Comics - what do you like?

[Hexenritter Verlag]

What does the membership of Ruins like when it comes to comics - past & present? 

I've been a comic book fan since the mid 80s, but I was more into the independent comics at the time, I didn't get into superhero comics till a few years later and mainly that was Marvel Amazing Spider-Man, the X-Men titles, Hulk and a few classics (that starred Captain America, Namor, Iron Man). In the early 90s I was mainly an Image & Marvel fanboy, reading various X-Men & Spider-Man titles, plus WILDCats, Pitt, Youngblood, Cyberforce,  Savage Dragon and the like. 

But during this period I was still buying independent comics & manga (though this was sparse until Dark horse began publishing manga). A lot of my comics were either horror related, manga or fantasy books among the independents.

Horror: Deadworld, Faust, EO, Gothic Nights, Nightvision, Spring Heel Jack, Splatter & Slash.

Fantasy: Elf Quest, Adventurers, Ninja Elite, Elf warrior, Elf Lord, Slaine & Battle Chasers.

Manga: Oh My Goddess!, Blade of the Immortal, Ghost in the Shell, Dominion Tank Police, Dark Angel, Record of Lodoss War & Geobreeders. 


Now I read mainly Manga & DC comics, with a few independents that catch my interest like:


Independents: Wet moon, Shadoweyes, Realm/Legendlore (80s reprint collections) & the Rat Queens

DC: Batman, Detective Comics, Red Hood & the Outlaws, Teen Titans, Titans, Deathstroke, the Flash and other Rebirth titles. 

Manga: Sword Art Online, Is it wrong to try to pick up girls in a dungeon?, Food Wars, My Hero Academia, Attack on Titan & Dimension W.

[mormonyoyoman]

Thanks to a Very Patient mother (This would change as my sister and brothers began arriving) who was a Batman and Captain America fan in the 1940s, I learned to read at the tender age of 2 in 1956. So initially, it was anything Batman (Shelly and Sprang are still my favorite Batman artists) and became anything Ditko when I picked up Spider-Man #4. To this day, I will drop anything for any Ditko or Kirby work I haven't seen.

By 1965, I had become a fan of Roy Thomas, who combined the depth of whatever it was that Stan Lee did with a strong literary and history knowledge. Loved his fan work, loved every one of his comics, and I'm an even bigger fan of what he does today with Alter-Ego.

Plug: Mr Lynn Walker & I run the Alter-Ego-fans mail list at Yahoo Groups. An awkward title, but "Alter-Ego" was already taken by a mental health Yahoo group. The awkward title was suggested by the late Dr Jerry and since he was Jerry Bails, I immediately took his advice.

You're each invited if you can keep your posts clean as a 1964 comic. Just mention Murkhill and swear your name isn't Riff.

[fearghus]

My first, around 3rd or 4th grade was Elf Quest. I was absolutely in love with that series. I had a few issues of Elf Warrior. Through the years I had lots of graphic novels and short run comics: Death Dealer; Satanica; Johnny the Homicidal Maniac; Poison Elves; Dragon Lance; Forgotten Realms; The Crow (angsty teen favorite for many years); a handful of issues of Heavy Metal; some various Marvel titles: X-Men, X-Force, Excalibur, TMNT (read Eastman and Laird, but never owned), Spawn, Witchblade, The Darkness, a batman and a separate superman graphic novel, and several other titles I can't remember. I wasn't a good fan of series and would quickly lose and gain interest in them.

Does Garfield, and Calvin and Hobbes count? Those were mixed in through the years.

I recently got Seven Warriors, New Spring, and The Ring of the Nibelung while travelling for work.

