Wait what. Read this immediately and tell us if it's any good.
-
Welcome to Talking Time's third iteration! If you would like to register for an account, or have already registered but have not yet been confirmed, please read the following:
- The CAPTCHA key's answer is "Percy"
- Once you've completed the registration process please email us from the email you used for registration at percyreghelper@gmail.com and include the username you used for registration
Once you have completed these steps, Moderation Staff will be able to get your account approved.
What Comic Should I Read Next?
- Thread starter Johnny Unusual
- Start date
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Secret Reverse is delightfully corny. It's Marvel heroes but also with Yu-Gi-Oh nonsense logic. For some reason there's a card game element to the comic but also no one actually plays card games. It's about fighting a mind controlling alien invasion powered by a collectable card game and the main villain wears armor that allows him to add more cards to give himself more power (UP TO 6 CARDS!). Why... not just already have the 6 cards already in there? Never explained. I love the impassioned speech of a child trying to get through to the mind-controlled main antagonist. "You taught me each card has a front and a back, just like people!" and "Your cards always filled me with courage". It's wonderfully stupid and sincere in it's madness. It's kind of what you expect from a Kazuo Takahashi. Bittersweet, too, since this is his last work before dying in 2022 taking part in rescue to save three people from a rip current.
Pouring one out for an actual hero.
What's next then?
Onyx - No idea what this is. But I got it cheap!
What If Classic Vol. 1 - The original series.
World of Krypton - Michael Avon Oeming doing some DC sci-fi stuff.
Pouring one out for an actual hero.
What's next then?
Onyx - No idea what this is. But I got it cheap!
What If Classic Vol. 1 - The original series.
World of Krypton - Michael Avon Oeming doing some DC sci-fi stuff.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Man, way too many issues of the original What If run are like 5 pages of the subject of the story doing their regular universe shit, at least two more pages explaining the character and their origin and then most still run too long. There's some fun things in them but I only think one of the artists was able to sell how Uatu looked in that era, with his awful porportially appropriate sized head. There are some good moments but it feels like for every bit of good art (the first half of the Hulk story had some great Trimpe art) there was a mountain of garbage art (the rest of that issue looks terrible. I can't tell if it's bad inking, a ghost artist or Trimpe just broke down drawing the story). The story qualities varied. It's easy to put this at the heels of Thomas and a lot of his stories are the weaker ones but a lot of them feel like they are losing the thread in their domino effect tales. Some I like; Nice Hulk convincing the Gargoyle to be a good guy is a nice moment. But the Spider-Man joins the Fantastic Four kind of forgets Spider-Man, who is just hanging around in the background.
OK, what next?
Song of a Blackbird - YA story that knocks around between different eras.
Parallel - I think it's about parallel realities. It is the shortest thing I got right now.
Nick Fury Vs. SHIELD - Could keep the Marvel train running...
OK, what next?
Song of a Blackbird - YA story that knocks around between different eras.
Parallel - I think it's about parallel realities. It is the shortest thing I got right now.
Nick Fury Vs. SHIELD - Could keep the Marvel train running...
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Nick Fury Vs. SHIELD starts very strong but... the more it gets long in the tooth, the more self-important it gets. It's a shame because there's a LOT of good in it. The idea of Fury against SHIELD and the paranoia aspect. It's definitely a very clear influence on Winter Soldier, despite this being more epic, ambitious and sci-fi-y. But it's one of those stories where the villain is controlling the heroes every movement in a "THIS WAS ALL PART OF MY PLAN" way that very few actually do in a way that feels satisfying. For every Oldboy, there are like 20 of these. And it lets you know this for a very long time. It kind of sucks the air out of the epic finale. I think it should have been shorter with a lot of the expository dialogue (especially at the end) cut down. For it's flaws, it's mostly a good read but in the last two chapters I was getting kind of fed up with "AND THAT WAS ALL PART OF MY PLAN TOO!"
The Paul Neery art is really good, though. There are some strong visuals here, even in the end.
What should I read next?
The Manhattan Projects - I only have the first two of 6 volumes, sadly. I hear this is great, though.
Onyx - I don't know much about this one except Ryall wrote a lot of IP comics for IDW.
World of Krypton - Michael Avon Oeming doing DC space stuff.
The Paul Neery art is really good, though. There are some strong visuals here, even in the end.
What should I read next?
The Manhattan Projects - I only have the first two of 6 volumes, sadly. I hear this is great, though.
Onyx - I don't know much about this one except Ryall wrote a lot of IP comics for IDW.
World of Krypton - Michael Avon Oeming doing DC space stuff.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
World of Krypton is a story that is pretty competent but no big shakes. The Oeming art is very good though, as is the colouring by Nick Filardi. I really like how they realize the Phantom Zone and somehow makes being trapped in a big empty white space seem rather chilling.
