Interesting idea.
The Coming of Galactus!: The dialogue is very overdramatic and hammy, a lot of effort is placed on captions to tell the story, Jack Kirby's figures are always posing theatrically and never naturally, it tells the story in only three issues (clearly, this kinda story needed to be a company-wide Crisis Crossover) and doesn't show the effects on the Marvel Universe as a whole; no non-FF comics at the time seemed to even notice that this happened.
(Here's a fun idea: try to see how much of that paragraph was written in Sarcasm Mode. Not all of it was.)
Now, for One More Day: The artwork is very good. Various characters attempt to talk Peter out of what he's doing. Doctor Strange shows up. It eventually led to Dan Slott writing Amazing Spider-Man.
Kingdom Come: The Supes-Wondy romance is forced.
Craig Kyle and Chris Yost's New X-Men: I wouldn't say I dislike this comic, but the fact that the first couple arcs were basically a thinly-veiled insult to the previous creative team left a bad taste in my mouth. Anyway, the Character Development was actually better than said previous creative team.
There's a Judge Dredd story called "The Further Dasterdly (sic) Deeds of PJ Maybe" which I've previously ranted about how much it sucks, and I even posted the progs it appears in to Linkara as I thought they were AT4W-grade material.
The artwork is really good, as one would expect from Colin MacNeill.
This story shows John Wagner has really thought through the ramifications of Sinfield's reign. It stands to reason that he would reassign anyone he sees as too sharp to out-of-the-way to somewhere remote; just because Dredd, Beeny, and Rico were the only ones we saw it happen to doesn't mean nobody else got shafted (though this forces one to wonder just what the heck Anderson was up to).
Anyway, the sheer incompetence of the prison Judges does point to the decay and rot within Justice Department following Sinfield's actions.
Likewise, allowing a prisoner to interact with PJ Maybe actually does make quite a bit of sense from a cost-saving perspective. Robots may be cheaper than human labour, but they still require power and maintenance. If you have a bunch of prisoners who you aren't paying anyway, it does make sense to have them carry out routine duties rather than bring in a bunch of robots to do the same work as the labour force you already have available.
Ukrainian Red CrossAs much as I love Preacher, it does have a whole bunch of plot holes. Cassidy should have been instantly killed by the Saint's guns ( they did, after all, kill God), the story of Genesis never really goes anywhere, Jesse never really properly confronts God and it's not really explained how Jesse can threaten God in Heaven - and indeed, the threat that Jesse actually poses to God isn't that convincing. It's still one of my favourite comics of all time, though.
With cannon shot and gun blast smash the alien. With laser beam and searing plasma scatter the alien to the stars.I don't read too many comics, really.
Fish Police is great overall, but it feels like too many of the plot threads are introduced at once regarding Goldie, Hairballs, S.Q.U.I.D., etc.
Comic I love- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage): There's very little characterization for the turtles themselves. Many plot threads and otherwise interesting ideas aren't followed up on. The era of non-canon guest issues vary wildly in quality. Occasionally, the comic gets far too dark and serious, to the point where it's too bleak to read at times. I honestly think that Jim Lawson's artwork doesn't look that good.
Comic I hate- The Dark Knight Strikes Again: Batman carving a Z into Lex Luthor's face is not only a great Shout-Out to Batman's inspiration, but an awesome moment for Batman himself. Captain Marvel's Dying Moment of Awesome is fitting, tearjerking, and again, awesome. "Say the word... go out with a lion's roar!" "SHAZAM!" Alfred E. Neuman's cameo made me chuckle. The Reveal that the Joker is actually Dick Grayson was indeed a well-executed and shocking twist. And I liked The Question and Plastic Man's characterizations. Oh, and Superman looking like his Golden Age self was kinda cool, too.
edited 18th Apr '12 9:16:34 PM by DrFurball
Comic I love: Batman Year One: It was too short and therefore missed a lot of opportunities to give insight into how Batman's mind worked
Comic I didn't-really-dislike-but-thought-could-have-been-much-better : Kevin Smith's Green Hornet: The artwork was gorgeous and the climax of the story was pretty cool.
edited 22nd May '12 2:22:28 PM by cfive
Hmm... Criticism: Herogasm was awful. I have no idea what Garth was doing there, Herogasm was just awful. It didn't advance the plot, the art felt hollow without any of Darick's input and Garth's trademark crudity didn't actually serve a purpose.
Praise: The Darkness has made me laugh, its humour is deliciously bleak when it wants to be. Also whilst the "Good Vs. Evil is a load of crap" plot isn't exactly original, it's always fun.
Gimme yer lunch money, dweeb.Criticism: It's rather obvious when things are being copypasted in Batgirl. Also this comic, at least with the Cain run, has plenty of examples of hilariously awkward looking faces. Barbara and Bruce seem to receive these the most. Barbara is the queen of them I've found. Her lip size is also highly variable. I generally like the style of the art in it but when it's bad it tends to be distracting and funny as hell.
