A Year in Marvel Comics
So, what was I doing fandom-wise all last year? Well, mostly reading Marvel comics. I now seem to have moved on from following one or two characters on a casual basis to attempting to consume the entire history of the Marvel-verse. (Yes, I know this is not really technically feasible. And yet, here I still am.) I'm pretty sure I crossed some sort of line when I started compiling a spreadsheet to track issue numbers and print dates. And that was back in May.
Hence, this reaction post has pretty much lurched along in a year-long state of, "I will post this update as soon as I've read the last of the- whee, more library books!" So I'm just going to concede defeat and post it now before it gets long enough to eat livejournal. Potential spoilers for, um... everything?
Catching up on the Ultimate Universe
* Ultimates 1 and 2 - Finished these, and liked them far more than I expected. Millar and Hitch's F4 run did nothing for me, but here their style really suits the material. I continue to adore the heck out of Ultimate Thor, and I liked the Ult-verse take on Loki, too. Must seek out the new Ultimate Thor comics.
* Ultimates 3 - Um... the art was nice? Oh boy, yeah: sucked as much as advertised. Horrible continuity, with way too many things casually copied from 616 with no attempt to check whether 1610 canon is different. (Most galling, chucking all that is awesome and different about Ult Thor to reset him into a thee-and-thou-spouting beardy warrior, grr.) Plus plot elements introduced in a manner best summed up as 'WTF flying horse?' and just a general complete failure to make any logical sense. Ugh.
* Ultimate Iron Man - Erm. Wow. Well, they were so keen to get OSC to write a comic they just let him write whatever he wanted, didn't they? I mean, it's not horrible, but it doesn't in any way fit with the existing depiction of Ult-verse Iron Man. Cracktastic!
* Ultimate Spider-Man - Read a fair bit of this. Mostly good fun, though the portrayal of female characters as moody and irrational became increasingly grating. But I do love Ultverse JJ Jameson and adore the Bagley art - he does great expressions for Peter, and his character designs are fab and very distinctive. Immonen, I don't like so much: a tad too stylised for me, and he seems to have certain stock expressions that show up again and again, especially when it comes to drawing women.
* Ultimate X-Men - Struggled to get into this. One-note psycho Magneto is dull and makes the idea of him and Xavier being frenemies ridiculous, though they pulled a good save by making this Xavier darker and emotionally stunted to compensate. I was intrigued by the warped fun with him mindwiping Magneto and comparing his feelings for his son to an owner's love for a pet, but then it moved away from that and back to plot-plot-plot with an overly large cast, and I got bored again. Meh.
* Ultimate Marvel Team-Up - Bit of a curio, this, since it's mostly Jossed and the art and writing styles are all over the place. I was pleased to get an origin story on Doctor Strange, though, and the Punisher/Daredevil story wasn't bad despite my lack of caring about the Punisher. Unexpected break-out star of the series, however? Man-Thing! (I'm not even kidding. I read the Man-Thing issue and was all, "Dude, what's this guy's story?" Which is more than any of the others managed to intrigue me.)
* Ultimatum - Finally found this in the library, and, yecch. I think this was even more disappointing than Ultimates 3, because instead of just a mess there was something almost decent in there struggling to get out. The first issue was actually pretty good, and even the surprise!cannibalism at the end of issue 2 could have worked as an isolated shock moment. But then the steadily more gory and pointless deaths just piled on, and by the time the last vestiges of good taste went out with the death of Doctor Strange, I was so done. Gross, meaningless, and no fun at all to read. Bleargh.
* Ultimatum Requiem - Okay, this was much better, and did a decent job of cleaning up after the bad taste left by Ultimatum. The F4 team break-up in particular was really well done. (And exactly the kind of thing they should have been doing to shake up the framework of the universe instead of just randomly killing people.) I was fascinated by all the stuff surrounding Ult Reed's issues with trying to find simple perfect solutions that let him ignore the emotional aspects, and how that fails to support Sue and puts burdens on Ben. This did a great job of showing how the stresses could believably crack the team apart when they're all so much younger and less settled in their roles.
I completely lost interest in reading anything Ult-verse post-Ultimatum, and am only just poking at getting back into it now. Flicking through Spider-Man trades and reading spoilers for Ultimate Doom has got me vaguely intrigued by a few developments, so I may try to pick things up again at some stage.
