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Fantastic Four

The Pull List: Action Comics, Avengers, Eternity Girl, Infidel, Judas, Marvel Two-in-One, Vampironica, & more!

March 18, 2018 by krisis

The Pull List was slightly lighter this week than the past three, partially due to me not managing to pick up any additional ongoings from Marvel or DC. I made a heroic effort to catch all the way up with Doctor Strange, but fell an arc short.

This week’s comics felt a little ho-hum for me, with even typical standouts like Flash and Paradiso falling flat. However, it also brought not one but two near-perfect comics, plus one unexpectedly great debut.

Here’s The Pull List for the 14th of March, 2018. New adds to the pull list are marked with *; dropped titles are marked with #.

Artwork from Infidel #1 cover by Aaron Campbell & José Villarrubia

  • DC Comics
    • Action Comics (2016) #999
    • Batgirl and The Birds of Prey (2016) #20
    • Detective Comics (2016) #976
    • *Eternity Girl (2018) #1
    • The Flash (2016) #42
    • Mister Miracle (2017) #7
    • Sideways (2018) #2
    • Suicide Squad (2016) #37
    • Titans (2016) #21
    • Trinity (2016) #19
    • Wonder Woman (2016) #42
  • Image Comics
    • Bonehead (2018) #3
    • *#Dry County (2018) #1
    • *Infidel (2018) #1
    • Paradiso (2017) #4
    • #Sleepless (2017) #4
    • Slots (2017) #6
    • VS (2018) #2
  • Marvel Comics
    • All-New Wolverine (2016) #32
    • Astonishing X-Men (2017) #9
    • Avengers (2017) #684
    • Marvel Two-in-One (2018) #4
    • New Mutants – Dead Souls (2018) #1
    • Old Man Logan (2016) #36
    • Weapon X (2017) #15
    • X-Men: Blue (2017) #23
  • Smaller Publishers: Aftershock Comics, Archie Comics, Black Mask Studios, & Boom! Studios
    • Judas (2017) #4, Boom! Studios
    • *Come Into Me (2018) #1, Black Mask Studios
    • *Vampironica (2018) #1, Archie Comics
    • *Betrothed (2018) #1, Aftershock Comics

Before we begin, a reminder that 2.5 stars on my rating scale is an average comic book and my bell curve distribution peaks at 3/5 stars! Don’t freak out and assume a comic book is terrible because it has 2 stars. That means it’s just a hair below average (and there are a lot of those this week)

Picks of the Pull

Big Two (Marvel/DC) Pick of the Week:
Action Comics (2016) #999, DC Comics

Dan Jurgens leaves us with a truly perfect, contemplative issue of Superman that puts a wrap on his stellar Rebirth run but also addresses his writing from over 25 years ago, as beautifully rendered by artist Will Conrad and colorist Ivan Nunes.

In Metropolis, Lois is newly reunited with her estranged Army General father after saving him from execution in the last arc. It’s his first time meeting Jon (sort of), but General Lane isn’t in on the Superman secret, so he thinks Jon is a regular kid. That makes it even more tense as Lois and her father square off across the dinner table about the philosophy of Superman. Jon has never been exposed to this kind of hatred and xenophobia about his father before – which is also, by extension, aimed at him.

Meanwhile, Superman is in space dealing with a routine chore of breaking up an asteroid that will stray a bit too close to Earth for STAR Labs liking. Superman is thinking about fathers – General Lane, his own father Jor-El, as well as Zod – all of whom were tangled in the cross-time plot he just wrapped with Booster Gold.

Superman can see the errors in the ways of each of those parents and they in turn reflect his errors back upon him. Clark Kent is good-natured to a fault, but he’s not always right. General Lane isn’t entirely wrong about him – sometimes his absolute power corrupts him, both in how he metes out justice and in how he isn’t accustomed to apologizing for his actions.

As a result, Superman decides to put right two wrongs. One is with Hank Henshaw, the Cyborg Superman, who he currently has imprisoned in the Phantom Zone. The other, eventually is General Lane. [Read more…] about The Pull List: Action Comics, Avengers, Eternity Girl, Infidel, Judas, Marvel Two-in-One, Vampironica, & more!

