I have the shitty Batman movies. I have a 4-pack of the 90's movies, so we watched all 4 in a row quite recently. Oddly, I think & Robin has held up better than Forever which was so totally ruined by Jim Carey in the role of Jim Carey.

I have the 3 Nolan films individually, with Rises being that SE that came with a prequel comic.

I have season 1 of The Animated series, and actually quite a few of the animated films. I'm not a Batman obsesso like you, but I do love Batman.

My wife is actually turning into a bigger Batman fan than I. She just recently read Year One and The Man Who Laughs. She wanted to read Lovers & Madmen next, but I think I've convinced her it's time for Long Halloween which I LOVE LOVE LOVE maybe as much as Killing Joke.

The Long Halloween is probably my favorite Batman TPB of all time.

It doesn't just show one side of Batman. It shows everything. And it's so cinematic.

it really is brilliant. I also really appreciate all the Harvey Dent story stuff in there.

it really is brilliant. I also really appreciate all the Harvey Dent story stuff in there.

over the weekend I ran to a comic shop to see if they had X-Men '92 #4 and 5. There are 3 comic shops that are near me. There's one that I hit weekly, but then I'll go to the other 2 if I'm in search of something specific and it's not at that first one. tl;dr version is they had #5, but I ended up having to order #4 online which I don't really like doing. I just prefer finding comics "in the wild" when I can.

Anyway, I picked up some other stuff that I hadn't planned on. So besides X-Men '92 #5, I grabbed:

All New Wolverine #1 - with Logan coming out next year I'm interested in seeing this new Wolverine.

Champions #1 - I don't know anything about this one, but it was a freebie for "Comic Book Day" which I didn't even know was going on. The one I got has an exclusive CBD cover.

Extraordinary X-Men #8, 9, 10 - picking up where I left off. Issues 7-12 make up the second TPB.

The Worst X-Man Ever #1 - I've heard great things about this story.

Hey NR...

I've decided to dig into some current Marvel stuff. I was pretty uninterested by most of what I read about Civil War II, so I'm not really into that. But, I am starting to miss having some of the key characters around. Most notably Daredevil, Thor and Cap.

I don't really know where to start though. I have had total DC tunnel vision for quite some time now, so I'm not even sure which new individual character titles are out. Got any recommendations?

I'm thinking about Thor the Unworthy. Otherwise, I'm really pretty clueless.

To give you an idea of where my interests lie re: Marvel, I love the steampunky HYDRA/Nazi focused alt. history storylines. I also like Asgard type stuff, because all that "science so foreign it looks like magic" shit is the closest Marvel comes to Superman/Krypton. I haven't been big on the X-Men as a unit since I was a little guy, but I have really enjoyed X-Men adjacent title (X-Factor, X-Force) and individual character stories (Wolverine Origins).

Not into Spidey unless it's something really weird and special.

Where should I look?

I read everything tied in to Civil War I and it was fucking HORRIBLE. a story that could have been told well in 4 issues spread out to 37 different issues on 20 different titles? pathetic.

awesome!!

Alright to just reiterate two suggestions I have for 90's nostalgics of Marvel comics, I'd suggest reading X-Men '92, which had a single "prequel" run in 2015, and is now up to issue #9 next week of the 2016 run. The other is Avengers 1.1 which just had its first issue this month. The .1 series is totally different than just the 2016 Avengers comic. Like, X-Men 92, it has a total throwback vibe in art and tone and story.

I think suggesting the new Jessica Jones series (2 issues so far) is kind of obvious for you. And maybe you'd be interested in All-New Wolverine... I don't want to spoil anything about Logan for you if you don't already know it and don't want it to be spoiled.

With that out of the way, Unworthy Thor might be good for you. I haven't read the first issue yet, but I read a couple pages in one of those Marvel Preview books and it seems pretty cool. Disclosure, I'm not a huge Thor fan - I mean I loved the first movie, but comic-wise I don't seek him out especially. I like him. Anyway, you'd certainly like Unworthy more than you would the new Avengers which for reasons (Civil War II... spoilers I won't spoil just in case) has a new Thor who is a woman. (I totally DO like the new Avengers comic, but apparently every critic hates it).

Anyway, there is a brand new 2016 Daredevil comic, so you might want to check that out. Issues 1-5 make up the Chinatown TPB, 6-9 + Annual make up the 2nd TPB, Back In Black. Issue 10 started a new story arch called "Dark Art" and it's not done yet - I think it ends w/ #15 in January (maybe), so a good jump-on for you might be #10.

For magic kind of stuff you might like Scarlet Witch's new book more than I did. I mean... I liked it, but I didn't care for the art style myself. And I'm less a fan of magic stuff anyway.

I'll keep brainstorming. I feel slightly on the spot and I'm sure I'm blanking on stuff.

Thanks, I'll seek out JJ and that Daredevil you mentioned toot sweet.

