Superhero Comics 101

[MaltonNecromancer]

Are you interested in comics in general, or superheroes in specific? Because I gotta be honest - as a long-standing fan of comics, it's worth knowing that 90% of superhero comics are absolutely not worth reading if you're after something beyond "Male Power Fantasy In Spandex Punches Stuff Until It Dies".

Comic superhero stories worth reading tend to be those that either deconstruct the concept, or else are written by what I suppose you coud call "comic auteurs"; that is, writers who specialise in comics as a storytelling medium, rather than novels, and who run their own creator-owned comics, rather than simply doing the same old intellectual properties that Marvel/DC/Whoever have been churning out for years.

If you're interested in just disposable superhero fun, there's honestly not a lot I've read that didn't make me want to give up the medium entirely. "The Twelve" by J. Michael Strazinsky is pretty good. "Iron man: Extremis" is very enjoyable. Any "Punisher" collection by Warren Ellis is excellent (though not for the faint of heart; the series "Born" features some absolute grotesquery, and "The Slavers" may be the most horrible story Marvel ever published - basically the author had read about human traffickers and got so angry that he had the Punisher kill them. It's well worth reading, but will leave you upset unless you're dead inside).

People worth reading:

Garth Ennis. He's a Belfast-bron writer who started out on Judge Dredd, before writing for DC. His comics are characterised by black comedy, foul jokes, absolute misanthropy, pure hatred of Christianity, and a general loathing for superheroes. On a good day, his work is excellent - his above meontioned run on "Punisher" will probably never be equalled. On a bad day, his work is childish and the jokes fall flat - I don;t particularly like "The Boys", because it's, well, lame. I know a lot of people like it, but it's just his 2000AD stuff redone for an American audience, so there's very little decent characterisation in amongst all the scatological "humour". His creator owned series "Preacher" is well worth reading for the characters, though it is frequently deeply unpleasant. Don't read if you're a Christian, as the Christian God is explicitly the villain of the piece.

Grant Morrison. His heartfelt, deeply humane run on "Superman" is the only time I've liked the character. Similarly, "Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth" is the only Batman story worthy of mention (including Alan Moore's "The Killing Joke", which is interesting, but all of thirty pages, so not really a read). His creator owned series "The Invisibles" and "The Filth" are amongst the best books I've ever read ("The Filth" especially), but be warned: they are very, very weird. Like most of his stuff. His impossible-to-find comic "Kill Your Boyfriend" is glorious fun. "We3" combines his love of animal rights and cyborgs and is brilliant. His run on "New X-Men" is also well worth anyone's time - it's a massive deconstruction of the whole X-Men mythos (where he points out that a series ostensibly about change never does).

Neil Gaiman. Just, seriously, read "Sandman". All of it. All ten books. It is the best thing I have ever read. I have yet to find anything remotely close to how good it is. I doubt I will.

Joss Whedon: His run on "Astonishing X-Men" is the best the comic has ever been. His work on "Runaways" is also brilliant.

Bryan K. Vaughan: "Runaways" is unashamedly my favourite pure superhero comic ever. His creator-owned series "Y: The Last Man" is also very good.

Warren Ellis. Very, very hit or miss. The stuff he wrote for Marvel during what he called his "Year of Whoredom" is dreadful (with the exception of the aforementioned "Iron Man: Extremis", and I suppose "NEXTwave", if you like that sort of thing. Which I don't). However, his creator-owned work is very strong. If you're after superhero stories of his, I recommend his "Fear The Superman" trilogy ("Black Summer", "No Hero", and "Supergod", of which I would say "Black Summer" is the best), as well as the "Planetary" series he did for Image. Other people will always recommend "Transmetropolitan" (Hunter S. Thompson fight Tony Blair IN THE FUTURE!!!) but I found it fairly weak, especially the issues after Ellis' father died (where he's obviously so cut up inside he couldn't be bothered with fiction, and frankly, that's fair enough. It does mean "Transmet" has a much stronger start than finish, though). I also love "Global Frequency". His run on "The Authority" isn't bad either, largely because he writes the titular groups of superheroes as the supervillains they actually are.

Gail Simone. Her work "Secret Six" is very hard to get hold of, but very good. She writes Bane as a badass, which is something he sorely needed.

