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Just read this FCBD Spider-Man issue that was cool. Makes me want to start getting a monthly Spidey book.

What's the choice?

 

Also there was a Venom story in there by Donny Cates and I'm on board. Makes me want to check out all his Marvel stuff without knowing anything about these characters.

 

His Venom run is the first Venom story I've read and I love it.

 

@Tim keeps telling me to read it! I plan to just haven't gotten around to it yet.

 

Venom is great.

 

Which FCBD issue? The most recent one from last year?

The only ongoing (Peter Parker) Spider-Man series right now is Amazing Spider-Man, which comes out twice a month, plus occasional mini-events that make it temporarily essentially weekly for that event. Plus some oversized issues here & there. And... I’m personally not a fan of it, lol.

There is a new monthly Spider-Man comic launching in I think March (got delayed a few times) called Non-Stop Spider-Man, which looks pretty cool. Supposed to just be a big, fun, high energy, “nonstop” titled. Solid creative team, & looks probably pretty new reader friendly.

There’s also Miles Morales: Spider-Man, which is pretty good. I’m not keeping up with that one monthly anymore, but I liked how Saladin Ahmed wrote the main characters.

 

Yeah that's the one!

That first one sounds daunting, think I'll just jump on board with Non-Stop. There was actually an ad on the back cover of it for that book haha. Definitely seems like what I'm looking for, just kinda Spidey fighting his villains. Very Batman-y which should be cool and kinda what I'm looking for.

I've read all of BMB Miles but nothing since then. Not sure how different that is if at all

 

I’m trying to play catch up and have got all but a few issues (prefer them to trades). Can’t wait to finish them and dive in. I’ve loved his Thor run and I’ve always had a cursory interest in Venom.

 

If I remember right, that FCBD Spidey story was written by the guy who writes Black Cat, which is being relaunched as a King in Black tie-in after some time off. And, I think it was drawn by Pat Gleason? Who’s now in the ASM rotation, after previously being at DC on Superman, & I think Robin. Anyways, I’ve only read a couple issues of Black Cat, but it seems really fun.

Ahmed more or less picked up Miles where Bendis left off. If you liked the other Miles stuff, worth eventually catching up on the current series.

 

Yep, that Spidey story was so fun! Black Cat definitely seemed like a cool character. I'm familiar with Gleason and his partnership with Tomasi. They wrote/drew Batman & Robin for a good decade plus, didn't realize he had moved over to Marvel. Always been a fan of his.

That's good to know about MM, I'll but it on my list

 

Read all of Three Jokers today and that was incredible. Johns and Fabok at their absolute best

 

Amazing Spider-Man has some really high highs and some really low lows. I enjoy it but can see why others wouldn’t. I will say, I can’t believe a run has made me think “Boomerang should be in this more” but Amazing has done it.

Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man was better, it’s a shame that finished.

 

I’ll add onto the Miles praise. I just finished reading the first ten of the current run and I’m really enjoying it.

 

Have you read Superior Foes of Spider-Man? Now that was a great Nick Spencer Boomerang run (which, in retrospect, I wonder how much of the load Steve Lieber was carrying, lol).

 

lol, the YouTube channel Cartoonist Kayfabe put out a video about John Byrne’s sad little X-Men fan comics he makes now, & a tweet clearly written by Ed Piskor about the video called them the best X-Men comics of the past 30 years. Some of the comics people I follow have rightly dunked on that nonsense.

I spent like a year really into Cartoonist Kayfabe, partly because I think Jim Rugg is a cool dude with some great work & partly because they’ve touched on some neat stuff & had some good interviews. But, between recent videos being less compelling, YouTube’s algorithm telling me if I like them I’d also like comicsgate shit, & me just getting tired of Ed’s grating personality, I’ve really lost interest in the channel. Ed himself has some neat aspects to his cartooning, but I’ve completely lost interest in his work overall.

