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So, I've been out of the game for a solid year and a half or so now. Haven't read a damn thing, and only have very general knowledge of what's happened in the interim (Marvel's retelling Secret Wars? Jim Gordon is/was Batman?)

What are the must reads to catch back up? I'm not interested in reading every POS that's come out, just the best arcs and what's necessary to follow the flow going forward.

Interested in Marvel/DC primarily, but open to third parties if highly recommended.

Gracias newoot

No, no. You got out. You escaped. Run while you're still free.

haermm

Hah, I did.

And it's been good, but I've been a tad bored recently...

Read IDW, Dark Horse, and if you must read some Marvel, pick up Waid's run on Daredevil.

For the most part, the big two have been pretty terrible.

Yea I was gonna say you make it sound like getting out is a bad thing. I'm thinking of getting out of the big two.

What's IDW?

Walter Simonson's Ragnarok is awesome if you're into Myth heavy fantasy stuff.

At Marvel, if you want to read Secret Wars, you should probably start with Hickman's Avengers/New Avengers run. But that's 50+ issues, which is a bit of a chore, but is worth it IMO.

DC has Justice League United which just started a new arc, and fresh jumping on point with issue 11. I'm a big fan of that book, it has an interesting roster that's not just the typical A-Listers. Gotham by Midnight is really good too, it's a supernatural pulp detective series, if you are into that kind of thing.

At Image, Invincible is always top notch, and Spawn just got a new creative team, and fresh jumping on point with issue 251, and I'm enjoying that quite a bit so far.

Originally posted by Deadline
Yea I was gonna say you make it sound like getting out is a bad thing. I'm thinking of getting out of the big two.

What's IDW?

The company IDW. They have the rights to a lot of tv properties, and what I've read from them is usually top-notch, particularly the Ninja turtles and Transformers.

I heard that IDW's Godzilla comics were sub-par, though

Godzilla: In Hell is about as awesome as it sounds. It has zero dialogue though, it's wall to wall Godzilla fighting stuff in Hell.

Originally posted by Khazra Reborn
Walter Simonson's Ragnarok is awesome if you're into Myth heavy fantasy stuff.

At Marvel, if you want to read Secret Wars, you should probably start with Hickman's Avengers/New Avengers run. But that's 50+ issues, which is a bit of a chore, but is worth it IMO.

DC has Justice League United which just started a new arc, and fresh jumping on point with issue 11. I'm a big fan of that book, it has an interesting roster that's not just the typical A-Listers. Gotham by Midnight is really good too, it's a supernatural pulp detective series, if you are into that kind of thing.

At Image, Invincible is always top notch, and Spawn just got a new creative team, and fresh jumping on point with issue 251, and I'm enjoying that quite a bit so far.

Sounds good

Originally posted by Khazra Reborn
Godzilla: In Hell is about as awesome as it sounds. It has zero dialogue though, it's wall to wall Godzilla fighting stuff in Hell.

http://bensbargains.com/thecheckout/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/shut_up_and_take_my_money-300x190.jpg

Whats good in Image? Apart from Invincible.

The Walking Dead, obviously.

Originally posted by Deadline
Whats good in Image? Apart from Invincible.


Saga is a really good epic space opera/romance. Couple on either side of a big war, fell in love, had kid, run from bounty-hunters, in weird universe with fantastic art.

By Brian Vaughn, of Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, and Runaways, and Fiona Staples, who your eyes will love.


Lazarus by Greg Rucka is another I really love. It's the future, things fell apart, now things are controlled by ultra-rich Families. The families use their technology to enhance a champion, or Lazarus, to be really, really hard to kill, and be the point of their spear, so to speak. Forever Carlyle is the Carlyle family Lazarus, and she's got to deal with internal family bickering, external threats, and questions of her origin. This comic has some great world-building, and makes things seem very real.

It's Greg Rucka, too, and he's pretty much always good- and this is my favorite thing by him.



Originally posted by Deadline
Yea I was gonna say you make it sound like getting out is a bad thing. I'm thinking of getting out of the big two.

What's IDW?

They do Transformers and Godzilla and some other licensed things.

Ever since the start of the 'two ongoings' era, IDW transformers has been fantastic. There's a comic, The Death of Optimus Prime (which comes with the Robots in Disguise collection, even though it's technically the last issue of the prior run), and then after that there's Robots in Disguise, about post-war Cybertron, and More Than Meets The Eye, about a crew of transformers on a space quest.

And you will love them. Probably More Than Meets The Eye especially, but both are great.

There's stuff in IDW transformers before it (like I said, post-war, and the IDW TF universe starts late-war), but that's where you start. It is designed as a jumping on point, and it works.

Chris Sims, Batmanologist of ComicsAlliance did a series of posts, 'The Transformed Man,' about how it turned him from someone who couldn't care less about Transformers to saying More Than Meets The Eye is his favorite comic coming out right now.
Start here


Originally posted by Endless Mike
I heard that IDW's Godzilla comics were sub-par, though


The Half-Century War is an exception to that, it's a really evocative, impressive self-contained story, about a character living in the shadow of Godzilla and watching his rampages over time. Read it, love it.