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Attempting to absorb the entire 616 'verse at once
* Astonishing X-Men - Hey, an X-book that I actually liked! All credit to Joss Whedon. It's not the trademark Buffy-speak, which he manages to keep fairly restrained except for a few awkward Briticisms from Emma, but the fact he makes lots of time for characterisation and people just talking to each other. I especially loved Beast in this (though I find the artist's take a bit weird and off-putting). I liked Emma's snark too, and was surprised to find myself warming to Colossus, who I've never been interested in before. Wolverine and Cyclops continue to not do much for me, but hey, you can't have everything. I'm looking out for the rest of the trades.
* Avengers - Read scattered issues from various eras, but nothing has really clicked yet. I liked the team-y vibe in the 80s issues, where they all hung around doing non-superhero stuff with each other, but on the whole the character roster is so big and so fluid that I can't seem to fully engage with it. May have another run at it when I've got to know more of the characters individually from different titles.
* Black Panther - Read some of Hudlin's run after reading the F4 crossover. Hmm. Mixed feelings. It has its moments, but the writing feels forced in places, characters doing and saying stuff just to set up jokes or being shoved around to suit the plot. May try some more, but it's not high on the list.
* Captain Britain and MI-13 - I really cannot take the concept of a Captain Britain seriously. But I read the first two MI-13 trades starting with the Secret Invasion tie-in, fell a little bit for John Lennon the skrull, and then a huge amount for Faiza Hussain. (She's a motor-mouth superhero-fangirl Excalibur-wielding super-powered Muslim doctor from Chelmsford, guys. Not only is she made of awesome, she's my local superhero!) I am bummed to hear that this comic got cancelled; put these people in another book stat, Marvel.
* Captain Marvel - Read the Essential Collection of 1960s comics. Um... kinda sucked, to be honest. Dull, and not nearly as charming as the Stan Lee stuff from the same era.
* Dark Avengers - Read the early issues for Doctor Doom's appearances. I love that Bendis brought back the Doom/Morgana relationship; I just wish he could have managed a semi-coherent plot and could actually write Doctor Doom. (At least his Doom voice has improved since the dire, dire travesty of Mighty Avengers 9 and 10.) I also liked the relationship set up between Osborn and the Sentry, but I just can't care very much about the rest of the Dark Avengers.
* Daredevil - Read Yellow, which was a decent intro as a retelling of the early days, and proved Jeph Loeb really did used to be able to write. Also read the Born Again arc, which would have been unqualified awesome if not for viewing it through the external lens of how it fits the pattern of Frank Miller's Thing About Whores, and Bendis' Decalogue, which was just weird. All in all, I do quite like the dark mood of the Daredevil comics. It gives it a distinct feel from the rest of the Marvel-verse.
* Deadpool - Read some of the '97 series. Pure goofy fun, and a welcome break from angsty serious comics. I can see how the overexposure gets old fast, but on the whole, I like. (I also read a Cable and Deadpool trade. It kind of made me want to smack Cable in the face a lot for being a smug overly manipulative git. But I would read more.)
* Doctor Strange - Finally found The Oath, which was as awesome as advertised. I'm a sucker for arrogant characters who have much to be arrogant about, and the fact that Strange believes his own origin story of having overcome his former pride makes it even more fun. Also read some 70s comics, which were okay but not special, and the new Strange mini from after he's been depowered, which was pretty good. I like Casey as the new sidekick, and Strange struggling with his lack of powers is interesting. I hope they do more with this.
* Doctor Voodoo - Also pretty good. I mostly picked it up to see if there were any hints what Strange was up to now, but it proved a decent read in its own right. Nice atmosphere and excellent Doctor Doom. I would be on board for more.
* Fantastic Four - Re-read the Miller and Hitch run to see if I liked it better after having enjoyed their work on the Ultimates. Verdict: still nope. It's just a jarring mismatch of styles where they try to tone down their own gritty darkness, also tone down the F4's silly cartoon exuberance, and the end result is deeply mediocre. But I've been loving Jonathan Hickman's current stuff enough to buy the actual comics as they come out month by month. He does the family interaction very well and writes a great Doctor Doom. I'm really looking forward to seeing where the current storyline goes.
