The good (Current!) Superhero Comics Thread.

The problem with recommending current superhero comics is that bugaboo about their being mired in continuity, and hard to jump on. And it's not just the Big 2: Invincible is a great series, but you really have to read it from the beginning, and it's numbering is in the early fifties right now. Start with the first trade, and you'll probably be hooked enough to pick up the story in "real time" in short order.

Obviously, recommendations vary in their relevance depending on people's tastes and habits. I'll just toss out a few that I enjoy:

Ed Brubaker's Captain America is a great ongoing epic of the kind that you rarely see anymore. It's not written in trade-friendly arcs, but is in fact one long superhero/espionage tale that is still spinning out threads from its first issue. Again, start with the early trades, and see if you get drawn in.

His Daredevil's also excellent: lots of the cop show grit that Bendis brought to it, but with more of a superhero/detective emphasis.

He also co-wrote the revival of Immortal Iron Fist with Matt Fraction, and while it continues strong without them, again that first trade collection is worth sampling.

I'm very fond of Peter David's X-Factor, though the art has been highly erratic, to say the least.

Since you're enjoying Thor, you might get a kick out of The Incredible Hercules, who took over the Hulk's comic at issue #112, and which presents a very different kind of godlike adventuring, with more humor and a fun supporting cast.

Two great miniseries from last year have spawned ongoing comics: Paul Cornell's Wisdom is carrying on in the Captain Britain and MI-13 series (magic and spandex and vampires and snarky Brits), and Jeff Parker's Agents of Atlas are now in their own series (think Planetary meets Agent of SHIELD).

There's also a few series out there now bringing Golden Age characters into our contemporary world. Best by a mile is The Twelve, by J. Michael Straczynski, with art by Chris Weston that has to be seen to be believed.

Two characters I really don't care about, Wolverine and Ghost Rider, are currrently being written by Jason Aaron (creator of Scalped), and his work there is head and shoulders above the norm for either character.

I don't read that much DC, and several series I have liked (Manhunter, Birds of Prey) are evidently for the chop soon. I hear good things about the various Green Lantern books and spinoffs happening currently. And I usually check out whatever Grant Morrison's writing for them, though neither Batman or Final Crisis seemed up to his best.

If you want some dark anti-superhero superhero stories, Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's The Boys is a strong read, with Ennis continuing to demonstrate that, even if he "hates" superheroes, he knows and understands what makes them work better than most. Warren Ellis and Juan Jose Ryp's ' Black Summer and No Hero are also in the same vein (all three books share a penchant for graphic violence, by the way).

Anyway, while I can't argue with the notion that the Big 2 haven't done all they might to open their worlds up to a general reading public, if you do have a taste for that kind of storytelling, there's actually a fair amount of it out there these days that's pretty decent (though how much of it is worth four bucks an issue is certainly another story).

I agree with your Marvel picks Jeb but i think their strongest title at the moment is Moon Knight. Mark Benson has really turned that title around after Huston's abysmal run.

Warren Ellis's Thunderbolts was great and Andy Diggle who took over has kept it to a decent level of quality.

I would say the new titles that are off to a good start would be Remender's Punisher and Bendis's Dark Avengers.

Millar's run on Fantastic Four has been criticised but i find it to be a lot of fun.

With DC, Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi's Green Lantern books are easily their strongest, i've thoroughly enjoyed every issue so far.

An Image title which i rank very high (possibly my favourite superhero book) is Jay Faerber's Dynamo 5, great writing and art. Love the origin story of the group. Wiki Page

I've really enjoyed the Blue Beetle reboot. Unfortunately, issue 36 is the final issue of the series. It had a couple of off issues when they were changing the writers, but the guy that they're ending the series with completely understands the tone and characterisation that Rogers was going for when he started the series, and it looks to be going out on high note.

Ultimate Spider-Man could probably go without mentioning, but I'll mention it anyway.

Matt Fraction's run on Invincible Iron Man has been pretty damn good, and he's managed to adapt to the Dark Reign storyline and still retain the themes that he started his run with.

Not technically a superhero book, but Ellis' NewUniversal is excellent. As are the two non-Ellis penned one shots NewUniversal: 1959 and NewUniversal: Conqueror.

And another 'not exactly a superhero' book: Ed Brubaker's Incognito. To say anything about the plot would be to spoil it.

Current:

Ed Brubaker's Captain America and Daredevil.(start at #1 for Cap and from Bendis' run for Daredevil)

Immortal Iron Fist.(start from #1, great Kung Fu comic with AMAZING art)

Green Lantern and Green Lantern Corps. (best books of the decade, the best Star Wars stories since Empire Strikes Back)

Ultimate Spiderman(the way Spidey should be, fun, exciting, read all the trades in 3 days, series almost finished though).

