RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books What Is Your Reading Enjoyment Level?

I find myself having less and less time to actually read comics. The stacks are getting higher and higher. And quite frankly, I find myself being a harsher critic. Floppie purchases are shrinking every month, and my higher end purchases increasing. So the money I spend is the same or actually higher, but the actual comic purchases are down.

Ebay is a destination of desperation for me. I can buy beloved 60's comics like lois lane and adventure, old copies of superman and action, archives at highly discounted prices, as well as mini-statues , etc.

I won't go into the ridiculous amount of books I bought 3 or so years ago, but it was crazy. Anyway, I find I can hardly read or recognize marvel books and characters anymore..and I buy no monthly Marvel books at all (I was a marvel only kid back in the 70's ).

Now I only get:
Batman
Detective
Batman Adventures
Batgirl: Year One
Catwoman
Gotham Central
Flash
Hawkman
Hero
Power Company
Supergirl (sniff)
JLA
JSA
Wonder Woman

Sleeper
Tom Strong Terrific tales
Age of Bronze
Edge
Forge
Hellboy
Ghost In The Shell

Then I get TPBs or Hardcovers of:
Oh My Goddess
Bone
The Alan Moore ABC books
Powers
Leave It To Chance
Ultimate Spider-man, and any other marvel books...
Then I also buy most Dc Archives...

My point is what do you get the most enjoyment out of when you read stuff these days....???

I find I've been getting more consistent enjoyment out of DC Archives and Original DCU Hardcovers (Selina's Big Score, Virtue & Vice, Willworld, Hiketia). I always get a great kick out of great buys from ebay of medium grade classic books....old actions, Mod WW, whatever... I recently got an old DC fireside book..Mysteries in space..which reprinted olf sci-fi stories..that was excellent-full of great art and quircky stories.

I enjoy all of the modern books I get, probably not as much as I should though....Johns, Brubaker. Bendis and Rucka books for the most part....

really, i wont bother with a book unless i know (or reasonably guess) id enjoy it.

in the olden days, id purchase, at most, 10 comics a month. all batman or batman-related (like nightwing or jla). an occasional (rare) spawn title or wolverine book, something like that.

i was really limited in what i was willing to buy, and "previewed" all of the issues in a store before hand, so i got a lot of enjoyment out of those i came home with.

there was about a year, i used to steal a significant amount of books (maybe 20 a month!). whoops! that would include a pile of books i liked and a pile of books that i wasn't that impressed with once i read'em.

as many of you know and loathe, i now receive a free box of comics from DC on a monthly basis (typically 3-4 weeks behind when they appear in stores).

id guesstimate thats in the ballpark of 100 books a month (it includes vertigo and wildstorm, etc). first thing i do when i open the box is divide the pile into winners and losers. if its questionable, it goes in the winner pile -- its the first round of selections, after all. that evens things out to about half and half.

the loser pile goes into a box for ebay or donation (to a friend or a charity or even a library, recently).

the winner pile gets reshuffled again, dividing into a batman pile, a misc pile, and a "why did i put this in the winner pile" pile (which gets added to the losers).

then, i prioritize the two remaining good piles, putting the best books on the bottom (a "save the best for last" strategy i use for almost everything i do, for whatever messed up reason).

mostly, ill skim thru those on top (like azrael... i dont even know why its considered a winner... and i haven't known why since like 98), not really wasting much time on them.

in the end, im left with roughly 10 books that i really dedicate any time to. the only books id really bother dedicating time to. amazing, that out of a pile of 100, im not that interested with about 90% of it. recently, those books have been, in order:

nightwing
batgirl
gotham knights
jsa
green arrow (weird!)
jla
catwoman
gotham adventures
gotham central
detective
batman

notably, with the exception of 2 books, the comic book tastes i've had 10-15 years ago are more or less exactly what i'm into today. admittedly, that shows im pretty stubborn and shallow in my selections. even with all the opportunities i've had to expand my habbits, i've never really succesfully been able to do so (which im more than willing to accept at least half the blame for)

but these are the books i love. and, the closer you get to the bottom of that list, the more time i wanna spend on the books. and the the higher the odds are that im gonna re-read it quite a few times. hell, i've re-flipped through batman 611 maybe twenty times in the past 2 weeks.

Free comics, ya, bastard... :)

My comics stack is getting less & less each year.6 years ago it was about $90 or so a week & I couldn't even begin to say how many titles I got.I've recently trimmed even more off of my list.I'm down to 11 DC titles & 12 or 13 Marvel.I've found that I've been enjoying titles like Batman & detective comics more than Robin or Nightwing(not long ago it was the reverse)...I've found that Ultimate X-Men is better to me than the regular stuff.I used to get my stack go home & in one sitting read all my books.Then I started forgetting about titles I had gotten & stretched it out over a few days.