Alan Moore. Don't bother with "Watchmen". Everyone'll recommend it, and it's kind of obvious, as well as very much a product of the 80's. Read "Top Ten" instead - there's far more female characters, and it's far more interesting. I guarantee you'll never see its central idea anywhere else ("What if there was a city where everyone was a superhero, from the hotdog sellers to the homeless?") Nice to read about some gay characters who aren't gay to get a quick headline and free press too.

NAMES TO AVOID:

Frank Miller. Did one good comic ("The Dark Knight Returns"). Spent the rest of his life attempting to destroy any credibility he had built up. Finally succeeded with "All Star Batman And Robin". Frank Miller is a lunatic, his comics are a joke that's been old for a decade. Give his stuff a go if you like, but be prepared to regret your wasted time.

Mark Millar. There are no words for how much I detest this guy. He's basically a 13 year old boy who's never done anything meaningful in his life, but boy oh boy has he watched a lot of movies! His work is uniformly misogynist, misanthropic, joyless, and cruel, but with a patina of style that people seem to embrace. Give his work a go - the "best" is probably "Wanted", which has some admittedly clever ideas, but altogether too much casual rape for my liking.

[eldargal]

Atthe moment I'm just aiming to get to grips with the various characters and settings with a bit of light entertainment so I'm aiming for the more mainstream stuff. As I get a handle on things I'll try and move into less mainstream areas, but its very much just about superheros at this point. See above re: light entertainment.

The New 52 Batgirl series is written by Gail Simone, she does the character brilliantly but some plot points and the villains are a little odd/bad.

I'm certainly trying to get Astonishing X-Men.

[MaltonNecromancer]

As a general rule, I would go for authors rather than titles. Marvel's event comics in particular are dire. "Civil War" was the only one that actually had an interesting central conceit, but was let down by a pack of writers who fundamentally disagreed over who the good guy was.

[url]http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Comicbook/CivilWar[/url]

As always, TV Tropes delivers. I recommend you use them as a go-to resource on what to check out.

Oh, you might also want to check out Serena Valentino's work. "Gloom Cookie" and "Nightmares and Fairy Tales" are both excellent.

Edit: just realised no-one's mentioned "Misfits" yet. Best. Superheroes. EVAR.

[eldargal]

So, update time. Not that anyone cares or anything but whatever. It's late and I'm tired so sorry if I'm a bit brief/incoherent.

New 52:

Batman: Still enjoying this, as one of the DC flagships you can see they lavish a lot of attention on it. But I'm abotu five issues behind due to focusing on other comics. Enjoyed the Night of the Owls story line which I think concludes in in the last issue I have.

Batwoman: Easily my favourite comic. Once I got used to the way the pages were sometimes laid out and could focus on the writing and art more it really sucked me in. I've kept up to date with this one and I can't wait for issue 17 to arrive. I also liked how the overall story remained much more constant rather than shifting from villain to villain quite as much as some others.

Batgirl: I'm still enjoying this but I'm behind a couple of issues, it suffers a bit compared to Batwoman as I think Barbara Gordon is a little less interesting than Kate Kane (in my opinion) and while the writing is on a similar level the art is not. Almost every page of Batwoman is quite beautiful, whereas Batgirl, while drawn perfectly well, just isn't beautiful.

Catwoman: Seems to be very unpopular online, I don't mind it personally but it certainly isn't as good as some of the others. A shame really. I actually think this Catwoman is a bit dull, I think the animated series made her much more interesting with the socialite/catburglar dichotomy. The overly sexualised art is still a bit annoying too.

Birds of Prey: I have the trade paperback and a half dozen more issues, enjoying it quite a bit and I like the art

Sword of Sorcery: One of the newer additions to New 52, I absolutely love it but it has just been cancelled. I think it will end at issue 7 or something which is very sad. I recommend reading it though. Blonde heroines ftw.


I have a few other Batman TPBs and the new 52 Batman and Robin which I've not read yet.


Marvel
I've struggled to break into Marvel, I bought two Black Widow TPBs and one was rather good but the other was quite confusing. Why was she a young adult in WW2 and still in the modern era?! Confused...
But after a review from DC Women Kicking *** I bought the first issue of Fearless Defenders and really loved it. How can anyone not like a comic with a lesbian archaeologist kissing a Valkyrie (or the Valkyrie, whatever). Looking forward to issue 2 in a few weeks.
I've also ordered some of the new Journey into Mystery series now featuring Sif as the main character and Captain Marvel (now a woman) and am eagerly anticipating the new all-female X-Men comic in april, so starting to get to grips with Marvel I hope.

