Queen and Country. The biggest victim of 52. Greg Rucka has an amazing range. Queen and Country is still being published although it has been a while since the last issue came out. This is the ongoing story of a branch of the British Secret service. It is hard to summarize all the stuff that goes on in this book but I can say that it has spy action, politics, and great character stuff. This is a dense but satisfying title.
I have a lot of Wonder Woman. I started getting Wonder Woman right after John Byrne left the book. If you are familiar with the title, then you know I got me some crappy issues. This part of the run was not great but it was OK. I scanned it to show that once, Wonder Girl actually looked and dressed like a real young girl. Of course on this cover, Wonder Woman is about to spill out of her top. You take what you can get I guess.
This cover is wrong on so many levels. Wonder Woman looks so mannish. She looks like a man named Chyna.
For years there was this guy named Steve who worked at my local comic shop. He turned me on to so many great titles. After a while, we found that we both liked twisted books so he found me some gems. The Unfunnies is supposedly making a comeback in a few months. Imagine an old Hannah Barbara cartoon about crows, where the main character is into deviant sex, drinking, and hang out with the most politically incorrect crowd ever. Really funny but not in the Garth-Ennis-All-Gay-Jokes-Are-Funny way. I'm excited that it is coming back.
When I moved to California as a teen, the two books I hunted down every month were Legion of Superheroes and Who's Who in the DC Universe. I love lists and almanacs. I didn't care is the stats were sometimes wrong. I just love the encyclopedia format and reading about characters I had never known about before. I actually got into Atari Force because of this book. I love how Earth-2 Batman looks so jaunty on this cover. I can hear Adam West saying "To the Batmobile old chum!"
I love that Alan Moore is this great writer who has won acclaim for his comic book work in serious literary circles, yet he also cranks out the naughty and indulgent stuff. Voodoo was just awful but the art was great and there were some really creepy concepts tossed around. Of course any comic about a stripper has to be gold!
I loved Supergirl's costume during the slipper era. The little "S" on the one boobie was so preppy.
I'm glad I found this issue in my longbox so that anyone reading this can email me an explanation of what the hell is going on in this book. Seriously.
Anytime Perez draws the JLA it is going to be good. I love Perez's Hawkman. I think he misses working with Romeo Thangal because to me, his work was never better than when they worked together.
Dang I have a lot of Fantastic Four. I think I may have the entire Byrne run. I love a cover with some gravitas.
Speaking of Byrne, man what a good reboot. Even though Busiek is retconning a lot of what was written in this series, the Lex Luther Byrne created is still the rich and devious thug Byrne turned him into. I would say this was the last era that I enjoyed John Byrne's art in. He kind of got loose and dark after this.
Y the Last Man was the first Vertigo title that I got from issue one. Now that it is ending I will have bought every issue of an entire comic title as it came out which is a first for me. I tend to miss hot new titles when they come out. Y is a great story. It starts as a "Lost" style mystery, morphs into a sort of spy action drama, then comes around to being character piece with great relationship stuff. Despite the many drags the book has had, overall it is excellent.
X-Statix may have been my favorite Marvel title ever. It turned the genre on it's ear, poked fun at mutants, pop culture, and anything else that stuck the fancy of Peter Milligan. This was a spin-off mini series which was hilarious. I love how Milligan took the "Wolverine is everywhere" thing and ran with it. It is kind of odd seeing a byline with Millagan and Darwyn Cooke on it.
Man what a funny book. This is the guy who does Lenore I think. The book is just what the title says. A story of a cat with a really big head. It has a happy ending sort of...
I won't spoil the actual ending but it's funny in that dark Tim Burton sort of way.
For a while in the late 90's/early 00's, DC was cranking out the good stuff. Chase was sort of a predecessor to Checkmate. Chase was a government agent who's job it was to keep tabs on the Superpowered community. It featured a lot of snappy dialogue and some really cool takes on the DC canon of heroes. I miss this title...
Remember Heroes Reborn? Me neither but I bought all of them at the time. This really was not so bad at first. Jim Lee shows that as a writer, he is sure a great artist. He is no Fabian Nicieza but the art was cool. Lee can sure draw a cool Thing.
During a time when Superman was a weak group of titles, the best Superman book was Supreme. Supreme started out as just another crappy image character but when Alan Moore took over, it became on of my all time favorite titles. This was Moore's take on the Silver Age Superman with crazy Science Fiction stories and a super dog. Fun Fun Fun Fun Fun.
That crazy Mike Allred. This book was about 5 inches wide. It was a cool looking book with a sort of nebulous story, but I love how DC took a chance with the format.
One of the more infamous issues of a comic in a while, this was supposedly the issue that pushed Mark Waid off of his excellent Captain America run. This story makes ZERO sense. I would have loved to have seen what Waid had originally written.
Knockout! This was so fun! A secret agent for hire she and her gay hair stylist/partner find intrigue and lots of booty in the world of high espionage. If you like light hearted books with gorgeous art, I totally recommend it. I hope this has been traded because it only ran about 12 issues.
What can I say. One of the best comics ever. Top Ten is the book that got my wife into comics. The world of Top Ten is so rich. You could write thousands of stories. Sadly this book was doomed when Alan Moore and DC got into a bitch slap fight over those damn Watchmen action figures. This book was BEYOND top of the stack for me. I would read it first after getting home from the comic shop, then stick it at the bottom of the stack to read it again. Gen Has was the artist and he stuck tons of easter eggs in many panels. I may have to do a blog entry on just his book someday.
Lets end this visit with some Thor. In this special issue, Thor is thrown back in time to the Trojan War where he basically enters the story any time Apollo was supposed to be in it according to Homer. It was a fun book. I was really into mythology as a kid so I totally dug it. Plus, we find out who was really behind the end of the Trojan War:
Oh Loki...Tsk Tsk Tsk.
That's all for now. Whats in YOUR longbox?
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