* Ghost Rider - Read the first Essential Collection of the 70s comics. Started out pretty meh, grew on me a surprising amount by the end. I'm kind of charmed by the way Johnny stumbles about with very little idea what he's doing. And also by the way all the Satanists in the early issues are all, "Yay, Satan!" and everybody just has random texts on demon-summoning lying around that they turn to as their first thought in a crisis. As you do.
* Incredible Hercules - Love this, wish I could find more trades. The double-act of Herc and Amadeus Cho is just inspired. Amadeus is arrogant and enough of a self-righteous teenager to be skirting close to supervillainy, which always I like in a comic book genius, and Herc is a big dumb cheerful goofball with enough heart and experience of tragedy to keep him more or less in line. Extremely fun stuff. I'm intrigued by Marvel Athena, too, though I haven't seen much of her yet.
* Iron Man - Haven't been reading much Iron Man lately; not sure why the enthusiasm faded, considering I liked the new film, but none of the available trades really appeal. I read the fourth Essential Collection, but didn't love it quite so much as the first three. Maybe I'm just more interested in shiny new comic loves at the moment.
* Ms. Marvel - Read two trades from Brian Reed's post-House of M run, and then had to go out and grab three more. I love Carol as a character, and I dig the whole concept of a mid-list superhero trying to figure out something more meaningful to do with her life. Plus I'm not sure I realised quite how desperately I was craving a female-centric superhero book until I read these. Must seek out more.
* New Avengers - Huh. Clicked with this much better than classic Avengers, surprisingly. It started really strong, and has a more stable team set-up, which helps; it's good fun when they're all bickering and just hanging out, though it's a bit too heavy on the Action Splash Page filler whenever a fight scene starts up. I love Luke and Jessica and the baby; they may be my new favourite Marvel family. This also turned out to be incredibly useful reading for figuring out what the hell was supposed to have happened in Secret Invasion. Will read the rest of these.
* Nova - Read some of this in an attempt to get to know some cosmic Marvel characters before checking out Annihilation/War of Kings. Picked up the Knowhere trade on the promise of a telepathic Russian dog in a spacesuit; he was cool, but the rest didn't grab me much. Nova Corps was better: I like the Earth-side stuff with Rich's interactions with his family and old friends far more than the space adventures, and actually found the plot intriguing enough to want to find the next one.
* Runaways - Picked up the first trade, and, hmm. I liked it well enough, though it didn't quite wow me the way I expected from the hype. Maybe I was over-sold. A few nice moments, though, and I'll read more if I come across it.
* She-Hulk - Read a few trades from the recent volume 1 and 2. I liked the earlier issues best, when it was goofy non-angsty fun at the law firm, but still, the later bounty hunter stuff is not bad either, so I guess I will read more.
* Thor - Read the first issue of the JMS reboot a while back, and was mildly intrigued but not much more. Then I read a collection of 60s Stan Lee comics and some of Walter Simonson's 80s run, exploded into rabid fanaticism, and bought up all the recent trades. So, yeah, I don't even know. I guess getting to know the Asgardian characters (Volstagg! ♥) brought the current resurrection storyline more to life for me. And now that I've got into it, it is a very classy comic: well written, beautiful art, and coherent ongoing plot. Hey, it even comes with bonus Doctor Doom. (Being a little more outright eeevil than I typically like my Doom served, but when I embraced that and rolled with it, it has a kind of memetic badass charm of its own. Doctor Doom - the guy who vivisects gods.) I would buy every issue of this had I the money.
* Thunderbolts - Read some New Thunderbolts trades from the mid-2000s, which were readable enough but not special. Also read Ellis's 'Faith in Monsters' arc, which did the near-impossible and actually got me interested in Norman Osborn as a villain. I tip my hat to you, sir.
* Young Avengers - Read the first trade, had pretty much the same reaction as Runaways. Not bad, but these early issues felt a bit too crammed to me; lots of characters, lots of action, not much time to get to know anybody yet. But I picked up the current Children's Crusade mini partway through when I learned of Doom's involvement, and have been loving it so far, so I may go back and try a re-read later.
