What are you reading?

[Alan M.]

The topic's as simple as its title: what comics are you reading these days?

 

I'm not so much curious about the going-back-to-stuff-from-the-past readings, although those are interesting; I'm wondering what books that are just hitting the stands my fellows are reading right now.

 

Just toss out a list, wax philosophical about why you're reading the books you are...whatever floats your boat. But let's get a look at those reading trends!

[Jeff of Earth-J]

At some point, years ago now, someone moved a bunch of threads from the general "Comics" forum to the "Reviews" forum. I know this because I found several of my own threads there. (I never start discussions in that forum because I don't write reviews.) I think "What Comic Books Have You Read Today?" was one of the discussions that was moved. For a very brief moment I considered that perhaps you couldn't find the main discussion thread, but dismissed it when I realized you are the one who can find virtually any former discussion (or even a stray word or phrase) regardless of how long it has been since it was posted. 

[The Baron]

Apropos of finding threads, I'll sometimes put an unuaul or non-word in a thread title to make it eaasier to find.  For example, I put "Awesomest"  in the title of the Mark Trail thread.

[Jeff of Earth-J]

Hey, I do that, too!

"Great minds run in the same channel."

(Or is that "Fools think alike"?)

[ClarkKent_DC]

I'm still plowing through the comics I picked up at the C.H.U.D. (Comics Here Under a Dollar) sale and at the Baltimore Comic-Con. Some of the things I picked up:

• The Further Adventures of Nick Mason. The title character is a former superhero with the usual set of powers (flight, superspeed, superstrength) whose abilities suddenly and permanently cut out on him, so it follows him as he tries to pick up the pieces. He's very much like a retired jock who doesn't know what to do with himself after his athletic career has ended. 
• The Wild Storm: Michael Cray. Trade paperback collection of a series about a high-tech assassin who wants to believe his assigned targets are bad people who deserve their ends. (Such guys, with the exception of Jonah Hex, never think they themselves are bad men for being killers.) Anyway, his targets are a boy billionaire who was lost at sea and learned self-taught survival skills while marooned on an island -- and now uses those skills to hunt other people while running a drug ring; a police scientist who has developed superspeed and is murdering other scientists, and other fun-house mirror versions of DC heroes.
• Damage Control. The ever-delightful Damage Control series is back! In this go-round, a young doofus named Gus who gets a job with the company but in each issue mightily screws things up, mostly because he doesn't listen and can't follow directions. You would think they would just cut him, but no -- in each new issue, he gets moved to another department to "find the right fit." (Ah, the wonders of privilege ... ) 
• Love Everlasting. From Tom King and Elsa Charretier, this is a spoof of the old romance comics they don't make anymore. The conceit is that in those old comics, all the stories were one-off tales, but here, our heroine Joan remembers her past experiences with the dashing heroes from the previous adventures.
• The Human Target. I got some of the issues from the current 12-issue series in which Our Hero has to solve his own murder (he got poisoned while impersonating Lex Luthor). The various takes on the series from our fellow Legionnaires (starting here) made me interested enough to give it a try for cheap. But did what happened to Guy Gardner really happen?  If so, it couldn't have happened to a more deserving guy.

[ClarkKent_DC]

i'm making a fitful stab at reducing the To Be Read stack of comics in my bedroom (which actually comprises more issues than the inventory of some comics shops I've visited).

One four-issue miniseries I just read is Battleworld: Thors, a spinoff of the revival of Secret Wars from 2015. The conceit is that the spinoffs from the new Secret Wars give us a closer look at the fiefdoms that developed on Battleworld. In Thors. we get to look at a place with a bunch of Thors from different universes. Fine, as far as that goes. Unfortunately, it is presented as if they are all detectives in some '70s cop show, with the lead Thor on the trail of a serial killer who is bumping off "Jane Does" who all turn out to be Jane Fosters from different universes. 

God, this was terrible. full of every cop show trope they could cram in, except for 'the uniforms" eating donuts. Worst was when one of the Thors is killed and the other is bleating on and on about losing his partner. The movies and TV present the bond between detective partners as more sacred, intense and lasting than even marriage. However, I grew up on 87th Precinct stories and Barney Miller episodes when there were no partners; whoever gets the call to solve a case is any random two who happen to be on shift and in the room when the phone rings.

Better and more fun was Roxxon Presents Thor, a one-shot done with a wink and a smile that presents Thor as a corporate shill.