Praise: Sonic Endgame is shit. Just. Shit. I've read it a few times and I can't bring myself to like the damn thing. It had some nice covers for it though and the art wasn't the eye searing horror that much of the early Modern Sonic portion of Archie Sonic would give us. And it had Sonic doing what I term "Sonic things". Namely he was beating the fuck out of things and being a hero instead of having navel gazing moments and playing part in one of the worst soap operas I've seen.
edited 19th Jun '12 10:51:55 AM by Aondeug
If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan ChahComic I loved: Cable & Deadpool:
-The Deadpool character, coming off Kelly and Simone's run, lacks a lot of the depth and humanity that made him so endearing in the first place, and Fabian's take on him very likely put him on the path to being the Waypool era Deadpool, who has no character development or meaningful drama.
-In most of the stories that focused on Cable (and it was a lot of them until he moved back to the X-Books), Deadpool felt like a hanger-on who didn't have much to do.
-I didn't really like Fabian's version of Agent X. He wasn't as interesting or funny as in his own title, and I didn't like when he made him morbidly obese.
-Amanda Connor's covers for the Civil War issues were way below her usual standards.
-The T-Ray storyline was a complete slap to the face to anyone who read and enjoyed the original Kelly storyline.
Comic I hate: Kyle and Yost's New X-Men: There are a few good jokes to be found. A number of characters went on to become fan favorites because of this run. There were some good artists on the book. Reverend Stryker was a very entertaining villain. It led to X-Force which I liked a lot more.
edited 27th Jun '12 1:17:22 PM by MainManJ
I like this thread.
Comics I love: -Ronin can only be described as one of the best things to ever come out of Frank Miller's imagination. The action scenes are well written, so were the dialogues, and hell, even the Mind Screw-y Plot Twist was well done. The last 3 or so pages, however, are the very definition of a Cruel Twist Ending. Billy just decides to destroy whatever's left of civilization when throwing a tantrum, making the whole story feel like a Shaggy Dog Story. There was no real point to this, and to make things worse, the Ronin later appears before Casey unscathed, staring blankly at her, which was not only pointless, but also made no sense whatsoever.
-Everyone who has heard about The Invisibles has also heard that the series is, to say the least, complex. The word complex, however, does not even come near to describing how convoluted the last twelve issues are: constant perspective switches, Anachronic Order, at least two Nested Story Reveals, etc. Just like the fist two volumes, but taken to the extreme. EDIT: Also, I agree with Tuomas on the fact that getting rid of Boy and Ragged Robin and giving Fanny a lot less attention was a very bad idea.
edited 4th Jul '12 5:26:09 PM by AlterEgo
Ah Mark Millars run on Robohunter. What a bold interesting new take on a fossil of a character!
Pushing his celebrity to the hilt is a nice move keeping him contemperary. I mean who wants to read on a down on his luck robohunter and his two very stupid robotic lackies when we can have him blow the fuck out of things!
Bringing back his original robotic sidekick cutie was a genius touch as was allowing him to marry her. the fact she is a talking thermometer is no burden in the future Millar has carefully crafted.
A great fun story which I would never dream of sending to Linkara in a million years...
" I did the right thing, didn't I? It all worked out in the end." "In the end? Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends."Comics I love: In volume 3 of The Invisibles, Grant Morrison either sidelines or puts on a bus the three best characters in the series (Boy, Ragged Robin, Lord Fanny – they're also the three main female characters, for what it's worth) in order to spotlight less interesting minor characters. The "art jam" in the last few issues is an interesting idea, but it's executed very badly, and almost ruins what should've been a great finale. Most of the "so 90s" references in the comic are still fine even though the nineties are long gone (there's nothing wrong with anchoring your story to its era), but the stereotypical big-headed aliens feel very dated, since they don't seem to serve any purpose beyond Morrison riding a then-current fad. They add nothing important to the story and could've easily been replaced by some other type of supernatural character.
edited 4th Jul '12 2:34:38 AM by Tuomas
Comic I love: Fifty Two — The "Space Heroes" arc with Starfire, Animal Man, and some losers I couldn't care less about was my least favorite arc by far. It had the least to do with the main plot, IMO. I guess it couldn't be avoided since it's literally galaxies away and involves a villain that doesn't have anything to do with anything else and never ascended above the C list, as far as I know. It was a bothersome distraction from an overall awesome story, compared to the arcs with Black Adam, Montoya and The Question, and Steel.
Oh, and for some reason, the third of the series' four volumes is my least favorite, because it lacks the novelty of vol. 1, the development of vol. 2, and the climactic quality of vol. four.
Do not obey in advance.Ennis actually admits that this was a mistake, funnily enough.
Speaking of Preacher. As much as I loved it, the ending was pretty awful except for the epilogue stuff like Cassidy's fate. Between stuff like Jesse being able to fight one-on-one with Cass even though the guy brought his arm without much effort the last time they fought and the lack of closure regarding Jesse's relationship's with God, it's just...awful, really.
The Providence arc was also pretty much filler really. I liked it but it just felt like such a massive detour from the main plot.