[Hexenritter Verlag]

Nov 28, 2018 16:09:05 GMT -5 fearghus said:

My first, around 3rd or 4th grade was Elf Quest. I was absolutely in love with that series. I had a few issues of Elf Warrior. Through the years I had lots of graphic novels and short run comics: Death Dealer; Satanica; Johnny the Homicidal Maniac; Poison Elves; Dragon Lance; Forgotten Realms; The Crow (angsty teen favorite for many years); a handful of issues of Heavy Metal; some various Marvel titles: X-Men, X-Force, Excalibur, TMNT (read Eastman and Laird, but never owned), Spawn, Witchblade, The Darkness, a batman and a separate superman graphic novel, and several other titles I can't remember. I wasn't a good fan of series and would quickly lose and gain interest in them.

Does Garfield, and Calvin and Hobbes count? Those were mixed in through the years.

I recently got Seven Warriors, New Spring, and The Ring of the Nibelung while travelling for work.

Death Dealer; Satanika...I had a number of Danzig's Verotika titles. I have both Johnny the Homicidal Maniac & Squee GNs, plus the I am Sick miniseries. I had much of the early runs of both Witchblade & the Darkness until I traded them in for store credit & got the Necromunda skirmish  war game hardcover book with it. I have most of the original run of ElfQuest in GN form, but I don't have much of the more recent stuff. I have nearly the whole run of Poison Elves main title minus maybe the last issue before drew died.

[Traveroark]

I'm into Catwoman and Poison Ivy.

[mao]

In the late 60s my fav's were Batman, Daredevil, Black Panther(really liked his outfit) and early Xmen(I had a ssub in the mail of the reruns)

In 80 or so when I was 20 I as all about Wolverine and the new Xmen

Now I can't stand the Xmen anymore and I am back to Batman and Black Panther, JLA and a new book the Terrifics

[Hexenritter Verlag]

Nov 29, 2018 14:22:35 GMT -5 Traveroark said:

I'm into Catwoman and Poison Ivy.

In general or their newer incarnations?

[mao]

My all time fav comics are a tie between Astro City 1/2 and Fantastic Four 352.Spoilers follow.

The Astro City is about a completely ordinary man thrust into a very extraordinary turn in his life due to Factors out of his control.He has memories of a romantic partner that seem real but he can't quite figure out what it means.

Fantastic Four 352 is by Walter Simonson, one of the few talented artists that can write as good as he draws. Th issue is about a battle between the Four and Doc Doom w a great twist. Reed and Doom are both wearing personal time travell devices and are chasing each other in Dooms Castle,  in both back and forth in time and space during a 15-30 minutes span.

[ripx187]

I'm a DC guy, but I had to quit that addiction once I had kids. I really liked it when obscure characters would get a limited run series. They usually would only break those guys out if they had a story to tell, so it was usually pretty good. The Science Fiction ones were my favorite, but I also love the noir mystery that can be captured with the Detective Characters. Today I pick up a trade here and there but not to often. Those things are like soap operas with backstories that go back decades, I always hated that. 

[Hexenritter Verlag]

Dec 10, 2018 15:33:26 GMT -5 ripx187 said:

I'm a DC guy, but I had to quit that addiction once I had kids. I really liked it when obscure characters would get a limited run series. They usually would only break those guys out if they had a story to tell, so it was usually pretty good. The Science Fiction ones were my favorite, but I also love the noir mystery that can be captured with the Detective Characters. Today I pick up a trade here and there but not to often. Those things are like soap operas with backstories that go back decades, I always hated that. 

ripx187 does your local library carry comic GNs? Mine do and they have a lot of DC comics. 

[ripx187]

The librery?!?! What century do you think this is Hexenritter Verlag? 

Not for comics. I could subscribe to them on my Kindle, or torrent them, but I just don't care any more. New Comic Book Day was my social time. I'd go on down to the comic shop and argue with the other nerds who had nothing better to do on a Wednesday afternoon. Its a saloon for people who don't drink. The Public Librery, well that is a different clientel in this town. I don't care to sit around there all day either, nor have time to accumulate book fines because I keep forgetting (am too tired) to return them. I'm good! God, it has been over ten years since I last stepped into that place . . . 

[Traveroark]

Nov 29, 2018 19:29:59 GMT -5 Hexenritter Verlag said:

Nov 29, 2018 14:22:35 GMT -5 Traveroark said:

I'm into Catwoman and Poison Ivy.

