Sperg about comic books here

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I want to talk about two Epic Collections I just finished reading. The Incredible Hulk: Ground Zero, and Venom: Symbiosis.

Ground Zero features the start of Peter David's run on the Hulk. This is a run I heard about but never read because the price of back issues was insane when I was growing up. The premise is pretty simple: Bruce Banner becomes Grey Hulk, and his change is triggered by the day/night cycle as opposed to anger. Banner doesn't control the Hulk, but influences the Hulk based upon the cycle of the moon (Banner's influence is most pronounced when the moon is full, for example). This volumes contains all the issues from when Bruce becomes the Grey Hulk to when he is killed by the Leader. The story is... okay. You can tell Peter David is trying to tell a different kind of story from the average comic book of the time, specifically, a continuing plot as opposed to having more episodic adventures. The problem is that the more serialized nature of the stories just make every issue that doesn't move the story along feel like filler. And by god there is a lot of fucking filler in this book.

The other thing I need to mention is the reason why back issues were so insanely priced: the artist. Todd McFarlane draws most of the issues in this collection and... he sucks. Todd is doing all the things that made Todd popular, but without the refinement and skill. You can tell there's a lot of things Todd can't draw, like fight scenes. Todd also can't keep his own characters on model. The same character will look radically different, page to page and issue to issue. Its really infuriating to read an issue and not know who's speaking because the character doesn't look like he did three pages ago.

Final Rating: 5/10

Venom: Symbiosis is the first Venom epic collection and features the origin of the symbiote suit, Peter getting rid of it, the suit finding Eddie Brock and the first four or five Venom stories Marvel published. These are comics I read as a kid (except maybe the Vault graphic novel), and they still hold up for the most part. Venom under McFarlane is okay. By this point, McFarlane has evolved as an artist and he really gels with Spider-Man in a way he never did with the Hulk. His spidey is bright, bold and a breath of fresh air. His Venom is also interesting. Conceptually, I like the idea of Eddie Brock as a stalker--as a guy who can disguise himself as anyone and slip into Spidey's life without Spidey realizing it.

Sadly, stalker Venom is never really utilized. Instead, we get religious fanatic Venom under Todd, which is a much less interesting take on the character. Venom doesn't really come into his own until Erik Larsen* takes over and you get the deserted island issues. Spidey and Venom fighting on the desert island is my favorite Venom story of the era.

Besides the ASM stories, there are also a couple of back up stories from ASM annuals which are hilariously bad (off-model small mouthed Venom, holy moley!), and two issues of the underrated Darkhawk comic.

All in all, the stories hold up.

Final Rating: 8/10

*Its nice to be reminded how good an artist Larsen used to be before he decided to turn The Savage Dragon into a lazy fetish comic.
 
I hate to ask, but is there some kind of timeline or chronological order of Gold Digger? Any videos or blogs explaining what it is? I just started to read it with the color remix comic from 1992 but I kinda wanna know what the series as a whole is like.
 
Speaking of Epics is Goblin's last stand getting reprinted? I'm trying to read Spider-man in chronological order and i have 1-6 and 8-9 but 7 is out of print. I'm also tempted to, even tho i still have to read 5-6 just getting 10-11 before they get snatched up
KissMyTaint said:
I hate to ask, but is there some kind of timeline or chronological order of Gold Digger? Any videos or blogs explaining what it is? I just started to read it with the color remix comic from 1992 but I kinda wanna know what the series as a whole is like.
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I believe Fred Perry has a reading order on his website, if it's still up. i know he made the first 100 issues free to read at one point. ya dirty dog
 
BetterFuckChuck said:
Speaking of Epics is Goblin's last stand getting reprinted? I'm trying to read Spider-man in chronological order and i have 1-6 and 8-9 but 7 is out of print. I'm also tempted to, even tho i still have to read 5-6 just getting 10-11 before they get snatched up
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Given how stupid the secondary market is for these things, I wouldn't sleep on picking one up while its still available.

Goblin's Last Stand was already reprinted in 2021. I wouldn't expect a reprint for awhile, but its bound to be reprinted again eventually. Those issues are too iconic.
 
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Pre order your copies now to get all three covers.
 
What are some non-capekino comics that are sci-fi themed and are just crazy, over-the-top, and action-packed like Go Nagai stuff and have alien/supernatural characters?
 
Space Police said:
What are some non-capekino comics that are sci-fi themed and are just crazy, over-the-top, and action-packed like Go Nagai stuff and have alien/supernatural characters?
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Walt Simonson's Star Slammers. It started with "The Star Slammers" a work Simonson created initially as a series of ashcan booklets made to promote the Washington Science Fiction Association's bid to host a big sci-fi con in 1974, passed around at various cons between '71 to '73 and he gathered the material into a book he submitted as his final thesis at the Rhode Island School of Design. He used the later produced work in the second half of the book as his portfolio, which helped get him a foot in the door at DC.