There's also Ennis' love for black humor sometimes obscuring why his story was so resonant in the first place but it's nicely balanced until the endgame issues.
Overall I'd say that Preacher's very strong stuff though.
As for stuff I loathe that has good stuff going on for it, I'd say that as much as I hate Millar's The Ultimates, he does the whole "Big threats necessitating a team of superheroes to deal with them" thing pretty well. I just disagree with his idea of making these characters such unlikeable fucks really
We made gods and jailers because we felt small. We let them judge us and we allowed ourselves to be sentenced. See! Now! Our sentence is up!Comics I loved:
-I really wish Cameron's dialogues in The Filth weren't written with such a heavy Funetik Aksent. I usually don't have any problem with this trope, but Morrison made her speech nigh incomprehensible (made worse by the fact that english isn't my first language), which is definitely a problem for a character that does quite a bit of exposition in the story.
-Daredevil: The Man Without Fear: Be blind and acquiring pseudo-superpowers by being trained by a mysterious blind janitor? That actually makes for an amazing origin story. Being able to function like a normal human being, including being able to read by feeling the ink on a paper with your fingertips? Definetly a stretch from reality, but still not too distracting. Being able to beat the crap out of three hitmen as a kid? Very improbable, but the comic kinda made it look plausible. Being able to defect bullets back to the shooter by using a baton of all things? C'mon. This is the best Daredevil comic that i've read (including Born Again), but Frank went a bit overboard with the Charles Atlas Superpower.
-Reading it again, I realized I have a love/hate relationship with Batman: Hush. For one part, Loeb keeps using the same gimmicks he first used in The Long Halloween, only not as well. It's painfully obvious who the mysterious killer is as soon as his name is mentioned in the story. Batman, whose defining character trait is being incredibly Crazy Awesome, was not prepared to have his rope cut (something Elliot counted on when making his convoluted plan.). Nothing in the story hinted at the plot twist at the ending, to the point that it felt like an afterthought. The Huntress cameo added very little to the story. I could go on.
Comics I loathed:
-The only part of Holy Terror worth remembering is when Frank uses a page full of empty comic panels to represent the victims of a terrorist attack. I found it very clever, and very emotive too. The rest of the comic is pure horse shit.
- For the other part, Jim Lee's art in Hush was beautiful. Selina never looked so stunning in a comic before. Even the deco-style buildings in the background looked amazing. Also, I found the Catwoman/Batman romantic subplot to be the only thing Loeb truly did well in this story.
edited 1st Aug '12 8:25:35 PM by AlterEgo
Comic I liked
Superman: Red Son: The confrontation with the Green Lantern Marine Corp needed far more screen time for as much hype it was given.
Comic I didn't like:
Hush: It had nice art.
Theres sex and death and human grime in monochrome for one thin dime and at least the trains all run on time but they dont go anywhere.Also, another comic I love in which I nevertheless recognize problems in: New X-Men.
First off, it at times seems to be set in an Alternate Universe. Morrison said he wanted to invoke Superman Stays Out of Gotham so he could focus on internal mutant politics and what it really means to be a mutant. And for the most part, I think this was a good decision, in both that it was a fresh direction for the book and that it spawned a krillion billion spinoffs that focused on different facets of that concept, resulting in a wonderful blend of new genres, which is, of course, something the superhero comic industry definitely needs. Morrison accomplished this by having his heroes opposed by threats that would only involve mutants (Kid Omega, Cassandra Nova, Weapon Plus) or that probably would involve other heroes but that the mutants would want to get to first (the U-Men). Okay, the Genosha thing probably could've warranted an Avenger or two, especially since the Sentinels apparently messed up South Africa on the way there, but I'm not sure Genosha has ever appeared outside the X-titles at all so even that can be defended. Some of the stuff in the "Planet X" arc, however, really stretched my Willing Suspension of Disbelief that this comic takes place in the Marvel Universe. The one scene that really gets me? Xorn, in his efforts to turn New York into a mutant utopia, not only demolishes the Statue of Liberty, he sinks the entire island it's on into the bay! Now, that would obviously be damage nearly impossible to fix, yet I'm fairly sure both statue and island have appeared in later comics with nary a scratch! Methinks Morrison got a touch too ambitious here.
Also, he seems to have a bit of a problem with creator favoritism. In particular, he really seems to like his original creations the Stepford Cuckoos, who save the day in two arcs (more than any of the established characters except, you guessed it, Wolverine) and who will apparently live until 150 years into the future without looking a day past 25. This doesn't really make the story less enjoyable overall though.

Comic Books, from what I noticed, tend to be in the Love It or Hate It category. If you feel ambivalent about a story, well, then just criticize and praise it! Remember, the idea behind this thread is to show both sides of the story.
So to start things off, I'm going to criticize The Dark Knight Returns. Like a lot of people, I like the story and I thought it was well done. Indeed, I would say that this story was Frank Miller's Magnum Opus, plain and simple. However, there are a number of points that need to be brought up about this story.
So there you have it. What comics can you think up for this thread?
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