The Gaming Den

Prophet (Image Comics)

So once upon a time there was a shitty Image comics character named John Prophet; a Captain America-esque supersoldier who traveled to the future via cryogenic suspension to save humanity.

None of that shit matters, because this is a new joint.

It's the far, far, far future. Earth has grown old and alien and strange. John Prophet awakens from his underground cell with a mission - to travel across this strange landscape and reboot the Earth Empire. It's scripted by Brandon Graham, who has gained proper acclaim for his series King City and slightly less acclaim for his early pay-the-bills porn comics like Perverts of the Unknown. What matters is that this is beautiful, gritty, Big Sci-Fi stuff - strongly written, lovingly illustrated, with many standalone episodes so you can jump in on almost any issue but with an overarching setting that you get more and more of a look at as the series goes on. The first trade paperback for Graham's reboot is out, and the series is ongoing. Highly reccomended.

Saga (Image)

The wunderchild of 2012, Brian K. Vaughn and Fiona Staples's brilliant, witty, fun, and cool book is something like what you'd get if Joss Whedon wrote Star Wars. There's a long war on between the television-headed high science planet and the satyresque high magic moon that orbits it, but rather than wage it at home they've exported it to the rest of the galaxy. The plot follows a pair of defectors from the respective armies, who met, fell in love, and just had a kid. The parents are on the run from both sides and all the bounty hunters in the galaxy.

...reading that back, none of that does this justice. It's visceral and mean and idealistic at the same time; the characters are well-developed. Nothing is ever simple, everybody makes mistakes, and that is part of what makes this comic fantastic.

Godzilla: Half-Century War (IDW)

James Stokoe of Won Ton Soup, Orc Stain, Spider-'Nam...wait, you've never heard of those? Fuck off and go to his blog right now: http://orcstain.wordpress.com/ Stokoe is one of the best artists in the business, with a Sergio Argones-style business turned up to 11 and set at "Alien Biotech." Half-Century War is a bit of an old-school look at our old friend Godzilla - no weird half-iguana stuff, just back in classic grey Tokyo-stomping action. The kick on this one is that the focus isn't on the Big G directly, but on the poor schlubs of the Japanese Defense Force that get to take him on when he makes an appearance - starting way back to when he first crawled out of the bay. It's a lovely read and I'm looking forward to the rest of it.

Preacher. All of it. Even the specials. Period.

Digger. It's awesome. Written and illustrated by Ursula Vernon. It's all up for free on the site.

My friends at the indie bookshop I go to actually got me an autograph from Ursula. That's where my user icon came from.

Scalped by Jason Aaron and RM Guera. The last issue for this just came out a few weeks ago. It's a noir crime drama set on the Lakota reservation. Occasionally it seems like it want to be an HBO series but it is generally very good and has heights of brilliance.

I second the call for Preacher. It is both amazing and hilarious.

Another thing I can recommend is Requiem Vampire Knight. It's written by Pat Mills, and drawn by Olivier Ledroit, which is really a match made in heaven. It is full of the characteristic Pat Mills sense of humour, as well as some really awesome art.

Oh, I love Requiem Vampire Knight.

Hellblazer -- The first 50-ish issues.
Moonshadow written J.M DeMatteis is also awesome.

Glory (Image Comics)


Like Prophet, this is a new take on Rob Liefeld's Wonder Woman analog.

Glory is the bastard off-spring of two warring extra-dimensional races who came to Earth in time to literally rip the spines out of Nazis. Fusing with a diminutive waitress who served as her alter-ego she played the role of generic superhero for decades. After separating she grew increasingly brooding and violent, isolating herself in northern France until a young journalist finds her. The shit pops off when Glory's father decides she wants her back.

Reads like Metal Hurlat by way of Jack Kirby with a heavy heaping of splatterpunk.

The Activity (Image Comics)


When American spies go rogue or foreign assets fuck up, the Army's Intelligence Support Activity sends in a small team of experts to clean up the mess. It's mil-porn by way of Tom Clancy without the anti-leftist rhetoric.

Stitched (Avatar Press)


Garth Ennis and Mike Wolfer create another 303-esque war tale in Afghanistan. The twist being it's a survival story about a crashed helicopter crew fending off a group of tribal Afghani flesh golems.

The Massive (Dark Horse)


A ship filled with environmental activists searches for its sister vessel after an ecological catastrophe strikes the planet.

Punk Rock Jesus (Vertigo)


A reality television show impregnates a virgin with the reconstituted DNA of Jesus Christ. The TEA Party and conservative Christian activists demand the girl be turned over to them. Her body guard is an ex-IRA Catholic.

I'm really a fan of Namesake, which is the Wizard of Oz if you swap out Dorthy with a streetsmart modern heroine.

E: Also, Erstwhile which is the Brothers Grimm in comic format.

