Barnestorming #118- Uncharted Board Game in Review, Lego Batman 2, Depeche Mode Hot

Yes. Also, "Sometimes" is a strong contender for the best sub 2-minute song ever.

Violator runs Black Celebration a close second though, in spite of the deliberately ironic heavy-metal title. Personal Jesus, Waiting for the Night and Enjoy the Silence are definitive.

Broken Frame is easily their worst album, you haven't missed much. It's a strange mish-mash of styles as they moved from synth-pop to toward the electro-goth style they eventually perfected.

And yes, the later ones are surprisingly good for such a long-lived act, especially Sounds of the Universe and Exciter.

I don't listen to them much any more. But after that, I think I better go give Black Celebration another spin.

Awesome is the word! After reading the 2nd volume in the series I immediately went into a completist frenzy and bought Morrison's entire X-Men run, as well as anything else I could get my hands on. Most of them are keepers for me. My introduction to Quitely was when he took over art from Bryan Hitch on The Authority; not the best of introductions because Quitely's style contrasted badly with Hitch's graceful linework. I think it was actually his X-Men work that made me appreciate his merits as a comic artist.

Also, if you liked Morrison's X-Men, you should take a look at his JLA. I loved it every bit as much.

I love R Lee Emrey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hswgAaGWqAU&feature=fvwrel

R Lee Emrey voicing Wildcat (I missed that in my first read-through)? That is so-oo right! And I'm not even a great fan of his TV show.

Remender's X-Force just gets better and better. The first 18 issues form one amazing epic, one of the best comic stories of the last couple years. As for Phantomex, if you keep reading those Morrison issues, you'll get to his first appearance soon.

I enjoyed the first six issues of Matt Fraction's run on Invincible Iron Man, despite the mediocre artwork. But it's downhill after that, as the crossover story of the day spills over into Iron Man and derails it. Norman Osborn simply isn't even remotely in Tony Stark's league, and the idiotic way that Marvel shoved Osborn at the fans tainted everything they published at that time. I dropped it around issue #12 due to an absurd portrayal of Namor as a generic super-villain. Namor is a very distinctive character who is easy to write. He is noble, proud, impulsive and has a serious anger management problem. He does not stand back and send lackeys in to fight for him against a powerful opponent. Ever. Except in Invincible Iron Man #12. The only other Fraction comic that I can recommend without hesitation is his short but excellent run on Immortal Iron Fist from a few years back.

Depeche Mode? I never hated them, but for reasons I can no longer recall, I simply avoided them. My goth friends kept pushing them at me, but I think that I was in a different place musically at the time, very heavy into old blues music. My favorite local musician at that time was a geriatric black dude who called himself Lefty Bates. He played the guitar upside down because they didn't make left-handed guitars when he learned to play back in the '30s. Anyway, I admit that I abruptly became a Depeche Mode fan after watching their Enjoy the Silence video a couple of times. Violator is still my favorite DM album.

By the way, here's a great cover of their song Useless, by Kruder & Dorfmeister:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsOcrnZqWtg

Useless is Depeche Mode past their prime, but K&D found the greatness in it anyway.

Yeah, I saw that the tie-ins were coming in Iron Man...that stinks, that's one of the things that I don't like about recent Marvel...everything feeds into these huge, multi-book crossovers. I guess they've been like that since the '80s, but it's TERRIBLE if you just want to catch up.

I've got a couple of the Immortal Iron Fist issues but I haven't read them yet. I always liked that character, when I was little I had a bunch of Power Man and Iron Fist books. So '70s.

AdamK, don't tempt me. I was going to buy any more books this week. And they just put the 2nd collection of Uncanny X-Force up, Deathlok Nation...$$$

JMC- yeah, I just read the first arc of Morrison's JLA, the one with the Hyperclan...it was pretty good, definitely has that mid-1990s vibe. So much shininess. Loved how ruthless Batman is in it. I want more, but waiting for .99 sales on those.

My problem with Johns is not that he's "workmanlike" or "not Alan Moore": it's mainly that he revels in ultraviolence to the point of fetish. In a fucking Hal Jordan Green Lantern comic. Don't remember whether that started in Rebirth, though. Definitely by the end of the first 7-8 issues of his proper Green Lantern run, though. Feels like classic "dark and edgy is kewl in and of itself" writing; I get major "trying to prove to the people in high school who picked on him that superheroes are SERIOUS now and for grown-ups" vibes from Johns.

