Stormwatch, Red Son and more

Man I need to update this more often. I've gone on a tear reading through series of books and enjoying reading books that thrilled me in my childhood and shocked by others that I can't believe anyone enjoyed.

I'm currently reading Stormwatch from the beginning. This is a major undertaking not only for the amount of books but cluttered writing that was so common for the time.



Stormwatch started as the first spin-off book by Jim Lee. He started at Image with Wildcats and released Stormwatch shortly after the first five issues of Wildcats was finished.

Stormwatch #1 actually starts really well. Good action, a nice setup and a hint of things to come. Issue #2 and #3 are sort of the run of the mill battle books but for some reason Stormwatch packs in tons of dialogue, something that doesn't make sense when a book is known for the art. At the same time, most of the art is posing and not actually telling a story so I guess it fits.

Issue #4 really develops Backlash and gives us the first real art by Bret Booth who became one of my early favorites at Image and a guy that I followed and bought anything he drew for a while. I enjoyed Backlash as a kid and he still remains one of my favorite characters, once he was fleshed out more in Team 7 he became my favorite Image character. If I ever went to an event with artists there I would often have them draw me a sketch of Backlash.

#5 - 8 all actually tie up some loos ends form the start of the series as well as helping to set up the Gen 13 series of books with the first appearance of Rainmaker in issue #8.

While reading this series today doesn't make you miss it, at the time this was a top notch book and when compared to any of the other Image founders, this book was at the top for story and action. Compared to a Extreme Studios book, it blows them out of the water.


While off from my last break in the blog I finished the whole series of Earth x, Universe X and Paradise X. It was a shocking change in art from Earth X to the other two series as it felt more like an Alan Davis clone drew the Universe ans Paradise books compared to the darker painted art of the Earth X Series.

While the series were interesting to read, it is nothing more than something I would pick up at the library and can't believe that these were higher priced books.

Earth X was good but Universe and Paradise really fell off of the deep end in my opinion with way too much universe traveling for my taste.


I went to the local library with my kids and found that they actually had some TPB's in stock. I was shocked because I live in a smaller town in Utah that is considered to be more of a hick town, so to see comics was a bit of a suprise.

I picked up Red Son and Batman Year One. Both books have been on my list of 'wanting to read' for some time but just had never had the chance.

I was blown away with Batman Year One. Overall just a wonderful story that just feels like it flows so well with art that matches it's gritty style. I recommend this to anyone wanting a good comic book read.

Superman Red Son was a bit of a letdown to me. With Mark Millar writing this and knowing that single issues are usually in the $20 range I knew it had to be something special but overall it just felt okay to me. I think the art in it was a big letdown. Dave Johnson did okay on the book but the art just wasn't what I would hope for from a story that should have looked a lot more epic. I believe they were trying to go with a feel of a communist Russia but to me it didn't hold up to expectations.

The story to me was also a bit of a letdown and I was hoping for it to have some more action or more involvement from the other super heroes from the DC past. Especially the JSA or other groups which never appear to form without Superman around yet the JSA was formed in the WW II era meaning they should have shown up some in this book.

Overall I would suggest getting it from a Library but not worth a purchase.

Earth X Part 1

I just started reading Earth X. I've never read this series (strange for someone that collected a lot of comics when they were coming out) and I thought I would give it a try. I'm 2 issues in and so far it is okay. It isn't something that I feel pulled to and I'm not really in love with the story or characters yet.

When this series came out Alex Ross was HOT. He was just coming off of Kingdom Come and was getting a lot of attention. The Earth X series was his Marvel version basically with two followup books to the Earth X series. Both were never as popular but are next in order to read.

The interesting thing is that ComicBookResources looked back at the book here. I feel a lot of what the author has to say about the book is how I feel about it as well. He at least read it when it came out and greatly enjoyed it, but how does it really stand up? I guess I'll see how I feel about it when I'm all done with all of Earth X but right now it just feels okay.

Empire

I've been reading through my collection and I'll post more about what I've been going through but I wanted to hit on a series called Empire.

I've had this issue book for some time and never read either of the two issues I had in my trade boxes until I read an article recently interviewing Mark Waid. Waid spoke about finishing the series or continuing with a sequel to the book. Waid mentions that it is tough for him to write villains in control in his books and made me wonder what this books was all about.

I've always had a thing with villains being in control or a group of villains that actually know what is going on and so I really wanted to check this book out.



It hit me at that time I had to read this book. I got home from work and I retreated to my reading area to get this first issue out of the way, the first thing that hit me was the cover.




The cover instantly made me think of Star Trek with the Red and Yellow 'Federation' Jerseys and made me wonder who was going to die first.

The first issue takes the view of one of the head bad guys right hand man. It really lets you know who all the players are in the new world and just how powerful Golgoth is.

It was a a good intro into the book and it makes me want to read more about it.

The series only last two issues under Image and was brought back three years later under DC. I don't have any of the DC books but the two Image books are worth picking up and I'm sure I'll get the DC books sometime.