Like, just imagine thinking transphobic old man Byrne doodling fanfic of his most iconic work from 40 yrs ago (which had the benefit of Claremont, Austin, & Orzechowski) is better than Morrison/Quitely, or Milligan/Allred, or the better Krakoa era stuff by Hickman & friends, or... even, like, Bendis/Bachalo, Marjorie Liu, Tom Taylor, etc., lol.

 

Is anyone reading Future State? I’m haven’t been really reading any of the main DC but it looks kinda interesting. Should I try it, any recs?



Also as an aside is there any sites that have a like general release calendar?

 

Clearly need to get the YT algorithm recommending you my videos instead!

But also this is a good note on which X-Men runs I should eventually check out. I read House/Powers but fell off after that. Probably need to reread it though to make sure I understood what was going on.

 

This reminds me that I eventually need to update the X-Men thread’s first post with a bunch of recommendations like I did for the Spider-Man thread, lol.

But, yeah, the Morrison New X-Men run with Quitely, etc., on art is my favorite X-Men run. It’s wild & sometimes messy & probably a bad starting point for the franchise, but my gosh do I love it. The Milligan/Allred run I mention is a series called X-Statix (initially started out as X-Force before relaunching), which ran around the same time as X-Men. My favorite Wolverine run, Greg Rucka’s, is also from this early 00s period, as is Claremont’s Kitty Pryde-centric miniseries Mekanix. Such a good era imo.

 

I gave all the issues they released the first week a veeeeerry casual glance and they seem to be absolutely all over the place, specifically within the "Future State continuity" or lack thereof, but I plan on giving them deeper reads tonight. Will check back and see if my thoughts have changed.

 

Superman of Metropolis: It's an alright story. I like the Brain Cells concept, would like to see that stick around in some manner. The Mr. Miracle and Guardian back-ups are fine. They're there.

The Next Batman: Pretty good. I'm not entirely sure, is it Tim/Jace or Luke who's the new Batman? Or are we not supposed to know yet? The Outsiders backup is alright, the art is really nice though. Arkham Knights backup is pretty decent, just kinda predictable. Fun though.

Wonder Woman: Really fun. Well-done. A cool world they're creating here, excited to see Yara potentially pop up in the future.

Harley Quinn: Pretty cool. Kind of feels like an anime or slick animated film just... in comic form. Really good "motion" created by it. Art is slick as hell.

Swamp Thing: Well done enough. To be honest I'm not a huge Swamp Thing fan, so it didn't do much for me, but the concept/execution was cool.

The Flash: Woof. Ugh.


After catching the little blurb about "after Death Metal these are all possible futures I guess maybe" thing it makes more sense that these don't really feel all that interconnected at all, but I still just... if these are the remnants of 5G, what was the *plan* there? Was it always just planned to be random? God, I want a behind the scenes look into all that.

 

Why not try again, right?

 

Oh ffs

 

Hot take: Clones are good for Spider-Man comics more often than they’re bad.

The original clone story by Gerry Conway & Ross Andru was a good classic Spidey tale that helped Peter move on from mourning Gwen to being able to be with MJ. The Ultimate Spider-Man version wasn’t bad & gave us one of my favorite Spider characters, Ultimate Spider-Woman. And, the Clone Conspiracy miniseries Jim Cheung drew was good, one of the highlights of Slott’s up & down run. Heck, even the infamous Clone Saga that everyone talks about had its moments; it’s biggest failing was being overly long & aimless, which was mostly due to internal politics at the time related to Age of Apocalypse, Onslaught, & Death of Superman/Knightfall.

Saladin Ahmed is still a ballsy motherfucker for outright advertising this as “clone saga” given fan stigma, lol. But, I trust him with the concept.

Besides, thank goodness it’s him doing it; I initially thought it was gonna be an arc in Spencer’s ASM & was terrified, lol.

 

I’ll see if I already have any of these in my to read list on MU! If not, I’ll add them. Thanks!