In general or their newer incarnations?

In general, and love the originals.

[mormonyoyoman]

There are some structures by which we measure the rising or dying of civilizations. Libraries top that list of structures.

[ripx187]

Dec 17, 2018 18:11:25 GMT -5 mormonyoyoman said:

There are some structures by which we measure the rising or dying of civilizations. Libraries top that list of structures.

Our libraries are no longer confined to a building. Books are more accessable than ever before. I used to be a book collector, back in the day when you'd have Waldon Books searching for out of print items, and they'd give you a call when they found a copy, or even better! Spending the entire day going through old buildings dedicated to old books for yourself. Those days are gone, all you have to do now is google a title and the rare and hard to find book is on Amazon. Then you have the streaming services, want to use a specific river in India? Just look it up and you can usually find lots of videos and other stuff that you can immerse yourself with on Youtube alone.

I lived in a small town, finding recordings like this at the librery didn't happen. Sometimes I could get them to borrow the thing from another librery, but I don't have to wait now. Researching has never been faster!

[Hexenritter Verlag]

I love libraries and I'm one of the few (it seems) folk who love physical books. I can't bring myself to read ebooks outside Gaming PDFs and that is ONLY so I 1) check out a product before buying the print copy & 2) if it is PDF only at the time. I've read a few comics via PDFs but I got those from the creator to sample & give him my thoughts on them. I do agree researching is MUCH quicker now. I was doing a lot of research on Ancient Near Eastern religion & history but I'll need to rebuild my collection as I lost my zip drive with my PDFs of academic works.

[hengest]

I was solidly a DC guy, Justice League, Green Lantern, etc. Although I was also into some of the old independents, like the 1980s Eclipse titles. And got into some Marvel titles late in life.

Feel like early grounding in comics helped my imagination not to die off entirely. The endless hours of imagining variations on using this or that power to solve a problem...or better yet, the non-power workarounds that were key to some of the most fun stories.

I still think the Clark-Superman-Lois triangle is the greatest comic book myth and Peter-Spiderman-Jonah is the greatest spinoff of any comic book myth.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

Apr 11, 2021 14:10:06 GMT -5 hengest said:

I still think the Clark-Superman-Lois triangle is the greatest comic book myth and Peter-Spiderman-Jonah is the greatest spinoff of any comic book myth.

I have to agree. The comic book Spiderman and the interplay with Jonah was fascinating.

I view most of the comic book movies ( no matter how much fun they are visually to watch) as to suffer greatly for their deviations from the comic book canon in terms of the characters and how they think and behave.

[The Perilous Dreamer]

I loved the DC characters Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and the Flash.

For Marvel, I loved The Hulk, Phoenix, the Human Torch, Wolverine, Spiderman, She-Hulk, Captain America, and Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell).

The only Captain Marvel I have ever liked was the first Marvel character.

This character is an alien military officer, Captain Mar-Vell of the Kree Imperial Militia, who is sent to observe the planet Earth as it is developing technology to travel into space. Mar-Vell eventually wearies of his superiors' malicious intent and allies himself with Earth, and the Kree Empire brands him a traitor. From then on, Mar-Vell fights to protect Earth from all threats.

The two stupidest things in all of comic book history was killing of Captain Marvel with cancer(1982) and killing off Phoenix as Dark Phoenix.  ( "The Dark Phoenix Saga" 1980). I only heard about them killing off Captain Marvel, because when they killed off Phoenix I stopped buying all comic books. Phoenix was IMO the greatest comic character ever created and it was criminal to introduce her and then quickly kill her off.

My top all time favorites were Superman, Wonder Woman, Hulk, Phoenix, and She-Hulk. Despite the fact that Superman was always poorly written. Due to their lack of imagination, they always wrote Superman as dense and slow mentally, because they could not figure out any other way for him to be challenged. The all time best comic ever written was *Issue  #189 of the Hulk, that came up missing in a move, where the Hulk interacted with a blind little girl in (IIRC) backwoods Russia. That one issue showed the defining character of the Hulk as good, kind and gentle when dealing with a helpless innocent, in a way that should have been brought to the movies. This issue was when he was not turning back to Banner, something I felt was a good thing.

