I've been reading more comic books lately. Back in the day what I read were mostly my older brother's comics. That generally meant really bad Marvel crap with amazing art by Jim Lee. That also meant being a guy going through hormonal changes with art by Jim Lee. That ALSO meant way too many pages with Cyclops running around in his underwear. That didn't exactly result in any *confusion,* but it did result in a weird association of impossible women being right next to the biggest nerd-douche of all time. That probably did help make me go Dr. Venture. Ex-girlfriends? Blame Marvel. That's who I blame.
Oh, but I did get to read Infinity Guantlet 1-5. That was always awesome. Frank didn't have the final issue, or if he did I never found it. It was years and years before I found out how it ended. It ended awesomely.
Serious, though. If it weren't for the incredible art, that stuff would be worse than seeing the X-Men go off and have adventures with the Silverhawks with a magic time-traveling space cowboy-gypsy-pirate who drove around in that Space Convertible from Battletoads. Man, the late seventies and eighties were such crap. Gwen Stacy died for this?
Oooh, on a tangent, we can all at least agree that the massive six-controller X-Men Arcade Game cabinet was the coolest thing, ever, right?
Comics are weird. I really think, in general, they're just not as good as books. I wonder why this is. Is it the pacing? They're naturally much faster-paced. Is it just the writing and art and all that? I'm never sure. Even some of the so-called masterpieces just feel.... wanting. Sandman? Oh yes, it's great. Incredible. But still, there's always that little smirk I have when reading it that reminds me so very much of that episode of Tazmania where Taz's sister is writing that story? She keeps saying "Then suddenly!" and describing something horrible that happens to Taz. It was awesome (actually, that whole show was generally awesome). Then suddenly! I bet this kid's life is really horrible! Oh, it is, he's abused by his foster parents! Then suddenly! I bet we have to add some ironic, depressing, horrible, self-hating sex! Whoop! There it is!
Very little of it ever feels truly amazingly perfect, and what little does almost always exists in a vacuum. Case in point. Kira bought for me the collector's edition of Kingdom Come. It is absolutely incredible. Sure, I can point out flaws, but I do that anyways. Deep down I honestly can't come up with a real complaint about it, but at the same time it's not really part of a series (I hear stuff was added later- the whole Hypertime affair. It sounded terrible). Still, there's other stuff I've been loving. I've been really enjoying Hellboy and BPRD. I much prefer Mignola's art and don't like the others' so much (Duncan Fegredo being an obvious exception, but for probably the wrong reasons. Also whoever did the art for Makoma, but that was a special situation). Some others.
It was Ben who reintroduced me to comics back in college. You always wanted a video gamer friend, a D&D gamer friend, a movie friend, a comic friend, a sports friend, a book friend, and so on and so on. Ben was incredible on the comic end. He showed me lots of wonderful stuff - some of which I've been collecting the past year or so. He introduced me to Hush, Hellboy (although I only recall reading crap about Rasputin, whom I never really liked in those stories), other things. I read the first two volumes of Rising Stars and really liked it. The third and final wasn't out, though... I picked them all up some months ago. They're.... Ay yi yi. I don't know what I was thinking back then. They're pretty awful. Heh. Midnight Nation is not /quite/ as good as I remember, but still good. Transmet is even better than I remember, if anything. I also picked up Planet Hulk and World War Hulk after hearing nothing but good things about them (will be reading that this weekend). I like to think Ben'd be proud :p I'm glad they did some good stuff with Hulk after Civil War (Civil War really wasn't too bad, but Jesus Bloody Christ, did they even bother thinking about the premise? Guess what, kiddies! There's this thing called "Reckless Endangerment!" It's illegal! Throw that at the bubbly kid and you'd have the whole case wrapped up in ten minutes! Christ, guys. You could have made an INTERESTING legal backdrop for the story and you dropped that ball. Still, Captain America surfing a harrier jet? Yes, please).
edit: Maybe a third, maybe 40% through Planet Hulk and it is absolutely incredible.
