Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
***
 |
| Image by Tumisu from Pixabay |
Yet again, a month draws to a close.
But it was no ordinary month.
For a start, it contained not one but three special occasions.
Those occasions were Valentine's Day, Pancake Day and the opening of a new Lidl in the centre of Sheffield, next to Poundland, just up the road from the other Poundland.
And they say high street shopping is dead.
But what of you? Are those the subjects of which you wish to speak?
Or is there an even more urgent matter tugging at your tongue?
If so, here's the chance to say so because we've reached the latest installment of the greatest series of them all. The one in which the first person to comment gets to decide the topic of the day.
What will it be?
Only time - and the comments section - will tell.
Will Tell?
If I were a man of wit and intelligence, I'd now work out a way to end this post with a quip that relates to shooting apples off people's heads, and skillfully tying it into the fundamental concept of Speak Your Brain.
But I can't think of one.
So, I won't.
"Every one a winner"
ReplyDeleteWith Marvel's main titles, Spidey & Hulk, the quality was often patchy. However, other titles seemed far more consistent.
A while ago, I declared that Captain Marvell never did bad stories. Sean corrected me, pointing out a few less than stellar issues. After that, I, too, remembered a Captain Marvel story that dropped the ball - but there weren't many!
Likewise, in my mind, Iron Fist never had a bad issue. However, if I think hard enough...
What comics/titles, to you, never - or almost never - had a bad issue?
Phillip
Are we talking entire start-to-finish runs of a title? 'Cause that's really hard!
ReplyDeleteOr just a specific, obviously fairly long run, like Bendis on Daredevil or something?
Many titles don't even maintaining consistency over the course of a year, so I'd say a fairly long run, rather than the entire length of a title, Matthew!
ReplyDeletePhillip
"even maintain" - damn typos!
ReplyDeletePhillip
Come to think of it, if it's just a long run, not a title, Claremont & Byrne's X-Men, & Jim Shooter's first run on the Avengers were consistently high quality. So, how about fairly long runs & titles?
ReplyDeletePhillip
Luke Cage Hero for Hire until he became Power Man. So #1 until around # 15-ish? Charles
ReplyDeleteEvery issue of DC’s DINGBATS!!! Charles
ReplyDeleteAMAZING SPIDERMAN #1 until #120! Then it crashed… forever.
ReplyDeleteCharles
OK - these are probably really obvious but…
ReplyDeleteMiller’s Daredevil.
There are some issues that aren’t as good as others but I’d say from the point he took over it was really really solid.
I was going to go for Moore’s Swamp Thing but - and it really pains me to say this, as it’s my favourite run ever - some of the latter issues were really weak.
I really liked the Dan Slott Silver Surfer.
And Descender (and to a lesser extent, the sequel Ascender).
Oh so many good long time imho some of my favs were:
ReplyDeleteConan the Barbarian first 50 or so issues Thomas, Smith, Buscema etc
Amazing Spider-Man 1 -125 ish - Lee, Ditko, Romita, Thomas etc
Fantastic Four - Kirby\Lee most of the entire run
Thor, Lee\Kirby from Journey into Mystery issue 110 to Thor 179
Hulk - the entire Thomas Trimpe\Severin run
Dr Strange Lee\Ditko Strange Tales run
Swamp Thing vol 1 issue 1-23 Wein ,Wrightson and Conway, Redondo period
Superman - John Byrne, Jerry Ordway period
Avengers issue 1 Beck through to George Perez run
Tomb of Dracula, Wolfman, Colan etc
Daredevil, Len Wein , Samnee run
Daredevil, Gene Colan run
Batman, O'Neil, Neal Adams
Oh and Groo by Sergio Aragones, you can't beat tales about cheese dip.
"Long time"??? Long runs sorry and Heck not Beck (auto changed that 4 times including "neck" :(
ReplyDeleteI see Celtic did well on Sunday, Paul, winning the League Cup. And, more importantly, beating Rangers.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, might I suggest Conan #s 1-100?
Obviously its up to you what you think a good run is, but I reckon they actually kept up a decent standard for longer. My suspicion is that the second fifty aren't as well regarded around these parts - by me as much as anyone - because there are only so many stories you can read about sorcerers, man-apes, giant snakes, and scantily clad wenches.
I mean, after a fair few of the first 50 issues the rest just aren't that interesting... but for anyone who's first was #51, I suspect it was still one of the more readable comics of its time up to about #100.
