You Love It; They Hate It

- Doomlord II where he is a businessman and lives w/MRS SOUSTER.
- Saddle Tramp with its incredibly fake western set
- JOE SOAP, amazing strip in a 'Del Boy'/'Minder' rip-off style
- Manix, "you know my secret - now I must kill you"
- Sgt Streetwise, which rubbish actor will turn out to be Sergeant Streetwise?
- THE COLLECTOR!!!!!!!

To be fair Vic Fluro loves all these too. In fact the only one we're not sure of is the somewhat dodgy football yarn Thunderbolt And Smokey (Thunderbolt is called Thunderbolt because he is a great striker; Smokey is called Smokey because, well, he's black. Tho to be honest this is an accurate picture of football attitudes in the era of "The Three Degrees" et al.)

Eagle's non-photo stories are great too but they're pretty standard bash-it-out Britcomics fare and less loveable than the extremely bizarre world of the photostrips.

Funeral For a Friend are a band, surely?

Anyway - Moon Knight. Any Moon Knight. Even the crap Chuck Dixon run. I just love the character. Maybe because as a kid, I loved Marvel far more than DC, but loved Batman more than just about any Marvel character except Spidey. But Moon Knight just about combined Batman and Marvel in one slightly lame character. Couldn't have hurt that the initial run has great art and weird, interesting stories...

I even like the Konshu issues. Christ.

Also, *cough* parts of Knightfall.

I also kinda liked parts of Knightfall. And the Azrael mini, mostly because of Joe Q's art, though back then I didn't realize.

I have a soft spot for many crossovers including not only obvious stuff like Crisis and Legends, but also The Final Night, X-tinction Agenda, X-Cutioner's Song and Phalanx Covenant. I still love The Age of Apocalypse, especially the four Generation Next issues.

alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! alpha flight! it's great!!

also Dan, vol. 1 X-Force esp. post-Liefeld is tops with me!!!!

I'll join the love for Reign of the Superman - although I was a bit thrown by the stylized art in Man of Steel at the time and thought Superboy was totally lame. Loved Cyborg vs. Eradicator! Great reversals of fortune in this thing, big giant disasters, Engine City was convincingly elaborate and insane...it was good.

Good grief, I'm back home for Christmas and doing the annual reminisce through my longboxes, and did I ever buy some stinking awful comics as a child.

Armageddon 2001, especially the Batman (NOT the Detective) and Flash annuals. I even bought the really shit follow-up miniseries where Captain Atom fights Monarch and some aliens in dinosaur times.

DeMatteis' whole long-ass post-KRAVEN'S LAST HUNT psychodrama (with Harry Osborne and Vermin) in SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, which leapt into a therapeutic frenzy at least once an issue (from what I can recall). I've nothing but fondness for seeing Peter leaping about in a frenzy, maskless among bystanders, in some glum Sal Buscema-NYC landscape, wholly surrounded by though balloons saying nothing but MOMMY and DADDY - it's like Spidey meets R.D. Laing and whats not to like about that?

Oh man, speaking of Armageddon 2001, I really really really loved the Justice League International annual in that crossover.

I have a soft spot for the overly, overly wordy All-Star Squadron. It was my introduction to most of the second-tier Golden Agers, and Roy Thomas made sure that each issue contained every possible factoid about each and every one. Though, whether or not this was an editorial mandate to cover up as much of Rich Buckler's art or not remains a mystery (Thomas definitely cut back slightly after Ordway took over the art).

I really really really loved the Justice League International annual in that crossover.

They were doing seperate JLA and JLE annuals by then

It was the JLA annual. I never liked JLE, usually didn't buy it.

I don't feel like many people care about late period Shade, The Changing Man, but oh boy, I loved it. Sure, the Bachalo era stuff was good, but the issues that have a place in my heart are all from the Mark Buckingham and Richard Case runs on the series. Those last 10 issues or so of the series had a particular resonance for me as a teenager.

You know, maybe in general terms, just being a fan of Richard Case is enough to fit into this thread. His Doom Patrol run with Morrison is totally imprinted on my psyche.

You know, maybe in general terms, just being a fan of Richard Case is enough to fit into this thread. His Doom Patrol run with Morrison is totally imprinted on my psyche.

Seconded big-time.

Is there critical hate against Richard Case? I've never heard anyone criticize him, and my old comics crew all loved his Doom Patrol work at the time.

I never heard of such a thing neither. He's not somebody on the tip of my tongue all the time, but I always like his work when I see it.

Reading bunches of 90s Batman issues over the past couple of years, I read Knightfall this past year for the first time and can agree that parts were pretty good. Overall I'd say it somewhat worked, but I don't think they really established Azrael long enough to really pull it off. The first mini-series was actually pretty good, but I don't think they showed The System taking him over as effectively as it could have been done. The parts with Sondra Kinsolving and how that resolved was also awkward. The ending wasn't bad, but I don't think they really explained well enough why Bruce Wayne has to bail as the follow up Prodigal storyline starts. There is some stuff in there I think some people could retcon in some interesting ways into the current storyline.