Phantomex is a character Morrison created for New X-Men, so you'll see his introduction soon! You will also be BEGGING for Quitely to return soon if you keep reading New X-Men, too. Even if you don't like Quitely. The difference is drastic, and if you think Quitely draws ugly characters you ain't seen nothing yet compared to, say, Igor Kordey or Ethan Van Sciver. Overall, I didn't think Morrison's X-Men run was that great, though there were a few great stories. A LOT of Morrison incoherence.

I've heard good things about that Uncanny X-Force, I've gotta read that. And I've definitely gotta read American Flagg. But when I say "gotta" in those cases...I really mean "if I had infinite time".

Every comics fan should read American Flagg. It was one of the seminal comics of the great early/mid 80s comics revolution and is still as fresh today as it was all those years ago. It was American Flagg which got me into comics in a big way as a young man; and American Flagg is the first (and so far the only) Deluxe Limited Edition Hardback I've ever shelled out for: it's that important, to me for sure, and in the history of comics to boot as far as I'm concerned.

Barnes, you gotta read that Immortal Iron Fist run some time. Like you, I was a fan of Iron Fist in the '70s. Brubaker and Fraction don't just revisit some neat ideas from back then, they take it and build exponentially on it, adding lots of interesting new angles. Future writers of Iron Fist will be building on that short Brubaker/Fraction run for the next 30 years. I won't spoil the really cool stuff, but just want to mention that Luke Cage, Misty Knight and Colleen Wing all show up regularly in that run, and there is some great artwork by David Aja. There are at least two great new characters: Fat Cobra and Bride to Nine Spiders. And there is also the return of a comic book character that has been around so long that he passed into public domain.

@Shellhead
I collected a lot of that run, and really liked it too (Brubaker is one of my favourite writers just now). But don't you think that the artwork got really, really bad towards the end?

My problem with Johns is not that he's "workmanlike" or "not Alan Moore": it's mainly that he revels in ultraviolence to the point of fetish. In a fucking Hal Jordan Green Lantern comic.

I haven't seen anything too bad yet, but I can see what you mean. It's unfortunate that this route is the way many comics writers go to get to "mature"...you're dead on though, why do you need gore and explicit violence in Green Lantern?

I'm just so over "edgy" violence in general. It doesn't impress me. More often, I just roll my eyes and move on.

God damn it, I'm not reading these comments any more. Now I've got the rest of Iron Fist, that other Uncanny X-Force book, and American Flagg on the to-buy list. Which shouldn't have ANYTHING on it since I have so damn many unread books sitting on the iPad as it stands. I'm not even done with that Thor book.

Aja was sometimes too slow for even a bi-monthly schedule, and some of the fill-in artists weren't good. But it got worse as soon as Brubaker/Fraction/Aja left the title and crap artist Travel Foreman took over. The filler artists were usually used effectively in that they primarily worked on flashback scenes.

Loved DM in college thanks to my roomie. Black Celebration was my favorite by far. Music for the Masses was the end of the line for me (songs were too slow and long and the production was oppressive), although "Sacred" and "Strangelove" were good.

Oh yeah, and then there's that part where Johns tries to sweep Hal Jordan's relationship with the under-age girl under the rug by saying "you've got it wrong, she only LOOKS and ACTS under-age, but secretly she was like 100s of years old in alien years and they age really slowly and act like teenagers for some reason...so it's all good!"

I was digging it at first though, I like the idea of the emotional spectrum and all these different colored power rings. But to me the violence went beyond the current Dark Knight-esque trend for "realism" and into the really really incongruously icky to the point of fetish.

Though it's admittedly true that Green Lantern comics hadn't been good in...
...
...
okay maybe ever. I liked the silver age Green Lantern comics when I was a kid, but outside of the art those are probably still second-tier Silver Age DC, even. The SA Flash was way better and had way more awesome villains (he even had more varied POWERS). And obviously silver age Marvel blows them all out of the water. (all of this from a nostalgic viewpoint, however, so take with a grain of salt; I tried to reread the SA Spider-Mans recently, which were my fave as a kid, and found them nearly unreadable, unlike SA Fantastic Four which I reread and was awesome)

I expected to hate The Brave And The Bold. Instead, I loved it. Done by people who love DC Comics, with a lot of humor and great writing. Even a bold (sorry) new take on some characters, like Bwana Beast. And they even made a lovable Aquaman!

YES! I have to say, the Brave and the Bold Aquaman is probably my favorite Aquaman EVER. It's like the writers are acknowledging the character's unavoidable lameness but really boosting him up to a larger-than-life character. I love the over-the-top optimism, his paling around with Batman, the scene where he's using a beachside payphone...some really brilliant character writing, and I love partnering him with the Atom.