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Big Crossover Events, old and new
* Secret Wars - (The 1980s original mega-crossover, and not anything at all to do with Secret War, singular. Oh, Marvel.) I really enjoyed this! It's self-contained and just much more fun than the modern big events with all the Grim Angsty Drama and forty-four zillion tie-ins. Plus, it's basically one long ode to how awesome Doctor Doom is, and as such, pleases me. I'm amused by the way all the bad guys have major villain-crushes on him. (Which is frankly nowhere near as cracky as some of the actual romances floated in this series, but hey, that's not the part that I'm invested in.)
* The Complete Onslaught Epic - Read some of this, mainly to get the Franklin Richards plotline out of F4-completism. Alas, largely a boring slog through X-titles and Hulk issues I'm not interested in, seasoned with elements of random crack. Wow, people really aren't kidding when they talk about 90s comics, are they? This even features the infamous teenage Tony Stark.
* Heroes Reborn - Following on from Onslaught, the equally infamous failed 90s attempt to reboot the main Marvel heroes in Darker and Edgier form. Library had the Iron Man issues, so I checked them out, and was mildly impressed by how quickly they managed to make a brand new reboot comic utterly impenetrable to anyone not simultaneously reading all three sister comics. (Namely, me.) Only got vaguely interesting towards the end when Doom showed up for the series wrap-up, but the start and conclusion of that storyline were - guess what? - contained in issues of other comics I was not reading. Sigh.
* House of M - Well, this was... okay, I guess? Not bad, not spectacular, just readable. There were a few nice moments, like the, "What would you have me do?" confrontation between Magneto and Pietro. But mostly it felt like a bit of wasted AU, since even in the side stories the characters gave the impression of being versions who Wanda thought they were rather than themselves in different circumstances. And I'm not invested in the mutant side of things much, so... ehh. Shrug.
* Secret War - Sucky. Dark, murky art with hard-to-read tiny text, incoherent non-plot, no visible consequences to Nick Fury tricking a bunch of heroes into an act of civilian-murdering terrorism and then mindwiping them, and a bizarre depiction of Latveria that seems to be a bunch of 'oppressed country' clichés stuck together rather than bearing any resemblance to what it's looked like under Doom. (Seriously, Bendis, burkas?) I didn't hate it, but only because it failed to make me care enough.
* Siege - Low expectations for the win, probably, but I was actually pleasantly surprised by this one. Yes, it's one long pointless battle, but at least it's a fairly self-contained and entertaining battle. Bendis is actually constrained to writing to his strengths for a change, namely lively dialogue without room for too much filler or need to produce an intelligent plot, and I like Coipel's art here even more than I do on Thor. (I was going to cite the different inker/colourist for the bolder, brighter look, but it turns out to be the exact same people, so, er, good on them for creating a distinctive look for the two books, I guess?)
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Misc. AUs and other stuff
* 1602 - This was an intriguing enough AU, with lovely stylish artwork and some really nice moments (although the faily handling of Native Americans was not one of them). I am still wondering why this version of Doom was called Otto, though.
* Bullet Points - Liked this quite a lot, after a slow start. JMS-penned what-if AU where a hardened Reed becomes Nick Fury? Always going to be my thing, even if some of the attempts to reshuffle 616 events feel pretty forced. Interesting art too; kind of sketchy and heavily inked, and a lot of it doesn't work for me, but then an individual frame or image will really jump out. Plus it's enough of a self-contained universe that I'm almost tempted to fic it. I'd like to figure out the Reed-Doom relationship in this universe.
* Doctor Doom and the Masters of Evil - Picked this up for entirely obvious reasons. But! It exceeded all expectations. Great dialogue and lovely art, plus, funny! Seriously, why is the Marvel all ages stuff so much more consistently good than most of their adult titles? Is clean, bright, cartoony art and self-contained plotting not considered edgy enough for grown-ups?
* Marvels - This was just amazing. I always noticed and liked Stan Lee's habit of working in reaction shots from the people on the street in the 60s comics, and the idea of a whole history from that bystander POV just works so well. Plus the artwork is absolutely beautiful. This manages to make the Marvelverse feel far more vividly real than any of the movies ever have. Fabulous book.
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After plowing through a stupid number of different comics, I'm finally beginning to feel like I know enough of the events and major players to pin a general sense of the universe together. Next up: some Cosmic Marvel, Spider-Man and more Avengers titles, and then I may at last take the plunge into the morass that is X-Men continuity.