The one thing I did not like about She-Hulk was that they made her the cousin of Banner. I literally yelled at the comic during the initial issue. She-Hulk properly drawn is gorgeous in a somewhat Daisy Mae (Li'l Abner) way. The Hulk at times has been drawn as having a handsome face and for a time they modeled the face of the Hulk (unconsciously I am sure) on JFK.

The Human Torch was the ultimate hot headed (pun intended) superhero, always getting into trouble because he was incapable of doing anything but react.

If I ever owned and merged the companies these are the characters that would have to be part of it and I would return them to what I remember.

* herbtrimpeshulk.blogspot.com/2010/10/incredible-hulk-189-blind-girl-and-mole.html although the article gets it wrong, Katrina did not see Banner she saw a human version of the Hulk, a big muscular square jawed fellow.

[mao]

My all time fav run was Doom Patrol by Grant Morrison(it is what the hbo  show is based on) iT is the closest that any of us would experience LSD. Yes it is that wierd

[mao]

My fav charters are Batman and Black Panther

[Admin Pete]

My favorite comic characters are The Phantom aka The Ghost Who Walks.
The Phantom

The Phantom is an American adventure comic strip, first published by Lee Falk in February 1936. The main character, the Phantom, is a fictional costumed crime-fighter who operates from the fictional African country of Bangalla. The character has been adapted for television, film and video games.

The series began with a daily newspaper strip on February 17, 1936, followed by a color Sunday strip on May 28, 1939; both are still running as of 2021. In 1966, King Features stated that The Phantom was being published in 583 newspapers worldwide.[1] At its peak, the strip was read by over 100 million people daily.[2][3]

Falk worked on The Phantom until his death in 1999; since his death, the comic strip has been written by Tony DePaul. Since 2016, it has been drawn by Mike Manley (Monday–Saturday) and, since 2017, Jeff Weigel (Sunday).[4][5] Previous artists on the newspaper strip include Ray Moore, Wilson McCoy, Bill Lignante, Sy Barry, George Olesen, Keith Williams, Fred Fredericks, Graham Nolan, Eduardo Barreto, Paul Ryan, and Terry Beatty. In the strip, the Phantom was 21st in a line of crime-fighters which began in 1536, when the father of British sailor Christopher Walker was killed during a pirate attack. Swearing an oath on the skull of his father's murderer to fight evil, Christopher began a legacy of the Phantom which would pass from father to son. Nicknames for the Phantom include "The Ghost Who Walks", "Guardian of the Eastern Dark" and "The Man Who Cannot Die".[6]

Unlike many other superheroes, the Phantom has no superpowers; he totally relies on his strength, intelligence and the myth of his immortality to take action against the forces of evil. The 21st Phantom is married to Diana Palmer; they met while he studied in the United States and they have two children, Kit and Heloise. He has a trained wolf named Devil and a horse named Hero, and like the 20 previous Phantoms he lives in the ancient Skull Cave.

The Phantom was the first fictional hero to wear the skintight costume which has become a hallmark of comic-book superheroes, and was the first shown in a mask with no visible pupils (another superhero standard).[6][7] Comics historian Peter Coogan has described the Phantom as a "transitional" figure, since the Phantom has some of the characteristics of pulp magazine heroes such as The Shadow and the Spider and earlier jungle heroes such as Tarzan, as well as anticipating the features of comic book heroes such as Superman, Batman, and Captain America.[6]

[Admin Pete]

Phantom (comics)