Bwana Beast..ha ha...Batman's reaction to him is priceless.

I thought the show would suck too, I got it mainly because it was a more kid-friendly Batman show that I thought River would like. And it is that, but the DC love is massive and the writing is so darn smart. It does require you to let go of the mopey, gritty Batman idea and embrace the whole Silver Age thing...I mean, Batman is in space more than he's in Gotham City. The litany of characters is just staggering, and all are spot-on. Dr. Fate, Despero, Etrigan, Mogo (!), Clock King, both Blue Beetles, both Flashes, Red Hood...I love the format of the show- you get a little short pre-credits in media res standalone adventure, which lets the writers stick in all of these characters, and then you get the main storyline after that.

I mean, freakin' Rainbow Batman is in the show.

Yikes, I haven't gotten to that business yet about Hal's...indiscretion. Hey, at least they ret-conned their way out of that one, huh?

I like the emotional spectrum thing too, and that's what drew me into them- it looked like there was some cool space opera storylines and the color thing is such a goofy, Silver Age kind of concept...but it's in modern books. Now you've got me worried about the violence, that's really kind of incongruous with the Green Lantern idea to me. I'm at the part where they've run into the Spider Guild, so the story is pretty neat. Glad to see Bolphunga the Unrelenting in there.

But yeah, it does seem that Green Lantern never really has been very good, maybe with the exception of the Green Lantern/Green Arrow left wing hippie books, which I'd like to read but I suspect are terribly dated now aside from the artwork, which is great.

I was digging it at first though, I like the idea of the emotional spectrum and all these different colored power rings. But to me the violence went beyond the current Dark Knight-esque trend for "realism" and into the really really incongruously icky to the point of fetish.

I've actually not read any Flash books, again I've just read him in other stuff. Any suggestions?

Silver Age and early Modern Marvel is great, but the problem is that the greatness is too sporadic. Sometimes, it's amazing work and the other times it's plodding, dull, and uninteresting. The Kree-Skrull War is a great example, even though it's just after Silver it brings forward a lot of that style. It takes like three issues to get to where it gets remotely interesting when everybody turns on the Avengers for harboring a Kree. Then once you get into the Super Skrull and all that it's great. But there's so much old fashioned "I am going to walk over here. Hark! Oh no, I have to jump now to avoid that blast." kind of writing, which does not read well today.

But yeah, SA Fantastic Four does hold up fairly well in contrast. The character writing was so good for the time. FF is one of the only series where I think the original run has never been topped. I've never read a later FF book I liked as much as the early material.

American Flagg, like all things Chaykin and most things First (RIP Grimjack and Badger) is a must-buy. Definitely stretch your wallet for that (and Grimjack and Badger) like few other things. I've been a Howard Chaykin cheerleader since he first started working in the industry and, while he's gotten a little self-indulgent in more recent work, his stuff from the 80s is brilliant. What I especially liked was his narrative style: no exposition, no "what has gone before"; he just drops you in the action and expects you to catch up. I tend to categorize a lot of the First stuff in the same vein as a lot of the Epic stuff from the same time (like Dreadstar (which later moved to First), Alien Legion, Coyote, and Starstruck.) They were "adult comics" in many ways because they tended to be a bit more elevated in their storylines and how they were willing to relate to their audience. Great stuff.

Damn it Jack. I always wanted to check out Grimjack, I think I had a couple of books in the 80s but I don't remember ever reading them. Likewise, Badger. I'm definitely going to get that American Flagg book...if Billy Zavos buys my War of the Ring. :-P

Alien Legion...wow...haven't thought about that one in a minute.

Grimjack was really good. Fantastic setting, and Ostrander wasn't afraid to change things in a permanent way. Over the course of the series, you see some actual character development, though not always for the better. The last few issues of the original series were disappointing, though, with characterization thrown out the window for shock after shock. The best way to get into Grimjack is to buy the Killer Instinct prequel mini-series (or trade) from IDW that was published just a few years ago. If you like that, follow up with The Manx Cat prequel and then start buying The Legend of Grimjack volumes that reprint the original series.

Dreadstar was another comic that fearlessly embraced major changes. The final issue by Peter A. David seemed like a shitty joke, or else a tribute to the series finale of The Prisoner, but otherwise it was a great title.

