Comic Book Resources

Wow, I can do a few this time.

-The cover theme: The characters featured on each cover (Slyde, Poison, and SHOC) were killed during "Enemy of the State".

-The cover game: "Sabretooth: In The Red Zone" had all five original X-Men on its gatefold cover.

-Who is it: Is Kanjar Ro, though I did not get it until the Joe Kelly clue.

I prefer the Grant morrison JLA run to New X-men - for the majority of that run Howard Porter kept the art chores going and came up with some brilliant images. The New X-men run was seriously hampered by the arrival of Igor Kordey on art , and a final arc which, basically seemed to make very little sense , except possibly to a long term reader. I enjoyed both runs but a consistent art team just gives JLA the edge.

The JLA had a lot of high points and was, generally, an explosion of weird, great, superhero-y ideas. New X-Men was far too hampered by editorial churlishness.

Hmmm. Judged purely on the writing, X-men. Just though t there was more depth to it.

I got the cover challenge right on my own this time (although, as a fan of SHOC (yup, I'm the one), I maintain they could easily bring him back since he's referred to as 'SHOCK' in Wolverine issues.)

Yay for me.

Have a good day.
John Cage

My dad had the Leader appearance reprint in a Giant Size issue and the actual Hulk 174 with the Doc Samson appearance. Both stories were awesome, and why I love both characters until the day I die. It's also why I love Batroc, who was in a Captain America 108, or something like that.

Cover game: Easy, X-Men #3:
http://www.comics.org/coverview.lasso?id=50516&zoom=4

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

Cover theme:

I guess that every issue cover featured the first appearance of a character who later appeared in Mark Millar's Wolverine run as part of a supervillian army.

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

I thought X-Men was better, but keep in mind that I never liked the "classic" Justice League.

Best,
Hunter (Pedro Bouça)

Cover game: X-Factor #1

Cover game: X-Men #200 (the Finch cover).

Bloom - he means X-Men volume 2, not X-Men which later became Uncanny.

Does he have to be Angel, or can it be any incarnation of Warren Worthington?

JLA wins if only because unlike Marvel, DC didn't freakin' run away from the promises and the energy that Morrison started in JLA two seconds after he left the book.

Ahem. In other words, the company allowed him to have more of a lasting legacy on that team.

I had Kanjar Ro at 4...cuz I just watched the episode:)

Hulk #381 (http://www.hulklibrary.com/hulk/comics/comic-show.asp?Id=tih2&Issue=381)
First cover appearance of the Pantheon, who I'd say are as much supporting cast as Jim Wilson.

Bully...only by ignoring..if not actively spitting...on the legacy left by those who came before him.

Cover game- X-men #200, unless the cover game requires that the original X-men be on the cover all by their lonesomes.

Morrison didn't ignore the legacy of the last JLA series, he specifically addressed it by making the JLA good again, instead of an Avengers clone with crummy "real world" problems. I'm glad he had the gall to make a good comic rather than a comic that concerned itself with specifically addressing continuity issues.

There was one other minor character who debuted on a Hulk cover, one issue after his first appearance in the preceding issue.

http://scoop.diamondgalleries.com/news_images/6797_18203_9.jpg

That last Hulk issue has a great bit with Rick Jones trying to get Marlo brought back to life. Dr. Strange says it's impossible; Rick replies, 'Let's take a straw poll--I've been dead before, so have you. Wong?' 'Um, yes.' 'So come on, Doc!'

It's a neat little inversion of convention, in which all the baggage of death in comics is used to further the story.

I'd agree that the Pantheon absolutely count. The merged Hulk/Pantheon stories were the high mark of Peter David's writing on the Hulk.

One great thing about the Pantheon was that David chose to introduce them into the book slowly, member by member, as a developing subplot - Perseus first shows up in #368 (also Dale Keown's first issue on pencils), and their backstory and reasons for pursuing the Hulk aren't fully revealed until #381 (over a year later). As a kid, wanting to know who these people were and enjoying the slow ride David was taking with their story hooked me on the title.

Roger: I don't think you can say that Wolverine is a Hulk supporting cast member.

Writing-wise (because that is what Brian asked), I'd say New X-Men was the better run. There were at least four or five subplots going on at any given time, and he really made an effort to EVOLVE as many characters as possible.

I can't even count the number of times I was reading that book and yelling "Holy shit!" in awe.

Cover game: Spectacular Spider-Man (first comic series) #199. Curiously, despite all 5 original X-Men guest-starring in Spectacular #197-9, only this final issue features all five.

I've never actually read all of JLA, so I have to say NXM. And it made the X-Men readable, which is a spectacular feat.

Kanjar Ro suspected on 3 and 4. He's one of my favorite alien baddies.

"Bloom - he means X-Men volume 2, not X-Men which later became Uncanny."

Ah, mea culpa. That's my own fault for trying to read too soon after waking up.

But to vindicate myself: X-Men #30, Cyclops and Jean Grey's wedding (even if you can't really tell which of the generic Andy Kubert-drawn guys with brown hair is Iceman, you know he's one of them).

New X-Men was better than JLA.

JLA was some damn good superhero comics, butt they didn't do too much beyond that, where as New X-Men was a new take/re-envisioning on the concept, but one that incorporated the past.
JLA was enjoyable, but New X-Men left one going 'What can he possibly do next???'.
It's a shame they undid everything he was did straight after (and also that the other 'main' X-book was written by a very poor writer like Austen, and Casey doing a career worst).

How about Bereet? She first appeared in Rampaging Hulk (1st series) 1 and first showed up on the cover of Incredible Hulk 287. Sure, Rampaging was retconned out of continuity upon her reappearance, but still...

Same first appearance/first cover recurring villains: Wendigo first appears in and on the cover of 162; Zzzaxx in/on 166, Glob in/on 121. Just off the top of my head.

The New X-men run was seriously hampered by the arrival of Igor Kordey on art , and a final arc which, basically seemed to make very little sense , except possibly to a long term reader.

The final arc was just a 'Days Of Future Past' style story, but with Morrison making the bleak future more interesting. If you read his run from the start, you had everything you needed to know for it to make sense.
Hell, it's how they defeat the villain, Sublime, who was the villain behind everything that happened in his run.

JLA. I've said it before and I'll say it again--a good run on a title is one where they don't _need_ to undo everything you did two issues later.

They didn't need to undo any of it.