Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll give it a look.
I’ve been really wary of Johns for a while now. I’ve been buying the current JSA arc and enjoying that (and 52, only because having Morrison, Rucka and Waid on board really made it impossible in my eyes for that comic not to work).
And even then he gets under my nerves. I can’t quite put a finger on it but there’s something about Johns dialogue which gets under my skin the same way Bendis’ does.
The example off the top of my head is a recent issue where an armored up Green Lantern goes after Magog and delivers this line “You’re hurting our kids” or something like that.
Johns just loves to pack his dialogue with things that are intended to sound cool or to provide characterization – here its how protective the old time JSAers are of the new generation – but it always reads forced to me.
And then there’s this line that he keeps using in JSA about how “the world needs better good guys” which just sounds like it comes out of the mouth of an eight year old.
It’s kind of like Johns can’t just show us how great these characters are by writing good stories, but has to use the dialogue to constantly “tell us” WHY these characters are great or to remind us about his overall approach to them.
“I’m Hal Jordan. I’m a fighter jock. My dad died, and I realized I had nothign left to fear” blah blah blah. Stuff like that.
Anyway, off on a tangent. Just had to get that off my chest.

I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and hope that you recognized the sarcasm about Captain Trips. Surely Brad can’t be that out of touch. Surely he can’t.

BTW, kudos on the Al Gore joke. The man’s such a difficult target to hit!

Well, that is a good point.

#21′s also an excuse for Macguire to draw some really great renditions of Batman villains, everyone from Clayface to Catman!!!

Do you even like comics?

“Hey, here’s some comics I haven’t bothered to read, but they’re probably all crap.”

There. Fixed.”

But then you wouldn’t have anything to get self-righteous about!

Invincible was pretty solid for the first 30-35 or so issues. During that time, it was a fresh superhero book that balanced classic superhero tropes with modern violence. It also built to a nice climax(of sorts). Since then, it’s become a meandering bore with high points every now and then The book just kind of floats around content to repeat itself and sets up stories which won’t have any resolution until Kirkman gets stuck for ideas(which is something he’s always done, but by now I think it’s getting tedious). At this point in the books history, Kirkman seems more interested in “building the brand” than in pushing the genre to it’s limits. Which, I should note, isn’t really a bad thing, but it’s why I find the book less interesting than when it started.

The biggest reason I’ve stuck with the book is that Ottley’s work is just the cat’s pajamas. I really think that he is the pinnacle of Superhero Comic Art. Although, I really hate the new “Jim Lee designed” costume. Sometimes Kirkman’s love for bad 90′s comics bothers me.

“Hey, here’s some comics I haven’t bothered to read, but they’re probably all crap.”

There. Fixed.

I’d pay money to see Pip the Troll stub his cigar out on Carnage.

Brian Lockhart: I don’t know if you read Geoff Johns’ Legion arc in Action, but I liked it as much as Busiek’s Superman stuff. Better, maybe. I say this as a reader who does not usually like Johns’ work (beyond the early-00′s JSA).

Actually, it also collects the five issue Morrison/Daniel arc that leads into Batman RIP. I get that this is a stream-of-consciousness stream of impressions, but is a quick internet search for the accurate information that time-consuming?

SPOILERS

… That in a few issues something will happen to sort of “erase” Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman from history, and we’ll get a few weeks if not months worth of this alternate-DCU, which could be very interesting.

Oh, and it seems pretty self-contained. No “spine of the DCU” crap and no indication that this is just going to lead into yet a fourth weekly when it wraps up.

The Bad:
My limited budget is already stretched. I just can’t stomach another weekly. If I could maybe drop four titles a month to make up for Trinity, I would. But I can’t.
And I agree there can be too much of a good thing. I’m committed to buying Morrison’s Batman and Robinson’s Superman (with the occasional Geoff Johns Action-tie in when ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY). So I just can’t justify buying for extra issues a month with those characters in them.
And finally, Busiek’s story seems epic in scope, but it’s also competing for my cash with Final Crisis, and I just don’t need two big “event” stories in my life right now.

Odd little html error there.

But of course, people are always going on about his books.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, I got the first Invincible hardcover (13 issues) out of my library. The first few issues are still not very good, but by the end of that volume, it’s REAL good. REAL good. I think you may need to put a bit more of an investment in it. I’m glad I did.

For a second I thought you mean the Watchmen guy. Now that would be great!

Failing that, when you get something that looks like this, take a minute and go to the “Manage” function at the Dashboard (the place you arrive when you use our administrative “wp-admin” URL) and clean up the formatting and maybe the typos. People will be so grateful they’ll probably stop yelling at you about the whole shoot-from-the-hip thing.

Well, at least for a little while.