...And after that, you never know, I might actually try writing some fic. (And/or start a Doctor Doom fan community and attempt to incite other people to do it. Why so little love, fandom?)
This is my brain on comics canon, people. Just please, whatever happens, nobody get me into DC.
Hence, this reaction post has pretty much lurched along in a year-long state of, "I will post this update as soon as I've read the last of the- whee, more library books!" So I'm just going to concede defeat and post it now before it gets long enough to eat livejournal. Potential spoilers for, um... everything?
Catching up on the Ultimate Universe
* Ultimates 1 and 2 - Finished these, and liked them far more than I expected. Millar and Hitch's F4 run did nothing for me, but here their style really suits the material. I continue to adore the heck out of Ultimate Thor, and I liked the Ult-verse take on Loki, too. Must seek out the new Ultimate Thor comics.
* Ultimates 3 - Um... the art was nice? Oh boy, yeah: sucked as much as advertised. Horrible continuity, with way too many things casually copied from 616 with no attempt to check whether 1610 canon is different. (Most galling, chucking all that is awesome and different about Ult Thor to reset him into a thee-and-thou-spouting beardy warrior, grr.) Plus plot elements introduced in a manner best summed up as 'WTF flying horse?' and just a general complete failure to make any logical sense. Ugh.
* Ultimate Iron Man - Erm. Wow. Well, they were so keen to get OSC to write a comic they just let him write whatever he wanted, didn't they? I mean, it's not horrible, but it doesn't in any way fit with the existing depiction of Ult-verse Iron Man. Cracktastic!
* Ultimate Spider-Man - Read a fair bit of this. Mostly good fun, though the portrayal of female characters as moody and irrational became increasingly grating. But I do love Ultverse JJ Jameson and adore the Bagley art - he does great expressions for Peter, and his character designs are fab and very distinctive. Immonen, I don't like so much: a tad too stylised for me, and he seems to have certain stock expressions that show up again and again, especially when it comes to drawing women.
* Ultimate X-Men - Struggled to get into this. One-note psycho Magneto is dull and makes the idea of him and Xavier being frenemies ridiculous, though they pulled a good save by making this Xavier darker and emotionally stunted to compensate. I was intrigued by the warped fun with him mindwiping Magneto and comparing his feelings for his son to an owner's love for a pet, but then it moved away from that and back to plot-plot-plot with an overly large cast, and I got bored again. Meh.
* Ultimate Marvel Team-Up - Bit of a curio, this, since it's mostly Jossed and the art and writing styles are all over the place. I was pleased to get an origin story on Doctor Strange, though, and the Punisher/Daredevil story wasn't bad despite my lack of caring about the Punisher. Unexpected break-out star of the series, however? Man-Thing! (I'm not even kidding. I read the Man-Thing issue and was all, "Dude, what's this guy's story?" Which is more than any of the others managed to intrigue me.)
* Ultimatum - Finally found this in the library, and, yecch. I think this was even more disappointing than Ultimates 3, because instead of just a mess there was something almost decent in there struggling to get out. The first issue was actually pretty good, and even the surprise!cannibalism at the end of issue 2 could have worked as an isolated shock moment. But then the steadily more gory and pointless deaths just piled on, and by the time the last vestiges of good taste went out with the death of Doctor Strange, I was so done. Gross, meaningless, and no fun at all to read. Bleargh.
* Ultimatum Requiem - Okay, this was much better, and did a decent job of cleaning up after the bad taste left by Ultimatum. The F4 team break-up in particular was really well done. (And exactly the kind of thing they should have been doing to shake up the framework of the universe instead of just randomly killing people.) I was fascinated by all the stuff surrounding Ult Reed's issues with trying to find simple perfect solutions that let him ignore the emotional aspects, and how that fails to support Sue and puts burdens on Ben. This did a great job of showing how the stresses could believably crack the team apart when they're all so much younger and less settled in their roles.
I completely lost interest in reading anything Ult-verse post-Ultimatum, and am only just poking at getting back into it now. Flicking through Spider-Man trades and reading spoilers for Ultimate Doom has got me vaguely intrigued by a few developments, so I may try to pick things up again at some stage.