And it's a decent enough, if fairly predictable (and not just because it's a prequel) read but it's really the Oeming show with Robert Venditti's script feeling more like an opportunity for good pictures.
OK, what should I read next?
Song of a Blackbird - YA multigenerational drama that moves between timelines.
Parallel - Something about alternate realities. Looks very short.
The Manhattan Projects - I only have a third of the series but I've heard good things.
And it's a decent enough, if fairly predictable (and not just because it's a prequel) read but it's really the Oeming show with Robert Venditti's script feeling more like an opportunity for good pictures.
OK, what should I read next?
Song of a Blackbird - YA multigenerational drama that moves between timelines.
Parallel - Something about alternate realities. Looks very short.
The Manhattan Projects - I only have a third of the series but I've heard good things.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Song of a Blackbird was a good read with a good mix of hand-drawn art and photos (more of the former). The art is good but the faces make me wonder if the writer/artist's background is in children's book (which I read a lot of). As YA reads go, I think I might have been less impressed if it were in purely prose form. The art goes a long way to making this a better story with edutainment elements about covert resistance in Poland during the occupation by the Nazis.
I'm now down to THREE of the books in the B/C-tier. If I finish these off, then I move on to my huge pile of A-tier books.
What should I read next...
Parallel - A short multiverse story. Easily the quickest read on my list.
The Manhattan Projects - I hear this is actually really good but I only have 2 of 6 volumes so I put it in the lesser tier. Basically what if the greatest scientists of the 20th century were bigger than the Beatles but things go terribly wrong.
Onyx - No idea. Which is kind of exciting in itself.
I'm now down to THREE of the books in the B/C-tier. If I finish these off, then I move on to my huge pile of A-tier books.
What should I read next...
Parallel - A short multiverse story. Easily the quickest read on my list.
The Manhattan Projects - I hear this is actually really good but I only have 2 of 6 volumes so I put it in the lesser tier. Basically what if the greatest scientists of the 20th century were bigger than the Beatles but things go terribly wrong.
Onyx - No idea. Which is kind of exciting in itself.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Onyx was... fine. Nothing special. Tonally, it feels a bit like an ultra-violent re-imagining of Rom: Space Knight. The art looks nice but the writing is just fine but unmemorable. There's a few good monster designs but mostly only this weird frog thing that sits on heads to control their minds stands out.
OK, down to two!
OK, down to two!
Are you planning on getting any more issues of The Manhattan Projects?
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
If its at the shop, maybe
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Without going into too much detail Parallel was awful. Pure dogshit. There were big red flags when the foreword went on about "free thinkers" and other questionable stuff about how people failed because they just didn't keep working hard enough. And it's a tone through the book and the female characters are either worriers or useless and the main character learns the important lesson of not taking his anti-psychotic medication. To be fair the character was, in fact, seeing into another universe but also it's a very bad, questionable look. Also the last panel is him going into a music shop to rekindle his love of music and his reflections on the store's glass door include him as a rock star and also his wife whom he left for not being supportive. Maybe the point is "I don't need a wife, I'm my own wife" but I think the accidental (I think) take is "I want to become my wife".
It really make it look like his egg cracked, which would be nice but I don't think that's the aim.
The Manhattan Projects, on the other hand, was fantastic. The only negative thing I can say it the ending really feels like the creators felt done and really didn't have a way to end it. Lots of loose threads and while it's a good ending, it feels unsatisfactory as a finale. It did have a sequel mini-series which definitely has a complete ending. But it's definitely a weird, funny book where the premise is the 20th Centuries greatest scientists where all actually comic book style mad scientists who are planning to shape the future and have no scruples about anything. I think the fact that it kind of ends both works as a mission statement that maybe the future unfettered amoral science builds is... not that different than the status quo, despite the desire to obliterate the status quo but it lacks a real finality. Still, it's a top tier comic I'd recommend to anyone who likes fun.
OK, so I have two new books in my B-tier before I get to A-Tier. But both seem very promising
The End League - The last superhero team on Earth fights to save a dying world. It's Rick Remender. I actually don't think I've ever read a Remender book.
La Voz De M.A.Y.O.: Tata Rambo - Biographical comic about a social activist in Tuscon fighting for the rights of the Pascua Yaqui tribe. Art looks good and it seems to be a relatively quick read.
It really make it look like his egg cracked, which would be nice but I don't think that's the aim.
The Manhattan Projects, on the other hand, was fantastic. The only negative thing I can say it the ending really feels like the creators felt done and really didn't have a way to end it. Lots of loose threads and while it's a good ending, it feels unsatisfactory as a finale. It did have a sequel mini-series which definitely has a complete ending. But it's definitely a weird, funny book where the premise is the 20th Centuries greatest scientists where all actually comic book style mad scientists who are planning to shape the future and have no scruples about anything. I think the fact that it kind of ends both works as a mission statement that maybe the future unfettered amoral science builds is... not that different than the status quo, despite the desire to obliterate the status quo but it lacks a real finality. Still, it's a top tier comic I'd recommend to anyone who likes fun.
