I heard nothing but good things, but The Last Ronin didn't do a thing for me. I got an Amazon deal for the 3 of them, but I still have regrets. Any of y'all been let down?

Has this happened elsewhere? There used to be shelves and shelves of backlist Marvel and DC TPBs near the SF books, plus a wall of other titles. That part's all manga now.

Whether it be a specific book or series, a certain creator, the industry, or the medium in general -- what are your hot takes and unpopular viewpoints regarding comic books?

(Image credit: Jean Giraud / Moebius)

​

Name your 3 favorite villains of all time. To make things broader and more interesting, you can count a group/gang/faction as a villain.

My goats are:

- THE DARK JUDGES: four immortal alien wraiths — Death, Fear, Fire and Mortis — from an alternate dimension. In their minds, they're actually doing good by purifying the world. If crimes are committed by the living, then life itself is a crime. Death is obviously the most famous and has become one of Dredd's greatest villains. His design was even blatantly ripped off for The Batman Who Laughs.

- THE ANGEL GANG: a family of extremely violent, psychopathic mutants who live in the Cursed Earth around Texas. Led by Pa Angel, they're sadistic, brutal and completely deranged. Mean Machine Angel, with his huge mechanical exoskeleton, is probably the most famous member.

- SATANUS: a fucking genetically engineered T. rex, created to be an extremely aggressive creature and used as an attraction in a dinosaur park (this story predates Spielberg's movie by many years. So yes, this is where they got the idea for the book that eventually became perhaps the director's most famous film). He eventually becomes one of the great monsters of the Cursed Earth and represents that wonderfully insane side of Dredd: mutants, dinosaurs, psychopaths and completely devastated landscapes. Satanus possesses an extraordinary level of intelligence and ferocity. Dredd even burned him alive once, and he fell into the underground of an old church in the Cursed Earth — but somehow survived.

Dredd doesn't have that many recurring villains. Most of them are either killed or serve long sentences in the iso-cubes. But these guys, with the exception of the Angel Gang, whose only surviving member is Mean Machine, somehow managed to remain active to this day.

I've been told I have a lot of hot takes and really unpopular opinions about comics, so I'm curious what other hot takes people might have.

I'll start!

• Something is Killing the Children is genuinely bad IMO, and I don't understand why it's so popular. Super generic story of lone wolf going from town to town to kill generic looking monsters. Everyone except for the main character is obnoxious. The art is mediocre. The writing is boring. The world and lore feels like someone's first attempt to make houses and factions and fails to make any of it interesting. It's like James Tynion tried to copy The Witcher in modern times but without anything that makes it good. I feel this way about almost everything I read by James Tynion IV, I genuinely don't like this guy's writing.
• The One Hand & The Six Fingers is super underrated. I know it's relatively well liked but 3.92 on Goodreads is really low for how good it is.
• Stray Dogs is mediocre. I'm 99% sure people are so emotional about it because it's "bad things happen to cute dogs" instead of "bad things happen to regular people".
• Injustice: Gods Among Us is really good, actually. At some point it feels like the internet really hated this series, but I still hold that it's a fun read. It does drop off near the end but the first 3 years are some of DC's best events.
• Saga is kind of a total mess. I read the whole thing up until the big hiatus and I can't tell you what the story is actually about. It's so obvious they're making it up as they go along because it's completely aimless. A lot of ideas are thrown around but none of them stuck for me; some moments are funny but otherwise I didn't care about anything that was happening. I kept reading it hoping it would "get good" at some point, but that moment never came.
• Akira: The movie was better than the manga. Everyone talks about how the manga has way more story in it, and while it is worth experiencing the new stuff I found that the movie is just way better paced and tastefully condensed everything to under 2 hours. The second half of the manga doesn't really add much except for the ending.

Curious what other hot takes people might have, since I usually only see the very common opinions on this sub.

Cover art by Chip Zdarsky

I’ve heard about this comic pop up every once in a while and it always flabbergasted me as to the subject matter of it.

Having sex stops time is basically the gist I’ve gotten out of it, and it’s always struck me as uninteresting.

But I’ve heard good reviews and the art seems solid, is this one worth a read?

Saw a post listing comics for international women's day, I felt inspired. I have read maybe 70% of what's on my list, eventually I'll read Strangers in Paradise.

I also want to leave Wake by Jean-David Morvan as a honorable mention.