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Attempting to absorb the entire 616 'verse at once
* Astonishing X-Men - Hey, an X-book that I actually liked! All credit to Joss Whedon. It's not the trademark Buffy-speak, which he manages to keep fairly restrained except for a few awkward Briticisms from Emma, but the fact he makes lots of time for characterisation and people just talking to each other. I especially loved Beast in this (though I find the artist's take a bit weird and off-putting). I liked Emma's snark too, and was surprised to find myself warming to Colossus, who I've never been interested in before. Wolverine and Cyclops continue to not do much for me, but hey, you can't have everything. I'm looking out for the rest of the trades.
* Avengers - Read scattered issues from various eras, but nothing has really clicked yet. I liked the team-y vibe in the 80s issues, where they all hung around doing non-superhero stuff with each other, but on the whole the character roster is so big and so fluid that I can't seem to fully engage with it. May have another run at it when I've got to know more of the characters individually from different titles.
* Black Panther - Read some of Hudlin's run after reading the F4 crossover. Hmm. Mixed feelings. It has its moments, but the writing feels forced in places, characters doing and saying stuff just to set up jokes or being shoved around to suit the plot. May try some more, but it's not high on the list.
* Captain Britain and MI-13 - I really cannot take the concept of a Captain Britain seriously. But I read the first two MI-13 trades starting with the Secret Invasion tie-in, fell a little bit for John Lennon the skrull, and then a huge amount for Faiza Hussain. (She's a motor-mouth superhero-fangirl Excalibur-wielding super-powered Muslim doctor from Chelmsford, guys. Not only is she made of awesome, she's my local superhero!) I am bummed to hear that this comic got cancelled; put these people in another book stat, Marvel.
* Captain Marvel - Read the Essential Collection of 1960s comics. Um... kinda sucked, to be honest. Dull, and not nearly as charming as the Stan Lee stuff from the same era.
* Dark Avengers - Read the early issues for Doctor Doom's appearances. I love that Bendis brought back the Doom/Morgana relationship; I just wish he could have managed a semi-coherent plot and could actually write Doctor Doom. (At least his Doom voice has improved since the dire, dire travesty of Mighty Avengers 9 and 10.) I also liked the relationship set up between Osborn and the Sentry, but I just can't care very much about the rest of the Dark Avengers.
* Daredevil - Read Yellow, which was a decent intro as a retelling of the early days, and proved Jeph Loeb really did used to be able to write. Also read the Born Again arc, which would have been unqualified awesome if not for viewing it through the external lens of how it fits the pattern of Frank Miller's Thing About Whores, and Bendis' Decalogue, which was just weird. All in all, I do quite like the dark mood of the Daredevil comics. It gives it a distinct feel from the rest of the Marvel-verse.
* Deadpool - Read some of the '97 series. Pure goofy fun, and a welcome break from angsty serious comics. I can see how the overexposure gets old fast, but on the whole, I like. (I also read a Cable and Deadpool trade. It kind of made me want to smack Cable in the face a lot for being a smug overly manipulative git. But I would read more.)
* Doctor Strange - Finally found The Oath, which was as awesome as advertised. I'm a sucker for arrogant characters who have much to be arrogant about, and the fact that Strange believes his own origin story of having overcome his former pride makes it even more fun. Also read some 70s comics, which were okay but not special, and the new Strange mini from after he's been depowered, which was pretty good. I like Casey as the new sidekick, and Strange struggling with his lack of powers is interesting. I hope they do more with this.
* Doctor Voodoo - Also pretty good. I mostly picked it up to see if there were any hints what Strange was up to now, but it proved a decent read in its own right. Nice atmosphere and excellent Doctor Doom. I would be on board for more.
* Fantastic Four - Re-read the Miller and Hitch run to see if I liked it better after having enjoyed their work on the Ultimates. Verdict: still nope. It's just a jarring mismatch of styles where they try to tone down their own gritty darkness, also tone down the F4's silly cartoon exuberance, and the end result is deeply mediocre. But I've been loving Jonathan Hickman's current stuff enough to buy the actual comics as they come out month by month. He does the family interaction very well and writes a great Doctor Doom. I'm really looking forward to seeing where the current storyline goes.
* Ghost Rider - Read the first Essential Collection of the 70s comics. Started out pretty meh, grew on me a surprising amount by the end. I'm kind of charmed by the way Johnny stumbles about with very little idea what he's doing. And also by the way all the Satanists in the early issues are all, "Yay, Satan!" and everybody just has random texts on demon-summoning lying around that they turn to as their first thought in a crisis. As you do.
