going to the comic store after work today for the first time in 13 years - recommend me some stuff

If you're feeling wealthy, I highly recommend Darwyn Cooke's DC: The New Frontier, a reimagining of the DC Universe Silver Age following the actual timeline.

If you're going for _Identity Crisis_, you might want to check out _Gotham Central_ (cop procedural with occasional Bat-related shenanigans), _Powers_ (more cops! different superheroes! cussing!), & ... um ... other stuff?

What's piquing yr interest re: _Identity Crisis_?

Oh shit Huk-L is OTM re: The New Frontier!

Just read about Gotham Central in the DKR thread...I'll definitely check it out.
Heard about Identity Crisis through the NYTimes last week.

Oh yeah, Gotham Central is great. And the trade is really reasonably priced too, so you can't miss!
If you like Identity Crisis, Brad Meltzer's Green Arrow story, Archer's Quest is in paperback now. Though it's probably best to read Kevin Smith's Quiver beforehand. Unless you can accept (and if you want to be reading comic books, you'll have to) Ollie's explanation in AQ of "I was dead. I came back." Really that's all you NEED to know anyhow.

Is that what New Frontier is about? Damn, now I might get it.

I would check out Powers, but get one of the trade paperbacks ("Who Killed Retro Girl?" is probably your best bet if it's available) -- I'm not sure now is a good time to jump into the new issues without knowing what's going on.

Astonishing X-Men is an ILC favorite (and just beat Identity Crisis for #1 in sales, didn't it?), and I hadn't been reading X-Men at all when I picked it up, so you'd probably be fine -- the major stuff that's changed is obvious as soon as you start reading.

Oh! If you're looking for stuff to go "oooh" and "aaaah" over in a DC Silver Age cum modern stylee, check out any of the JLA trade paperbacks featuring Grant Morisson as the writer. Or, if it's available, the JLA: Earth 2 graphic novel by Grant Morrison & Frank Quitely - it might be a bit pricey, given its size, but it's worth every penny.

I should set up a "recommendtions" macro on my PC, as I invariably end up repeating myself every time a thread like this gets started.

If anyone (even Tep) recommends Witchblade, kick them where it counts.

Speaking of Tep! I think the recent issues of Powers (from Marvel's Icon imprint) are a decent way to get up to speed w/out getting overwhelmed by backstory.

And don't forget to report back!

The first trade of Witchblade was good! Granted, it was good in part because of promise which was never realized after Christina Z left the book, so now it's good in a disappointing underachiever way. But they were off to a good start.

I guess I was kind of a Marvel kid back in the day (with the exception of DKR and some 2000AD) -- what is this 'Silver Age?'

Silver Age = superhero comics from the start of the Marvel Age of Comics (circa Fantastic Four #1 in 1961/2) to the end of the 60s (or early 70s?), possibly ending when the books in question began to deal with real-life issues in a counter-cultural fashion (like drug use & the Vietnam war).

Of course, while Marvel was bringing the candy-coated angst, DC was chugging along with their inspired silliness, albeit featuring updated versions of heroes they introduced in the 30s & 40s - I think DC's Silver Age kicks off with the first appearance of the Barry Allen Flash (in Showcase #4).

Aside from the coinciding emergence (or re-emergence, in DC's case) of comics as pop-art, I'm not sure there's much parallel between Marvel's Silver Age & DC's Silver Age. Someone here can prove me wrong, though.

The Silver Age was the Rebirth of the Superhero in the mid-to-late fifties.

xpost, what he said.

I suggest that on yr return from the comic store you download the program CDisplay, findable via google, and that you use your P2P of choice to search for *.cbr files - this is a good way of testing out new series by reading them online, or just reading them, if you're less scrupulous.

OK I'm off...will report back tomorrow.

ONE OF US. ONE OF US.

Should we just have an official "ILC Recommends..." thread and be done with it?

Man, that sounds so grown up.

That would probably be a good idea, though, and it could serve double duty: both "hey, recommend me stuff" and "hey, I just read this thing, you all should read it" (sometimes the Shipping This Week threads work for this, but the stuff in question wouldn't always be new).

Most of what I'd recommend wouldn't be actual monthly comics so much as trades and collections. But I'm difficult like that...

I would imagine anyone making Identity Crisis their first comics purchase in 13 years will have no desire to report back to anyone, ever

lock thread.

Bless you G00gle!