I'm focusing mostly on female superhero books, I figure that the men won't be going anywhere and I can pick up TPBs later if they come well recommended. But there seems to be a nasty trend of female teams/lead comics being cancelled quite a bit so I'd rather support them as much as I can.

[Tzeentch's Dark Agent]

Not all of us can afford 50 comics a week.

[Deadlift]

If you have an iPad the xcomics app is quite good for downloading comics. I am currently enjoying the Walking dead series and Elephantmen comics. Dark avengers and Marvel civil war are good reads too.

[Brakkart]

Pretty cool list of titles you are following there EG. I've read most of those (the DC ones that is, I'm not much for Marvel). Regarding Batgirl the current run is good but it pales in comparison to the previous (pre-52) run in my opinion, where Barbara Gordon was still crippled from the Joker shooting her in Killing Joke, and served as Oracle (sort of an online info broker to the superhero community) as well as mentor to Stephanie Brown who had previously been the superheroine Spoiler, and became (with Bab's blessing) the new Batgirl. She is a lot of fun to read, and blonde too. Sadly her run was cut short by the New 52 reboot and Steph is in character limbo in the new continuity.

[URL="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Batgirl-Vol-Rising-Comics-Quality/dp/1401227236/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1361406159&sr=1-6"]Batgirl Rising[/URL], [URL="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Batgirl-Flood-Bryan-Q-Miller/dp/0857684108/ref=pd_sim_b_1"]The Flood[/URL], and [URL="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Batgirl-Lesson-Comics-Quality-Paper/dp/1401232701/ref=la_B003VOD8J2_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1361406336&sr=1-2"]The Lesson[/URL] are the 3 TPB's that were released of the run. Worth checking out.

I can also highly recommend anything written by Geoff Johns, especially his runs on Green Lantern, Aquaman and Justice League. Peter Tomasi's run on Green Lantern Corps is also very good and runs alongside John's GL series, with a couple truly great heroines in Soranik Natu and Princess Iolande amongst the cast.

[scadugenga]

There is so much good to be said about The Walking Dead.

[Chronowraith]

A few suggestions...

Katana (from the New 52 Birds of Prey) just received her own series. First issue was out last week and was surprisingly good (Katana has always been a mediocre character in my opinion).

The Fairest from DC Vertigo concentrates on the stories of the female fables. So far all of the stories have been fantastic. Overall I encourage everyone to read Fables, but from your comment about female books, The Fairest is better suited to your liking. It isn't superheroes... but it has fantastic writing.

Look at Orchid, written by Rage Against the Machine's Tom Morello. This series just ended but was VERY well done.

As for Journey into Mystery... that series is awesome no matter who it centers on (the Loki storylines were particularly awesome). I wasn't impressed with Captain Marvel or Fearless Defenders personally.

Speaking of Female X-Men... I'm excited about the Kitty Pryde statue being released this summer (already preordered). She's been my favorite X-Men since I first started reading comics in the mid 80's.
[URL="http://myfigurecollection.net/item/127127"]http://myfigurecollection.net/item/127127[/URL]

[eldargal]

Not all of us can afford 50 comics a week.

I'm only getting around ten a month.

Brakkart, I know the choice to de-cripple Barbara Gordon is quite controversial. I only found out about the Oracle thing when I played Arkham Asylum so I didn't really have a vested interest in it but I can understand why people would be upset. I know a lot of people want to see Stephanie Brown back in some capacity too. I'd be up for that, the more female characters the better.

I'll put those TPBs on next months buy list. I'm probably going to look at some of the Justice League stuff when I've caught up with Batman, Batman and Robin and Batgirl and perhaps when SoS ends. Maybe Green Lantern and Aquaman as well, though I'm mostly familiar with the latter through Family Guy poking fun at him.

Chronowraith, I've only read Katana in the Birds of Prey and she isn't my favourite, but I might give her solo series a go on principle. I'm glad the first issue was good, that is encouraging. I've been meaning to check out Fables, I like the tv show Once Upon A Time which is very similar apparently (so much so that some fans accused the show of plagiarism, though the author of Fables said that isn't the case). I'll add The Fairest to the list as well.

Fearless Defenders and Captain Marvel seem to be quite divisive, people seem to like them or dislike them. I liked Fearless Defenders as I said, the archaeology angle was nice and I really want to find out what happens next. Not read Captain Marvel yet, hopefully I will like it.