* Incredible Hercules - Love this, wish I could find more trades. The double-act of Herc and Amadeus Cho is just inspired. Amadeus is arrogant and enough of a self-righteous teenager to be skirting close to supervillainy, which always I like in a comic book genius, and Herc is a big dumb cheerful goofball with enough heart and experience of tragedy to keep him more or less in line. Extremely fun stuff. I'm intrigued by Marvel Athena, too, though I haven't seen much of her yet.
* Iron Man - Haven't been reading much Iron Man lately; not sure why the enthusiasm faded, considering I liked the new film, but none of the available trades really appeal. I read the fourth Essential Collection, but didn't love it quite so much as the first three. Maybe I'm just more interested in shiny new comic loves at the moment.
* Ms. Marvel - Read two trades from Brian Reed's post-House of M run, and then had to go out and grab three more. I love Carol as a character, and I dig the whole concept of a mid-list superhero trying to figure out something more meaningful to do with her life. Plus I'm not sure I realised quite how desperately I was craving a female-centric superhero book until I read these. Must seek out more.
* New Avengers - Huh. Clicked with this much better than classic Avengers, surprisingly. It started really strong, and has a more stable team set-up, which helps; it's good fun when they're all bickering and just hanging out, though it's a bit too heavy on the Action Splash Page filler whenever a fight scene starts up. I love Luke and Jessica and the baby; they may be my new favourite Marvel family. This also turned out to be incredibly useful reading for figuring out what the hell was supposed to have happened in Secret Invasion. Will read the rest of these.
* Nova - Read some of this in an attempt to get to know some cosmic Marvel characters before checking out Annihilation/War of Kings. Picked up the Knowhere trade on the promise of a telepathic Russian dog in a spacesuit; he was cool, but the rest didn't grab me much. Nova Corps was better: I like the Earth-side stuff with Rich's interactions with his family and old friends far more than the space adventures, and actually found the plot intriguing enough to want to find the next one.
* Runaways - Picked up the first trade, and, hmm. I liked it well enough, though it didn't quite wow me the way I expected from the hype. Maybe I was over-sold. A few nice moments, though, and I'll read more if I come across it.
* She-Hulk - Read a few trades from the recent volume 1 and 2. I liked the earlier issues best, when it was goofy non-angsty fun at the law firm, but still, the later bounty hunter stuff is not bad either, so I guess I will read more.
* Thor - Read the first issue of the JMS reboot a while back, and was mildly intrigued but not much more. Then I read a collection of 60s Stan Lee comics and some of Walter Simonson's 80s run, exploded into rabid fanaticism, and bought up all the recent trades. So, yeah, I don't even know. I guess getting to know the Asgardian characters (Volstagg! ♥) brought the current resurrection storyline more to life for me. And now that I've got into it, it is a very classy comic: well written, beautiful art, and coherent ongoing plot. Hey, it even comes with bonus Doctor Doom. (Being a little more outright eeevil than I typically like my Doom served, but when I embraced that and rolled with it, it has a kind of memetic badass charm of its own. Doctor Doom - the guy who vivisects gods.) I would buy every issue of this had I the money.
* Thunderbolts - Read some New Thunderbolts trades from the mid-2000s, which were readable enough but not special. Also read Ellis's 'Faith in Monsters' arc, which did the near-impossible and actually got me interested in Norman Osborn as a villain. I tip my hat to you, sir.
* Young Avengers - Read the first trade, had pretty much the same reaction as Runaways. Not bad, but these early issues felt a bit too crammed to me; lots of characters, lots of action, not much time to get to know anybody yet. But I picked up the current Children's Crusade mini partway through when I learned of Doom's involvement, and have been loving it so far, so I may go back and try a re-read later.
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Big Crossover Events, old and new
* Secret Wars - (The 1980s original mega-crossover, and not anything at all to do with Secret War, singular. Oh, Marvel.) I really enjoyed this! It's self-contained and just much more fun than the modern big events with all the Grim Angsty Drama and forty-four zillion tie-ins. Plus, it's basically one long ode to how awesome Doctor Doom is, and as such, pleases me. I'm amused by the way all the bad guys have major villain-crushes on him. (Which is frankly nowhere near as cracky as some of the actual romances floated in this series, but hey, that's not the part that I'm invested in.)
