expatNERD

Category: Blog

  • Justice League Quarterly #5

    I am going to take a page out of Frank’s book and recommend something from the past, inspired by Comic Book Ninja. This week it is Justice League Quarterly #5 and in particular a beautiful story written by Mark Waid and drawn by Mike McKone called Be Careful What You Wish For, which is the lead story. As you know from Comic Book Ninja Part I, Keith Giffen and J.M. DeMatteis had a very successful run on Justice League International. During this period two titles spun off from it, Justice League Europe, and Justice League Quarterly, which was a comic book that came out every three months and had around 80 pages.

    Be Careful What You Wish For is extremely touching. I implore all of you to dig up this issue and I know you can probably find it in a lot of dollar bins out there. I do not want to spoil it, but the story focuses on Ice and her insecurities. Professor Ivo sends his Amazo robots out into the world and they steal powers from specific super-heroes for a specific reason. Again, I do not want to spoil it but it is extremely well written, well drawn, and there are a lot of fun moments. I will give one away, Ice ends up using Guy Gardner’s Green Lantern ring at one point…

    It’s just a great comic. Additionally, Mark Waid is still going strong and pretty much runs the D.C. line at this time of writing and he has used Professor Ivo quite a bit in World’s Finest and other places, so it does seem like he really enjoys writing the character.

    Cheerio

    -Marv

  • Avengers Assemble!

    I’m going to continue my last post and instead of recommending something new, I will recommend something old. First a warning. I am a sucker for the old Marvel. I don’t know why, perhaps it’s the illusion of those stories being created during a simpler time. Yes, sometimes a stereotype will hit you in the face, including a whole lot of German ones. But there is something comforting about seeing those earlier versions of characters interacting with each other and it just makes me smile.

    I cracked open the Avengers Omnibus Volume 4 and was treated to a lovely, albeit quite short, Neal Adams contribution. It was the Kree/Skrull War storyline brought about Roy Thomas and it pretty much ran from Avengers #93-97, with Adams doing issues #93-96. If you read the forward to the above Omnibus, Thomas admits that they were starting to run behind, and he decided to give #97 to the amazing John Buscema, much to the annoyance of Neal who had either produced thumbnails or even some finished pages. So that was that for Neal and he stopped. Which is aber schade because there must be a universe out there where Adams stuck around for at least twenty pages. You can find these issues reprinted and after doing a quick search online, the originals in a pretty good grade will not break the bank either. And it’s worth it because these books are beautiful.

    But I think my favorite part of this volume is the development of the Wanda and Vision relationship. It was quite well done with all the conflicts and drama that you can imagine. So my Thursday sketch above references that.

    bis bald,

    -franka