The ONGOING titles I buy each month:
Batman

Gotham Knights

Tec

Legands of the Dark Knight

Catwoman

Batgirl

Harly Quinn

JSA

The Legion

Captain America

Agent X / Deadpool

Daredevil

Exiles

Gi Joe

The Incredible Hulk

Powers

Amazing Spider-Man

Peter Parker Spider Man

T.M.N.T

Transformers (War Within, Generation 1)

Ultimates

Ultimate Spider-man

Ultimate X-Men

Uncanny X-Men

New X-Men

Rising Stars

Stormwatch : Team Achilles

Wolverine

Micronaughts

Captain Marvel ( Peter David)

X-Statix

X-Treme X-Men

Alias

Fantastic Four

Queen & Country

The Invincable Iron Man

Green Arrow

Gotham Central

Y the Last Man

Gen 13

Nightwing

Superman

Action Comics

---------------------------------
Current mini

Batgirl - Year One

Global Frequency

Scars

I still may have missed one or two.

Plus starting with Gail Simone's first Birds of Prey issue I will be buying that. Plus if nothing compels me to stay dropping JLA and Agent X.

I only really read modern comics I am well aware there are some great storys but add my collection plus bags, boxes, and boards I just don't have any room in the budget.

How do I make time to read, bag, board and box all this I don't know. I guess all owe it all to TIVO for condensing all my favorite TV.

I love each and every one of these comics for what they bring to the table.

I was about to drop Peter Parker Spider-man but I just have to find out what that dog is up to.

I really don't buy that many comics. I picked up Batman for the Loeb/Lee run, like most fanboys. I also get The Punisher every month too(truthfully, this is probably my favorite title out right now). I'll also pick up Flash, JSA, Hawkman, Captain Marvel, Captain America, and Daredevil. The rest of the stuff out there I just read when I'm at someone else's house who has it (hi, Pro). I save most of my money for anything that might catch my eye, whether it be comics, DVD's, games, or figures.

I'm a poor college student so I keep it slim. I check websites often, this way I know what hits the shelves on any given week (I have to stop looking at the previews!). Right now the average amount I spend is $3.40 a week - Needed something to do in class today! I stick with titles that are going to be fun, suspenseful, interesting, funny, and just plain good. The books I pick out now are:

Action Comics
Superman
Adventures of Superman
JLA (Good Stuff)
Amazing Spider-Man (Fun and hilarious at times)
HERO (*NEW!*)
Masters of the Universe (Maybe)

My interest in Superman has gone down a bit, I'm interested in the Zod and new Supergirl stories. The Obsidian Age had me loving JLA, and Amaz. Spidey has been really good since JMS hopped on. I'm saving up for trades, they're good for travel.

I buy a lot per month and don't feel like listing 'em all

I watch about 5 hours of TV a week so I have plenty of time to read them.

As on-goings go, I'm currently picking up Fables and Batman (for the Loeb/Lee run - and nothing else). I'm picking up a mini here and there, like Truth, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vol. 2 (if it would ship at a decent time) and Global Frequency (killer book, here!), but due to being a poor college student with a fluctuating source of income, that's about all I can afford.

I had to drop a lot of books at semester just so I could attempt to make ends meet. I dropped Incredible Hulk (which really hurt, as Greenie's one of my favorite characters), Fantastic Four (say what you will - Waid really turned that book around), Captain America (truth be told, I was only buying it for the Cassaday art), and JLA (when Plastic Man left, so went my reason for reading the book). I picked up Ultimate War and Mek when they were still circulating, but now I'm down to about four or five monthly titles and, truth be told, it's really rather refreshing.

I also borrow and read the titles my friends pick up, like Hawkman, Aquaman, Power Company, Green Arrow, and Green Lantern. I'm also holding my breath for the re-release of Planetary in June. I had thought about picking up H-E-R-O as well, but by the time I got the cash to buy it, it had sold out at my local comic store. If I find a copy when I go home on break this week, I'll pick it up, but, if not, it's just one less title to buy...

I am the opposite of you guys, partly because of geography.

I rarely buy comics. I use the DCMBs and recommendations at places like here to determine what I think I'd like. I buy only tpbs, with the exception of Lucifer, which I tend to buy as monthly pamphlets because I really enjoy the story, and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, again because of the high quality.

My tastes tend to run towards Vertigo and Wildstorm - I'm reluctant to pick up a superhero title because I consider most superhero titles to be a perpetuation of a franchise (rather than something creative in a positive or valuable sense) and as a result I think the quality suffers (the last mainstream JLA book I bought was JLA: Tower of Babel, and I felt like I was reading something I would have enjoyed when I was 8).

Its a bit hit and miss - titles I thought I would like, for example The Red Star, Danger Girl, Strangers in Paradise, and Transmet, I was lukewarm over. On the other hand, I didn't think I'd like Black Panther, but I thought the 1st tpb was one of the most cleverly scripted stories I've ever read, in a comic, novel or otherwise.

