1) The Thunderbolts: Arriving after the Bronze Age, this team book's early years written by Kurt Busiek and penciled by Mark Bagley were excellent. If you haven't explored this series, I believe most here would enjoy it. Lots of twists, turns, character developments, and a nostalgic feel in the mighty Marvel manner.
1A) Citizen V: Coming out of the Thunderbolts is a character that I think is intriguing. And I find his elaborate costume design rather interesting as well.
2) The Pretenders: This band really had something going on, particularly in the early days before the deaths of James Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon. Chrissie Hynde carried on, but the first couple of albums were classics.
3) Egg Foo Young: This classic dish, if done right, is delicious. Add some spice and pepper for an update to the traditional.
4) John Byrne's version of the Doom Patrol: Not always considered a popular run for the team, Byrne stripped away some of the group's strange modern history and went back to basics. I liked it. And his art was the strongest it had been for a while.
4A) Negative Man: Coming out of the Doom Patrol, I would like to see more of the Negative Man. Here is a long running character that should get more of the spotlight.
5) Extreme Pumpkin Carving: It is that time of year, and I am amazed by the creativity of these jack-o-lanterns. They are a far cry from the triangle eyes and noses of past Halloween gourds. So much fun, yet so fleeting. Cheers all!
6 comments:
The Thunderbolts was a great series and helped revive my interest in Marvel comics. Citizen V was interesting, but I was more intrigued by Songbird. Her transformation was genuine and emotional. Loved seeing her as an Avenger in Avengers Forever. Disappointed that that never happened in the main Avengers book.
Melissa was also the primary moral foil to Helmut within the Thunderbolts.
The Byrne Doom Patrol is a great read. It really should be collected in a TPB.
I've heard that DC has expunged that run out of continuity ,too bad. I thought Nudge and Grunt were a couple of cool original characters.
Those pumpkins are incredible. Always amazes me the creativity of some of those sculptors.
Yeah, I liked Thunderbolts too; some cool stories, and Songbird and Mach-IV (Beetle) were great characters. Usually Beetle was written as boring, but he was actually interesting in T-Bolts.
I'm with you on the first two Pretenders albums ... after that, not so much. Did you read Chrissie Hynde's autobiography? It was pretty good, but I feel like she glossed over a lot; when I read an autobiography, I want gory details!
I'm not big on Chinese food.
I'm not big on the Doom Patrol either; a little of their kvetching about being "freaks" goes a long way for me. ASs Killraven said, I think Byrne's reboot was ignored by later writers. Was Byrne the one who turned Niles Caulder into a sinister scumbag (i.e. treating Celsius like she was crazy, killing Josh Clay) or was that a different writer?
I don't have the skill to carve pumpkins like that, but I wish I did. Hell, I wish I could draw a picture like that!
I loved the Thuderbolts, it was great to see all these characters from the Marvel catalog, some of whom may even have just been in a one and done, make their appearances in this book. And it was great to see Bagley do a splash-page with a bunch of them gathered together and have to try to put names to faces. And I completely agree that not having Songbird take the helm of the main Avengers (i.e. not one of three hundred variants and spinoffs) has really been disappointing. I've heard that from a lot of people over the years, but now the team composition is influenced with the movies in mind I'm sure, and so that will probably never happen.
I liked Citizen V as well, but I'm not sure where they could go with the character. Also maybe too close to another V with a Guy Fawkes mask for them to want to make the attempt.
I'm also a fan of the Doom Patrol (lots to like in today's post), but definitely not of the Grant Morrison run. There are times when he's great, and times when his stuff is just ludicrous rubbish. I liked Byrne bringing back that feel of a book for kids that could just have come from the spinner rack. I wasn't as enthusiastic as Kill about Nudge and Grunt, but I could see that there was some thought and care put into it which hasn't always been the case with DP. Negative Man definitely looks the coolest, but I l like my DP old-school, so I have to give the nod to Elasti-Girl. No weird cosmic powers, no convoluted back story. She's a girl who gets really tall as her superpower. I think that's so simple it's awesome.
Happy weekend, all!
Busiek's run on Thunderbolts is something I'd like to read some day, as I see it gets quite roundly praised by everybody. And, even though it gets pretty rounded panned, I'm interested in Byrne's Doom Patrol as well.
And yep, I love those jack o'lanterns every time I see them. I'm impressed by the skill and patience it must take to make them (that Spider-man one is, well, amazing). Back in when I was a kid, I tried to be creative by carving out circles for the eyes and mouth instead of triangles, to make that surprised or shocked expression, but that was about the limit of my skill.
Regrettably I punched out of comics before the above material was published. Definitely sounds like more things on the "to read" list!
That being said... I still eat Chinese food and Carve pumpkins!
Also, I dug the Pretenders with my fav being "Ohio." It serves as Rush Limbaugh's theme song which is quite odd since I think Chrissie Hynde told Limbaugh "up your nose with a rubber hose" or something like that b/c she can't do anything to stop him from using it if he pays the copyrights. (Love to see those two in a bar room brawl, eh?)
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