Bane looks pretty goofy, but I actually liked the story setup on some of the Chuck Dixon stories, especially how they filled it in on some of the later stories like the one with Ra's Al Ghul a couple of years later. I'm kind of glad the Bane has ended up in The Secret Six, as I think Gail Simone will probably use the character and actually reference the Santa Prisca back story in some interesting ways.

I have put together the entire runs from the 50 cent boxes and elsewhere of John Byrne's and Walt Simonson's work with the Kirby Fourth World characters from the 90s. I know a bunch of people really cannot stand John Byrne's later work, but at least so far, I have realy liked his run with the New Gods/Fourth World. I know the Genesis mini-series is considered pretty rub, I haven't read that one yet, but I am getting up to it. So far, I have read the first part in New Gods (series 3) 12-15 and the first 6 of Jack Kirby's Fourth World and found it to be pretty good. It is pretty wordy, but Byrne's artwork is not loose like some of the later work he is really building on what was in the Kirby books with plenty of nods towards them, similar to his Fantastic Four run. Byrne also stretched out on the artwork, both referencing Kirby's use of some collage, but by using some digital artwork added in with his pencil/inks. Byrne also does a pretty cool tie to try to bring Kirby's other god story into a DC story. I know a bunch of people seemed to think the whole idea that a 'godwave' from the destruction of the Second World caused the birth of superpowers to be a bit much, but I've thought the setup was pretty sharp and at least so far, he isn't really crapping on what had been done by other artists and it could still fit somewhat into what is going now. Take mind, I'm still a bit from Genesis and maybe he must have jumped the shark later on, but so far so good. The origin of Darkseid was pretty wicked to see it shown. I've thumbed through some of Simonson's Orion and the artwork on that book is killer, but I'm going to check it out after getting through Byrne's run since it directly follows.

Oh, I don't feel like Richard Case is hated, per se, but rather that he's not particularly celebrated. He seems to be largely forgotten.

I think Case's lack of eminence is a result of Doom Patrol being eclipsed in the public and critical eye by later Morrison works. Personally, I think Morrison has never topped it; despite revisiting much of the same tropes and theories time and again, the later work doesn't strike with the force of the original. Sometimes revelation beats refinement.

I don't feel like many people care about late period Shade, The Changing Man, but oh boy, I loved it. Sure, the Bachalo era stuff was good, but the issues that have a place in my heart are all from the Mark Buckingham and Richard Case runs on the series. Those last 10 issues or so of the series had a particular resonance for me as a teenager.

I sympathize, but can't share your fondness wholeheartedly. A great many of those Buckingham issues kinda defined my teenage years, though - I think I read issues 54-59 or so repeatedly for nearly months on end. The Case issues themselves are on the whole iffy for me, but filled with indelible moments nonetheless - it's difficult to think of a comic as rife with unpredictability and possibility, whether mainstream or indie, as SHADE.

DP7, Strikeforce Morituri and Giffen and Maguire's run on JLA.
Love those team mechanics!
Morituri especially; I'd love an ESSENTIALS collection. Characters die every issue!

I second Case: I always liked his blocky and awkward figures.

Orion is GREAT earlnash. There's an all-fight issue with Darkseid and bombs that produce firepits and backups with art by Gibbons, Arthur Adams and more (can't really remember now!).

The last issues of Shade were a bit bitersweet for me, I think it really loses some emotional punch after #50. But the ending is brilliant, so...

I guess I felt like people hated Case because WHERE IS HE these days? It's not as though he's in demand, sadly. But his and Morrison's DOOM PATROL run was what got me re-excited about comics for the first time after I "grew up".

Giffen and Maguire's run on JLA.

wtf, who hates this

i have a hard time finding people who like it!

I definitely feel that Morrison hasn't topped Doom Patrol, but I read it at an extremely crucial stage in my development as a human being -- between the ages of 11 and 13.

God, I almost feel ashamed I find redeeming qualities in so much stuff I should be hating.

I'm very, very fond of Richard Case; his angular approach suited Morrison's scripts very well. I have no idea where he is; last time I saw him he used to be an inker; I think he was Wieringo's semi-official inker during his Sensational Spiderman tenure. BTW, where's Chas Truog?

I never really went back to Knightfall, but I gave it a second thought after reading R.I.P. and got to the conclusion that it probably wasn't so bad. Personally, I believe that all of those "death and reborn" story arcs from DC in the early and mid nineties, which at the time seemed (and probably were) really desperate moves to cash out on the flagship characters, ended up being endurable additions. Remarkable exceptions are the Wonder Woman stuff and the Iron Man mess in "Avengers: The Crossing". Nobody remembers those and it's better that way.

The last twenty issues or so of Shade were great; the ending was in a morrison-like level of tearjerking.

Armageddon 2001 had a great start; back when I read it, I really believed Monarch would kill the superheroes and that it was a big deal. It was kind of like DC's late answer to Days of the Future Past. But the annuals that followed were very uneven; the only standout is the JLA annual mentioned above which is, of course, nothing short of amazing. Then the ending was shabby, and the mini (Armageddon Alien Agenda) was pure rubbish. Never got to read Armageddon 2001: Inferno, but it can't have been worse than Alien Agenda.

(oh and BTW: Orion was, and still is, totally underrated.)