I’ve been reading a lot of comic books lately, so I thought I’d post what I’ve read recently and my thoughts on each so far.
The Walking Dead
I’m thru the first 51 issues and I absolutely love it. The Walking Dead follows a group of survivors during a zombie apocalypse scenario. While the premise is simple, the characters are memorable and the storyline brings up a lot of social issues. Also, the writer, Robert Kirkman, isn’t afraid of killing off any of the characters. This is probably my favorite ongoing series.
Ex Machina
I was already a fan of Brian K. Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man, so I decided to start reading his Ex Machina run. Ex Machina takes place in a post-9/11 New York where The Great Machine helped prevent the 2nd tower from being hit. The Great Machine is a super hero who has the ability to “talk” to machines. The Great Machine reveals his identity as Mitchell Hundred and proceeds to run for Mayor of New York City. He wins the election and that’s where this series picks up. I’m thru 29 issues of Ex Machina and I actually like it better than Y: The Last Man so far.
Fables
Fables, by Bill Willingham, is a series that looks at famous characters from fairy tales and shows them all living in the same environment. They are forced out of their homelands by the adversary and form a community in New York City called Fabletown. While they live in the real world, the rest of the world isn’t aware that fables are living amongst them.
There are some great moments in this series, such as the revealing of who the Adversary is and the arcs with Bigby, Boy Blue & Flycatcher are great. I’m currently 69 issues into this series.
Daredevil
I’ve read most of the Frank Miller run on Daredevil. I read both volumes of Visionaries (#158-191), Born Again, Love & War and The Man Without Fear. It’s interesting to see Frank Miller grow during the Visionaries run, but Born Again is probably his best work. The truth is, everything here is great, I think Love & War is really underrated.
I also read Jeph Loeb’s Daredevil: Yellow, which is also good. I still prefer Miller’s The Man Without Fear as an origin story. I plan on starting the Daredevil reboot soon, since he’s my favorite super hero character.
Animal Man
I’m currently two volumes into Grant Morrison’s Animal Man run. I can’t comment too much on this since I still have one volume left, but there are some really great issues in this series. The most obvious being The Coyote Gospel. This series looks a lot at animal rights and the relationship between creator and their creations. It’s all very interesting and is a worthwhile read.
Next up to read:
- The Sandman – Neil Gaiman
- Batman: Year One – Frank Miller
- Batman: The Long Halloween – Jeph Loeb
- Batman: The Killing Joke – Alan Moore
- Batman: Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth – Grant Morrison