Fictional character biography
In the jungles of the fictional African country of Bangalla,[21] there is a myth featuring The Ghost Who Walks, a powerful and indestructible guardian of the innocent and fighter of all types of injustice. Because he seems to have existed for generations, many believe him to be immortal. In reality, the Phantom is a legacy hero, descended from 20 previous generations of crimefighters who all adopt the same persona. When a new Phantom takes the task from his dying father, he swears the Oath of the Skull: "I swear to devote my life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, in all their forms, and my sons and their sons shall follow me". The first Phantom married Christina, the daughter of a Scandinavian sea captain, Eric the Rover. The second Phantom married Marabella, the granddaughter of Christopher Columbus.[22]

The comic sometimes runs flashback adventures of previous Phantoms written by various authors who sometimes confuse Phantom history. Current stories have Marabella as the daughter of Columbus and marrying the first Phantom.[23][24] As Columbus died in 1506 while, according to the new history, Marabella first meets the Phantom in 1544, this results in another inconsistency, requiring her to be at least 38 years old despite being depicted as in her early 20s. Inconsistencies in storylines and histories are not corrected as a mark of respect to authors, but Falk's original history takes precedence.[25]

Although most of the Phantoms have been male, there has been one woman who took up the role: Julie Walker, twin sister of the 17th Phantom. While her brother was injured, Julie donned the Phantom costume and defeated a band of pirates.[26][27]

The present Phantom is the 21st in the line. Unlike most costumed heroes, he has no superhuman powers, relying only on his wits, physical strength, skill with his weapons, and fearsome reputation to fight crime. His real name is Kit Walker. References to "Mr. Walker" are in the strip often accompanied by a footnote saying "For 'The Ghost Who Walks'", although some versions of the Phantom's history suggest that Walker was actually the original surname of the man who became the first Phantom.

[Admin Pete]

Origin
The story of the Phantom started with a young sailor named Christopher Walker (sometimes called Christopher Standish in certain versions of the story[28]). Christopher was born in 1516 in Portsmouth.[29] His father, also named Christopher Walker, had been a seaman since he was a young boy, and was the cabin boy on Christopher Columbus' ship, the Santa María, when he sailed to the Americas. Christopher Jr. became a shipboy on his father's ship in 1526.

In 1536, when Christopher was 20 years old, he was a part of what was supposed to be his father's last voyage. The ship was attacked by pirates and Christopher's father was murdered. He was the sole survivor and was washed ashore on a Bengalla beach, where he was found by pygmies of the Bandar tribe, who nursed him back to health and took care of him.[30] He vows revenge on "the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, in all their forms!"[31]

The Bandars showed Christopher to a cave, which resembled a human skull in appearance. Christopher later carved the features out to enhance this. This Skull Cave became his home.[32]

Wearing a costume based on the demon god, Christopher became the first of what would later be known as the Phantom. When he died, his son took over for him, when the second Phantom died, his son took over, and so on. So it would go on through the centuries, causing people to believe that the Phantom was immortal. These people gave him nicknames including "The Ghost Who Walks" and "The Man Who Cannot Die".[33]

His base is in the Deep Woods of Bengali (originally "Bengalla", or "Bangalla" and renamed Denkali in the Indian edition[34]), a fictional country initially said to be set in Asia, near India, but depicted as in Africa during and after the 1960s. The Phantom's base is the fabled Skull Cave, where all of the previous Phantoms are buried.

The Phantom is the commander of Bangalla's Jungle Patrol.[35] Because of a betrayal leading to the death of the 14th Phantom, the identity of the commander has been kept hidden from members of the patrol ever since. The Phantom uses several ways to stay in contact. These include radio and a safe with a false bottom.

[Admin Pete]

Kit Walker, the 21st Phantom
The 21st Phantom's birth name is Kit Walker, as was the name of many of the Phantoms before him. Kit was born in the Skull Cave and spent his first years in the jungle of Bangalla. His mother, Maud Thorne McPatrick, who had previously worked as Rita Hayworth's stunt double, was born in Mississippi, where Kit was sent to study when he was 12 years old, living with his aunt Lucy and uncle Jasper in the town of Clarksville, Missouri.

