State the Last Comic Book You Read and Rate It

[Foxy]

X-Men Gold Homecoming TPB - I thought this was much stronger than X-Men Blue - I read it much faster and was more invested in the story.

Now I'm on The Hunt for Professor X and that is also enjoyable.

[Foxy]

X-Men: The Hunt for Professor X TPB - that was actually very enjoyable and I was really interested in the story outcome - X-Men really is like a soap opera

Black Mumba HC - Written by Ram V (of "These Savage Shores". fame and currently writing Swamp Thing) and it was excellent. 4 noir type stories set in Mumbai, which deal with cases investigated by inspector Dev. Very moody and the city is basically a character as well. Ram V really knows how to tell a story using very few pages and making it feel larger than it is.

Scene of the Crime Deluxe HC - Very good book from Brubaker's earliest days. You can see a lot of his style elements in use already here but less developed than, say, in his Criminal series. My favourite of his is still the Fade Out so far.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The Punisher: Year One (TPB): This story takes place right after Frank Castle's family are gunned down by mobsters in Central Park and how his sorrow and rage gave birth to the unrelenting force of nature that came to be known as the Punisher.

[Tugger]

Uncanny X-Men #174 - 9/10

Back to where it all began for me - my first ever issue of X-Men and the one that got me hooked. Still as fresh as the day I originally read it. Love Paul Smith's art.

[Foxy]

Magneto War TPB - not a fan of the fact that after the years of work that went into making Magneto a more multi-faceted villain/antihero, he would devolve into such a two-dimensional moustache twirler again.

Sweet Tooth Deluxe Editions 1-3 - Read this because I did not want to be spoiled by the Netflix show - wonderful story, absolutely deserving of the praise it gets. So good that I'm actually in doubt whether I should even bother with the show. Although I hear that it's quite different so that may just work.

[Foxy]

X-Men vs Apocalypse: The Twelve Omnibus - The concept of the Twelve had been hinted at and foreshadowed for so long that when it finally arrived, it felt slightly underwhelming. The confrontation with Apocalypse ends with a sacrifice that I didn't see coming and which had a lot of influence on later stories. Overall I enjoyed it but I thought the storyline was a bit too drawn out, resulting in a lot of fluff in the omnibus.

X-Men Revolution Omnibus - The return of Chris Claremont! I had read so many negative reviews that I had zero expectations for this but I actually enjoyed it a lot. I think it's a shame that - at least partly due to Marvel's hiccups with the publishing schedule - Claremont was forced to cut it short, which made for a rather abrupt end of the threat posed by the Neo and the other new factions. The art was great for most of the run and the new players were interesting. This was really not as bad as it is often made out to be, especially when I compare it to other 90's X-Men stuff (which I have read all in row this year with just some minor breaks).

[newparisian]

Foxy-

Reading your reviews brings back a lot of memories. I agree with most of your X-men views.

Man, was Claremont Revolution not as bad as I'd remembered?

Also, is that the correct title for the Ram V book? Can't find it on Amazon.

[Foxy]

Foxy-

Reading your reviews brings back a lot of memories. I agree with most of your X-men views.

Man, was Claremont Revolution not as bad as I'd remembered?

Also, is that the correct title for the Ram V book? Can't find it on Amazon.

Reading everything in close succession helps put it into perspective, I really think there was way worse stuff during the 90s

The Black Mumba book was a crowdfunded book, I bought it here: https://www.eyeforlondonprints.com/p...er-signed-copy

[Spike-X]

Extremity vol 1. Five severed drawing hands out of five.

Daniel Warren Johnson is shaping up to be a Big Fucking Deal in comics.

[Foxy]

Haven't read as much as usual during the last weeks as I was on vacation.

X-Men Eve of Destruction OHC: already been a while since I've finished it and it all blurs together. This book does tie up a lot of dangling threads and of course features the search for Cyclops. This was the last of the pre-Morrision omnibus / OHCs that I own, so except for the two Silver Age omnis that remain unread on teh shelf so far, I have read every Uncanny X-Men / X-Men issue starting from Giant Size X-Men #1, through the entire Claremont era and all of the 90s to the early 00s. Soon I will dive into the "modern" era starting with Morrison's New X-Men.