Filed Under: comic books, reviews Tagged With: Action Comics, Aftershock Comics, All-New Wolverine, Astonishing X-Men, Avengers, Batgirl, Batgirl and The Birds of Prey, Batman, Batwoman, Betrothed, Birds of Prey, Black Canary, Black Mask Studios, Bonehead, Charles Soule, Chip Zdarsky, Come Into Me, Cullen Bunn, Dan Jurgen, Dan Jurgens, Dan Panosian, DC Comics, Detective Comics, Dry Country, Ed Brisson, Eternity Gitl, Fantastic Four, Fred Van Lente, Greg Pak, Greg Smallwood, Huntress, Image Comics, Infidel, Jack Herbet, James Robinson, James Tynion, Jeff Loveness, Jorge Molina, Joshua Williamson, Judas, Kenneth Rocafort, Lois Lane, Magdalene Visaggio, Marvel Two-in-One, Matthew Rosenberg, Mister Miracle, Mitch Gerads, New Mutants, Old Man Logan, Paradiso, Red Robin, Rob Williams, Sabretooth, Sideways, Sleepless, Slots, Suicide Squad, Superman, The Flash, The Pull List, Titans, Tom King, Trinity, Valerio Schiti, Vampironica, VS, Weapon X, Will Conrad, Wonder Woman, X-Men Blue

Crushing Comics S01E065 -The Oldest Thing You Own + Fantastic Four by John Byrne

January 25, 2018 by krisis

As I try to break into a massive brick of comic books I wonder about the oldest thing you own, a discussion inspired by my 10th anniversary post from 2011. Then I talk about John Byrne’s lengthy mid-80s run on Fantastic Four, collected in its entirety in a pair of omnibuses. Is it the most classic team comic book after Claremont’s X-Men?

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 65 features Fantastic Four by John Byrne, Volume 1 and Volume 2. Visit the Guide to Fantastic Four to learn more.

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Collected Editions, Crushing Comics, Fantastic Four, John Byrne, Marvel Comics, Omnibus

Crushing Comics S01E049 – “The Illusion of Profit” + Early-90s X-Men: X-Tinction Agenda, Bishop’s Crossing, & X-Cutioner’s Song

December 28, 2017 by krisis

My new Dazzler T-Shirt must be lucky, because today I unwrap a haul of four books from my prime era of X-Men collecting – the early 90s! First, I talk about how we convince ourself that some of our habits in life are profitable when really they’re costing us more than we realize.

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 49 features X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: X-Tinction Agenda, X-Men: Bishop’s Crossing, and X-Men: X-Cutioner’s Song – see the guides for X-Men by Chris Claremont and X-Men: The Crossover Era for more!

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Bishop, Chris Claremont, Collected Editions, Crushing Comics, Fantastic Four, Marvel Comics, X-Men

Crushing Comics S01E27 – Thoughts on being a “comic book fan,” Squadron Supreme, Wolverine’s Origin, & more!

November 27, 2017 by krisis

Are fans of comic book movies still “comic book fans”? I struggle to articulate my answer to the question as I struggle to open what turns out to be a pretty big bundle of books. It starts with Mark Gruenwald’s classic Squadron Supreme and how it represented Marvel being a little more like DC than they normally were back in the 80s. Then we move to a pair of Fantastic Four retcons before winding up with Wolverine’s pair of Origin series.

Want to start from the beginning of this season of videos? Here’s the complete Season 1 playlist of Crushing Comics.

Episode 27 features Squadron Supreme by Mark Gruenwald (Amazon), which was later recollected as Squadron Supreme Classic Omnibus (Amazon), Fantastic Four: The World’s Greatest Comic Magazine (Amazon), Spider-Man/Fantastic Four (Amazon), and Wolverine Origin (Amazon) and Origin II (Amazon), recently recollected as Wolverine: Origin – The Complete Collection (Amazon).

Read more about collecting the Fantastic Four and Wolverine!

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Christos Gage, Crushing Comics, Fantastic Four, Mark Gruenwald, Marvel Comics, Omnibus, Squadron Supreme, Wolverine

Namor, The Sub-Mariner Silver Age Omnibus, Vol. 1 – The #56 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

May 11, 2017 by krisis

Namor, The Sub-Mariner 1968 0007The Namor, The Sub-Mariner Silver Age Omnibus, Vol. 1 is the #56 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017 on Tigereyes’s Secret Ballot. 