Some fave runs:
Cerebus #s1-300 - Come on, three hundred issues by basically the same fella? Thats amazing! Some might question Dave Sim's... ah, lets say consistency. But the later issues are better than is commonly supposed imo.
Promethea #s1-32 - Mainly because I just re-read them recently, and they're just brilliant.
OMAC #s 1-8, and Kamandi #s 1-40 - My fave Kirby DCs.
DC 1st Issue Special #s 1-6 - Sure, theres a couple of duds after the first one, but they're more than outweighed by #4 featuring Lady Cop, and the sheer awesomeness of #6 with the Dingbats of Danger Street.
-sean
Steve, you forgot the fourth special occasion this month. Theres only one 'Speak Your Brain'!
ReplyDelete-sean
I will need to read that Dingbats issue of " 1st issue Special" folk on here seem to have a real fondness for it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not an "old firm" fan Sean, both are a total pain to most of us up here that don't support them, , well a selection of their many many mad fans are a pain. I m a Hamilton Accies fan second bottom of the Scottish Championship with a 6 pointer this weekend. It could be worse I could be a Chelsea fan (I had a bad experience with them when I worked in London ) :) .
Ah, ok Paul, I made the wrong assumption from your Mo Johnston comment the other day (although I wasn't being entirely serious about the Rangers bit).
ReplyDelete-sean
Sean, Like Man Utd few folk like Rangers so a fair assumption lol..
ReplyDeleteOff the top of my head, I reckon:
ReplyDeleteFantastic Four - from when Sinnott became regular inker (#44) until the conclusion of the second big Galactus story (#123);
Cerebus - High Society and Church & State (#26 - #111); followed by moments of brilliance and abject boredom
Swamp Thing - #21 to #53; I thought the quality then dropped away
Love & Rockets #1 -#50 (the original magazine version);
Daredevil - everything either written or illustrated by Frank Miller;
X-men #94 to #166 - arbitrarily selected by personal taste;
Then, pretty much every issue of:
ACME Novelty Library - One of comics few genuine geniuses, Chris Ware
Eight ball - All Dan Clowes, all great;
Yummy Fur - Likewise all Chester Brown, all great (however NSFW)
Pallokaville - ditto for Seth
Optic Nerve - ditto Adrian Tomine (half way between Clowes and Jaime Hernandez)
Honourable mentions to Bacchus, Dirtt Plotte, Black Hole, Drawn & Quarterly, Peep Show, From Hell and DeeVee (snigger)
DW
As you all have already named some great runs, I'll try to throw out a few others
ReplyDeletePaul Levitz and Keith Giffen on "Legion of Super Heroes"
Jeff Smith's "Bone"
Carl Barks (and later Don Rosa) on "Uncle Scrooge"
I'd add Wein/Roger's on Detective Comics" but that was only a year or two. Which, granted, can seem like a long time...
A few I wish I’d chosen there.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely Acme Novelty Comics and Eightball.
I actually considered the Levitz / Giffen LOSH, but I wasn’t entirely sure: only because I’d only picked up a handful of issue of it at the time and subsequently bought the omnibus HCs but haven’t finished reading them yet.
Thanks for the topic, Phillip. As my first choice of Spider-Man's first ten years has already been mentioned, I shall have to cogitate upon this during the day and give my thoughts tonight.
ReplyDeleteDuh! How could I forget Bone Red, great catch. I'd also suggest the Bate,Cockrum Legion along with Giffens work on that title. Maybe even Giffen Justice League with Kevin Macguire.
ReplyDeleteSean… i think we need to add Jack’s “LOSERS” to exceptional, albeit short, runs only like a dozen issues. Good call on OMAC. I finally read it this summer at age 61, lol. Ovrerall a good read. Definitely up there with DINGBATS!
ReplyDeleteFANTASTIC FOUR 1 - 146! Though, unlike SPIDEY, it bounced back with Byrne!
ReplyDeleteYou all have picked some really good ones
ReplyDeleteI can endorse:
KAMANDI 1 - 37
FANTASTIC FOUR 28 - 101
TOMB OF DRACULA 7 - 49 ( I think the creators started to run out of gas from around #50 and onward)
CONAN THE BARBARIAN 1 - 77 (I got tired of Belit and all those jungle stories)
And absolutely ‘Yes’ to all of YUMMY FUR (but I’m not a huge fan of Chester’s later ‘autobiographical’ stories)
b.t.
