It’s time for an iFlashback! A weekly feature in which we take a look at some comics that were on sale nine years ago. Why nine years and not ten? Well because our Mondays in 2013 sync up with the Wednesdays of 2004.
So jog down memory lane with me. The date is January 7th, 2004. The number one film in the box office is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and these are some of the comics at your local comic book shop.
Caper #4
By Judd Winick, Farel Dalrymple
The Amazing Spider-Man #502
By J. Michael Straczynski, John Romita Jr., Scott Hanna
My Faith in Frankie #1
By Mike Carey, Sonny Liew, Marc Hempel
Elektra #31
By Robert Rodi, Will Conrad, Sandu Florea
Y: The Last Man #18
By Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, Jose Marzan Jr.
The Punisher #37
By Garth Ennis, John McCrea, Danny Miki
X-Treme X-Men #40
By Chris Claremont, Igor Kordey, Greg Adams
The Avengers #77
By Chuck Austen, Olivier Coipel, Andy Lanning
Ultimate Fantastic Four #1
By Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar, Adam Kubert, Danny Miki
That was the week that was in comics. Books of note, that was the last Ennis Punisher issue before it was moved to a Marvel MAX title and Ultimate Fantastic Four. Ultimate FF was the book Marvel was really excited about, I remember them teasing it all through 2003. So, did you read any of the books that came out that week? If so let us know what you thought of them.
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I need to reread Caper, I picked it up a few years ago when I was just getting into comics and I loved it.
Caper is Judd Winick at his best! Also doesn’t hurt that there’s some great Farel Dalrymple art in the first four issues.
Love JMS’ ASM, the book that got me reading comics. Y the Last Man is also excellent. I’ve never heard of “My Faith in Frankie”, was it any good?
“My Faith in Frankie” is great if you like Mike Carey’s early Vertigo work on stuff like Lucifer, or his novels. Very interested in magic as a system of rules and laws that must be followed. Carey would do a great Dr. Strange.
Mainly I’ve read his Hellblazer and “The Unwritten” from Vertigo. I’m reading his X-Men Legacy right now, but it reads alittle dry. “My Faith in Frankie” sounds good tho, have to see if my library has a copy.
Wow Kordey…my least favorite X-artist. Yes surpassing Land. Some great books on here though…JMS ASM, Y, and Ult. F4 were all books I read. And wow a 50 cent Coipel book? Wonder how that was!
Kordey has a terrible reputation, but his shoddy work on the X-titles was supposedly because he had to rush through them in one or two days after they realized Frank Quitely would not be able to keep anything approaching a monthly schedule. These days they’d have someone like Joe Bennett lined up to take care of that. Kordey’s work on Black Widow was much better, though probably still not to everyone’s taste.
Wow, Electra had an ongoing that lasted 30+ issues? That’s crazy! Was it any good?
It was OK. Chuck Austen did the art, which was some terrible computer drawing, but Greg Rucka wrote a really great Elektra, as you might expect. (The very earliest issues were by Bendis, and reminiscent of his Daredevil work.) Artwork on the later Rucka issues was better, but still not great. The Rodi issues were passable but probably for diehard fans of the character only.
…oooh Austen on Avengers… that hurt…
Ha! I had to see how how Austen ended up on Avengers… He picked up where Johns left off and got 2 arcs before Bendis relauched. Can’t believe he got Coipel & Kolins as artist.
Then again, if these iflashbacks are teaching me anything it’s that Chuck Austen despite being as loathed as he is, put out a staggering amount of work out between 2001 and 2004 and all on relatively high profile titles.
Oh, if they’d only collect “Caper” one of these days…
I read Y, Punisher, and UFF. I was a huge Ennis Punisher fan, even before it went to MAX. Great stuff, one of the highlights of his career. I really liked UFF but the whole Ultimate universe went WAY off the tracks at some point and I lost interest. Y – nuff said.
What’s this Y I hear all about?
Man, Vaughn is great. Has he ever really written a bad book?
Swamp Thing.
I loved Ultimate Fantastic Four so much. Glad I took a forced break from comics before Ultimatum hit and ruined it though.
Sigh. JMS Spider-Man, before the crazy bullshit towards the end, is what Spider-Man should have always been.
Here’s some other big events to occur on January 7th:
-1782: The First American Bank, Bank of North America, opens.
-1927: The first transatlantic telephone service, from New York to London, is established.
For me, it was the Red Son trade and JSA #56: Black Reign, part 1. The rest of the time (though I didn’t know it then) I was waiting for New Frontier #1 later that month.
Absolutely nothing from Marvel moved me.
I think I liked the art, but I believe I lasted about two issues into Austen’s Avengers before I dropped the book and didn’t pick it up again until a couple years ago.
I really like the look of “My Faith in Frankie,” might have to look that one up.
I find it funny that the Avengers issue cost $.50 back in the day, but the recent Comixology sale still had it for $.99. I’m pretty certain the value of the hardcopy is not that high, regardless of the quality of the book.