OK, so I have two new books in my B-tier before I get to A-Tier. But both seem very promising
The End League - The last superhero team on Earth fights to save a dying world. It's Rick Remender. I actually don't think I've ever read a Remender book.
La Voz De M.A.Y.O.: Tata Rambo - Biographical comic about a social activist in Tuscon fighting for the rights of the Pascua Yaqui tribe. Art looks good and it seems to be a relatively quick read.
Hooray! I'll have to make a point to look into this again.
I'm gonna vote for La Voz De M.A.Y.O. because it sounds like a great way to learn about someone most people have never heard of.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
The End League was... not good. I plowed through it but less because I was having fun and more because I wanted it to be over. I thought I haven't read Remender but then I remember I read the first arc of his Captain America run. That was fun and had some JRJR art intentionally evoking Kirby. This was a slog. I vaguely remember an interview where in intended this to be his superhero Lord of the Rings but it just feels like every other grimdark superhero future with all the characters numbers filed off. And even with that, none of the characters are interesting. Most of them are moping around, debating superhero ethics but there's not a lot of "there" there.
The art by Matt Broome is bland (the character designs in the back are actually pretty good so I don't know if the colouring or inking is doing a disservice or if the art just doesn't look good in sequential form. It also changes artists in the middle of issue 4 with no internal logical reason. I like this artist, Eric Canate, as he has more personality and has a Humberto Ramos-style look. But it doesn't save a script that has one OK surprise in it and everything else just feels mired in "the superheroes lost" story cliches. I barely registered that the Captain America analogue wasn't a Hawkeye analogue considering how pissy he was for a lot of it. The Joker analogue is boasting about his big tiddy harem, it all feels like cribbing from Mark Millar but without a real identity. I know Remender can, has and will make good stuff but this is rough sledding.
But I have a good feeling about the Tata Rambo book.
After that, I should be ready to get into my A-tier books, finally!
The art by Matt Broome is bland (the character designs in the back are actually pretty good so I don't know if the colouring or inking is doing a disservice or if the art just doesn't look good in sequential form. It also changes artists in the middle of issue 4 with no internal logical reason. I like this artist, Eric Canate, as he has more personality and has a Humberto Ramos-style look. But it doesn't save a script that has one OK surprise in it and everything else just feels mired in "the superheroes lost" story cliches. I barely registered that the Captain America analogue wasn't a Hawkeye analogue considering how pissy he was for a lot of it. The Joker analogue is boasting about his big tiddy harem, it all feels like cribbing from Mark Millar but without a real identity. I know Remender can, has and will make good stuff but this is rough sledding.
But I have a good feeling about the Tata Rambo book.
After that, I should be ready to get into my A-tier books, finally!
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
La Voz De Mayo isn't a top tier historical docu-comic but it's still pretty good and most interestingly focusing on a part of history that not only am I ignorant of but it seems the writers had a hard time finding a lot of the details, which is interesting. It's not particularly nuanced though I appreciate it is able to show the flaws of the title character rather than simply lionizing him. A decent and fairly quick read. I like that the end of the book actually had a lot of translated material from the activist paper they printed from the 60s and 70s that's referenced.
OK... Its finally time! A-Tier choices.
Dr. Strange: Fall Sunrise - Stylish looking Strange story.
Scene of the Crime - I'm honestly glad Brubaker is doing almost exclusively noir books because he rules at them.
The Vision - The Vision makes his own family and then things go tragically wrong.
OK... Its finally time! A-Tier choices.
Dr. Strange: Fall Sunrise - Stylish looking Strange story.
Scene of the Crime - I'm honestly glad Brubaker is doing almost exclusively noir books because he rules at them.
The Vision - The Vision makes his own family and then things go tragically wrong.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Vision was a pretty good superhero tragedy comic. My one complaint is them offing a character that I really wish they didn't though I have no doubt they have brought them back within the last 10 years and the moment is done well. But overall, it's a strong family-drama superhero series that works well with the superhero action and the intrigue. The art is really strong and even though this book has been out for a decade, I genuinely didn't know where we were going for the end. I'll have some more book choices at a later date, I already know what I'm reading next.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Also read and recommend Planet Paradise, a quick read about a woman who gets stranded on a hostile alien world on her way to a vacation planet. It's really the story about a woman finding agency in a world of incompetent people who treat saving lives like a dull job and is constantly being told what to do. There were a bunch of copies of this in on the bargain rack of my comic store and while $17 feels like a bit much for a read this quick, it's still pretty good.
OK, so the next set of options is strong
Uncle Scrooge - I have 5 volumes of Fantagraphic 9 volume collection of the complete Carl Barks Scrooge comics.
