Phillies64

November 6, 2008 3:33 pm

Great show. I thought you guys picked a pretty diverse group of books to represent Image.

One book I want to mention is Jack Staff. Not unlike Kirkman or Faerber, Paul Grist has created his own little universe with the Jack Staff series. He's really a masterful cartoonist, and it's great to see his world full of all these vibrant characters.

October 6, 2008 2:33 pm I'm all over this. Looks amazing. I'm digging the story so far too.

September 4, 2008 1:08 pm Good drink for a great series. Yet another good article. Nice work.

August 6, 2008 4:15 pm You know what Cap needs to be traded? The Streets of Poison of arc. We got a great Cap story featuring Red Skull, Cross Bones, Diamondback, Daredevil, Bullseye, Kingpin, Black Widow...etc. Written by Mark Gruenwald. Penciled by Ron Lim. The arc was one of Cap's strongest storylines. Granted, they tried to hit us over the head with the anti-drug message at the end, but overall it was a good story.

August 4, 2008 2:58 pm

Sadly, I have the old printing of this trade, which just contains the first arc.

Anyway, there are a lot of new Cap fans now, and rightly so because Brubaker's run has been fantastic. Despite this, sometimes I feel like people are missing out on the previous great runs. Waid and Garney did a fantastic job with the character. I was so bummed out when Heroes Reborn interrupted this, but then I was so excited when Waid and Garney were back on the book after Heroes Return. The Brubaker/Epting run is fantastic, but Waid and Garney still hold up for me.

July 23, 2008 4:12 pm

@Kimbo

Totally agree. Using the idea of the masked villain as a theme is the only way to up the ante form the last film. They should stick to reality based villains, no powers. Batman would be even more of an outcast for inspiring this surge in masked crime. The city would resent him, but at the same time he'd be the only one able to fight these villains. At the end of the film we can see Gordon accepting Batman as a necessary evil.

July 23, 2008 3:22 pm

To be honest, we had Batman's two most interesting villains in the same film. Ledger's performance was absolutely astounding. I don't think a typical sequel can top this. The Riddler? Mr. Freeze? Catwoman? Talia?...sorry it just wont cut it.

In Nolan I trust. I'm sure if he does decide to do a sequel, it'd be fantastic, but I just can't see another villain competeing with this. I think rather than focus on one particular villain, they should focus on the theme of villains as a whole. Sort of like the Long Halloween and Dark Victory. Inspired by both Batman and Joker we could see the freak taking over Gotham. We'd get an interesting conflict between the police and Batman, as well as the mob and the costumed villains. Both groups would be resentful of the other.

Anyway why am I talking sequels? I'd be fine with the franchise ending right here. I was that satisfied with the film.  

 

July 18, 2008 3:43 pm

@selftitled-I agree that the moment seems a bit out of character, but I think that's the point. To the Joker, the world is senseless. Batman fights for it to make sense, but for that brief momentat the end, they both get the joke of it all. I loved that moment.

July 17, 2008 10:17 am

Great mentions in this episode.

Just a sidenote. Greg Rucka wrote the Batman No Man's Land novel. While we miss out on a lot of the great art, and some of the smaller storylines, overall it works as much stronger story. It's much more to the point. I never read prose novels based on comics, but this one really worked,

Also to add some more books to the list, I'd suggest Batman Black and White volumes 1-3. They each collect black and white short stories from some of the industry's greats. Brian Bolland, Neil Gaiman, Matt Wagner, and Jim Lee are just some of the many talents behind these.

June 24, 2008 4:14 pm

Hey guys. I'm new to the site.

Anyway, Busiek and Bagley's Thunderbolts #1 is my favorite mainstream first issue. We were introduced to all these "new" characters, and then shown a great reveal at the end. I was dying for issue two. I had no hopes for the book, but the first issue had me hooked.