Charlie & b.t.'s quality/consistent FF runs both end when Subby makes an appearance!
ReplyDeletePhillip
Phillip:
ReplyDeleteI can’t speak for Charlie, but I don’t have anything against Namor, personally :). I don’t even dislike Jazzy Johnny’s short run on FF, nor Big John’s longer run. It’s simply that Kirby’s run was SO iconic and definitive (even in his last year or so on the book, when he wasn’t exactly swinging for the fences every issue) — everything that came after was a somewhat ‘generic imitation’ by comparison.
And actually, I have quite fond memories of FF 147 and the Conway / Buckler issues immediately preceding and following. Issue 142 was the first issue of FF I ever owned.
b.t.
Any thoughts, Charlie?
ReplyDeletePhillip
b.t,. Kirby didn't script his last couple of Kamandis but they are still his work and part of the run imo (even Gerry Conway couldn't ruin them).
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, The Losers is good too.
-sean
The immortal words of James Darren apply to 'The Losers' entire run being consistently good:
ReplyDelete"Here's to the Losers, bless them ALL!"
The same James Darren song relates to b.t.'s Fantastic Four swansong, issue # 101:
"Those Torches you carry":
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Fantastic_Four_Vol_1_101
Just a bit of humour, on a Thursday morning!
Phillip
PHILIP,
ReplyDeleteRegarding SUB MARINER, and BT's and my end dates for FANTASTIC FOUR, our rationale is different.
I started reading comics around 1968-ish at the age of 7. Thus I "grew up" with GWEN STACY and the FF as a family. The death of Gwen and the divorce papers Sue served to Reed were "the end" of my simple-minded world. Truly.
But "timing is everything" as they say. E.g., most of the lads here started reading Spidey after Gwen had died. Thus they are fine with MJ, having experienced Gwen as a "footnote."
And most I think really got into FF with the Byrne run which was a decade later.
But ole Charlie was not, and is not, fine with what happened with Spidey and FF. He saw it as lazy writing on behalf of Conway and Romita with Spidey and Conway at FF. Gwen could have easily been written out of the story. (To further debase her by having Norman Osborne's twin kids... repugnant.)
But anyhow, I've mentioned this in past SDCs and I do apologize if I got on anyone's nerves for mentioning it again.
"Get over it Charlie! It's just a comic book ffs!" LOL
Geeze.. imagine if Subby had flown out of the East River to rescue Gwen in the nick of time, thus rendering that immortal panel with the "Snap" of Gwen's neck as a Conway / Romita fantasy.
Did an 11 year old really need to see a limp and lifeless Gwen Stacy being dragged up with webbing by Spidey, her head dangling free and backwards, obviously broken? Nope.
I mean PP and Gwen were in love such as it was. I'd grown up with that from the age of 7 - 11... It was very much a love story, as close to one as a young boy could probably appreciate during those very tender years of youth. For her head to br dangling like that... It hurt. So... Spidey was great until then.
Charlie - Yes, I think you're probably right, in that, although some of the rest of us have read the Gwen Stacy story, we read it much later, as an important piece of Spidey-lore, rather than identifying with the characters, before and as the story was actually unfolding.
ReplyDeleteNevertheless, I can relate to your reaction, to some extent. Aged 9 (?), I was absolutely disgusted when my favourite character, Captain Britain, was killed off, by the silly character, 'Death's White Rider', whom the Black Knight easily beat, the following week. Nor did Marvel resurrecting Captain Britain atone for this appalling story-line.
The best writers - such as Stan Lee - understood that little kids (as well as teenagers) were a large part of Marvel's readership!
Phillip
Death in comic books is always pretty hideous.
ReplyDeleteIt’s partly the soap opera aspect of it, wherein things go on month after month, year after year and often - by design - the characters and setups don’t undergo major change that often.
I wasn’t even that bothered about the comic itself but Alpha Flight 12 was horrific.
I also got a shock a few years back when I was reading Titan reprints of latterday Nemesis The Warlock that I hadn’t really followed at the time, and noticed how callously Pat Mills killed off the little comedy sidekick Grobbendonk.
FFS, Pat - I know you always reckon you’re a bit edgy and punk, but that was nasty.