Re: magic. I actually HATE Magic stuff in comics. What I meant to say was that a lot of the Thor/Asgard stuff is set up as "science that looks like magic because we don't understand" ... that bit reminds me of Byrne's '80s Krypton-heavy Superman stuff, which toed a somewhat similar line but kept thing much more on the sci-fi side (indeed, magic was the enemy).

Thor's a bit too "mag-icky" for me sometimes. But when the stories gear more toward space opera than "spirit-spell blah blah" I'm much more interested.

I forget a lot of that stuff. I read the tie-ins when it first came out, but last year when I re-read I just picked up the one "Civil War" main arc TPB that ends with Cap's surrender.

I agree that it was meh. Event the condensed, tie-in free version I read. I didn't like the art, and frankly, who gives a big fat fuck if Goliath bites it at the hands of Robo-Thor? Not I. And fuck stupid Hank Pym and his Zoloft, and that convoluted Fantastic 4 family drama bullshit. God I hate the Fantastic 4.

Most of the inspiration for The Dark Knight cane from Long Halloween. It was of course heavily tweaked, but still. Yeah, the Dent story was great. Joker was great. Art was -- fuck, I just love Tim Sale. So classy/classic, yet so dynamic and stylistically nimble.

Have you ever read the sequel, Dark Victory? It's not quite as good, but it does a really good job at continuing Loeb and Sale's story.

Yeah Batman Begins is like Year One and the first few issues of Long Halloween. Dark Knight is like the rest of Long Halloween and Killing Joke.

I haven't read Victory yet. I'm going back and re-reading some stuff w/ my wife right now, so I'll be doing Year One and The Man Who Laughs next, and will then re-read Long Halloween cuz I love it...

Anyway, got you on the magic thing. You might like some of the recent Guardians/etc stuff coming out. Star Lord, Gamora, maybe even that new Thanos comic? I haven't read any of it so can't comment one way or the other.

Yerp. And ...Rises was like Dark Knight Returns + Knightfall + No Man's Land. God but they did a great job of reinvisioning the source material for the screen.


I read the rebooted Guardians 2008 vol.1 over the summer (with Iron Man). It was good. I like Guardians and I hope to get my hands on the other volumes.

I have read NONE of the Guardians stuff, but I probably should because I absolutely LOVED the movie. Loved it.

I didn't even know Ironman was in one of the comics. That's kind of neat.

I'm excited that you're going to be reading new Marvel stuff. It'll be nice to be able to kind of overlap what we're reading... sort of fill each other in on what we're missing.

As far as some older stuff, I'd like to make it a priority and go back and read a lot of major events. When I was reading comics as a kid, I didn't really stick to an order, and only had access to one comic store. So I just read whatever I could get my hands on. So I'd like to go back and read some TPB collections of some of the events over the years.

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All but the absolute nerdies of us did what you did bro. I'm a pretty big nerd, but the only arcs I followed to completion way back then were Death of Superman, Knightfall and Zero Hour (DC.. forget what it was even about lol).

I didn't actually start reading full arcs until high school. Before that it was just whatever was at the comic shop. So I read a lot of hunks of stories without reading what happened before or after. I was a kid! Not an archivist for Christ's sake.

yeah I mean I don't intend to "catch up," but there are some major books I feel like I'd really like to get around to.

I am having a blast with new stuff though. Here's what I read tonight... on a total X-Men kick apparently...



X-Men '92 #4 wraps up the whole vampire plot of the first three issues. For all its crazy 90's-isms and bright artwork and X-Men meet Buffy vibe, it ends on a very somber note. Great stuff.



X-Men '92 #5, the final issue in the first book "The World Is A Vampire," is actually a one-shot that takes place independently of 1-4. Or rather shows you what Cyclops and Jean Grey were up to during those issues... it is very campy and includes a "cameo" from Deadpool and even a scene where they fight four... uh... turtles that are ninjas... in a sewer? As an end to the collected book, it creates a nice counterpoint to #1-4. And y'know what? This is probably my favorite current comic series.




All-New Wolverine YES! This was awesome. Laura is such a bad-ass as the new Wolverine. Great art. Dark and violent. I'm definitely gonna stick with this series for a while and see where it goes.




X-Men: Worst X-Man Ever is totally different. It's like a teen comedy movie that takes place in the X-Manor. Baily is kind of a high school nobody. He finds out he's a mutant, but his power is that he can blow up... but that's it. He can do it once, cuz blowing up would kill him. So basically, he can't use his power. But he ends up an orphan and living in X-Manor. It's a neat set up and has a very unique tone. I believe the series ends after a short run (?) so I'll definitely see that to the end.

The perfect thread to ask this question ...

What are the best Batman graphic novels/TBPs, and is there an ideal order to read them? There's just so many of them out there it's impossible to know which ones to prioritise or where to even start! The only one I have is Dark Knight Returns.

I totally want to link you to some of the reading guides that I've checked out on Bats, BUT... I'm way more interested in letting Sev field this one so I can gain his knowledge for my own. :D

Yeah I've looked at some online lists but they're all so conflicting. I'm trusting Sev on this too. I was gonna PM him about it but thought it could be something others might be interested in.