Why does JMS keep getting work?

I'm not much of a comics fan, mostly getting my knowledge through second-hand snark, but in all seriousness, how could a man that wrote comics where:

[*] Superman self-righteously strolls on foot to do Very Serious People whining -- and the comic doesn't get finished.
[*] Gwen Stacy has degenerate GM babies with Green Goblin.
[*] SPIDER-MAN MAKES-- ........ you know what he did.

Still have a job after all of this time?

Lago PARANOIA wrote: [*] SPIDER-MAN MAKES-- ........ you know what he did.

Actually, no, I don't.

JMS knows a lot of people and a gift for self-promotion. After Babylon 5 he managed to work his way up to a couple of actual Hollywood movies. Most comics writers would drink a pint of their own diarrhea to have his contact list. JMS also has a legion of fans who will insist that his piss is liquid gold and buy anything with his name on it.

As a bankable name in media far more lucrative than comics, it's my assumption that they basically give him whatever comics work he wants as an excuse to keep him on salary between movies. If it makes the old geek happy to have his byline on Superman, they really don't care if he urinates on a classic character from a great height, that's what reboots are for.

JMS has his moments. His Rising Stars and Supreme/Squadron Supreme series are good.

Isn't a lot of the blame for the spiderman deal with the devil on the editor at the time (Joe Quesada) whose mother had recently dies and should have been in psychiatric counseling rather than editing comics? Or who should have had friends and colleagues politely but firmly tell him that he's mixing his personal life with work. From what I've heard it was the editor who could not accept Aunt May's death in any way.

I may be getting him confused with another editor but I seem to remember hearing that he demanded that JJ Jameson and Wolverine suddenly stop smoking after someone he knew got lung cancer. I've heard JMS complained a lot and then went out of his way to have Dr Strange and Reed Richards tell Peter it's a retarded idea but it was either the deal with the devil or start looking for another job.

Similarly I've heard that the Osborn/Stacy abomination was written by JMS as being based on secret children of Parker/Stacy but overruled by Quesada, and changed by Quesada to destroy everyone's memories of Gwen.

Supreme Power was a fucking awesome deconstruction of DC's power house characters, despite the stupid name. The Twelve was also very cool as a hero-out-of-time tale.

His Spider-Man run gets a bad rap for Norman Osborne's 'o-face' and the whole 'One More Day/Mephisto dealio but those were editorial mandate. The Spider-Totem thing was... odd but not unreadable.

Rising Stars wasn't bad though it suffered from a rotating stable of mediocre Top Cow artists.

Empowered by Adam Warren. It starts as a series of joke vignettes centered on a female superhero that keeps getting into bondage situations, but a story emerges and really takes off after about 2 issues.

Cynic wrote:JMS has his moments. His Rising Stars and Supreme/Squadron Supreme series are good.

I liked Rising Stars, except for some of his oversimplified political stuff, the "superhero uses blackmail to make himself dictator" part, and the bullshit ending.
So basically, the first 2 collections were pretty awesome. I didn't buy the 3rd.

Supreme Power was pretty much the same. I loved the Hyperion/Nighthawk intros, and the early stuff was pretty solid. I stopped reading right around the African story arc.

In short, I think JMS has some serious talent, if he could just stick to writing a good story and keep his personal political views out of it.

Wesley Street wrote:Supreme Power was a fucking awesome deconstruction of DC's power house characters, despite the stupid name. The Twelve was also very cool as a hero-out-of-time tale.

Rising Stars wasn't bad though it suffered from a rotating stable of mediocre Top Cow artists.

a.) Agreed on Supreme Powers premise; I trust you are familiar with the earlier work it was based on, that did some similar stuff (though not to the same extent)?

b.) Did The Twelve ever get finished? I collected the first 6(?) issues, but never saw the rest. Do you know if they put it out in a collection?

c.) Yeah, the art changeups really hurt Rising Stars's readability. Some of it was very slick Marc Silvestri-esque stuff, and some of it was just terrible. The fact that they didn't even bother to try to keep character appearances consistent between artists was sloppy as all get out.

Stuff I recommend:

Webcomics: Right now I'm reading a bunch of stuff just because I'm invested...Questionable Content, Megatokyo (finally moving again), Order of the Stick, Girl Genius. Stuff I'm currently reading because I think it's awesome includes Vattu (by the creator of Rice Boy), Bad Machinery (from the creator of Scary Go Round), Templar Arizona, and Lackadaisy.

Western Print Comics: No ongoing series right now...Fables and Powers are still ongoing, but I'm just buying collections as they come out. Miniseries are often better done than monthly titles, IMO. Aside from the obvious (aka pretty much anything by Alan Moore), I really enjoyed The Sword by the Luna Brothers. Also Planetary by Warren Ellis, which was awesome (the ending was a little weak, but I'll take it).

