I like collecting media. I had a sizeable physical computer game collection which I sold 99% of a year or two ago as all my game purchases are now digital only. I had sizeable CD/DVD/VHS collections, all of which are also gone now replaced by digital alternatives. I still have a decent book collection, not what it once was, but I still like to have physical copies of books. Though there is a caveat there, the majority of my book collection is RPGs which I prefer to have physically because they are something you use. Even if I own a physical copy of a book, I will generally read a digital one. The same goes for comics. What’s the point of this preamble? Just illustrating that I greatly prefer my media in a digital format these days (and that the only thing standing between me and being a hoarder is lack of space).
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Mick vs The Marvel Universe – 9.5– Reading will continue until morale improves
My attempts to get back into American comics has traditionally not gone well for nearly two decades at this point. That might not seem odd with no context but with the context that over the course of a year I read what even I consider a staggering amount of Chinese, Korean and Japanese comics (to the point where one could probably argue its an addiction or certainly an ersatz opioid) I do find it odd that I never got back into reading, not just American comics but more or less any English language comics. This specific attempt to get back into Marvel, as mentioned here, started in this form in 2014, then 2016, then again in early 2022. Where it stuttered along for three months or so, then jumped to February 2023 and now here we are again at the tail end of 2024.
I’ll be honest. I’m not even sure if I legitimately want to read American comics. I’ve gotten interested again. Which is why I’m writing this. But there are a growing category of things that I used to like, and feel I should like, but just can’t seem to get into. Whether that’s genres, activities, authors, etc. I sometimes feel that I “should” like them when the reality is I feel no real excitement or have no lasting interest in them. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. People’s tastes change. But I sometimes wonder if the number of things that interest or excite me is constantly shrinking that, as the common element, it may be something to do with me. Crippling depression perhaps? But just like my doctor did when I mentioned that I’m going to ignore it.
Tangent aside and back to Marvel comics. One brother has been singing the praises for the Krakoa era X-Men stuff and another showed me the Venom 3 trailer which was surprisingly decent and made me interested in Knull. A character I know primarily through Marvel SNAP (which I am to my own surprise still playing). There doesnt seem to be any nicely siloed off story arc to read to get info on Knull (or at least none a casual googling threw up). So I will perhaps return to my arguably self defeating attempts to catch up on the entire Marvel continuity.
Up next we have Grant Morrison’s X-Men run. Which I have many thoughts on.
Mick vs The Marvel Universe – 09 – Extreme Iron Men and unentertaining war crimes
The Invincible Iron Man – Extremis
Warren Ellis is one of those writers where even if you find what you read uninteresting you generally have to admit it’s well written. Personally I find his work very hit or miss. Which is unusual in its own way because I also find his work fairly samey. The same concepts and patterns tend to pop up in a lot of them, just with different set dressing, usually the characters. For the record I remember greatly disliking Extremis the first time I read it so I wan’t exactly champing at the bit.
Read MoreMick vs The Marvel Universe – 08 – Resuming Hostilities
Well it’s been six months since my last attempt at this. I think part’s six and seven made my distaste for what I was reading fairly clear and honestly in the normal course of things that would have been the end of it. But then Marvel SNAP launched globally and I got very into that (I’m cooling on it after a few months but that’s due to structural issues rather than the core gameplay). As did most of my brothers.
So we were talking about it and some of the, to us anyway, obscure characters featured in it. Then a month or two later Marvel’s Midnight Sun’s came out which I played for quite a while and enjoyed. The one of my brothers got a Marvel Unlimited subscription and was getting back into Marvel comics and telling me about them. So basically over the last three or four months there has been a constant influx of Marvel stuff daily which has broken down my wall of disdain for Avengers Disassembled and I am going to heroically stride once more into the breach of twenty year old comics.
Read MoreMick vs The Marvel Universe – 07 – Reading will continue until morale improves
I was actually keeping a relatively respectable pace and then boom, silence for a month. Well there was no great mystery there. I found the comics that I’d read lacklustre and the eponymous event to be particularly disappointing (nice art not withstanding). Then at the beginning of June I got into reading the translated works of a Chinese author who wrote a few very long book series. My “reading stuff time” (totally separate from my online reading stuff time of course) went to shotgunning two and a half of that authors series. However the electricity was off last Friday and again yesterday and having nothing else to do I heroically read some more.
Read MoreMick vs The Marvel Universe – 06 – Vengeance from the grave
I think the last one of these got a bit too “blow by blow” so I’ll be pulling back for a wide shot here. I’d read these a few days ago but held off because I wanted to polish off the last few issues in the event. But then I ended up spending my spare time reading Chinese cultivation novels and the Age of Sigmar:Soulbound RPG. Hopefully get them done this week and be done with Disassembled. I have the feel the speed will pick up a lot when I get to a single title.
Read MoreMick vs The Marvel Universe – 05 – The widening gyre
This time I finally get to the actual meat of the Avengers Disassembled event. However I made the mistake of writing this up while I was reading them so its rather wordy and as editing is a dirty word I make no apologies for what comes next (I did at least correct mis-spellings, I’m not an animal). I also realised I’d been setting up my image galleries incorrectly. So if you were wondering “Hey why are these images so small and nothing happens when I click on them” wonder no more and click to your hearts content.
Read MoreMick vs The Marvel Universe – 04 – Vewy vewy quiet on the western front
I’d planned to have at least one of these out a week, every Wednesday in fact. Obviously this didn’t go as planned this week. For once I wasn’t distracted by organising my digital collection, that’s mostly done for Marvel. I was distracted because I got really into a rather long series of books and couldn’t pull myself away. I’d hoped to get Avengers Disassembled finished this week and push (backwards chronologically) onto Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run or onto the comics that take place between Avengers Disassembled and Civil War. That didn’t happen. I was going to post this Thursday but held of thinking I’d read more. That also didn’t happen. But here’s what I thought of what I did get read.
Read MoreMick vs The Marvel Universe – 03 – Continuity is the fire in which we burn
Sorting continued after last weeks post. I got it all more or less done by Sunday night. This meant I could now take full advantage of shared reading lists. In short I can download the reading list for an event or comic that someone else has made and Comic Rack populates it using the UUID of the individual issues from Comic Vine’s metadata. Cool, all good so far. But…
Read MoreMick vs The Marvel Universe – 02 – Logistics is the ball and chain of comic book reading
Right so here we go. As I mentioned I’ll be starting my return to the Marvel comic universe with Spider-Man specifically The Amazing Spider-Man #546. This follows on from the controversial One More Day storyline which followed on from the controversial (or just plain shit) Civil War crossover event. That’s enough background, lets see how it turned out.
I’m not going to do an issue by issue breakdown. I’ll likely briefly summarise major events, react to stuff I liked and, of course, complain about stuff I did not. There will almost certainly be spoilers. Well lets get to it.
Or not.
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