlement of stuff that’s happening to a random, somewhat familiar group of superheroes. There’s no cohesion anymore. Issues don’t flow together. Characters are nothing more than colorful bodies who spout painful dialogue, and do what is required of them by the writer. Plot threads are dropped or dismissed seemingly at random, with only a little hand-waving to explain them away. While other plot threads just pop up out of nowhere and make no sense in the larger series.
Nothing matters anymore. Nothing. No friendships, no relationships, no idea of teamwork or why they’re even doing this. The Teen Titans are a train wreck. And the worst part is that they will now always be a train wreck.
Remember, there are no previous versions of the Titans. There is no long legacy of Teen Titans to fall back on anymore, not in the New 52 universe. It’s just Red Robin and this band of idiot misfits grouped together for the sake of hanging a series on. And it’s garbage, pure garbage. I’m pretty sure this book is surviving on name recognition alone at this point. But if it keeps going like this, Teen Titans isn’t going to have a name to bank on anymore.
Hench-Sized Comic Book Reviews – 7/20/13
Comic-Con International and Henchman-4-Hire have two things in common today: we’re both hard at work! Unfortunately, we’re not working together, at least not yet. Maybe someday I’ll have a booth at the comic book/pop culture Mecca of the world, but not yet. I’m still just a lonely nobody blogger plucking away at my keyboard here in Central New York. At least the comics were good this week.
I don’t know what it is, but comics have been on a roll for a few weeks now. I’m mostly reading some pretty awesome books anyway, but this week was especially good. What great, glorious world do I live in where Batwoman, FF, Thor: God of Thunder and Wonder Woman all come out in the same week? They’re some of my favorite comics! And this week, Wonder Woman is the clear winner of Comic Book of the Week. It’s spectacular. If you love the New Gods, I hope you’re reading Wonder Woman.
Wonder Woman has got this team leader thing down cold!
Comic Reviews: Batman and Catwoman #22, Batwoman #22, FF #9, Justice League of America #6, Thor: God of Thunder #10, and Wonder Woman #22.
Review: X-Factor #259
Hey continuity fans, this issue is for you! Did you ever wonder what happened to Dazzler’s baby from that one brief mention of it’s fate back in 2001? What about the secret history of Longshot and Shatterstar? Are you a scholar of X-Men history so deep and obscure that you’ve been waiting decades for your answers? Peter David and X-Factor have you covered in the latest issue of The End of X-Factor! And it’s mostly good, but also mostly just a quick attempt for PAD to write off a story idea he had in one issue.
X-Factor #259
On the one hand, The End of X-Factor is about tying off each individual character with a bow. On the other hand, like with this issue, PAD might be cramming every story idea he had left into single, one-off issues.
Comic Rating: 6/10 – Pretty Good.
I’m just not a big fan of Rictor, Shatterstar or Longshot, so maybe the true strength of this issue was lost on me. PAD has been hinting at some sort of connection between the two similar heroes for a while now, and I can definitely say I didn’t see this exact twist coming, but it’s still similar to what I expected. It also only comes up in the last third of the book, which turns into a huge info-dump as PAD just lets it all out. I got the feeling that he had planned something bigger and better for the big reveal, but the comic’s cancellation saw to the end of those plans.
The rest of the issue is fine. It’s mostly about Rictor, and it’s so utterly random. After the events of Hell on Earth War, Rictor wound up in the Mojoverse, of all places. That part doesn’t make much sense, but again, this issue is all about tying off the Longshot/Shatterstar story. PAD does a fine job with it, and might actually appease a few continuity buffs in the audience.
Henchman-4-Hire