Aren’t you all glad it’s still April? To celebrate it still being April, here’s our monthly special in which we add stories to our ever-expanding list of comic book stories, ranked from best to worst!
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It makes me so happy each time one of these is up. Thanks so much for the work and the amesome show. Wah!
K
On your discussion about Gates of Gotham, I think the only comparable story I would like to read would be Black Panther, with its history of Wakanda.
Lots of reactions this time!
I was listening to the special on the way to my FLCS for FCBD so on your recommendation I picked up Supergirl: Cosmic Adventures in the Eighth Grade because “If you liked Thor the Mighty Avenger, you’ll like this!” is pretty much “BUY THIS NOW” in building-sized letters for me.
I’m glad you spent some time discussing the technical accomplishment of Watchmen. I’ve been saying for literally decades that Moore and Gibbons pushed forward the mechanical possibilities of comics, with their meticulous attention to page composition, detail, recurring visual images, but that all that anyone coming after seems to have noticed is that Rorschach broke that dude’s fingers!
I don’t know where Ronin falls in some abstract Platonic ranking of Miller’s work, but it’s my favorite work of his. It has the artistic mastery of mature Miller but mostly free of the toxic elements that taint his later work (sexual and political). It’s something I’ve returned to a few times and still enjoy it.
Morrison’s Zenith is also terrific–or, at least, the first three “phases” are. (I haven’t read the fourth, because it was unavailable for so long; now that I have it I just haven’t gotten around to it.) It’s Morrison doing a straight-ahead superhero story with good guys, bad guys, monsters, punching, universal threats, smartassery, but all done with the flair and originality that made him a star. And Yeowell is a superb artist, especially for the figure work the story demands.
I don’t consider “Moore’s Miracleman” a single story–it’s definitely structured into three chunks (roughly issues 1-3 [“A Dream of Flying”, art by Garry Leach & Alan David], 4-10 [“The Red King Syndrome”, Davis and Chuck Austen], and 11-16 [“Olympus”], John Totleben). By the standard that Starman is a single story, yeah, it’s a single story, but the individual parts have their own structures and concerns. They’re all good–as I mentioned in an e-mail to Matt, I’ve recently reread them for the first time since they were new and I was impressed at how well they’ve aged.
And on your recs, I’ll look into Pluto and One-Punch Man.
Thanks for a terrific show.
Oh, one more. While I can certainly agree that Ennis’s “before he was the Punisher” stories–Born, The Tyger, and Valley Forge, Valley Forge–aren’t necessary, I think they’re good as parts of the overall story he was telling in Punisher Max, they are enjoyable on their own and they also show how a creature like the Max version of the Punisher could come into being. One phrase that occurred to me during your discussion is that Ennis’s Punisher is a seamless whole, and the flashback stories show how the monster Frank could come about from a real human.
Matt, Fredo isn’t a turtle. Fredo is a frog! If there is a Caramello Koala in there save that for something special. Those are the bomb.