Manga: While I read Full Metal Alchemist and Bleach, I don't know if I'd say you "should" read them (FMA is better done). Two I do think deserve attention are Banana Fish (finished now, so you can read the entirety) and Nana (probably the best josei manga out there).

Forgot that...

Watchmen is good, but V for Vendetta...well, I used to vaguely like the movie.

Then I read the comic.

Movie V never kills anyone by stabbing them in the chest with a finger. He never has a conversation with a statue of Madame Justice, supplying both sides himself.

There's a lot more depth given to other characters in the comic, too. There's a couple of decent people on Team Norsefire, for example.

Fuchs wrote:Empowered by Adam Warren. It starts as a series of joke vignettes centered on a female superhero that keeps getting into bondage situations, but a story emerges and really takes off after about 2 issues.

I never read that one, but I read about it. From everything I gathered about her, it struck me as a thin veneer over the author's fetishes. Basically, an attractive woman with self-esteem issues who can't take care of herself on her own, gets increasingly naked as time goes on, and end up in bondage situations. Also, she gets re-empowered by fucking.

Well, you're not right. It actually started out because everybody kept askign Adam Warren to draw bondage sketches at conventions - and there is a ludicrous amount of (mostly PG-13) fanservice in that regard, and the heroine does have image and confidence issues - which is why the point of the series is that she overcomes those problems when faced with jerkass teammates, villains, etc. The writing is actually pretty damn good.

And no, she is not re-empowered by fucking.

I thought her suit got more and more ripped as she went through the comic, causing her to lose powers, and the suit was only healed by her getting laid.

That being said, as I mentioned, this is all based on what I read about the comic, and not from actually having read it.

A fun read is Bomb Queen.. I'm not sure if it was intended to or not but it reads like a parody.
It is NSFW but not overly so.

PoliteNewb wrote: a.) Agreed on Supreme Powers premise; I trust you are familiar with the earlier work it was based on, that did some similar stuff (though not to the same extent)?

b.) Did The Twelve ever get finished? I collected the first 6(?) issues, but never saw the rest. Do you know if they put it out in a collection?

a.) I was familiar enough with the Roy Thomas Squadron Supreme from when they popped up in Avengers books and reading entries in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. Hyperion showed up recently in Thunderbolts, which I think is Dark Avengers now. But other than the names, the JLA-inspired MAX Supreme Power was a very different and much darker thing. I would compare it to something like Dark Knight Returns.

b.) Yes it did. Since JMS had finished his work on Clint Eastwood's Changeling his schedule opened up again and he finished The Twelve a few months ago. The collection should be available soon if it isn't already.

EDIT: Title correction.

Wesley Street wrote: a.) I was familiar enough with the Roy Thomas Squadron Supreme from when they popped up in Avengers books and reading entries in the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. Hyperion showed up recently in Thunderbolts, which I think is Dark Avengers now. But other than the names, the JLA-inspired MAX Supreme Power was a very different and much darker thing. I would compare it to something like Dark Knight Returns.

Hmm...I am hesitant to compare it TDKR, mainly because (despite the massive praise that work gets), I find TDKR largely incomprehensible. Supreme Power, on the other hand, was very dark and yet very readable. Also, I didn't hate all the characters of Supreme Power.

I grant you it was very different from the earlier Squadron; but I'd say the stuff from Marvel Universe will not give you a full grasp of the events of the 12-issue Gruenwald miniseries, which is the real "story" so to speak of the original Squadron (I say this from experience).

b.) Yes it did. Since JMS had finished his work on Clint Eastwood's Changeling his schedule opened up again and he finished The Twelve a few months ago. The collection should be available soon if it isn't already.

Thank you for that bit of excellent news.

RobbyPants wrote:I thought her suit got more and more ripped as she went through the comic, causing her to lose powers, and the suit was only healed by her getting laid.

That being said, as I mentioned, this is all based on what I read about the comic, and not from actually having read it.

Nah, the suit heals on it's own over time.
She loses her powers when the suit gets torn, that is correct. And it happens often. The irony of the situation?
The Suit is as strong as ones self-esteem. So as soon as she falters, the suit becomes remarkably less usefull.

Stahlseele wrote:

RobbyPants wrote:I thought her suit got more and more ripped as she went through the comic, causing her to lose powers, and the suit was only healed by her getting laid.

That being said, as I mentioned, this is all based on what I read about the comic, and not from actually having read it.

Nah, the suit heals on it's own over time.
She loses her powers when the suit gets torn, that is correct. And it happens often. The irony of the situation?
The Suit is as strong as ones self-esteem. So as soon as she falters, the suit becomes remarkably less usefull.

Ah. Well, this is what I get from forming my opinion on someone else's opinion instead of reading it first hand.

Regarding my earlier statements: as Sideshow Bob once said, "Cheerfully withdrawn."