Ironically, excluding Ultimate Spider-man(though it is from this decade and a great book), these titles are the best these characters have ever been at, and they're recent. So Devin's opinion is wrong, but people called him out on it.

There's other stuff but these are the "great" stuff.

Got back into some of the X-Men titles a while back, on the strength of Morrison's New X-Men run and Brubaker and Carey later on. Sticking with Uncanny, Legacy, and X-Force.

Aaron's Ghost Rider is pretty solid.

I just can't justify buying monthly anymore. It's cheaper to wait for word on a decent arc and buy the trade when it comes out.

I read almost none of the major superhero books; I have to qualify it with "almost" because I'm reading Grant Morrison's DC stuff. But that's Morrison. He's a special case.

Otherwise, I tend to agree that the continuity-heavy stuff at Marvel and DC, when combined with the pedantic and drawn-out style of superhero writing these days, makes for impossible reading. I had the first trade of Geoff John's Green Lantern foisted on me by a friend and found it to be stultifyingly dull and arcane, not to mention the lengths Johns goes to to resurrect a dead character to no particular purpose except that he wants to reboot everything. And that's one of the supposed "best" superhero books out there right now.

What's funny is that I won't even touch the major books even when a creator I like gets involved (Morrison, again, excepted). I've read snatches of Brubaker and Fraction's non-Big Two work, enough to recognize that they're talented, but I can't be bothered with their Captain America or Iron Man.

OK, there's one other exception to that: I loved Jeff Smith's "Shazam" (a DC superhero book that's actually for kids! Holy crap!) but that's because it was a continuity-free reboot in the hands of a creator who was perfect for it.

To me, the superhero books worth reading are the weird little obscure ones that are either non-Big Two (The Umbrella Academy is terrific) or else are so tiny or obscure that they're being left alone for their writers to do their own thing (Agents of Atlas, Nextwave). Which is, of course, why the fanboys don't buy them. I remember a letter to She-Hulk during Dan Slott's run that was basically "WHY ISN'T THIS BOOK TIED INTO CIVIL WAR WHO CARES ABOUT THIS LAWYER STUFF WHEN THE MARVEL U. IS AT WAR DOOOD" which kind of summed up everything wrong with superhero culture these days.

She-Hulk was an interesting case, because it was a C-list character, but it did start to feature callbacks to old continuity...but it was so much fun and avoided almost all the traps of mainstream superhero books that I read it anyway. Yet, I haven't bothered to pick up any of Slott's efforts on the bigger titles like Spider-man. I guess I'm fickle.

What's with all the fucking Morrison hate these days? I don't get it. FC was the strongest epic event series in recent memory (not exactly great praise).

I generally follow writers into whatever they do, indie or mainstream and for a lot of people who saw Robert Kirkman's hostage video last year, it was like, well, not exactly new news. Many writers have been doing this for years.

Joe Casey - he has a deluxe Codeflesh hitting this week, but I also grabbed his Defenders mini last year.

Howard Chaykin - I'm a completest of his writing, not his art, but I did get his recent work on Cap.

Garth Ennis - he seems happier with Dynamite and Avatar these days, but he did do that pretty funny Punny 6-shot last month.

Jason Aaron - great work on Wolverine and Ghost Rider in recent memory. Doesn't touched Scalped, but not much does.

Powers.

Incredible Hercules is a lot of fun

Wow. Someone knows jack. Johns' stuff doesn't kick off until the third trade which is the one year later arc. The stuff before is important because it's setup. Then it shifts into Star Wars and doesn't look back. The BEST superhero book of the past 20 years. And Morrison's DC stuff is average at best, apart from Superman Beyond which was great.

I'll second Johns' GREEN LANTERN work. Easily the most entertaining (and epic) book DC is putting out right now. Great stuff!

Yeah, I wasn't sure that the "darker" side of the current Marvel U was as good an entry point. I love Thunderbolts, but it's really become a sort of "core" title in an improbable way, and I wonder if it would read as well as a standalone book.

Huston's Moon Knight got off to a great start, but it did fall apart quickly (not unlike my reaction to his last couple of novels). I like Benson, and was very surprised he wasn't part of the new Punisher MAX rotating team.

I like Remender's Punisher so far (and it does qualify as "superhero" the way the MAX book doesn't), but I've seen him run out of steam after a strong start on other series, so that one's kind of wait and see before I'd recommend it to someone else.