The reception was great, so the creative team got hired back, for Godzilla in Hell.


IDW's ongoing Godzilla is weaker, but those two are great.


Originally posted by Khazra Reborn

At Marvel, if you want to read Secret Wars, you should probably start with Hickman's Avengers/New Avengers run. But that's 50+ issues, which is a bit of a chore, but is worth it IMO.

Possible, but not necessary, jumping into the SW series itself isn't hard. A lot of the Secret War tie-ins are very self contained, you don't need to follow a lot of side books. I'd say Marvel's not bad at all right now, on the whole.


As for good Marvel stuff, aside from Mark Waid's Daredevil as mentioned, I will also mention Ms. Marvel, about young pakistani-New Jersey teen Kamala Khan, who idolizes Carol Danvers. Who gets hit with Inhuman gas, gets shapeshifting/size powers (like, she can make her hands huge to hit someone), and is just a really fun character.

If you liked Blue Beetle at DC (Jaime Reyes, first run), you'll probably like Kamala too.



There's a number of fairly good books too (for example, Loki: Agent of Asgard, which follows off Young Avengers, which follows off Journey into Mystery, which starts with Loki reincarnated as a kid after he realized being evil was too predictable, and wanted to become something else), but Daredevil and Ms. Marvel, are my bets.

I liked the Loki stuff in Journey Into Mystery, but I dropped it a while ago

I'll second the opinion on IDW's Transformers.

More Than Meets The Eye is pretty much the comic I look forward to each month more than anything else. It's one of the most creative and clever comics out there and surprisingly character driven- to the point where I care more about these random z list Transformers than any of the big two characters at this point.

As far as Secret Wars, jumping on at #1 isn't too bad and they do explain stuff, but it's very much the end of the story Hickman began in Avengers/New Avengers a few years ago (or arguably before seeing how there's plot threads from his FF run bleeding into this). It's pretty awesome though.

Originally posted by AlmightyKfish
I'll second the opinion on IDW's Transformers.

More Than Meets The Eye is pretty much the comic I look forward to each month more than anything else. It's one of the most creative and clever comics out there and surprisingly character driven- to the point where I care more about these random z list Transformers than any of the big two characters at this point.




And Robots in Disguise- or rather, just "The Transformers" at this point, as they dropped the subtitle recently without adding a new one, due to the cartoon show of the same name coming out- is not lacking in good bits either.

Like, the latest issue? Made me care about a character who's basically a decepticon grunt/thug, another Z-lister. Like, care a lot.

And then someone online pointed out a thing that happened early in the series, which just twists the knife (anyone who's followed the series and wants to know what I'm talking about, PM me).


It makes you care about characters and has kickass action.

Where do you Transformer fans stand on IDW's Ninja Turtles series? IMO, it's in the same class.

Originally posted by Q99
The Half-Century War is an exception to that, it's a really evocative, impressive self-contained story, about a character living in the shadow of Godzilla and watching his rampages over time. Read it, love it.

The reception was great, so the creative team got hired back, for Godzilla in Hell.

That pretty much sums IDW's Goji.

Originally posted by Martian_mind
Where do you Transformer fans stand on IDW's Ninja Turtles series? IMO, it's in the same class.


I have not read it but I have heard quite positive reviews from friends.

I have zero clue on what the hell is going on in the Marvel Universe and what happened to continuity. It feels like random non-canon what if mini series but in the whole universe.

Originally posted by SamZED
I have zero clue on what the hell is going on in the Marvel Universe and what happened to continuity. It feels like random non-canon what if mini series but in the whole universe.

I think it's a good thing we stopped caring about it before that.

Read some TWD, Sam. Start from #1.

Originally posted by Cogito
So, I've been out of the game for a solid year and a half or so now. Haven't read a damn thing, and only have very general knowledge of what's happened in the interim (Marvel's retelling Secret Wars? Jim Gordon is/was Batman?)

What are the must reads to catch back up? I'm not interested in reading every POS that's come out, just the best arcs and what's necessary to follow the flow going forward.

Interested in Marvel/DC primarily, but open to third parties if highly recommended.

Gracias newoot

Read Aaron's Thor: God of Thunder, Hickman's New Avengers, and of course Dan Slott's Silver Surfer. 313

Originally posted by StiltmanFTW
I think it's a good thing we stopped caring about it before that.

Read some TWD, Sam. Start from #1. What does TWD stand for?

...

You and me, we're done.

http://i57.tinypic.com/wi1u88.png

Gotcha. Don't give up on me so fast, Stilt. I know what The Walking Dead is. Just a bit slow today.

Yeah, there are days like that. I liked the comic more than the tv series.

Pak's Action Comics has been fantastic so far.