Here he met his wife-to-be, Diana Palmer. Kit was an extremely talented sportsman and was predicted to become the world champion in many different events (even knocking out the world heavyweight boxing champion in a sparring match when the champion visited Clarksville). Despite the opportunity to choose practically any career he wanted, Kit faithfully returned to Bengalla to take over the role of the Phantom when he received word from Guran that his father was dying from a knife-wound.[36]

One of Kit's first missions as the Phantom was to find his father's killer, Rama Singh, who had betrayed and murdered the 20th Phantom by first helping him to blow up a fleet of ships owned by the Singh Brotherhood, only to then stab him in the back, stealing his special gunbelt in the process. The 21st Phantom eventually found him and reclaimed the belt at the island of Gullique, but before he could avenge his father and bring the killer to jail, the desperate Rama blew up his lair, killing himself and his henchmen in the process.[37]

The Phantom has two animal helpers, a mountain wolf named Devil and a horse named Hero. He also has a trained falcon named Fraka. From 1962 on, The Phantom raised an orphan named "Rex King", who was later revealed to be the prince of the kingdom of Baronkhan. He also has two dolphins named Solomon and Nefertiti, and numerous other animals kept on the island of Eden.

In 1978, he married his sweetheart, Diana Palmer, who works at the United Nations. The Phantom and Diana have two children, Kit and Heloise.[38] His chief aide and ally is Guran, chief of the local pygmy Bandar tribe, who are the only tribe to know the Phantom's true nature. Guran is the Phantom's best friend since childhood and a supporter of his cause. Other allies of the 21st Phantom include Doctor Axel, a Scandinavian doctor working in Bangalla,[39] and Miss Tagama, the African teacher of Rex, Kit and Heloise.[40]

[Admin Pete]

Costume and weapons
As part of the official uniform, the Phantom wears a black domino mask and a purple skintight bodysuit. He also carries period-appropriate sidearms, currently two M1911 pistols[41] in a special belt with a skull-like buckle. Falk has insisted that the Phantom only uses his guns to shoot out the guns of his opponents, a fact that writer Peter David was unaware of when he wrote DC Comics' 1988 four-issue Phantom miniseries, in which he had the Phantom shoot to wound his enemies.[42] However, there are some early instances (in the Lee Falk strips) of the Phantom using his guns to shoot and kill people (sometimes in self-defense).

While there had been masked crime fighters like the costumed Zorro, The Shadow, or the business-suited The Clock, the Phantom was the first fictional character to wear the skintight costume and eyes with no visible pupils that has become a trademark of superheroes. Creator Lee Falk had originally envisioned a gray costume and even considered naming his creation "The Gray Ghost". It was not until the Phantom Sunday strip debuted in 1939 that the costume was shown to be purple. Falk, however, continued to refer to the costume as gray in the text of the strip on several occasions afterward, but finally accepted the purple color.[43] In a Sunday strip story published in the 1960s it was shown that the first Phantom chose the costume based on the appearance of a jungle idol, and colored the cloth with purple jungle berries.

As part of a modernization of the character in the Moonstone Books' series, The Phantom: Ghost Who Walks, the Phantom began wearing a costume made of kevlar.[44]

The Phantom Rings
A signature of the character is his two rings. One has a pattern formed like four crossing sabres, "The Good Mark", that he leaves on visitors whom he befriends, placing the person under his protection. The other, "The Evil Mark" or "Skull Mark" has a skull shape, which leaves a scar of the corresponding shape on the enemies he punches with it. He wears the Good Mark on his left hand because it is closer to the heart, and the Evil Mark on his right hand. According to the Team Fantomen stories, the Skull Ring was given to the first Phantom by Paracelsus.[45] The original owner of the Skull Ring was Emperor Nero of the Roman empire and it would later be revealed that the ring had been made from the nails that hung Jesus to the cross. The Good Mark ring was made after the sixth Phantom founded the Jungle Patrol.[46]

[Morton]

All I will say is that these were not the kind of comics I was reading bitd.