51 Comics that Sven Likes

[megladon8]

Well it's not just that one, Sven...I've pretty much taken your entire list and transferred it to my Amazon wishlist :lol:

[Sven]

36. Silent War by David Hine & Frazer Irving (2007)



Fantastic, moody cosmic epic cum brooding family drama, starring the cosmic Marvel characters, the Inhumans. The stakes are high, the story complex, commotion everywhere. Hine is a quirky enough writer to pull off the fabulous narrative without overlooking the delicate emotional subsurface. And those scenes between Black Bolt and the bastard Maximus are totally goosebumpy. But I’m going to play my fanboy card and suggest that, even though the story is fantastic, tying me emotionally forever to Black Bolt, if a book is illustrated by Frazer Irving (and not written by Grant Morrison), it’s a sure bet that he’s the reason to read it. He has a keen sense of dramatic blocking and framing, used perfectly here in the many standoff tableaus, such as the ones with the Sentry and the Fantastic Four. He’s got my favorite take on Medusa’s hair, next to Kirby’s.

[Sven]

My paragraphs started out so ambitious, but now I'm rushing them. I may take some time before posting more so I can refine what I'm writing about each entry.

[EyesWideOpen]

Those bottom three Silent War Panels are amazing.

[Sven]

35. Hybrid Bastards by Tom Pinchuk & Kate Glasheen (2007-08)



Zeus, the Greek God, in a lust spell, dips his wick in an apple, some clothes, a car, and a wall. These unions spawn a generation of hybrid demigods. Years later, a handful of these demigods join forces in an attempt to get big daddy Zeus to acknowledge their existence by doing things like vandalizing his property and busting up his drug ring. It’s very funny, making the most of its promising premise. The dense visual style of watercolor smears mixed with comically gnarled figures make each page a visual question with frequently sidesplitting answers. Tom Pinchuk’s shorthand quirk is articulated by Kate Glasheen’s cartoony expressions, while her style of knotty lines and bleeding colors twists the playfulness of Pinchuk’s premise into a stirring spectacle. The publishing house, Archaia, is synonymous with quality, every publication a spin on traditional storytelling, with care pored into every visual, rarely wanting or in excess of grace. Hybrid Bastards exemplifies their standard.

[Sven]

34. Bad Dog by Joe Kelly & Diego Greco (2009-present)



Only four issues in, the last one having been just released a few weeks ago after a resolicitation following a year and a half of silence, mostly I’m in it for Diego Greco’s uncanny illustrations. But with the last issue, where Lou and Wendell pay homage to Hunter Thompson’s legendary trip to Vegas (and as it’s the first part of a proposed three part story, I can imagine it only gets more nuts, though fingers crossed if we ever get to see any more), Kelly’s gnarled storytelling style has reached a climax of craft, incorporating layers of shifts in time, place, and consciousness, incorporating emotional scenes and motivations, making sure that the story itself is a blast on the surface. But it comes down to Greco, whose blend of moody hues and varied angles create a kinetic counterpoint to Kelly’s constantly careening plot. A more moving anthropomorphic dogface you won’t find.

[number8]

I somehow found the first issue of Enginehead at my LCS' bargain bin and bought it for 30 cents.

[Sven]

33. Mesmo Delivery Service by Rafael Grampa (2008)



The assassin's artistic process, a glorious meltdown of retro lettering and chic poster design, rockets this minimalist homage to hardassery about a mysterious package delivery into the stratosphere of wacko transcendent cool. The rest of the story evokes the existential Western, amounting to a fistfight at a roadside diner. Rusted factories and smokestacks pepper an abandoned landscape populated with crows, reminders that the cocksure machismo at the core of all the blistering violence is an inevitable wasteland, antique and desolate. In the vein of the best of Paul Pope (pouting lips, excited letters, liquid inks, a muted color palette, and off-the-chain oddity), Grampa weaves a web of weirdness, tethering his distillation to the gut with stylish, tight sequential bravado.

[Sven]

32. All★Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder by Frank Miller & Jim Lee (2005-2008, conclusion doubtful)



I'm willing to take one for the team and say that this is Miller's most satisfying Batman read. Apparently people weren’t fond of this series, which makes a little sense given its gleeful violence, self-aware script, and extreme revisions of comfortable tropes. But that’s why I think it’s great. I find it hard not to side with something so funny, so twisted, so bizarre that every page elicits a chuckle, guffaw, humph, wince, or other mouth-twisting emotional response. It’s not so much stupid as it is a work that recognizes the brazen zeal of superhero comics. Unapologetically. Jim Lee, whose fame for having developed a visual language so essential to modern comics makes him a perfect co-conspirator, maximizes Miller’s manic intent while also providing some of his most virtuosic superhero art to date (like that neat six page spread of the Batcave). I love this series and I wish there were more of it.

[number8]

I have every issue and am still patiently waiting for the next one.

[Sven]

I have every issue and am still patiently waiting for the next one.

Rockin'. I bought all of the variant covers when my LCS had a variant sale.

[number8]

Neal Adams' covers for it are hilarious.

Fitting that he continued the legacy of ASBAR's nuttiness with Batman: Odyssey.

[EyesWideOpen]

I get ripped apart pretty much everywhere I go for liking All Star Batman and Robin.