He was asking about books that are still being published.



(OK, OK, I kid, but the latest restart/reboot is Bendis' umpteenth promise that the book will start coming out regularly, and I'll believe that when I see it. Can't wait for the TV series, though).

A lot of people haven't read it, and I thought it would be alright to circumvent the rules of the thread in exchange for a good suggestion. Start with Who Killed Retro Girl and make your way from there.

I do dearly wish Bendis was doing that instead of all the Marvel events stuff.

I know, I know. Great book.

I had a gift certificate for a local comic/game/bookstore that I held onto for over a year waiting for that goddam volume 2 Powers hardback to come out. Finally, I gave up (who knows how long the place will be around?) and used it on the SIP Treasury edition, and something else.

And the next goddam week fucking Powers vol 2 comes out!

I can get you that with 30% off and no sales tax.

A very generous offer, but I did wind up getting it from Amazon a few weeks later. Thanks, though.

Well keep me in mind for all your comic needs!

*packs traveling display suitcase and takes it next door*

Gosh, you sure told me.

Look, I might give this quasi-legendary Geoff Johns Green Lantern run another shot if I can borrow the next trade from a friend or the library. But the basic premise of "Rebirth" was hugely flawed. It's the textbook "let's make sure death continues to mean absolutely nothing to superheroes" mentality, to no purpose that I can see. I mean, is Hal Jordan really such an awesome character that he had to be brought back via that ridiculously convoluted method, when they could have just used one of the other Green Lanterns for whatever story Johns wanted to tell?

X-Factor is great, but i can see it slipping away the way volume 1 did with too much PAD whimsy and painfully inconsistent art.

I still like guardians of the galaxy, for some of that cosmic marvel - nova's still a good read too.

If i was looking for something that had just started i would go with dark avengers or even secret warriors, both of these have legs.

dan slott on mighty avengers is shaping up nicely too, it's got some good homage to classic marvel stuff but isn't mired in continuity and it's just starting.

I would suggest waiting for trade on a lot of these but you don't seem like a trade waiter and recently the marvel trades have taken a real tumble - too short, too expensive and in super expensive hardcover for way too long.

the only other thing i can suggest is trying some of the DCP digital comics through a torrent site. It can be a good cheap way to suck it and see if you like it before banging down $4 a throw.

Though I was not on board with the retconning of Spider-Man's marriage to Mary Jane, I think "Brand New Day" is done as well as it could be. And I like picking up a new Spidey book almost every week.

The "Old Man Logan" storyarc continues to keep me engaged, and I don't normally pick up "Wolverine."

"Kick Ass" is fun. I wish it wouldn't ship so late.

Millar and Hitch's run on "Fantastic Four" is a great time.

One thing I give DC a heckuva lot of credit for in the past few years is getting some of the best, most conflicted villains in comics in their titles - Sinestro, Black Adam, and Red Crow.

Comic books was a hobby I left dead and forgotten. The proliferation, endless spin-offs, and sheer running-into-the-ground-ness of it all turned me off to no end.

While I've dallied over the years with various compilations and a few series, it is Powers that makes me remember why I once spent way too much time and money on comic books.

Brubaker's final arc on DAREDEVIL started two issues ago. He's brought the Kingpin back. It's pretty nice stuff so far. I was gonna try dropping DD, but he just keeps pulling me back in! Of course, I should be able to drop it when Bru leaves. We'll see...

iirc Andy Diggle's picking up DD after Brubaker. I wouldn't rank Diggle right up there with Brubaker when it comes to Supes, but he's a writer of merit.

You are correct. There was a funny bit from a recent Marvel Con panel where Matt Fraction piped in about Diggle taking over:

Fraction added, “Wait till you see how Diggle writes a New Yorker. It’s gonna be like payback for every time an American has assumed that a British guy talks like Dick Van Dyke from ‘Mary Poppins.’ Daredevil’s new catchphrase will be, ‘Blimey! I hear a crime!’”

Great suggestion. I just tore through all the volumes, and actually signed up for a subscription that may someday come.

I haven't signed up for a comic book subscription in well over a decade. It was a medium I had largely given up on (except to buy trade paperbacks of completed stories/arcs), but Powers pulled me back in.

Speaking of Powers, did I just hear it was being turned into a TV series, or was that my imagination?

That is real. It's gonna be on FX.

I'm glad you're enjoying it. In large I've made the move from monthly issues to hardcovers and trades (hey, I work in comics - I still have to read the stuff on occasion) but Powers is perpetually on my pull list. At this point in time there's only about five titles that I read the Tuesday they come in.