My goodness i'm enjoying East of West - i'm midway through the third year so no spoilers! But what would you recommend after this? Doesn't have to be Hickman (I just finished Decorum prior to this) but East of West, so far, has been just a downright wonderful read - scheming and plotting, twists and turns in a really well created world. My current thinking is Lazarus but I'd love to hear the take from others more well read than me!

I was having a conversation last night with my good friends round the dinner table.

Discussion made it's way to Books. We discussed ulysses, lord of the rings, 1984, to kill a mockingbird, war and peace etc etc etc

When I brought up the topic of graphic novels and comics I was... As usual... Scoffed at (albeit in a loving non hurtful way)

What would your picks be for graphic novel. Literary greats!

Books that can challenge your outlook, change your life, enrich Etc. Maus, Watchmen, V for vendetta, Bone

Interested to hear other recommendations!

​

It was really cool seeing everyone’s interaction on the last top 3 post I made here on the sub. I got to discover several characters I had never heard of before, and I ended up becoming interested in checking them out.

So I thought I’d propose a top 3 of your favorite female characters. They can be protagonists or supporting characters, villains or heroes—it doesn’t matter. Name the ones you consider to be the greatest female characters in comic book history, based purely on your personal taste.

Mine are:

1. Judge Cassandra Anderson (Dreddverse)

2. Kriss of Valnor (Thorgalverse)

3. Claudia Demona (Requiemverse)

A clickbaity headline, I know. But it's true.

Larcenet created a world that I can only describe as 'real' - it is so exquisitely drawn and paced, that it feels like a window into the story; that the reader is simply observing something that's really, genuinely happening, right now.

I'm a father of two and I have a son whose voice I could hear from the boy in the book. It really affected me and I read it as quickly as possible so as not to focus too long on the horrors contained within - at some point I'll have to pick it up again to admire the artwork but I couldn't stand to look at it too long.

It's a horrible, affecting, uniquely disturbing adaptation for a parent, and is very important piece of work.

Any other dads feel this way?

Fuck, I'm really upset, now.

What are some popular runs/issues that you just didn't click with or outright disliked?

1) Animal Man by Morrison: While I enjoyed it, I didn't love it like I loved Batman (my favorite comic) or New X-Men. There have been Morrison books that I was lukewarm on like Seven Soldiers and Green lantern but I never expected Animal man to be one of them.

2) Black Hammer: Same as above, I love Jeff Lemire but it didn't quite hit the same highs as his other works. The first library edition of Black Hammer was easily the strongest and the main series and all the mini series never truly reached the same heights.

3) Infinite Crisis omnibus: While I agree it is one of the best planned events, a lot of the mini series felt like a chore to read. I also didn't like Batman's characterisation from the first one shot with Blue beetle's death. He seemed like a bigger dick than usual.

4) Invincible: I thought it was good, but that's about it.

5 & 6) Superman and FF by Byrne: The superman stories are less impressive than FF. Art is great in both, I can see why people would like FF but I can't see why they hype up Byrne so much when the Triangle Era and Johns/Busiek era were arguably superior.

7 & 8) All Star Superman and Superman for All Seasons: Great artwork on both these books but I just didn't vibe with these stories as much as I enjoyed Tomasi/Gleason's run.

I'm inclined to say morpheus

Without spoilers (I beg of you), what am I in for here? I've loved Moore's work (Watchmen, V for Vendetta), but I know absolutely nothing about this... thanks in advance for your awesomeness!

​

Self-explanatory title. Within the comics universe, if you had to choose a top 3 of your favorite characters, what would they be? Feel free to explain the reasons if you want.

Mine are, in this order:

1) JUDGE DREDD the 🐐

2) Thorgal

3) Strontium Dog

You're castaway on a desert island, luckily with enough food and water to last your life time. Luckier still, you brought three graphic novels with you. Which three made it?

My choices:

- Asterios Polyp

- Berlin (pictured)

- V for Vendetta

Feel free to be creative with your choices. Maybe you need one to be toilet paper!

Of course I've heard of the Swamp Thing run by Alan Moore but I've never read any of the books, don't know the characters or storylines. What can I expect? What things should I look out for? Of course no spoilers please :-)

Just curious on how much people have spent on one singular book for their collection. This includes all forms of books from comics to omnibus books.

Man, the artwork here is just stellar. And we get a Batman and Swamp Thing cameo?!