Visit the Marvel Masterworks Message Board to view the original posting of results by Tigereyes.

What Is It? The Sub-Mariner (1968) was Namor’s first solo ongoing title after almost thirty years of starring in anthology series. It ran for 72 issues from  May 1968 to September 1974.

Before that, Sub-Mariner split Tales to Astonish (1959) with the Incredibly Hulk for 32 issues from #70-101 from August 1965 to  March 1968.

Past Ranking: This year is the book’s debut placement in the ballot results.

Creators: Written by Stan Lee and Roy Thomas (with Archie Goodwin and Raymond Marais) with pencils by Gene Colan and John Buscema (with Werner Roth, Marie Severin, & Dan Adkins), inks by Vince Colletta, Dick Ayers, and Frank Giacoia (with Dan Adkins & Jerry Grandenetti), and letters by Art ‘Artie’ Simek.

Probable Contents: Most Silver Age omnibuses collect the contents of three Marvel Masterworks volumes, so this volume would almost certainly contain Marvel Comics #1, Daredevil #7, and Tales To Astonish (1959) #70-101, Iron Man and Sub-Mariner #1, and The Sub-Mariner (1968) #1-13.

However, Marvel has recently shown a little bit of adventurousness when it comes to expanding the contents of their Silver Age omnibuses in Daredevil, Thor, Amazing Spider-Man, so it’s not a stretch to think this would include another 10-14 issues.

The question is – which 10-14 issues! Click to expand a discussion of further content for this volume.

On one hand, adding a 4th Masterworks to this one would mean this omnibus line could be done in two books – a great idea! In that case, the added issues would be The Sub-Mariner (1968) #14-25.

On the other hand, Namor has an extremely interesting, deliberate progression of guest appearances leading up to him gaining his own features in Tales to Astonish. These stories reintroduce him to the Marvel Universe and play with the line between his heroism and villainy. Then, the added content would be Fantastic Four #4, 6, & 9, Strange Tales #107, Fantastic Four #14 & Annual 1, Avengers #3-4, Fantastic Four #27, X-Men #6, Strange Tales #125, Fantastic Four #33, and material from Avengers #16, and then the already-included Daredevil #7.

Except… why not get us an omnibus that can do both? If we don’t really need the full dozen issues leading up to Namor’s starring turn in Daredevil #7 to lead to Tales to Astonish. We could make do with Fantastic Four #4, 6, 14 (excerpts), & Annual 1, Avengers #4 (excerpts), X-Men #6, Fantastic Four #33, Avengers #16 (excerpt), and then the already-included Daredevil #7. That’s just five extra issues, so maybe we could do this and add the fourth Sub-Mariner Masterworks!

Want to know why I chose some issues but not others? I cover them all, below!

The detraction of stuffing those issues into a first omnibus is that it means we would probably need two more omnibuses to collect the remaining five Masterworks. On the plus side, since they would easily fit, we could probably get all of Super-Villain Team-Up into the third omnibus! For a full mapping, check out my Marvel series still awaiting an omnibus from the Masterworks Era (1961 – 1980).

Can you read it right now? Yes! This run is entirely covered by the Sub-Mariner Masterworks volumes, which are out-of-print but not terribly expensive – Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3. For more details, see the Guide to Namor, The Sub-Mariner.Daredevil_1964_0007

Plus, Marvel Unlimited has the complete contents of Tales To Astonish, the single issue Iron Man and Sub-Mariner, and The Sub-Mariner (1968) #1-14.

The Details:

Namor, The Sub-Mariner was Marvel’s original anti-hero – the tempestuous prince of an undersea kingdom long past its halcyon days who takes out his unending aggression on the above-the-waves world of the surface dwellers.

You may not know this, but he was also the first major hero that Marvel unthawed in the Silver Age, although this unthawing was metaphorical rather than him being relieved from an actual block of ice like Captain America.

And, actually, it was Namor who was partially responsible for freeing Cap!

But now we’re getting ahead of ourselves. [Read more…] about Namor, The Sub-Mariner Silver Age Omnibus, Vol. 1 – The #56 Most-Wanted Marvel Omnibus of 2017

Filed Under: comic books Tagged With: Fantastic Four, Gene Colan, John Buscema, Most Wanted Marvel Omnibus, Namor, Roy Thomas, Stan Lee

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