* The Complete Onslaught Epic - Read some of this, mainly to get the Franklin Richards plotline out of F4-completism. Alas, largely a boring slog through X-titles and Hulk issues I'm not interested in, seasoned with elements of random crack. Wow, people really aren't kidding when they talk about 90s comics, are they? This even features the infamous teenage Tony Stark.
* Heroes Reborn - Following on from Onslaught, the equally infamous failed 90s attempt to reboot the main Marvel heroes in Darker and Edgier form. Library had the Iron Man issues, so I checked them out, and was mildly impressed by how quickly they managed to make a brand new reboot comic utterly impenetrable to anyone not simultaneously reading all three sister comics. (Namely, me.) Only got vaguely interesting towards the end when Doom showed up for the series wrap-up, but the start and conclusion of that storyline were - guess what? - contained in issues of other comics I was not reading. Sigh.
* House of M - Well, this was... okay, I guess? Not bad, not spectacular, just readable. There were a few nice moments, like the, "What would you have me do?" confrontation between Magneto and Pietro. But mostly it felt like a bit of wasted AU, since even in the side stories the characters gave the impression of being versions who Wanda thought they were rather than themselves in different circumstances. And I'm not invested in the mutant side of things much, so... ehh. Shrug.
* Secret War - Sucky. Dark, murky art with hard-to-read tiny text, incoherent non-plot, no visible consequences to Nick Fury tricking a bunch of heroes into an act of civilian-murdering terrorism and then mindwiping them, and a bizarre depiction of Latveria that seems to be a bunch of 'oppressed country' clichés stuck together rather than bearing any resemblance to what it's looked like under Doom. (Seriously, Bendis, burkas?) I didn't hate it, but only because it failed to make me care enough.
* Siege - Low expectations for the win, probably, but I was actually pleasantly surprised by this one. Yes, it's one long pointless battle, but at least it's a fairly self-contained and entertaining battle. Bendis is actually constrained to writing to his strengths for a change, namely lively dialogue without room for too much filler or need to produce an intelligent plot, and I like Coipel's art here even more than I do on Thor. (I was going to cite the different inker/colourist for the bolder, brighter look, but it turns out to be the exact same people, so, er, good on them for creating a distinctive look for the two books, I guess?)
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Misc. AUs and other stuff
* 1602 - This was an intriguing enough AU, with lovely stylish artwork and some really nice moments (although the faily handling of Native Americans was not one of them). I am still wondering why this version of Doom was called Otto, though.
* Bullet Points - Liked this quite a lot, after a slow start. JMS-penned what-if AU where a hardened Reed becomes Nick Fury? Always going to be my thing, even if some of the attempts to reshuffle 616 events feel pretty forced. Interesting art too; kind of sketchy and heavily inked, and a lot of it doesn't work for me, but then an individual frame or image will really jump out. Plus it's enough of a self-contained universe that I'm almost tempted to fic it. I'd like to figure out the Reed-Doom relationship in this universe.
* Doctor Doom and the Masters of Evil - Picked this up for entirely obvious reasons. But! It exceeded all expectations. Great dialogue and lovely art, plus, funny! Seriously, why is the Marvel all ages stuff so much more consistently good than most of their adult titles? Is clean, bright, cartoony art and self-contained plotting not considered edgy enough for grown-ups?
* Marvels - This was just amazing. I always noticed and liked Stan Lee's habit of working in reaction shots from the people on the street in the 60s comics, and the idea of a whole history from that bystander POV just works so well. Plus the artwork is absolutely beautiful. This manages to make the Marvelverse feel far more vividly real than any of the movies ever have. Fabulous book.
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After plowing through a stupid number of different comics, I'm finally beginning to feel like I know enough of the events and major players to pin a general sense of the universe together. Next up: some Cosmic Marvel, Spider-Man and more Avengers titles, and then I may at last take the plunge into the morass that is X-Men continuity.
...And after that, you never know, I might actually try writing some fic. (And/or start a Doctor Doom fan community and attempt to incite other people to do it. Why so little love, fandom?)
This is my brain on comics canon, people. Just please, whatever happens, nobody get me into DC.