There was a Marvel Graphic Novel published in the 80s, and then a mini-series years later from Malibu Comics, that wasn't completed and what was supposed to have been the concluding fifth issue was later printed as a one-shot by Dark Horse. IDW published a complete collection back in 2015 but I've seen it going for prices ranging from $50+ to hundreds of dollars.

Once upon a time, there was a race of men who could out-shoot, out-fight, and out-kill anybody. They were paid fabulous sums to act as mercenaries. The practice became so lucrative, they decided to go into business. They became the most successful businessmen in history, and they called themselves...The Star Slammers!
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StarSlammers5.webp
 
I've been slowly reading through more Epic Collections.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Kraven's Last Hunt

God, this epic is a grab bag of random shit. It starts off with a throwaway annual about the Iron Man from 2015 nuking New York City, then it shifts to the conclusion of the Hobgoblin saga, then Spidey marries MJ and finally we get Kraven's Last Hunt. The conclusion of the Hobgoblin saga has some great stuff in there. You have Ned Leeds getting killed and everybody's reaction to that. Then the Rose runs down his entire history and, god damn, for an issue that's basically one long flashback, its pretty fucking compelling. Less compelling is Flash Thompson getting blown up saving Spidey's life, which somehow convinces Peter to propose to Mary Jane.
The next three issues are perhaps the worst part of the book. MJ says "no" and then runs off to Pittsburgh to deal with some family shit. Spidey follows and Smythe (spider slayer dude) follows with an unbeatable robot. Unbeatable should be in scare quotes because Spidey gets mad and in his tard rage just tears the robot apart with his bare hands. You know, something that he could have done the previous issue. MJ rats her dad out to the police, and bing bang boom, she realizes she loves Peter and they get married. The wedding issue itself is just Peter and MJ waffling between whether they want to go through with it or not. (spoiler: they do)
Finally, Kraven's Last Hunt. I haven't read Last Hunt in 20 years, and I was afraid it was going to age as poorly as The Killing Joke. It hasn't. Its obviously a shameless ripoff of the Killing Joke, and, like the Killing Joke, it has a villain and hero act completely opposite to their normal characterization in order to tell the deep story the author wanted to tell. Thankfully, its not as metatextual as the Killing Joke. Killing Joke is a dull treatise on the nature of superhero comics. Last Hunt is about a dude who's fed up of taking Ls and decides to go out on a high note. It also has incredible art and a breezy pacing, which is in stark contrast to the art and pacing of everything preceding it.

Rating: 5/10

The Avengers: Acts of Vengeance

Acts of Vengeance was my favorite crossover as a kid. The concept is simple: villains decide to team up and switch heroes believing that they would have better luck fighting people who weren't accustomed to their power sets. And this was back during the time when the villains' motivation was still important, so there's a lot of infighting between the villains, and some villains being straight up "I just rob banks, so why the fuck would I fight the Avengers?" Sadly, despite this volume containing both the Avengers and West Coast Avengers issues of the crossover, there isn't a lot going on here. Avengers mansion is destroyed again, the Mandarin shows up and then immediately fucks off, oh, and it turns out Loki was behind it all.
Sersei joins the Avengers after they accidentally kill Gilgamesh.
The best storyline in the collection by far is the three part Nebula story at the end. Nebula develops a power source which has the unfortunately side effect of blinking the universe out of existence. The Avengers travel through a void of complete nonexistence to shut it down and restore the universe. But it turns out that was only part 1 of Nebula's plan. She uses some device she stole from the Stranger to absorb the energy from the device and become all-powerful.

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Nebula straight up beats all their asses, so they run away to go to find the Stranger's device and shut off the flow of power. Despite being warned to not fucking touch the device, Spider-Man immediately touches it, causing it to once again blink the universe out of existence.

Its a fun story with a lot of sci-fi themes. A definite "must read" if there ever was one.

Rating: 9/10
 
I've tried reading Ultimate X-Men and I fucking hate it. I think I hate Peach Momoko; her storytelling annoys me and the art seems like something a tumblr tard would vomit up at the last minute of a deadline.

There was one interesting moment where a one-eyed girl with Cyclops' trait accidentally killed her mom through a door, and in a panic mutilated her body. It wasn't great either, but that moment of terror was somewhat captured. Beyond that, I find it impressive that this is what she's done with what she was given to steward. In the regular marvel books, the xmen used to be a giant in terms of sales and merch.

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This is garbage.
 
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