[Ezee E]

All Star Batman and Robin just sounds like a corny title.

[Sven]

31. Hitman: Ace of Killers by Garth Ennis & John McCrea (issues 15-20, 1997)



Ennis and McCrea revive their spin on Etrigan the Demon in this great arc, also bringing back the Mawzir and the Arkannone, a couple of McCrea’s finest creations, and introducing to Gotham the heart and soul of the DCU, Baytor! The entirety of Hitman deserves mention as the best take on Ennis’s pet male character: the lone ex-soldier, violent, though not evil, conducting justice in the world to the best of his definitions, and not without compromise. But it’s the sense of humor mined from engaging with the DC Universe (dead cat on a skylight = Cat-Signal to summon Catwoman) combined with McCrea’s elastic approach to figure (his element, which he's totally swimming in, includes demons, demolition, and defenestration) that give Hitman the edge over Ennis’s more popular variations. This specific arc is my favorite for its range and audacity (the scenes in Hell are epic and unexpected, and there’s romance too). It also features the introduction of Section Eight, the greatest superhero team ever conceived.

[Sven]

That was one of the more difficult times I had selecting which images to use.

[number8]

(dead cat on a skylight = Cat-Signal to summon Catwoman)

Oh man, I could not stop laughing when i first read that scene.

[megladon8]

I need to get caught up in "Hitman".

I only have the first volume of the trades.

[Sven]

30. The Question by Rick Veitch & Tommy Lee Edwards (2005)



Veitch writing, Tommy Edwards illustrating, Vic Sage aka The Question ventures to Metropolis to investigate a covert drug ring. The idea is that Superman won’t spy on people doing their bathroom business, so the deals happen in the john. An ingenious conceit amplified by the suggestion of the Question’s own dependence (memorably in a scene where Superman expresses hesitance in his will to rely on a space cadet), not on nicotine, but rather on the hallucinogenic gas that allows him to walk through alter-dimensional cityspace in his search for answers. Edwards achieves a dream-like effect through the creative handling of the Question’s shamanistic walks, transforming panels into vision windows, complementing the Metropolisian reality that The Question explores. More ingenious than the bathroom black market idea is the model of a global circuit of energy, pooling at major cities, each one emitting a unique “Chi” force. This being the only Question-centric series I’ve read, I’m unsure if Veitch is responsible for the wildly conceptual nature of the book, or if that’s par for the course with the character. Regardless, it’s a rewarding read.

[number8]

This being the only Question-centric series I’ve read, I’m unsure if Veitch is responsible for the wildly conceptual nature of the book, or if that’s par for the course with the character.

It's Veitch. That's why a lot of Question purists decried this mini. The Vic Sage as urban shaman talking to the city thing is established here for the first time and never used again.

It's not totally from scratch, though. Denny O'Neill's Question is a bit shamanistic and chi-obsessed too, but more in a martial artist kind of way. He's a hard boiled journalist from a noir world who has a near death experience and has to reconcile his angry id with a reborn kung fu master's newfound zen. It's similarly spiritual, but more very Grecian and Buddhist philosophy influenced rather than conceptually abstract as Veitch took it.

[megladon8]

I love The Question.

He was a great character on the "Justice League" show, too. Voiced by Jeffrey Combs. I loved it whenever he showed up.

[Sven]

29. The Winter Men by Brett Lewis & John Paul Leon (2005-2008, to the consternation of many, I presume)



Proof in a cold Russian meat pudding that six issues of comic book does not prohibit complex and thorough development of dramatic or thematic heft on par with a proper novel. It has zesty dialogue, an intricate plot, fantastically moody artwork with attention paid evocatively to the singular infrastructure of Russian urban space, repercussive suggestions regarding the flux between capitalism and communism (as all American works centering on Russia do), and is totally damn entertaining (the story is full of scruffy, wry Soviets whose humor is as bleak as winter). By the book’s glorious climax, the scope of the narrative has magnified the personal to the political and the biological to the superbiological. A legitimate question: has there ever been a bad book written about Cold War superheroes? Another book to read is Peter Milligan's series The Programme, which is just as good, though longer, lighter, and crazier.

[number8]

(2005-2008, to the consternation of many, I presume)

Yep. I waited two fucking years to find out how the story ends.

[Sven]

28. Swamp Thing: Earth to Earth by Alan Moore, Rick Veitch & John Totleben (issues 51-56, 1986)



I should just include the whole of Alan Moore and Rick Veitch’s consecutive runs on the title, but it’s such an evolutionary work that it wouldn’t feel quite right. I choose this collection because it is right on the precipice of the character realizing his potential for Godhood. I dig the end of this collection, where he begins his cosmic journey to work out his powers (the Blue Heaven issue is pure poetry). But my favorite arc is the first half of the book, where he pays a mean visit to Gotham. I like seeing him play bad and take the city hostage, I like seeing Batman at a loss, I like the conceptual nature of his abilities and the creators’ hallucinatory take on the consequence of the natural world reclaiming a hyper-developed urban landscape. Awesome layouts, fabulous sequences of monster horror, Moore’s trademark aureate verboseness as Swamp Thing flies around space… there are too many reasons to love this one.

[megladon8]

"Swamp Thing" is, in my oh-so-humble opinion, Moore's best work.