I'm back in Perth in less than 2 weeks and I'm going to stock up on ABC tpbs, Whiteout, Preacher tpbs, possibly Stormwatch, Fables, Y- The Last Man, the 2nd Black Panther tpb, and possibly one or two others. This will last me for about 8 months, until I go to Sydney in November.

I read the first few issues. Have up to #4 i think, but I am not overly impressed with Hawkman. The writing is good, but the character confusion irks me.

You see, back in the Golden Age of comics... Carter Hall was an archeologist who discovered Nth metal in a tomb in Egypt. With his wife in tow, he became Hawkman. Found out he was the resurrected spirit of a pharoah. Joined JSA too.

Now, in the 60's, Gardner Fox and Kubert, who worked on the original Hawkman, came up with the idea for a revamped version. Katar Hol was from the planet Thanagar, a nice utopic society. When it was attacked, he used wings and Nth metal, invented by his father to fight back the attackers (Manhawks). He was the most honored policeman on Thanagar, and he met and married Shayera Thal, another young officer. They came to earth in search of a fugitive shapeshifter and took up roles working at a museum. Used weapons from the museum to fight bad guys.

In 1987, DC was going post Crisis. Miller Changed Batman's origin, Byrne changed Superman, there was Emerald Dawn, Wally West was the Flash, and Tim Truman was given permission to change Hawkman. Thanagar was no longer a paradise, but a corrupt planet where Katar's family was among the aristocracy. As an officer, Katar goes on a mission to stop an alleged anarchist. He kills the person, who turned out to be his father--a man trying to make peace. Katar is placed in exile and becomes a fucked up dude. He is brought back by Shayera Thal--not his intended love (she was killed in an explosion), but Shayera's bastard daughter. Weird huh? So they go and track down that shape-shifting dude to earth, not married, and housing powerful weapons.

It would have stopped there, but DC made Hawkworld a series. Thus, Katar just came to earth, instead of having been there since the 1960's. that caused a lot of confusion, because it meant the Hawkman in the JLA was someone else. A huge discrepancy. DC simply told readers that Carter Hall, the Goldern Age Hawkman, was acting as a liason with the JLA on those missions. Continuity be damned. Course it messes up stories with Hawkman and Adam Strange and the Atom.

DC realized people were not buying the shit. So in Zero Hour, they made all of the Hawkmen and women into one God Entity. It still sucked, even as they tried to tie up loose ends. Hawkman was now officially not to be touched. Too messy.

So Geoff Johns is remaking the JSA. He has a Hawkgirl again, and the question was, where would he go for Hawkman? He had hypertime and other elements as easy resources, but instead of fixing the situation, he decided to resurrect Carter Hall, figuring his Golden Age status would fit in better with the JSA.

And what of the strong guy who could talk to birds and fly to Thanagar? Still gone, but I think he was the best. At least before Truman fucked him over.

Oh yeah. I collect Legion, Batman (Jeph Loeb run), and League of Extraorinary gents. Need the second Promethea Hardback.

I had wondered what had happened with Zero Hour: I read a single issue of Hawkworld (with Firehawk, which is why I bought it in a fanboy lapse) so I didn't know about the details of the retcon.

The current Hawkman seems to resemble little reference to the urbane Carter Hall of the All-Star Squadron, nor the somewhat bland Thanagarian, nor the facist outcast from Hawkworld. Someone, it might even have been Geoff Johns himself, described him as "Conan with wings" - hardly the archeologist or the space cop we would expect.

Personally, I wouldn't have been too bothered by it at all, if only he wasn't some sort of fucked-up Zero Hour version. Lip service to stupid continuity decisions is irritating to new readers. I probably would have checked out Hawkman if not for that element of the concept. The concept of a reincarnated Egyptian prince with a bad attitude, wings, and a fucking big mace is pretty cool: some hybrid version of a variety of failed superheroes which include Thanagarian DNA is boring as batshit.

As for your other comments: yes, I'm also on the hunt for the second Promethea book, and wish the bastards would bring out more ABC tpbs with increasing regularity. Legion has never really interested me at all (it has massive potential, but I'm still haunted by the image of kids living in an upside down rocket headquarters). Batman -outside of DKR, which really was an excellent read - is part of the franchise problem I described before.

Don't blame DC. Alan has just been really slow. The only new ABC HCs/trades you are likely to see in the next 6 months are Tom Strong and Promethea. Both of which are about due as DC prints trades every 6 or 7 issues. Promethea is the onlt title that even comes out on a regular basis. Hardcovers are printed to order, sold out and then put in aTPB. Once you see a TPB of an ABC.DC hardcover that means Hardcovers have been sold out. Ebay is your likely source for Promethea volume 2. Jerry Ordway will be giving Chris Sprouse a break on Tom Strong and expect 3 issues to ship relatively quickly when that happens... A new Tomorrow Stories trade/hc may never happen.
Greyshirt : Indigo Sunset TPB just came out.Look for it.