[Foxy]

New Teen Titans Omnibus Volume 2 - more Wolfman / Perez and now that we're familiar with the characters, there are longer story arcs, which are actually quite entertaining. It's still quite wordy and a lot of bickering between the TT members, but given that this is from the very early 80s, I think it is still readable.

New X-Men Omnibus by Grant Morrison - what a run, what a breath of fresh air, what a lot of subpar to downright ugly art Originally I wanted to take a break from X-Men after reading almost without interruption through most of the 90s. However, once I arrived at Morrison's run I just had to have a look and I'm glad I did. What a difference to what came before. Suddenly the X-Men are cool, there are no caption boxes and everything feels so much more modern. As if there are a couple of years between the issues that came right before and Morrison's issues. Finished that rather quickly as most of the story arcs range from good to great. But the art... I already knew Quitely from The Authority so I was familiar with it. But after that there are some issues that are downright dreadful, e.g. those by Bachalo. Maybe it was the ink job but wow what a step up the Phil Jimenez issues were. All in all the story was good enough to distract me from the art.

[Foxy]

Astonishing X-Men Omnibus by Joss Whedon - absolute page-turner with a tear jerker ending. Finished it in two evening sittings even though I also re-read House of M 1-8 between AXM issues 12 and 13. Whedon builds on Morrison's run, in a way it provides a continuation of some story threads. The whole run builds towards a finale and it is well-structured. I understand that during its initial release, it was plagued by delays which would have been frustrating. But reading it as collected edition was great. The story-telling and the banter between the characters reminded me of the Buffy TV show sometimes, which is a good thing imo. Made for very enjoyable reading plus keeps you coming back for more.

I have compiled an X reading list for this era from various sources, including the fantastic Crushing Krisis, which I have tailored to just the books I own. But now I will take a break from the X-Men for at least a little while. I've read basically the entire 90s worth of X-Men and Uncanny X-men without significant interruptions so I don't want get oversaturated.
Plus it's nice to end on such a banger.

Yet to decide what I will read next.

[Foxy]

Absolute Swamp Thing by Alan Moore Volume 1 - wow. Definitely worthy of the hype. Great run, superior writing compared to the first runs collected in the Bronze Age Omnibus and amazing art. Actually a convert now regarding the recolouring: I compared almost all the pages in the Absolute to the original hardcover I have and it's like the new colours do more justice to the amazing linework. Also, they make it much easier to see what's going on in smaller panels. It seems that some panels were also redrawn or enhanced, as there are some that were barely more than a couple of rough lines and some colour blobs in the original.

Starting volume 2 tonight.

[Foxy]

Absolute Swamp Thing by Alan Moore Volume 2 - more wow. The entire story arc with John Constantine was amazing. Now I will not wait until the third Absolute is released and just read my old hardcovers.

It's hard to see how anyone in later ST runs could outdo what Moore did here. He took a pulp(y) comic book that was actually surprisingly fun and turned it on its head. There is a huge development of the ST in here, how its powers develop and how he contemplates his own self. And everything flows very organically, almost effortless.

Still need to read the final 15 or so issues of his run but I may prefer it even to V for Vendetta, which is my favourite Moore book so far (although I haven't read From Hell yet). Of course ultimately V for Vendetta is entirely his own characters and world so that may edge it out for me.

But I really did not expect it to be so great - compared to other runs from the 80s - even well-regarded ones - his writing is really on another level.

[Foxy]

Swamp Thing by Alan Moore HC 5 and 6 - the end of a phenomenal run and Moore makes sure it doesn't get stale plus he nicely ties up a lot of the threads of this series. Actually, they could have stopped Swamp Thing after his run and it would have been satisfactory. From what I have heard, afterwards it never was quite as good anyway I liked the somewhat experimental issue "Loving the alien", which was very different.

Umbrella Academy Library Edition 1-3 - fun quick read but I will admit I was somehow disappointed that a number of the story threads I liked most about the TV show (e.g. Klaus' love story with Dave, the lives they led in the 60s) were apparently created for the show and nowhere to be found in the books. Generally speaking, where the show put a lot of effort into the backstory of the characters and their relationships (between the "kids" but also between the kids and their "father"), the comics stay rather superficial. Although Gerard Way put a bit more effort into that as series progresses, it is never as fleshed out as the show. I found the TV show to be better, which is a bit surprising, because I often like the books much more than the shows (e.g. Sweet Tooth or Locke & Key).