Parker - All of Darwyn Cooke's Parker adaptations of one of the scummiest noir anti-heroes around.
Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen - Matt Fraction's love letter to the silliness of the Silver Age.
OK, so the next set of options is strong
Uncle Scrooge - I have 5 volumes of Fantagraphic 9 volume collection of the complete Carl Barks Scrooge comics.
Parker - All of Darwyn Cooke's Parker adaptations of one of the scummiest noir anti-heroes around.
Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen - Matt Fraction's love letter to the silliness of the Silver Age.
This seems interesting.
These are both really good, you won't regret either.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I should say it's a good cover but actually a very misleading cover. Parker is rarely that relaxed, smug or nonchalant. He isn't chill, he's ice cold.
This is more what to expect.
(His closest... well, not friend but co-worker Grofeld is his opposite, smart mouthed and personable. Both of them get on well despite this, though mostly the conversations are Grofeld says something smart-alecky and Parker tells him to shut up).
Anyway, Parker is such a good character and Darwyn Cooke realizes him so well. He's not likable. He's an anti-hero minus the hero. He does have a few virtues. He's cool-headed even when burning with white hot murderous rage and he will only murder when given no other option... but he's given no other option a lot.
Anyway, the stories are all good and they get better as they go on. Well, almost. The best story is the Score, where the usually pragmatic Parker is tempted by a much more ambitious scheme than he's used to, largely because it actually seems pretty well thought out and he needs to be the experienced brain to consider all the angles. Most of the story is simply getting things set up and I love stories about a process so watching the characters cross their "t"s and dot their "i"s is never not compelling. And because it's one of those kinds of stories, things go bad.
It can be really hard to make such a humourless, brutal protagonist fun to read. He never gets likable but him having a code, brutal as it is, helps and Darwyn definitely gets what works about the character. Interestingly, Donald Westlake created a book series that was apparently born for stories that were too silly for Parker, as his books, while having wit, never get to "funny".
Even though the Score is the best one, Slayground is also great because it's almost the opposite of the Score. The Score is compelling slow burn that expodes but Slayground, where Parker is pinned down by crooked cops in a closed down amusement park, is basically putting the character in a Die Hard/Batman scenario. It's a lot of fun and really breezy.
OK, that was fantastic. Now what is the next A-tier book for me to read?
New Gods - I read the first few issues back when all the Fourth World books were collected in an omnibus (I'm torn if I like them collected that way more or this way)
Mister Miracle - People seem to think this one is King's best.
Black Widow - Mark Waid rarely misses.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Overall, New Gods is not my favourite of the Fourth World books but it has some of the coolest ideas. Though the characters were revisited, I feel subsequent creators dropped the ball on what these characters could be. Black Racer feels like he could have been a stranger version of the Spectre. Forager gets to explore the less discussed inequality of New Genesis. Orion actually leads a gang of humans almost like a cosmic Untouchables. It is a little wobbly on the whole. But the Hunger Dogs is the good shit. It's amazing it wasn't mentioned with the same praise as the other prestige DC series. I knew it was going to be bleaker than some of the other stories but also it's a lot more hopeful than I expected and I think this is where Orion finally clicks for me as a character, though now it really feels like his story is complete. Wonderful.
OK, what is next...
Slaughterhouse-Five - My favourite novel with one of the best modern comic writers. Ryan North is known for humour and this book definitely has a lot of humour but I never would have put North's optimistic take with the more ambiguous humanism of the novel but I'm excited to see it.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Tempest - The official end of The League series. As much as I was unhappy with the ending of Century (Moore was ahead of the game in Harry Potter slamming but it really felt a little too nasty), these books are never not fascinating reads and I'm sure it's going to look amazing.
Enigma - Peter Milligan is a writer I want to like more than I do. He comes off as lesser Grant Morrison. I loved X-Statix back in the day but after reading his new take on the concept I question whether any non-Doop aspect will hold up. Still, this is considered to be his best and I'm interested to check it out.
OK, what is next...
Slaughterhouse-Five - My favourite novel with one of the best modern comic writers. Ryan North is known for humour and this book definitely has a lot of humour but I never would have put North's optimistic take with the more ambiguous humanism of the novel but I'm excited to see it.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Tempest - The official end of The League series. As much as I was unhappy with the ending of Century (Moore was ahead of the game in Harry Potter slamming but it really felt a little too nasty), these books are never not fascinating reads and I'm sure it's going to look amazing.
Enigma - Peter Milligan is a writer I want to like more than I do. He comes off as lesser Grant Morrison. I loved X-Statix back in the day but after reading his new take on the concept I question whether any non-Doop aspect will hold up. Still, this is considered to be his best and I'm interested to check it out.
I am extremely curious to see how Ryan North handles Kurt Vonnegut. I didn't even know this was a thing.