Yeah, I had a bit of a hard time with David's different approach to the title. I like his characterization (a bit more relaxed than the always-cosmically-epic Starlin) but he didn't seem to have the same dramatic flair. Of course, I'd started reading it with the Metamorphosis Odyssey in Epic Illustrated and had been a huge Starlin fan for years already, so I was fully indoctrinated. It has to be said that it was clear that Starlin had lost the thread after the first big finale with the Church, so it was probably better that it ended up in David's hands, anyway (or, perhaps, should have just ended.) Looking at Starlin's later work (he published something with one of the small presses a year or two back) just makes me feel sorry for the guy. He's still using the same themes, the exact same character appearances, the same narrative technique, and still has the same voice for every character. He hasn't developed at all. It's too bad. He was one of the real visionaries in the 70s, akin to the New Wave SF guys in prose.

I honestly haven't read that much Flash either. I've read the original Silver Age Flashes and, as I said, they were by far my favorite SA DC as a kid (out of Flash, Green Lantern, the Atom, Batman, Justice League, Challengers of the Unknown, Deadman, Adam Strange; those were all the ones my dad had collected): lots of villains with bizarre gimmicks and lots of VERY creative uses of Flash's power. Look at the villains: Mirror Master (who's basically an excuse to do whatever reality-warping craziness you want), Gorilla Grodd, Abra Kadabra, Captain Cold, Captain Boomerang, The Trickster, Weather Wizard, Pied Piper, Rainbow Raider, Reverse Flash (sounds boring but actually a cool character with interesting motivation), lots of really fun things to play around with. Expect a lot of fights to be solved "with science", the fun of it all was the pseudo-science. But y'know, it's Silver Age DC, so don't expect *any* character work at all. And I haven't read it in 20+ years.

I liked Morrison's very short run on the Flash. The two big modern runs on the Flash are Mark Waid's run and Geoff Johns' run. I'll let someone else talk about those, I think I read a little bit of both that I was unimpressed with and have since forgotten whether that even actually happened.

Shell/Jack- would you guys recommend reading Killer Instinct over the old stories first? Comixology has the old ones in this weird multipart omnibus, I think it's mostly shorts from Starslayer or something. The good news is that all the Grimjack issues are a buck!

Just waiting for Zavos to Paypal...I swear, I'm like a crack addict at this point. I'm selling games to download comics. A CRY FOR HELP!

Chronologically, Killer Instinct (and then The Manx Cat) takes place before the Starslayer backup feature stories. Quality-wise, Killer Instinct (and The Manx Cat) are better than the Starslayer backup, and at almost the same level of quality as the best issues in the entire Grimjack series. It's not that the Starslayer issues sucked, it's just that the short format stunted the storytelling slightly, and Ostrander and Truman were still getting a feel for the setting and tone.

On the other hand, a bit of the fun of the prequels is seeing exactly what happened back in the past. During the regular Grimjack series, there are certain characters that show up with some kind of past history with Grimjack. You get a feel for that relationship (good or bad) without knowing more than the general gist. For example, maybe there is a former friend with a grudge, and in the prequels you see how the friendship ended and why.

So it really depends on your preference. Start with the Starslayer run and watch a good comic become very good, or read the stories in chronological order, starting with a very good story.

What Shellhead said. Personally, I'd start with the Starslayer stuff, just to see the story develop as it originally did, and then go back to the prequel stuff, as you'll get more out of them.

Grimjack, Alien Legion, Starslayer, Coyote, Starstruck: this is a rollcall of some of the comics that blew my mind when I was younger. What they all had in common was gritty stories which were mature without being gratuitous in any way, and which weren't about superheros in capes fighting crime. I loved them all to bits and used to spend hours rereading them and poring over the details of the artwork. Memories, sigh.

I bought some of the IDW Grimjack TPB reprints a few years ago. It was great to read those old classics again, but IDW went too far with the glossy coated paper: somehow or other Truman's artwork just didn't look quite right on paper with quality that much greater than the original comics.

Been loving Lego Batman 2 myself. Great, great clean fun, and you're right, the dynamics between Batman and Superman is very funny. Got it on sale at Toys R Us last week, where you could get a free Lego game with Batman 2...so I picked up Harry Potter. I've already played pretty much all the other ones. Lego now has the right to Marvel, so Lego Avengers could be happening.

I've got to pick up those Brave and the Bold DVDs. I've only watched a little bit of it, but I really enjoyed what I saw. Still have to give the edge to the Bruce Timm cartoon though, just because it comes so close to being the _definitive_ Batman.