Dave, you should really look into Legion. Since Legion Worlds, the team is at full capacity with a bit of friction going on as a side effect. No longer on a tower, they have their own planet. Yeah, Legion World. Timberwolf was reintroduced to continuity, which brings back the original "Wolverine". Ultra boy and Rim don't exactly get along, being members of rival gangs... and also well.. i don't want to ruin it. But Ra's Al Ghul is one of the new bad guys. He's had an extra 1000 years to alter himself. Very fascinating individual.

The Legion rocks. I only started reading Legion comics with this new series. I not really familiar with Legion history but I am still able to follow the book.

They are telling some great storys over on the Legion I can't recommend this book enough.

I heard about the lame "fight the JLA androids" thing: but I might look at the tpb.

I thought that was the premise of an Hourman book from back in the day...

And, in answer to your question, Dave - personally, I think Hawkman is a decent read at best. There's just too much continuity and other things at work for me to really get into it. It's more for die-hard fans of the character, like the friend of mine who actually picks up the book. It's also got Atom as a regular guest star, which makes me doubt very much that you'd like it.

Another friend started picking up Lucifer recently (the latest arc and the first TPB) and I've been reading that. Very good stuff. I like the stories and the characterization is just phenomenal!

Soy, you forgot a very important part of the Hawkman confusion; the Thanagarian impostor.
DC said that the Hawkman from the silver age JLA was Carter Hall... but the one from JLI couldn't be him, since he was fighting Ragnarok with the rest of the JSA at the time. So, they said that that Hawkman was an inpostor posing as Carter Hall.
Personally, I've never read an issue of any Hawkman comic, but I like this continuity confusion thing so I've read about it.

Dave, I'm not much of a The Bat-Man fan either, but there's some stuff you just can't avoid. My whole The Bat-Man collection is: DKR, Year One, Year Two, Killing Joke, Arkham Asylum and Long Halloween. I recommend all of those.

Mxy, I recently sold my copy of the Killing Joke to theory9. I've read the first part of Year One. I also liked Son of the Demon. But I wouldn't buy Batman on an ongoing basis, unless a story was collected as a tpb and had rave reviews (eg. DKR).

Chewy, Lucifer is the best comic being published right now, period.

Now a days, I just get the Punisher, Captain America, and a pretty good bit of different trades. I also occasionally pick up the random comic that look like it might be good. Its just too expensive now for me to collect more than that.

Bsamsing...oy

We're gonna have to change the name to "doing coke".

Nose hoover!

It really depends on the book, whose in it, what creators are on it. For example, I'm picking up Batman simply because I've always wanted to see Lee take on the character. I'm not a huge Loeb fan, so that leaves me room to be surprised by things that I think are cool (like the recent Alan Scott cameo/flashback) and also to mentally "whiteout" things I don't (like Krypto.). I don't expect much writing wise here, so I'm not disappointed as I'm just collecting it for the art.

I picked up the Cassaday Cap. America stuff for the art also. (and I really hate the replacement artist.).

I've also been reading several of the new Wildstorm books like Wildcats 3.0, Point Blank, and Sleeper. I really enjoyed all of these. I'm very impressed with the progression that Wildstorm's "universe" has made over the years and I'm enjoying the neo-noir aspects of it.

Certain creators I expect more out of and don't mind waiting a bit for their books as I'd rather have them at their best than hack stuff out.

I'm reading Ennis' Punisher and I'm enjoying it greatly, because for the first time in a long time, someone is actually giving the Punisher character, instead of just having him be an automaton: bad guys show up, Punisher shows up, Punisher kills bad guys, repeat. . .

I've heard good things about the Punisher. Apparently he psychs out a lot of his opponents. Is it worth getting?

Start off with the Hardback of the 12 issue series. Has nice features and a war on a gang family. Regular series has good moments, like shooting Wolverine in the face, bashing his nuts in with a baseball bat and dousing him with gasoline.

Punisher is really what brought me back into the whole comic buying phase again. I'd gotten so sick of the regular crap in comics that I stopped buying for a while. Ennis's Punisher drew me back in and has kept me there. I hope they don't screw up and switch him out again like at the beginning of his run. The character is more covert at times. He stalks his prey and gets info on them before just bursting in with guns blazing. Plus, he's not beyond letting the bad guys duke it out with themselves while he just waits for the right time to come in.

This is all highlighted by the fact that Ennis is supposed to be doing a story that elaborates on Frank's origins. "It goes beyond Central Park," is what he's said about the story, which is going to be released through the MAX imprint. This is also fueling speculation that Punisher is moving to that imprint permenantly.